After some time, the carriage reached a market square. The market square was rectangular and as large as you would expect from a small town. There was a market fountain in the middle, that was shaped like a pool. There were stores in many of the surrounding buildings. There was a bakery. There were pubs. There were restaurants. These and many other businesses were all closed today. Meia saw tables and chairs in front of the restaurants. The chairs were simply placed at the tables. If you wanted to, you could sit down, even though they were closed. The only business that seemed to be open was a hotel. Meia knew this because the entrance area was made of glass and there was yellowish light indoors. Many of the buildings around the market were more distinctive than those in the other streets. They were also more colorful, especially due to the signs on the facades and the many things in the shop windows. It was very tranquil. There was never more than one person on the market square at any one time, and this one person was only on the market square to leave it via one of the streets leading off.

The carriage came to a halt at the side of one of the short streets from the market and opposite a distinctive building. It was distinctive because it was made of light-colored stone and had columns as decorative elements.

"I need to do something here for a moment." Minister Schoppe took the postcard out of his robe. "Can you drop this in for me?"

There was a red postbox in the same street that Meia had already seen. "Yes, I can do that." Meia took the postcard.

Minster Schoppe picked up his briefcase and got out first, then helped Meia outside.

"I won't need more than fifteen minutes."

"Mhm." Meia nodded.

Minister Schoppe walked across the street to the building. He banged twice on the heavy door. After a moment, someone opened it, as if they had been expecting him.

Once the minister was inside, a young man pulled the door shut. He was taller and older than Meia, but rather short for a man and at most a few years older. He was wearing a white shirt with suspenders. Closing the door, he spotted Meia standing by the carriage. He grinned when he saw her, then the door shut loudly.

Meia stared puzzled at the door. The grin had been strange. The young man was somehow unusual...

On a sign by the door was the silhouette of a swallow and underneath it was elegant lettering. The sign was white like paper. The lettering was gold. Meia knew the company logo. She had just seen it in the files, but she knew it as well. The lettering read: 'Celestis Memoria', and the second line read: 'The Free Banks'.

Jena belonged to a monetary union called the Free Banks. The currency was the Fee. Celestis Memoria was a bank. Meia knew this bank because it also existed in Kiras. Nearby, she always collected her compensation at another bank, the Jena Bank. Meia had no account. She received a check every month. Meia could cash the check at any bank, but only Jena Bank did not charge a fee. The checks were from Jena Bank. That's probably why it was like that.

Meia felt a gentle breeze on her skin and looked up at the sky. The sun was hidden above the row of houses with the bank. It didn't look as if it would come out again today, as there were already more clouds again and they had also become darker. Meia wondered whether she would have been better off wearing different clothes.

Meia walked further down the street to the red postbox.

Halfway up, Meia noticed that the coachman was writing something down and apparently also the time, as he looked at his arm in between. Did he have to write down when they arrived where? Maybe it had something to do with the break times. Meia didn't have to keep a record, but the cooks in Kira's always had to write down when they took a break.

At the postbox, Meia dared to take another inconspicuous look at the back of the postcard, as if she just wanted to check whether the franking was proper. On the back was a red postmark and an address in Kiras. The text was still illegible at a glance. Meia accepted it. She lifted the lid over the slot and inserted the postcard.

The last time Meia had seen such handwriting was last week at the main doctor's office. In both cases, however, it wasn't a doctor's handwriting. It was handwriting full of curves, like calligraphy. You shouldn't take it the wrong way either. Meia could have read it easily if she had looked at it for more than a second. Meia just didn't want to invade the minister's privacy any more than it was justifiable. Maybe she had learned something since yesterday, but maybe it just wasn't interesting enough.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

On the way to the postbox, something else had already caught her eye. Meia let the lid fall shut. Just one house back was a shop window and quickly Meia too.

Precious metals and gemstones in many bright colors glittered in the behind the glass. The store was a jewelry store. The signs had all been taken inside. Meia could see a large metal stand behind the glass door. The store was closed. Meia was surprised that there were still no grilles in front of the windows. With the right blade, you could cut a hole in the glass and accessorize yourself. It looked as if the upper floors were inhabited. Perhaps the owner lived directly above the store?

