#I still need to read the king of Attolia!

[itspileofgoodthings]

me reading Queen’s thief and HATING IT SO MUCH and then rereading it a few years later and being like “okay no I get it I see the vision it’s good”

[anoramactir]

book recs! tagged by @rosenfey & @jennystahl. blows kisses to both of you <3 i'll tag @a-treides, @katsigian, @dekarios, @shellibisshe, @devilbrakers, and @frankensteined.

last book you read. the salt grows heavy by cassandra khaw.

horror/fantasy, kind of a little mermaid retelling? i had mixed feelings about it. there was definitely an interesting plot in there, but i thought it was bogged down by purple prose. felt more like a challenge to write the prettiest sentences possible - and there were v lovely lines! - than a story at times.

book you recommend. fight club by chuck palahniuk.

hard q, but i went with this one because i feel like the reputation the movie + it's fans have makes people avoid it. i could repeat all the soundbites about it being a brilliant satire & criticque of toxic masculinity (especially if you read the narrator as closeted) but tbh... i'm reccing it because i think it's fun. that's really it.

book you couldn't put down. bunny by mona awad.

disclaimer: i've seen this one hyped as the weirdest shit you'll ever read in your life but i didn't think it was that weird. lower your expectations. i did like it enough to finish in three days, though. idk what to say about it that won't spoil the plot— kinda heathers meets frankenstein? more eerie than scary.

book you've read twice or more. the queen's thief series by megan whalen turner.

society if this was the old school ya fantasy that blew up on booktok instead of shatter me: ☀️🌊🌳 i read this one back in high school and it rewired my brain permanently. attolia irene is the only girlboss that matters. i come back to it every few years (rereading book 4 now) & i think it still holds up.

book on your tbr. last call at the hotel imperial by deborah cohen.

it's a non-fiction about a group of reporters that covered ww2. i picked it up randomly at a bookstore because the cover was pretty, lol.

book you've put down. the priory of the orange tree by samantha shannon.

i know i'd love it if i finished but it's just so long. 😭 i've tried like three times and i always lose steam about halfway through. at this point i'll finish it by 2050.

book on your wishlist. hollow places by christopher hadley.

ambie actually recced this to me ages ago and i've been dying to read it. it sounds so interesting! but it's not available as an ebook or at my library, and i'm banned from buying physical books until i get through my stupidly tall tbr stack. one day.

favorite book from your childhood. howl's moving castle by diana wynne jones.

nobody is surprised. it's probably my favorite book of all time. a+ vibes, characters, romance, everything. i own three copies and refuse to get rid of any. if i could find an autographed version, i'd own four.

book you would give a friend. interview with the vampire by anne rice.

i need you all to become obsessed with lestat & louis and then watch the amc series so it gets renewed for season 3. please & thank you.

book of poetry or lyrics you own. time is a mother by ocean vuong.

haven't read it yet, but i've heard great things!

nonfiction book you own. girl sleuth: nancy drew and the women who created her by melanie rehak.

goes into the creation of nancy drew & how it evolved through the years, especially how it was shaped by the original ghostwriter and the daughter of the creator, and their decades-long beef with each other. i came out of it with a parasocial grudge against a woman who died in 1982.

what you're currently reading. a conspiracy of kings by megan whalen turner.

book 4 of the queen's thief series. crown prince sophos has been kidnapped and sold into slavery and it's all very dramatic.

what you're planning on reading next. moby dick by herman melville.

i've never gotten around to this one and i feel like i have to eventually. there's a 75% chance i'll get sidetracked and pick up something totally different, though.

[bloody-wonder]

Until now, have you found any couple (canon or non canon) from any media (books, tv series, movies, anime/manga, etc) that the dynamics remind you of Neil/Andrew and Damen/Laurent?

if you're looking for dynamics specifically (as opposed to a full romance arc) the lymond chronicles, the queen's thief and empire of the vampire will scratch that damen/laurent itch.

it's common knowledge, at least in my niche circles, that cs pacat is a big fan of dorothy dunnett's work, that laurent is based on lymond and that his relationship with damen (down to specific scenes) was inspired by lymond's numerous boytoys. so reading the lymond chronicles after captive prince is constantly going aha! *leonardo dicaprio pointing meme*. what these books however don't have is a full romance arc with any of those men which is why you could say capri is, in a sense, a slash fic of the lymond chronicles. it's my favorite series of all time and i can't recommend it enough but it's also rather inaccessible in the beginning and has a steep learning curve - quite a commintment of your time and brain energy but so SO worth it!

the queen's thief is another series heavily inspired by the lymond chronicles and it has multiple ships that reminded me of damen/laurent: gen's love interest is very much a cast iron bitch and they do engage in an intense enemies to lovers romance, with some casualties. costis and kamet's story in thick as thieves is basically if the side quests laurent and damen went on were a whole separate book. and while not a canon romance like the previous two, whatever gen and costis have going on in the king of attolia is very reminiscent of the laurent/damen dynamic in book one (minus the slavery). two things to keep in mind if you decide to pick up the queen's thief: it's sort of ya (??) so the brutality and sexiness, while present, will not be on the same level as capri. and book one doesn't feature any of the above ships so, again, you gotta commit to the whole thing :)

now, while these two recs seem like no-brainers to me, i'm very excited to take this opportunity to yell about empire of the vampire from the rooftops AGAIN!! eotv is basically a story about epic quests and valiant deeds told by a jaded captive vampire hunter to his cunty vampire captor (who is blonde bc yes). jean françois is definitely inspired by anne rice's lestat (as the narrative format as a whole is inspired by interview with the vampire) but his dynamic with gabriel is just Peak Laurent/Damen Banter. "i speak your language better than you speak mine, sweetheart" and "hello, lover" galore! in fact, after i found out that pacat and jay kristoff know each other personally i became convinced that he had either read capri and borrowed the vibe OR *starts rambling about her conspiracy theory about how all australian fantasy authors drink secret australian magic juice that makes them write fun depraved sff, gets smacked on the head, passes out* where was i... ah yes, nasty gay vampires. eotv is very fun and very tropey, also very queer and sexy (esp book two) and it had my toxic yaoi needs covered however comma. jean françois/gabriel is basically them sitting in a room in the frame narrative and exchanging homoerotic barbs, while the story itself is about gabriel's past adventures (also very interesting but less homoerotic). it's unlikely that they're gonna have any sort of romance arc - unless someone reads the books and writes a fic of them. please.

alas, i still can't rec anything that comes close to what nora achieved with andreil. to me, the defining characteristics of their dynamic are two feral cats circling and sniffing each other, intricate rituals, overdramatic dialogue, aspec attraction (on neil's part). while one can attempt to find some of these elements in other stories, you cannot find all of them at once (aspec pov on relationships being particularly rare in fiction). there's just no other couple that manages to strike a perfect balance between the anime levels of drama and chaos on the one hand and the serious themes of trauma, acceptance, consent etc on the other hand. sorry, anon, ig we'll have to keep re-reading aftg until one of the aspiring authors i bet this fandom has a lot of writes their own book inspired by andreil🤷‍♀️

[magpiefngrl]

returning the "how was your reading year" question right back! :D do you have any new favorites? also - how did you find the magpie ballads? what is your professional opinion as a magpie fangirl?😁

Hello!

In short, my reading year was good but not amazing. I think same as you? (I've also rambled here about the year's books in more detail.)

So, number one, similar to you: nothing truly blew me away. OK, Pawn was amazing, but I expected it to be good so I wasn't taken by surprise. Also, I'd read most of it previously and finished it by early Jan last year so it doesn't quite feel like a 2022 book, you know? The only time I felt thrilled this year was when I read The Queen of Attolia, and then The King, and Roanhorse's Black Sun. These are prob my fave new reads.

I'm also a completionist! I get a lot of satisfaction when I complete a series. There are some that I've abandoned (like the Simon Snow books. I've lost interest in that story) but there are still loads I want to finish. It's my 2023 goal to see a few of them to the end. However, I was good this year and read the entirety of The Queen's Thief and the entirety (bar one) of the Wimsey novels. I'm proud I started and finished both series in the same year.

I did a whole lot of rereads this year, most of them historical or fantasy romance. Some I enjoyed a lot more on a reread, like Joanna Chambers' Enlightenment series and Welch's Salt Magic, Skin Magic. Surprisingly (or maybe not so much), I enjoyed my CaPri reread less. Except for Ancel. I adore Ancel :)

As for the Magpie Ballads: when I began Elegy, I was excited because I could tell I was going to love the writing. The author's got a good command of their craft, and as the first chapter of a debut author's book, the beginning was pretty impressive. This was me in the first 10-20 pages:

Ultimately I was let down by some aspects of the story. My strongest impression by the time I finished Elegy was that it read like a fanfic. I don't mean in a derogatory (or praiseworthy) way but that the backstory seemed to be the important, juicy part and we were reading a... well, a fanfic of what might have come after. It's like there was a canon I wasn't aware of. You know how in some fics one of the characters will say something like "oh yeah? How about that time at the rooftop? Do you expect me to forgive you?" and if you don't know the canon, you're like "WHAT HAPPENED AT THE ROOFTOP?" I got this feeling throughout Elegy. The love between Savonn and Red is portrayed as this all-encompassing, epic love but we don't see any of it in Book 1, we're only told it's epic.

(more under the cut bc it got long)

This was rectified in the second novel. The flashbacks were useful in giving us an idea of what their brief relationship was like, and I think some flashbacks ought to have been included in Book 1. The second book helped in making me see why they love each other and making me root for a happy ending.

The other thing that I wasn't keen about: there was a little too much intrigue, a few too many devious and clever and manipulative characters, and not enough characters with, let's say, heart. The plot moved from one scheme to another without something emotional in-between to anchor the story. Whats more, I could tell the authorial intention was to see the devious characters as masters of intrigue but I couldn't see it. It didn't work for me.

