Jan Vermeersch, the Master Banker I installed to manage the day-to-day operations, looks like a man under siege. He is standing behind the main counter, frantically signing new passbooks while a washerwoman explains loudly that she needs to deposit four coppers and a bent silver spoon.
"Jan," I say, stepping up beside him.
He jumps. "Princess! It is... robust today. Very robust. We have opened three hundred accounts since breakfast. But..."
He lowers his voice, glancing at the line that snakes out the door.
"The Duke Webbe of Vupis turned around and left. He said he refused to deposit his rents in a 'fish market'."
"That is a problem," I agree, looking at the chaos. "Capital is cowardly, Jan. It doesn't like noise. And it certainly doesn't like the smell of herring."
I take the quill from his hand and cap it.
"Come with me. The clerks can handle the rush for a moment."
We retreat to the small office at the back, where the noise is muffled by heavy velvet drapes. Jan wipes his brow with a silk handkerchief.
"We need to stop the small accounts, Princess," he pleads. "It is too much. The overhead... the tokens... the bowls... for a few coppers? It isn't efficient."
"It is entirely efficient," I correct him. "But the logistics are wrong. You do not graze sheep in the King's solar, and you do not bank fishwives in a marble hall."
I pour him a glass of water.
"We need a second location, Jan."
Jan blinks. "A second... bank? But the security? The Vault?"
"Not a fortress," I say. "A trap. A friendly one."
I unroll a map of the city on his desk. I point to the River District, near the communal washhouses and the fish markets.
"Here," I point to a large, dilapidated structure that used to be a sail-mending warehouse. "It is close to their work. They can visit it on their lunch break without walking all the way up the hill to the Mint."
"A warehouse?" Jan asks skeptically.
"We will clean it," I plan. "Whitewash the walls. Put in sturdy benches. Serve hot tea. Make it warm."
"Tea?" Jan sputters. "This is a bank, not a social club!"
"For these women, it is both," I explain. "If they come for the tea, they bring their gossip. If they bring their gossip, they bring their friends. And if they bring their friends, they bring their savings."
I look him in the eye.
"We will call it 'The Blue Bowl Trust'. It will be a subsidiary of the Fey Bank. No gold allowed. Only silver and copper."
"And the staff?" Jan asks. "My clerks are terrified of the fishwives. One of them got hit with a rhythmic gymnastics club—I mean, a rolling pin—yesterday."
"We will not use your clerks," I decide. "We will hire them. Find me three widows who are good at math and feared by their neighbors. Put them behind the counter. The women will trust their own."
Jan runs the numbers in his head. Low rent for the warehouse. Low wages for the widows. High volume of small currency that eventually adds up to massive liquidity. And, crucially, it clears the main branch for the high-value nobles.
"It separates the markets," Jan realizes. "Prestige for the Dukes. Accessibility for the commons."
"Exactly," I smile. "The Dukes get their marble and silence. The women get tea and safety. And we?"
I tap the map. "We get everything."
Jan straightens his doublet. The panic leaves his eyes, replaced by the gleam of a true banker.
"I know the landlord of that warehouse," Jan says. "He owes us money. I can have the lease by noon."
"Get it," I order. "I want The Blue Bowl open by the end of the week. And Jan?"
"Yes, Princess?" he asks.
I smile at him. "Order more tea. Lots of it."
We will start resurrecting Centis’s economy. These women have been desperate to have a place to store their money where the men can’t take it. We offer that. We can move the money as we need to. It only requres a couple of chests. Now to find some things to invest in.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
I stop Jan, “Find a widow with some acumen to her. I’d like to see the Blue Bowl making small loans. Things under one gold piece. No more than one loan to a single person or enterprise. We’ll only be able to loan to men or widows because women here aren’t expected to pay back since they’re not allowed to have coin. We wouldn’t be able to collect it from them and the Centis courts would laugh that we loaned them money in the first place. ”
I continue, “We’ll probably want a few more locations. The merchant’s wives, the guildmember’s wives, we need those in the middle. We’ve got the richest and the poorest.”
Jan looks at me, “You mean to get them all to deposit their money in this bank.”
“I mean to resurrect Centis’s economy and refill the river of commerce,” I reply, “This is how we ensure that our trading partners can continue to purchase Fey goods.”
The "Blue Bowl" warehouse is thriving, a chaotic hive of copper and tea. The deposits aren’t large, but they’re consistent. We’ve seen the equivalent of a few hundred gold come pouring in over the last few days. The main Bank is a fortress of gold and silence, pristine as ever for those who can afford it and who want our discretion. But as I look at the city, I see a gap.
Between the fishwives and the Duchesses lies the middle ground. The wives of the merchants, the master artisans, the apothecaries, and the drapers. They are too proud to sit on a bench with a washerwoman, but they are too intimidated to walk through the Gold Door and stand next to a Duchess.
"The middle is where the spine of the city is," I tell Melina as we walk through the Merchant Quarter. "They have money, but they are terrified of losing it. They don't want charity, and they don't need deep secrecy. They want respectability."
"And how do we sell them that?" Melina asks, dodging a cart full of wool.
"We don't sell them protection," I decide. "We sell them convenience. And status."
Brigit has come through again. She's arranged a meeting in the private room of The Gilded Teapot, the most respectable tea house in the city, frequented by the wives of the Guild Masters.
I have invited the "Queen Bees" of this stratum: Frau Gerta who is the wife of the Master Weaver, Madame Lisse who is the wife of the Chief Wine Merchant, and Mistress Hanne whose husband runs the Tanneries.
They arrive looking stiff in their Sunday velvets, eyeing me warily. They know I am the "Fey Witch" with the magic bowls, but they also know I am the one who made the guilds rich with my commissions .
"Ladies," I greet them, pouring the tea myself. "Thank you for coming."
