Chapter 121: Book 2 Chapter 32.2: Never Had a Friend Like Me

“Jinn – also romanized as djinn or anglicized as genie – are supernatural creatures in early pre-Islamic Arabian religious systems and later in Islamic mythology and theology,” Kim began. “Are held responsible for misfortune...other stuff...often associated with wishes.”

“That does make sense,” Lee said. “While not entirely accurate to the original theological interpretation, there is a common belief that Djinn will grant wishes, but knowingly distort the intent of the one making the wish.”

“Which would easily explain how Isabel got where she is,” Vell said. “You know, she wished for recognition, or popularity, or something, and the Djinn went with this.”

“That’s very true,” Lee said. “There are some facts I must bring up, however. The first being that Djinn are supposed to be extinct, which is, admittedly, a threadbare protest, considering we’ve fought multiple ‘extinct’ entities. The second being that this is not a Wish.”

“How is it not a wish?”

“It is perhaps granting a desire, fulfilling a ‘wish’, in a sense, but it’s not a Wish. That’s a more specific type of magic, and one that hasn’t been practiced in a long time,” Lee said. “We’re just in an illusion. The appearance of reality has changed, but reality itself has not been altered the way a Wish would do.”

“Right. Isabel isn’t actually any smarter or more popular or beautiful than she was yesterday,” Vell said.

“I thought she was quite good looking, actually,” Lee added.

“Oh, yeah, she’s very cute, she’s just the same amount of cute she was yesterday,” Vell agreed. While they commiserated on attractive women, Kim focused in on a very different aspect of their situation.

“What were you saying about wishes?”

“They just don’t really happen anymore,” Lee said.

“Why not?”

“Myriad reasons. Only a few creatures were ever capable of doing so in the first place, and the amount of power required, the fact that wishes can only be granted to another person, and the symbiotic relationship of desire involved in maintaining the altered reality- All in all it’s very similar to how the God’s diminished. Granting wishes uses up more mana than it returns, so eventually all the Wish-granters ran out of power.”

“But we’ve met a God.”

“Oh yes, we did, I was briefly in denial about that, I suppose,” Lee said. “Then I suppose we could meet a genuine Wish-granter someday, couldn’t we?”

“Not today though, this is definitely an illusion, right?” Vell asked.

“Yes, this is all smoke and mirrors, so to speak,” Lee said. “Mostly some mental trickery, really.”

“So, on a scale from one to ten, how hard would it be to dispel?”

“Anywhere on a scale from seven to ten, I’m afraid,” Lee said. “I’m not familiar with Djinn magic, and considering his connections to Wish magic, he’s likely sustaining his spell with Isabel’s subconscious help. The more she wants the illusion to be real, the stronger it becomes.”

“Well then...what if we, uh, made her stop wanting it?”

Kim and Lee exchanged a quick glance, then shook their heads.

“If we go back to Isabel, odds are we’re going to die,” Kim said. “Especially you.”

“Okay, yeah, but it’s the first loop,” Vell said. “And we still don’t know when this started. If we can’t intercept Isabel before she meets the genie on the second loop, things will still go bad.”

“We’ve got several hours left,” Lee said, checking the time. “I should be able to manage, even given the difficult circumstances.”

“Maybe we can pretend to ‘see the light’ and trick Harley and Hawke into doing fact-finding for us,” Kim said. “Then we can cover both angles.”

“Or, when in doubt, I can look up Isabel’s dorm number and we can tail her on the second loop,” Lee said.

“Oh, stalking, my favorite,” Kim grunted. Lee rolled her eyes at the sarcasm.

“I’d rather follow her around for a bit than let her fall victim to a predatory Genie,” Lee said. “Vell, I’m sure you-”

Lee stopped herself mid-sentence when she saw the look on Vell’s face. Just like his “thinking” face, Vell’s look of concern could not be missed.

“You’re worried about Isabel, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. Uh, I maybe should’ve mentioned this before, but I wasn’t really thinking about it,” Vell said. “Back in the first few weeks of school, Isabel did this project and presented a rune sequence she designed to heal bone fractures. Only she, uh, kind of messed up a few things, and got corrected in front of the whole class...I think that hurt her a lot more than I realized at the time.”

Mistakes such as the one Isabel had made were relatively commonplace at the school, so Vell had disregarded it almost entirely, but Isabel clearly hadn’t. A failure like that, especially in her first showing with her new peers, had probably haunted her all this time. From the way she had withdrawn in on herself at the mere mention of it, Vell could guess the blow to her ego had been severe. Severe enough to make her easy prey for an opportunistic Djinn.

