Vikki

Istare at the email from my landlord. I've got twenty-four hours to come up with the rent I owe him, or I'll be evicted.

Knowing Lord Bisleh—who owns my cottage along with the rest of the valley in which it's situated, and beyond that, most of the rest of the county—he won't bother with any niceties like a court order. He'll just get some of his heavies to turf all my belongings out into the garden, followed by me.

A new notification slides onto my phone. My barista job doesn't have the extra hours I asked for, and I don't need to come in today. I slump back on my threadbare sofa and stare out the window at the lashing rain. In the grate, a small fire burns miserably, the only heating in this tiny eighteenth century cottage.

And once the coal in the coal scuttle sat next to the fire is gone, I have no more because I couldn't pay the coal merchant either. To think I chose this place because it was cheap!

Turns out, it wasn't cheap enough.

I contemplate my worn out boots. The ones I bought when I actually had money and prospects. I remember purchasing them, carefree and happy, no idea what was around the corner.

But that was two years ago. The stock markets, initially jittery at the newly revealed Lowerworld and the existence of magic and magical beings, had strengthened. I'd just sold my little house which had doubled in value since I bought it, with a view to spending the next two years pursuing the PhD in Upper and Lowerworld Relations, something which might have actually resulted in work and a new life. One where I didn't have to scrape around for fixed term contracts in low paid jobs because my undergraduate degree was worthless.

My notice given in at the government department where I worked, one which wasn't likely to exist for much longer given all the changes with our new monster filled world, I handed all my cash over to my financial advisor. A man who had advised my dad for decades before he had passed. A man who had helped me get my first mortgage. A man I trusted.

I was so wrong.

The day I got the call all my money was gone is even clearer than the day I bought my now battered boots.

It was the day everything changed, and nothing has been the same since. I've scraped by. I left London and ended up here in this tiny cottage without central heating, double glazing, or mains water.

"Still!" I announce loudly to myself, slapping both hands on my thighs. "Could be worse!"

Yeah, I could be twenty-nine and homeless, which I will be shortly.

I get up, because otherwise I'll take root on the couch, and go into my little kitchen to make a cup of tea. I contemplate whether I can ask any of my friends to lend me the rent money, but those bridges were burnt long ago, like most of my fuel. It's a funny thing when you have money then you lose it, how many people simply melt away.

The kettle boils merrily, and I'm pouring out the hot water into a mug when the letter box rattles, startling me. A thick flyer drops onto the mat.

I walk over to the flyer and stare at it as if it's some sort of incendiary device. The cottage is isolated, and no one bothers coming all the way out here to deliver junk mail.

I pull open the door and stare up the path which winds through the garden up to the road. A small shape skips over the five bar gate and is gone. A goblin perhaps? There are so many different types of monsters, I've yet to come to grips with them all. But if the flyer has come from the Lowerworld, it might explain why they're prepared to deliver to this isolated spot.

The Lowerworld has a portal nearby, I understand. I've yet to venture in myself as, apparently, for your first time you should go with a monster escort. One of my colleagues at the coffee shop has acquired a set of orc boyfriends, and she has offered to take me, but I haven't taken her up on the suggestion. Yet

I'm much more risk averse these days.

Shutting the door against a cold easterly wind, I scoop up the flyer. It's printed on heavy silky paper and in jewel colored inks. On one side is a classy photograph of the interior of what looks like a Victorian mansion staircase, all dark wood and classical columns.

On the other side is an exhortation:

Looking to make ￡￡￡? We're hiring!

Bar and waiting on staff required for shifts tonight!

Cash paid.

Along with a local telephone number.

Before I know it, I'm dialing. After all, what have I got to lose?