Catherine woke up on a peaceful morning. It was the middle of spring, and the breeze was cold. She was comfortably lying down, wrapped in a blanket, holding it tight to hide from the chill. The sun had just risen, but the house was already noisy. Catherine didn’t need to get up and check. She already knew what it was.

  Her mother, Sophia, was in the kitchen, moving too fast like she always did in the mornings, while her father, Alexander, was preparing his tools. He worked at the dockyard nearby. But “worked” was how Catherine explained it to other kids. He actually owned the place, but he still did everything himself—fixing equipment, repairing ships, patching sails. Sometimes even mending the workers’ shoes if they were worn out.

  Catherine’s cozy morning was cut short when she heard her mother call out. “Catherine! Carlisle! Time for breakfast, kids!”

  She had two choices. Either she got up then, or Mom would come upstairs herself. The result would be the same either way. She sighed, swung her legs off the side of the bed, slipped her flippers on, and headed downstairs to the kitchen. Even before she got there, she could already smell what her mom was making. Bacon, eggs, blueberry pancakes… nothing unusual.

  Her dad was having coffee. One look at him told her he was ready to go: his hat, uniform, belt full of tools, and a bag lying beside him. On the kitchen floor lay Barrel, the family dog. They found him when he was small a few years ago, wandering the streets. He didn’t have a name tag, and no one came looking for him, so they decided to keep him.

  “Looks like you have a lot of work waiting for you, Dad,” Carlisle murmured.

  That was her younger brother. Like her, Carlisle got their mother’s auburn hair and their father’s amber eyes. He was still half-asleep, his voice soft around the edges.

  “Every day, son. Every single day,” their dad replied with a wide grin.

  Catherine already knew what he was going to say if she asked, but she did anyway. “Can I come along?”

  He looked at her then, and the grin faded just enough to tell Catherine the answer wasn’t changing. “I’ve told you many times, Cathy, the harbor’s no place for loitering,” he said. “Too many people moving around. Too many heavy loads. It’s not safe.” Barrel barked as if he were agreeing with Dad.

  “How about you go out and try your new bracelet?” he asked instead. “You’ve yet to make your first coin, don’t you?”

  “Oh, right!” Catherine exclaimed, her eyes lit. Three days earlier, for her fourteenth birthday, her father gave her a new bracelet, crafted with the help of his friend, a mage.

  Some eighty years ago, their home state, Felgar, was hit hard by the Silent Decades, a period of global economic stagnation. It lasted for over thirty years, and their humble state, whose economy relied on its shipping fleet, found itself on the brink as trade and demand for their services dwindled. Felgar would have totally collapsed had the stagnation lasted a decade longer.

  However, despite the Decades having ended, demand for their ships was still minimal, if not absent, and state revenue remained lackluster. Once a center for commerce, Felgar was now no more than a fishing town in the cold north. The hardships their situation brought about led parents to teach their children how to make money early on, and the discipline to handle it.

  Catherine’s bracelet was one of their answers to that. Instead of simply sending them to schools, sitting for hours, her father decided to create the bracelet in order to make the task more fun and engaging. This was the prototype, though, which meant that, at the moment, only Catherine owned one in all of Felgar. In fact, the only one in all of Hemera.

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  It was a simple bronze bangle with a single white stone on top. Catherine tapped it once to check if it was working. It flashed letters of light in front of her.

  You have no task pending to complete,

  which means no estimated coins to be earned.

  You better start looking for work!

  “Looks like it’s working fine,” Catherine said after seeing her progress. “But is it supposed to read like it’s giving me attitude?” she asked her dad.

  Dad nodded, and his grin returned. “Well, it’s working! Now go out there and make some money.”

  “What about me, Dad?” asked Carlisle. “Will I get one too?”

  Their father walked up to him and tapped his head. “Let’s see first how well it works, and if there aren’t any problems, I’ll make one for you as well.” Carlisle simply smiled and gave his dad a nod.

  “All right, then!” their dad said as the family finished their breakfast. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us, and we better get moving.”

  Catherine stood first and walked beside Barrel. “Can I take him with me?” Barrel remained still, lying lazily on his carpet, waiting for Dad’s answer. Dad glanced at him, then at Catherine. His eyes narrowed, then opened wide again in enthusiasm. “Of course you can, Cathy! Go have fun with Barrel.” Catherine jumped in excitement and rushed back upstairs to get her coat.

  Carlisle decided to stay home with their mother that day. After helping her clean up, he was planning on studying in preparation for his exams at the end of that week. Meanwhile, Catherine finished changing, wearing her usual green dress and cloak, dark brown boots, and the bracelet. Right after bidding her parents and brother farewell, Catherine immediately went outside and headed for the commercial district.

  Although she was reluctant to get up earlier, the thought of earning her first coin made her eager to ask the townsfolk if they needed her help. Barrel trotted beside her like a proud escort, paws clicking against the stone. Every few steps, he paused to sniff a cartwheel rut or a lamppost before hurrying to catch up.

  She started at the bakery, but the baker kindly declined her offer to help. She then went to the butcher, then the florist, the tailor. She stopped at every stall, but no one seemed to need her help. After an hour of not getting work, she stopped at an intersection and exhaled.

  By the time she made a loop through the square, her initial eagerness had thinned into something heavier. Barrel sat obediently at her heel, tongue lolling as if this had been a pleasant outing. “What a weird town,” Catherine muttered to herself. “Doesn’t anyone here need help?”

  Continuing her search, she finally found what she was looking for. On the other side of the road, two men were having a slight argument. “I have an appointment in half an hour,” said one. “And I won’t be able to go to work if I do it,” reasoned the other.

  Curious, Catherine crossed the road and asked the two what troubled them. “Is there anything you need help with?”

  “Good morning, Miss Catherine,” they greeted.

  “Our grandma is sick,” said one of them, “but we don’t have the herbs or time to make her medicine. We don’t know what to do.”

  Catherine turned around to face Barrel and grinned, rubbing her palms together. “This is it, Barrel. Our first job!” Barrel barked once. She turned back and gave the two her offer. “How about I go and get the herbs and prepare her medicine, and you pay me?”

  The two men glanced at each other. One of them rubbed his temple and asked to confirm he’d heard her right. “Pay you, Miss Catherine?” he asked. “To do work?”

  Catherine nodded without hesitation.

  “I mean, is it okay with Mister Alex?” the man asked.

  Catherine showed them her bracelet without explaining much. “He gave me this bracelet to do exactly that,” she said. “So yes, he’s definitely fine with it.”

  The two men exchanged glances again, accepted Catherine’s offer, and shook her hand. Her bracelet glowed faintly. “The herbs should be in the forest, just below the mountain’s foot, by the small waterfall.”

  Catherine looked in the direction he pointed, and her eye twitched a bit. That’s quite… far, she thought to herself. But work is work, I guess.

  Accepting the job, she headed for the forest with Barrel. She tapped her bracelet once to see if the work was logged.

  You have one task pending for completion.

  Collect herbs for grandma, then prepare her medicine after.

  Estimated coins to be earned… around ten coppers.

  “Seems the handshake logs the job,” Catherine murmured, turning it over and around, wondering how it worked. “How did it log the pay, though?” she pondered, frowning. “And more importantly—”

  “—just ten muddy coppers?!”