The Thief (1996) by Megan Whalen Turner is the first installment in the young adult fantasy Queen’s Thief Series, followed by The Queen of Attolia (2000). The book follows a band of travelers, including a thief, the king’s advisor, and their protector, as they work to retrieve an ancient artifact of the gods. The Thief was a Newbery Honor Book and a runner-up for the Newbery Medal in 2007. A New York Times best-selling and award-winning American author, Turner has received the LA Times Book Award for Young Adult Literature and the Boston Globe Horn Book Honor. She received a bachelor’s degree in English language and literature from the University of Chicago. Before becoming an author, she worked as a children’s literature book buyer, and she also taught middle school literature.

This guide follows the 2009 HarperCollins Adobe Digital Edition of The Thief.

Plot Summary

The Thief follows and is narrated by Gen, a thief who is imprisoned in the kingdom of Sounis after bragging about stealing the king’s seal. Following months in captivity, the king’s magus offers Gen a deal: If Gen helps steal Hamiathes’s Gift (a stone gifted to the ancient King Hamiathes by the gods and rumored to grant immortality) for the king, Gen will be set free. Gen agrees, and along with the magus, two of his apprentices, and a soldier guard, the traveling party sets out to find the stone.

Unbeknownst to his traveling companions, Gen is truly from the country of Eddis and seeks the stone to ensure his cousin ascends as the country’s next queen. Gen’s entire imprisonment in Sounis has been a ruse to get the magus’s attention so Gen can steal Hamiathes’s Gift for Eddis. Gen keeps this a secret until the book’s final chapter, hiding the truth behind an ill temper and obnoxious personality that is only partially an act. Gen has little respect or love for Sounis because he feels the country has taken the Eddisian myths and twisted them for their own use. The magus and his apprentices only reinforce this idea, which causes tension between them and Gen.

However, as the journey progresses and the group share their versions of the gods’ tales, Gen finds that the magus and one of his apprentices are not as closed-minded as they first appeared. The other apprentice, however, continues to treat Gen poorly, acting as if he is better than the rest of the party. After a night of sharing stories, during which Gen and the magus seem to grow close, dawn brings missing rations, for which the magus blames and whips Gen. Gen is infuriated but stays with the group, knowing he must get Hamiathes’s Gift.

After long, hard days of travel, the group arrives at a river where a dam closes off a waterfall at midnight. Hamiathes’s Gift is in a maze beneath the waterfall, and Gen will have from sundown to sunup for three nights to find it. Each day, the water will flood the maze, and if Gen does not find it by the third night, their chance will be lost. In the first two nights, Gen finds nothing, and he spends most of the third night feeling hopeless until he notices a set of stairs hidden inside a block of translucent rock. Breaking through, he climbs to a chamber where the gods present him with the stone. Gen is trapped by the water as he tries to escape the maze, but he somehow finds himself outside the next morning.

With the stone in hand, the group begins the return journey to Sounis, only to be attacked by soldiers from the kingdom of Attolia, where the maze is located. The stone is lost in the fight, and the group rushes to the border of Eddis, where more soldiers lie in wait. The arrogant apprentice sold the group out to Attolia’s queen in exchange for riches and status, and Gen, the magus, and the other apprentice are taken prisoner.

Under cover of darkness, Gen breaks the three out of the Attolian prison and leads the magus and apprentice along a narrow, twisting path to the Eddisian border. There, Gen tells all his secrets and reveals he took the stone when the soldiers attacked. Gen’s cousin becomes queen, and the apprentice is revealed to be the heir to Sounis’s throne, which secures a future alliance. Gen and the magus part on amiable terms, and Gen relaxes in luxury, proud that he could steal the stone and help shape the world.