The amount of silver she offered was less than I usually spent on a single meal. But she was young and very pretty, so I agreed to see her. What can I say? I’m old, but I’m not dead.

She placed the jar on the table. It was garishly decorated with gold paint and paste gems, and I recognized it immediately—it belonged to a minor djinn who reveled in mischief. This also explained how the girl had acquired something so precious. Ordinarily, only the very rich and powerful managed to acquire such objects, but this djinn went out of its way to entice the innocent and desperate.

“Tell me,” I said, leaning back in my chair in a pose that made me look thoughtful and wise, “what is your wish.”

“I want to speak every language.” She looked defiant, as though I would argue with her, but I had heard far stranger desires than this. It was also reasonably trifling—something that the djinn would be able to handle. If she’d wanted power, or everlasting life, or one of the other great gifts, it would have been beyond the little djinn’s abilities.

There was also a glaring flaw in her request, so it was well that she came to me. I nodded at her.

“In return, you will translate for me whenever I need.”

“Ten times,” she said.

“One hundred times.”

We settled on twenty translations. I could have easily got more, but I rarely have need of translations, since I knew a dozen languages myself. Besides, it was worth it for her smile. Of course, I could have had her translate something so long that it would take the rest of her life, but I wouldn’t do that—I was not a djinn or a demon.

I filled in the details on a standard contract, adding her name, Laiha, and my own, Doctor Kaled Mahmoud ibn Hatim ibn Ashraf. I examined her signature through a lens that I kept for the purpose. It made the text glow red if there was deceit, but as I expected, the ink on the page stayed black. I put the contract onto a stack of other papers that my clerk would organize later.

I sat down behind my desk, which had been carved from a single ebony tree and was inlaid with silver and gems. Sitting behind it gave me a little bit more gravitas—and hid my spreading belly. I steepled my fingers in a way that made me look sagacious and learned, and pretended to think about her wish—although honestly it was a simple problem.

“So, you wish to speak every language. I suspect that you also want to understand every language as well? And to choose when you speak the language, rather than babble in a random alien tongue?”

She put her hand to her mouth in horror. Then she bowed to me.

It didn’t take long for me to write out the words for her. I included the ability to read and write every language. Djinns are stingy with their acceptance of complex clauses, so I had to be careful with the wording, but it was nothing I didn’t do every day. I handed her the piece of paper to read.

She said a brief prayer, then rubbed the jar. The djinn appeared slowly in a cloud of gray smoke—all theater of course. But the girl, at least, was impressed. Finally, he stood before her, looking like any man—albeit in clothes that were out of date a hundred years ago.

“As-Salaam-Alaikum,” he said, bowing ever so slightly to her. I imagine his smile was meant to look friendly, but to me he looked like a merchant trying to sell week-old fish.

“Wa-Alaikum-Salaam,” said Laiha, bowing herself.

“Have you decided upon your wish, young one?”

“I have.” She lifted the paper I had given her, which made the djinn look around suspiciously.

He spotted me and his smile disappeared. “You.”

I nodded to him equitably.

Laiha read out her wish. The djinn listened, scowling all the time. I could practically hear his brain grinding, trying to find anything to twist, but then I saw his shoulders fall and I knew that I’d won. Some more powerful djinn might have disguised his feelings, but this spirit was a simple one.

There was the very slightest pop, and the djinn vanished. Laiha looked up, said “Oh,” and then “Putasne me intelligis?”

I replied, “Latinum facile est. Türkçeden anlayan var mı?”

We went through all of my languages before she was satisfied. Laiha walked around my desk, then bent down and kissed me on the cheek. Before, she’d been pretty. Now she was radiant.

And I would see her at least twenty times more. Old goat that I am, it seemed a worthwhile bargain.

* * *

The following morning, Hassam, my servant, woke me early and then fussed around me as I dressed in my finest court clothes. I would be meeting with the crown prince today. Hassam was far more nervous about the meeting than I, and chided me strongly for getting sauce on my collar.

