Inside the headmistress's office, Anna made herself comfortable.

She cleared space on the desk to sit, moving the paperwork onto the chair nearby.

"First my front lawn, now my desk. Won't you use a chair?" the headmistress sighed. Anna was not the easiest of friends to have.

"That chair is the wrong height. Too small." Anna replied. "I'll swap with you."

Translation: "I'm fine here, but if you want, I can make more of a mess."

"How did you fix it? Her curse?" she changed the topic. Getting Anna to sit was already a victory.

"You mean, spirit magic?" Anna replied. "You knew she was lying."

"Clara wouldn't tell me the truth, and I couldn't work it out." she replied, "I knew you'd be able to fix it"

"I did. So, pay me! $500," Anna smacked her hand on the table theatrically. "No less. Then I want answers."

"I dunno Anna," the headmistress sighed, "I don't have that sort of money." A total lie.

The exchange was mostly ceremonial in nature. The headmistress wanted to find out what had happened, Anna wanted to show off to her friend.

"I bought this packet of cured meat," the headmistress pulled out a brown paper envelope from her desk.

"From Bollazanna's?" Anna asked coyly. If it wasn't, she'd ask for a little more. This had been an annoying problem to deal with, albeit easy.

"Of course," she slid it across the desk towards Anna. "Check it. Meat's all there."

"So," Anna began to inhale the beef jerky, "It worra spurut roght ..."

"Please. Please. I'll wait."

"Ah. It was a spirit, right? Made her beautiful, but took away her ability to recognise people? A vanity spirit. They love to punish shallow people—and well, I explained that was exactly what your student was doing. So...", Anna rushed out a few words between mouthfuls.

"So the spirit didn't take away her beauty? That's it?"

"Yep. Heh." Anna smiled briefly, "She could have gotten waay waay more beautiful," she waved her hands over her body, exaggerating the shape.

"Wait. Huh. You didn't tell her that, did you?" the headmistress panicked. Clara had already caused enough trouble.

"That was part of it. She almost fucked it up, too. Why did she bring a mirror? Spirits fucking love mirrors," Anna rolled her eyes, "She did better than I thought she would, anyway. More importantly, why did you drag me here? I said I want answers." Anna pointed to her, “Your turn."

"I didn't. You wanted to come inside."

Anna stared back. "Yes. You. Did". She began to wave her hands in frustration. "A weirdo vanity spirit? Something that valuable that somehow you didn't recognise? You wanted me to take it and resell it. Then you'd use the debt to, ugh, don't think I don't ..."

Anna puffed her cheeks and sat back down. "So. Out with it. What's your scheme this time?"

"You mean, aside from the end of the world?" the headmistress replied. That hadn't been part of of the plan, and in all honestly had thrown the both of them for a few minutes.

"Yes, aside from the, hey, no, not the end of the world, just a start to an endless war against the dead. Aside from that. Oh and aside from being told by death that I have to find a egg. That. So. Out with it."

The headmistress opened her mouth to correct her—"the end of the world as we know it"—but she gave up. Anna didn't like idioms, and she wanted a favour from her. However, asking directly would not be easy.

"Do you have plans to find the egg?" she did not want to explain things to Anna just yet.

"Linda." Anna replied. She was serious. First-name serious. Heavens help her if Anna decided to keep going.

The headmistress pouted. "Can't we talk about the more pressing matters first?"

"No. Now, yes, that salami was great but you'd better start talking before I carve myself a shorter route home." Anna spoke slowly.

The thermal lance in Anna's hand did not look lit, but the headmistress suspected it was ready to go nonetheless.

Anna repeated her demands, "Linda. What's your scheme? Don’t make me use your surname."

Linda mulled over her choices.

She decided to tell some of the truth.

"Fine. I need a new teacher.... wait, huh, aren't you meant to say no here?" Linda asked.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"You already know my answer, No." Anna replied, "What else is there?"

There was a fizzing noise from the lance.

Linda realised she'd gone a little too far. "I'm under oath."

"Twenty questions or opposite day?" Anna replied. Two standard ways to tiptoe around the edge of a magical contract.

"It would be a lot easier if you were a member of staff?" Linda tried one last time.

"Let's see. An oath, on you, which means it's probably nobility, or maybe the crown. No-one else has that sort of money, well, maybe, but also the," Anna made little quote marks, ‘I'll execute you if you don't thing’. "That really gives it away, Linda. Then, a problem you can't handle yourself, and probably one where you can't trust anyone else."

Anna made a few mental calculations. "I want 50%. No oath of loyalty."

"50% with oath, 30% without."

"Wow, Linda, 40% or I'm cutting my way home."

"37%, I know you like that number."

"Fine. I'll take 60%, I like it better. You're never this easy to negotiate with. I'm doing this out of pity."

"Is that why you're doubling your usual fee?"

"No, that's spite. I'm taking the job out of pity, but charging you extra because I resent having to do it," Anna explained. "Again."

"60%, and you'll stay for the whole year?"

Anna almost agreed.

There was a slight problem. 60% of nothing was nothing. Linda would tell her if she did it for no cash, but only afterwards. Before then, Linda would almost certainly pretend the Oath prevented her from explaining things.

