The Tuileries Palace smelled of cheap wine and expensive perfume.
Outside the windows, Paris was screaming. It was a roar of joy. Fireworks popped over the Seine, painting the night sky in tricolor flashes. "Long live the Republic! Long live the Conquerors!"
Inside the Green Salon, the only sound was the shattering of crystal.
CRASH.
Napoleon Bonaparte threw his wine glass against the silk wallpaper. It exploded into glittering dust. Red wine dripped down the gold-leaf molding like fresh blood.
"Trash," Napoleon hissed.
He reached into his pocket. He pulled out a fistful of paper bills. Assignats. The currency of the Revolution.
He threw them into the air.
They fluttered down around us like dead leaves. Pink, blue, and grey slips of paper. Each one promised 'Ten Francs' or 'One Hundred Francs' backed by the National Domain.
"My men marched to Vienna on empty stomachs," Napoleon said. His voice was low, dangerous. "They walked back to Paris on bleeding feet. They went to the bakers this morning to buy bread for their mothers."
He stepped on a hundred-franc note, grinding it into the carpet with his boot.
"And the bakers laughed at them, Alex. They wouldn't take the money. They said they would prefer to wipe their asses with old newspapers."
I sat in my wheelchair. My hands rested on the armrests. They were trembling.
"Hyperinflation," I said quietly.
"I don't care what you call it!" Napoleon shouted. He kicked a chair. It skidded across the parquet floor. "I conquered Europe for you. I gave you the Rhine. I gave you Belgium. And you give my soldiers paper that is worth less than the ink printed on it?"
He leaned over me. His eyes were wild. The eyes of a tiger that hadn't eaten.
"Fix it, Administrator. Or the men who burned the Austrian fleet will burn this palace."
I looked at the paper on the floor.
He was right.
We had won the war of bullets. We were losing the war of ledgers.
"Fouché," I rasped.
Joseph Fouché stepped out of the shadows in the corner. He was always there. A pale ghost in a black coat.
"Report," I said.
Fouché held a ledger. He didn't open it. He had memorized the horror.
"The Franc Germinal has lost 40% of its value in six hours," Fouché said. "At noon, a loaf of bread cost 12 francs. Tonight, it costs 50."
"Why?" I asked. "The peace treaty is signed. The British fleet is ash. Confidence should be high."
"It's not panic," Fouché said. "It's a dump."
I closed my eyes. I visualized the numbers.
Assets. Liabilities. Equity.
The math didn't add up. The market should be celebrating. If the currency was crashing, it wasn't natural. It was engineered.
"A short attack," I whispered.
"Speak French!" Napoleon snapped.
"Someone is selling," I said, opening my eyes. "Someone is dumping millions of francs into the exchanges in London, Amsterdam, and Hamburg simultaneously. They are flooding the market to destroy the price."
"Who?" Napoleon demanded. " The British?"
"The British government is bankrupt," I said. "They can't afford a trade war. This is private capital."
I tried to stand up.
"Get me the list of—"
My heart stopped.
It wasn't a metaphor. For a split second, the muscle in my chest just quit.
The room spun. The gold chandeliers smeared into streaks of light. My vision turned grey at the edges.
Thump.
My heart kicked back in, but it was weak. A flutter. Like a dying bird trapped in a ribcage.
My knees buckled.
"Alex!" Napoleon shouted.
I collapsed forward. I tried to catch myself on the desk, but my arms were like wet noodles. I hit the floor.
Pain shot through my hip.
I lay on the carpet, surrounded by the worthless money. I gasped for air. My lungs worked—the radiation had fixed the rot—but the blood wasn't pumping fast enough to carry the oxygen.
"Get a doctor!" Fouché yelled.
"No!" I wheezed.
I pushed myself up. My arms shook violently. I looked like a newborn foal trying to stand.
I looked up.
Napoleon was staring down at me.
His expression wasn't concern. It was pity. And behind the pity, calculation.
He was seeing the truth.
The "Demon" was gone. The cyborg who crushed gold bars with a hydraulic fist was dead.
All that was left was a cripple.
"I don't need a doctor," I gritted out. "I need a chair."
Napoleon hesitated. For a second, I thought he would leave me there. I thought he would draw his sword and end the Regency right then. The weak fall. The strong eat.
Then, he moved.
He grabbed me under the arms. He hoisted me up like I weighed nothing. He slammed me back into the wheelchair.
"You look like a corpse," Napoleon said bluntly. "If the Austrians see you like this, they will tear up the treaty tomorrow."
"Then don't let them see me," I said, wiping cold sweat from my forehead. "Fouché. Who is executing the trades in Paris?"
