Goarreit’s eyes dart between Kenric and me. He is sweating again. “I… I do not know what you mean. The Treasury handles all official business.”

  “Yes,” I agree. “But the Treasury seems to leak. A leak that drains exactly five percent of every transaction.”

  I pull the copy of Gerhardt’s report from my sleeve and drop it onto his desk. It lands with a soft slap that sounds louder than a gunshot in the quiet room.

  “Page three,” I suggest. “The consulting fees paid to a firm in Vupis.”

  Goarreit looks at the paper. His face goes the color of old porridge. “That… that is standard procedure. Foreign advisors…”

  “The firm is registered to a ‘G. Nidjam,” I interrupt. “You were not very creative, Goarreit. Did you think no one would check? Or did you think Duke Basten protected you so well that you didn’t need to hide?”

  At the mention of Basten, Goarreit flinches. “The Duke… he handles the contracts. I just sign them.”

  “You sign them,” I hiss, leaning closer. “And you take your cut. You steal from the King to line your own pockets, and then you send the gold to Vupis.”

  I let the word hang there. Vupis. Centis’s biggest enemy.

  “Do you know what the penalty is for theft, Goarreit?” I ask. “It is usually a fine. Or imprisonment.”

  I lean in until we are nose-to-nose. I can smell the fear on him; it reeks of sour wine.

  “But sending Royal Gold to a hostile foreign power?” I whisper. “To a theocracy that has threatened our borders? That is not theft, Goarreit. That is treason.”

  Goarreit collapses into his chair. “I… I had no choice! Basten… he said it was the only way to hide the money! The banks in Vupis don’t ask questions!”

  “So you do admit it,” Kenric says from the door, his voice hard.

  “I admit nothing!” Goarreit shrieks, his eyes wild. “You have no proof! Just numbers on a page! I’m the exchequer! The King trusts me!”

  “The King eats off chipped china and bent silverware because of you,” I snap. “The King sleeps in a drafty room because you stole the maintenance funds. His army is in a shambles because you looted their budget. Do you think he will trust you when I show him this?”

  I tap the report.

  “He will accuse you of treason,” Kenric says. “Drawn and quartered, likely. Unless…”

  Goarreit looks up, hope warring with terror. “Unless?”

  “Unless you become useful,” I say. “I don’t care about your five percent, Goarreit. You are a small fish. I want the shark.”

  “Basten,” he breathes.

  “I want a full confession,” I demand. “I want you to write down exactly how Duke Basten engineered the textile fraud. I want the dates, the amounts, and the names of the mills. I want you to testify that he forced you to inflate the King’s gambling debts.”

  “He will kill me,” Goarreit whispers.

  “He is in a dungeon,” I remind him. “And I am standing right here. And behind me is Inaba of Nintoku.”

  Inaba steps forward. He does not draw his weapon. He tilts his head, his blind eyes fixing on Goarreit with unnerving precision. He taps the hilt of his sword once. Click.

  “You have two choices,” I say, straightening up. “Choice one: I take this report to Oskar right now. He executes you for treason by sunset.”

  “Choice two,” I continue. “You sign a confession implicating Basten. You resign as Exchequer due to ‘ill health.’ You return the money in the Vupis accounts to the Treasury. And in exchange… I let you live. You can retire to a small cottage in the country. Poor, but breathing.”

  Goarreit looks at the report. He looks at Inaba. He looks at Kenric, who is watching him with cold disgust. He swallows hard.

  “I need a quill,” he croaks.

  I smile. “I thought you might.”

  I reach into my bag and produce a fresh quill and a pot of ink. “Start writing, Goarreit. And do not leave anything out. I am very good at spotting omissions.”

  As the Exchequer begins to scribble frantically, his hand shaking so hard the ink splatters, I look at Kenric. He gives me a grim nod. We have the confession. We have the proof. Now, we just need to present it to the King before he realizes I just blackmailed his entire financial cabinet. Oskar won’t listen to me, not at the moment, but he will listen to Duke Jellema.

  We march the Exchequer through the corridors of the palace like a prisoner of war, though we lack the chains. Inaba walks a half-step behind Goarreit, a silent, armored reminder of the consequences of flight. Kenric walks beside me, his hand resting on his sword hilt, his face a mask of grim satisfaction.

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  We arrive at Duke Jellema’s apartments. His guards, recognizing the sheer force of our procession and perhaps the terrified look on the Exchequer’s face, do not ask for an appointment. They knock once and open the door.

  Hedde Jellema is sitting by the fire, reading a dispatch from Varpua. He looks up as we enter, his eyebrows climbing toward his hairline as he takes in the scene: the weeping Exchequer, the stoic Nintoku guards, and me, holding a sheaf of parchment like a weapon.

  “Princess?” Jellema stands. “To what do I owe this… invasion?”

  “I brought you a gift, Your Grace,” I say, shoving Goarreit into a chair. “And a solution to the mystery of the vanishing treasury.”

  I slap the confession onto the table in front of Jellema. Next to it, I place Gerhardt’s report.

  “Read,” I command.

  Jellema picks up the papers. He scans Gerhardt’s neat columns first, his frown deepening with every line. Then he picks up Goarreit’s confession. His eyes widen. His face drains of color.

  “Vupis?” he breathes, looking up at Goarreit. “You sent Royal gold to Vupis?”

  Goarreit shrinks into the chair. “It was the only way to hide it! Duke Basten said—”

  “Duke Basten is a traitor,” Jellema snarls, slamming the paper down. “And so are you.”

  He turns to me, his gaze sharp and assessing. “You extracted this? Tonight?”