"80%, and you'll pay me a full salary, let's see—a full department head's salary, along with the budget to match. Whatever's larger," Anna countered.

"Full salary, no extra budget, 50%."

Fuck fuck fuck. Anna knew it would be nothing. Probably.

"Full salary. 60%. Stay for the year. Absolute freedom in curriculum and full access to all equipment. No paperwork either."

"Deal. It's the daughter of the current Crown." Linda accepted the verbal contract.

"Which one?"

"Both of them."

Anna fumbled in her backpack, pulling out a tiny cigarette made with the leftovers from manufacturing the previous two. Touching it to the lance to light it, Anna extracted four puffs before it was unusable.

"You. Absolute. Fucker." Anna didn't shout, she fell backward into her chair. "You set me up. I thought I would be undercover, the super cool teacher, but no. No. I'm the impartial observer. Fuck."

Local politics. The only thing worse than spirit magic—you could fix spirit magic. This situation would be far trickier.

Without going into detail, the crown was a ceremonial role, mostly. Two people given ultimate power of veto, but also expected never to use it.

The current two were tied to different gods, who didn't exactly get on. As a result, the church factions were a little hostile, and other groups would use this to pressure the crowns politically.

"Wait, Wait. Which god picked her? Can't you bring someone from... oh no", Anna found a new way to slump into the chair. The bad news just kept coming.

"Please. Please. Linda. Please tell me you brought me here for backup, support, fighting power."

Anna wanted to hear a lie—Linda seemed to do it so effortlessly, so one more didn't seem like too much to ask.

"You're one of the few people who can swear an oath that both of the factions respect, and, um, yes, we can't bring her god in, because she has an elemental blessing."

"Oh thank fuck." To Anna, it was good news.

It could have been much worse. There were gods that mortals avoided, ones that the other deities avoided, and the ones even Anna wouldn’t touch with a stick.

"Anna?" Linda was surprised. It sounded bad enough already.

"Look. Option 1 was ‘The gods are fighting too’, Option 2 was ‘Her element is highly unstable or dangerous and we cannot safely perform the oath’, Option 3 was ‘Don't even mention her god’. Option 2 is the least bad. Let me celebrate the least-bad moments."

Anna was lucky, or very unlucky. She'd opted out of the blessing, aged 8, and had further entangled herself with the divinities. Unbound to any, she could freely swear an oath of truth before multiple gods.

She prided herself on her neutrality, or, in her words, "Leave me the fuck alone, deal with your own problems, shitholes."

Anna's explanations were often short and to the point.

About her eighth birthday, she would reply tersely, "During the choosing ritual, I temporarily severed the link between my soul and my body, and could not receive a blessing as a result."

She'd opted out. Most didn't realise it was a choice, and it made a reasonable explanation as to why she could swear an oath before more than one god without treading on anyone's toes. Even the elemental planes had favourites.

The real answer as to why Anna was neutral wasn't so obvious.

Yes, she didn't have a blessing, yes, she had a relatively neutral stance amongst the major and minor pantheons of divines, many owed her favours too—but it was her friendship with Death that truly gave her the ability to remain neutral.

None of the other gods wanted to get involved.

Anna had performed her role as a neutral observer only a few times before, and regretted it deeply.

Instead of helping people to rebuild trust, she found herself being an umpire for a longstanding grudge match. Always there to settle the scores, rather than end the gameplay.

She hoped this time it would be different, or at least that the mistakes would be new this time around.

"I'm... well, misery shared is..." Linda began.

"Misery acknowledged", Anna interrupted her, "Linda. I'm. Ugh. Well, fine. You finally got me, the teacher you've always wanted. I have a few questions."

"Please", Linda smiled—she hoped it meant Anna was taking things seriously.

"Number one. When do I start? Two, where am I staying on site. Three, what exactly are you going to offer me not to take out my frustrations on my way home?"

Three was the most important, the other two could wait. "Clarence, come in."

"Yes, Head." a young man poked his head through the door, checked it was safe to come in, and carefully shut it behind him without making a noise.

"This is our newest department head, Anna. Please escort her to the researcher's canteen."

Anna looked confused.

"Every day, all night, never closes, all you can eat, all expenses paid, free canteen for members of staff, and yes, I eat there. Not a trick. That was my actual plan to lure you here, long term."

Anna grumbled.

Linda smiled. Anna was strong, determined, but also deeply forgetful. Especially about breakfast, lunch, dinner. In other words, ‘Yes I have trapped you here, but it won't be me keeping you here’.

Anna grumbled because she'd forgotten to eat. Linda's plan was made clear before her eyes.

It wasn't going to be a year. She would struggle to live away from such a wondrous service. It would ruin her. She thought through her choices. Would it be better to try and avoid the temptation?

"Give me the closest accommodation and workshop to the canteen and I won’t have to move as much."

Linda nodded towards Clarence, "Give her the basement workshop under the canteen, hmm. Move the garden keeper somewhere, tell him I said please, and let me know where he needs to go."

A short park separated the two with a river bisecting it, no walls to destroy but Linda knew that tomorrow there'd be a new bridge, or the old one will have somehow moved a few meters down river.

Anna was not someone who enjoyed detours. Linda handed over the requisite keys to Anna and sent her to the canteen to eat first.

A full stomach usually, but not always, kept Anna in check.