“Did you worry?” she asked her mother.

“It is a year you have been gone,” her mother told her.

“It was an evening, no more,” protested Hespira. She turned to look at Horreon, and he looked down in shame.

He said, “This close to the Sacred Mountain, time ebbs and flows. A current can carry you forward a year in an eye blink if you choose.”

“And you chose?” Hespira accused, and Horreon nodded. He’d meant to carry her forward a hundred years, out of the reach of her mother forever, but had changed his mind.

“Didn’t she suit you?” Meridite said. Looking at the girl carefully for the first time, she saw that she was not just pretty, she was clever. “Who wants a clever girl? “Just as well,” said Meridite, “that her mother wants her back.”

“She suited too well, Mother,” said Horreon, and Meridite was startled to see that he was angry and that he was angry at her.

“You were bringing her back,” the goddess said.

“I was letting her go,” said Horreon, and he turned back toward his cave, but Hespira still held him.

“Well, if you like her, keep her,” Meridite snapped. “What’s one temple to me? Just because it is my favorite, don’t think I can’t do without it.”

“I asked for a woman who chose to be my wife,” said Horreon.

“I chose,” said Hespira.

“See,” said Meridite.

“She ate nothing in your temple, Mother,” said Horreon. “What did she drink?”

Meridite flushed as only a goddess can.

“Nothing,” said Hespira, tugging at Horreon’s hand until he turned to look at her. “Nothing,” she assured him. “I tipped it into the basket I carried.”

“Oh,” sniped Meridite, “you are clever.” But Horreon only stood blinking like an owl in sunlight.

“I chose,” Hespira said again, and Horreon believed her. So Hespira took leave of her mother and returned with him to the caves of the Sacred Mountain, and the vines of Hespira’s mother grew over Meridite’s temple. When Hespira left the mountain to visit her mother, as she did from time to time, the vines were dormant, but otherwise they grew and grew until the mortar was all picked to dust and the temple fell in on itself and nothing was left but a pile of stones covered in green leaves and red flowers.

As for Hespira and Horreon, they were mortals, but who knows how time passes at the skirt of Hephestia’s Sacred Mountain? Many believe they live still, and miners claim to hear her voice, singing to him behind the sounds of their picks.

The magus was quiet when the story was done. He looked at Eddis with new admiration. She sat cross-legged with the open packages of food around her, quite comfortable but then a little embarrassed by his regard.

“And Hespira’s mother?” the magus asked finally. “Did she miss her daughter?”

“Oh, she grew used to the idea,” said Eddis. “Mothers must.”

“Alternatively, she lost her mind and wandered the caves of the mountain, endlessly calling for her daughter, and that’s what the miners hear,” said Eugenides without opening his eyes.

“There are a number of different ways to tell the story,” Eddis admitted.

“I didn’t realize that so much of the teller could be invested in the stories,” the magus said. He was used to the dry records of scholarship without the voice of the storyteller shaping and changing the words to suit an audience and a particular view of the world. He’d heard Eugenides tell his stories, but hadn’t realized the Thief’s interpretations were more than a personal aberration.

“Go on,” said Eugenides with a smile, his eyes still closed. “Tell my queen she’s debasing the old myths created by superior storytellers centuries ago.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” said the magus, shaking his head.

“Surely they tell stories like these everywhere?” the queen asked. “You must have heard them from your nurse when you were a boy.”

The magus shook his head. Eugenides nudged the queen. He knew that the magus had been raised by strangers when his family had died of the plague. He had been apprenticed very young, at his own request, to a scholar in the city, and when his scholarly training had not at first proven lucrative enough to support him, he had taken to soldiering. There had likely not been time for stories in his youth.

After a pause the queen asked, “How will you occupy yourself, Magus, during your stay?”

“Perhaps I will collect more stories,” the magus answered with a smile.

“What about your history of the Invasion?” Eugenides asked.

“As most of it remains in Sounis, my work on it will necessarily be curtailed,” said the magus, frowning at him.

“I could fetch it for you,” Eugenides offered.

“You will not!” The magus and the queen spoke together.

Eugenides smiled again, pleased to have gotten a rise out of both of them.

“Better I should recopy it from scratch,” said the magus.

“You may have the library to work in,” said the queen graciously.

Eugenides opened his eyes at last and started to sit up. “What? In my library? Have him underfoot every day?”

“My library,” the queen reminded her Thief.

“You’ve only yourself to blame,” the magus pointed out, smiling at the way the tables had turned.

“Agh,” said Eugenides, lying back down and covering his face with his arm.

Eddis smiled, relieved that his bad temper had passed for the time being.

“Your Majesty?” The secretary of the archives waited in the doorway for Attolia to recognize him.

She was being disturbed at a late supper she was enjoying by herself, having been too busy to eat during the day. The Mede ambassador had tried to join her, but she’d soothed his feathers and sent him away, pleading an indisposition that would allow her only clear soup and bread. “And poor food makes for poor company, Nahuseresh,” she’d warned, only half joking, and he had politely excused himself. He liked meat with his meals, and Attolia knew it. She had just dipped a little bread into her soup when Relius knocked and entered.

“What is it?” she asked.

“The king’s magus of Sounis. He’s been located.”

“And?”

“He’s in Eddis, Your Majesty. He was evidently in a hunting lodge in the coastal province.”

She waited. Only Sounis would be surprised to hear of his move to the capital. She didn’t think Relius would have interrupted her meal for a small bit of unsurprising news.

“The queen of Eddis collected him personally,” Relius said. “She and her Thief. They evidently picnicked on the way back. They are reported to be…close.” It was the mildest term to describe the gossip that was current in the Eddisian court. Probably the affair was one of long standing and his spies had been unaware of it. If the queen of Eddis and her Thief had been pretending to be at odds with each other, it could only have been to conceal his efforts on her behalf: the destruction of Sounis’s navy and the removal of his magus.

“Get out,” the queen ordered abruptly.

The servants and the secretary waited outside the closed doors of the private dining room, listening to the sounds of china shattering as the dinner dishes were swept off the table and onto the floor, followed by nearby amphoras and one of the heavy carved dining chairs as the usually cold-blooded queen picked it off the ground and threw it. The silverware from the table rang for a few moments after bouncing on the tiles. “When it was quiet, the servants knocked and entered, careful not to creep in. The queen did not appreciate creeping. Attolia was once again in her chair, having righted it herself. Her hands were in her lap, and her face was impassive. She was thinking. As the servants righted the dining table and cleared away the mess, she tried to assess the danger that Eugenides had become.