We found the canoe wedged between two rocks on the far shore, its hull scuffed but intact. Daniel righted it, checked for leaks, and gestured for me to climb in. The paddle strokes were slow and deliberate, the lake’s surface glassy under the late afternoon sun. Neither of us spoke much. There was nothing left to say about JD Ruff—he was gone, and the echoes of his visit were already rippling outward.

By the time we rounded the final bend and saw the cabin’s dock, the sky had begun to bruise into twilight. A figure stood on the shore, waiting.

Murphy.

He’d driven his old pickup as far as the trail allowed and walked the rest of the way, carrying a brown paper bag that steamed faintly at the seams. He raised a hand in greeting and set the bag on the dock.

“Fish and chips,” he said, as if that explained everything. “And a little extra reading material.”

He nodded at the bag and was gone before I could thank him, his boots crunching back up the trail toward his truck. He knew not to linger—and he knew we needed time.

I picked up the bag. It was warm, heavy, and wrapped in several layers of newspaper. I could see the headline through the cooking oil from across the dock.

VALDORIAN GOLD COINS DEBASED: PROVINCE OF LOUISE AT CENTER OF ECONOMIC SCANDAL

The Louise Tribune had run the story. Sarah had done her part.

Daniel took the bag from me without a word, carried it inside, and set it on the kitchen counter. He didn’t open it immediately. He just stood there, staring at the headline, as if reading it over and over to make sure it was real.

“It’s out,” he said finally.

“It’s out.”

He exhaled slowly, then unwrapped the oil-saturated paper. Inside, the fish and chips were still crisp, the vinegar and salt packets tucked neatly alongside. But the real meal was the newsprint.

We ate in silence, reading the article as we chewed. Sarah had done her homework—the margin codes, the coin debasement, the King’s role, the potential link to Justine Moreau. She hadn’t named Daniel as a source, but the pieces were all there for anyone who knew how to look. The story was both exhaustive and careful, a journalist’s balancing act between revelation and protection.

When we finished, Daniel folded the oily paper and set it aside. He looked older in the dimming light, the lines around his eyes deeper than they’d been that morning.

“Al,” he said, “I need some time to think. To figure out our next move. The Valdorians know we’re here. Justine knows. And now that the story’s out, they’ll be scrambling to control the narrative.”

I nodded. “What do you want me to do?”

“Look through the bookshelf. I’ve been thinking about what you found in the margin codes—the debasement formula, the 2-PI-R ratio. I want to know how history has dealt with currency debasement. Which empires did it, why they did it, and what happened to them.”

“Historical precedents?”

“Exactly. If Valdoria is repeating old mistakes, I want to know which ones. And I want to know whether there’s ever been a way to recover once the process starts.”

He pulled the kerosene lamp closer and spread out a notebook, his pen moving in slow, deliberate strokes as he began to jot down notes.

I turned to the bookshelf.

The encyclopaedia set was dusty but intact. I pulled out the volume for E–G and flipped to Economy, then to Currency, then to Debasement. The entries were brief, but they pointed to longer articles elsewhere. I made a stack: The Decline of the Roman Denarius, The Hyperinflation of Weimar Germany, The Collapse of the Yugoslav Dinar, The Ming Dynasty Paper Currency Crisis.

I carried them to the table and began reading.

The patterns emerged quickly. Currency debasement always followed the same arc: a state overspends, runs low on precious metals, and begins diluting its coinage with base metals. At first, the population notices—coins feel lighter, sound different, lose their shine. But the state denies it. Then it blames foreign saboteurs, internal enemies, or the greed of the people themselves. Price controls are introduced. Wages are frozen. The economy begins to seize up.

And then, inevitably, the state prints more paper currency, or minting more debased coins, to cover its deficits. The cycle accelerates. Inflation becomes hyperinflation. Trust evaporates. And the empire or state collapses not from external invasion, but from the hollowing out of its own economic foundation.

By the time I looked up, the lamp had burned low and Daniel had filled several pages of his notebook. He saw the stack of books I’d gathered and raised an eyebrow.

“Find anything useful?”

“More than I expected.” I pushed one of the books toward him. “Rome. The denarius started as a pure silver coin. By the third century, it was 95% copper. The government kept debasing it because they couldn’t afford to pay the army, and they couldn’t afford to stop debasing it because the army would revolt if they didn’t get paid. It was a death spiral.”

Daniel read the passage I’d marked, then looked up. “That’s Valdoria, isn’t it? They’ve been debasing their gold for decades. They can’t stop because their entire economy is built on the lie. And if the lie collapses, the King loses everything.”

“Yes. But there’s more.” I pulled out a second book. “Weimar Germany. They printed money to pay war reparations, and the currency collapsed so completely that people burned it for heat because it was cheaper than firewood. The government fell, and the country spent decades recovering.”

Daniel was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “That’s what they’re trying to do to Louise. Flood us with debased coins, collapse our economy, and then step in to ‘help’—but only on their terms.”

“It’s not about the gold,” I said. “It’s about the story they’re telling. If enough people believe the coins are valuable, they become valuable. But once the story breaks—”

“Once the story breaks,” Daniel finished, “they’re just wooden disks with a thin layer of gold on them. And the King’s empire is built on wooden disks.”

He closed his notebook and leaned back in his chair. The cabin was quiet, save for the ticking of the grandfather clock.

“Keep reading,” he said. “We’re going to need to understand every angle of this before we make our next move.”

I pulled another volume from the stack—The Collapse of the Roman Empire, Economic Causes—and settled into the chair across from him.

Outside, the lake had gone dark, the mountains silhouetted against a star-strewn sky. The echo was out there now, spreading beyond the valley, beyond Louise, beyond Canada itself.

But here, in the cabin, the work was just beginning.

*** This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. ***