Tom Coakley asked Benedict Jacka:

I love the new series, but I fund aurum confusing. I listened to the books so apologies if I didn't spell that correctly. What do they use aurum for other than making sigils? The entire last book I kept expecting them to realize they were sitting on enough to make any sigil they want, but by the end I decided I just must not understand what they use it for since they couldn't sell it and never used it.

Benedict Jacka You're right, the main use of aurum is making sigls. However, making a sigl from aurum is much harder than making one at a Well, and doing it efficiently requires a purpose-built facility called a shaping chamber. Generally the only people with shaping chambers are Houses and big corporations, so usually the best thing to do if you have a lot of aurum is to sell it to them (they'll be able to get more value out of it than you can).

Unfortunately, while Stephen and his friends have plenty of aurum, it's illegally acquired aurum, which they don't have the contacts to resell. Which is the problem that they're stuck on for much of the book – they have the goods, but they don't have a buyer.

flag