A warm blueberry muffin appears and floats in front of her.

!!!

Temperance reaches outs and takes a nibble.

It tastes entirely real, heat and weight and smell and taste. And delicious. But it stops floating as soon as she grabs it.

Non! Temperance bounces, realizes someone is watching (?), and then decides to bounce again anyway. "This is so cool." She takes another bite.

"I suppose you can think so. It's a very, very old hat to me."

"Oh, yes. You said you're trapped. Is there a way for me to free you?"

"...No. Kind of you to ask, but alas, it seems impossible. Nothing I have seen or tried yet has done it. If you pity me- Leave me alone and don't wish for anything particularly horrible."

"Honestly, I have no idea what to wish for. Or rather have too many ideas. But nothing horrible? I don't know. No desires to become an evil queen or whatever."

"Nah, I'm not getting that sense from you. More 'wander around Brazil' than 'diamonds and poolboys'."

"Aha. You got that right. Uh... how did you get it right? Have you been following me around before I found you in that box? How did you get there?"

"I have a sense for what people might want to wish for. I call it the temptation engine. You know, to tempt assholes into wishing unwise wishes that I can twist back upon them in an ironic twist-of-fate sort of way. Or just a mean one if I'm feeling uncreative."

"Huh... why?"

"Hmm, do I have to explain myself to you? On one level, yes, the curse makes me tell you what you may wish for. But on another level, no I don't. Still. Suffice it to say that stupid, boring wishes get really really old, and one might resent that."

"Ah, right. Cursed. Sorry. Is there anything..." She tries to come up with a word. "I don't know, any triggers or something?"

"It's not your responsibility to coddle me. If you say the words 'I wish' carelessly, you may force my hand to act on something stupid."

"Okay. Any other rules?"

"I'll let you know," he says dryly. "Maybe put me in front of a TV if you're going to be gone for a while."

"Ah, I can do that." She has been standing in this hallway for a while and some of her groceries need to be put in the fridge. She moves kitchen-wards. "Should I keep wearing you? I am not sure if it's uncomfortable or something."

"I don't particularly feel it. Depends on my mood, I suppose." Sigh.

She pets it. Which amounts to petting her own hand. Yeah, she should remove the ring. "Could you explain the wishes some more? Because I don't think I can physically stop myself from knowing more at this point."

"A wish can be nearly anything that I am powerful enough to provide. While not without limit, I can do a lot. The strict rules are but three: No mind alteration of anybody, means no making people love you directly, or changing the way your mind works. Kind of sucks for people who want to stop being addicted to something and find me, but so it goes. No killing or putting people in situations where they will almost certainly die with wishes - asking for weapons is fine though. And you get three wishes, no more. That means no wishing for more wishes, no wishing for more genies, no wishing about weird mathematical things that make 'three' be defined in some insane troll logic way. Three."

"Oh, dear. You had to deal with a lot of people not being satisfied with just three, didn't you?"

"Quite."

Temperance nods sympathetically. Pause. "Not fishing for more wishes, but can you alter the laws of mathematics? That sounds like... the kind of things that can not be possible even if magic turns out to be real."

"No, I can't. Nothing really deeply reality-bending like that. That's more a god's domain, and considering one made me into this I'm not keen on making requests."