I'll be your minister--" "Of the exchequer? You'd rob me blind." "I would never steal from you," he'd said hotly. "Oh? Where is my tourmaline necklac… - Megan Whalen Turner

He lies to you?" Attolia asked.
"Constantly," said Eddis. "He lies to himself. If Eugenides talked in his sleep, he'd lie then, too."
Attolia looked stunned. "And you can't tell?"
Eddis thought for a moment. "I sometimes believe his lies are truth, but I have never mistaken his truth for a lie. If he needs me to believe him, he has his own way of showing his veracity.

The queen laughed, and I flushed in the privacy of my bedroom. I do hate horses. That was the first sign that I wasn't going to be the soldier my father hoped for.

"Eugenides," he said. He had recognized the voice.
"Yes."
"What have you done?"
"Not much yet," answered the Thief from the darkness. "I remain fairly limited in my physical activities." He held up his right arm, and the magus started before realizing that the hand he saw had to be a wooden one, concealed by a glove.
Another booming explosion filled the air, and the magus turned back to the window but could see only a glare reflecting on the whitewashed walls of the buildings below.
"I had to send someone else to light the fuses," Eugenides said behind him.
"Fuses?" asked the magus, with a sick feeling.
"In the powder magazines of your warships," Eugenides explained.
"Powder magazines?"
"You sound like the chorus in a play," said Eugenides.
"And the play is a tragedy, I suppose?"
"A farce," Eugenides suggested, and the magus winced.