“A farce,” Eugenides suggested, and the magus winced.

“How many?” he asked.

“How many of your ships are burning? Four,” said Eugenides. “Five if the Eleutheria catches when the Hesperides burns. She probably will.”

“The Principia?” The Principia was the largest ship in the navy. She carried more guns than two of the smaller ships put together.

“Oh, yes,” said Eugenides, “she’s definitely gone.”

The magus looked out again at the flickering reflections from the fires as his king’s navy burned in the harbor.

“The sailors are all ashore for the Navy Festival,” he said.

“Celebrating their naval superiority and control over most of the islands in the middle sea,” agreed Eugenides. “Sounis outdid himself this year with the free wine.”

“Surely there was a guard on the ships, though,” protested the magus.

“We put on our pretty Sounisian uniforms and paddled out there in a shore boat and told them they were relieved from duty by order of the king. Or rather, my loyal assistants did. I’m not much use in a rowboat these days.”

The magus dropped his head into his hands. “We have no navy,” he said. It was an exaggeration, but painfully close to the truth. His Majesty’s best warships had collected in the harbor at Sounis for the yearly festival. Attolia had still not reached the top of the pass, Eddis’s soldiers fought bitterly, and Sounis had wanted to fortify his citizens for the war ahead.

“You said I should do something.” Eugenides smiled in the dark, twisting the knife of his revenge a little deeper into the magus.

“I did?”

“As you were leaving, after your extremely edifying visit in the spring. You said, ‘You could still do something.’ Your exact words.”

“I meant talk your queen into surrendering, not destroy our navy in its own harbor!” the magus shouted.

The shadowy form of Eugenides held one finger to its lips. “Shh,” he said.

“And my king?” the magus asked more quietly. “What have you done to my king?”

“He’s as safe in his bed as he thinks he is. Although he’s probably out of bed by now. We don’t have much time.”

“Time for what?” the magus asked.

“I didn’t come to Sounis to blow up His Majesty’s warships. I told you someone else had to do that.”

“What did you come for if not to murder my king?”

“I came to steal his magus.”

“You can’t,” said the magus in question.

“I can steal anything,” Eugenides corrected him. “Even with one hand.” He took a step forward into the moonlight and waggled his fingers. The smile on his face made the magus feel worse, not better. “You shouldn’t let the king choose your apprentices. Your most recent student, as we speak, is betraying your plans for the price of a good cloak. I would have given him more if he’d had the sense to ask for it.”

“My plans?” said the magus, beginning to wonder if he was still asleep. The scene in the moonlit bedchamber had all the discontinuity of a dream.

“Your plans to blow up the king’s navy.”

“Aaah,” said the magus, catching on, “I’m working for Eddis?”

“Oh, gods, no. You’re working for Attolia. You have been all along. Poor Ambiades found out, and that’s why you got rid of him. Pol, too.”

“Not even Sounis would believe that,” the magus protested.

“He will for long enough,” said Eugenides. “Think of it as stealing not you but the king’s faith in you.”

“And what happens to me without the king’s faith?”

“If you’re smart, you leave Sounis,” said Eugenides. “Quickly.”

He waited while the magus thought. They both knew that Sounis was afraid of his advisor’s power, that he chose poor apprentices for the magus to keep that power from growing, and that the king’s heir had been sent to a teacher on the island Letnos to keep him far from the magus’s influence.

They left the megaron through one of its smaller courtyards. The magus had a shoulder bag with three manuscripts inside, his silver comb, his razor, and his telescope, which he’d carried down to his room earlier in the evening after stargazing from the megaron’s roof. Eugenides wouldn’t let him go to his study and wouldn’t let him carry any clothes.

“My history of the Invasion,” he had protested. “It’s in my study.”

“You want people to think that you’re going down to the harbor, not running for your life,” Eugenides had told him. “Hurry, and you’ll live to rewrite it.”

Dressed as an apprentice, he walked behind the magus, keeping his wooden hand close to his side, and none of the guards looked twice at either of them. Once in the narrow streets outside the megaron, Eugenides led the way, hurrying through the old city and then down through the new city by back streets. He detoured into a quiet cul-de-sac where he’d left a bag hidden behind a stairway. Inside were two faded gray overshirts. He handed one to the magus and pulled the other over his head.

Crowds got thicker as they approached the harbor. Only the most dedicated revelers had been in the streets when the explosions began, but sailors sleeping on the floors of wineshops had dragged themselves out and were making their way, with the rest of the curious populace, down to the docks. Caught in the unexpected pedestrian traffic were the large wagons that moved through the city in the darkest hours of the night. They were forbidden to block the traffic during daylight hours. Dawn was approaching, and their drivers cursed as the horses moved a step at a time toward the market gate out of the city. The huge animals were normally placid, but the shouting, milling crowds unsettled them, and they jerked in their harnesses and their neighing rose above the sounds of people in the streets.

Pulling the magus by the material of his cloak, Eugenides worked his way along the line of wagons. He had almost reached the market gate itself when he found the wagon he was looking for and swung himself up onto the back of it. He seemed to the magus to move as easily with one hand as he had with two. He turned to help the magus as one of the men already sitting on the wagon bed spoke.

“That was a near thing,” the man said as the wagon cleared the last of the congestion and picked up speed, rumbling through the torchlit tunnel under the city’s wall. “I see you collected your prize.”

“I did indeed,” said Eugenides.

The wagon was only a few miles outside the city when it left the main road and bumped down narrower tracks to a farmhouse and a stable. Waiting by the stable were saddled horses, one for each of the occupants of the cart, excepting the magus and Eugenides.

Eugenides stood, with the magus beside him, as the horses were mounted. Each of the riders nodded once to him as they rode away.

Then the riders were gone. Only Eugenides and the magus were left, and the man quietly unharnessing the cart horses. The farmhouse beside them was dark, the yard was quiet. The sky was pink and blue with the dawn, and the air was still. One of the horses sighed and stamped one huge hoof in the dust. The Thief disappeared into the stable through the open double doors and reappeared a few moments later, having removed the false hand and replaced it with a hook. He was stooped over the crosstree of a sleek messenger’s chariot that he handled easily, even with one hand. He saw the magus staring and smiled.