To escape his ministrations, I finally decided to go to my office and wait there until the appointed hour. This might have been a mistake—I didn’t really have anything to work on, so I started getting nervous myself.

Which was ridiculous. I was one of the most accomplished wish doctors in the city. Rumor was that I would be chosen as the leader of our guild when death finally sat at Indalecio Kazemi’s gate. I had written and reviewed the most intricate of contracts and had not once failed a client.

But I’d never worked for the Palace before. And the summons had not exactly been detailed—just to be there to review a contract. If it was for the prince, then it would be with a major power, and I would have to be especially careful.

There was a knock at my door and the head of my clerk Nadim appeared.

“You have a visitor.” Normally I wouldn’t see anyone without an appointment, but honestly, I was glad of the interruption.

“Who is it?”

The door swung open, and a tall figure dressed all in black stepped into the room. “Let us not speak of names,” he said, with the very slightest of bows.

This was all the height of rudeness, and normally Nadim would be furious, but he just stood there meekly, as though he was the interloper’s servant rather than mine. This impression was increased when the man waved his hand and Nadim left the room, closing the door behind him.

I scowled at the man—well, not a man, obviously. Unless I missed my guess, he was a demon, and not a minor one. I was not worried, though. The members of my guild are well protected against such creatures.

“Well, what do you want?” I asked, matching rudeness with rudeness.

He held up his hands. “My apologies, Dr. Kaled. I did not mean to offend you. As-Salaam-Alaikum.”

“Wa-Alaikum-Salaam,” I replied automatically. I gestured him to a chair, and the demon bowed slightly deeper before sitting.

“You are the greatest wish doctor in the city. Quite possibly in the world. This is not empty praise, but fact.”

Despite myself, I felt a burst of pride. But I didn’t say anything. If speech is silver, then silence is gold. I knew that I had to be very careful with every word I said.

“Because of your stature, you will be reviewing a contract this afternoon. A contract between two . . . princes.”

It shouldn’t be possible to choke when you haven’t eaten or drunk anything, but somehow I managed it, going into a coughing fit. The demon watched me with polite interest until I was done.

There could only be one meaning of the demon’s words. Surely the crown prince wouldn’t be so foolish as to enter into a contract with—

But of course he would. And I would be the one to review the details. I was at once horrified and excited by the opportunity. It would be the crowning glory of my career thus far.

If I didn’t make a mistake.

“There is a detail in the contract. One that any lesser wish doctor would miss.”

“I look forward to finding it.”

This got me a slight bow.

“There may be a good reason for you not to find it.”

Every now and then a djinn—usually a young one—would attempt to bribe me. It was pointless. The oath we made to our guild was very specific and was binding under every meaning of the word. But the creature in front of me was no childish djinn. I was now sure that the creature in front of me was a major power, sent by the greatest—and worst—of his kind. I was honestly curious as to what he might offer.

“You see the most miraculous wishes granted to your clients on a regular basis, yet you are not allowed to use your prodigious skill to benefit yourself. That seems unjust.”

“I am well enough rewarded for my work,” I said.

“And, of course, you are barred by your oath from your due rewards.” The demon stroked his beard and looked straight into my eyes. His own eyes were dark black holes that seemed to have no end. “What if there were a loophole in that oath? What if, in gratitude for doing a remarkable, but not quite perfect job this afternoon, you might earn the wishes of the most powerful of the djinn?”

I looked away from those terrifying eyes. It was a lie, obviously, but such a tempting one. Only the knowledge that we were exempt from wishes made our guild trustworthy. But it also meant that we frequently attended the undeserving as they became immensely rich and powerful.

“Even if I believed in this loophole,” I said, suddenly breathing heavily, “there is no way that I would destroy my reputation in learning it, and no way that I could trust that you’d provide it anyway.”