“Fine,” Lee sighed. She knew better than to stand between Vell and trying to help someone else. “Dispelling an illusion is mostly a solo act anyway. The two of you can do whatever you want.”

“I want to do what you’re doing,” Kim said. Though she felt like she was going to get roped into Vell’s plan either way. “Vell’s going to get himself killed in ten seconds.”

“Oh come on, no I’m not.”

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“I told you so.”

“What do you mean ‘I told you so’?” Vell snipped. “It’s been like five minutes and we’re not even dead yet.”

“I’m not reading a lot of non-lethal intent in this situation, Vell.”

Kim wriggled slightly in her restraints to dangle in Vell’s direction. They had made it about ten steps into the dining hall before the Cult of Isabel had strung them up by their heels to await further judgment. Vell rolled his eyes hard enough to make himself sway as he dangled.

“We’ll be fine,” he insisted. “I told them only Isabel had the right to decide who lives and who dies. Cult logic.”

Kim huffed and swung back into a motionless dangle.

“Besides, I don’t see what you’re complaining about,” Vell said. “You’re the one who can shut off your blood flow. I’m getting dizzy here.”

The redness in Vell’s face only grew as Kim flashed him a smug smile. Being a robot had it’s advantages. It would not save her from a grisly sacrifice at the hands of cultists, however. That much was up to Isabel, who was now striding towards their cell, with Dave Jim in tow.

“Hey Isabel.”

“Vell, what’s going on?”

“Oh, you know-”

“Don’t say it,” Kim hissed.

“-Just hanging around,” Vell said. Kim let out a loud groan. “Sorry. Harley’s not around to make jokes like that. She’d never forgive me if I passed up the chance. And, uh, speaking of forgiveness…”

“These two were returning to challenge you again,” Dave Jim said. “I suggest we be rid of them permanently.”

“What are you- Oh, no, absolutely not,” Isabel said. She seemed offended Dave Jim had even suggested it.

“Hey, uh, don’t want to interrupt, but could you judge me on the ground?” Vell asked. “About to lose consciousness here.”

This not being Vell’s first brush with unconsciousness due to blood displacement, he recognized the symptoms. Thankfully, Isabel was a merciful queen, and ordered him to be cut loose, though Dave Jim refused to untie Vell’s hands. Kim was cut down in turn, and the discussion continued right side up.

“Thank you,” Vell said. “Anyway, I just came in to check in on you, Isabel. How’re you holding up?”

Isabel checked over her shoulder for some reason. Casual chatter made her suspicious, under the circumstances. She looked back at Vell and adjusted her glasses.

“I’m...good. Thank you for asking.”

“Good to hear,” Vell said. “I also wanted to apologize for earlier. I shouldn’t have brought up that bone fracture sequence stuff. I didn’t realize it would hurt your feelings.”

“I- Thank you,” Isabel mumbled. “It’s fine. I’m doing fine. I’ve accomplished a lot since that.”

Vell took a deep breath. This was where things started to get iffy -and possibly stabby. Isabel was caught in this illusion just as much as anyone else. The only way to break it, other than outright dispelling it, was to challenge it.

“You know none of this is real, right?”

Steel flashed in the hands of Dave Jim, and in an instant, that steel was swinging towards Vell’s neck. He ducked away from the blow, but only barely -the Djinn was surprisingly quick. Vell didn’t know if he’d be able to dodge a second strike, but thankfully Isabel stepped in.

“What are you doing?”

“You heard him,” Dave Jim hissed. “He’s going to ruin everything.”

“You’re the one ruining things,” Isabel said. “You told me everyone would see how smart I was. You told me this was foolproof!”

“I underestimated the quality of your fools!”

“Vell is a pretty top-notch fool,” Kim said.

“I resent that.”

“We have to do something about him,” Dave Jim hissed. He tried to keep his voice low enough that the crowd of followers behind them couldn’t hear. “If he keeps this up it’ll ruin everything.”

“Can’t you, I don’t know, put him on a boat, or something?”

“That wouldn’t fix anything,” Vell said. “You’d still know the truth. Come on, Isabel. You clearly know something’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Isabel protested.

“This is how the world is, and how it should be,” Dave Jim insisted. “It stands in recognition of all that Lady Isabel has accomplished.”

“She hasn’t actually accomplished anything,” Kim grumbled. If she was going to die, she at least wanted to try getting the last word.

“Silence!”

