In the castle of Reralt, a tired-looking man sat between teetering piles of documents. By the light of three—or possibly four—candles, Fedeggs worked tirelessly to uphold all the things Devin usually did. His dinner still sat somewhere beneath the papers, cold and congealed into an unidentifiable species.

  The air was thick with the smell of empty wallets and very, very angry debt collectors.

  Fedeggs was at the end of his possibilities. Two days in charge, and the kingdom was bankrupt.

  Reralt would lynch him.

  Actually, Reralt would have no idea what bankruptcy meant. Perhaps that was what kept the realm afloat all these years.

  Sheer ignorance?

  “How does Devin do this?” Fedeggs muttered aloud, arms over his eyes, trying to rub out the red figures bleeding across every page. “Our income is less than ten percent of our expenses.”

  He had spent the whole day doing numbers—after first figuring out that no one was going to get paid without administration. He found money, moved it around, and discovered that no matter how he shifted it, the numbers still spelled doom.

  He looked at his literacy ring—the only reason he could even read the numbers in the first place. (Yes, I totally forgot I made Fedeggs illiterate last book.) He had half a mind to throw the ring out of the window and return to blissful ignorance.

  Some disgruntled servants had already left. One of them was the cook. Fedeggs didn’t know who was cooking now, only that the whole staff was an inch away from a food strike.

  Again, he shuffled the papers of income, taxes, and the pitiful earnings from Reralt’s “small businesses.” On another sheet, he stacked the endless outgoings. Even without Reralt’s ridiculous expenses, the balance was impossible.

  And yet… the documents suggested it had been this way for centuries. Everything was balanced with bills, probably some form of debt.

  With a cry of defeat, Fedeggs gave up. He would try again tomorrow. Maybe Devin would return with a bag of gold. Or—this thought made him ill—Reralt would return, demote him, and leave him back to his usual duties: being a bad messenger.

  He had never thought he would miss that.

  For now, he decided to go to the stables. Bill had not received her apples for two days—they were luxuries the treasury could no longer afford. Fedeggs felt the need to go and tell her personally. He fully expected to be bitten, spit on or headbutted.

  ***

  He was outside the stable when he heard it.

  Crunch.

  Fedeggs froze, ear pressed against the stone wall. Impossible. Unbelievable. He stormed inside, finger raised to catch the culprit red-handed.

  “Bill!” he barked. “Where did you get the apple?”

  Bill looked at him mid-chew, the picture of equine satisfaction. She tilted her head, making sure the light hit the glossy apple just so, then very slowly swallowed.

  Her gaze did not break.

  “Point me to who fed you!” Fedeggs snapped. “I’ve spent all day trying to save this realm from bankruptcy, and you’re here—munching away like taxes don’t exist?”

  Bill looked down at the straw. Then back up at him.

  “Exactly,” Fedeggs growled, crossing his arms. “You should be ashamed. I haven’t eaten all day.”

  Bill blew a sharp puff of air from her nose. Then—deliberately—she dipped her head, picked up another apple from the ground, and held it in her teeth.

  She waited.

  Right at the moment Fedeggs reached for it, she bit down.

  Crunch.

  Her eyes stayed locked on him the entire time.

  “That’s it.” Fedeggs saw the bag of apples on the stable floor. “We all need to give up something Bill,” as he reached to pick up the bag.

  ***

  “I’m sorry, sir?”

  A hoarse teenage voice — shrill with the shame of youth — echoed through the stables.

  Fedeggs straightened, eyes darting. Behind Bill, in one of the side stalls, stood a boy in a charcoal-black suit, dusted with straw.

  “Who are you?” Fedeggs groaned. “Do we owe you money?” He rubbed his temples.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “No sir. You don’t owe me anything,” the boy replied politely.

  Bill whinnied.

  “Yes, I’ll tell him,” the boy said — apparently to Bill.

  Fedeggs blinked.

  “You cannot take the bag of apples from Bill,” the boy continued evenly. “They are not owned by the castle.”

  Bill looked positively amused.

  “What?” Fedeggs sputtered. “So who bought the apples?” He jabbed a finger at the teenager. “Did you buy Bill apples?”

  “No sir. I’m Hodl, the liaison.” Hodl straightened his suit with pride.

  Fedeggs squinted. “Liaison? For who?”

  “For Bill, sir.”

  “Why does Bill need a liaison?”

  “To bring her her apples.”

  “His apples?” Fedeggs echoed.

  “Well yes, sir.” Hodl smiled with the weary confidence of someone who had already explained this several times today. “Bill owns the orchard.”

  Crunch.

  Bill bit down loudly on her apple, staring at Fedeggs as juice dribbled smugly from her lips.