The demon pulled a folded piece of parchment literally out of the air and placed it on my desk. “The details of the loophole are here. I swear it by my name.” Then he spoke a series of syllables that no human throat could utter. As he did, the letters appeared in angelic script in the air between us, burning bright red before settling on the outside of the paper as scarlet ink.

“All you have to do is open and read it to seal our bargain.” He stood and walked towards the door. “I leave it in your hands.”

* * *

I stared at the folded piece of parchment, terrified to even touch it. In all my years, I had never heard of such a thing. Finally, I used two other documents to pick it up and put it in the secret drawer where I kept my most private correspondence and the few enchanted items that I had managed to acquire over the years.

Not long after, my clerk informed me that the palanquin was here to take me to the palace. On the ride over I spent my time thinking about the demon’s offer rather than the official work that awaited me. Perhaps that distraction was its intent all along?

My preoccupation stopped me from being overwhelmed by the opulence of the palace, but there was no way to avoid being awed by the prince. He was a tall man with thick black hair and prodigious moustaches. A beard might have hidden his weak chin better and pulled attention away from his too-large ears. But it would have been hard to hide the coldness in his dark eyes. His outfit sparkled with diamonds and other gems—so many that it was hard to look at him. Not that I had more than glanced—I was prostrated on the marble floor in front of him, waiting to be recognized.

Thankfully for my knees, he didn’t leave me waiting long. One of the guards tapped the floor with his staff, and I rose to my feet. The prince gestured for me to approach him.

“Dr. Kaled. Your reputation precedes you.”

I bowed deeply at this, but he waved his hand irritably at me, and I stood up straight.

“I have a contract that I have not yet signed. The wish doctors of the court have already reviewed it, but any mistake could have disastrous consequences for the kingdom.”

And for yourself, I added mentally. I knew enough of the prince’s reputation to know that he wouldn’t risk his immortal soul if he didn’t personally benefit greatly from the bargain.

The prince scowled at me, as though reading my thoughts. “The contract must be signed within seven days. You have six to find a flaw, if any. If there is a flaw and you miss it, the consequences will also be severe for you.”

I bowed again and tried to ignore the sudden churning in my belly at these words.

“I am honored by your faith in me, Your Highness. I will take the contract with me back to my office and spend every minute making sure that there are no flaws.”

“No,” he said flatly. “You will work here.”

“But . . . my books, my clerk . . .”

“You can work in the library here. Your clerk will join you. Anything you need will be provided.”

“As you command, Your Highness.” There was nothing else I could say.

He turned away, an obvious dismissal, and I scurried out of the room. As I followed a servant to the library, I couldn’t help but notice that the discussion of a fee had not come up. There were standard rates, of course, and if my earlier visitor was right, then an agreement between a prince and—another prince—would command the highest rate. Assuming I was allowed to deliver a bill.

The library was magnificent—two stories high, shelves made of rare woods, items of extreme value on display throughout—but I barely noticed. I was introduced to the head librarian, who led me to a marble table on which the agreement sat—a single giant sheet of vellum covered in minute writing in a rusty-red ink. A janissary stood guard next to the table, a massive, curved sword at his side. I nodded to him, but he didn’t so much as blink.

Sighing, I took a seat at the table and began to read.

* * *

After three days, I had found nothing.

Oh, the agreement itself was monstrous—guaranteeing numerous powers and victories to the crown prince in exchange for the soul of his firstborn child. But, despite the twisted clauses and multiple languages used, I could find no obvious trap.

Yet I knew there had to be something there. Otherwise, why the offer from the demon?

There was one section—related to what the crown prince would pay in return—that did have me slightly worried. It was written in Akkadian, which was not one of my strongest languages. I was fairly sure of my translation, but it suddenly occurred to me that there was someone who would be able to translate it perfectly.

Wary of speaking in front of the janissary, I wrote a quick note and handed it to Nadim. He read the note quickly, his eyes going wide, then folded it and rushed off.