“What? What has she actually made?” Kim protested. She looked past Dave Jim, at all the people in the back. “What has she actually built that even works?”

The crowd behind Isabel actually faltered, if only for a moment. The Djinn’s illusion had to play catch up with the fact that so many were suddenly experiencing doubt in the illusory world.

“If you actually paid attention, you’d see that,” Kim said. “Vell could probably run circles around her in some kind of ‘rune-off’ or something.”

The room went quiet, and Vell let out a very silent sigh. The moment of calm lasted only a second before the crowd behind Isabel broke out into a thunderous chant, crying out “Rune Off” over and over again.

“What the hell is happening?”

“A Rune Off, thanks to you,” Vell grumbled.

“That’s an actual thing?”

“Of course it is! Everything’s a ‘thing’ here!”

“Sorry!”

Kim’s apology fell on deaf ears as Vell was dragged away by the crowd, towards the stadium.

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“Hello and welcome to the first ever Isabel Del Campo versus Vell Harlan Rune Off,” Harley said into the mic. “Joining me today as impartial commentators and judges are Hawke Hughes-”

“Hi.”

“And Professor Carmella Nguyen!”

“I have been coerced here through threat of force and do not approve of anything that is currently happening,” Professor Nguyen said. The illusion had made her believe that Isabel was genius, but no force on heaven or earth could make Carmella Nguyen approve of frivolous shenanigans.

“That’s the spirit! Now, we know what you’re thinking: why would anyone be stupid enough to challenge Isabel,” Harley said. “And, as Vell’s close personal friends, we can tell you now...we don’t really know either. We think something’s wrong with his brain.”

“Weren’t we supposed to be fixing that?” Hawke asked.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Yes, but we’re the only three people on campus who don’t hate Vell’s guts right now and someone has to do the color commentary. And on that note, our competitors are making their way to their stations.”

Two runecarving workshops had been set up in the middle of the stadium, centered in the field about twenty feet apart. Isabel and Vell were both approaching their assigned workstations as slowly as possible, both incredibly nervous for entirely different reasons. Vell had no reason to doubt his skills, but was deeply uncomfortable with all the attention on him, and Isabel had the opposite problem. Despite their asymmetrical but equally fraught nerves, Isabel still had an advantage: her cultists had prepared the best tools and highest quality work station possible. Vell had a few planks of wood stacked on cinderblocks and a tin can full of chipped chisels. Also some rude messages on sticky notes.

“Alright, as everyone but Kim was apparently aware of, the rules of a Rune Off are simple,” Harley said. “Professor Nguyen, would you like to do the honors?”

“I will have no part in this farce,” she said coldly.

“Understood! Our competitors will be given a simple task to accomplish, and it’s their job to create a rune sequence that can accomplish that task in as little time as possible. First one to complete the objective wins. Simple, right?”

“There are more complexities to the situation than you let on,” Nguyen said. She would not stand for any shenanigans, but she also would not stand for oversimplification of her academic field. “The potential combinations of runes are myriad, and seemingly simple combinations can have exponentially complicated results. Portraying it as a task of simple speed is misrepresenting the ingenuity that exists in even the most seemingly simple relationships of cause and effect.”

“Fascinating,” Hawke said. “Let’s see if our competitors can put that ingenuity on display. Their first task: use only the tools provided to make this ball roll.”

Two large, incredibly dense rubber balls were rolled towards the workstations of Isabel and Vell. Vell examined the obstacle ahead of him and got to work as he braced for the innuendo he knew was coming from Harley.

“Let’s see how these competitors can handle their -spheres,” Harley said. She swerved sharp to avoid the innuendo as Nguyen threw her a cutting glare. Even the most dedicated double-entendre enjoyers withered under Professor Nguyen’s icy stare.

Across the field, at her workstation, Isabel scrambled to design a functioning rune diagram. Force without direction might make the rune bounce, fly, or simply move from place to place without technically rolling. She’d need at least three runes, each with at least four lines worth of complexity, interconnected with a relatively simple diagram. She got to carving right away, moving the chisel across her basalt tokens with lightning speed. The stadium watched her with breathless anticipation -for about ten straight minutes. Even their brainwashed attention spans could only last so long, however.

“Now, it’s important to remember, runecarving is slow, methodical work,” Hawke said. “While it may seem like Isabel and Vell are moving at a slow pace, they are actually working at statistically higher speeds than the average carver.”

“Mr. Hughes,” Nguyen said.

“This is some really skilled stuff, from a technical standpoint.”

“Mr. Hughes,” Nguyen repeated.

