Eddis Quotes & Sayings

Eddis looked at her minister, curious. "Your head?" she asked.
Attolia explained. "He had to be forcibly dissuaded from strangling his son."
"So have we all from time to time," Eddis said seriously. — Megan Whalen Turner

Just asleep, Eddis reassured her.
At the sound of her voice Eugenides's head turned slightly, but he didn't wake. Attolia, seeing the movement, breathed again and pressed her hand to her chest where it hurt. — Megan Whalen Turner

I didn't think about being king," he said, his voice hoarse.
Eddis stared. "Your capacity to land yourself in a mess because you didn't think first, Eugenides, will never cease to amaze me. What do you mean you didn't think about being king? Is Attolia going to marry you and move into my library? — Megan Whalen Turner

Eddis looked around as if recalling a question that had nagged at her for several hours. "Where's Eugenides?" she asked.
For a moment the Attolian queen was immobile, her smile gone as if it had never been. The horse under her threw up its head as if the bit had twitched against its delicate mouth.
"Locked in a room," Attolia said flatly. "In Ephrata."
The smile faded from Eddis' face.
"I ordered the other prisoners released," Attolia explained. "I forgot that I had him locked up separately. I doubt my sensechal will have released him without my specific instruction to do so."
"You forgot?" Eddis asked.
"I forgot," Attolia said firmly, daring Eddis to contradict her.
"You will marry him?" Eddis asked, hesitant again.
"I said I would," snapped Attolia, and turned her horse away. Eddis followed. When they joined their officers, Attolia gave brisk orders and then rode on, heading back toward Ephrata without waiting for Eddis. — Megan Whalen Turner

As a ten-year-old boy, the Thief of Eddis could stop a grown man in his tracks with a single look. Where had that look gone? — Megan Whalen Turner

You didn't know I could do that, did you?" he asked, conversationally.
"I did not, Your Majesty," Teleus gasped.
"My grandfather killed a man that way once, using the edge of the wooden sword."
"I hadn't realized the Thieves of Eddis were so warlike."
"They aren't, mostly. But like all men, Teleus, I have two grandfathers." Teleus rolled his eyes to look up at him, and the king said, "One of mine was Eddis."
"Ah," said Teleus.
"Ah, indeed," said the king. — Megan Whalen Turner

The pain was as unexpected as a thunderclap in a clear sky. Eddis's chest tightened, as something closed around her heart. A deep breath might have calmed her, but she couldn't draw one. She wondered if she was ill, and she even thought briefly that she might have been poisoned. She felt Attolia reach out and take her hand. To the court it was unexceptional, hardly noticed, but to Eddis it was an anchor, and she held on to it as if to a lifeline. Sounis was looking at her with concern. Her responding smile was artificial. — Megan Whalen Turner

Nahuseresh had attributed her reluctance to an entirely understandable female timidity. He didn't seem to understand that the people of Eddis had very little to do all winter beyond develop superior artisan skills and train for war. — Megan Whalen Turner

She's like a prisoner inside stone walls, and every day the walls get a little thicker, the doorways a little narrower."
"And?" Eddis prompted.
"Well," said Eugenides, "it's a challenge. — Megan Whalen Turner

She met the magus's stunned look with a smile. The Thieves of Eddis have always been uncomfortable allies to the throne, Magus. There is the niggling fear that if you fall out with a Thief, he might see it as his right and responsibility to remove you. There are some checks, of course. There is only ever one Thief. They are prohibited from owning any property. Their training inevitably generates the isolation that makes them independent, but also keeps them from forming alliances that might become threats to the throne. It is not the folly you might think. — Megan Whalen Turner

Ornon says, Ornon-who-always-has-something-to-say says, the Thieves of Eddis don't have breaking points. We have flash points instead, like gunpowder. That's what makes us dangerous. -Eugenides — Megan Whalen Turner

Perhaps you can bring out better in them?"
Eugenides shook his head. "I pulled the carpet out from under them very thoroughly. They will not cross me, but they won't love me, either. I am not Eddis. People do not hand me their hearts."
Sounis wondered. He would have given Eugenides his heart on a toothpick, if asked. He remembered Ion's obvious wince at being rated somewhat less significant to Gen than his boots. — Megan Whalen Turner

The window opened in the same direction as the king's, and there, summer-bright and framed by the darkness of the stairwell, was the same view. Costis passed it, and then went back up the stairs to look again. There were only the roofs of the lower part of the palace and the town and the city walls. Beyond those were the hills on the far side of the Tustis Valley and the faded blue sky above them. It wasn't what the king saw that was important, it was what he couldn't see when he sat at the window with his face turned toward Eddis. — Megan Whalen Turner

Irene-"
"Don't call me that."
"You were the princess Irene the first time we met."
"It means 'peace'," Attolia said. "What name could be more inappropriate?"
"That I be named Helen?" Eddis suggested.
The hard lines in Attolia's face eased, and she smiled. Eddis was a far cry from the woman whose beauty had started a war. — Megan Whalen Turner

Did you send Attolia to me at the farewell?" Eddis asked.
"Not I," said Gen quietly. "The magus. I thought you knew that you loved him - the two of you have been like magnets drawing ever nearer to each other since you met - but the magus was concerned. He thought the grief of leave-taking might surprise you."
"I feel very stupid." She leaned back into his embrace. "'I look forward to hearing of your adventures.'" She shook her head in disgust and sniffed. "I should have had something better to say, something ... more appropriate."
He couldn't disagree. Sounis had clearly hoped for some message of her affection to carry with him. "You could write him a letter," he said. "A fast horse will catch him before he reaches the pass. — Megan Whalen Turner