You were right that Savonn felt like a Lymond cut-out. Eugenides is very much his own character. I couldn't quite get who Savonn was. He disguised himself constantly on page, and it's like those disguises also hid him from me.

In my professional opinion (lol) here's what I think: this is a good, solid story that needed an extra 300 pages. It needed room to breathe, character relationships to unfold in front of our eyes (friendships, siblings, soldier/captain, lovers etc) so we can witness their bonds and affection or their animosity. We love to see a character at its lowest, but Savonn's lowest point, imo, happened when he was sent to kill that general, fell in love, and had to leave his lover behind. And this is the backstory! I think this could've been Book 1 of a trilogy.

I sound overly critical but I enjoyed the books overall. The prose is good, descriptions and dialogue and suchlike are great, and the world building is confident. As a debut work, this is impressive. I just wish there was more emphasis on the relationships between characters, and less emphasis on cleverness and schemes and plot twists.

Well. I had a lot of thoughts! What did you think? I know you liked the books.

[child-of-hurin]

Subtle implications in Queen’s Thief that I lowkey obsess about, #3:

 [Attolia] watched as he took her wine, as casually as he had taken her country, and choked on it and died. The lords of Attolia had turned on one another then, searching for the assassin, and the queen had retired to her rooms and waited while the barons wrangled over who would be the next king. Late that night she was finally summoned to meet the man who’d managed through threats and promises to gain the allies to proclaim himself king. Her hands clenched still when she remembered the disdain of the servingwoman sent to fetch her. The barons had looked Attolia over, she remembered, the way she had seen men looking at slave girls, and one man had laughed when she had crossed the room to sit on the throne. That same man had ordered her to be ready to marry him in the morning. She’d nodded stiffly, her face impassive, and the captain of her guard had raised his crossbow and shot the claimant for her hand through the heart. (Queen of Attolia, ch 12)

@kareenvorbarra pointed this out to me and we have been puzzling over it ever since... Where has Irene seen this take place?

It clearly happened more than once, with multiple people, enough for her to make a generalizing observation. But in Thick as Thieves, Kamet says that he was the only slave in the Upper Palace, and that in Attolia, slaves are used for physical labor -- something that seems to check with what we see of slavery in Sounis per Sophos’s POV in Conspiracy of Kings. So...

Were there slaves in the Attolian palace before Irene became queen? Did she see them around growing up? Did customs change by the time she ascended? Or did she see this type of behavior in her groom’s family estate, during the year she spent there?

Attolia makes another connection between herself and slavery later in the same book in the following passage:

At Eddis’s coronation Attolia had poured her advice like vitriol into the ear of the new queen, watching her face whiten, viciously satisfied to be the one to tell the girl what the world was like when you were a queen. And then none of that advice had been needed. Eddis had gone on as free in her mountains as Attolia had ever been enslaved. Eddis, with her loyal ministers, her counselors, her army, and her Thief to serve her. (ch 18)

This figure of speech just becomes more interesting to me when I read it in light of that previous comment I quoted... Also interesting to see it used here to describe the state of being a queen, the supreme authority in the country. Irene thinks that being a queen is a type of enslavement; who is her master, then?. It also makes me think of that bit in King of Attolia when she compares herself as a war chariot; who’s driving?

[thecrenellations]

Queen’s Thief Appreciation, Day 11: Favorite Outfit* - A study of Helen

Please come along with me and @storieswelove on a chronological journey through six of Helen’s outfits as they evolve ... from the sheepskin coat she wears as a nine-year-old (the first character we meet in the timeline of the series!) to clothes chosen by others with various motivations and clothes she chooses herself.

I drew the Helens, and Margaux came up with this concept, wrote the accompanying gems of missing scenes, and (along with Maggie) has infused my mind with fashion references over the past few months, in the best way, while encouraging my art always.

crossposted here on AO3

*ok, we did pick more than one outfit

“Eddis” Hunting Jacket

“High up in the mountains there was still quite a bit of snow, and she shivered even in her sheepskin jacket.” - “Eddis” (reference)

“There you are, my dear,” Xanthe said as she buttoned Helen’s new coat. The little girl had grown since the fall, when the weather was last warm enough for a coat that only came to her knees. “Look how nice you look.” 

Helen stuck out her arms and looked at the coat. It was all right, she thought. The blue and white trim was pretty, but that just meant her mother or her aunts or Xanthe would chastise her when she inevitably got it dirty. She almost sighed. If they would just let her wear plain clothes maybe they wouldn’t fuss so much when they got dirty. But Xanthe was smiling at her expectantly, so Helen smiled back and, fibbing, said, “It’s a lovely coat.” 

If she didn’t care for the coat, she would be happy to have its warm mass when she snuck off with Nestor to go explore the temple soon. She had been planning all winter, and she was nearly ready to go…

Miserable Dress

“In her five-year reign she’d won the loyalty and love of her subjects. They thought she was beautiful, I told her, and they would be just as happy to see her in a a sack as in the elaborate costumes her dressers liked to bully her into.” - The Thief (reference, a beautiful dress but very not Helen)

Gen laughed in her face. “Why are you wearing that?”

"What a lovely way to speak to your queen,” she said, wrinkling her nose at him. 

Gen pulled a face of mock solemnity, unable to keep the corners of his mouth from twitching. “My queen,” he said gravely, “why are you wearing that?” 

Rolling her eyes, she walked past him, doing her best to push down her discomfort. She hated this dress. 

As she walked away, her Thief called after her. “No one cares what you wear!”

War Trousers

“Eugenides wondered when she’d started wearing trousers again. Thinking about it, he couldn’t recall seeing her in a dress except at the formal dinners.” - The Queen of Attolia

Helen stood, ready to be dressed by her attendants as they fluttered around her. She would be in meetings from the moment she left her rooms until evening. As she thought of the day ahead of her, hearing reports from her officers and making decision after decision that could alter the lives of her people, Helen began to wonder how much more she could take. She eyed the orange dress with ruffled sleeves that Selene had just brought out from her closet, and Helen realized she had found her limit. 

Holding up a hand to her attendant, she said wearily, “Trousers today. I need a break.”

Engagement Dress

“Her dress was of linen as fine as [Sounis’s] own. It had an overdress decorated in knotted cord and a waist of satin covered in tiny beads in the same pattern as the knots.” - A Conspiracy of Kings (reference)

“Are you ready?” Gen said, legs swinging from atop her dresser as Eddis’s attendants twisted the last of the pins into her short hair and wordlessly drifted back to the antechamber, leaving the cousins alone. 

Helen smiled tightly. “I hope so.” 

“Helen,” Gen said softly, “he is going to understand.” 

Helen changed the subject. “Thank you for the dress,” she said. It was worlds better than anything her attendants would have chosen, and Helen always made sure to thank Gen for his gifts of clothes. She knew it mattered to him. 

“It’s an important day. You deserved to be free of their fussing.” 

Helen snorted. Her attendants had fussed anyway, of course. “I could have done without the gold in my hair though,” she said, idly fingering her curls and looking at the gold dust on her hand. 

Gen grinned and jumped down from the dresser, coming over to kiss her forehead before he left. “It’s for luck.” 

“I’ll show you luck,” Helen said, and wiped the gold powder onto his sleeve as he hissed.

Wedding Costume

“I had been sent to the palace in time to be an eyesore at the wedding of Sounis and Eddis. Instead I had been ill and slept through it.” - Return of the Thief (reference) (another reference)

“Gods, I cannot wait to change,” Helen murmured so only Irene could hear. The sovereigns and their retinues were tucked away in an antechamber off of the dining hall, resting briefly between the temple ceremony and the feast. In the next room, heaping platters of fish and lamb, sugared almonds and honey cakes awaited them. 

“Your dress looks more comfortable than what I wore for my wedding,” Irene observed, turning in her chair to face her cousin beside her. 

Helen smiled. “There’s that, at least.” The day was hot, but not nearly as hot as it had been when Gen and Irene had married the summer before. Irene’s dress, all red and gold, had been made from layers of heavy fabrics. It must have been miserable. “It’s not the dress I mind,” Helen said. All things considered, the dress wasn’t bad. It was more ornate than most of her dresses, but that was to be expected for her wedding. It was a nod to traditional Eddisian wedding outfits but cut more to her liking, carefully chosen both for her personal comfort and to reinforce that she was still Eddis. And, neither her attendants nor her aunt had been involved in its selection. That had been the real blessing. “It’s these damned laurels,” she said, barely touching one of the delicate leaves jutting out from the floral wedding crown. “They itch, and if I scratch them I ruin my hair and my attendants will be after my head.” 

“Here,” Irene said, and leaned over to delicately adjust the worst offending leaves and flower stems to keep them from poking Helen’s head. Two attendants moved hurriedly over to help, but Attolia waved them off. “I know how to adjust a crown,” she mumbled to herself. Helen laughed.

Eddisian Uniform

“She was dressed in trousers and low boots, her over-tunic identical to her officers’ but embroidered in gold.” - The Queen of Attolia (with reference to Emily B. Martin’s official art and frogged tunics!)

She watched as Sophos blushed. She grinned. She knew that look. “Surely you have seen me in uniform before?” 

He shook his head. “I have not,” he said, stepping toward her and fingering the ornate gold closures of her military tunic. He smiled slyly. “How easy are these frogs to undo?”

---

Thank you for reading! You can read it again here on AO3

[sweet-cynicalstrain]

Queen’s Thief Appreciation Week(s) Day 1: The Thief in which we explore Gen’s journey, Hamilton-style

Hello! When I started thinking about participating in queen’s thief appreciation weeks this year—for the first time, as I only started reading the books a little over a year ago—I got a bit overwhelmed by all the possibilities and by all of the seriously impressive art, writing, and jokes/memes/etc. I’ve seen from other people. Then I realized that, much like Alexander Hamilton as portrayed in the musical Hamilton, Gen is a bastard who spent some time living in squalor and ended up a hero with his face on some currency. Anyway, I decided to rewrite a bunch of songs this week, so here is the first one. It does make reference to…pretty much every book that comes after The Thief, but it’s an introductory sort of song, and I tried to keep it focused mostly on events that happen fairly early on. 