Meia actually wanted to see if there were any cheap wristwatches here, but it looked like all the cheap ones were further back in the store. Most of the things in the window were made of gold and most of them were not watches. It was a 925 silver link necklace and one link had a 1.2 carat round-cut sapphire jewel set into it. Meia didn't know this herself. It was labeled that way. The price of this necklace was 149,000 fairy. The necklace was on sale. Meia was not surprised.

~Who buys something like that?

A jewel was either a cut gemstone in a precious metal setting or a large gemstone. A precious metal was a high-quality metal such as silver or gold.

Gemstones were denominated in carats. For gemstones, one carat was 0.2 grams. This meant that the 1.2 carat sapphire jewel in the necklace weighed a mere 0.24 grams.

A sapphire was a gemstone. Gemstones could be divided into semi-precious and precious stones. Topaz was a semi-precious stone. Sapphire was a precious stone. The pendant Innes had given to Violet was made of a type of jade called jadeite. Jade was a group of gemstones, but not all of them were precious stones. Jadeite was a gemstone. Nevertheless, the pendant certainly cost less than the necklace with the sapphire. The difference between semi-precious stones and precious stones was that precious stones were harder and also often rarer and more beautiful. However, this distinction was not always used, as it was somewhat arbitrary. Krystafei was only a semi-precious stone, but it was rarer and more beautiful than many precious stones. The classification was mainly based on hardness, but did hardness really make something more precious? Iron was much harder than gold, yet fine jewelry was not made of stainless steel.

Meia didn't like the silver necklace. She was more interested in gold chains of a certain type.

Gold jewelry existed in different varieties. The most important factor for prestige was naturally the gold content, which was sometimes stated in carats. However, carat was a different unit for gold than for gemstones. For gold, one carat was 1/24 of the weight. This meant that a gold chain with 18 carats had a gold content of 75% of its weight. This also meant that gold could not have more than 24 carats, whereas a gemstone like a boulder would naturally have more. If gold was not specified in carats, then it was specified as a thousandth by weight, as it was for jewelry made of other metals. 925 silver was 92.5% silver. 18 carat gold was 750 gold or 75% gold.

The rest of the alloys were other metals. For simple gold jewelry, it was metals such as iron, copper, nickel, silver or zinc. In expensive gold jewelry, it was more likely to be metals such as copper, palladium, platinum or titanium. Nickel is nowadays only found in very old jewelry. It was no longer used because people could be allergic to it. Copper was relatively cheap, but it could still be used in very high-quality jewelry because it was sometimes without alternative.

The gold chains Meia looked at were reddish in color. They were red gold and rose gold. The red came from copper.

The difference between red gold and rose gold was whether the proportion of gold or copper was higher. If there was a lot of copper, it was red gold. If there was a lot of gold, it was rose gold.

In jewelry, the red of the copper was matched with silver metals to achieve the desired shade and properties. Red gold and rose gold had a lot of copper and one or more silver metals, thus was the most beautiful necklace in the showcase 75% gold, 17.5% copper and 7.5% palladium. Yellow gold had copper and other metals in a balanced ratio. White gold had little or no copper. As an example, one of the other necklaces in the showcase had 75% gold and 25% palladium.

There were other varieties of gold for jewelry, but these were the most common.

One example of special jewelry was Cora's necklace. Cora's necklace was a link necklace made of white gold with 75% gold, 14% palladium, 7% chrome and 4% fernium. The chrome and fernium made the necklace as hard as titanium and extremely difficult to manufacture. At the same time, the necklace was so long that the pendant hung in her cleavage. When Cora was about to leave the bathroom, Meia could often hear it because the necklace clattered on the marble of the washbasin. The pendant of Cora's necklace was like a coin set with cloudburst brilliants. A brilliant was a diamond with a specific cut. A cloudburst diamond was a diamond of a certain type with high purity. A diamond was, of course, a precious stone. Cora's necklace was perhaps worth around 10 million fee. It could also be a multiple of that. Meia didn't know and didn't have enough knowledge to make a more accurate estimate.

Cora had received the necklace from her fiancé. Meia wondered whether someone would put a necklace on her one day...

.../ End Part