Cooked Books

"A woman who does nothing but stare at ledgers is unfit to be a duchess." That is what they told me, there on the stage where my engagement was broken off. The whole hall laughed. But I had kept that house's books for ten years. And so I know: the ledgers of House Ferzen have not balanced once in twelve years. In a former life, I was an accountant. I can no longer recall my face or my name, but the way to read numbers is the one thing still left in my body. I cannot use magic. I cannot wield a sword. All I can do is count my paces, add a sum three times over, watch the odd remainders, and take the difference between dates. That is all. But though paper can be rewritten, a house that burned to the ground cannot. The horse recorded as purchased is nowhere to be found. The eleven people dismissed twelve years ago are still living somewhere. As I counted line by line, a sound began to rise from beneath the ducal house's feet. There was one person who did not laugh at me: the Auditor-Lord of the Royal Audit Office. A man who looks not at people's faces, but at the numbers. The quiet audit-revenge of a woman who counts.