"Why's theft socially costlier in crowded places?"

"Nontrivial to figure out who did it and more separate debts incurred - theft from community stores is debt to everyone - which has more overhead to manage. Also some courts in the Misty Isles are more or less limited in population by how much dew they'll reliably have and when they're low on dew, stealing means someone could starve."

Cam makes a little globe and points at Ireland. "This the Misty Isles here?"

"Yes, how'd you guess?"

"My timeline's got faery stories. We wound up pasting the word for faeries in several languages onto the mover kind of daeva though."

"How accurate are the stories?"

"...mostly not but enough that I got really suspicious when the first court I met wanted me to eat some food."

"If your world did not have faeries how would it have gotten faery stories?"

"I'm not sure. It could be an alternate universe that just in fact also has faeries, the stories could be a coincidence, I could not be the only person traveling between the universes..."

Nod.

"Hey, does my theoretical ability to counterfeit affect the value of your money?"

"I don't know! We should check after I've given it all to you and not before, because if it makes it worthless I will be in trouble."

"I said theoretical, I can't stop having the theoretical ability! I am interested in checking whether the actual practice changes the results though."

"Okay! We will find out if the theoretical ability affects the results when I give you the coins, and we should check whether the actual practice does some time after that."

"Okay."

He wheels him back to his room.

"Hey Auda," Cam says, "do you want any things from faeries? It would be convenient to have a human participating in some economic experiments."

"Uh," she says, looking back and forth between them.

"Not like right this second, just does it sound like something you might ever feel like doing."

"I'd be happy to. I would appreciate some time to think about what I might want in exchange."

"Take all the time you need and 'no, I require no faery services' is a completely fine answer," Cam assures her.

"It is! ...but they're really neat economics experiments and I think you'd have fun!"

"They sound lovely and I'll think about it as soon as I'm unoccupied."

"I'll go get the coins for you," he says to Cam.

"Thanks!"