A Fae in Finance (How to Do Business in Fairie #1)

Chapter 1 In Which I Compose a Presentation

In Which I Compose a Presentation

My manager’s email was titled YOU ARE LEADING THE CLIENT CALL.

Do not commit to, agree to, or provide a deadline

When he tells you he needs the deliverable tonight, hum noncommittally

Do not say any sentence including the words “you will have it by”

I mean it, Miri: DO NOT MAKE ANY COMMITMENTS WHATSOEVER

I will be listening in but will not speak.

Jeff

I stared at the email for a moment, twisting the thin gold band on my index finger. Doctor Kitten, the black and white cat on my lap, also stared at the email for a moment.

I giggled. Doctor Kitten glared up at me, disturbed by the movement. “Sorry, it’s just kind of funny,” I said, scratching his head.

Obviously I wouldn’t agree to anything the client asked—obviously I wouldn’t bind myself in promises or pearls for the Princeling.

But there was something mundane and hilarious about this note, delivered via Microsoft Outlook and not scrawled in black ink on the soft underside of a torn bit of bark.

I tapped my fingers lightly on the keys, unsure whether Jeff wanted me to confirm receipt. He might just find the extra email irritating.

Finally, I sent a quick Understood; thank you.

When I shifted in my chair, my thighs stuck to the faux leather.

The tiny window air conditioner was more enthusiastic than efficient, and I was already sticky from the summer heat.

I had two screens glowing an unnatural blue in front of me: my silver work laptop and my larger second monitor. The artificial light hurt my eyes.

Doctor Kitten remained stubbornly nestled on my knees, despite my attempts to remove him. In the background, my “Pop Punk Hits of the 2000s” radio station started its third Good Charlotte song, putting me in exactly the wrong mindset for a client meeting.

The computer pinged—the soft insistent blip of a Microsoft Teams meeting—and the pop-up on the lower right-hand side of my screen invited me to Join Meeting. Of course the Princeling had started it early.

“Robot Overlord, please stop the music,” I said, and the speaker turned off.

I joined the meeting, my left hand curled around a glass of what used to be iced tea.

The Princeling greeted me the moment the meeting loaded. “Hello, fair one,” he said, his voice distant and tinny.

“My lord,” I replied, scanning the attendees for Jeff.

The Princeling’s unfairly attractive retinue had all joined, sharp faces against the artificially blurred backgrounds of the video software.

No sign of Jeff, who seemed to feel that while timeliness may be a virtue, he’d never agreed to be virtuous.

“Share the agenda,” the Princeling instructed. I couldn’t tell if he was frustrated by my slowness, if he expected me to have it up and shared already. Perhaps I should have.

I shared my screen, the agenda now visible to everyone.

“Not much today,” I said, and my voice cracked.

I wasn’t really new to this job anymore, but still in the liminal space where I didn’t know whether to start without my manager.

Jeff wouldn’t talk, but he’d said he wanted to observe.

“We should be done soon.” I shifted in my chair, which tilted backward unbidden.

The Princeling smirked, raising an eyebrow. “I knew I sensed prophecy in you,” he said.

I blanched. Did I just promise something?

“Not a prophecy,” I replied, frozen in place. “Just a guess.” My phone buzzed from the far side of my desk, beyond the lukewarm tea.

“She has prophecy, though,” the Gray Knight said, coming off mute. A loud shriek came through her mic, then cut off abruptly. “Look at her fractured eyes.”

Fractured eyes? I’ll fracture your face, I thought, because I’d spent half the night rereading the death-by-magic-flower adventures of The Jasmine Throne and the rest of the night formatting PowerPoint footers. Both of those activities made me feel murderous.

“’Tis true,” said another—the Red Knight.

The Red and Blue Knights should have been indistinguishable, with equally shiny spills of untamed chestnut hair, penetrating eyes the frozen brown of soil packed down under an ice melt, and shoulders broad enough to splinter a front door.

Fortunately, the knights always wore their colors.

“Observe the tilt in the zygomatic bone,” the Red Knight added, gesturing with his pointy, dimpled chin.

“Anyway,” I said, before they could begin discussing my cheekbones in earnest. “Today we just want to talk about the seller’s presentation, to make sure it lines up with your expectations.

” I stopped again. My phone buzzed several more times, lit up by a flurry of messages in my Games Games Games group chat.

I flipped the screen face down and tried to stay focused.

“Yes,” the Princeling said. “The seller’s presentation. Do you truly think mortals will buy our acorn cups and cobweb curtains?”

“Um,” I said, wishing my manager would join already. “Jeff says people will buy anything if you have a celebrity endorsement.”