It might have been preferable," Eddis admitted, dryly, "if you had thrown off your chains of bondage solely for love of me. It would certainly have been more flattering." Standing so near to him, she was looking up into his face and watching it closely. "I am willing to accept, however, that we are real people, not characters in a play. We do not, all of us, need to be throwing inkwells. If we are compatible with one another, is that not sufficient?"
"Were I a king in more than just name, it would be all, all I dreamed of," said Sounis, and it was Eddis who blushed.
"You wish to wait, then, until you are confirmed as Sounis?"
"If ... "
"When," said Eddis, firmly.
"Yes," said Sounis, "then. — Megan Whalen Turner

-You know
Eddis hesitated, not sure how far to push the Attolian Queen.
-Go on. Attolia inclined her head.
-I was going to say that you look like a polecat when you smile like that.
-Do I? Attolia still smiled. -You look a little vulpine yourself.
The two queens sat for a moment in happy agreement. — Megan Whalen Turner

He reached for a tabletop and ran his hands over it, clutching the edge until his knuckles turned white.
He wanted to know that it was solid. Eddis knew that all the world would seem to him insubstantial, as if it might tear away and reveal something else infinitely larger and more terrifying. — Megan Whalen Turner

[Eugenides] looked from Eddis to the window, where the visible sky was already dark. He looked back, his gaze a little sharper, and said, "You forgot me."
Eddis shoved her hands into the pockets of her trousers..
"Don't lie," Eugenides said, pressing her. "You charged off in a haze of glory to chase the vile Mede from our shore, and you never gave me a thought until they were gone."
He twisted to address Attolia. "You forgot me, too," he accused.
Attolia answered cooly, "You were fed. — Megan Whalen Turner

We are taught to treat a practice sword with all the respect of a real weapon, so no thoughtless mistakes are made"
"Oh ... In Eddis, we learn to keep tack of the weapon we have in our hand. — Megan Whalen Turner

If I couldn't be Eddis, I would be Attolia. If they needed to see my uncle in me, then I would show him to them. And I would take Attolia's advice because if I identified my enemy and destroyed him, Sounis would be safe. — Megan Whalen Turner

The flat top of the hill was scattered with the bodies of dead men in the uniforms of Sounis and Eddis. The outposts of both armies had met here. As I stood staring, I thought, These are my dead. All of them. The battle hadn't been unanticipated or forced on me, as the raid in the villa had been. I had chosen it. These men, Eddisian and Sounisian alike, had died for my decisions.
When the magus stepped from the bushes toward the back part of the hill, I was more than horrified. I was perilously close to distraught.
...
When he pulled away and looked into my face, I knew that he would tell me that I was Sounis and that I needed to pull myself together.
"Your uncle," he said, "in all the years I saw him rule, never had a moment of self-doubt. Never a regret for a single life lost. Do you understand?"
I understood that I didn't want to be my uncle. — Megan Whalen Turner

We could make a treaty without a marriage."
"No," he said.
"You are sure?"
"Yes," he said. — Megan Whalen Turner

He could tell her he loved her. He ached to shout it out loud for the gods and everyone to hear. Little good it would do. Better to trust in the moon's promises than in the word of the Thief of Eddis. He was famous in three countries for his lies. — Megan Whalen Turner

You'll have to pardon me," the magus said. "But with your country at war I can't see how any of it really matters."
Standing up, Eugenides pulled the papers from the magus's hands. "It matters, because I can't do anything, anymore, for this country, and it matters," he yelled as he threw the papers back to his desk, "because I only have one hand and it isn't even the right one!" Turning, he picked an inkpot off the desk and threw it to shatter on the door of his wardrobe, spraying black ink across the pale wood and onto the wall. Black drops like rain stained the sheets of his bed.
...
Eddis sighed. "Will you sit down and stop shouting?" she asked.
"I'll stop shouting. I won't sit down. I might need to throw more inkpots. — Megan Whalen Turner

The Thieves of Eddis don't have breaking points. We have flash points instead, like gunpowder. — Megan Whalen Turner

The gossip will carry to Attolian spies, who will report to Relius, Attolia's master of spies, and he will carry the news to her."
"Her secretary of the archives," murmured the magus.
"Hmm?" asked the queen.
"Secretary of the archives, Relius. Master of spies is so-"
"Accurate?"
"Overtly direct," said the magus.
Eddis laughed. — Megan Whalen Turner

You have to believe him, because he's going to have your entire palace up in arms and your court in chaos and every member of it from the barons to the boot cleaners coming to you for his blood, and you are going to have to deal with it."
Attolia smiled. "You make him sound like more trouble than he is worth.
"No," said Eddis thoughtfully. "Never more than he is worth. — Megan Whalen Turner

There are a lot of things a person with two hands couldn't steal," Eddis said.
"So?"
"If it's impossible to steal them with two hands, it's no more impossible to steal them with one. Steal peace, Eugenides. Steal me some time. — Megan Whalen Turner

Eddis stared at him for a long time, knowing that forgiving someone because you have to is not forgiving him at all. — Megan Whalen Turner

So Sophos thinks you're going to marry me."
"While I think you'll marry Sophos."
"I might. We'll see what he's like when he grows up. — Megan Whalen Turner