“I want to be king of Attolia,” he said.

Attolia blinked. She looked around the tiny harbor and had to clear her throat with a cough before she spoke. “You’ve brought me to a place rather spare of witnesses if you want me to declare you my heir before I die.”

“I wasn’t proposing to become your heir,” said the Thief.

“Then what?” asked Attolia.

“There’s an easier way for a man to become king,” said Eugenides, and waited for her to realize what he proposed.

Attolia stared at him. “You think I would marry you?” she asked in disbelief.

“If you object to marrying a man with one hand, you’ve only yourself to blame.”

“And when did you grow into a man?” asked Attolia, lifting her eyebrow, her voice tinged with sarcasm.

Eugenides didn’t rise to her bait. “It’s your choice, Your Majesty,” he said quietly.

“And if I choose to die here?” she asked.

The only sounds were the slap of ripples against the boat bottom and the susurration of the water against the base of the cliffs around them.

“Then Attolia collapses into civil war and the Medes come,” Eugenides said at last. “They will rule Attolia, and Sounis as well, while Eddis retreats to her mountains.”

“Eddis has no trade without Sounis and Attolia. She is not self-sustaining. If your queen destroys Attolia, she destroys herself.”

“She has the pirates.”

The queen looked again at the harbor around her, understanding perfectly how useful it was to a queen who had no official navy. “How resourceful of her. Of course she has the pirates. Can she control them?”

“Well enough to serve our purposes. Well enough to keep Eddis from starving.”

“You hope.”

Eugenides shrugged. “Eddis will have been a poor country for a long, long time before the Medes lose their grip on this coast, but there will be an Eddis long after Sounis and Attolia are gone. We have our mountains to keep us.”

“And if I choose not to die?”

“Then I will escort you to my queen to begin negotiations for a marriage contract. Together the armies of Eddis and Attolia can keep the Mede off this coast and force Sounis to make peace as well.”

“And you would be king in Attolia?”

“Yes.”

“And I would be queen still.”

“You would rule. I will not interfere, but you will accept Eddisian advisors.”

“Then I watch my country bled dry to pay Eddis tribute, its treasury drained, its taxes raised, its peasants enslaved, and the barons again the true rulers of the country, free to do as they please so long as the king is fed?”

“Do you care,” asked Eugenides, “so long as the queen is fed as well?”

“Yes,” Attolia hissed, and leaned forward with her hands clenched.

Eugenides remained impassive. Attolia could see him in the moonlight but couldn’t guess if he was pleased to have elicited a reaction from her. She sat back on her bench and composed herself.

“Yes, I care. It is my country.”

The Thief thought carefully before he spoke. “If I am king, there will be peace with Eddis but no tribute.”

The queen sniffed in disbelief, then sat hunched over, wrapping her hands in the fabric of her dress to warm them while she thought. She was cold and wet, and sitting across from Eugenides, she felt older than her years. Her bones ached. Eugenides, she was sure, was too young to have bones that ached. No matter what he thought of himself, he was hardly more than a boy. A boy without one hand. She reached up to push the wet hair out of her face, wondering when she had sunk so low that she had begun torturing boys. It was the question she’d asked herself night after night, lying awake in her bed or sitting in a chair by the window, watching the stars slowly move across the sky.

“I listened outside your cell door every night before I sent you back to Eddis,” Attolia said abruptly.

Eugenides sat quietly, waiting for her to go on.

“The first night you cried,” she said. She looked for a reaction but saw none.

She had lingered outside his cell, in the dim light of the lamps, alone because she’d sent away her escort while she listened. Alone, because she had known, even then, that she would turn on any guard who mocked the Thief’s pain. He had cried in breathless, racking sobs that had gone on and on, long after she’d thought he would have exhausted himself. Finally he had slept, but the queen had not. The sound of his tears had kept her from sleep that night and woken her from nightmares since the evening she’d heard them.

“The second night you repeated the same words over and over. I think the fever had set in by then. Do you remember what you said?”

“No.”

She knew every one of them. His voice, broken and stumbling, had filled her dreams until she had wept in her sleep, crying tears for him that she’d never been able to cry for her father or for herself. “Oxe Harbrea Sacrus Vax Dragga . . . ,” she began.

Eugenides’s chin lifted as he recognized the opening words. “It’s the invocation of the Great Goddess at her spring festival,” he said calmly, “calling her to the aid of those that need her. The words are archaic.”

“She comes to the aid of those who need her? She didn’t come to yours.”

“You have a decision to make, Your Majesty.” Eugenides reminded her. “And not much time to make it in.”

It was quiet then, while Attolia thought, particularly about the Medean ambassador with his attractive face and his quick smile.

Eugenides waited. “Very well,” the queen said, sitting up straight to look him in the eye. “Be king of Attolia. But never drink from my wine cup while you hope to live.”

“There’s an oar by the boat hook,” Eugenides said, his voice devoid of triumph. “You’ll have to paddle us to the dock.” He steered, reaching across his body to use his hand instead of his hook, while she shifted on her seat in order to dip the paddle into the dark water and move the boat toward the tiny dock that jutted from the rocky beach at the base of the cliffs.

She had no skill with the paddle, and it was half an hour before they reached the dock. Attolia pulled the boat against it, and Eugenides stepped out. He turned and offered her his hand. Once she, too, was standing on the dock, he moved back several steps, closed his eyes, and stretched his arms up over his head to ease the stiffness in his shoulders. Attolia reached to pull from its fabric padding the knife she carried along her ribs, but it was gone. Gone as well were the ceremonial knife from her belt and even the tiny blade hidden in the twists of her hair.

She looked at Eugenides to see his eyes open and his hand holding all three knives, their blades spread in a fan. He tossed them one at a time into the air, catching each by the blade as it came down and tossing it up again, juggling them one-handed, then holding them out, handles first, to the queen. She hesitated, expecting him to pull them back, but he didn’t move.

“Have all three,” he said.

When she’d taken them, he pointed to a spot just below his heart.

“An upward stroke here,” he said, “would be most efficient, but almost anywhere would do the job. You can push me into the water,” he said. “I don’t know if I can swim with one hand or not.”