“Harmony?”
“No. She said I had to kill the governor. Had to attack him. I tried not to listen.…”
Waxillium narrowed his eyes. “You met her? What did she look like? What face was she wearing?”
“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.”