“Good morning, Mr. Victor, Your Majesty.” Malfy saluted the rulers of Murmurin, backed by two bug-like fiends in suits. The demon didn’t seem perturbed by the people turned to gemstones all around them.

“Hi, Malfy!” Victor waved back, inviting them to sit around a table Mot had conjured in the central square. The fomor glared at them with malice from the other end, his bottle in between them.

“Minion, I admit I have mixed feelings about the situation,” Vainqueur complained, his whole body buried under a mountain of precious stones next to the table. Only his head and waving tail jutting out of it. “I hate fairy tricks, but my current situation is even comfier than my hoard.”

“Why don’t you escape?” Victor asked. Since Mot couldn’t kill, Vainqueur could probably escape, if he tried to. Or so he hoped. Considering the genie’s malicious actions, the vizier had sent Rolo to attend to the trapped citizens around town, in case the wish had put them into threatening situations.

“That fairy being the greatest evil to grace my sight since Furibon, I cannot do so without melting or trampling the gems,” Vainqueur replied, knowing his priorities. “This is the perfect trap for a dragon.”

“As per our lobbying campaign, we will handle this on the empire’s behalf,” Malfy said, presenting his lawyers. “This is Mr. Nick, and his partner Mr. Scratch. They have defended innocents as respectable as the Wicked Witch of the West, Dracula, and Fantômas. They famously obtained a dismissal in absentia during the Jesus vs Judas case.”

“Self-defense,” one of the lawyers said. “The key is always self-defense.”

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“Okay, so to explain the situation again, Mot here,” Victor pointed at the fomor, “can grant wishes but twists them no matter how hard I try to word them well. He caused all the chaos around here and wants me to explicitly wish for his freedom in exchange for returning Murmurin to normal. However, if set free he will be allowed to kill with his wishes, and of course, he intends to double-cross us.”

“Ah, I see,” the first lawyer, Mr. Nick said. “You want to draft an agreement where you keep all the benefits of the previous wishes, remove the negative effects, and ensure that there will be no repercussions.”

“I want to keep all of my statues,” Vainqueur specified.

“Standard Faustian case law,” the other lawyer replied, Victor not understanding their jargon. The fiend opened a briefcase full of documents. “We already prepared a first draft, according to your specifications.”

“Can I trust you not to screw us over with the wording of the wish?” Victor asked, just in case. He had already set up his strategy with Malfy before arranging the meeting, but they remained fiends.

“Mr. Victor, I take this unlawful fairy competition in our core business very seriously,” Malfy replied. “Mr. Mot also disrupted our plans and bottom line by petrifying Chocolatine. This is corporate war.”

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Victor almost considered reneging on the deal to keep Chocolatine off his back but brushed off those thoughts.

“If I cannot take revenge on this country, I will settle for the death of every first-born,” Mot declared with mock kindness.

“First, we insist that you sign a non-disclosure agreement before beginning the negotiations.” The demon handed a document to Mot.

“He turned everyone for miles into gems, and you want a secrecy agreement?” Victor frowned.

“Dear client, I assure you that this is part of our perfectly calculated strategy,” the lawyer replied, Mot conjuring a feather and signing the NDA with frozen blood. “We will handle it.”

“Can it be done before this evening?” Victor asked. “I have a very important date then.”

“You consider me less important than a beastly woman?” Mot hissed, his pride wounded. “Perhaps I should turn you into a monster at nightfall, so you can never find rest.”

“I’m sorry, but I’ve died twice, once after being impaled by an even more psychotic fairy than you,” Victor replied. “After that, every threat feels like a letdown. Also, the joke is on you here.”

“I will not raise Friend Victor again,” Vainqueur repeated. “I almost died from a stroke last time.”

“The matter will be settled in time for your date with Lady Chocolatine,” Malfy promised, ever obsequious.

“I specify that ‘liberated from the bottle’ shall not be constructed as ‘liberated from living,’ as clause thirteen-five implies,” Mot said, pointing a frozen finger at the second paragraph of page eighty-seven. “I want an addendum saying that I shall not be transferred into another container right after I fulfill the wish.”

“Minion, I do not understand,” Vainqueur complained, as the fiends edited the text in response. “Are we winning?”

“I dunno,” Victor replied, but the lawyers’ frustration didn’t seem good to him. “How are things going?”

“His law-fu is powerful,” the first lawyer admitted, speaking low so Mot wouldn’t listen. “Very powerful. But we can do better.”

“I am about to do what mortals call a pro-lawyer move,” his fiendish partner said, dramatically cutting off a word and writing another.

“I change the introduction line from ‘wish that you do’ by ‘wish that you shall.’”

“But this changes the entire meaning of the text!” Mot protested.

“You have the right to keep silent,” the lawyer replied, the fiends at the table exploding into diabolical laughter. Victor merrily winced at their terrible sense of humor.

“And this agreement shall not allow, under any circumstance, the designated Mot, henceforth called ‘the wish granter,’ to torture, negatively impact, kill…”

“MINION!”

Vitality check successful! [Sleep] ailment negated.

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