“How much money did I make?”

“More than enough to cover your tuition at Arcane and have a private room in the tower for the school year.”

“...So, like, a lot or-?”

“You have little experience with money so it doesn’t do much good to tell you the details. Suffice it to say you won’t have to worry about school fees. It’s not enough to live on indefinitely, but it cuts out the pressing costs.”

“How much is one gold worth?”

“I just-” he glared at her inside her mind. “Listen to me—the price of gold changes in the non-magical world daily. Here, however, it has been worth about the same amount for hundreds of years, if not thousands. The richest in Society, old money, would not be impressed. The poor would not dream of holding so much gold. You can imagine yourself middle class for the moment.”

“I won’t stay middle class if I have to spend it all on school, so I still need more money. This will be a never-ending struggle won’t it?”

“Not if you build wealth quickly. You won’t be respected as new money, but you won’t have to worry about spending either.”

“I don’t care about being nouveau riche, I want the shiny!”

“Of course you do.” She could hear his eyes rolling. “And you’ll spend it all on food if you get the chance. Before any of that, we’ve got to get to a bank. This will be easier to handle once you’ve got an account, but that isn’t something we have to do now. It might be better to wait, in fact, as-”

“Nope,” she interrupted. “Now. I want to be done with all this setup so we can get to the fun part.”

“I should have realized,” he said sarcastically. “Then you will not bank here, but neither is it far up the rungs in Society. Because of where your money is coming from, we will need creditors who do not care about where the gold originates. The banks of the High Street require proof of employment or family name, the dweorg care for none of it. Their concern is the money itself.”

“What the heck is a dweorg?”

“A dwarf you would see them called in fairy tales. Though they are not what modern stories have made them out to be. It is said, though no one can prove it, that they hold the keys to the doors between worlds. They are also very interested in precious stones and ores.”

“They won’t take my money, right? I’m not banking with thieves.”

“No and never accuse them of such or you will find yourself tossed to the streets. They would not stand for you in court, but they would protect your money while you were in prison.”

“That’s good enough I guess. How do I get there?”

She had to leave the Dark Alley and walk Toad Road to a backstreet. Along the way, she saw some of her first real witches and wizards, all of them poor and in dark-colored robes. Brown and black.

“They show less wear and grunge,” Donner explained. “The rich clothe themselves in bright blues and such.”

“I don’t know what colors I should wear,” she said as they passed shops selling clothing of the darker variety.

“That is not a worry for today. Get your account open and go home. We’ll have more to consider before taking further steps in that arena. It’s one thing to earn an income, it’s another to spend it.”

“Will I get interest and stuff?”

“With the dweorg not at the outset, but once you meet certain qualifications yes. I expect you will in short order. They have thresholds for that sort of thing. Most of the people using this bank are in unstable lines of work and not able to keep their balances high enough to make the practice worth the effort.”

She paused in the street, looked at the signs and the stores and the vendors on the roadside. “I thought it would be more impressive.” Somehow the self-sweeping brooms, roaming black cats, and people dressed in robes with pointy hats weren’t as awe-inspiring as she assumed they would be.

“As I’ve said, they are trapped in a medieval system of their own making. While they would be overwhelmed with a step into a modern vacation cabin, you will feel little upon encountering even their best. This is the bottom of Society. The unfortunate and unwashed. When you take to Lighted Way you may be dazzled by the architecture, which I will say is superior to the minimalist buildings of metal and glass, but the people are no better.”

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The dweorg bank was housed below the streets of the city, or town or whatever this was, and she had to descend using an artifact-powered platform.

“It’s a good business decision,” she said to Donner. “Everyone uses them.”

“They do, though I will warn you that I suspect the dweorg of subterfuge in this instance. I do not believe they require all the help they use.”

“You think they’re more powerful than they let on?”

“Almost positive, but don’t let them know you suspect them. I’m not sure what the implications are. They are not power-hungry beings and it is my conjecture they simply want to be left alone. This act is to keep the witches and wizards at bay. They’ve found the need to participate in Society, yet keep to the edge. It is purposeful.”

The bank itself was rocky and dank. Water trickled down the natural wall and the ceiling was low, lit with candles placed in round, metal cages that hung and swung with the breeze. The tellers were about her height but far more dense. They wore beards that were braided into the hair on their heads. Or the other way around. She wasn’t sure.