“Sorry, ma’am, just trying to lay out the skill on display here, what were you going to say?”

“I was going to say in your ‘appreciation’ of our competitors skill, you have failed to notice that one of them has already won.”

“Wow! I’m sure Isabel has -oh, wait, it’s Vell.”

The crowd rang out with shocked gasps as eyes were torn from Isabel, their center of attention, towards Vell. Sure enough, his ball was already rolling, as Vell waved a single rune above it. Isabel hadn’t even finished carving her second rune yet.

“What is that?” Dave Jim demanded. “How is he doing that?”

“Using the tools provided,” Vell said. He gestured to one of the cheap metal chisels he had been provided, currently embedded deep in his rubber sphere. Thanks to that and a relatively simple magnetism rune, Vell could make the ball roll as much as he wanted.

“That’s cheating,” Dave Jim protested. “Disqualify him! It’s cheating!”

“Yeah, that’s -that’s got to be stretching things, right?”

“He is within the parameters laid out for him,” Professor Nguyen said, ever the stickler. Most of the crowd didn’t agree. They started booing Vell from all sides. While that didn’t feel great, Vell persisted. Only one person’s opinion actually mattered. Vell looked at Isabel, whose hands were trembling as she clutched a chisel and a half-finished rune.

“What do you think?”

Dave Jim glared at Isabel, and she deliberately avoided his gaze. After a few seconds, she put her tool down.

“Vell won,” she mumbled. “Give him a point.”

The bloodthirsty crowd was cowed by their queens word, and relented, though their anger still simmered. Dave Jim restrained a growl of frustration and pointed a fierce finger at Vell.

“Fine! But this is a best two out of three,” he growled. “And no stretching the rules next time! Runes only!”

“Okay,” Vell said with a shrug.

To Isabel’s credit, she lost the next challenge by a much slimmer margin. She was actually assembling her runic construct when Vell successfully sparked lightning between two metal poles, defeating her once again.

“Best three out of five,” Dave Jim protested.

A decision that did not work out in his favor, as Vell managed to build a motor for a miniature car with a mere five runes, compared, to Isabel’s seven. Isabel admitted her loss once again, though her voice cracked as she did so. Dave Jim protested much more strongly, however.

“Best five out of eight!”

By challenge five, repeated failures had worn Isabel down. Her trembling hands jerked the chisel too hard, causing the rune she was carving to crack under the pressure, ensuring an even more disastrous defeat. She clutched the broken shards in shaking hands and ceded defeat once again.

“Best seven out of...nine? Twelve?” Dave Jim pondered. “What comes next?”

“How about something different comes next,” Vell suggested. Isabel looked to be on the verge of tears, and he felt like a change of pace. “One more challenge. Winner take all.”

Djinn were famous for making one-sided deals, so Dave Jim knew a bad deal when he saw it. The only problem was, Vell was already winning. Repeated defeats were wearing down Dave Jim’s ability to maintain the illusion of Isabel’s supremacy, and he could feel Lee’s spells wearing away at the edges of his magic. A change of pace could possibly work in the Djinn’s favor, and give him time to recover.

“What did you have in mind?”

Vell slid two planks of wood out of his work desk and snapped them both over his knee, tossing the two halves of one broken plank towards Isabel.

“Simple. Put the wood back together.”

Isabel’s eyes lit up with a sudden and fiery determination.

“I can do this,” she said aloud. “I can do this!”

The confidence was all it took for Dave Jim to be on board. He was still skeptical of Vell’s motivations, but the Djinn put his faith in mortal hubris. It had never failed him before.

But Vell was lucky to get an ounce of regular confidence, much less hubris. He had something very different in mind.

The challenge timer started, and Isabel’s hands started flying. Since the embarrassment of her failed bone fracture project at the beginning of the year, Isabel had compensated in every way she knew how. She had read every textbook, studied every rune, and carved every one of them by hand over and over. While Vell scanned a textbook, Isabel worked from memory, pulling every rune from the depths of her mind. The tables turned, and in a matter of minutes Isabel slapped a series of runes on either piece of the broken plank, charged them with magic, and watched them seal together, as if they’d never been broken at all.

Isabel took a moment to catch her breath, and then looked across the field at Vell. He held up two broken pieces of wood and shrugged in her direction.

“I won,” Isabel said breathlessly. Then she put her hands up in an exuberant cheer. “I won! I won I won I won!”

The crowd exploded into cheers and celebrations, filling the stadium with almost deafening noise. Isabel let the adulation wash over her, and breathed a deep sigh of relief as she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she found Vell sitting across the worktable from her.