It was almost two hours later when he returned with Laiha in tow. She seemed slightly terrified to be here, but smiled when she saw me, which made my heart miss a beat or two.

“All these books!” she said. “This must be what Paradise is like.”

It was not exactly my image of Paradise, but I smiled back at her.

“I’d like you to check my translation of something.” I indicated the section of the contract. “Can you write down your interpretation of the text?”

“My first payment. Only nineteen more after this.” The words might have stung, but she touched my shoulder when she spoke to let me know she didn’t really mind the obligation.

The janissary twitched when she sat at the table, and for an instant, I thought he was going to object to someone else reading the contract, but he stayed in place as Laiha pulled a blank piece of parchment and quill to her and started to write. After a moment she gasped—she’d obviously understood the price the prince was willing to pay.

I let her write in silence. There was nothing worse than being badgered when you were working. Although I was eager to see what she was writing, watching her write was a pleasure in itself, her brow faintly scrunched up in concentration, her chest moving in time with her quill.

It took her much less time to finish than it had taken me to go through the same text, and it suddenly occurred to me how wise a wish she had made. There were no books in this library that she couldn’t read. I was very slightly jealous.

Her calligraphy was also beautiful. That had not been part of the agreement with the djinn. She obviously had hidden depths. Her translation was essentially the same as mine, except for a few words here or there. But then one word jumped out at me. Where I had translated firstborn child, she had written son and heir.

My heart jumped again, but this time out of fear. The crown prince had dozens, possibly hundreds of children, most illegitimate. Many resided in the palace, doing little more than taking up space.

But there was only one legitimate heir.

I crumpled up her note, thinking furiously. This was obviously what the demon didn’t want me to find. But I likely would not have found it if not for the demon’s warning. Had the demon made a mistake? Or was the game deeper than that?

It didn’t matter. I’d made an oath and needed to inform the prince. I summoned the head librarian and told him I needed to speak to His Majesty. Laiha was watching me, her eyes wide. I’d like to think that she was impressed by my person, but I suspected that it was more that I was soon going to be in the presence of the prince.

“Since you are already here, I’d like you to go through the rest of the agreement. Check it against my translation.” I showed her the stack of my scrawled translations. Sadly, my calligraphy was not nearly as neat as hers—something I’d been berated for more than once by my master.

I’d expected a long wait, but the majordomo arrived within minutes to lead me into the presence. As I followed him, I mentally played the “wish” game—if I had three wishes, what would I wish for? When I’d been young, it had all been about wealth and power, but now, I’d likely settle for knees and joints that didn’t creak, and the ability to eat whatever I wanted without getting fat. Not that I’d word it like that—knees that didn’t creak might not bend at all, and I still needed to get nourishment from my food. The wishes were modest and silly and not worth the risk. But . . . if I were young again, it is possible that someone like Laiha might be interested in me for something other than my legal skills.

All nonsense, of course. I, of all people, knew that wishes rarely worked out the way one hoped—no matter how carefully worded.

I didn’t even have a chance to prostrate myself before the crown prince called me forward.

“You found something?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” I explained about the translation of firstborn vs. heir.

Most men learn to hide their inner thoughts from others. Apparently, the prince had never bothered to learn that skill—or I was so unimportant that it wasn’t worth the effort. Either way, it was obvious that the prince was not surprised. He already knew.

“You have done good work, Doctor Kaled. I trust you will keep looking for other snares in the text.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.” I, at least, was good at hiding what I was thinking. His heir—the shahzadeh—was far more popular than the prince. As unlike his father as it was possible for a son to be. The sultan—father to the prince and grandfather to the shahzadeh—had been gaga for years, leaving the prince to do what he liked. And what he liked was . . . not popular. Although the rumors were probably greatly exaggerated. Probably.

“The girl,” the prince said suddenly, breaking into my thoughts.

“She is a great translator.”

“So, you allowed her to read the agreement?”

Again, there was no subtlety in the prince’s face. I had been a fool to involve Laiha. Her life was now in danger.

