Cynthia Perkins

Barnaby is a grumpy Academy groundskeeper who views magical quests as nothing more than an unapproved increase in his sweeping duties. Elara is a disgraced, heavily-sooted alchemist fighting an unjust eviction notice to save her unauthorized plague-cure research. They have absolutely nothing in common (except a mutual hatred for their employer's bureaucracy). But when the Academy's photogenic Chosen One abandons his post to avoid a stressful press tour, the automated magical registry panics.
Seeking the path of least resistance, it legally binds Barnaby and Elara together with a glowing, unbreakable Quest Mandate, forcing them to hike across a frozen continent to defeat a Dark Lord. If they separate by more than a hundred yards, the magic physically drags them back together. If they fail, their souls will be liquidated to pay the breach-of-contract fines. Armed with a cursed broom, a satchel full of highly unstable explosives, and a heavy leather accounting ledger, this unwilling duo realizes they don't have to play by the rules of traditional heroism.
They just have to out-paperwork the apocalypse. From outsmarting a troll auditor with forged tax documents to aggressively invoicing the Academy for every minor inconvenience they encounter, Barnaby and Elara are about to turn an epic fantasy quest into the most lucrative, highly documented hostile corporate takeover the realm has ever seen.