Neither the king's reward nor Pol could stop me, but I wanted to be a kingmaker myself. I wanted to be the first one to steal Hamiathes's Gift in hun… - Megan Whalen Turner

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.

If a man who claims to see the future is a fool,
how much more so, the man who believes he can control it?
We think we steer the ship of fate,
but all of us are guided by unseen stars.

"I can steal anything."
"So you claimed. It was a wager to that effect that landed you in prison." He picked a pen nib off the desk behind him and turned it in his hands for a moment. "It is too bad for you that intelligence does not always attend gifts such as yours, and fortunate for me that it is not your intelligence I am interested in, but your skill. If you are as good as you say you are."
I repeated myself. "I can steal anything."
"Except yourself out of the king's prison?" the magus asked, lifting one eyebrow this time.
I shrugged. I could do that, too, but it would take time.