I didn’t assign particular characters to sing different parts like in the original except in the last bit of the song, but when I started writing this I had it in my head that it was the Magus narrating mostly, until I realized that it was probably Pheris. It can, of course, be whoever you’d like.

Thanks to @thecrenellations for the very helpful editorial feedback and for being the reason I read this book in the first place!

Attolis Eugenides

How does a bastard, goatfoot, son of a thief’s heir From Eddis, caught in the middle of a wine shop With the commoners, by foolish plans imprisoned In squalor, grow up to be a hero and an Annux?

The double stater, a young schemer who lost his mother Got a lot farther by following his grandfather By being a lot smarter By being a bit of a bother By fifteen*, they made him join a covert endeavor

And every day through Sounis, he boasted at the wine shops While spies were watching, he tried to keep his guard up Inside, he had a plan of his own, and on behalf of His queen, he was willing to lie, steal, hide, or show off

But he needed something more, he needed to get noticed To be a local, skillful thief who nobody would miss Put an ink pen to his temple, connected it to his brain Wrote his own court records, a history he’d feigned

Well, the word got around, they said this kid can steal anything Took him from the prison cell to send him on an undertaking Earn your reputation, don’t reveal from whence you came And more than dust will know your name What’s your name, Thief?

Gen, short for Eugenides His name is Gen, short for Eugenides He can do anything he wants Just you wait, just you wait

When he was ten his mother fell from the roof after dancing Five years later** his father sent him off, financing His theft, making him flee for his protection And eventually he won the Magus’s affection

Snuck into Attolia, but their queen cut his hand off Left him with nothing but ruined pride, nightmares, lingering love A voice said, “Stop whining, you’ve got to make a new plan” He started retreating and scouting on the enemy’s land

There would’ve been nothing left to do for someone less astute He would’ve been useless, all alone, without his former resolution Started speaking, outlining his plan before the council Convinced the queen and anybody else who still was doubtful

Gathering all the wooden cannon he could get his hand on Planning for the future see him now as he stands on The edge of a river headed for a new land In Attolia, you can be the new king

In Attolia you can be the new king Just you wait!                      

Gen, oh our Eugenides Three countries rely on you You could never think first But you can steal peace and time

Oh, Attolis Eugenides When the Peninsula praises you Will they know what you overcame? Will they know you rewrote the game? The world will never be the same…

He’s high king in Attolia now See if you can spot him They underestimated what he could do for them His enemies, they tried to win, but nobody could thwart him

MINISTER OF WAR, TELEUS, COSTIS: We fought with him KAMET, MAGUS: We respected him RELIUS, PHERIS: We trusted him IRENE, HELEN: We loved him SOPHOS: And me? I shot the ambassador because of him!

He can do anything he wants Just you wait What’s your name, King? Attolis Eugenides Eugenideides!

*Probably. **Approximately.

[thebirdandhersong]

The Year So Far Book Ask

Tagged by @madamescarlette <3 thank you, darling!! (I DO SO LOVE TO TALK ABOUT BOOKS!!!!)

1. Best book you have read in 2021 so far?

HOW can I answer that!!!! Here is a top 10 because I cannot narrow it down!!

Middlemarch: read it twice this year (liked it the first time, LOVED it the second time)

David Copperfield: my new favourite Dickens. There is a lot of joy and compassion at the heart of this book, and I Loved it very much.

The Mill on the Floss: can’t explain the feeling I got from reading this book (tbh if you know, you know!! It warms your heart but it also makes you want to stand in the rain and cry)

The Queen of Attolia: a roller coaster. Very overwhelming. Was incredibly Shocked many times. (Also, who’d have thought?? Gen??? In LOVE??? Fantastic in concept and in execution)

The Adventures of Sally: a new favourite Wodehouse. You will laugh so hard tears will spring to your eyes.

Night Watch: this one stuck a knife in me and twisted..... but in a good way.

Anne of the Island: much-needed comfort read!!!

Leave it to Psmith: another new favourite Wodehouse. Modern rom-coms wish they could do rom-com like Psmith, Eve, and the umbrella that was Definitely Not His.

The Penderwicks at Point Mouette: A DELIGHT (speechless!!)

The Penderwicks on Gardam Street: ALSO A DELIGHT (still speechless!!)

2. Best sequel you have read in 2021 so far?

Ohohoho. All the Discworld sequels. (Especially A Hat Full of Sky, Night Watch, Thud!, I Shall Wear Midnight.)

Also, The Queen of Attolia. That book decimated me. Admittedly no one’s emotions are very stable at two in the morning, but I was an absolute Wreck that night (morning?).

3. A new release you want to check out?

I am behind on the times so my idea of ‘new’ is rather skewed.... I still really want to read Spin the Dawn, The Goblin Emperor, and Spinning Silver. And am making my way through Queen’s Thief.

4. Most anticipated book release of the second half of the year?

I... don’t follow new releases that much, to be honest. I am currently looking through the lists and don’t see anything I recognise s;lfdjsdlk;

5. Biggest disappointment?

The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I knew how it was going end, but i was still mad. (These days I like books with a hefty amount of Hope and that one.... definitely did not have that.) I also read Tess of the d’Urbervilles for the first time and remember being just... really frustrated with all the characters and about the lack of Hope in that one, too. I was also hoping to love I Capture the Castle and was a bit grumpy about the second half of the book!!

6. Biggest surprise?

The books I read because my friends loved them!! Such as The Blue Castle (Eden), The Man Born to be King (Magpie), Gourmet Hound (Eden), Queen’s Thief (Fran), Blandings Castle/Psmith (Rebekah), Discworld (I think I started reading it for the first time because of Fran as well)...... I also reread a bunch of old favourites (Lord of the Rings and a few Jane Austens) and they were even better than I remembered!! Which was just wonderful!! (though not very surprising, I guess!!)

7. Favourite new author (either new to you or debut)?

MEGAN WHALEN TURNER. I also have a new appreciation for P.G. Wodehouse (after crashing through all of his Jeeves books and most of the Blandings Castle audiobooks) and Terry Pratchett (after bulldozing through a good number of Discworld books, most of them two or three times) and Georgette Heyer (read my first few Heyers this year and had SUCH a blast).

8. Favourite new fictional crush?

In general: Ik-jun from Hospital Playlist (He’s not from a book sksfjkl ;sdfj k I wanted to mention him because I just love him a Lot)

In terms of books: Sam Vimes (sdlkfjs;kls) and Henry Tilney (I loved him before, but this year cemented him as one of the top, if not The Favourite Austen hero in my heart). I don’t know if Gen counts, because I feel very friendly towards him, and alternate between wanting to make soup for him and wanting to bonk him on the head with a cardboard tube.

Mal (from S&B) had some Really Good lines, too. Especially in the last chapter of Ruin and Rising.

9. Newest favourite character?

A whole PLATOON of them. Sasha and Lysander from @magpie-trove​‘s story, Beatrice and Romeo from @imissthembutitwasntadisaster​‘s story, Emilia and Lily from @itspileofgoodthings​‘s stories, Tiffany Aching, Granny Weatherwax, Helen and Irene and Costis from Queen’s Thief, Dorothea and Maggie from George Eliot’s books, Sally from The Adventures of Sally....

10. A book that made you cry?

Literally cried so many times this year over all sorts of stories. But a few off the top of my head:

The Penderwicks (all of them): cried from sheer joy!!!

Seven for a Secret: there are so many lines in the most recent chapters alone that brought tears to my eyes.

The Keys of Fire: which is The definitive Fairy Tail fanfic for me. I just love this story so much. And i was surprised all over again by the forgiveness and the love and the grace and the healing in this story this time around!!

The Queen of Attolia/The King of Attolia: cried out of surprise and joy at nearly all the Gen/Irene scenes (not the beginning ones sl;fksdsdlfk jd but my heart did a great leap when Gen remembers seeing Irene dance)

Ruin and Rising: cried at the ending. Also because I was so happy. (There is no such thing as an ordinary love!!!)

Crooked Kingdom: cried at what Kaz did for Inej (couldn’t help it. That moment was beautiful)

(It has been quite an emotional year. The waterworks are triggered by the smallest things. But I’m happy to say that I’ve cried out of happiness mostly in the book department.)

11. A book that made you happy?

(Nearly all of them tbh!!! I have so many new favourite books from this year’s reading list alone!!!)

The Penderwicks series. Was in bliss for the whole week. I was also incredibly happy listening to the Discworld audiobooks, and reading new installments of Emilia and Seven for a Secret and The Stars Hold No Part In This!!! All the Wodehouse and Heyer books I read were delightful.... David Copperfield was so full of joy and grace and it made me want to prance in a field. All of the Anne books I reread were comfort reads. And of course The Keys of Fire, which kept me smiling for hours: I feel like a kid being handed an ice cream cone with three scoops and a cherry on top whenever I read it. Incredibly happy.

12. Most beautiful book you have bought or received this year?

The second-hand Vintage Classics Jane Austens!! :’) especially Northanger Abbey, which was in Excellent condition. Very floppy (unlike the longer Austens..... alas for Mansfield Park, which is harder to flip through) and fits comfortably in my hands.

And the Tundra Classics edition of Anne of the Island. (I liked the way the paper felt and the text was a really nice font and size!)

13. What book do you need to read by the end of the year?

OOH TONS. I’m still reading Anna Karenina (stopped because I thought: I need a happy story right now). Would love to keep reading Queen’s Thief (I’m taking it slow because they’re books that should be savoured), make some headway in Dorothy Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey books, read more Georgette Heyer, start on The Goblin Emperor and a Bunch of books I've been meaning to read for a while (The Eagle of the Ninth, Piranesi, Phantom of the Opera, Surprised by Joy, Crime and Punishment, War and Peace are the main ones. This is an ambitious list but I’d like to read at least two of them before the year is out sl;kffdksl;dfjslk;)

tagging: @imissthembutitwasntadisaster​ @soldier-poet-king​ @septembersung​ @lady-merian​ @called-kept​ if you would like to!! And YOU, if you think it looks fun and want to give it a try!! :D

[loquaciousquark]

QT reread continues

Intro, TT, and QoA thoughts here and here.

