Twenty-eighty year old, Bernadette Wallace, stood in front of her bathroom mirror looking herself over. She’d graduated from the St. Csilla College four years ago, and things hadn’t been quite as stellar as she’d hoped they’d go.

It wasn’t that the economy was struggling, on the contrary, things seemed to be going gangbusters on that end of things. New industries were being born every day. New technologies and techniques were being discovered. The recent push to expand Earth industries into the stars and the alternate realities had resulted in an economic boom that was quickly overshadowing every boom that had come before.

The problem for people like young “Bernadette” was that the employment field was simply just that more competitive. Even the low-end schools in the poorer parts of the world were able to produce talents and geniuses. Especially since the world government and certain small but extremely wealthy philanthropists were making sure that such schools were adequately funded.

At first, this was no concern for Bernadette, after all, it had always been a given that she was going to end up working for her Wallace family in some capacity or the other. Her dual bachelor’s degree in Runological Linguistics and Cosmic Studies, and her Masters in Public Administration, were purely to shut up Bernadette’s twin sister’s Beatrice’s and stop their mother Evelyn’s snide comments about Bernadette’s inability to apply herself academically.

Then the business that first hired her, ended up firing her because she was pretty miserable as an employee and hadn’t been taking the work seriously because the boss was one of her uncles. Which was admittedly Bernadette’s bad.

After some serious scolding on the part of her mother, and a heart to heart with her father Joseph, she decided to take things more seriously. Unfortunately, the second business that hired her ended up getting audited. Which was plain bad luck.

This one instance of bad luck turned into a streak of unfortunate encounters when the third business that hired her, ended up quite literally self-destructing because the CEO was a supervillain and had his lair hidden in one of the sub-basements.

Things went slightly better with the fourth business that hired her but then a swarm of hundred-foot-tall ants ravaged the city the business was located in, and the company wasn’t able to bounce back from the damage. Closing up shop, and leaving Bernadette out of a job.

Finally, there was the fifth job, which had been her working for a small publishing company in Pennsylvania. Things had kind of gone well there, the President’s idiot son got hired on, and he turned out to be a total lech. He didn’t go too far with her, but he did with one of her friends. Bernadette and another of the female workers spoke on the woman’s behalf.

To avoid embarrassment, the company decided to settle the harassment suit out of court. Then it did that thing companies do when they feel displeased with one or more of their workers, and it proceeded to find a series of reasonable, perfectly legal, perfectly logical reasons to terminate all three women. So Bernadette ended up fired, yet again.

At that point, the Wallace clan no longer had the time or resources to find her another position. They were embroiled in a minor clash with another magus family and a major conflict with a clan of cultivators from overseas. Last but not least, the clan was also involved in a battle for survival against a larger shipping company that had recently built one of its branches in Massachusetts.

By the time her mother, Evelyn, the family head could be bothered to pay her any mind the woman was far too exhausted and far too preoccupied with fending off another round of troubles.

Trouble such as those brought forth by a gray-industry company that had bought out their fallen former-competitor and was now expanding into the fields of shipping and mech manufacturing. As well as another issue that seemed to have gotten the family’s undying seniors up in a tizzy and breathing down the woman’s neck.

Without saying another word, Evelyn called Bernadette in for a chat, hearing out her explanations for how she’d managed to get fired five times in barely more than three years.

Then without giving any apparent thought to the fact that at least four of those three of those five times weren’t really her fault, and the fifth time was just an unavoidable consequence of doing the right thing, Evelyn told Bernadette that she’d need to find work within a year’s time because that was when the trust fund, that’d she’d been living off of during the broad spans of unemployment, would be cut off.

Later when she complained to her father, Joseph, to try and get him to appeal to her mother for her, he seemed to agree with the decision. Saying that Bernadette would, at least, still be getting her due stipend as a member of the family, and informing Bernadette that her mother was mostly just trying to light under her, which he apparently thought wasn’t the worst idea.

Then he gave her the speech about she was the most talented amongst the family’s children and she should really be applying herself more. It was a speech she hated because of how many times she’d heard it, and also because a part of it felt it wasn’t true. After all, she still remembered how she’d very nearly failed to have any magic at all. She could never forget this fact, even if everyone else had.

Now here she was, one year later, just a few months after having been cut off. Trying to explain how hard it was to get hired in this day and age didn’t do any good, and her normally soft hearted father still wouldn’t put in a good word for her. Strangely Bernadette couldn’t hold it against them. Trouble likes to find trouble, just as wealth gathers to wealth. As the clan’s situation grew more dire, more enemies and former friends crawled out of the woodwork to strike at them. Eventually, the clan had found itself in such a perilous state that she suspected that the days where she could rely on them to provide her, would have come to an end sooner or later, regardless of whether her mother cut her off or not.

Thankfully, being warned that this would happen a year in advance allowed young Bernadette to tighten her belt and save as much as she could. She got rid of her lavish apartment in one of Boston’s swankier areas, and downgraded her entire lifestyle to something more reasonable and affordable.

She’d somehow managed to get a job working as a clerk in a pet shop, and joined the player’s league to try and supplement the meager amount of income the pet shop job made her. Brewing serums, creating charms, and doing the less dangerous missions. It wasn’t the life of an heiress and it wasn’t easy, but the life wasn’t too terrible either.

Still, it wasn’t the life she was meant for, the life her family had groomed her for. So she continued applying to places in the hopes of finding more suitable work. Now she sat in the waiting room of a government office in the city Prospero, in the state of Arcadia. Though he no longer had his job as a state official, her brother Jasper managed to use a few strings for her using some contacts he’d cultivated during his time as a state mage for the Massachusetts government.

