The balcony door was left wide open, and my bed had been tidied up. I checked my desk, and sure enough, the notes that Sygen had given me were laying there in a neat pile. It had only been a day, but I was already fully enjoying having a personal maid who took care of all the small details for me.

I went downstairs to grab my lunch. The kitchen staff had done an excellent job with my vague instructions. Inside the dumbwaiter, I found a platter topped with several wraps and what looked like a sponge cake. All of it was of course neatly arranged on porcelain plates. I added an empty drinking glass to the platter. As I poured myself some water into a jug, I felt like a child because the only thing on my mind at that moment was the question of where running water came from.

“Maybe a pump?” I wondered out loud.

After all, my bathroom also had running water, but laundry was done in large basins. It was a mystery indeed.

I headed back upstairs, trying not to spill or drop anything.

When I finally got to my desk, I made room for the platter and put the jug of water at the foot of the table. When I pulled out my chair to sit down, I frowned in confusion. A large, thick, and old-looking book was laying on the cushion I was supposed to sit on. I carefully picked up the tome. It weighted easily over five kilos and was cold to the touch. As I ran my hand over the cover and binding, I found the material to be not unlike aluminium in texture, although its colour was closer to that of baking paper. Letters were engraved into the cover, and traces of golden paint remained in the deeper recordings of the gravure. The stylised font was not easy to make out, but after tilting the book at a certain angle, I could just about make out :

“The Tome of Truths; Holy Words to Elevate you above the Masses”

That genie, Safwan, must have brought it as per my request. The irony of the name of the book and its placement did not escape me. I sigh. If nothing else, he had a sense of humour.

Then the realisation that this was the equivalent of the first edition of the Bible began to sink in.

“Shit, and I’ve been getting my dirty hands all over it.”

My hands weren’t dirty per se, I had washed them when I was in the kitchen, but I was pretty sure that this kind of historical artefact was supposed to be handled with gloves, or better yet not handled at all. I rushed towards my bed to put the book onto a soft surface and wipe away my fingerprints.

As I passed by the window, the curtains fluttered with the wind, briefly casting light onto a dimly lit corner of the room. A figure, darker than night, loomed in that corner, its body was twisted at impossible angles to fit into that small nook of shadow; two dots, as bright as fresh blood, shone in the minds of the darkness, and shadowy tentacles crept along the walls, moving silently in rhythm with the wind.

I yelped and felt the book slide from my grasp. My eyes darted between the bedside and the wardrobe, the two places I knew I had weapons in. In the split second it took me to decide to go for the wardrobe, I felt energy bottle up inside me, ready to be released at any second.

“You can’t go dropping it after all of that.” A voice, which no doubt belonged to the monster, spoke.

The book never hit the floor. A gloved hand caught it when it was mere centimetres away from severely depreciating in value.

I had already wacked the wardrobe door open and armed myself with a blade when I realised that I knew both the voice and the figure.

With one hand over my racing heart, I put the weapon back where I found it.

“You scared the living hell out of me.”

The figure, who looked nothing like a monster when standing in the light shrugged.

“How long have you been standing there?” I asked Safwan, not without a touch of anger in my voice. With all the adrenaline, I had forgotten to speak like nobility once again.

“Some time.” He answered, his voice as dry as ever.

“No, seriously. Don’t do that again.” I reprimanded him.

Then I got an idea. It wasn’t one of my brightest ones, but I had to test out my theory about him. I walked to the curtains and closed them shut. Then I slowly dimmed the lights in the room.

Slowly, his short figure started blending in with the surrounding darkness, changing shape and growing in size, I knew it must have been a trick of the eye, or so I tried to convince myself at least. Then I blinked, I must have, because his silhouette had disapeared. I turned the light back on and looked around in confusion.

“Are you done?” His voice came from my right, where the desk was.

I raised my index finger and opened my mouth, but didn’t quite manage to actually ask the question.

“I can make my presence unseen at times.” He answered, nonetheless.

After a few seconds, I decided to drop the issue. There were more pressing matters at hand. But if this incident were to repeat itself, I wouldn’t overlook it a second time. The was a limit to how much bullshit even I was able to tolerate.

“I’m glad you’ve decided to open a dictionary and expand your lexicon.”

I headed towards my desk, expecting to have to push him off it, but Safwan moved out of the way as I approached. Thankfully he hadn’t crumpled any documents while leaning against the table.

I sat down and was about to reorganise everything when I noticed that Sygen’s notes were missing.

“You’re looking for an accountant.”

He didn’t even bother phrasing it as a question.

“I see you’ve got sticky fingers, though I shouldn’t be surprised, really.” I leaned back against the chair, trying not to let my annoyance slip through in my tone. “I am, yes. Preferably one that wouldn’t embezzle, allegedly or not.” I added.

Safwan nodded, and despite not being able to see his face under his hood, I could have sworn I saw an expression of contempt. I leaned back towards the table and rubbed my temple. This wasn’t going to do, and as the boss here, I felt the need to rectify our relationship, for the sake of future collaboration if nothing else.

“Listen, Safwan…” I paused. This wasn’t easy to say. “I think we got off the wrong foot you and I.” I paused again, forcing myself to repress the not-so-polite words that bundled up inside my head. “The circumstances of our introduction weren’t ideal, but we’ll be working together for a while, so let’s make the most of it, alright?”

