“You can’t save him,” Rian whispered. “She’s going to kill him. She promised me freedom, but here I am, bound. Oh, Ruin.” He took a deep breath. “There is something for you. In my arm.”
“In your…” Waxillium actually seemed disturbed. Marasi took an unconscious step forward, noticing for the first time a small bulge in the prisoner’s forearm.
Before she could quote the legal problems with doing so, Waxillium stood up and took that arm, making a quick slice in the skin. He pulled something out, bloody. A coin? Marasi stepped forward again as the prisoner reached to his head with his bleeding arm and started humming to himself.
Waxillium wiped off the coin with his handkerchief. He inspected it, then turned it over. Then he grew very still, paling. He stood up suddenly. “Where did you get this?” he demanded.
Rian only continued humming.
“Where?” Waxillium demanded, grabbing the man by the front of the shirt.
“Waxillium,” Marasi said, running up, hand on his arm. “Stop.”
He looked to her, then dropped Rian.
“What is that coin?” Marasi asked.
“A message,” Waxillium said, shoving the coin in his pocket. “This man won’t know anything of use. Bleeder knew we might capture him. Do you have plans for tonight?”
She frowned. “What … why are you asking?”
“Governor’s attending a party. Steris says he won’t cancel despite what has happened, and this is the sort of thing she’s always right about. He’ll want to put up a strong front, and won’t want his political enemies to think he has anything to either hide or fear. We need to be at that party. Because I guarantee Bleeder will be.”
8
Young Waxillium, age twelve, looked from one coin to the other. Both bore a picture of the Lord Mistborn on the front, standing with his left arm outspread toward the Elendel Basin. On the back, each displayed a picture of the First Central Bank, in which his family owned a large stake.
“Well?” Edwarn asked. He had a stern face and perfect hair. He wore his suit like he’d been born in it—and to him it was a uniform of war.
“I…” The youthful Waxillium looked from one to the other.
“It is understandable you can’t spot the difference,” Edwarn said. “It takes an expert, which is why so few of these have been discovered. More may actually be in circulation; we can’t know how many. One of those is an ordinary coin; the other has a very special defect.”
The carriage continued rattling through the streets as Waxillium studied the coins. Then he unfocused his eyes. It was a trick he’d been taught by a friend at a party recently, used for making two drawings spring to life by overlapping them.
Eyes unfocused, coins before him, he crossed his eyes intentionally and let the images of the two coins overlap one another. When they locked into place, the element of the picture that wasn’t the same—one of the pillars on the bank building—fuzzed as his eyes were unable to focus on that point.
“The mistake happened,” Uncle Edwarn continued, “because a defective coin striker was used. One worker at the mint brought home a pocketful of these curiosities, which were never supposed to enter circulation. You won’t be able to see it, but the error—”
“It’s the pillars,” Waxillium said. “On the right side of the bank picture. They are spaced too closely.”
“Yes. How did you know that? Who told you?”
“I saw it,” Waxillium said, handing the coins back.
“Nonsense,” Uncle Edwarn said. “Your lie is not a believable one, but I can respect your attempt at hiding your source.” He held up one of the coins. “This is the most valuable defective coin in Elendel history. It’s worth as much as a small house. Studying it taught me something important.”
“That rich people are foolish? They’ll pay more money for a coin than it’s worth?”
“All people are foolish, just in different ways,” Uncle Edwarn said offhandedly. “That lesson I learned elsewhere. No, this coin showed me a harsh but invaluable truth. Money is meaningless.”
Waxillium perked up. “What?”
“Only expectation has value as currency, Waxillium,” Uncle Edwarn said. “This coin is worth more than the others because people think it is. They expect it to be. The most important things in the world are worth only what people will pay for them. If you can raise someone’s expectation … if you can make them need something … that is the source of wealth. Owning things of value is secondary to creating things of value where none once existed.”
The carriage stopped. Outside, an intimidating flight of stone steps led up to the very bank pictured on the coin. Uncle Edwarn waited for the coachman to open his door, but Waxillium hopped down on his own.
Uncle Edwarn met him on the steps. “Your father,” Uncle said, “is hopeless with economics. I have worked on him for years, but he cannot—or will not—learn. I have great expectations of you, Waxillium. Banking is not your only option for serving your house. However, after today I suspect you will recognize it as the best one.”
“I’m not going to be a banker,” Waxillium said, climbing the steps.
“Oh? You have your eye on administering the teamsters after all?”
“No,” Waxillium said. “I’m going to be a hero.”
His uncle chose not to reply immediately as they approached the top of the steps. Finally, he said softly, “You are twelve years old, and you still speak of this? I expect such foolishness from your sister, but your father should have beaten it out of you by now.”
Waxillium turned defiant eyes up at his uncle.
“The day of heroes has passed,” Uncle Edwarn said. “The stories of people breaking out of history belong to another world. We have reached an era of modernism, both louder and more silent at the same time. You watch. Where once kings and warriors shaped the world, now quiet men in offices will do the same—and do it far, far more effectively.”
They entered the bank lobby, which had a low ceiling and a wall of cagelike bars with hunched-over people inside who received or disbursed cash from or to those who waited in lines. Waxillium’s uncle led him around to the back. The dark wood furnishings and mold-colored rug made it feel like dusk in the room, even with windows open and gas lamps burning.
“There are two appointments today I wanted you to observe,” Uncle Edwarn said as they entered a long, unadorned room. The chairs faced the wall; this was a viewing room, a place to spy upon meetings in the bank. His uncle gestured for him to sit, then pulled aside a panel in the wall, revealing a glass slit that let them see the two people in the next room. One was a male banker in a vest and slacks. He sat at an imposing desk, speaking with a middle-aged man in dusty clothing, holding a felt cap in his fingers.
“The loan will help us move up,” the dirty man said. “Get a place out of the slums. I have three sons. We’ll work hard, I promise you we will.”
The banker looked down his nose at the man, then riffled through papers. Uncle Edwarn closed the slit, surprising Waxillium with the abrupt motion. His uncle rose and Waxillium followed, moving to another set of chairs along the same wall. A second spy slit let them look in on another room similar to the first. A female banker in vest and skirt sat behind a similarly intimidating desk. The patron, however, was tall, clean, and relaxed.
“Are you certain you need another boat, Lord Nikolin?” the banker asked.