One of the strangely identical, overly pretty, blue-haired women that could be seen all over the entrance either serving as clerks, janitorial staff, or security walked up to her.

“The director will see you now,” said the woman.

“Er...Uh, th-, thank you,” said Bernadette. Flustered and nervous.

She got up from her seat and followed the woman, into an area deep within the floor. There was a door with a plaque that simply read “Director’s Office”. The woman with the blue-silver hair opened the door and said,

“I’ve brought the next Interviewee, ma’am.”

“Oh, thanks, Lydia. I’ll see her now,” said a light yet authoritative voice.

The woman with the blue-silver hair smiled and ushered Bernadette forward. Her gentle and amiable manner, something mysterious in her smile, putting the young woman at ease.

Bernadette found herself seated in front of a red-headed woman in round-rimmed glasses. A breathtakingly beautiful, red-headed, woman in glasses.

Skin pale like milk or the light of the moon, radiant with health. Hair like a captured sunrise. Eyes that were a wondrous and mercurial mixture of silver, blue, and green. Every feature honed to a degree that made it feel like the woman was computer-generated, without making her look completely inhuman. Bernadette blushed and frowned, not sure why the woman’s looks bothered her so much.

It wasn’t like she was attracted to the woman. She knew for sure that wasn’t the case. Not only was this neither the time or place, but she was also pretty sure that she mostly liked men, despite a few entanglements with the same sex. Plus there was a feeling in the back of her mind that made the idea of ‘lusting’ after this particular stranger feel repugnant.

There was just something about the woman that nudged a part of Bernadette’s mind. It was like looking at a living painting. A masterwork that was beyond words.

The woman didn’t look much older than Bernadette was. That was no surprise though, Bernadette had seen enough to know that visible age was no sign of power and authority. Never mind the presence of age-reversing serums and magics, the simple fact was that people of a certain level of power just generally tended to look young.

For instance, none of the current members of the American Supreme Court looked older than thirty, despite some of them having been around since the beginning of the great reconstruction effort. Ditto for the highest generals working for the world government.

Considering the way the other woman seemed to positively radiate magical energy, Bernadette imagined that this rule of youthful appearances often belying one’s ability to kick-ass held true.

Thus Bernadette endeavored to be polite regardless of how the other party looked. Especially in light of the current circumstances. Being hexed into oblivion would have been bad enough, but being hexed into oblivion and failing an interview would have had her questioning her life.

“So, you’re the applicant for the position in the Office's Anomaly Inspection and Remediation Division. Nice to meet you. My name is Margot Kaylan. Now what can you tell me about yourself that makes you any better for this position than the other applicants?” said the Director of the Office of Cosmic Artifice.

Bernadette’s jaw dropped as she heard the woman’s first name and something clicked.

“Oh...Shit!” said Bernadette.

“Excuse, me?” said the other woman. Looking annoyed and confused.

“Er...Uh, this was a mistake. I’m uh, I’m just going to go. Please don’t hex me. I know I was stupid when I was younger but...I’d really like to stay vertebrate, please!” said Bernadette. Jumping up like a stepped-on cat and running out the door.

Margot blinked as she stared at the empty seat. She used the link between herself and her husband to access the akashic and quickly realized who the interviewee had been.

Monty came by holding his usual mug of coffee-spiked blood and a regular latte. She took the latte from him and took a sip. Sighing as she did so.

“You know, that’s the second time someone’s running screaming from this office. If we keep this up, we’re going to end with quite the reputation,” said Monty.

Margot rolled her eyes and lightly elbowed Monty in the side as she gazed at the hallway that her cousin had just run down. Fleeing as if she’d expected to be chased. Margot frowned thoughtfully, realizing that between the time spent working in DPA and her time spent working on Uhrwerk, it had been quite a while since she’d had even a passing thought about her former-family.

“So who was that?” said Monty. Acting as if he didn’t already more or less know the answer thanks to his data-feed.

“My cousin Bernadette,” said Margot.

“Ah, the bitchy one?” said Monty.

“Well, technically they were both bitchy...But I suppose in retrospect, at least Bernadette didn’t act as if she were doing me a favor,” said Margot. Her brow still furrowed as she used her mind’s eye to watch her cousin hail a taxi.

Oddly between Bernadette, who’d done her best to make the girl miserable and Beatrice who’d been tasked with watching her and would often feign some concern and care whenever Margot’s Aunt Evelyn commanded, Beatrice was the one Margot liked least.

In her mind, they were both terrible cousins, but there was something about Beatrice’s attitude towards Margot that made Margot annoyed with her younger self for being so lonely as to ever see the other girl’s false care and concern as anything more than an insult.

Especially, since she’d often take part in Bernadette’s mean games and cruel tricks, only to pretend to have been forced into it, afterwards. Treating Margot as if it were her brains they were stealing instead of the magically rich tissues in and surrounding her core.

“So are we going to do anything about her?” said Monty.

“Nah...We have too much work to do today...Plus you have your date later in the evening,” said Margot. Sipping her latte.

Dispassionately realizing that as much as she’d have liked to get excited about the idea of getting some revenge on one her childhood tormentors, she just couldn’t make herself care enough about Bernadette or anyone else in the Wallace family to make the effort feel worth it. Even now, she was mostly annoyed by the scene it had caused.

Margot’s mood then cleared as she cheered by another thought. The realization of how little she cared about her cousin and the other Wallace’s feeling like its own little revenge.

“Ah...That’s right,” said Monty. Nodding as if he’d actually forgotten all that they had on their plates for the day.