  “I am very persuasive,” I say calmly. “And I had help. The numbers do not lie, Hedde. Basten has been bleeding the kingdom dry for years. He stole the wool from the soldiers' backs. He stole the mortar from the palace walls. And he used you, and the King, to cover his tracks.”

  Jellema paces the room, his mind working furiously. “This changes everything. Oskar suspected incompetence. He suspected bad luck. He never suspected organized theft on this scale.”

  “And that is why we must go to him now,” I say. “While his anger is fresh. While he is still smarting from the humiliation of the cloaks.”

  “You want to show him this?” Jellema asks. “He will hang Goarreit. He might hang Nelis, too.”

  “Nelis is protected,” I remind him. “We have his earlier statement claiming duress. This confession confirms it. Goarreit admits Basten forced the arrangement. Nelis becomes a victim, not a villain. A stupid victim, yes, but a useful one.”

  “And Basten?”

  “Basten becomes the scapegoat for every failure of Oskar’s reign,” I say. “Why is the army weak? Basten. Why is the palace crumbling? Basten. Why is the King in debt? Basten.”

  I lean forward. “We offer Oskar a way out, Hedde. We give him a villain to blame, a treasury to reclaim, and a chance to look like a wise ruler who rooted out corruption. We save his pride.”

  Jellema looks at the shivering Exchequer. “And him?”

  “He resigns due to ‘ill health’ and retires to a very small cottage where he can be watched,” I say. “Unless he prefers the executioner’s block. I leave that choice to the King, though I suspect Goarreit will be very eager to testify against Basten in exchange for his life.”

  Jellema nods slowly. A smile, cold and predatory, touches his lips. “You play a hard game, Víl?.”

  “I play to win,” I reply. “Now, shall we go see the King? I believe he is currently hiding in the guest wing to avoid my streetlamps. He should be awake.”

  “Kenric,” Jellema says, looking at my husband. “You should be the one to carry the confession. It looks better if a Centis Lord presents the evidence of treason.”

  Kenric takes the papers. “With pleasure.”

  We gather our prisoner and march toward the guest wing. Oskar is indeed awake. He is sitting in a darkened room, a cold compress on his head, drinking wine. When his guards announce us, he groans.

  “What is it now?” he complains, not looking up. “Has she paved the garden? Has she bought the moon?”

  “Better, Your Majesty,” Duke Jellema says, stepping into the room. “She has found your money.”

  Oskar sits up. “My money?”

  Kenric steps forward. He places the confession on the table next to the wine. “We know why the treasury is empty, Your Majesty. It was not spent. It was stolen.”

  Oskar reads. He reads slowly, his lips moving. When he gets to the part about the wool, his hands start to shake. When he gets to the part about Vupis, he stops.

  He looks up. His eyes are not red from fatigue anymore. They are red with murder.

  “Bring me Duke Basten,” he whispers.

  “He is already in the dungeon, Your Majesty,” I remind him gently from the shadows.

  “Good,” Oskar says, standing up. He looks taller than he has in weeks. “Then bring me his head.”

  “Not yet, Your Majesty,” Jellema interjects smoothly. “First, we must seize his assets. The mills. The lands. The gold he hid in Vupis. We need him alive to sign the transfers.”

  Oskar looks at Jellema, then at Kenric, and finally at me. For the first time, there is no lust in his eyes. There is only a dawning, terrified respect.

  “You did this,” he says to me.

  “I merely balanced the books, Your Majesty,” I curtsey. “The Royal Fey Bank takes its audit responsibilities very seriously.”

  Oskar lets out a long, ragged breath. He looks at Goarreit, who is weeping silently in the corner.

  “Get him out of my sight,” Oskar commands. “Lock him up. And send the Royal Guard to the north. I want every mill Basten owns seized in the name of the Crown.”

  He turns back to me. “And Víl??”

  “Yes, Your Majesty?”

  “The streetlamps,” he says, his voice almost pleading. “Can we… dim them? Just a little?”

  I smile. “I will see what can be done, Your Majesty. Perhaps a shade?”

  “A shade,” Oskar agrees, sinking back into his chair. “A shade would be nice.”

  True to my word, I attend to the offending streetlamp first thing in the morning. I have a workman set up a tall ladder outside the King’s window. I climb it myself, ostensibly to "inspect the housing." In reality, I simply lay a hand on the glowing stone and whisper a dampening charm. The blinding white light softens to a warm, golden glow. It’s still bright enough to deter assassins, but dim enough to allow our local tyrant his beauty sleep. I descend the ladder to find Oskar watching me from his balcony. He looks rested for the first time in days.

  "Better?" I call up.

  "Much," Oskar admits, actually smiling. "You are a woman of your word, Princess. And now, I believe I shall borrow your husband."

  Kenric steps out of the palace doors, looking resplendent in a doublet of deep burgundy that I designed to hide the bulk of his concealed armor. He touches the tourmaline brooch on his chest, our communication link, and gives me a wink.

  "The King wishes to try his luck at the Silver Stag," Kenric says. "He feels… lucky today."

  "I am lucky," Oskar booms, coming down the stairs. "I have my treasury back, thanks to your wife. I have a new Exchequer who is terrified of his own shadow. And I have a thirst for dice."

  He claps Kenric on the shoulder. "Come, Lord Kenric. Let us see if you can hold onto your winnings as well as you hold onto your wife."

  I watch them leave, surrounded by a phalanx of Royal Guards. Kenric looks the part of the wealthy, carefree noble, but I know he is watching every shadow.

  "Good luck, boys," I murmur. "Try not to lose the kingdom before dessert."

  With the men gone, I turn to Melina. "The coast is clear. It is time for school."

  Have you ever dealt with a thief? Let me know in the comments...