Jeff believed that many things could be simplified by the mention of a “celebrity endorsement” but hadn’t yet explained how to obtain one.

None of the faeries appeared reassured by this statement. “And I think that people will want to buy faerie-made products either way,” I added.

The Red Knight unmuted himself and heaved a dramatic sigh. “Would that this debasement were not required.”

The Blue Knight remained muted but rolled his eyes with gusto.

“Look,” I said. “I think it’s a really good thing we’re doing. An important thing. It’ll help people know you—know faeries. Help humans and faeries… be friends. You know, like, uh, globalization.” I winced, experiencing the unique brand of agony that only comes after one has opened one’s own mouth.

“Globalization,” the Princeling repeated, his face wrinkled in either immense pain or disgust. “I know this not. Let us continue. I have many councils scheduled today, sorceress.”

“Right.” I glanced at the attendee list. Still no Jeff. “Not a sorceress. But let’s get started. We’ve got a valuation range for the company.”

I glanced up—with the Princeling, I was never sure how much to explain. “We think that we have an exciting story for investors, because of the, uh, supernatural element.”

Jeff always said “supernatural element.” Jeff said that if a celebrity wouldn’t endorse a product, you could just write supernatural element on your materials to achieve a similar effect.

“You have mentioned,” the Princeling noted dryly. “Is there no progress, then?”

“No, there’s a lot of progress! Did you get the new pages we sent?” I leaned forward, smushing Doctor Kitten a bit in my lap. He still wouldn’t move.

The Princeling sighed. “Yes. They were not to our taste.”

This was why Jeff was late, really. He’d taken a strong dislike to our client, in part over differences in creative vision. And to be fair, I also found the Princeling’s vision… creative, for lack of a better word.

“Okay, that’s fine,” I said. “Can you let me know what worked and what didn’t?”

“What worked?” the Princeling repeated. A tiny crease had come between his peaked brows, and I remembered that faeries are quite literal.

“Uh, what you liked about it,” I amended.

“Oh,” he said, almost brightly. “Nothing. I liked nothing.”

Faeries cannot lie. I fought the urge to cringe.

“Okay, cool,” I said instead. “That’s, um, a good start.” It was not really.

“I do not believe it is an auspicious start,” the Gray Knight said, coming off mute again.

Her filter had slipped; she was leaning against a tree, silvery bark and silvery eyes and the cheekbones of a movie star.

I flushed at the dismissal in her tone and tried to focus.

She held her camera at an odd angle, tilted down toward the part in her hair, which should’ve been unflattering but just made her look sharper, mesmerizing like the thin blade of a knife.

“I have heard humans say that,” the Princeling told her. “It means naught.”

“Right,” I said.

“This means correct,” he added.

“Right,” I said again. I felt that I had perhaps lost the plot a bit. “Um, so, Jeff says that buyers will be used to seeing a presentation like the one we shared with you,” I told them. “So maybe we can think about keeping some of the elements of that presentation—”

“Miri, Jeff here,” Jeff interrupted, brusque. “It’s all good, let’s do what the Princeling asks.” He hadn’t turned on his camera. I pushed the annoyance off my face. He’d said he wouldn’t speak.

“Okay, well, um, my lord,” I said, voice rough. I reached with shaking hands to pet Doctor Kitten, who sensed my stress and took this opportunity to jump from my lap. “What would make this presentation more agreeable to you?”

“If it were expulsed from the world,” the Princeling said, “and expunged from the books of heaven and hell.”

We stared at each other through the cameras, his long face earnest and his green eyes somber.

I cleared my throat. “So, ah, if I can’t do that, what would work?”

Silence.

“More green,” the Princeling said, after a long, considering pause.

“And more leaves,” the Gray Knight chimed in helpfully.

The Crone, the Red Knight, and the Blue Knight—the others in the retinue—did not speak but nodded in their respective frames.

“Miri can add more leaves,” Jeff said, which seemed unfair to me because our graphic design and software budget was approximately seven dollars and a pack of washable markers. No one was giving me funds for a glue stick, let alone for digital art packs.

“Yeah, totally,” I said aloud.

“We shall see,” the Princeling said. “When will you provide us with this new document?”

“Soon,” I said.

“Will you provide a span of moon or sun?” the Princeling requested. Do not agree to a deadline.

I waited for Jeff to speak.

He didn’t.

My air conditioner huffed indignantly.

“Perhaps within the arc of this day,” the Princeling prompted.

“Uh, we’ll do our best to get it done soon,” I said. Do not commit to a deadline.