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1
AMBROSE MEDIA HOUSE
Aria
“Daunting, isn’t it?”
A man stopped next to me where I was standing in place on the sidewalk. I quickly turned to eye him instead of what was in front of me.
His burgundy button-down and brown slacks were pressed to perfection. His leather shoes gleamed in the early morning sun. His eyes were covered by a pair of aviator glasses. His hair was cropped so short, I couldn’t make out its color. He seemed young—not much younger than me, but young nonetheless—and yet something about the way his hands were casually shoved into the pockets of his slacks, the way his muscles relaxed beneath his shirt, screamedpower.
He fell high enough on my attraction scale that I had to remind myself to turn back to the building.
“It really is,” I responded.
We were both admiring the twisting glass monstrosity that was the Ambrose Media House. Almost-black metal and glass combined to create twenty-five floors of what I imagine musthave been an architectural migraine, but also a masterpiece. In the eight o’clock sun, the building cast small rainbows across the sky, and for a moment I wondered if it was safe to have something like this smack dab inside a city. If the sunlight glinting off that glass didn’t blind drivers, I wasn’t sure what would.
It wasn't that the building was the only one of this size or the only one made of glass in the area, it was just the only one this intricately designed, and the only one so very dark on the outside.
And I was going to get to see the inside of it. I was going to get to be part of the AMH family.
A thrill of excitement bubbled in my gut at the prospect. After years of salivating at the thought of working at AMH, I’d finally made it a reality.
“Anyway, is there a reason you’re standing out on the street staring at AMH?”
I yelped in surprise at the stranger’s voice. In my reverie, I’d completely forgotten he was there.
“It’s a beautiful building. I was just admiring it,” I said with a shrug.
The man scoffed a laugh. “The thing is hideous. Gaudy and overstated. Makes you think that maybe Ambrose is overcompensating for something.”
The fierce bitterness in his tone wasn’t lost on me.
As if realizing he’d said too much, he promptly shook his head and stalked off. I stared after the stranger until he disappeared down the sidewalk, then turned back to AMH.
The next few steps I took felt monumental.
It was like my future awaited, like new challenges would arise and new lessons would be learned. It felt like I was walking toward my most uncertain future. By the time I stepped into the reception area of the building, my heart was pounding so hard, Ihad to resist the urge to press my hand against my chest, just in case the organ decided to make a hasty escape.
The doorman nodded at me in greeting, as the door closed with a soft click behind me.
In complete contrast to its exterior, the inside of AMH was decorated in whites and creams.
I hadn’t seen this particular entrance when I’d come in for my interview, when we’d been ushered in through the back door and taken directly to the interview room. While luxurious, it had paled in comparison to this reception area.
Several armchairs were grouped around five or six dark-red stained coffee tables, all settled upon a circular mat. Bouquets of wildflowers took up most of the surface on the little coffee tables. People were already milling around in between the chairs, some serving themselves coffee from what looked like a table with breakfast foods along the left back wall. The room smelled clean, not in a sterile way but in a way that told me they took precautions to ensure the scents of their employees didn’t overwhelm clients.
The reception desk itself was a white half circle, the word “receptionist” written along the front. It took up the majority of the wall furthest away from the front doors. Above it in big gold letters—and a scrawl I would recognize anywhere—was Azazel Ambrose’s signature drilled into the wall, framed on either side with portraits of him. One was from his earlier days when he had just founded the company in the 90s, and the other was from this very year, based on the beard and his grown-out hair.
No one was sitting at the desk. It made me giddy just thinking about how I would be sitting there before the day was up, greeting AMH clients and celebrities alike.
Just as I stepped up to the desk, a frazzled-looking older woman wearing glasses came around the corner, then pulled up short at the sight of me. The soothing scent of lavender andincense filtered through the air, and goosebumps erupted along my skin.
Witch.
Whoever this employee was, she was a witch.
I had to steel myself against the urge to panic at finding another supernatural being here. Did Mr. Ambrose know he was hiring supernaturals? I wracked my brain for any mention of them anywhere in regards to the media house, but came up blank. As far as I knew, Mr. Ambrose was human. Maybe this was just a coincidence.
