"None of the friendly ones I've heard of are mages."

"Okay. And she doesn't come from a family like yours or anything?"

"Nope, she's a loner."

"Okay. Can I have a number to call you back direct if I think of anything else?"

Begrudgingly, yes.

She takes it down and thanks him and hangs up.

[I can probably delay her champion from interfering while you try something, if you have a plan. Not sure what it is but I don't think any champion will be able to beat me quickly.]

[If she can pre-sign the contract and leave it somewhere for her champion or one of the hostages to deliver somewhere I can sign it, I can't rely on being able to ambush her at the signing. I have no way to find her before. I think I may have to sign it, which means I need to quibble over the contract wording a lot to make sure it's airtight.]

Lianelle can try her best to help with the quibbling.

She will leave the clause about not using mana during the period of a week intact. She wants to keep her ability to resist including violently, because she'll need that, but apparently that's already Sakir's kink, so good enough. She wants what she's going to phrase as routine in-person wellness checks on Lianelle but is actually intended that she can reach her for guiding if she winds up using her powers. She wants to write in that moral injury is to be construed as lastingly damaging. She wants all the hostages safe forever - if she can swing it she's going to word this in a way that prevents Sakir from collecting more pets, though she's expecting to have to budge on that and settle for merely de-magicking her. She's changing enough stuff about the agreement to resurrect her after she's got the Spring that it should pass muster to bring her back with her memories but without magic, like she'd been talking about doing for Snake Candidate's supposed family - that counts as "restored to life and health".

Sakir is not going to stop having pets and she catches the de-magicking possibility and is also not willing to allow that - it's basically a death sentence for her and she's not that tired of life yet. She might change her mind on either of these if May wants to offer her something interesting enough.

"You wanna come to my world with me when I go? Start fresh, combine the inability to commit atrocities with nobody already knowing you just love committing atrocities?"

"Oh that is a tempting offer. What do you want for it?"

"I want to de-magic you, like I just said."

"How common is magic in the everyday lives of criminals in your world?"

"Approximately nonexistent."

"Okay, if I am to have a fresh start I'll do it right. You'll render me unscryable based on past connections, return my body to the same age as yours, and I'll appear next to a random person from your world whose identity will be unknown to anyone else. How dos that sound?"

"I don't know how expensive making you unscryable like that would be, or the de-aging."

"Not much more than an additional resurrection."

"Why unscryable, why next to a random person?"

"So you or anyone with a grudge from this world won't hunt me down." says Sakir with the voice of the woman she's switched to speaking through.

"Well, I confess it'd be tempting. So you're willing to revise the contract so that I resurrect you without magic, as long as I do it next to a random person in another dimension?"

"The dimension you are from, and I'll have to be otherwise free of disability or interference and no one but me will know where I got resurrected. I can propose specific language in an hour."

"Anything else you intend to quibble with?"

"I'll look over your other suggestions but they seem acceptable. Shall you come to the studio to sign it."