“Are you sure you don’t have anything else for me?” Luc leaned so far over the desk she might as well have been behind it. Mrs. Oscar pulled away, keeping both hands firmly on the desktop as she pulled it away from her.

  “Everything else requires more experience,” Mrs. Oscar said, looking back down at the computer screen. Behind them, someone rattled around as they worked to improve the commission’s refreshment station. That was money they could be paying Luc but no, refreshments were more important.

  Luc rolled her eyes as she flopped against the countertop. “How am I supposed to get experience if you don’t give me any jobs?”

  Mrs. Oscar didn’t deign her with a response. “Do you want the job or not?”

  Luc pushed herself off the counter, straightening back to her full height. The job was shitty, paid a total of fifteen dollars an hour, and was the same boring fare they always gave her. But she couldn’t exactly afford to turn it down. “Yeah, I’ll take it.”

  Long nailed fingers tapped against the keyboard, one of the keys sticking for a moment and forcing Mrs. Oscar to punch it with enough force to break the thing. Luc winced at the impact, biting down on her lip to keep from saying anything. She didn’t want to aggravate Mrs. Oscar further. Angering the person who controlled the jobs you could get wasn’t a good idea.

  “All right, you’re cleared,” Mrs. Oscar said after a moment. The printer behind her whirred, and Mrs. Oscar rolled back in her chair to grab the slip of paper. She held it out without any emotion on her face. “Job details. Complete the assignment as detailed here, and report back.”

  Luc gave the woman a grateful smile as she took the paper, not bothering to look at it before sliding it into her utility belt. She’d done a dozen of these jobs, more than a dozen, and they were all the same. Pest clean up. The only thing she seemed to be good for.

  Spinning around on her grippy shoes, Luc walked back toward the entrance, passing the refreshment table where one of the commission’s employees was replacing machinery. He moved the old drip coffee pot to a box on the floor, replacing it with a fancy silver espresso machine.

  Luc passed it, then spun back around, pointing at the box. “Are you going to keep that?”

  Mrs. Oscar looked up, frowning over the lip of the counter as she rose enough to see what Luc was pointing at. “The trash? No,” she said after a moment.

  “Okay.” Luc scooped down, grabbing the box with the old coffee pot. She paused for a second, considered the table, then swept an arm full of packaged muffins, little bags of chips, and granola bars into the box too. If they weren’t going to pay her more, she was going to take as many free snacks as she wanted.

  Nobody stopped her as she left the magical girl commission office with a cardboard box in her arms. She shoved it into the overly full back seat of the car that was held together as much by duct tape and zip ties as hopes, dreams, and a fair dose of magic.

  She climbed into the front seat, fought with the door to get it to actually latch closed, and pressed her finger against the ignition. There wasn’t any point in using her keys anymore. They just wouldn’t work. The only thing keeping it running was her magic, which she activated to get the car running. It would have been totally fine, if she didn’t look goddamn stupid driving around in her full magical girl outfit.

  Car purring like a cat, she pulled a ball cap low over her head, hoping it’d make her a little less obvious, and pulled out of the parking lot.

  Of course, it wasn’t like her identity was a huge secret or anything. It was difficult to hide when she drove to the commission every time she wasn’t in school or working at her mother’s cafe. But there was something supremely embarrassing about driving around in a bucket of rust, when other magical girls could fly, or drive their fancy, high powered bikes or whatever. Not Luc, though.

  She didn’t remember to pull out the job sheet until she was already on the road, cursing as she reached into her utility belt and poked her fingers with nails before retrieving it.

  At the stoplight, she looked to see exactly where she was supposed to be going, and then turned around. Of course she’d been going the wrong direction.

  The job took her nearly all the way out of the city, something that meant she’d have to get gas on the way back, but also meant she’d be dealing with far fewer eyes than normal. That was good. She’d been trying to get better jobs for months now, almost everyone knew, and she didn’t want the judgment of being stuck on the same old tasks.

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  The GPS took her off the main highway and onto an uneven side road, potholes doing their best to shake her car to pieces before it transformed into dirt. The trip wasn’t any smoother.

  Teeth gritted, Luc pulled up outside the dusty farmhouse and climbed out of the car. She’d never been here before, but everyone knew who he belonged to. The Barnes family had so many members they were practically everywhere, including in Luc’s class at school.

  Luckily, Tobias wasn’t here today. Just his mom, who stepped off the front porch and moved toward Luc with open arms, as if going in for a hug.

  Even with the warning, Luc couldn’t evade her embrace.

