Wine was served with dinner, and when he finished his first serving, his cup was refilled. It was a ceramic cup with a tall, narrow stem and a flared top. Eugenides admired the design painted around the inner rim as he drank from it. Centaurs chased each other in a circle, their bows drawn and arrows notched. Two hands, Eugenides thought to himself, and put the cup down empty.

When dinner was over and the queen stood, Eugenides stood with the rest of the court. Three fingers splayed unobtrusively on the table, with the knuckles turning white, kept him from swaying. He stayed at his place while his dinner partners excused themselves and drifted off. His father came to slide a hand under Eugenides’s good arm, and Eugenides thankfully shifted his balance to lean against him.

“Did they not water the wine tonight?” he asked.

“Same mix as usual, I think. Two parts water.” That was only civilized.

When the room was empty, his father helped Eugenides away from the table and then upstairs to his room.

“I won’t need the lethium tonight anyway,” Eugenides said as they reached the door. “Wine’s a pleasant substitute.” He felt his father stiffen. “I was joking,” he said, not sure that he had been.

The second dinner was much the same. Eugenides’s food arrived in front of him cut into bite-sized pieces, and every diner had a small bowl of olive oil to dip the bread into instead of cheese. Except that he had to reach across his plate to get the bread into the olive oil, everything went well. The conversation was the same. The harvest and the weather. The rest of the table spoke in hushed tones, difficult to overhear. Eugenides drank less and stared at his plate, unwilling to watch the queen carefully not watching him.

The third night he didn’t appear. His place sat empty at the table. When dinner was over and his father went upstairs to look for him, Eugenides was waiting, dressed in his formal clothes, sitting on his bed. He was leaning against the headboard and had his boots up on the spread. The fabric for his sling lay in a limp bundle across his lap. He looked up at his father, his face bleak.

“I couldn’t face it again,” he said.

He dropped his gaze to the toes of his boots. “I already know the harvest was good, and the weather’s still cold. I could try again in the spring.”

“Tomorrow,” said his father, and left.

Eugenides tilted over until his face was buried in a pillow.

When he fell asleep, he dreamed the queen of Attolia was dancing in her garden in a green dress with white flowers embroidered around the collar. It started to snow, dogs hunted him through the darkness, and the sword, red in the firelight, was above him, and falling. The queen stopped dancing to watch. He woke with his throat raw from screaming, still in his clothes, lying on top of the bedcovers.

He stumbled into the library and sat there in front of the empty fireplace. The room was cold. If it had been a month before, one of Galen’s assistants would have been sleeping in the library, ready with the lethium when Eugenides opened his eyes, and Eugenides would have been unconscious again before the visions of his nightmares had had time to clear from behind his eyelids.

He sat in the cold library for several hours without stirring the coals of the banked fire. Only at dawn did he move back into the warmer room, where he stretched out on the bed, still dressed, and slept again.

“And the Thief?”

“The Thief, Your Majesty?”

Attolia drummed her fingers on the armrest of her chair. She was in a small receiving room to interview the man who collected information for her from various sources. His official title was Secretary of the Archives.

“The Thief, Relius. Is he recovering?”

“Our ambassador in Eddis can provide only limited information these days, but he says Eugenides seems to be recovering slowly. He attends the court dinners about once a week. He seems very little interested in the political situation. It is not discussed on the nights he attends dinner. He doesn’t otherwise leave his rooms.”

“Does he see the queen?”

“Not often. She is very busy, of course.”

“Does he see anyone else?”

“I understand that his father visits from time to time, but he does not invite other company. They say he suffers from nightmares,” he added.

“I’m sure he does.” The queen snorted delicately.

Relius was looking pointedly over her shoulder. Attolia turned to see the ambassador from Medea, who’d entered the room behind her without being announced.

“Nahuseresh,” she said, twisting in her chair to hold out both of her hands, which he took and bowed over. He was a remarkably attractive man, she thought, or he would be were it not for his beard, which he dyed crimson and divided in the middle and greased into two neatly oiled points. He might, if he remained in Attolia, give up the Medean style of dressing his beard, but he’d been at her court for some time and showed no signs of acclimating. “I didn’t realize that you’d joined us,” she said.

“I have committed a great transgression by sneaking in behind you,” said the Mede. “I beg Your Majesty will condescend to forgive me.” He bowed again and kissed her hands.

“Of course.” The queen smiled. “But give me back my fingers. It is awkward to sit like this.”

The Mede laughed and relinquished her hands.

“You seem very interested in the welfare of this Eddisian, Your Majesty,” said the ambassador. “Surely he’s no threat. What can he do with one hand?”

“I met his grandfather once, many years ago. He told me a thief’s greatest asset, like a queen’s, was his mind.”

“He sounds overly familiar,” said Nahuseresh with disapproval.

“He was, I suppose. But I wasn’t queen then. I wasn’t even a princess of any particular importance.”

“You could have killed this thief.”

“I could have,” Attolia agreed. “This has been as effective and more…satisfying.” She was lying. She already wished that she’d killed Eugenides and been done with him. She turned back to the secretary.

“Does the queen still call him her Thief?”

“She has done so before the court, several times,” said Relius.

“You must forgive me, Your Majesty,” the Mede said. “Your rituals are arcane, and there remain many with which I am not entirely familiar. Am I right that he was her Thief by virtue of stealing some heirloom and then surrendering it to her?”

“Yes.”

“Your heirloom?” the Mede persisted.

“From a temple in my country.”

“Which was then dropped into the lava of their Sacred Mountain.”

“Heavens, Nahuseresh, you are well versed. What is it you don’t understand?” The queen laughed.

“How could she replace him?” he asked.

“It was a hereditary title for many years,” Attolia answered thoughtfully. “It could go to the child of one of his sisters.” She turned back to her secretary. “What does the court call him?”

“Eugenides,” said the secretary.

The queen nodded. “Of course,” she said.

“I don’t understand,” said the Mede plaintively.

“The Thieves often take the name of their god, so it is like a title as well as a name.”