King of Attolia is still probably my favorite book in the five published, though QoA & TaT are close close seconds. There’s so much going on in the background, so much going on in the foreground, and even knowing somehow Gen has all of this in his capable hand/s doesn’t keep us from some incredibly tense moments throughout the novel.

The first time I started KoA, I really, really missed the Gen from Thief. There’s a distance through Costis’s eyes even greater than the sudden 3rd person of QoA; not only because he is an unknown guardsman who’s only known Gen for a few months, but because he hates him. They all do! It’s so hard on the first read because we the readers know how good a person Gen is, how he truly wants the best for the queen and her country (not particularly because he loves her country but because she does, and he loves her), and it hurts to see someone we love bullied, isolated, mocked, and despised for no reason. (The irony of that given the beginning of Gen’s & Irene’s relationship is not lost on me.)

It’s emphasized in every interaction. Not just by the disgust dripping off every one of Costis’s words, internal and external, but even in the narrative. For 99% of the novel, Gen is “the king” to Costis. The king sighed. The king lowered his sword and was standing still, looking exasperated. The king turned his face away. It makes it all the more jarring when we see a section from Ornon’s perspective in the first third of the novel where he is only called Eugenides, not “the king.” It makes it even more poignant and painful and perfect when, at the very end of the novel, Costis watches the sparring bouts and thinks of him as Eugenides as often as he does the king, and even once at the very end, just slipped in as if no one might notice, Gen.

It’s not even entirely Costis’s fault, either! He makes an observation at one point that in the king’s eyes there were things hidden that he chose not to reveal. This is as much Gen’s doing as it is Costis’s; for most of the book he chooses to be king without being king, and so to reveal his capability (with the sword, with his cleverness, with the wielding of power) is to--in his mind--usurp power from Attolia and undermine her authority. Only Relius understands that it can only make her stronger, and even that understanding comes only after he is tortured for betraying Attolia. “Betraying,” perhaps.

(And on that note, I could spend another thousand words on Relius and Teleus and their relationship to Attolia alone, but again, this is getting longer than I want it to. Suffice it to say that these are some beautifully complicated relationships in a book already brimming over with them, and I love how painfully different each one of them is and how similar they are to Gen--all of them at the root bound by their love for the queen.)

I did wonder for the first time on this reread if Gen could have prevented the torture of Relius and chose not to, rather than intervening as soon as he felt he could to rescue him. Perhaps because he knew that Relius would not have believed Gen could still love Irene after the loss of his hand until he himself still loved Irene after his own failure and betrayal; that Gen knew Irene still needed Relius for the security of her throne and for her own humanity, and the only way to gain Relius’s trust would be to show him by example that even in the most abject, broken moments of their lives they would both remain devoted to her service. (Those nighttime meetings with Relius are so precious to me as a reader. They are so small and so perfect.)

And before I leave Gen’s relationships in this book altogether, I want to talk for just a second about how important it is that he and Attolia fight. They get angry at each other a lot in this book, especially Attolia. And it’s all justified! She’s angry when he is publicly humiliated by his attendants & the court--not because he is being humiliated but because he is choosing to allow it, and she knows he could be so much more than he is--and when he places himself in harm’s way, either out of deliberate design (Costis) or rare carelessness (Sejanus). She is toweringly enraged when he denies her the justice she believes is needed after the assassination attempt (”you prefer his mercy to my justice?”), not because she wants to kill Teleus, but because she has held her throne by doing the ruthless things necessary to keep it, and when Gen denies the authority of the kingship it undermines her power, forcing her to become almost more ruthless in her rule to compensate. Better no king than a weak one, as Ornon says, and until Gen publicly shows himself willing to do what is necessary to keep his power, Irene is forced to continue being the exceedingly effective scythe she has been most of her adult life. We know Gen hates and fears the public eye, that he is most effective in the shadows; and yet he married a queen, and there is no choice left that won’t offend the gods but becoming king in the process. And yet, at the same time, we are given the small moments of peace (the gift of stillness, the reveal of the passage between rooms, the conversation in Attolia’s rooms) that remind us at the heart of it they’re just two babes in love, which is why we’re all here to begin with.

(Last thought before I wrap up: I continue to adore the portrayal of the gods in these books. I love that they are manifestly real and manifestly limited in their power, that Gen is allowed a direct and tangible connection with his god, that Costis is allowed that glimpse in turn, and that of all mortals Gen is saved from falling by his god of thieves and told directly, “Go to bed.”)

Okay! You know who we’ve been missing? Sophos. Let’s go read about Sophos for a bit!

[cricketnationrise]

quarantine reads part 4

part 1 | part 2 | part 3

76. The Countess Conspiracy by Courtney Milan: book 3 of the brothers sinister romance series. you absolutely DO NOT need to read these in order. i certainly didn’t. also. its a romance novel. there is sex.

77. Joy: And 52 Other Very Short Stories by Erin McGraw: short story collection. some of these are less than a page long. ideal reading for only having like 5 mins.

78. One Good Earl Deserves a Lover by Sarah MacLean: did i get this from the library because of the title? yes. is it a fantastic story? also yes. book 2 in the rules of scoundrels series. romance novel. there is sex.

79. The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman: magical library world at the heart of multiple universe has agents that retrieve unique works. featured universe is a sort of victorian england plus elves and werewolves and vampires and dragons and magic and this book is FANTASTIC. still need to get the others because IT IS A SERIES BUCKLE UP BUTTERCUP

80. The Rogue Pirate’s Bride by Shana Galen: book 3 of the sons of the revolution series. look i like romance novels. i especially like that you don’t have to read them in order. its a romance novel. there is sex. also PIRATES and the leads saving each other’s lives.

81. The Queens of Animation: The Untold Story of the Women Who Transformed the World of Disney and Made Cinematic History by Nathalia Holt: non-fiction look at the history of disney animation via the women who worked there. lots of details i didn’t know. chapters are movies rather than years.

82. The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett: bit of a misnomer since the guy is straight up stealing rare books with credit card fraud. he just thinks he’s being gentlemanly by amassing these books. it started off as a feature article and it shows.

83. We’re Here, We’re Here by KM Szpara: tor.com short story, 2 members of a boy band fall in love. management doesn’t like that so starts to control/manipulate the implants they put iN THEIR VOICE BOXES AHHH

84. The Night Soil Salvagers by Gregory Norman Bossert: tor.com short story, cool story telling form with in-world songs/poetry/recipes, very poetic writing

85. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt: two brothers are hitmen get hired for a job. one of the brothers is really excited, the other starts to contemplate a different life, gold rush era california/western USA, horses, violent, seriously at least one person is killed in every chapter. at one point they burn down a whole lodge. cw: harm to animals, murder, starvation

86. The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin: classic piece of writing about the Black Male experience in the united states

87. The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick: lonely old man goes on scavenger hunt to find the meanings behind the charms on a bracelet he finds in his dead wife’s closet. travels all around UK and paris and makes friends near and far.

88. The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep by HG Parry: some people can read characters out of books. i repeat. CHARACTERS CAN COME OUT OF THEIR BOOKS. theres a whole diagonalley esq space that houses characters that can’t go back. chaos and danger ensue when uriah heep refuses to go back into his book. magic!

89. Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett: #11 in the discworld series, DEATH gets tired of doing all the things and decides to retire.

90. Death and What Comes Next by Terry Pratchett:  discworld short story

91. Love and Other Foreign Words by Erin McCahan: girls life is about to change when her sister is proposed to, very gifted, coming of age, crush on her teacher, endgame is her/her best friend who is a guy and has clearly been pining THE WHOLE TIME

92. Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder:  i love the little house books and this was the first non-fictionalized account of her life i’ve read. the introduction by the editor was especially cool/helpful to read, lots of photos and drawings

93. Exhalation by Ted Chiang: this might be my favorite book of all quarantine. and i read a lot of books. a collection of short stories that all fucked me up, but in a good way? title story contains the sentence, “It’s no coincidence that “aspiration” means both hope and the act of breathing.” which like, how dare you sir

94. Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell: book 2 in the simon snow series, which is a fantasy series created by rowell in her novel Fangirl. She then proceeded to write fanfic of this already fictional series. i’m in love with the meta. 3rd book out in 2021.

95. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward: set in mississippi before/during/after hurricane katrina hits, follows one family through the eyes of the daughter. tw: sexual assault, dog fighting, harm to dogs, death of dog

96. The Will of the Empress by Tamora Pierce: was still doing my Emelan reread. 4 protags reunite to help out Sandry as she goes to Namorn to deal with her estate and her cousin the empress. whether they will be allowed to leave is another story

97. The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner: book 3 in the queen’s thief series, seriously, go back and read from the beginning. political machinations of the king from a (Mostly) outside POV. the gods are always closer than you think

98. The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson: a very Spanish vibe fantasy novel. book 1 in a series. chosen one trope. new queen stumbles into the resistance. magic!

99. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley: first book in a mystery series. a young teen girl is super into chemistry in 1950′s england countryside. someone is murdered in her garden. she tries to figure out what happened because her dad is still shell shocked. cw: kidnapping, harm to children

100. A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White: first in the salvagers trilogy. motley crew turns into found family on a space ship. in this world almost everyone has magic. older female protagonist. queer representation out the wazoo, SPACE. boots just wants to brew her beer and be left alone.