"Princess," Frau Gerta nods, smoothing her skirts. "We hear you have opened a... warehouse... by the river."
Her tone suggests the warehouse is full of plague rats.
"A charitable endeavor," I dismiss lightly. "For the less fortunate. But I did not ask you here to discuss copper."
I signal Melina. She places three objects on the table.
They are not iron tokens. They are not blue bowls.
They are slim, elegant pocketbooks bound in silver-dyed leather, with the Fey Tree embossed in platinum leaf on the cover. They look like prayer books, but expensive ones.
"This," I announce, "is the Silver Ledger."
Mistress Hanne reaches out to touch one. "It is beautiful."
"It is exclusive," I say. "Designed specifically for the wives of the Guilds. You see, I know that you are the ones who truly run the households. You manage the servants, the larders, the supplies."
They nod. This is true, and they like hearing it. Everyone likes to be appreciated.
"It is dangerous to carry gold to the market," I continue. "Pickpockets. Thieves. It is also heavy. With gold, there is simply the burden of the weight."
I open the book.
"With a Silver Ledger account, you do not carry coin. This is much lighter and safer. You deposit your household funds at the Bank, using the private 'Merchant Entrance' we are building on the west side, and you receive this book."
"And then?" Madame Lisse asks.
"And then," I smile, "when you go to the butcher, or the silk merchant, or the candle maker... you simply show this book. You write the amount on a slip of paper, stamp it with your personal seal, and the merchant brings it to us for payment."
The three women stare at me.
"Shopping... without money?" Gerta whispers.
"Shopping on credit," I correct. "It is how the Elves trade. It is how the Fey trade among ourselves. It is how Queens trade. Why should the wives of the city's most important men be forced to haggle with dirty coins like laundresses or fish wives?"
I lean back.
"Imagine the look on the baker's face when you do not count out pennies, but simply sign your name. It says, 'My word is good. My credit is iron.'"
I see the desire in their eyes. It isn't about the savings. It is about the power. To sign a paper and have goods handed to you is the ultimate status symbol. It elevates them above the fishwives instantly.
"And," I add the final hook, "the Silver Ledger accounts pay 4% interest. Compounded quarterly. Which means your household allowance grows, allowing you to buy... perhaps a little something extra for yourselves? Without bothering your husbands for more coin."
Frau Gerta picks up the silver book. She holds it against her velvet dress. It matches perfectly.
"My husband complains about the risk of keeping cash in the shop," she muses. "He says the apprentices steal."
"The Bank does not steal," I promise. "Think of the convenience, Gerta. No more heavy purses dragging down your belt."
Gerta looks at Lisse. Lisse looks at Hanne.
"The Merchant Entrance," Hanne asks. "It is... clean?"
"It isn't now but it will be before you need to visit," I reply. "And we serve spiced wine while you wait."
Gerta opens her purse. She pulls out a heavy bag of gold, the profits from the carpet commission I just paid her husband.
"I should like to open a Silver Ledger," she announces. "I am going to the market later, and I wish to try this... signature magic."
"An excellent choice," I smile, opening the fresh page.
By tomorrow, every merchant's wife in Centis will want a silver book. Not because they need it, but because Gerta has one, and Gerta is shopping like a Queen.
I have the poor. I have the rich. And now, I have the middle.
Oskar's economy is no longer a circle. It is a pyramid. And I am sitting on top of it.
The carpet in the West Entrance is installed. The air smells of cinnamon. Frau Gerta has arrived, been dazzled, and left with her silver book.
But Jan Vermeersch is vibrating with anxiety.
"Princess," he hisses as we watch Gerta's carriage pull away. "You have given her a book of blank checks. What happens when she goes to the market? Why would a baker accept a piece of paper for a loaf of bread? He can't eat paper."
"He won't eat it, Jan. He will trust it," I say, heading back to my office. "But trust requires... structural reinforcement."
I sit down and pull out a fresh sheet of parchment.
"Here is how we ensure the paper flows," I explain.
"Who did we give the first books to?" I ask.
"Frau Gerta, Madame Lisse, Mistress Hanne," Jan recites.
"Exactly. The wife of the Master Weaver, the wife of the Chief Wine Merchant, and the wife of the Master Tanner . If Gerta walks into a fabric shop and tries to pay with a slip, who is that shopkeeper?"
Jan thinks. "Likely a member of the Weaver's Guild. A subordinate of her husband."
"Precisely. Is a journeyman weaver going to refuse the Master's wife?" I smile. "He would not dare. He will take the paper because he fears her husband more than he fears losing a few coppers. We are using their own hierarchy against them to force adoption."
"But once he has the paper," Jan worries, "he will want his money."
Chapter 113 marks a major turning point: the Bank isn’t just expanding — it’s stratifying. We now have:
- The fortress of gold for nobles
- The hive of copper and tea for the poor
- The shining gateway of respectability for the merchant class
The MC is essentially reinventing Centis’s entire financial ecosystem in real time, and no one except Jan seems to realize how wildly destabilizing this is going to be. (And bless Jan, because he’s trying so hard.)
The introduction of the Silver Ledger is one of my favorite pieces of worldbuilding so far and not just because it elevates the merchant wives, but because it weaponizes social respectability to force economic adoption. Delicious.
And the West Entrance carpet cameo? You just know Oskar is going to regret letting any Fey textiles within a hundred yards of his palace.
Your turn:
- Do you think the merchants will accept them?
Let me know your answer in the comments.
Next chapter, we finally see what happens when:
- the Silver Ledger system hits the open market,
- the guild hierarchy starts bending under new pressures, and
- someone realizes that paper promises are only as stable as the person backing them.
There may also be… a complication.Not from nobles.Not from husbands.
From someone much smaller — and much louder.
Stay tuned!