It was Seedday, the first day of the week, and the wizard Emmanitoncia Bean woke up sick to her fucking stomach of everything. She'd been sick to her stomach ever since she opened her illusory lamp shop. She was sick to her stomach of working eighty-hour weeks, of having to supervise apprentices who only had a wizard's title thanks to their parents' money but didn't have the slightest fucking clue about runecraft; she was sick to her stomach of the tax collector from the elven city of Ilisea, who asked for more money every year while neither the mayor nor his lord, the count, did a damn thing to fix the aqueduct or the sewers. She was sick to her fucking stomach of humans, who infested the city like a filthy plague and contributed nothing, and especially sick to her stomach of her profession, which she had loved not that many years ago but had now learned to hate. Some days she wondered whether it might have been better to stay in the gnome village of Sparkjoy, helping her family grow flowers, tend the livestock, and live in the giant bean that was her home. Eventually, she would have married some decent gnome, had children, and lived a simple rural life. But of course, she had to be ambitious, go to the elven city, become a wizard, and fuck it all up. She was sick to her stomach of waking up.

  She woke up and sprang out of bed, landing on her short but agile legs. She walked to the bathroom, soaked a cloth with the contents of a potion, and used it to clean her teeth. She peed in the latrine and then returned to her bedroom. She took off her tasselled sleeping cap, her nightgown, and sat down in front of the vanity. She brushed her hair, perfumed herself, put on her crescent-moon earrings, and powdered her rosy cheeks. From the other side of the mirror, a gnome with sky-blue hair and enormous eyes of the same color, a button nose, pointed ears, and a small chin stared back at her. When she was done, she went to her wardrobe and put on her wizard's hat and robe, both purple.

  "Come on, grimoire," she thought, and a book flew out of one of the rooms and began to follow her. Its worn binding, covered in faded cloth and yellowed pages, revealed years of use. A pamphlet slipped out from between its pages and fell to the floor. When Emma picked it up, she saw it was an advertisement for a massage chair she had seen on a notice board the day before. Her gaze softened with longing. It consisted of an armchair filled with water, enchanted with aquamantic and levimantic runes. The liquid inside moved on its own as it read the runes, giving a good massage to whoever was sitting in it. Emma couldn't wait to have enough money saved to buy it, even though it cost a fortune. The last time she'd been this excited about something was when she bought her magical bathtub, inscribed with choromantic runes to draw water from the Casiena River. It also had pyromantic and cryomantic runes to regulate temperature, which had made her the happiest gnome in the city for a long time. Now she was a bitter woman without a massage chair.

  She tucked the pamphlet into one of the pockets sewn into her robe, put on her navy-blue wool shawl, and left her apartment. She went down into the streets of the mages' district. She lived in a neighborhood that, while comfortable and clean, would sometimes reek of shit if you sharpened your sense of smell—the stench drifting over from the potters' street in the artisans' district. The sewers were still a disaster, and huge puddles of waste were everywhere. "It's easier for them to make ceramics out of turds than clay," her friend Aureliana had once said, on a night they were drunk and feeling bold enough to venture into that filthy part of the city. Emma had smacked her arm for such insolence, but she couldn't help laughing at her misfortune—and everyone else's. That morning, she was once again greeted by the fragrance of her poorly spent taxes.

  "Great way to start the week," she thought as she quickened her pace toward the street of the oneiromancers, where her shop was located. The city of Ilisea was inhabited by elves, gnomes, dwarves, and humans. She saw some of the latter carrying a dwarf on a litter. They weren't allowed to beg in the mages' district, the merchants' district, the famous stadium, or Sun Hill—the aristocratic quarter—but despite that, she sometimes saw servants or workers like these accompanying their masters. She would have preferred that the dwarf, instead of employing humans, had hired a wizard like her to enchant a carpet so it would levitate and carry him wherever he wanted. But of course, humans were so numerous and so useless that they were far cheaper labor than mages. "One day they're going to take all our jobs," she thought.

  When she left the residential area of the mages' district, she decided to turn a corner and, instead of cutting through Levimanters' Street, take a detour through Cryomanters' Street and climb the steps up to Sun Hill. After having breakfast in a tavern, she ducked into an alley and began descending a zigzagging stairway down the hillside. She entered the long street of the Pyromancers and Aquamancers. By decree of the High Elven Council, every magical city had to have both types of wizards operating on the same street, and she saw many mages juggling fireballs, others with water spheres ready to extinguish any blaze. As she walked, she circled the hill until she finally returned to Levimancers' Street. After walking its length, she reached her destination: the Street of the Oneiromancers.

