Page 2681

The Queen seemed to think that it was "not the right time" to remove those regulations--which implied, at least, that she intended to remove them in the future.

But Amelia was apparently starting to think that perhaps the Queen liked the current situation just fine. The economy was still recovering, after all. The Bank would continue to help with that, even if its profit margins were minimized.

Or in other words, perhaps the Queen simply didn't want the Darksteel National Bank growing too powerful.

When Hector had heard the Madame Carthrace float that idea to him, he hadn't been sure what to think. And now that he'd had a few days to let it stew in his mind, he was uncomfortable with how much sense it made. He didn't want to imagine that Queen Helen was being so mistrustful of his intentions or that she might care more about some political power game than about the hundreds of thousands of Atreyans who were still struggling financially, right now.

There must've been more to her reasoning than what Amelia had inferred. There must've been.

But if Amelia was right, then that would mean the Queen had been thinking this way for months now--not just as a result of this business with Lorent. And if that was the case, then he had even more reason to think that she was displeased by his land acquisition.

He honestly didn't know what he would do if his relationship with the Queen ever truly soured. She was one of the people he trusted most, out of everyone he'd ever met. The notion that she might start working against him? He didn't even want to humor that possibility.

And yet, here he now was, doing exactly that.

Because if Atreya wouldn't lift its regulations on the Bank, then... wasn't that even more motivation to expand their operations into Lorent? Where the rules might be more lenient?