[thegoldenbees]

I'm pretty sure that The Thief and Return of the Thief are both, at least loosely, bildungsroman. I noticed as I read RoTT that there's a really interesting dynamic between Pheris as a child experiencing and reacting to events, and Pheris as an adult writing an edited, polished account with reflection about what’s changed in the world since the events of RoTT. It kinda weirdly reminded me of David Copperfield, and even though the settings are very different, that child-adult dynamic of the narrator is similar. 

Actually, I think if you stretch it enough, any of the books could kinda count as bildungsroman? Thick as Thieves and King of Attolia are a little more questionable, mostly because Kamet and Costis seem somewhat more adult than the other three narrators. 

So instead of doing literally any of the homework that will have me in agony tomorrow, I wrote a rambly sort of essay about it. 

I read David Copperfield in a class about bildungsroman, which got me thinking that we might have a couple in the Queen’s Thief series. Bildungsroman as a genre is about the protagonist “coming of age” or learning what it means to move from childhood to adulthood. 

I know we aren’t given a clear idea of Pheris’s age, and because of a misconception about his identity when I read Thick as Thieves (I thought he was Erondites’ son, born after King of Attolia!), I was initially mentally picturing him as only about five or six at most. But clearly he is not Erondites’ son, and however old he is, he is much older than five. Right now I’m thinking anywhere from nine to fifteen. 

This is taken from the Wikipedia page on bildungsroman

Usually in the beginning of the story there is an emotional loss which makes the protagonist leave on his or her journey. In a Bildungsroman, the goal is maturity, and the protagonist achieves it gradually and with difficulty. The genre often features a main conflict between the main character and society. Typically, the values of society are gradually accepted by the protagonist and he or she is ultimately accepted into society—the protagonist's mistakes and disappointments are over. In some works, the protagonist is able to reach out and help others after having achieved maturity.

I think that actually fits Pheris really well! Most of the bildungsroman protagonists I encountered in my British Lit class were Tragic Orphans, but Pheris’s situation of being taken from his childhood home and the care of his nurse, and placed in Attolia’s megaron where he has no familar guardian, definitely counts as an emotional loss starting his journey. 

The ableism Pheris encounters both at the Villa Suterpe and in Attolia’s court could count as a conflict between the protagonist and society, as well as Pheris’s arc toward choosing loyalty to the king rather than his family. We also see, as the book progresses, that Pheris gradually becomes more and more accepted (and sometimes even loved!) by those around him, which hmm, I guess is the inverse of Pheris accepting the values of his society. I think maybe the loyalty vs intrigue could count as values of his society that he comes to accept? And at the highest point of conflict, Pheris’s choice that saves the day is a very complex and nuanced, yet very sincere, loyalty. 

But basically, I think if we can call RoTT a bildungsroman, the same must be true about The Thief. Gen leaves his home and sets out on an adventure with strangers. He has to accept some things about his society’s values: the social status of thieves, the cultural impact of the invaders, the fact that people in his world make and destroy nations for their own personal benefits, the fact that everyone below those people feel the impact of those decisions. He even has a religious epiphany. And as the result of this journey, he finds his place in society: the Thief, acknowled both by his people and their enemies. 

Except, wait! Eugenides isn’t done growing up yet! So Queen of Attolia is part 2 of his bildungsroman. Eugenides loses his hand and is forced on a new journey to learn his place in society: perhaps a more nuanced idea of what a thief is, more of an adult, a married man, a king. 

King of Attolia is not so solidly a bildungsroman, but we still see a couple defining characteristics of the genre pop up! Costis is away from his home and his family; though an adult, he’s relatively young; and he has to learn his place in the society of Attolia’s court, then adapt, finding his place and accepting some of the society’s values: namely, court intrigue. I think MWT could have developed KoA into a bildungsroman, but especially since Costis is acting as a kind of peripheral narrator for Eugenides, I’m okay with that not fully taking shape. (In fact, we really DO see the bildungsroman of Eugenides continue in KoA!)

A Conspiracy of Kings is back to familiar bildungsroman territory. Sophos is emotionally (traumatically?) taken from his home and family, and forced into a society to which he must adapt, accept values, and learn his place. It’s pretty unfair that he has to do all the work of learning his place in society as a slave, only to have to do all the work of learning his place in society as a king. I mean, good for him, but that’s a lot of work. 

In ACoK we see perhaps more clearly than in other books how the protagonist grows by leaps and bounds, and drastically changes in order to adapt to society. Sophos grows up from the cautious, timidly academic boy we see in The Thief, to the tall, snarling king who will kill to secure his throne. Sophos doesn’t want to be a Man-Killer, but he comes to accept the value in his society that monarchs must be ruthless when called to be. In particular I think Sophos fulfills the Wikipedia criterion of growing out of his mistakes and disappointments toward others as he finds his place in society. 

Thick as Thieves is, like King of Attolia, not giving me solid bildungsroman material (aww, look at Costis and Kamet matching!) but there are again the nods of 1) emotional loss requiring the protagonist to leave home [Lila, if not Nahuseresh] and 2) journey toward learning the society’s values and one’s place in society. I kinda feel like this last one doesn’t completely count, because Kamet is [eyes MWT not giving clear ages] an adult and already familiar with the values of his society and his place in it. 

Then of course he leaves slavery in the Mede empire and he has to learn both a new society and a new place in it. Shaky case for a bildungsroman on its own, but thematically coherent with the other books. 

And that brings us back to Return of the Thief, where as well as seeing Pheris grow up and learn how he fits in society, we see the conclusion of Eugenides’s journey: new rank as high king, the height of expectations that get placed on him, journeying into a mature adulthood as he almost simultaneously loses his father and becomes a father himself. 

It occurs to me that the entire Queen’s Thief series taken together, the Eugeniad, as I’ve recently heard people calling it, is the story of Eugenides leaving home as a child; adventuring and learning what his society is and how he fits in it; coming into conflict with elements of his society that he hates (sometimes able to fight them [his cousin’s potential vulnerability to a forced arranged marriage], sometimes forced to accept them in himself [monarchs needing to carry the weight of people dying because of their decisions]); and growing up into a mature adult, who can, like the quote above indicates, reach out and help others after achieving his own maturity. 

[whocalledhimannux]

now that I’ve had some time to reflect on Return of the Thief, I have some more thoughts that are... slightly more critical, in both the thinking-deeply and not-entirely-praiseworthy ways. I’m not going to tag this post because I don’t want to harsh anyone’s buzz, but I’ll just say return of the thief spoilers and rott spoilers right now, and hopefully the blacklist will catch those, and if not the rest of the post is going under a cut

okay so like first off, I want to say that I still think this was a very well-written book and it’s very satisfying from a character standpoint. there are so many great interactions, indications of growth, etc, and the layered writing of the first person POV is, as always, stunning. my main character complaint is not enough Costis and Kamet (or Costis/Kamet)--but even that, upon reflection, I think is colored slightly by my anticipation for a blatant Comet moment. When you’re waiting for a big payoff, and the story isn’t designed to have that, it’ll feel like a bit of a letdown. But from a different perspective, the ending of TaT can be a perfectly satisfying narrative ending, establishing that Costis and Kamet’s storylines are now thoroughly and primarily wrapped up in each other; their contributions to the wider plot from thereon out are mostly incidental, because sailing off to be together is their bigger ending.

side note: a character development I actually loved was us seeing Eugenides teetering dangerously close to a breaking point and being pulled back. I think...... from what I have seen of the fandom in general--bearing in mind I was never a part of Sounis and have dipped in and out of the discord without being majorly involved--based on my general impression of the tumblr fandom, I think there is a tendency among QT fans to let the Thief characterization of Gen affect our reading of him in later books. I think there’s sort of an assumption that he’s everybody’s favorite and that his choices are, by default, correct and sympathetic, even as the series progresses and he makes more, increasingly difficult and sometimes pragmatic or even cruel decisions. and I think RotT really, really challenges that kind of view. Eugenides is under immense strain in this book, and several times he lashes out in ways that are indefensible. Sometimes, even if he’s not being cruel to others, he’s being risky to the point of masochism, and the revelations about his backstory also suggest that quirky innocent Gen of The Thief is also not all he seemed to be.

and I think that was resolved in a very enjoyable and narratively satisfying way. The threats to the Braels had a real edge to them. God!Eugenides was terrifying, in a noticeable step up from the ways regular!Eugenides is terrifying, and it felt like payoff for the increasing role of the gods in Eugenides’s storyline up until now. And I really appreciated the subtleties of Sejanus saying that he won’t tell Eugenides the conspirators because it will damage him in the longrun, and the way Eugenides ultimately decides to forgive and trust Pheris and Sejanus anyway--those scenes, imo, were great followups to the scenes in QoA, KoA, and ACoK that discussed how rulers can maintain their moral center in difficult situations.

but... the Medes. plot-wise, I’m struggling with the conclusion to this storyline.

I made a different post already about What the Fuck is going on with the secretary of the archives, because it totally feels like shit is missing there, and to some extent I’m okay with that? it felt to me like a stylistic choice--like, Pheris the historian is writing specifically about the Mede invasion, so maybe the full story of Baron Orutus, and Relius, wasn’t actually resolved til years later and he thought it was an overlapping but ultimately separate story. fine. I actually did kind of like the parts where that was done more blatantly, like his comment that two of the queen’s attendants became famous later on for unrelated reasons. it helped with the framing of the story.

but I don’t feel that way about the Medes plot. For one thing, we’ve spent a couple of books now harping on the fact that Ghusnavidas (sp? I’m tired and my book is too far away to check, y’all know who I mean) is dying and that the primary threat is going to come from Nahuseresh’s brother, Naheelid. Costis made a point of saying last book that if the Little Peninsula could hold out for a year against Naheelid, not only would they win but the entire empire might be in danger of collapsing.

