“Is that what the wine is for? To help you think?""Oh, the wine. The wine, Costis, is to help hide the truth. It doesn't work. It never has, but I try it every once in a while just in case something in the nature of the wine might have changed.”

“I am not sure I trust you.""You can trust me with your life, My King.""But not with my wine, obviously. Give it back.”

“Will there be poppy juice in it?"Phresine shook her head."Good. My wife and I agreed that only my wine was to be poisoned.”

“Your Majesty, you just-" Costis stopped."Just what?" the king prompted wickedly.Nothing would induce Costis to say out loud that the king had almost fallen from the palace wall and that Costis had seen him manifestly saved by the God of Thieves.The king smiled. "Cat got your tongue?""Your Majesty, you are drunk," Costis pleaded."I am. What's your excuse?”

“He should have said something, why hadn't he? Costis wondered. In fact, the king had. He had complained at every step all the way across the palace, and they'd ignored it. If he'd been stoic and denied the pain, the entire palace would have been in a panic already, Eddisian soldiers on the move. He'd meant to deceive them, and he'd succeeded. It made Costis wonder for the first time just how much the stoic man really wants to hide when he unsuccessfully pretends not to be in pain.”

“It made Costis wonder for the first time just how much the stoic man really wants to hide when he unsuccessfully pretends not to be in pain.”

“Oh, that," said the king with a shrug. "That isn't your honor, Costis. That's the public perception of your honor. It has nothing to do with anything important, except perhaps for manipulating fools who mistake honor for its bright, shiny trappings. You can always change the perceptions of fools.”