currency book

August had always seen himself as clever, rather than brilliant. He was decently brilliant as well when he applied himself - as he was endlessly told - but his real strength had always been a talent for seeming to be brilliant, while never truly investing the time needed to achieve such vaunted heights. He supposed that his talent stretched wider than that, to pretending in all its forms, really. He also seemed to have a flair for understanding people, and what they wanted, and how to leverage that. However, getting good grades in school with very little effort had mostly been the limit of his opportunity to use his particular talents.