Magic made business so much easier.

Serena was still fairly new to the world of the Welldrinkers, and wielding actual, bona fide, f*ck-the-laws-of-nature powers. She knew a total of two spells confidently, but she was experimenting with more, and she possibilities were seemingly limitless. She would have to work and study hard for her skills to catch up to her creative vision. Luckily, she had never been afraid of hard work.

Talking about: she had a job interview scheduled for this morning. She usually let HR handle that kinda stuff, especially when it came to boring personnel like accountants. But this time, she decided to make an exception: next to all the drones working for House of Lockhart, she also needed a new personal accountant to handle her expenditures and holdings and whatnot. With her experiments in magic, she was going to need to make more frequent purchases of luxury items. And since someone seeing all those numbers was likely to be a more intimate relationship than she'd had with her last five boyfriends, she wanted to select the person herself.

She also wanted to give her neat little spell another test run.

Serena sat in her office, complete with a very well stocked personal bar. Cocktails, tea, coffee, even sparkling water: whatever her guest would ask for, she could work with it.

Hopefully, this would be the beginning of a very lucrative work relationship.

One of the many hooks she had put out into the waters of the New York City job market had gotten a nibble and a big one at that. She got responses often from smaller companies looking to hire her on for unrelated tasks to her degree, or for a pretty severe cut in pay for what she was asking for.

This one... didn't. This was a prominent fashion company with established footholds in the city and SHE got a callback!

Was Annie nervous? Hell no! She was pumped. This was what she'd spent the last years of her time in college preparing for. This was the next step up on the ladder to success. If she managed to get hired there, she'd be able to quit at least 4 of the various part-time positions she had elsewhere. It'd open up her schedule in a way she could hardly fathom anymore AND would give her more time to devote to the actual work the job entailed.

Considering the name that came along with the place, she decided- for once- to let Thadd give her suggestions on what to wear. She didn't think she'd get away with her normal front desk sweater and skirts. They worked through a host of outfits, suits and blazers, and heels or flats, A-lines or pencil, Ascot or no ascot?

She ultimately decided on something that still suited her own fashion tasted... albeit a lot younger and more professional looking. An A-line dark navy skirt with pleated ruffles in the front, a sheer layered white top with a stitched dot pattern all over, with a short ruffled neckline and little cloth pleats instead of true sleeves. A matching, fitted navy blazer that flared out a little at the waist, and a pair of inch-high heels completed the look... and she really did have to give props to Thadd for all his hard work. She looked good. The boost in confidence only helped to solidify her determination to win this.

She arrived appropriately early for her interview, all smiles and polite understanding as she waited. Annie had taken some time to look up the company and what it stood for and had discovered that it had recently changed names. Which... didn't help with feeling prepared. New management could mean an assortment of things and sometimes bringing up the old ways could make one seem like a stick in the mud. She over prepped her portfolio just in case.

While she waited she made sure her hair and makeup were fine. Nice and casual, nothing too extravagant. She was an accountant, not a model.

"Ms. Lockhart will see you now."

Annie was led to an office with some of the nicest doors she had ever seen, and let inside. The office itself was even more impressive than the doors...er.. like, obviously they would be more impressive than door- Focus Annie.

"Good Morning, Mrs. Lockhart." She greeted as soon as she was inside and a respectable distance away. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Annalise Reed." She stopped at the other side of the desk and held her hand out smoothly for a friendly shake.

"Thank you for giving me the opportunity to meet with you today. I'm very excited about the opportunity to possibly join your team."

The door opened, and in walked a girl with enough pep to fire up a high school. Serena walked away from the bar and around her desk to greet her.

>>"Good Morning, Mrs. Lockheart. It's nice to meet you. I'm Annalise Reed."

"Ms. Lockhart. Mrs. Lockhart was my mother and if I ever become her it will be in your job description to shoot me." She was serious about that. They shook hands. Serena had no love lost for her family's legacy. Or the family itself.

>>"Thank you for giving me the opportunity to meet with you today. I'm very excited about the opportunity to possibly join your team."

Excited indeed.

"Please take a seat" Serena walked back to the bar to pour herself a drink. "Tea? Coffee? Cocktail? And before you think too hard, this is not a test."

