The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

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, notdestroy 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