“I want to open an account,” she said, as she came to a teller. Man or woman she couldn’t tell. “Please,” was an afterthought. She had better be polite to these people if they were going to handle her money. It wasn’t easy to get. Well, easier than working a nine to five, but no more fun. That whole situation was one she’d like to forget, if possible.

“Fill this out,” came the gruff voice. The being passed parchment paper and feather with ink across the desk.

It was a simple form, but she had to follow Donner’s instructions about writing to keep from blotting ink. It was ridiculous that she couldn’t use a pen and she thought to herself that she would bring one if she ever had to do this sort of thing again.

Her name, Luna Rysing, her date of birth and her deposit were all that was required. And then a drop of blood.

“To confirm your identity. You will be required to provide blood each time you go to your vault.”

“What vault?” she asked him silently, as the teller took her money for counting.

“The vault they will show you to. Your gold will stay there until you come to retrieve it.”

“They don’t do debit cards, huh?”

“Unfortunately, no. You will have to carry your money with you while you are in Society. When you are at school you will have another account and you will be able to request deposits directly, which makes it a bit less cumbersome. That is something else we will have to go over,” he said. “The economy of Arcane Arts is its own ecosystem. Most students have families who’ve been attending for centuries and grow up knowing about the system.”

“You didn’t, right?”

“Correct. I had to find my way.” He said it so darkly that she thought it must have been a struggle.

“Follow me,” said the dweorg, and they left the main area for another platform. This one was enclosed in metal mesh and more like an elevator. She’d seen them on television and had ridden in one for the first time at the hospital after Pink died. This one was lit with flaming torches.

Down to the indicated level four and off, she followed the lead of her guide to what looked like nothing more than a continuing stone wall. There was a number chiseled into the rock, 744. The dweorg held the paper to the wall, her blood pressed against the stone, and it glowed blue.

“This vault is now linked to your blood. No one else is capable of opening it and if they try they will be met with deadly force.” Her gold coins were placed inside and her pouch returned to her with the bit she’d decided to keep, exchanged for equivalent silver and coppers because gold was worth the most and people didn’t walk around Toad Road with much of it. “From now on you will make your deposits and withdrawals. If you attend an institution you will be able to connect the accounts for easy transactions.”

Outside again the sunlight made her squint. “I didn’t realize how dark it was down there,” she told Donner. “There’s not much service, is there? I’ll have to put money in myself and take it out every time.”

“That’s one way they keep your privacy. The amounts are automatically tabulated and updated, but you must have a blood tie to directly access the account.”

“That means we can’t get to your account, right?”

“Right.”

“But at least no one else can either,” she tried to keep it positive. There was negativity brewing in her mind and it wasn’t her own. “I guess you do need your own body back, then. If you’ve got someone else’s, you won’t be able to get your stuff.”

The dweorg bank did more than house coin if the account holder requested it and could pay the fees. As she read through the paperwork she’d seen flashes from Donner’s thoughts about the things he had stored. Books and rolls of parchment. Old furniture. Gems.

“It’s good you’ve got enough to keep paying the charges,” she said, trying to bring up his spirits. “They won’t sell anything off if they can take the money right from the account. I saw that in the information.”

“Yes, well, it’s not something I want to discuss. Do what you must do and let’s be done with it.”

What she must do was eat.

“You will find yourself disappointed,” he warned. “There is no Burger King. Your best bet is a street vendor. I don’t advise going to Lighted Way now and the quality of restaurants here is lacking, to say the least.”

She took his advice and dined on meat skewers with onion and cherry tomato until her stomach was full to bursting. By then she found herself tired and it was beyond the usual naptime, so she made the trip back to the farm after finding a secluded corner to disappear in.

“That’s my first trip down,” she said as she got into bed beside Georgia. Ant hadn’t noticed a thing because she arrived directly in their shared bedroom. “It wasn’t as exciting as I thought it would be, but it wasn’t bad either.”

“At least it’s over,” was Donner’s grouchy reflection. “And things were accomplished.”

“Right,” she affirmed. “Next thing is to go on a real adventure and find some old junk.”