There was a long pause. I stared at Safwan, trying once again to maintain a neutral expression, and he glared at me. Then, suddenly, the tension that had been building up for the last few minutes vanished. Safwan seemed to relax his stance, and I leaned back into a more comfortable position.

“Alright.” He said, before pulling off his hood and starting to pace around the room. “You’re right. I wish you weren’t, but neither of us can get rid of that curse now, even if you wanted to. So let’s not make this unnecessarily complicated.” He stopped by a corner of the desk. “Who is it that you want dead?”

I should have said something right away. I wanted to, but my brain must have short-circuited. Under his hood, Safwan looked perfectly normal. As in, he didn’t have horns, or glowing red eyes, or any other weird physical features that could have distinguished him from the masses. I struggled to juxtapose his average appearance with the shadow monster I’ve seen only a few minutes prior. Then there was also the way he moved, and the fact that he could enter my room in spite of the barrier. He couldn’t have been a human; This was a world of magic after all, and the idea of genies looking just like humans somehow didn’t fully stick with me. I had watched the Disney cartoon Aladdin after all, -

Safwan frowned.

Black hair, olive skin, brown eyes, and a round nose- he could have been literary any guy in the street, hell, I could have sworn I worked alongside a data-analysist that looked just like him. I would have likely been less surprised if he had no face at all under that all-black 80’s detective get-up of his.

“Yes, about the murders,…” I finally manage to focus, “Let’s not do any of those for now. I’ve been here for two days, and I think it will look shady when political figures start going missin’. Also, I don’t know nearly enough about local politics to know whom to target, and also, also, murder is bad.” I enumerated each point, realising halfway through that the accent had escaped me once more. “But you will be the first to know when I’ll need someone to have an accident,” I added, knowing full well that I would never act up on that.

My sole answer was a twitch of a corner of his mouth and a deeper frown. Just as I was about to give up all hope of getting a proper reply, he finally spoke.

“Alright. Then what’s with the list of names?” He shook the notes Sygen had made to indicate what he was talking about.

“An accountant.” I quickly replied. “You even asked me about it earlier!”

“It can be a multipurpose list.” He shrugged.

“Well it’s not.” My tone held a mixture of annoyance and exasperation.

“I’ll sort them for you.”

“Pardon?” I couldn’t believe what I’ve just heard.

Safwan gave me an expecting look, but I didn’t elaborate on what I’d just said. Truth be told, I was half-expecting for him to do some weird thing like shuffle the notes about and call that ‘sorted’. Instead, he sat on the floor, cross-legged, and starting spreading the sheets around him, and rearranging them in some sort of pattern.

So many questions were rushing through my head, but I felt like if I dig any deeper I’d have another one of those brain-freeze moments. So I decided to distract myself by going over the “general knowledge for dummies” documents.

“Nat-ta-ras.” I read out loud.

That was apparently the first day of the week.

“Fej-ka-ras. Fejkaras. That’s Tuesday.”

“In-skub-ras. Wednesday…”

I shook my head. These words sounded like they belonged in the spring collection at Ikea.

“Inskubras.” I repeated for good measure.

I looked up from the sheet of paper to check on Safwan’s progress, he had arranged the notes into several columns and rows, with a larger gap separating a selected few from the rest. He was looking at me as if I had just grown a third eye on my forehead.

“The information you’ve given me has proven most helpful.” I said, not without a touch of sarcasm. I realised full well that I must have looked like an idiot, but if the letter of the previous duke were to be believed, it’s not as if Safwan was going to go blabbing on about it.

He got up and brushed dust off his trousers. I could have sworn that for a few seconds his eyes held a calculating glimmer.

“Top to bottom is distance of travel. Left to right is qualifications. These ones I advise against,” he gestured towards the right-hand side of the arrangement.

“There wasn’t enough space on your table.” He added.

“Alright,” I got up and walked the few steps that separated us. “I’ll trust you on this one.”

I picked up the top left sheet of paper.

“Baron Dean Willen, manages his own land, has never been in debt, but like gambling and has three wives and no children.” I read.

“Age 42, no serious health conditions but has several allergies including milk and fish, is a great liar and even better at counting cards, prefers men and only married to keep rumours at bay, and lives half a day from here.” Safwan added in his usual dry and uninterested tone.

“Sounds perfect but, isn’t he needed in his current land?”

Safwan shook his head.

“His wives will manage. The land is prospering and there is no war.”

“Then it’s sorted.” I nodded with a smile. I didn’t really care about his land, as much as I cared about his skills, and getting someone to 'man the bank' so to say asap. “Thanks for the help.” I wanted to add a sarcastic remark to that but decided against it.

“I’ll write him a letter, could you go over it?”

He nodded.

I picked up the rest of the pile, and spent a good minute looking for a bin. After realising I had none. I emptied the box with my mail onto my bed and threw the now useless notes in it. During the whole process, Safwan hadn’t moved from his spot in front of my desk. He looked a weird mixture of bored and annoyed.

“This should only take a minute.” I said, before taking a seat and pulling out a clean sheet of paper from within the desk.