Fouché stepped closer. He placed a single sheet of paper on my desk.
"Jean-Barthélémy Le Couteulx," Fouché said.
I stared at the name.
The head of the Paris Banking Syndicate. A man who had sworn loyalty to the Republic. A man I had made rich.
"He's betting against us?" I asked.
"He believes you are dying," Fouché said softly. "He has spies in the palace. He knows about the heart condition. He thinks the government will collapse within the week, so he is shorting the currency to profit from the crash."
Betrayal.
It tasted more bitter than the blood in my mouth.
"He is starving the city for profit," Napoleon growled. "Give me a squad of Grenadiers. I will drag him into the street and shoot him."
"No," a voice said.
We all turned.
Louis-Charles stood in the doorway.
My son. The King.
He was twelve years old, but he wore a suit perfectly tailored to his small frame. His blond hair was pulled back. His face was a mask of porcelain calm.
He walked into the room. He didn't look at the money on the floor. He didn't look at my trembling hands.
He looked at the ledger.
"Shooting him causes panic," Charles said. His voice was smooth, devoid of emotion. "If you execute a banker, the other banks will freeze all assets. The economy stops completely. We starve in three days."
"So we let him win?" Napoleon asked.
"No," Charles said. "We adjust the variables."
He picked up a quill. He tapped it against his chin.
"The riot in Saint-Antoine," Charles said. "It is driven by high bread prices. If we deploy the National Guard to block the bridges, we can contain the mob in the poor districts."
I frowned. "Contain them?"
"Let them riot," Charles said. He shrugged. "If the supply of food is low, we must reduce the demand."
The room went cold.
"Reduce demand?" I asked. "You mean let them kill each other?"
Charles looked at me. His blue eyes were empty.
"Dead men don't eat bread, Father. If the population of the slums decreases by 10%, the price of grain will stabilize. It is simple math."
Silence.
I looked at him. I looked for the boy who used to cry when he scraped his knee. I looked for the child who loved his mother.
He wasn't there.
I had raised a monster. I had taught him that the world was nothing but Assets and Liabilities. And now, he was categorizing the poor as 'Liabilities'.
"No," I said.
"It is the most efficient solution," Charles insisted.
"I didn't save this country to turn it into a slaughterhouse!" I slammed my hand on the desk. It hurt.
"You taught me to be rational," Charles said, tilting his head. "Efficiency is rational."
"Cruelty is not efficiency!" I snapped. "It is a debt. A debt you pay with your soul. And the interest rate is infinite."
I took a deep breath. My heart fluttered again, but I forced it to steady.
I looked at Napoleon. He was watching Charles with a look of disturbed respect. He liked the boy's ruthlessness. That was dangerous.
"We are not shooting the bankers," I said. "And we are not starving the poor."
"Then what?" Napoleon threw up his hands. "We have no money. We have no gold. We have nothing but a room full of paper trash!"
I looked at the window. The reflection showed a frail old man in a wheelchair.
But the world didn't know that yet.
Le Couteulx thought I was dying. But he hadn't seen the body. He was betting on a rumor.
"We have one asset left," I said.
"What?" Fouché asked.
"Fear," I said.
I turned the wheelchair around.
"Fouché, send a carriage to Le Couteulx's estate. And the other four heads of the syndicate. Invite them to the palace."
"An invitation?" Fouché raised an eyebrow.
"A summons," I corrected. "Tell them the Administrator wishes to discuss... investment opportunities."
"They will laugh at you," Napoleon said. "They know you are weak."
"They suspect I am weak," I said. "Tonight, I have to prove I am still the monster."
I looked at my hands. They were pale, spotted with age.
"Napoleon," I said.
"Yes?"
"Leave your sword outside."
Napoleon frowned. "You want me unarmed? With those vipers?"
"I want you standing behind my chair," I said. "Silent. Cleaning your fingernails. Looking bored."
I smiled. It was a grim, tight smile.
"I don't need a General tonight. I need a Henchman."
"And what will you do?" Charles asked. "You can't crush gold bars anymore. You can't shoot lightning."
I reached into my drawer.
I pulled out a single, heavy object.
It wasn't a weapon. It was a black ledger. The 'Black Book' I had kept since day one. The book where I wrote down every secret, every bribe, every sin of the Parisian elite.
"I can't shoot lightning," I said, placing the book on the desk. "But I can still destroy a man with a sentence."
I looked at the clock.
"Bring them to the Green Salon," I ordered. "Turn down the lights. Keep the shadows deep."
I gripped the armrests of my chair until my knuckles turned white.
"Tonight, we audit the bank."