Not that kind of test, anyway.

"Ms. Lockhart. My apologies."

The 'shoot me' comment bounced off of her easily, and her pleasant smile never slipped. She was used to all sorts of 'jokes' by that point and had learned that if you focused on them at all it tended to go awkward pretty fast. She did file away the obvious disdain she apparently had for her mother

Annie chuckled, "Coffee, please."

Annie settled herself in one of the chairs offered and settled her portfolio in her lap. The urge to start drafting notes was ever-present and hard to resist, especially with her goof with the woman's name.

When the coffee was handed to her she neatly juggled it and her portfolio to minimize any risk of spilling. "Thank you."

Coffee was a safe bet for both of them. For Annalise because it painted her as a professional and dependable person, and for Serena because she had spiked the coffee with the spell a while ago, as the most likely choice of beverage. As the guest would begin to drink, the truth effect would start taking hold. Serena had never managed to get it to powerful truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth levels, but at least it would show a bit more about who she was really dealing with here. People tended to perform elaborate fake versions of themselves at job interviews.

Serena poured herself a drink as well and took a seat behind her desk, and she did not give a flying f*ck about the whole 'being an open person without barriers' HR spin. She was the boss here and she was going to make sure this woman knew it. She was not hiring a friend.

"So, Ms. Reed. What do you think makes you a good candidate for this job?"

Truth be told, she might not have even drunk any of the coffee after accepting it, other than maybe be a sip or two so as to not seem rude... but she hadn't remembered to make any coffee earlier that morning. Nor had she remembered to bring a bottle of water, or anything to keep her throat from getting dry. How embarrassing would it have been if she needed to use the restroom mid-interview!?

So, with a fresh, delicious-smelling coffee in her hands and feeling less like a withered plant in the middle of a Texas summer, she drank more than she would have allowed herself to normally.

Ms. Lockhart poured herself a more serious drink, which Annie paid no mind to, and then the woman hit her with one of the easiest questions out there.

Why was she a good candidate? She'd answered that a million times before with practiced ease!

"Easy. I am, simply put, the best candidate you are currently going to see in this city."

She looked the woman in her eyes and immediately paled a little. Her mouth opened again, and then closed... opened once more, and then she snapped it shut and blinked down at the folder in her lap.

... Had that really just come out of her mouth?

She shook herself, assuming she had just hallucinated that whole thing, and tried again after clearing her throat.

"I...um... meant to say that I believe I am the best candidate for this job because every other "accountant" I have ever personally met is in it for lavish holidays and big paychecks, and most usually skim some off of the top, and I am purely in it because it's currently my passio-"

She slapped a hand over her own mouth, now 100% looking like she was seconds away from a full-blown panic attack.

Why was this word vomit pouring out of her uncontrollably? That wasn't what she'd wanted to say at all!

Annie's eyes were slightly wider than normal because she was absolutely screaming on the inside. How was she going to fix that?!

"...I'm so sorry, I don't know what's come over me." She didn't have the foresight to immediately pin the blame on the coffee. Coffee and caffeine had never had any effect on her before. Not like that, anyway!

>>"Easy. I am, simply put, the best candidate you are currently going to see in this city."

Oh good, the spell was working. The girl drank from her coffee, didn't sip, drank, and suddenly she was speaking the truth. Serena quietly complimented herself for a spell well done.

>>"I...um... meant to say that I believe I am the best candidate for this job because every other "accountant" I have ever personally met is in it for lavish holidays and big paychecks, and most usually skim some off of the top, and I am purely in it because it's currently my passio-"

Interesting. Serena watched with an amused smirk as Annalise scrambled for some semblance of modesty after blurting out what was actually on her mind. Which was really not all that bad, all things considred.

>>"...I'm so sorry, I don't know what's come over me."

"Confidence is nothing to apologize for. As long as you have the skills to back it up." she pointed out, waving a hand. Poor girl looked a bit distressed. She was probably one of those who had been taught early on not to be 'too proud' whatever that meant. "Glad to hear your work is your passion. Although I have to admit, I have never met someone with a passion for accounting before. Were hiking and the environment already taken?"