Stuff from Kevin about Alex character:

Her back story of being a powerful magician who was tricked by the guy who made the amulet is meant to have some humour and be relatable to Sveta if she had a TG start

The idea is that the trickster promised to leave an artifact that would bestow their significant powers to a man with the power to control them. Alex was the only magician powerful enough to control these powers so he thought he would inherit them from the artifact.

However the trickster also cursed Alex to always be female, and no matter what he did to try and overcome that it is always clear to all that he is female.

He even thinks that the suit and way he carries himself makes him seem male, and encourages people to play along, of course the more he tries the more obviously female he is

Gustav, being the type of person to roll his eyes at all the bs around him will taunt him about it and even take the piss, but Sveta will need to show some respect if she wants to learn from Alex.

Obviously Alex will not be amused that the amulet that he coverts so much has passed its power to Sveta, but by training her and build a bond he will atleast benefit from the connection so Gustav will be able to convince him to help on the first visit when he should take Sveta to meet him.

tl:dr Chic who was a guy with stick up his ass

The idea is having a character that is flawed with some backstory and a bit of room for comedy will make the interactions much more interesting.

However, their main purpose is that of a teacher for some more offensive magics.

The mechanic of having to pay cash seems crap, would be better if Alex wanted power, so Sveta would have to go with max mana and through so (sexual) ritual Alex would absorb the mana and share the knowledge of the spell. Maybe it would take multiple visist for the more powerful spells?