“The man who told me that … he was trying to say that he loved me.” Baru roughened her throat and half-closed her eyes, dangling the bait, come on, Farrier, will you sniff at the hint that your student loved a man? “Historical contingency. It’s terrible, isn’t it? Like everyone’s an arrow, already in flight. I killed them all with that idea.”

“Mm,” he said, moving a couple pawns, checking his little handbook of Great Game rules. “How so?”

“Well—the Duke Unuxekome grew up on stories of brave sea captains. So I sent him to make a brave stand at sea, and he went, and he died.”

“The Oriati won’t stop using their currencies,” Farrier said, apologetically. “Under Hesychast’s rules, the Mbo coins—we call them the lonjaro, the segu, the mzili, and the devi—are so much a part of their traditions as to be fixed in their blood. I know, it’s quite absurd, isn’t it?”

Baru found, to her horror, that she couldn’t stop confessing. “And Oathsfire, he wanted to be part of something idealistic, so I made myself an ideal of freedom, and he loved me. And Lyxaxu hated himself for the winter his people starved: so I convinced him I could feed his duchy, and he gave me his treasury. They were like clocks, and I found their keys, I turned the hands—”

“Baru.” He looked up from his work at the crop calendar. “You’re grieving. I’m sorry to—” He chuckled, suddenly and self-deprecatingly. “—to tell you how you’re feeling, but I know, I know you have walls inside you. Trust me, please. You’re going to have to take time to mourn.”

“They were traitors,” Baru growled, looking at her feet. “I don’t want to grieve them. It’s a waste of time.”

“You loved them, though. I know you did.” He showed her his book. “I’m afraid the Oriati currency pool is so large that, in your efforts to replace all their money with ours, you’ve printed so many fiat notes they’re now worth less than their paper.”

Hate. Hate like deepest pressure. Like diving until the water crushed her ears and burnt her chest. Love! Tell me about love, Cairdine Farrier. Tell me that you understand my pain. How wrong you will be: how terrible for you when at last I make myself known.

But she wanted his comfort. Counterfeits could be useful, couldn’t they? Print me a little counterfeit comfort, Farrier. Print it for me.

“An inflationary crash,” she said, stiffly, “like I caused when Tain Hu was counterfeiting notes.”

“You loved her,” Farrier murmured, with eyes of shining sympathy. “I know you did. You loved Tain Hu.”

She was utterly still. That name in his mouth.

“Baru, I’m so proud.”