The Tyrant's Law (Dagger and the Coin)

The sound of guitars and the smell of torch smoke wafted in through the open window, but more softly. She undid her dress stays, changed into the sleeping gown, but she didn’t take to bed. Not yet. The alcohol in her blood was fading, and with it the chance of sleep. She sat, looking into the candleflame. When the scratch came at her door, she realized she’d been waiting for it.
    Isadau looked lovely. The silver of her dress set off the darkness of her scales. Her smile carried a gentleness that Cithrin had come to expect.
    “Good evening,” she said.
    “Magistra,” Cithrin replied. “I saw Yardem talking to you. I assume you’ve come to make the case that I should leave.”
    “Less case and more plan,” Isadau said, sitting where Yardem had sat. “I’m not going to ask you to leave.”
    “You’re going to tell me to?”
    Isadau’s eyes went merry. “Do you think that would work? All I’ve seen of you suggests otherwise.”
    “I don’t have a brilliant record for following the dictates of authority,” Cithrin said, laughing despite herself.
    “Well, then. You came to me to learn how to build up a bank, and I’m not certain how much longer I will be doing that work.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “I’ve protected Komme’s interests as best I can. I have funneled what capital I could out of harm’s way. And as we move forward, I will follow the contracts and honor the deposits that I can. But this is not the holding company. This is my bank, and the power of money is not only that it makes more money.”
    “I wouldn’t tell that to the holding company,” Cithrin said, but the joke fell flat.
    “Money is the physical form of power. And the time is coming for that power to be expended,” Isadau said. “Coins are only objects until they’re used. Then they become something else. Food for the hungry. Passage for the desperate. It’s the magic that we do. We take a bit of metal and use it to remake the world in the shape we want.”
    “To stop a war?”
    “To avoid its worst excesses, yes,” Isadau said. “I have spent my life tending this bank. Building it up like a fortune. And now the time is coming for me to spend it. No one thinks that Antea will stop with Sarakal. Kiaria may stand, but Suddapal will fall. And I will bankrupt this branch saving as many people as I can from it. I will bribe whoever I can. I will suborn and corrupt and trade. I will take risks that have no rationale in the world of finance. Moral risks. They won’t save my city, but they will preserve some part of it. In the end, I doubt the branch will survive.”
    “Or you.”
    “In the end, I doubt I will survive,” Isadau said. “I won’t be a good teacher for you anymore. It will be time for you to go.”
    Cithrin rose from her seat, looked out the window. The flaring torches were hardly brighter than the star-strewn sky.
    “I thought you were saving my heart,” she said. “The part that hadn’t died yet, but was in danger. Isn’t that what Komme said?”
    Isadau hesitated. Cithrin turned to look at her.
    “It is.”
    “You’re choosing to use your power for something besides profit,” Cithrin said. “I understand that there are things of value that aren’t priced. Or … no. I know that, but I don’t understand it. This project you’re taking on is what Komme sent me here to learn.”
    “And so you won’t leave. Even if your life is in threat.”
    “I’m not bent on dying. I’d prefer not to. But I won’t leave you here,” Cithrin said. And then, “It’s your own fault, you know. You gave me a plant.”
    Isadau’s laughter was delight and despair mixed. She rose, taking Cithrin’s hands, and for a moment they embraced. The older woman smelled of cinnamon and smoke. Cithrin rested her cheek on Isadau’s shoulder. She could feel the woman weeping.
    “I will tell Yardem I failed,” Isadau said. “Once he hears why, I think he’ll be pleased that I did.”
    “It won’t make his work easier.”
    “He’s flexible enough, I think. You are doing something dangerous and unnecessary and wild. I don’t know whether to thank you or dress you down.”
    “Neither one will alter my position on it,” Cithrin said.
    “I believe you.”
    After Isadau left, Cithrin felt the first tendrils of sleep. It was as if she’d been waiting to say those words, and now that she had, her day could end. She curled under the blanket, one arm raised up as a pillow, and let her mind drift. Coins