So... they spent ~a few months fighting a single army at a single battle site, with the Big Threat Guy not even present, and that’s it? everybody goes home and the Medes aren’t a threat anymore? it’s not even clear to me how many troops the Medes lost--their principal losses were in the form of Bu-seneth, Nahuseresh, and Baron Erondites, who, yeah, were key officers, but if the Medes lost, saying, 30% of their troops or less, what’s to stop Naheelid from hiring more soldiers and better officers and coming back in a year? it totally makes sense to me that an army that saw Eugenides call down lightning is willing to pack it up early, but inevitably that’s going to be dismissed as rumor and distortion so idk how it’s supposed to be a lasting deterrent. it may not be super realistic, because the downfall of empires takes time, but I think a bunch of us were expecting that the Mede Empire would, at the very least, but conclusively beaten by the end of the book, and I don’t think we got that.

Also, speaking of Big Bads: Nahuseresh. Oof.

I know part of the point of TaT was that Nahuseresh’s situation was becoming kind of sad and pathetic but... I think he went downhill too quickly in this book. and tbh I think part of it is the fact that we’re getting this from Pheris’s POV, and Pheris for one doesn’t have a whole lot of close contact with Nahuseresh in this book, and for another didn’t have any contact with him prior to this. His little “I will be king of Attolia!” outburst honestly made me cringe a little bit, and while I’m not entirely opposed to the idea of Nahuseresh being killed by an anonymous soldier--it has a very “reality ensues, war isn’t a series of epic meaningful confrontations” feel to it--I do object to the fact that Eugenides spent a significant amount of time in KoA and ACoK nursing a grudge against Nahuseresh and then barely got to do anything with it. and a lot of what he did get to do, the reader barely sees.

I think there were ways to make Nahuseresh’s actions in this novel a bit more satisfying without fundamentally changing them. for example, bringing in more commentary from people who knew him before. if there was a passage where Eugenides looked at Nahuseresh and realized that his beard was raggedy, and he looked thinner, and there was a manic light in his eye and he just seemed pretty pathetic and honestly more comical than the villain Gen’s been building up in his head for years--I think that would go a long way towards establishing tone. it would feel more like the anticlimax is intentional and be more about Eugenides’s own character growth, whereas now it just feel like... Pheris doesn’t have a whole lot of personal stake in this conflict even though the reader has been waiting for it for so long.

(although I do find it interesting on a narrative level in contrast with Sejanus, who seems disproportionately important in this book imo--from my perspective, the threat of Nahuseresh has been a constant behind-the-scenes presence for the last four books and Sejanus stopped being important after KoA. and I get why the opposite would be true for Pheris, but I still... want more.)

anyway, I just feel like the villains in this book are a little--warped, somehow. like the huge enormous threat of the series up until this point actually isn’t all that bad and can be wrapped up in relatively little time. it’s a weird sensation for me wherein I’m glad where everyone ended up and I enjoyed the experience of getting to that end, but like... it just feels a little off. slightly anticlimactic. I mean, for a lot of us this series is All About the characters and from that perspective I’m mostly satisfied, but I feel like in previous books the plot has come together SO well that my expectations were really high, and this resolution didn’t really meet them.

and damn does it feel strange to be writing this. feels like I just cobbled together a few of my hottest and most controversial takes and like I need to throw in about twenty more disclaimers about how much I love the books overall, but I’ll resist.

[throwaninkpot]

RotT reactions part 2!

costis, what are you doing here, shouldn't you be in roa? shouldn't you be with kamet? costis, where's kamet? what happened to him? tell me!

"who really owns anything?" eugenides, you utter meme.

if tattoos a custom in eddis, does. .....does helen have tattoos? oh my word, please tell me helen has tattoos, she would look so cool.

so, so, so, horrible invasion, giant army, logistics of war. it's very terrible and interesting, but where kamet? where my boy? is he okay? costis just LEFT him behind, bc he had to get word back to attolia, I don't blame him, I love him. but is kamet okay????????????????????

rip to all the cottage fic people probably wrote about the two having a chill time in roa. (idk, I haven't checked.) megan said we can't have nice things.

"find yourselves another king" uhhhhhhh, gen?

gen said no more king, now only Thief and Hot Consort To The Sexy Queen.

awww, sophos gave him a book of poetry for his birthday. I love sophos.

"attolia says she leaves with you" *spends several long minutes clutching at my chest repeatedly as I am Overwhelmed*

you know the quote in koa about a careful dance of shafow and unsubstance but under it all, a real marriage of two people? that's literally this. the queen is surely calculated her possible responses to gen, amd this is either a Pointed Message to gen or to the barons, and I'm still not sure what gen is up to actually, but also. she loves him, guys. they're in love. "she leaves with you". they're in love.

"I asked her to leave with me on our wedding night" of course he did.

"except me, I can do anything I want" :'D

they're too soft. I cannot.

go, costis! save your boy!

..........is this where I formally apologize for rolling my eyes back in 2016 when people shipped teleus/relius? I genuinely did not see this coming.

megan said okay, we've been on our best behavior, it's been 25 years, she will sprinkle in a little canon queerness. and then upended a flour sack of it on us.

"he had to bend to keep his lips on hers until she reached the ground" they're too cute, this is illegal.

oh, now THAT'S some soap opera level nonsense. how awkward was it for gen and helen knowing his father was a spurned lover of her mother

sometimes soldiers. I am eating this stuff up.

they get no apology. h*ck the pents. maybe they should have chosen an ambassador that didn't force himself upon women.

"where sounis's father positively beamed with approval at his son, eddis's minister of war glowered. the high king, slumped in his seat, catching his father's glare, slumped even further." it be like that.

ten to one. oof, oof, oof.

okay, the solution is, one of gen's sisters should beat up cleon and therespides.

gen. you were the one paying him. I don't know why I'm ever surprised by the tangled schemes you wrap yourself up in.

every scene that the four monarchs are together, just having a good time and loving each other and sounding so much like the young people they are, every time, it makes me happy.

the fandom tried to figure out at what age boys left the dorms in Eddis, didn't we? I think we settled on 12 or 13. gen killed someone before he was 13. hachi machi.

he called him "my brother sounis". awww.

"without cheating" is that what we're calling godly visits now

eugenides will give me a heart attack, I swear.

they call it return of the thief bc this is the most like himself gen has acted since the crenellations in KoA.

(fitting that this is the book with a neuroduvergent pov, bc I have never happy stimmed more in my life than during the chase scene.)

when he starts windmilling, now I am afraid. oh please, megan, don't let him be hurt.

thank the gods.

helen wearing an eddisian uniform. heck yeah! gnc helen rights continue!

"it was the last lighthearted moment for a long time" :(

they're leaving the city, and I'm suddenly remember the comment from back in book of pheris 1 about an attack by a tomb. am afraid.

it's loving the magus o' clock. he treats pheris so well.

irenides baby......2!!!!

"I don't understand" you and me both, sophos.

"I think they have to show their worst selves sometimes in order to be sure that even at their worst they are loved" I need a minute.

I love tactics and logistics, but I wish I could picture this my head. the map doesn't actually help me figure out where the forces are in perspective.

megan really wasn't exaggerating when she said eugenides's first reaction to seeing an elephant is "I want to steal one."

"he muscled up his other arm and said he would destroy the Medes single-handed" these books are giving me a stroke. megan, that pun was beautiful.

"I have found Kamet!" I'm going to be sick. he had better be okay. he was supposed to be free of nahuseresh.

nasty man had better be lying. my kamet had better be okay.

oh, costis. okay, okay, alright.

why is cleon's death so sombering. I think it's bc I just reread "Thief!", and met him as a teenager in that. I think it's bc it says he's one of three cousins that died that day, and gen already lost so many cousins during the war in QoA. I loved the country of eddis when I was first reading these books and forever after that, bc it's so full. there's a very communal child-rearing system and gen has these packs of cousins, even if most of them spent their childhood bullying him, I loved the idea of having so much family around you. he's running out of family.

oh. I went back to reading from writing that, and. stenides. oh.

I said I wanted gen's siblings, but not like this.

well, here's some cairns. presumably the tombs pheris's foreshadowed earlier. here we go, something bad is going to happen.

Something Bad Happened.

oh, no, Hilarion. D:

*tiffany haddish voice* NOMENUS??? HOW COULD YOU DO THIS. I PUT YOU ON MY BINGO.

the man at the cairn. the god on the battlefield that megan referenced? but eugenides called him a dead man. so not a god. so, did he recognize him as someone he knew to be dead?

"my cousins know not to trust my tears" once again, gen's hail mary is the fact he's a little snipe.

he says he needs a heavier rain, and the gods deliver.

f in chat for nomenus. he was a snake, but still.

"and by my oath to my god, now and for my life, Thief of Eddis." YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, Philo. :(

rip to Legarus and his Awesome Beauty.

they want to kill gen in The Thief? eddis's council wanted to kill him? I'm reeling from all the backstory this book is revealing.

not quite how I had the apotheosis pictured, and yet. *sufjan steven's ascension plays in the background*

"I say it three times, Fordad. It will be so. It will be so. It will be so." holy heck.

someone get in here and analyze that for biblical symbolism.

HE CALLED DOWN LIGHTNING. HOLY

narration only calls him eugenides in that scene with the lightning. significant.

"feeling the tremor in it, he opened his arms to catch the king as he fell." he has fallen and been caught by his god and fallen and been caught by his dad.

