Tyron stamped up to the table and glared at him. “This is an outrage!”
Markus lifted a hand. Emily felt a spell forming, a moment before it drained back into nothingness. “No,” he said. His voice was so calm that Emily knew he was faking it. “What is an outrage is your father building a financial scheme that will wipe out the savings of countless people who trusted him. Now, you can leave here peacefully or I’ll turn you both into frogs and dump you in the nearest pond.”
Vespers rose and stalked out of the room. Tyron gave Markus a nasty look, shot a nastier one at Emily, then followed his lawyer. Emily resisted the urge to hex him in the back as he left – barely. Beside her, Caleb was bristling. She took his hand and squeezed it lightly.
“He’ll go straight to the council,” Markus predicted. He sounded oddly amused. “But they’ll probably do their best to ignore him.”
“Good.” Caleb looked at Emily. “How long do we have?”
Emily glanced at her watch. “Fifteen hours,” she said. “That’s when the notes fall due.”
Chapter Twenty
DESPITE CALEB’S TENDER TOUCH – AND A painkilling potion she’d kept in her pouch – Emily’s headache had only grown worse by the end of the day. Vesperian’s account-keeping had been so poor that it was impossible to say with any certainty just what he owned, let alone what it was worth and who needed to be paid. Even Harman’s snide remarks had drained away as he and his staff struggled to figure out the truth. There was no hope of a quick resolution.
“We could sell everything we know he owns,” she said to Caleb, “but it wouldn’t raise enough money to buy back the notes.”
“And the richest and most powerful investors would want their money back first,” Caleb pointed out. “Everyone else would be screwed.”
Emily winced. Caleb was right. The ordinary investors would be lucky if they got anything back. She doubted selling the steam engines and railway lines would bring in much money, not when it would take years for them to repay the investment. The guildmasters might reclaim their money, but everyone else…? She closed her eyes in pain. Everyone who had trusted Vesperian with their life savings was about to lose everything.
She peered out of the window over the city, wondering what would happen when the notes finally came due. There were already rumors…what would happen when those rumors were confirmed? The crowd outside the office had grown, despite the best efforts of the guardsmen. They hadn’t been able to convince the crowd to disperse, even as night began to fall. Emily didn’t blame them for not pushing harder. The guardsmen were outnumbered fifty to one. And besides, some of them probably had relatives in the crowd.
“Lady Emily,” Harriman said. Emily turned as the clerk entered the small office. The grey man didn’t look very tired, even though he’d put in more work than any of the accountants and bankers. “We are not going to find a quick answer.”
Emily nodded. Vesperian seemed to have almost no money. There were no secret bank accounts, no caches of pre-banking coins…everything he’d collected, it seemed, had been invested into the railway or used to pay his older debts. It certainly didn’t look as though Vesperian had intended to flee the city, taking everything he could carry with him. But there hadn’t been much he could carry.
“It looks that way,” she agreed.
“So far, his total debts appear to be upwards of seventy thousand crowns,” Harriman continued. “His total assets, assuming they were sold at purchase price, come to ten thousand crowns at most.”
“And they won’t be sold at purchase price,” Emily finished. Vesperian had driven prices up, simply by buying everything he could get his hands on. The price of iron had quintupled over the last two months alone. “We’ll be lucky if we get back a tenth of what he paid for them.”
“I’m afraid so.” Harriman looked downhearted, just for a moment. “I will have to present this to the council, tomorrow. It will not go down well.”
“No,” Emily agreed. She shook her head, tiredly. “I have no solution.”
“Nor do I.” Harriman nodded towards the window. “Everyone who can leave the city is going now.”
“I know,” Emily said.
She yawned, wishing – more than anything – that she could lie down in Caleb’s arms and sleep. The headache, never far from her mind, kept pounding away inside her skull. Her entire body felt drained…
“I’m going to have the building sealed for the night,” Harriman said. “The most important documents will be transferred to a bank vault for safekeeping. There are already suggestions on the street that Vesperian kept his money here…”
He sighed. “I suggest you get some rest. You may be called upon to testify tomorrow.”
Emily was too tired to argue. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She glanced at Caleb. “Shall we go?”
“Please,” Caleb said. “We both need to rest.”
The roar of the mob grew louder as they – and the rest of the staff – emerged from the building. Emily felt the primal waves of rage and helplessness washing through the crowd, driving them into a frenzy. Someone had passed out bottles of beer and wine, perhaps in the hope that the crowd would drink itself into a stupor. Or perhaps, the cynical side of her mind added, they wanted a riot. The guardsmen kept their hands near their weapons, exchanging nervous glances as the mob roared its anger. Emily couldn’t help noticing that there seemed to be fewer guardsmen on the streets. She wondered, as she readied her magic, how many of the guardsmen had gone home to protect their families.