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allies might still act in his name. Surely his prophet would be eager to stir sentiment against her.
    “He does, my queen, but his provocation doesn’t mean there’s no cause for concern. A low flood means—”
    “I know what a low flood means, Pieton.” Children starving in the streets, men fomenting their hunger into rebellion. She would have to visit the Upper Lands and bring grain and comfort to the dying. “But let us, for the moment, celebrate. On this day of all days…” For too long, she’d waited for this. She snapped her fingers at the serving girl waiting by the door. “Wine for the queen and her adviser, her chief adviser, her minister of coin.”
    She found herself aching for the eunuch’s smile, and he rewarded her. Even now, his moods pulled at hers, like the moon tugging at the tide. Throughout the long middling years of childhood, after her mother had been shunned and her father had forgotten her for Cleopatra, Pieton’s grins, his kind words, proved her only nourishment. To the rest of the world, she’d shrunk away, an ungainly girl of nine, then ten or thirteen, discarded by the king. To everyone but Pieton. He’d coaxed her mind to fruition, stoking her interests and her hurts. His unyielding confidence had fueled her hopes, had persuaded her that someday, somehow, she might be queen. And now she was.
    “To the double kingdom.” She raised her glass. When she met Pieton’s gaze, she saw no joy behind his smile. His mouth curled, but his eyes were dull slits in his girlish face. He twisted the goblet’s stem between his fingers. The satyrs piped round and round.
    “What else troubles you?” she asked quietly, doing her best to mask her disappointment. “Have you news of my father?”
    “As far as our spies can tell, his course is set for Rhodes. He seeks a particular favorite of ours: Cato.”
    Cato—that stinking thief. He had stolen Cyprus in his Roman greed, and now her father would kneel before that man, beg for Roman arms to defeat her claim. She shouldn’t be surprised: the kingdom had never mattered to the Piper. He’d been raised as a spare, she reminded herself, a bastard in far-off Syria, drinking in the favors of whatever king glanced his way. He’d viewed the throne as a gift, not an obligation. The loss of Cyprus still burned as salt in a wound, and her familiar fury sated the emptiness she’d felt. She couldn’t undo her father’s misdeeds in a day, but she had hoped he’d have pride enough not to seek aid from the very man who’d destroyed his legacy.
    “Tell me: who else knows of the Piper’s plans? Have your rats begun to spread the poison around the city?” This aspect of Pieton’s power had long impressed her, his way of consorting with all manner of men, of blending seamlessly into palace and alley alike.
    “Not yet, my queen. It’s better to leave his friends in the dark a little longer. They think him fled; they know not where. Let them wonder at his cowardice for a time.”
    “There’s much of it to wonder at.” Her skin bristled. Her father’s weakness baffled her. And how long she’d remained blind to it. She’d endured years of his scorn before she’d recognized the truth. It made no sense: her father had been born of Ptolemy the Savior’s seed, just as her mother had been. But she couldn’t imagine two dispositions more opposed. Did that same thinness run in her blood?
    “You’ll never be like him.” Sometimes, the eunuch seemed to read her thoughts with disturbing ease. “You’re cut from your mother’s cloth, not his.”
    “I’m not sure that’s a compliment.” She grinned.
    The wiry eunuch paused, assessing her. His teeth wore at his lower lip. “There’s one more matter, of a rather delicate nature. The question of your sister.”
    Her sister. She thought she’d accounted for the children. The eldest, Cleopatra, would be with the Piper, and the concubine would whisk away the rest; she always imagined that would be the