“Go on, boy,” was all he said.

The king’s apartments were empty. The guards at his door guarded no one. Not a single attendant was there. I went to the queen’s apartments, where I found all of them in their waiting room, sitting in silence.

“Get out,” said Xikander when he noticed me, throwing a handful of something at my face. “Your hideous face has cursed our queen.”

If not for the kindness of the stable master, I would have backed away. No one else was going to defend me. They mistake being beautiful for being good. I turned to see what Xikander had thrown. Almonds. I crouched down to pick them up. When I had all of them, I stepped to where Xikander sat beside a little gold-and-green painted table with three fragile legs, its top crowded with cups and small plates. I opened my hand to let the nuts drop one by one into the bowl he had taken them from. Then I picked up his wine and threw it in his face.

As the son of the house, I’d been protected from any direct attack by the servants. Not so from the dear members of my extended family, who lived in and around the Villa Suterpe. I used my invisibility to my advantage, but my invisibility was not my only defense. I also bit—as Xikander discovered when he leapt up to strike me. Lamion grabbed his arm, impeding him just enough to let me catch Xikander’s hand and sink my teeth into the fleshy part of his palm.

Xikander shouted, smacking me with his free hand while Lamion hung on to him. Hilarion jumped up to pry the two of them apart, only to have Xikos come to his brother’s defense. The gold-and-green table went over with a crash, and Luria, the queen’s attendant, threw open the door to the waiting room to a scatter of broken dishes and a sudden, embarrassed silence.

I took my teeth out of Xikander’s hand. Everyone else stood up and straightened their clothes. White-faced, Luria pointed at me and at the ground next to her, as if summoning a dog. I went.

Directing all the force of her glare at the king’s attendants, she pulled the door closed.

“Hand,” she said, and took mine to tow me into the waiting room of the queen’s attendants. Caeta, Silla, and Chloe were there, pretending to embroider.

Luria cupped my cheek in her hand, looking at the damage Xikander had done, which was not much. He hadn’t been able to get a good blow in.

“Grown men,” said Luria, shaking her head in contempt. I thought of the wine splashing in Xikander’s face and was ashamed of myself.

She dampened a cloth and held it to my face. “You don’t belong in here,” she said. “Not now.” She thought for a little while, looking into the fire burning on the hearth as if the answer were there. “Do you even know what’s happening?” she asked. I shook my head. “The queen was going to have a baby. Now she has lost the baby, and she is very ill.” She looked again at the fire. “The king will not want any of them for company—that I am sure of. He won’t want you, either, but he should not be alone, and you at least will be quiet.”

She took me then through a hallway to a small room near the queen’s bedchamber. The king was there, in a chair by the fire, with his elbow on his knee and his head in his hand. He looked up briefly and shook his head. Luria fetched a footstool for me. Putting her hand to her lips, as if that were necessary, she sat me on the stool.

“You go to Chloe if he wants anything. You understand?”

I nodded and she went away.

The sun shone in the window without lighting the dark room. The paneled walls were painted black, with decorations leaved in gold. Wreaths of laurel surrounded pictures of manly virtue, reminding me that these were a king’s apartments once, before they were occupied by the queen.

Luria came back with a tray of food and wine. The king shook his head again, but she pressed a cup on him.

“The queen?” he asked.

“We don’t know,” said Luria. “Petrus is . . .” She looked down and blinked a few times, hunting for a reassuring word and not finding it. “Is doing his best.”

I stayed in that corner, listening with the king to the voices in the other room. We heard the queen cry out. The king would have gone to her, but Phresine was already at the door, waving him back. For all his power and the gods’ goodwill, he could no more help his queen than I could jump up and fly. Phresine came out carrying bloody cloths. She shook her head at the king and hurried past. She came back with clean towels, but her hands were still stained with blood. It was not the last trip she would make.

The king paced. I don’t think he was used to being helpless. Not the way I was.

When Imenia came in and the king looked hopeful, she said quickly, “It’s Teleus. He would speak with you.”

The king shook his head. “Not now,” he said. “Tell Teleus to . . . keep them safe.”

The sky grew dark as the sun set. Imenia came to light the lamps. She brought more wood for the fire and went away without a word. She returned with more food, but again the king wouldn’t eat. She gave me bread and cheese wrapped in a napkin and I gnawed at it, feeling guilty for being hungry.

Petrus came to the door and talked in a low voice to the king, and they went away together.

When the king came back, his face was wet with tears. Talking to me, because I was there and because the words forced themselves out, he said, “If the bleeding does not stop, she will die.”

Imenia came to the door. “Have the sacrifices been made?” the king asked her.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“All of them? New gods and old?”

“All.”

The king sat on a stool in front of the fire and bowed his head. “Ula, goddess of the hearth and healing, tell me what I can offer to save my wife,” he whispered.

Imenia had slipped away again, so it was just the king and I alone in front of the small fire as it hissed and popped. It was mostly coals, their red glow only bright enough to make everything around them seem that much darker.

“Genny . . .” It was no goddess in the fire answering the king’s prayer. It was the voice of a woman, one who doted on him, but he didn’t seem to hear. “Genny,” she called again, but he didn’t lift his head, and she was already disappearing. “Earrings!” she called as she faded away. “Ula is tired of grain and bread and cakes of corn!”

Finally he looked up, but by then she was gone. “Cakes of corn?” he asked me. “Did you hear ‘grain and bread and cakes of corn’?”

I shook my head and pinched my ear. Earrings.

“Earrings?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Are you certain?”

I had never been more certain of anything in my life.

“Get them,” the king told me. “Get the best, the finest ones, Pheris, and bring them here.”

I jumped to my feet and went rocketing through the apartments. Polemus came to the door of the king’s waiting room. “The queen?” he asked, but I was already past him, only slowing when I reached the guard room and found them blocking the door, unsure if I was a messenger or an escapee. Luria, coming behind me, must have signaled, because they let me pass.

The guards at the king’s apartments had no reason not to admit me, and I went straight to the bedchamber and the king’s writing desk, where a small plain box held his personal things. An emerald signet ring with a carving of a dolphin on its face, a few pins, and other jewelry. The royal jewels were elsewhere, but they didn’t matter. The box was locked and there was no time to worry over a key. I threw it on the ground and, perilously balanced, I smashed it with all the strength of my good leg. Then I dropped to my knees to root through the pieces. Shaking the earrings free of wooden splinters and clutching them in my fist, I struggled back to my feet to find all the king’s attendants standing between me and the door. I wiped my chin and waited to see what they would do.