“She is my apprentice, Your Majesty, and is bound by the oaths of our guild.”

“Ah.” The prince nodded once, then turned away. I was dismissed.

* * *

“There may be a few little things here and there,” said Laiha, when I returned. “But overall, I think your translation is sound.”

I went around the table and stood close to her, pretending to examine her notes, then leaned forward and whispered in her ear. “If anyone asks, you are my apprentice. Life and death.”

She stiffened slightly, but to her credit, she didn’t argue or respond. Instead, she pointed at the document. “See here, master, where you wrote ten thousand fire sprites, I think the meaning is ten thousand fire weapons, although I don’t know what that means.”

“It means that the prince must provide men to carry the weapons rather than sprites that will act upon orders. That is well spotted.” And it was—raising ten thousand soldiers for an invasion was a major undertaking, even if they had magical weapons. I wasn’t about to run back to the prince about this one, but it was something he should know.

“There’s also this,” she said, and pointed to some words in my translation. “I can’t think that can be right.” I read where she was pointing.

“No. That is correct. The prince has certain . . . proclivities that he wishes to be able to extend.”

Laiha was blushing scarlet now. Sadly, wishes related to that sort of thing were so common in my world that it hadn’t occurred to me how a young girl would react to them. I felt shame being associated with it, even knowing that the prince would not. I had been so tied up in the technical challenge that I had ignored the meaning behind the words.

Overall, this was a monstrous document between two monstrous creatures. The prince would gain massive power and weapons and other things in exchange for a few rituals and a noble soul that was certainly not his own. Only a prince could make an agreement about another’s soul, and only for his own flesh and blood. And the prince was happy to do it—didn’t care.

He would probably care more about the fire weapons, but something told me that wasn’t the mistake that the demon had warned me not to find. Laiha was the one to notice it, and none of the prince’s people had seen it, but I was confident I would have found it eventually. Probably.

“What happens if the agreement is broken?” asked Laiha suddenly.

“The prince’s life and soul would be forfeit, and all that is his would pass into nothingness.”

“Ah.”

Laiha was looking thoughtful. It seemed that every look she had was beautiful in another different way. I was pretty sure that something had occurred to her, but she just shook her head.

“Do you want me to stay, master?”

I desperately wanted her to stay. “No, thank you. I’ll see you in my office after this is over.”

She bowed slightly to me and turned to go. She seemed less friendly towards me than she had, but it might have just been shock over the agreement. Or over her sudden apprenticeship. I was pretty sure she’d have to go through with it, or the prince would find out. I watched her leave. I noticed that the janissary, who wasn’t supposed to react to anything, was also watching her with just the slightest hint of admiration.

* * *

I only had one more day. After Laiha left, I did a much more careful translation and found a few other minor issues to raise with the prince. But at this point I was striking cold iron. There was nothing in this agreement for me to find.

But I knew that wasn’t true.

Oh, the demon could have been lying to me, but that was unlikely. The demon had overestimated me, which filled me with shame. On the other hand, wisdom consists of ten parts, nine of them silence. If the demon hadn’t spoken, I would have stopped searching.

There was a sudden commotion and I looked up to see four janissaries march into the library. Laiha was being held by two of them. I felt my heart sink in my chest.

“This girl claims to be your apprentice.” It was the çorbaci, the head of all the guards in the palace. My heart sank further.

“She is, respected sir.”

“She was wandering unaccompanied through the palace. She said that she was taking a message to the shahzadeh.”

I bowed, thinking furiously. “It is my fault, respected sir. I told her that I wanted to check a fact about the shahzadeh, and she must have misunderstood and thought I had ordered her to find him. She is early in her studies. Please forgive me for her transgression.”

The çorbaci stared at me for several moments. He was a tall man with light hair and piercing blue eyes, which seemed to bore into my skull, but I kept my gaze passive until he finally looked away.

