Your Majesty," he asked innocently, "is it true that your cousins once held you down in a water cache?" Ornon, in the act of putting down his wine cu… - Megan Whalen Turner

The magus might have heard me thinking. "He does have other skills to be proud of," he said. For instance, I thought, stealing Hamiathes's Gift not once but twice. Who else in history had done that? But the magus referred to the fight with the Queen's Guard at the base of the mountain. That wasn't a skill I appreciated much. If I'd been as inept with a sword as I was in a saddle, my father might not have driven me so hard to be a soldier and to let the title of King's Thief lapse forever. It had been meaningless for so many generations, and he'd felt strongly that it should disappear for good.

For a moment Costis could see, not so much what was hidden but that there were things hidden that the king did not choose to reveal. Things that were not for Costis to see. There was no understanding him, but Costis knew he would march into hell for this fathomless king, as he would for his queen. So long, he worried, as they didn't order him in opposite directions at the same time. What he would do when that happened, Costis couldn't guess.

How could you come once a week to talk about the weather and not mention a war?"
Eddis sighed. "Will you sit down and stop shouting?"
"I'll stop shouting. I won't sit down. I might need to throw more inkpots.