  There were already many mages creating illusions to attract passersby to their shops. These were of much higher quality than those in the square, meant to showcase the magical skills of the master artisans in all their splendor. Instead of a ghostly gray, the illusions were colorful, and the sound was much better. A sign from which a small fire-breathing dragon emerged still managed to give her goosebumps after all these years. It marked the shop of Beolork Steelfeather, for whom Emma had worked and learned a great deal. Colorful letters displaying the latest news headlines floated over the counters of various newspaper stalls. The illusion of a sloth wearing a sleeping cap, with the letter Z drifting from its mouth, decorated the sign of Ernestino Sleepwell, a gnome wizard specializing in helping insomniacs sleep again. Farther along, an illusion shaped like a crystal ball showing beautiful landscapes inside marked the shop of Felestina Agustín, who could read dreams and interpret the future. Right in front of it was another shop with the illusion of a deck of cards flying and forming all sorts of shapes—another oneiromancer who could tell the future. Emma walked past the Grand Theater of Ilisea, a massive building on the corner between Oneiromancers' Street and Eolomancers' Street, which the aristocracy frequented to see the most incredible illusion shows conceived by elven minds. There was only a large wooden sign that read, in white painted letters: the illusion is inside. Emma snorted and shot it a look full of disgust. It was her biggest client, and the theater owners worked her like a bitch.

  Finally, about twenty buildings past the Grand Theater of Ilisea, she reached her humble shop. From its sign emerged the illusion of a smoke lamp shaped like a bean. In green letters it read: "Bean Lamps." She pulled the key from her pocket, stood on tiptoe, and opened the door. She immediately began her usual morning tasks when suddenly an elderly elf burst in shouting.

  "Miss Bean, you are a swindler!" he yelled, slamming a smoke lamp violently onto the counter. "This lamp does not create the fireworks you promised. It only creates illusions of fireworks, which is a cheap way to end the epic of Moro-Halaz that the lamp displays. I want real fireworks!"

  You're the moron, Emma thought, as she was taking inventory while the elf narrated his misfortune. She set the ledger aside and looked at him.

  "I already told you I'm a oneiromancer. What I do is read dreams and create illusions. If you want real fireworks, you'll have to go to Choromancers' Street so they can teleport them in from somewhere else within the illusion. Matter cannot be created out of nothing."

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  The elf scrunched up his face.

  "What the hell is is this 'boromancer' nonsense, aren't there wizards that can create water and fire out of nothing? Give me my money back or I'll tell everyone you're a scammer! I knew women are not good for business, everyone says so."

  "Fantastic," said Emma.

  She refunded the lamp, since she didn't feel like explaining that transforming ether into elemental forces like water or fire was not comparable to creating a mortar with gunpowder and fuse capable of launching a fucking explosive charge into the air. The elderly elf was a notary with a good reputation in Ilisea, and she didn't want to anger him.

  An hour later, her foreman's mother walked in. Emma already knew what it was about.

  "My son isn't feeling very well. He's had some very difficult exams in Vésida and doesn't feel up to coming in to work today, either physically or mentally. Do you think you could give him an advance this month to pay for the doctors?"

  "Of course," said Emma. "When will he be able to come back to work?"

  "He said he thinks maybe next week."

  That week was the cider festival in Ilisea. What a coincidence.

  "Perfect," said Emma.

  Not long after, her young apprentices arrived: Hermenejuldo Sadpotato, a purple-haired gnome with walrus mustaches, and Fürgar Furioushammer, a dwarf woman with long reddish hair and freckled cheeks. She put them in charge of the shop while she went upstairs to her workshop. Shelves were everywhere—some full of books, others of potions, others of salts and stones, others with scrolls and crystal spheres. She had an enchanted broom that lifted itself onto its bristles and used them like limbs to walk around. It wandered through the workshop sweeping, and sometimes Emma used it to fly and reach high shelves. In the center of the room was an altar surrounded by runes painted on the floor with ink. On either side of the altar stood a copper tank storing ether. This was what she used to rune her lamps, compressing dozens and dozens—if not hundreds—of pages of glyphs into a single rune that non-wizards could use. She also had a workbench in front of the large window overlooking the street, with soldering tools for inscribing runes, and a table with chairs in the back corner for receiving clients.

  She spent much of the morning working on orders. Because of the cider festival, she had multiple contracts to complete. By far her biggest client was the Grand Theater of Ilisea. Without contracts from that famous establishment, she would have gone bankrupt long ago. The theater owners knew it and worked her like a slave, convinced she was in no position to complain. Around noon, a representative of the Ilisea Wizards' Guild arrived.

  "The guild needs funds to lobby for legislation that allows us to use a greater number of spells in our runed artifacts, so we're raising the subscription fee for our members," he said.

  "Wonderful," Emma replied.

  They were probably just going to lobby the dinners the guild leaders were about to gorge themselves on.

  Shortly after, the owner of the three-story building housing her shop and workshop came to visit.

  "I've been unable to rent out the third floor for three months now. I thought maybe you'd like to reopen negotiations. What do you think? You could have your residence upstairs so you wouldn't have to walk here every morning—you'd live and work in the same place."

  "How much are we talking about?"

  The landlord swallowed.

  "Twelve more ethers per month."

