"I grant wishes," he said, and instantly, Magda knew that this creature was dangerous. He was monstrous, at least seven feet tall, his skin charcoal grey and a pair of ram horns curling around his cheekbones. His eyes were a deep brown however, startlingly human against his skin. His demonic appearance was juxtaposed with half-moon spectacles and a plaid, worn-looking suit that seemed a few sizes too big.

"I don't want anything," Magda said, running a hand through her chestnut hair. His smile was as sharp and pointed as his teeth. Magda sensed he could tell she was lying.

One look around her meagre apartment would tell him the truth in any case. Her paper was due the next day and she hadn't even started it yet, a blank notebook with the essay title laying for him to see. Her bank balance had been low enough for her to have eaten cereal for dinner, the bowl now lying with the last of its milk in the sink. Her boyfriend was mysteriously not answering her texts and her mother... Her mother had flown off to Spain earlier that week with a one way ticket and no intention of ever passing on a forwarding address.

To say that there was nothing she wanted for would be to tell a barefaced lie.

"I can wish for anything?" she checked. He nodded, putting his hands in his pockets in a way that reminded her of fuddy old professors bumbling around their studies. The effect was odd.

"As long as you can pay the price," he reassured her. She swallowed and ran her hand down the blank page of the notebook before her. She was doing nothing here, after all, she was barely passing her degree...

"What's your name?" Magda asked, her heart racing as she considered the possibility she was presented with.

"Xander," the Wish Granter replied, seeming surprised to be asked. Even so, Magda got the feeling that she hadn't heard his real name after all.

"Well then, Xander, I do have a wish. Take me with you. I want to be your apprentice," she said.

Xander looked shocked; his charcoal grey skin seemed even more ashen; but then he recovered, pushing his glasses up his nose and considering her.

"You will gain no extra wishes this way. Your life shall become a trading market of equivalent exchanges and you will be unable to return to the mortal world until you either pass or fail the training," he warned her. She took in his rather drab clothes, his carefully polished shoes, a chain from his pocket that denoted he carried a pocket watch of all things.

"A world where everything has a sense of order sounds good right now," she said. Xander pushed his glasses up his nose again. He looked... sheepish. Magda almost laughed at the pun. He held out his hand and a few stapled pieces of paper appeared on it. He passed them to her without ceremony.

"An employment contract," Xander explained. Magda scanned through it. It was written in the usual legalese that she always had trouble decoding.

"A wage of £935 per month. A room in my home that will be yours for the duration of the apprenticeship. Working hours of no more than 36 hours a week, excluding business trips for which you will receive compensatory leave or overtime. All work expenses covered. The apprenticeship is to last four years, after which you shall either become a Master Wish Granter or you will fail. Oh and twenty days holiday a year," Xander rattled off, counting things off on his fingers as he said them. Magda couldn't believe the ridiculousness of her situation. Contract haggling with a... demon who obeyed employment law?

"The cost?" she prompted. Xander's mouth turned downwards.

"The request is unprecedented," Xander replied, not answering the question. "As such, I am unsure. Usually to give magic, I take away physical ability. To give livelihood, I take away human connections. But to do all this prevents you from doing the very job you requested."

Magda waited. There had to be a cost. She would sign nothing until she knew what it was.

"I am left with only one thing worth anything that you can give me in exchange. Your name," Xander's voice was low and serious. Magda nearly giggled. Her name?

"Why my name?" she asked, feeling amused. Was this a fairy story?

"Mortals cannot have their names stolen, but they can be traded or given away. You are all so careless with them too. Throwing away all those credit card statements in the trash all the time, doodling them on your notebooks at school... And you don't even know how powerful those few letters can be," Xander seemed to be thinking of something else though Magda had no idea what he could be thinking about. His eyes cleared though when he looked back to the contract in her hand. "A name consciously given, well, that will be powerful indeed."

Magda didn't give herself time to think. She grabbed her pen from the desk and leaned down to sign her name.

Magdalena Katarzyna Wojcik.

The signature glowed and then changed, the letters blurring, rearranging before her eyes.

Pani Praktykantka.

Pani dropped the pen onto the desk. She felt no different from before. Xander scooped up the papers and signed his own name, a series of angular characters that looked like something ancient Pani had seen in a museum once.

"Well then, Pani, it is done," he said. Pani realized that though she'd paid the cost of her name, but she still felt like she had one. She looked at the contract once more and grimaced. She had been renamed tastelessly it seemed. When she tried to recall being called anything else though, her mind drew a blank.

All traces of her real name had been erased. Even her notebook which had once almost certainly displayed her correct name now just said Pani on it. A little heart was over the 'i'.

Xander folded up the contract and tucked it inside his jacket pocket before he held out one hand to her.

"Come," he said. Pani reached out and felt his hand clasp hers as the whole world changed.

The little apartment he took her to was a labyrinth of books, nooks and crannies. There was an office at the front, and two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen towards the back of the apartment. The office was piled high with what looked like centuries worth of paper, as were the hallways and even the kitchen.

The only empty room was the one that Xander took her to as her own. He saw her inside and made sure that she had a glass of water before bed. She went to sleep and dreamed of her new life.

A Wish Granters apprentice...