“The prince himself will be informed of this. In the meantime, keep better control of your apprentice.” He sneered the last word, but I didn’t care. Laiha was safe. At least for the moment.

After barking some commands to the janissary who guarded the document, the çorbaci turned and left with his men, leaving Laiha behind. She rushed up to me and hugged me. “I’m sorry,” she said. The hug counted for a thousand pardons.

“You wanted to warn the young princeling?” I asked her in Hebrew, a language I was quite sure the janissary didn’t speak.

“How could that monster sacrifice his own son?” she answered in the same language.

“You are playing with the lion’s tail. We have a duty to our prince and client.”

“Your client.” She sniffed. “And I’ll wait for the prince’s son before I swear allegiance.”

I froze. An idea was floating just out of reach of my mind. A suspicion began to form.

“Did you see the shahzadeh?” I asked. I had never seen him personally.

“From a distance. He is very handsome.”

“Describe him. What color is his hair? His eyes?” I may have been yelling.

Laiha’s face flushed, but she didn’t flinch. “Flaxen hair. He was far away, but his eyes were light—blue, I think.”

Could a dark-haired man have a light-haired child? The mother had dark hair—was famed for being a dark-haired beauty. I bit my lip.

“What about his ears?” I forced myself to keep my voice calm.

Laiha raised an eyebrow at me, but instead of protesting the triviality of the question, closed her eyes. Trying, I hoped, to picture what she had seen of the shahzadeh.

“Small,” she said finally, “and round, with lobes that hung down.”

That forced me to close my own eyes to try and remember—she had noticed a detail on the princeling that I had not noticed on the prince. I thought that he had no hanging lobes, but I wasn’t sure.

But with everything else—what else could it be? I suddenly understood the fiendishness of the demon’s plan. If I was right, it was truly diabolical: If I told the prince, great evil would be done. If I didn’t tell the prince, great evil would be done. And then there was the inner snare—if I kept silent, I would tacitly be accepting the agreement with the demon, even if I never opened the paper sitting in my office. The jaws of the trap were closing around me.

I smiled.

“What?” asked Laiha, caught somewhere between anger and frustration. Even that was beautiful.

“The greatest skill of a wish doctor is to make sure that the words are right.” I signaled the majordomo and told him I needed to see the prince again.

“And you”—I pointed at Laiha—“do not move from this spot.”

* * *

“You cannot sign the contract, Your Majesty.”

The prince stared at me, then smiled. I felt my legs turn to jelly. If you see the fangs of the lion, don’t think that the lion is smiling at you.

“Cannot?” He said it mildly, like he was experimenting with the sound of a word he had never heard before. I dropped to my knees and pressed my forehead to the cold marble. He left me there for some time before speaking again.

“Why cannot I sign the contract, Doctor?”

I swallowed. My eyes were watering, although that was as much from the pain in my knees as from fear.

“There is a trap, your majesty. A most insidious trap.”

“Tell me.”

I glanced up briefly. Just long enough to see that the prince’s large ears had no hanging lobes. I had been right.

I put my hand on the seal that hung around my neck. While holding it I could not lie. The prince raised an eyebrow at the motion. “Great harm will fall on you if you sign the contract. And great harm will fall if I tell you the reason.”

This was the moment where I would succeed or fail. The prince knew that I could not lie to him while touching my seal—that the evidence of the lie would be immediate and obvious.

But I had not lied. Since the heir was not actually his son, the contract would be violated, and the prince’s life and soul would be forfeit, so great harm for signing. And if I told him the reason, great harm would also fall, just not on him. It would be very bad for the shahzadeh, of course, and quite possibly for the future of the kingdom, but not bad for the crown prince himself. Would he notice the omission of those two words, “on you,” from my second sentence?

The prince stared at me for a long time, as if I were some sort of interesting but disgusting insect. Perhaps he was waiting for my skin to begin to boil, or some other evidence of a lie.

Then he waved a hand at me as though we had been talking over some minor matter of court etiquette. “Very well. You may go.”