  "That's already what I pay for the shop and workshop. No offense, but I don't want to be robbed. I may look like a child, but I'm an adult—and a very bitter one."

  "Well," said the landlord, a bald elf, "in that case I have no choice but to raise the rent on the shop."

  He stood up and left the workshop with long strides.

  "Splendid," said Emma.

  At dusk, she heard groans coming from the shop, and when she went downstairs she saw her dwarf apprentice with her face covered in ash and her hair standing on end. She had blown up a customer's magic lamp. It was partly Emma's fault for not supervising them, but with her foreman absent she had been too busy with orders. And I've told them like a hundred times not to use Angaz glyphs in oil lamps with incinerable salts, she thought.

  "I'm not feeling very well, Miss Bean," said the apprentice. "I should go to the hospital. Could you lend me money for the doctors?"

  "Excellent," said Emma.

  She had to hire a carriage and take her to the hospital, since the guild protected apprentices and she could get in trouble if she didn't help them during medical emergencies. Though in this case, it was more an emergency of idiocy. When she returned to the shop, night was already falling. She saw a hooded dark elf leaning against the door, smoking a pipe.

  "Can I help you with something?" she asked.

  "I'm one of the Undertaker's men," the elf said flatly.

  Emma went pale. The Undertaker was the boss of one of the city's gangs. She had to pay them every month to keep thugs at bay... even though they were the thugs nine times out of ten.

  "Let me guess. The Undertaker wants more money?"

  The dark elf nodded as he took a deep drag from his pipe, lighting up his red eyes beneath the hood's shadow.

  "Splendid," said Emma.

  She pulled out a small glass sphere containing a shimmering purple gas. It was the size of a marble. An ether—the coin minted by the Lobera family. She tossed it to the extortionist, who caught it midair with quick reflexes.

  "A pleasure doing business with you, Miss Bean."

  "Yeah, go fuck yourself too."

  She clutched her wool shawl in rage, went back into the shop, and sat behind the counter. She opened her grimoire and hurried to try to finish the long sequence of glyphs that imbued one of the lamps the Grand Theater of Ilisea had commissioned. If she didn't complete all the orders on time, they wouldn't hire her services for the stadium show during the Ilisea Tournament—they had hinted at that more than once. Over the course of the day, she hadn't even managed to finish half of what she had planned. The next day she'd have to work twice as hard if she didn't want to fall behind. She sighed heavily and kept working until late at night. She was surprised to see a dwarf enter the shop.

  "Hi, Emma," he said.

  It was Ulfrin Fierceaxe, the head of the merchant caravan that supplied her with all kinds of magical materials for her enchantments. Many things she could buy from local alchemists, apothecaries, and other shops, but Ulfrin provided her with exotic resonant crystals, arcane powders from the Seas of Night, fragments of luminescent gems, astral essences, elemental salts, and fairy mushrooms. All of it hard to obtain, and essential for enhancing the magical properties of her lamps and maintaining the high quality standards demanded by the Grand Theater of Ilisea.

  "Hi," she greeted him.

  "Look, Emma, I won't beat around the bush: filthy humans robbed us on the road and stole all your merchandise. I'm sorry."

  The gnome snapped the quill she was holding in her hand. She had insurance to protect her merchandise in cases of cart overturns, floods, storms, earthquakes, or loss of pack animals, but she didn't have robbery insurance, since the county roads were usually well protected. Or at least, they used to be.

  "Magnificent," she said.

  She blew out the candles and grabbed her hat and shawl from the rack.

  "Are you okay?" the dwarf asked her.

  "Yeah, great. Just another day in the magical city of Ilisea."

  She left the shop and locked the door after saying goodbye to Ulfrin. She walked home, clutching her wool shawl in anger. When she reached the doorway, she saw a gnome with long blue sideburns waiting for her, holding a donkey's reins in one hand and a letter in the other. He put it into her hands.

  "It's an urgent letter from an actuary at city hall—it couldn't wait until tomorrow," said the messenger in a grim tone.

  Bureaucracy was very efficient in Ilisea thanks to the League's magic.

  "Hee-aaaaaa, hee-aaaaaa!" said the donkey.

  "That's the smartest thing I've heard all day," said Emma as she opened the letter.

  The messenger nodded, mounted the donkey, and left her reading. With every word, Emma grew more and more stunned. Her apprentice had sued her for negligent supervision and poor working conditions that resulted in her burns. She crushed the paper in rage.

  "Perfect," she muttered through clenched teeth.

  She was going to have to hire Aureliana's services and spend most of the next day fixing the problem. She opened the door and went up to her apartment. She prepared herself a very hot bath, a meager dinner of olives and legumes preserved in glass jars, and went straight to bed. She put on her white nightgown to match her tasselled sleeping cap, hugged her cloth teddy bear, curled up under the blanket, and cried herself to sleep. She had nightmares in which the tax collector chased her all over the city and she couldn't escape.