"You have heard the queen's advice. My gift is below. Would you wait to see it until you have decided what… — Megan Whalen Turner

"Ten thousand!" I shouted at the walls, back in the room with the wooden shutters, now open so that anyone could hear me, on the porch or probably across the compound. "That arrogant bastard landed ten thousand men at Tas-Elisa. In my port! Mine!" When I was a child and playmates snatched my toys out of my hands, I tended to smile weakly and give in. Years later I was acting the way I should have as a child. Probably not the most mature behavior for a king, but I was still cursing as I swung around to find a delegation of barons in the doorway behind me. My father, Baron Comeneus, and the Baron Xorcheus among them.

They thought it was how a king behaved.

Eschewing ceremony, Eugenides said, "You shot their ambassador?"

"You gave me the gun," protested Sounis.

"I didn't mean for you to shoot an ambassador with it!" Eugenides told him.

"Oh, how our carefully laid plans go astray," murmured the magus.

"You shut up!" said Gen, laughing.

"In my experience, the more you know of the gods, the more you know what you cannot understand."