The Throne and the Ledger

One decree ends the Gilded Expansion, and twenty-eight million crowns with it. The Coven cannot buy the decision back, so it sets about making the throne regret it: pamphlets, delayed shipments, manufactured shortages, and eventually a run of accidents that a ruler is not supposed to walk away from. Balif, an old Arcanum scholar with no standing as an investigator and no authority to question anyone, starts pulling on the thread. He can show twelve incidents that benefit the Coven, eight officials with ties to it, and six newspapers printing arguments that began in its own documents. What he cannot find is a single order telling anybody to do any of it.