Even before humans escaped from their currently inhospitable home world, humanity had started to direct its own evolution.

What few outside the Midnight Cabaret realize is that nearly everyone in the show is a war refugee from some faraway magical realm, worlds overrun by evil. Despite leaving their conquered homes and taking human form, the enemies of these survivors sometimes send minions after them; perhaps to thwart future reprisals; perhaps to finish the job. The performers always look for signs of incursions by their old enemies as they travel around the troupe’s new home.

Instead of worrying about how to tell her parents that she wanted to be an artist instead of a veterinarian, she was worrying about how to survive the agents of the Sovereign-hunting Project Rancher.