Page 36 of Knowing Trust

But it was a huge success and made a lot of money. And now that more and more fairies were awake, the progress we were making in Faerie was ridiculous too.

Well, now that we’d handled 90% of the corruption and problems. Even the companies who were used to raking the nobles over the coals or pulling shit for more money figured out fast that things were different and to behave.

Like I threatened to expel a few of them from Faerie permanently and seize all of their assets when they tried to inflate construction costs and make up bullshit for delays raising the bill. People really needed to stop insulting my intelligence. I reminded them that they didn’t have the ancients to help them oppress me as the previous heirs and queens so to not be stupid.

For now, it was working. I didn’t think it would forever—I never had that much faith in anything or anyone—but we were flying through plans and construction.

And the first auction was a huge help. Even if the remaining five came in at half of that one, it would be a massive influx of income we needed for the budgets.

We just didn’t have enough of Faerie back online and running well to get the taxes we needed. Slowly and surely as we reopened areas, but… Life was expensive.

Which was why after the auction we had a massive meeting in the ballroom of my castle. It was all the commanders, nobles we were working with, hobgoblins managing areas, aides, and any trusted advisors.

Basically, anyone and everyone we might trust their advice and input, including my mates, Juan who was running my companies—everyone.

And the goal was simple.

“Hopefully, we’re going to run through these budgets too fast again like we did last year,” I started with a bang. “But the amount we’re planning on spending on Faerie is already ridiculously expensive. We don’t have the taxes coming in yet to make it work, and we can’t rely on that for a few years. Neldor and I are willing to loan the government money to—”

“But that should be a last resort and emergency situation only,” Lageos said firmly. “A problem with accounting or short-term fix. Enough people still have the mentality that you’re alive to give every piece of you to Faerie and they would include your family fortune. They would try to keep you from ever being repaid. So no, that is not an acceptable option.”

Wow. I wasn’t the only one who looked at him with surprise he not only said it so firmly, but forcefully.

“Right, so let’s go over what worked and ideas to get more going,” I told everyone. I glanced over at Juan. “You’re starting with the numbers and where we’re sort of at so people get what they’re coming into before suggesting ideas that we’ve already done, right?”

That was about the politest way to warn people not to treat us like stupid kids and to think before they spoke. I thought so at least.

He nodded and stood, giving us the presentation of sales numbers for the bakery, clothing company, and sorbet companies. Then he went into other projects—like my comfort blankets—and more. To say the nobles were stunned at how much we’d brought in and pumped into Faerie instead of selfishly kept for myself was an understatement.

“Okay, so let’s start with the calendars,” I muttered, reviewing what was on my sheet. “Clearly those were a winner and profitable.”

“Exceedingly,” Mallory agreed, moving up with Juan. She was working with him and one of the commanders on the project. “The four calendars we did are the four best sellers on Amazon for those type. Unfortunately, there’s not much of a profit margin between the cost to print and the expected pricing. However, we wish to expand it.”

“How?” Neldor asked.

“Greeting cards for one,” Juan said. “You could take pictures all around Faerie and people would think they are digital art. You could sell prints like you gave to Dr. Craftsman. People want that. You promote the right way on your social media and it could take off. We think that we have Mallory introduced as the artist to the human world.”

“That’s smart,” I muttered, glancing at Lucca since I knew he’d been involved in a lot of this stuff and had worked with Mallory. Others had reservations about her because she was related to Ancient Simimar and Rennyn who were corrupt and both had to be killed, but she was as much of their victim as I was.

“She’s who I would trust with this. If she had the right support and manager, she could be the talent to appear at shows and everything,” he muttered. “A few even and hire them from the havens. I agree that the way to launch it is as someone you found and we give her a background of art school—the whole thing. It could be big. Merch—all of it.”

“If you’re willing to be in the spotlight like that,” I hedged, studying Mallory. “You see the crazy and more I deal with.”

She dipped her head to me. “You would always make sure I was protected. None of us would doubt that, Your Highness. I can do this to help Faerie and it’s smart.”

“Well done,” I praised, agreeing for them to get started when Neldor agreed as well.

“Several of the colleges want to enter contracts for the sorbet, and that is the way we can ramp up sales now that there is another larger factory,” Juan said. He showed us the proposed numbers if we agreed to the contracts and I wasn’t the only one who whistled. It was a massive jump in production.

“Can we handle it?”

“Yes, since there are a lot of fairies needing jobs,” he promised. “You are both focusing on better plans of day care and childcare in the future instead of… How things were.”

Which was people lived in poverty so bad that they couldn’t think of having anyone look after their kids or do anything but side work while staying at home. We were going to fix that system, burn down the old ways, and rebuild to something better.

I refused to be the queen of a world with magic that wasn’t ever magical.

“What we need is more space and freezers,” Juan told me. “The schools don’t have the freezer space to hold everything as much as would be best for our side. And they’ll need flexibility on what they order. It will be completely reliant on the whims of the students, so it will be so many cases to start and then replacement cases according to their contract quantities.”

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