I think we'll call the interregnum an interlude into the underworld, if not a journey into.

oh, gods, relius.

for a former spymaster, he sure trusted too easily.

he could have had his farm in the gede valley, but he stayed to help irene and gen. oh, relius, relius.

sejanus has a saving grace afterall.

dite and sejanus protecting each other, and pretending to hate each other so that sejanus at least can be on good terms with their father, that all clicks into place when you know about their older brother who they probably loved just as much.

crying crying crying over Sejanus and Pheris.

the minster of war. D:

at least nahuseresh is dead.

gen lay down to sleep by his father's corpse.

the patrimony divided in three. a triangle.

sophos/helen baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love that gen, knowing his cousin and also being a little sneak who notices everything, figured out helen was pregnant before sophos even did.

f for sejanus. he wasn't as bad as he seemed, and not nearly as bad as he almost was.

oh, xenophon died, too. he of the wooden cannons and receiver of the infamous "I love stupid plans" line.

why is everyone dead. :(

"they're at the pickets, both of them" oh, thank you, jesus. TWO PEOPLE WHO AREN'T DEAD. MY BOYS.

she dreams of Eddis empty. there's no words for the relief I feel.

twinssss!!

and yet they don't tell us the name!!!!! what was the MoW's name??? what is their son's name??? megan!!!!!!

gen holding his daughter for the first time and offering to pitch her off a roof. I don't even have words.

hector. hector. hector hector hector.

rooftop dance!!!!!!!!!!!

HE'S OKAY. RELIUS IS OKAY.

(you couldn't give us one costis and kamet dance? no, it's fine.)

peace. peace. peace.

crying.

[january-tala]

I finished Return of The Thief!!!

Non-spoilery comments:

1. IT WAS SO GOOD! ARGHASLDFJ 2. If you’re anxious, don’t be. Trust MWT.

Now, for all the wild screaming into the void, because I need to get all these irrational, overwhelming feelings out before I hop on over at Sounis LJ and pretend to be smart.

SPOILERS! SPOILERS AHEAD. DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT WANT SPOILERS!

My “live-blog” notes:

- "So, so, so" is out. "Miras' golden balls" is in. - He has all the fighting spirit of an apricot... Like riding a slowly moving sofa - LOL, though I do admit, I find it ironic that Irene would give Gen a horse as a gift, when she's worried of a fall and her own brother died of a fall from horseback - Gen's apartments were Irene's brothers' - two Cleons! two Ions! - why is Attolian!Ion doing back with Gen? Didn't he go with Sophos? - princess Bythesea? LIke, "by the sea"? - SCARY GEN. SCARY GEN EVERYWHERE. SOPHOS! THE PENT! - okay let's back it up here - Sophos throwing water on Gen - GEN CLIMBING UP TO THE WINDOW!!! - ATTOLIA LAUGHING ABOUT IT ZOMG - A;LDFJA;SLDFJAS;LDJK THE PENT AND ATTOLIA AND EUGENIDES AND ALSDFJA;SLDFJKA;LSDFKJ ARRGGGHHHH THAT WAS PRECIOUS BUT ALSO MADDENING - like, here i was, thinking it's Gen who's in danger of getting snatched by a mistress; i was NOT expecting it the other way around - also, every passage i'm either "omg, gen's gonna die" or "nah, he'll be fine." it's so scary whenever pheris talks about the "nowadays" rather than telling the narrative - OMG AND THEN... AND THEN!!! RIGHT AFTER THE PENT SCENE... OMGGGGG THEY JUST DID IT IN THAT ROOM HUH - what is up with all these horrid ambassadors from everywhere?? (Except for the Braels. That one is a keeper)

- Ohh look Irene is doing needlework! Finally! A book where needlework isn't mocked. - Gen doing a somersault from Fryst! - Costissssss!!!!! - oh no! I forgot what Costis's arrival meant - aww, that kindly stable master. bless him! - Genny!!??? GENNY??!!!! I shall now call all my children with a Y at the end. Ireny! Heleny! Bunny can remain the same (though Sophy sounds cute too) - Kamet! - Yessss, Relius! Is back in action!! Also described as "very handsome" so it looks like Costis has competition here - tortured by the *king*?? Wasn't it Attolia who tortured Relius? - lol apparently nobody's ages are going to be revealed - "some unknown sailor fired without orders" something tells me this was planted - Teleus and Relius bro-time. yes i approve - whoa I see an elephant in the drawing!! - okay, was it ever mentioned that Eddisians have tattoos?? Or is this like the first time that was mentioned and everyone is as shocked as me??? - guys, imagine, the MoW. Tattoos!! - okay, so clearly Relius is a playboy?? and i never caught the hint?? - Helen and Irene girl talk, yessss - Fordad's nice. I hope he's not secretly a bad guy - OH NO OH NO Gen resigned!!! What will Irene do? She cannot rule alone again! - omg Gen is such a rebel. I feel for this poor boy. Let me hug him. Let his queen hug him. Somebody hug him! - OMG OMG OMG they're gonna go to Gen's bedroom in Eddis' library, right??? That tumblr post was right! - wooot oh man, Susa turned! whoaaaaa. Gen is so powerful. I am at AWE - asdfasdf neck kisses, hold me, i'm dying - w-w-wait.... so is Susa and Erondites still plotting together though?? Susa, you little snake, I had believed you! - no, Costis is leaving already??

- Costis and the whole comment about "his heart" isn't in his work XD. Though -- guys -- I'm gonna confess, ten years of manning my tiny crack-boat of Costistogiton, I'm a little heartbroken to know they've no hope - Teleus and Relius... Teleus and Relius???? THIS IS CANON GUYS??? But Relius is a playboy??? How does Teleus handle that??? ship name? telrel? leuslius? - Lol, the magus being sassy to his king - ohhhh all these glorious tidbits we're learning about the Eddisian royalty. Helen's mother had an affair with Gen's father? I would not have expected it of the MoW!!! He seemed too straitlaced and in love with his Thief wife - oh. no. eugenides robbed eugenides. i would have NEVER - STENIDESSSSS!!!! - Gen channeling some Edward Elric energy there about his height, huh? Never thought he was bothered by it - what happened to Gen's stomach illness? Is it now gone because the sand in his food is gone? - "Hilarion knew a disaster when he saw one looming right in front of him." OMGGG this is throwback to that Philo comment in KoA - poor Legarus, now the shining example of a man who did poorly in love - OH MY GOD! Teleus was the one who copied the poem for Relius??? - OH. MY. GOD. Irene is pregnant again. - asdlfjalsdkfj "I didn't become inappropriate on my own!" al;sdjfk these babies. - NO. NOOOO GEN DON'T GO AFTER NAHUSERESH!! - NOOOOO STENIDES NOOOOO We never even met you! (except for that one short story) - Hilarion noooooo - oh nooo Gen being tortured AGAIN noooo how much more can this poor boy handle?

- yess Gen the Thief again!! - Eugenides Eugenideides??? - Philoo nooooo! To think he might still be alive if he *had* fought in the battle instead of accompanying Gen to the trap. I am sore about this, ok? SORE - At least my boy Aris is still alive - nooo Fordad, how could you. I rooted for you - Irene crying. My baby - At least Petrus and Galen have finally teamed up - RELIUS NOOOOOOOO. I HATE FORDAD SO MUCH. SO MUCH - no no no I refuse to believe it. Relius is ALIVE hiding REALLY WELL. Shame on him for breaking poor Teleus's and Pheris's hearts - omg Sejanus. All the Pherises. Their poor dear mother, having to be married to the nasty old Erondites - you go, random horseman who took Pheris on your lap!! *I* say you survived the battle; you and Pheris just never crossed paths again - Noo MoW... =( - oh noo, Sejanus. =( All these people I'm mourning when I had hated them before. Though to be fair, Sejanus was really sympathetic at the end of KoA already - HEEECTTTOOORRR????? - LOL omgggg, Baron Anacritus dancing with his lover right after his wife??? the Nerve! - YESSSS,  WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT RELIUS?? Yeeaaaaaah!! Now he can go back to Teleus and Pheris, and dote on the prince and princess! - wait, where my boy ARIS at??? Please tell me he and Costis are still 2 peas in a pod!!! - ohhohhooh awwww that lovely short story!!! Irene was descended from a goddess too? Aww. And I suspected Alyta is also the water goddess from QoA. - I can't believe it. It's DONE. It was SO GOOD. I would be cherishing this last book for decades, y'all. It was SO GOOD.

[magpiefngrl]

hello!! 4 and 11 for the end-of-year book asks, please? x

Hey you!

4. Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?

I answered 4 here.

11. What was your favourite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read?

Most of the books I've read this year have been out for a while. Looking at the titles, a few stand out so I'll sort them in terms of genre:

Romance: Alexis Hall's How to Bang a Billionnaire (out in 2017) (loved it but still need to read the rest of the series)

Fantasy: The King of Attolia (2006) by M.W. Turner (LOVED)

Historical: Pawn in Frankincense (1969) by Dorothy Dunnett (I'd read half the book before but I finished it this year so I say it counts lol)

Contemporary: The Goldfinch (2013) by Donna Tartt. Took me ages to finish it but I've been a huge Tartt fan since I read TSH over 20 years ago, and she didn't disappoint.

Thanks for the ask!

2022 book ask

[huilian]

The king of Attolia, Annux of the Little Peninsula, walked alone across the halls of the Eddisian palace. This would not have happened in his own palace, but they are in Eddis, and Eddisian customs take precedence. No one in Eddis would dream of stopping the Thief from roaming the halls of the palace of Eddis, no matter how much the captain of his guard protests.

He slipped easily from one empty room to another, avoiding the many sets of eyes that, even now, still lingered in the palace. It was easier than it used to be. There were many empty rooms in the palace of Eddis, and not all of them are because their inhabitants had moved to the lowlands.

Still, even with the abundance of empty rooms and the decrease in the number of guards, he was forced to backtrack a few times to escape notice. The guards’ patrol routes had changed since the last time he was here. A display of caution for the queen of Eddis that he could not help but be pleased about, despite the inconvenience it was currently causing him.  

The guards had no chance in catching him, however. There was no man alive that knew these halls better than he, and there was no place on earth that he knows better. His own palace was a close second, but he had grown up here, and he knew every single nook and cranny etched into these halls.

With a quick look around to make sure that his presence remained unnoticed, Eugenides slipped through an unremarkable door in an unremarkable hallway. He arrived at his destination.

*

“There you are!” the king of Sounis cried out, carrying his daughter in his arms. Sounis was talking to the man sitting at the table in the library, looking for all the world like he was at home. Sounis’s daughter, on the other hand, was mesmerized by the book that was in front of the man.

