Page 64 of Knowing Trust

“Yeah, this is a huge mess,” Izzy worried.

“Yeah, but one I saw coming,” I admitted, giving her a wink. I glanced over at Iolas. “Gather the others and start coming up with ideas.”

Izzy shot me a worried look knowing me well enough that I was distracting the commanders. Iolas jumped to it, and I managed to slip away in the chaos.

Leigh was waiting for me with Claudia. I nodded to both of them.

“What’s the legality of this?” I asked them. “Or how do you suggest letting this play out to have the least amount of mess later?”

“You’re going to have a mess no matter what, Your Highness.” Claudia shrugged. “You have diplomatic immunity. My advice would be to do it in Faerie, tell them that Leigh can show them your castle or show them something they know is illegal to see. Really, it doesn’t matter. You’re planning to take this all the way like normal so you’re not a hypocrite.”

“Great minds,” Leigh chuckled. “I told them that I had a window to get them into Faerie and show them where your mother was frozen.” She shrugged when we couldn’t hide our shock. “I needed something too good for them to be stupid about after how Morgan freaked out. I said everyone is in a panic of how to handle it, so it had to be now.”

“Do it,” I agreed when Claudia nodded. “Everything else is in place?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

I extended my hand to her. “I wish you the best of luck and may the gods bless this decision. I pray you never go against the agreement we made.”

“You as well. I pray we can both stay in our own lanes and neither power nor greed corrupt us.” She shook my hand and headed out.

“I hate that she doesn’t like you, Tamsin,” Claudia said when Leigh was gone.

“It works better that she doesn’t.” I shrugged as I glanced at her. “I don’t like her either, but we can still respect each other. If I was to do it, it had to be someone I wasn’t friendly with and we both know that.”

“Yeah, but I don’t like risks for you.” She ran her hand over her hair. “It’s ingrained in me as your attorney.” She frowned. “Even more so now that I’ve fallen for your best friend. Izzy is going to beat my ass.”

I snorted. “She’s tiny. She can’t take you.” I shrugged again when she shot me an unfriendly look. “Sex her up. Apparently, you’re super good at it.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“I hear that a lot,” I chuckled darkly, beaming at her.

Not even an hour later, the trap was sprung and the five hosts of the show Morgan had just been on were restrained in chairs. Lights and cameras were up, Leigh giving me the thumbs-up we were rolling.

“You wanted to see my castle, welcome to it,” I purred, opening my arms wide and gesturing around. “Let’s see if the magic is working. Which of you knew it was illegal for you to trespass here and try to see my mother?” I chuckled when all five of them immediately answered that they did. “Excellent, so let’s get started, shall we?”

I moved closer to them and pulled up a chair and sat down.

“You set us up,” the main guy hissed as Leigh came into view.

“Yes, yes, I did,” Leigh chuckled darkly. “I find the five of you detestable, and when my future queen came to me with a proposal to expose just how big of liars you are, I jumped at the chance.”

“You’re one of her sycophants,” the other guy accused.

“Actually, we don’t like each other,” I said honestly, gesturing between us, glancing at Leigh and shrugging.

“We would never be friends, that’s true, Your Highness,” Leigh accepted, wanting to keep her answer careful given it was going to be seen by everyone. “But I have to give you credit for being bold. I may think Faerie should move away from the monarchy and let the royal bloodlines die out, but you are bold.”

“Let’s back up before their tiny brains explode and they assume you’re trying to kill me,” I drawled, glancing over at Ara. “We need to tell someone that I was bad. I cannot keep my telepathy on with these fools and not give myself a migraine, especially with what else I’m planning. I made a miscalculation with that.”

“Yes, Your Highness, and you need the time check because while we’re not doing this live, you will air all of the footage so they cannot lie and say it’s only clips,” she reminded me.

We did all of that for the cameras and then I took back over once a few very pissed-off captains showed up. I was the big boss. They could deal with it.

“So, let’s start from the beginning of this story,” I said, focused on the five “guests” but also for the new arrivals. “I don’t like that there is so much propaganda in supe news. Councils and more have too many hands in everything. Hell, one station went completely under after we took down the old warlock elders.

“I can’t even imagine the mess Councilwoman White has there and it’s not ours to handle. But also, fairies are always going on your shows and your stations and your everything. I’m over that. I’m over watching your reports. Your this and that. Also, I set up announcement boards in every town square in Faerie to get better information out to my people.

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