I struggled to my feet, bowed as deeply as I was able, then backed out of the room.

The çorbaci led me out of the palace personally, although not in an entirely direct route. He took me to a wing of the palace where I had not been before. A handsome man with thick, flaxen hair was sitting at a writing desk, working diligently on some paperwork. He looked up when we approached and nodded at me, examining me with bright blue eyes. I started to go down on my knees, but he gestured for me to remain standing.

“I understand you have done good work. For my father,” said the heir, very slightly emphasizing the last word.

“I have done my best to serve the kingdom, Your Highness.”

That got me a smile, which was also a dismissal. The çorbaci led me away. Having now seen the shahzadeh, it was amazing to me that anyone would believe that the handsome youth was the son of the crown prince. Honestly, he looked more like the çorbaci than the . . . 

Oh.

* * *

“I can’t tell you unless you sign the oath. Probably not even then.”

This got me a scowl. “But you said that, since he’s not signing the contract, I’m probably not in danger from reading it, even if I don’t become your apprentice.”

“That is probably true.”

“But I want to travel, see the whole world. I don’t want to be a wish doctor.”

Part of me wanted to offer to take her around the world as my apprentice, but I knew that I didn’t have the energy for that. Besides, I was old enough to be Laiha’s father. Her grandfather. I enjoyed her company, but I was not so foolish as to think that she thought of me as anything more than a gray-bearded friend.

“You still owe me nineteen translations, don’t forget. It wouldn’t hurt for you to learn a few more things while you waited.”

I saw her thinking about it, scowling. She hadn’t realized that the translations were an onus on her that would prevent her travelling. Which meant that I was an onus on her.

I sighed, pulled out a blank contract, and filled it in. I, Doctor Kaled Mahmoud ibn Hatim ibn Ashraf will allow my apprentice, Laiha, to travel as much as she deems appropriate, so long as she studies the materials I provide and, further, that she will only be required to translate if I can reasonably contact her.

It was the most one-sided contract I’d ever written—although there were a couple of little trick clauses that she probably wouldn’t notice—something to aid her on her road to becoming a wish doctor.

She read the contract, then smiled and signed it.

“Can I read the oath before I sign that?”

“Be my guest.” I gestured towards the large document spread out on my desk. Laiha would be one of the few apprentices who could completely read the text before signing.

She read it through quickly, then more slowly.

“Why all the archaic terms and language?”

“Doctors are naturally conservative. Once we know that a piece of language works, we tend to stick with it.”

“But words change their meaning over time.”

I raised an eyebrow at that. It was true—the original oath was said to be five hundred years old. Was it possible that the meaning of some of the words had changed in that time? If so, was that what I would read on the paper hidden in the secret drawer in my desk—that a change in language had opened up a loophole?

Laiha read the document one more time, then smiled broadly and signed the oath with a flourish.

If I asked, Laiha would tell me what she’d spotted. If she wouldn’t, I could have her translate the document as part of her commitment to me. But if I was any good, I’d be able to find the loophole myself. I relished the opportunity. It suddenly occurred to me that this was a second trap set by the demon—if the wish doctors weren’t fully bound by their oaths, all sorts of chaos would be unleashed.

“Enjoy your travels, apprentice. Don’t fall in love with any young buck while you’re out there.”

She touched her heart, then gestured towards me, which was charming of her, and made me smile. I resolved to study the oath while she was gone. Perhaps, by the time she got back, I would have found the loophole and could be young and handsome myself. A little chaos is not necessarily a terrible thing.

End

Copyright © 2024 by Arlen Feldman

As well as writing fiction, Arlen Feldman is a software engineer, entrepreneur, maker, costumer, con-runner (cosinecon.org), and computer book author. His short fiction can be found in a number of anthologies and magazines. He lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Website: cowthulu.com. Mastodon: @cowthulu@mastodon.social. Bluesky: @cowthulu.bsky.social