Bound by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #2)(38)

“I don’t know how that would be possible.” Fenris drummed his fingers on the table in thought, earning more dirty looks from the mages. But this time he ignored them. “The Mages Guilds in each state are only allowed to transmute a certain amount of coin every year. The quantity varies from state to state depending upon the local economy as well as Federation regulations, but that doesn’t change the fact that there is a strict limit. If such large amounts of money were to go missing it would not go unnoticed.”

“But don’t you think it’s possible one or more of the mages in charge of transmuting the coin could be making extra and setting it aside?”

“That would be high treason indeed.” Fenris scowled. “The mage families have all pledged not to transmute gold, which is one of the laws laid down in the Great Accord, and in exchange they receive a handsome share of the year’s allotment.”

“Ugh. That is so unfair.” I rolled my eyes, disgusted at the amount of privilege mages got simply for being born. “So in exchange for not producing anything, mages get handouts?”

“Yes, but they are required to spend it, and are not allowed to hoard more than ten percent of their yearly allotment.”

“Oh, that makes me feel so much better.”

“Sunaya, I’m not here to have a political debate. I’m just stating the facts.”

“Right.” I sucked in a breath through my nostrils, and then let it go. There was no point in arguing about this – Fenris hadn’t made the law, after all, but I was surprised that he wasn’t as incensed about it as I was, being a shifter himself.

Maybe he’s just come to terms with it.

Huh. Well if that ever happened to me, I hoped someone did me a favor and put me out of my misery. I would never be okay with the current status quo.

“Fine,” I finally said. “I get it. The mages don’t want to risk losing their yearly allowance. But if they’re not doing this, then who is?”

“I might have an idea about that.” Fenris stood up, grabbing the book he’d been reading. “Here, let’s go somewhere more private.”

I followed him to a small table in the back, where no one else seemed to be sitting. Fenris settled into the chair across from me, then pulled a large money pouch from his belt. He emptied the pouch, sending gold, pandanum and bronze coins spilling across the table. I snagged one of them, envy twinging in my gut – clearly Fenris got way more of an allowance than I did. I guess it paid to be the Chief Mage’s right-hand shifter, instead of just a lowly apprentice.

“What are we looking for, exactly?”

“Traces of magical residue,” Fenris answered, picking up one of the coins and sniffing it. “These coins are all supposed to be transmuted by the Guild, and if that’s the case then they should all smell like any object that’s been changed by spellcraft.”

Nodding, I held the coin to my nose. Sure enough, I detected a faint whiff of magic. Fenris and I went through the others, and it wasn’t until I hit my tenth one that I noticed anything different.

“Huh,” I muttered, sniffing the gold coin in my hand just to be sure. “This one doesn’t smell like magic.”

“Let me see.” Eyes narrowed, Fenris held out a hand for the coin, and I pressed it into his palm. He sniffed it as well, and his lips thinned. “This coin wasn’t produced by the Mages Guild.”

“Then where was it produced?’

Fenris shrugged. “I can’t say what foundry was used, but the metal was mined naturally, not transmuted, which is illegal under Federation law. It is also not easy, as most of the known mines are located on inaccessible tribal lands.”

“Oh.” My eyebrows arched at the implication. There were a number of indigenous tribes scattered across the Northia Federation, remnants of the civilization that used to exist here before people from across the Eastern Ocean had migrated over here, and taken over large parts of their lands. Mining was shunned by these tribes as they saw little to no use for precious stones and metals, and most of them guarded their territory fiercely. This benefitted the Federation, since they wanted to keep the mines off limits, and their citizens well away from temptation.

“Let’s keep looking, and place any other such coins in a pile over there.” Fenris placed the coin in his hand on the far end of the table, signifying where the pile should start.

By the time we finished going through all of Fenris’s coins, we had small stack of illegal gold coins – five in total, out of eighteen. The number was alarming, and I wondered just how long this would have had to be going on for this many of the coins to get into circulation.

“Well, at least we know why the bank doesn’t seem to have a problem giving away all this money,” Fenris said, his lips thinning. “It’s counterfeit.”

“Is it?” I asked dubiously, holding up a gold coin. “I mean, it’s made out of the same stuff, isn’t it? Technically it should be even more valuable since it’s the real thing and not mage-made. Not to mention it would still cost a pretty penny to produce, from the mining costs to the actual minting. I still don’t see how banks could just afford to give this stuff away.”

Fenris scowled. “Maybe so, but production of money like this is prohibited by law, and therefore the term ‘counterfeit’ still applies.” He shook his head, chagrined. “The Mages Guild should be checking on this sort of thing, and regularly.”