  “But Bill is a horse.” Fedeggs who was already losing his mind was not finding any coherence in this conversation.

  “Bill is a horse with an orchard sir.” Hodl said.

  “So you bring him his apples every day?” Fedeggs was still confused but, in the madness of the infinite moneyless kingdom he didn’t felt it impossible anymore.

  “Well no sir just today.” the boy took a step closer.

  Fedeggs nodded, fine so Reralt gave Bill an orchard.

  “I’m here to give Bill his money.” Hodl followed as he saw Fedeggs nod.

  Fedeggs was silent. He looked at the door. He really did not want to know more. Then again. Bill apparently had money, and food, two things Fedeggs found himself deprived off.

  “How much money?” Fedeggs asked.

  The boy looked at Bill “well it is not considered good manners to ask that question sir.” then he whispered. “She is a bit sensitive about it.”

  Fedeggs shook his head. “this is a joke isn’t it?” he went through some of the stable boxes. “Reralt! come out, I am on to you, it is not funny.”

  Bill whinnied loudly, Fedegs looked in her stable box, the one she always slept in. his mouth fell on the floor. his body followed quickly.

  ***

  When he came to, the boy in the charcoal suit was standing over him, brushing hay from his lapels. Bill stood beside him, crunching another apple.

  “That cart of money—” Fedeggs croaked, pointing a trembling finger at the overflowing bags in Bill’s stall.

  “Bill’s monthly profits, sir,” the boy said politely.

  Bill extended an apple toward Fedeggs. The moment he reached for it, she changed her mind and gobbled it back down.

  “Bill’s rich?” Fedeggs whispered, sanity unraveling like old parchment.

  “Well, yes, sir.”

  “So we can borrow for the castle? Pay the servants? Fix the roof?”

  “Well, no, sir.” The boy’s smile didn’t falter.

  “Then I’ll charge rent!” Fedeggs snapped. “For the stable! And all the petting from the castle children!”

  Bill bit his finger. “Auw!”

  “Not possible,” the boy said calmly. “You see… it’s Bill’s castle.”

  Fedeggs froze. His lips moved soundlessly. Then it clicked.

  “Has been for many centuries.” Hodl finished.

  “All this time… Devin balanced the budget with Bills.” He swallowed. “I thought they were bills as in debts. Not Bill’s Bills.”

  Bill whinnied proudly.

  ***

  Later, still dazed, Fedeggs stroked her mane. “So you’re a god?”

  Bill stared at him. Then looked at the boy.

  “Well… ex-god,” the boy explained. “Retired about eight hundred years ago. Still capable of small wonders.”

  “Makes sense,” Fedeggs muttered. He needed a nap. Preferably for a week.

  “One last thing,” he asked as he dragged himself out of the stable. “How did she earn all this money?”

  “Stable currency sir,” Hodl pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket, a code scrawled across it. “Billcoins, sir.”

  Fedeggs walked out of the stable backwards with both his hands in the air. “No. I don’t want to know.”

  Bill shook her mane in an amused shrug. She whinnied once, then bent down and took another apple.

  Crunch.

  ***

  The boy in the charcoal suit nodded, satisfied, and resumed brushing Bill’s mane with the earnestness of someone who had accidentally become the high priest of an equine financial movement.

  “Another believer, Bill,” he said proudly. “I think we can put him in the ledger.”

  Bill whinnied — a sound that hovered between smugness and mild divine irritation.

  Hodl pulled the enormous ledger from the cart beside Bill’s apple pile. The pages rustled nervously, aware they were about to be burdened with another entry of questionable economic legitimacy.

  “We’ve converted thousands already,” Hodl said, dipping his quill with ceremonial importance.

  He cleared his throat.

  “I, Hodl — High Priest of Bill — hereby record the believer Fedeggs, Messenger of Givia, as having received the holy word of Billcoin.”

  He blew on the ink, nodded with deep satisfaction, and closed the ledger with a resonant thoom that made a nearby lantern flicker in protest.

  “You know,” Hodl continued as he brushed Bill’s neck, “the value of Billcoin depends on how many believers we have.”

  Bill fixed her gaze on him — ancient, weary, divine — and concentrated.

  A thought formed.

  “Worth isn’t real.

  Value is belief.

  Gold, art, money… they are precious because everyone pretends they are.”

  Bill pushed the thought outward.

  Hodl blinked.

  “…oh. You want another apple?”

  He immediately placed one between her lips.

  Bill accepted it with the long-suffering resignation of a deity who had tried, once again, to impart cosmic wisdom to a creature who understood only snacks.

  Crunch.

  Still, Excellent apples.