  “Oh, I’m so glad they sent you,” Mama Barnes said, smiling so wide it had to hurt her face. “I’d much rather support a local than any of those city magical types.”

  Luc smiled back, doing her best to push away the heat spreading across her cheeks. There was no reason to be embarrassed. Mama Barnes was just being her overly friendly self; that was absolutely nothing new.

  “I’m always happy to help,” she said, pressing one hand to her chest. “Now, where’s this infestation?”

  “Oh, right back here,” Mama Barnes said, motioning for Lux to follow. “They’ve dug right into the apple orchard. Right before harvest too!” She clucked her tongue, shaking her head ruefully.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Luc said, giving the woman her best, reassuring smile. “I’ll take care of it all.”

  “Thank you, dear. Would you like anything to drink?”

  She hesitated before nodding. What was the harm in saying yes? Plus, it would get Mama Barnes out of her hair. She didn’t need anyone breathing down her neck as she tried to rid the apple orchard of its pests. “Yeah, some coffee might be nice.”

  “I’ll have it right up!”

  With Mama Barnes out of the way, Luc surveyed the apple orchard. To the naked eye, she couldn’t make anything out, but that’s what glasses were for.

  Opening one of the larger pockets on her utility belt, Luc pulled out a pair of goggles, the lenses mismatched in color. Securing them to her face, Luc scanned the orchard. Yup, definitely an infestation.

  With the goggles on, she could make out the shimmery, round forms of the magical pests hiding beneath the trees. How the Barnes had spotted them, she had no idea. Maybe they had some sort of scanner? Or had they just noticed the consequences of the infestation?

  Pulling the goggles off and leaving them on top of her head, Luc trekked back to her car. It was stuffed full of odds and ends, everything useful in some way, shape, or form. Except for the pile of empty energy drinks in the passenger seat. Those, she needed to throw away.

  She grabbed the coffee maker, a muffin after a moment of thought, and a small roll of rope lying on the floorboards. Then, walking back to the orchard, she grabbed an empty metal bin and a piece of wood, dragging it behind her. That was everything she needed to make her first trap for the magical pests.

  It didn't take long, and it didn't even make sense, but there was a reason she was a magical girl, and not a scientist. No scientist would be able to explain how her trap worked.

  The muffin was self explanatory. She split it in half, using one half to make a trail of crumbs up to her trap, baiting them in. The other half, she ate, showing the little problems just how tasty it was—and also because she hadn't eaten breakfast. The metal drum and plank of wood became her trap, not unlike something one might use to trap and kill rats. And in the center of it, running off of Luc's magical power, was the coffee maker turned incinerator.

  Those munchkins wouldn't even know what hit them.

  Turns out she didn't even need the rope.

  Luc retreated just out of sight of the orchard, ducking behind a huge hay bale and waiting for the pests to emerge. She turned on the small scanner around her wrist, the only piece of technology the commission had issued her, to track the job’s completion.

  The first of the pests emerged as Luc finished off her muffin. When they actually left the ground, the goggles weren't necessary, though they did help Luc make sense of the weird, almost plant-like balls of flesh-and-other-things that made them up. Sprites, maybe? Sprites were weird.

  They trailed out one by one, following the crumbs like ants and climbing up into the barrel.

  A flash of energy instantly transmuted the first into smoke, and Luc grinned. Coffee maker came in clutch.

  At least, for as little as it paid, she hadn't needed to do a lot of heavy lifting. They were all dead and gone by the time Mama Barnes returned with a cup of coffee.

  Luc pushed herself off the ground and brushed off her hands. “Done and dusted, ma'am. Your orchards are safe once more!”

  She struck a heroic pose, then cringed at herself. Why did she do that?

  “Oh, well, that was fast,” Mama Barnes said, passing over the mug and gracefully ignoring Luc’s idiocy. “I didn't realize how talented you were.”

  Mouth opened to respond, a horrible, earth shaking howl split through the air from behind.

  Luc spun back toward the orchard, spilling hot coffee across her hand, scanning through the trees with a dial on the side of her goggles.

  There, in the middle of the trees a huge… werewolf? That had to be the closest thing to what was currently chewing on one of the Barnes's apple trees.

  I'm not getting paid enough for this, Luc thought, the idea followed closely on its heels by: But maybe this is my chance.

  She calmly handed the mug back to Mama Barnes. “I'd head back inside if I were you, this might get messy.”

  With nothing but her utility belt and a rope, Luc took off at a dead sprint toward the werewolf.

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  The Glass Knight.