Eugenides, who, for all intents and purposes was at home in the library of Eddis’s palace, looked up.

“Everyone is looking for you,” Sounis said, looking at him meaningfully.

With a wave of his hand, Eugenides dismissed that. “Helen knows where I am. If they truly need me, they’ll find me. Come on, Sophos, sit down. Don’t tell me you want to join that theatrical production in the courtroom.”

Sounis shook his head, but gave a small smile of concession. He took his own seat next to Eugenides, settling his daughter in his own lap. She immediately started pawing on the book in front of Gen, who deftly moved it out of her grasp.

“Feisty, aren’t you, Gitta?” he asked the princess of Sounis.

Her father chuckled. “She was getting antsy in the nursery, so I brought her on an adventure.” He bounced her several times in his lap, before looking up to the other king’s eyes and said, “Speaking of children, where are yours?”

Eugenides made a face. “With Teleus,” he said, sighing. “They scream if I try to take them before they are ready to be separated from him.”

Sounis laughed outright at this. “Are their screams as loud as yours?”

“Louder,” Attolis said mournfully.

Unfortunately, the princess of Sounis chose this time to also scream her displeasure at the fact that her father had stopped bouncing her in his lap. The two kings looked at each other for a moment, before Sounis placed his daughter back in his arms and started walking around the room to try to calm her.

Satisfied at having the attention of the two men firmly on her once again, she quieted down. Sounis made to sit down again, but Eugenides stopped him by saying, “You’ll just make her cry again. I think she wants our full and undivided attention.”

“Speaking from experience, Gen?”

The king of Attolia, Annux of the Little Peninsula, snuck out his tongue, looking very unkingly indeed. “Do you want me to help you or not?”

“Alright, alright. What do you have in mind?”

“Do you know Hern’s poetry?”

“Yes,” Sophos answered.

“You do?” Gen looked up at him, surprise etched on his face. But one look at the younger king’s face stopped the surprise in its tracks. “You do,” he said again, before turning to look at the child in Sophos’s arms and continuing, “Well, I’m no goddess of scribes, but I think I can do well enough for the princess of Sounis.”

“I don’t know, Gen,” Sounis teased. “I think the princess of Sounis deserves the best, don’t you agree?”

“Are you implying that I am not the best?”

“Did you not imply that yourself?”

“Sophos!” Eugenides said in exaggerated surprise. “I didn’t know you have it in you! Do you talk like this to my dear cousin too?”

“I do not, because she, unlike you, is not insufferable. Now, I believe you promised me a recitation of one of Hern’s poems.”

“Excuse you, I promised Gitta a recitation of one of Hern’s poems.” Eugenides then plucked the princess of Sounis from her father’s arms, who, for all his teasing of the other man, relinquished his daughter easily enough. “Now, my darling niece, shall we ask your father to leave the room so that I can give you a private recitation?”

The princess of Sounis lets out a happy gurgle that was more excitement at being held by a different person than an actual agreement, but Attolis seemed happy enough to take it as so.

“See, Sophos?” he said to the other man. “Your daughter agrees with me.”

At that, Sounis laughed again. “Very well, then. I shall leave the room for you and Gitta. But the moment I exit that door without the princess of Sounis in my arms, her retinue will come hounding down.”

“You would not.”

“I would.”

Eugenides looked at the other king with horror in his eyes, because that was a threat, and the other man knew perfectly well that that is so. He shook his head, and said, “Bested in my own game by Useless the Younger! I never thought this day would come!”

Sounis gave him a mock bow from where he’s seated, and said, “A recitation, if you please, my king?”

“Oh, very well. Gitta will just have to share.” He adjusted the girl in his arm, deftly positioning her away from his hook, which, if no longer as sharp as a knife, was still dangerous enough for tiny wandering hands. Then, with two of his audiences enraptured, even though only one was truly listening, the King of Attolia began his recitation.

*

“I never want to see another amphora in my life!” the queen of Eddis exclaimed as she burst through the door on her library, interrupting her cousin’s recitation. She threw herself onto the nearest seat, continuing in her rant. “What does it matter if we take ten or eleven amphorae of that particular design down to Sounis! And why do they have to have me decide on it!”

Eugenides, recognizing his cousin’s mood, and fearing for the fate of the scrolls he was reading before he was interrupted by Sounis, stopped in his recitation and gently transferred his niece onto her mother’s waiting arms.

Still incensed, but a calmer now that she had her daughter in her arms, Eddis continued. “They asked me the same question for every piece of furniture or decoration! What do I care if I have one less vase to bring down to Sounis!”

It was then that the queen of Attolia, who had been following Eddis to the library, albeit at a more sedate pace, entered the room. She spoke for a moment with the increasingly large group of people outside the library, the amalgamation of the retinues of attendants and guards for the three monarchs, before closing the door on them.

“Oh, I remember doing that. My entourage was to bring thirty pitchers of wine, and I had to personally select every single one of them,” Attolia said as she walked across the room to take her own seat. She glanced at her husband, promising retribution later for the fact that there were only three retinues of attendants and guards outside the door, not four, before asking, “Children?” which was promptly answered by Eugenides with, “Teleus.”

She gave a sharp nod, and turned back to Eddis to shrug. “Just say that you trust their judgement and discretion in these matters. It’s what I do.”

“Makes you glad that it’s not your duty to move all these things, doesn’t it, Sophos?” Eugenides said.

Eddis adjusted her grip on her daughter, and then pointed one finger towards her cousin. “You are not getting out of this that easily, Gen. There are piles of your stuff to be sorted out.”

“My stuff?” Eugenides asked.

“Your stuff! They found your stashes! All those bits and bobs and knick-knacks that you stole! I would have just given them back to their owners, but none of them will take it if it isn’t you giving the stuff back to them personally!”

“Ah,” Eugenides said. “That stuff.”

“I thought everything the Thief of Eddis stole has to be dedicated to their god?” Sounis asked.

“Not everything,” Eugenides answered. “Besides, those were practice. It was hardly worth the effort to place them on my god’s altar.”

“Hardly worth the effort or not,” Eddis countered, “they are your things now, and you will deal with them, if I have to tie you down to the courtroom myself.”

“The captain of my guard might take issue with that,” Attolis pointed out.

“He won’t once I’ve explained why I’ve done it,” Eddis said darkly.

Eugenides looked to his wife for support, but she simply raised an eyebrow and said, “I believe that Teleus might make an exception for Eddis. And to see whether or not tying you down works.”

He gaped at his wife, who smiled serenely and adjusted her skirts. He looked at Sounis, and then Eddis, before turning back to his wife and shaking his head. “Oh, I see you’ve all discussed this without me.”

“Discuss what?” Attolia replied.

“Outsmarting me in my own game.”

Attolia’s smile changed. “Are you losing your touch, my king? Shall I call on Petrus to examine you?”

“Don’t forget Galen,” Eddis added from where she was now calmly seated, playing with her daughter.

“Yes,” Attolia nodded. “It would not do to slight Eddis’s royal physician, especially now that we’re in Eddis.”

The outraged look that Eugenides sent to his wife was broken by Sounis’s laughter, which was then joined by the two queens. Dejected, Eugenides pouted, before he walked over to where his wife was sitting and sat on the ground beside her feet, resting his head on her lap.

The laughter quieted down after a while, which was immediately taken advantage of by Eugenides to complain. “I am surrounded by treachery,” Eugenides said from his wife’s lap.

“Poor king,” Sounis teased, which caused the laughter to begin again, even louder this time.

Once all of them had calmed down enough, Eddis turned to her husband and said, “As enjoyable as insulting Gen is, it does remind me. Has the Magus sent his list?”

“He mentioned working on it in his last letter, but as for the actual list itself, no, not yet,” Sounis answered.

“Ah,” Eddis made a face. “I was hoping to get started on that. Transporting all these books down to the lowlands is going to be hard enough, we do not need the additional difficulty in trying to do it in one go.”

Sounis shrugged, and said, “It might still come in his next letter, which should reach us either late today or tomorrow. Besides, there’s no reason why we need to—”

“You’re moving my library to Sounis?” Eugenides jumped up.

Eddis and Sounis stopped in their planning to look at him, before Eddis said, “Well, of course, Gen. We’re moving everything. Or would you prefer to leave them here to be destroyed?”

“Of course not!” Eugenides said. “But to Sounis? Really, Helen?”

Eddis blinked at him once, before bursting into laughter once again. “Did you expect them to come with you to Attolia?” she said between bouts of laughter.

“Well, not exactly,” Eugenides sputtered, “but Sounis?”

“What grievances do you have with my library, Gen?” the aforementioned Sounis said.

Eugenides turned to his friend and said, “There’s no way I’m trusting the contents of my library to Useless the Younger!”

Sounis would have protested, but he wasn’t given a chance.  Instead, his wife said, “My library.”

“Did you not swear your loyalty to me?” Eugenides asked his cousin.

“My loyalty, yes,” Eddis nodded. “But not the contents of my library.”

The two of them stared at each other for a moment, before Eugenides looked at his wife for support. However, if he was expecting reinforcement from that direction, he was sorely mistaken. “She is right,” Attolia said, looking directly at her husband’s eyes. “I made the vows myself.”

“Sophos,” Eugenides quickly pivoted his attention to the younger man, realizing that his wife would give him not an ounce of support in this matter. “Tell Helen that this is my library.”

Sounis was, in his heart, a kind man, but since he was so recently insulted by his friend, he felt no particular need to be kind just now. He took his time in settling in his seat, enjoying the pleading looks that Eugenides was giving him, before finally saying, “I remember feeling so jealous of your library when I first saw it.” He leaned forward, smirking as he met Eugenides’s eyes. “I look forward to adding them to my own collection. Especially now that I know Hern’s book of poems is in here somewhere.”

The only thing that can be heard afterwards was one indignant shout and three ringing peals of laughter.