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Melek felt another coin. “There’s traces of silver in them too, but that’s—hmm. If I had to guess, I’d say they didn’t mint these from fresh gold. They melted down altinlar, because of course coin gold isn’t quite perfectly pure. That’s where the silver traces are coming from. The copper, though . . .” Çe frowned, running çir hands across the pile. “I think some of the copper must be from melted kürler—it’s not exactly the same ratio, and some of these have enough that I can taste the N’gakan mines, same as I get from the average kür. Some of them, though . . .” Çe shook out çir hand, flexed çir fingers to clear the palate. “Do you think there’s any follaro available that I could have for reference?”
“You think the copper might be from the mines in Oissos?”
“Ithinkso? I’ll need to double-check before I can say for sure—it’s been a long time since I touched a follaro. You don’t see them much, even in the city. And copper’s tricky for me, it always overwhelms everything else.”
Kadou picked up one of the silver yiralar. Genuine yiralar had a silver fineness of nine-one-five blended with copper, but eighty-four parts copper per thousand wasn’t enough to sense with his touch-tasting. He would have needed a sense as sharp as Melek’s for that. “What’s the price of copper like in Oissos these days?” he mused aloud. “Is it particularly cheap right now?”
“Er . . .” Melek said, and looked at Evemer. “Do you know that off the top of your head?”
“No. I can find out.”
“It’s not urgent,” Kadou said absently, feeling the bitter, medicinal signature of the corrupted silver in his fingertips. He looked up as Eozena opened the inner door to Zeliha’s chambers and came out.
“Evening, all,” she said, striding across the room to the exit—she clearly had no intention of stopping.
Kadou stood up sharply, his chair shrieking against the floor. “Eozena, wait.”
She turned back, surprised. “What is it?”
“Where’s Zeliha?”
“Feeding the princess,” Eozena said, jerking her chin toward the room she’d just come from. “Why?”
“I know you don’t think I should have any part of the investigation right now, but I should, and it’s urgent. So I’m going to.”
She gave him a long look, flicking her gaze briefly to Evemer, who stood by the door in parade rest. “Didn’t we discuss this already, Highness? It’s not a good idea, and it’d make my job easier if you stayed here where it’s safe.”
“I’ll keep him safe,” Evemer said simply. Eozena looked at him again—astonished that he had spoken at all, probably.
“I’ll take him everywhere,” Kadou added.
“He’ll taketwokahyalar,” Evemer said pointedly.
“Cute that you two are scheming together behind my back now, can’t say I’m upset aboutthat,but, uh . . .” She drew the last syllable out for several increasingly sarcastic seconds. “No.”
“I’m going to have to insist,” Kadou said.
“By all means,” she said warmly. “Be my guest. Insist until you’re blue in the face.”
“What is he insisting about?” Zeliha exited her room, carrying Eyne in an embroidered linen sling with her kaftan and underlayer pulled off of one shoulder. Evemer immediately dove to arrange the most comfortable cushions on a chair for her, but she waved him off. “Can’t sit while I’m feeding her, I get too restless. What’s Kadou insisting on?”
“Your Majesty,” Eozena said formally. “I’m afraid that it might take a royal decree to get it through this boy’s head. He’s not going to go out gallivanting around the city to continue with the Shipbuilder’s Guild investigation.”
Zeliha snorted. “Are you already getting claustrophobic, Kadou? It hasn’t even been a day!”
“I have some new ideas,” he protested. “This case and the one with Madam Melachrinos have to be related—it pushes the limits of plausibility to think that they’re not.” At Zeliha’s inquisitive eyebrow, he continued: “Melek says the coins were all minted around the same time. The ones we got from her, and the ones we got from Armagan today. They use the same gold—coin gold, probably from altinlar—and Melek thinks the copper they’re mixed with might be from Oissos. We’ve found these two large caches of counterfeits, but we haven’t heard any reports from the city. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any in circulation, it just means that a touch-taster sensitive enough to spot the difference hasn’t noticed them yet. There could be some loose in the foreign quarter or the harbor district, sosomeoneneeds to go down there and ask around.”
Zeliha turned back to Eozena. “Commander, do you have the staff to send anyone out?”
“Within the next day, I probably will,” Eozena said, eyes narrowed. “Depending on . . . the situation.”
Zeliha frowned and paced slowly around the perimeter of the room. “If they came in on an Oissic ship, made with Oissic copper . . . Have we considered that they might be made in Oissos, and that they’re being smuggled here?”
“If I may offer an opinion, Your Majesty,” Evemer said.
“Of course,” she said, turning to him. Eyne, merely a lump hidden in the sling, made a soft noise of protest.
“I believe it is more likely that they would be made here and shipped elsewhere.”
