The halls in this part of the palace were almost devoid of activity. A security checkpoint manned by two Wraiths looked much the same to Lance’s eyes as the guarded entrance to the tunnel four floors removed that provided access to the Military Compound, but then the heightened security made sense given what lay here.

  A Wraith stepped forward and patted him down. Every contact between the elf’s wide hands and his body sent tremors through him. His heart fluttered in his chest, and thoughts for what they might find on him—what might be wrong with the way he presented himself, what he might have done in the preamble to this search—rippled through his mind. He had nothing but a small notepad in his pocket, which had been issued to him by Lady Tamalsen for this day’s stage, which he would return to her when he told her this department was not for him.

  The Wraith asked him to remove the contents of his pockets, and he set the notepad on a low table one side of the checkpoint. The other riffled through its pages while those wide hands assailed his body, beat a rhythm against his chest and flanks, slithered up the inside planes of his legs and arms, coming far too close to too many sensitive areas.

  He backed off, leaving Lance disabused of any notion he could have hidden something away if he had been so inclined. He had never intended to. He was, if nothing else, loyal to the crown. Was obedient in the execution of his duties. He would not have come to this reach at all if he wasn’t.

  The other returned his notepad to him, and they let him through.

  A peculiar feature of this network of halls, like the dungeons well below, there were no cedar doors. Instead, heavy, bronze doors were inlaid with intricate, combination locks and pull bars, and those locks were inlaid with a silver metal which must have some function in enchanting. He suspected those vaults possessed other security measures, nasty sorceries for the would be robber, should any such person make it past those doors. Enchanters were not known to be merciful, and the elves of Shadovane were no strangers to cruelty. He doubted whatever traps lay in waiting would kill a thief outright. There was nothing to be gained from a corpse.

  One door in this expanse was lacking a lock, and lay slightly ajar. A slice of dim light carved a path across the floor at angle with it, and he stood to one side of it, listening in the quiet to the sound of pens scratching against paper, the clatter of something else, and sporadic, mumbled conversation.

  He pushed it open, and found what he had expected. The Office of Legers, the beating heart of the Royal Treasury.

  The office was outfitted with rows of writing desks set behind a long counter where several couriers waited, and those all held small lock boxes at their hips. An old woman poured over papers, and another, somewhat younger hefted small, burlap sacks onto a scale, ran weights by her senior who performed calculations.

  “Account of Lord Bertram.” The bespectacled elder said into the quiet.

  A courier approached. He noted that none of these were new recruits. All of them were at least ten years his senior.

  He set his silver-chased box on the counter, and the woman produced a key. Bright green gems encircled the lock, and the key was outfitted with a piece of topaz the size of his thumbnail. She slid the key into the lock, and the gems all glowed momentarily as the mechanism was disengaged. The lid swung open of its own accord, and she deposited a hefty sack into it, then closed it back up and locked it once more.

  The junior accountant drafted out a receipt, and handed it to the courier, who marched away with the box cradled in both hands, the receipt tucked away safely in his pocket.

  A woman a handful of years older than Lance hustled around the counter then. She thrust out her hand. “I’m Lexis. You must be the stage.”

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  “Lance.” He shook her hand.

  She smiled warmly. “You’ll be with me today.”

  A flush in her cheeks seemed less a byproduct of physical exertion and more a natural feature. Hair the color of straw fell lank against her cheeks, was cut shy of her shoulders by a few inches. Bottle-thick lenses magnified her eyes, which together with her hunched posture and long arms reminded him of some bugs he had seen.

  “How’s your math?”

  “Decent, I guess.”

  She led him around the counter, down a wide aisle and to a writing desk near the back, which was outfitted with an extra chair for him. Cushions rested on both seats, and it did not take long for him to understand why. Each time he leaned back, his spine was sandwiched between two bars, and the rest pressed painfully against a series of knots in his back. The cushion provided small comfort in that it saved his tail bone, but just barely. It was no plush thing; merely a stop gap to alleviate some of the ache of long sitting, which after hours in this chair would come as a ghost to haunt him anyway.

  “Before we get started, you need to take an aptitude test.” She passed a sheet with several math problems over to him. “You’ll be judged based on the answers and how you came to them. Don’t worry, though. Most of what we use on a daily basis is simple arithmetic. Addition and subtraction, multiplication and devision. You don’t need much more than that to count money.”

  A manic glint entered her eyes at the word money.

  He nodded, took the pen she offered to him, and set about solving the equations written out there. She waited until he was done, waved the paper dry and then stowed it away in a drawer.

  “That was fast.” She said without inflection. “You must be in a hurry to get to the real stuff.”

  “No hurry.” He assured her.

  “Anyway. Our job here is to process the taxes our people collect from the shadovani citizenry. We also handle requests for credit, but that won’t be your department. Not right away, anyway. When you get some tenure, they’ll start letting you handle real money, but as a new entry, you’ll just be handling ledgers, which is what we’ll be doing today.”

  She pulled a stack of notes to her. “Lady Tamalsen gave you a scratch pad, right?”

  “Yes.” He took it from his pocket and opened to a blank page.

  “Good. I’ll need you to calculate out the balances of these accounts against the withdrawals that have been made against them over the last month. That’s the standard turnover period, but we do have some clients who have weekly, or even daily checks. You can think of those as high risk accounts. We even have a blacklist for withdrawal requests.

  “The names on that list are only there until any delinquent balances are paid, but you’d be surprised at how many people are chronically on it.”

  “Like who?”

  “Lady Bethel for one.” She screwed up her nose. “A friend in the Palace Commissary told me its all wine. She’s a lush and it shows in her funds.

  Her brother won’t let her access the house coffers, either.”

  He chuckled.

  “Lord Bran would be right up there with her if he didn’t have a controlling interest in the iron mining trade.”

  “Isn’t that illegal?” he asked.

  “It’s certainly immoral.”

  The rest of his day was spent pouring over ledgers and balance sheets, running numbers until his eyes ached and he was wishing for death. The work was boring. He was permitted to leave only to use the bathroom, and the nearest lavatory was outside the perimeter of the Treasury, which forced him to make the uncomfortable decision between holding it in until his shift ended, or getting frisked by the Wraiths again. He chose the former.

  At the end of the day, he was dismissed with the rest of them. He did not see Lady Ethelia once in the entire time he was present, was left to wonder why that was. She would pass final judgment on his performance, after all. It seemed only right that she should want a first hand account of how he measured up.

  He stood in line with Lexis and the rest of the accountants and waited as the Wraiths patted down the servants in pairs, turning out their pockets, patting them down, even turning their shoes over. When his turn arrived, he closed his eyes and kept them closed until it was over. On the other side, Lexis approached him.

  “Don’t worry about that. You’ll get used to it in no time.” She said.

  “Why is it necessary, though?”

  “Well, we’re working with hard coin.” She explained. “No one really expects an accountant to steal any, but why take the chance?

  “Anyway, I’ve got an appointment to get to.”

  What does that mean?

  She hurried off, waving behind her. “See you in a few weeks.”

  “Yeah, no. I don’t think so.” He mumbled.

  He took an adjoining hall away, headed for the stairs and then the kitchens. Ariana or Peter, one of them would be getting off their shift soon. He needed to unwind.