“Feels a lot better when it’s real, doesn’t it?” Vell said, nodding at the cheering crowd. Mostly real, at any rate. The guy currently foaming at the mouth probably wouldn’t be doing that under normal circumstances. Isabel quickly scanned the raucous crowd and then stared deliberately at her feet.

“No one ever paid attention to me like this before,” Isabel mumbled. “And they wouldn’t- if I…”

Her already quiet voice got lost in the din of the crowd. Vell was consistently surprised at how much people could scream, and for how long.

“I know it seems nice, and in small doses, maybe it is,” Vell said. “But I’ve seen what’s going on, and I’ve learned enough about you to guess...you don’t want to be worshiped, Isabel. You just want to be appreciated.”

“If I- if all of this goes away...I won’t even have that,” Isabel mumbled. Behind the lenses of her glasses, Vell could see tears welling up in her eyes. He extended a hand, palm upwards, in her direction.

“You’ll have at least one person rooting for you,” he said. Though the tears in her eyes didn’t stop, Isabel looked up at Vell’s offered hand with a weak smile.

“You better do a good job,” she said, with a quiet chuckle. “I expect you to foam at the mouth too.”

“I’m not doing that, that’s unhealthy,” Vell said. “That man needs medical attention. I’m more of a golf clap kind of guy.”

“I suppose I can live with that,” Isabel sighed, as she grabbed on to Vell’s hand and gave it a tight squeeze. She took one last look at the cheering crowd, and felt nothing as the hollow adulation washed over her. None of the raucous noise felt better than the warmth of the hand holding tight to hers.

“Dave Jim,” Isabel said. “I’m ready for this...to…”

The warmth in Isabel’s hand faded, replaced by a bitter cold. Vell barely had time to register the change before Isabel slumped forward, landing face first on the table.

“Isabel?”

He didn’t waste too much time on the examination -he knew a corpse when he saw one. The next thing Vell had to address was how that corpse had come to be. The first thing he did was look towards the Djinn. The humanoid disguise of Dave Jom was bursting at the seams, as the entity within surged with newfound power.

“Well look at that,” the Djinn said. “He was right.”

Vell rolled his eyes.

“Okay, who is ‘He’?” Vell asked. “And I would really appreciate an answer, because I honestly already have too many mysterious figures in my life right now.”

“That’s none of your concern,” the Djinn said. “You’ll find it hard to be concerned about anything when you’re dead.”

“You’d be surprised.”

Vell never got to find out, owing to having a fireball aimed at his chest.

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“Hey!”

Isabel knew better than to think anyone would be calling for her attention, so she didn’t bother to turn her head.

“Hey! Isabel, right?”

Isabel turned on her heel so fast so she nearly fell over. Vell grabbed her by the shoulder before she toppled, though.

“Uh, yes, hi, Isabel’s me,” she mumbled. “Do you...need something?”

“Sort of,” Vell said. “Not me, I -I’m Vell Harlan, by the way, we have a few classes together-”

“I know.”

“Right, well, me and some of my friends -you might know Amy and Reggie, they’re in Professor Ahtem’s class at noon- were doing some coursework, and I think we could maybe, uh, use your help on something. If you’ve got the time.”

“I don’t know how much help I can be,” Isabel mumbled.

“You’ll be more help than Reg,” Amy shouted from the background.

“Why must you hurt me in this way,” Reg added.

“They’ve been like this for an hour,” Vell whispered to Isabel. “Help me.”

With only slight reluctance, Isabel followed Vell back to the picnic table he’d set up shop on and took a seat. To her surprise, the documents were all familiar, every one of them dealing with the exact kind of mending runes she’d been studying obsessively all this time. Vell had made sure to lay out some coursework that was in an area of Isabel’s expertise, just to give her something to latch on to.

“Seems like your thing, right?”

“I- I guess,” Isabel mumbled. “I know I’ve messed this stuff up-”

“Yeah, and you messed it up better than any of us would’ve,” Reg said.

“What he means is, you messed it up less than we would’ve,” Amy said. “Mind your phrasing, Reginald.”

“Oh. Oh, I mean, I guess, but I still-”

“Are you still hung up on that presentation you did?” Amy asked. “Everybody messes shit up, Izzy, get over it.”

Isabel scanned the documents one more time and then nodded in Vell’s direction.

“Not him,” she mumbled. Vell had a rebuttal prepared, but he never got to deploy it.

“Not in class, maybe,” Amy said. “He just screws up other places.”

“Like his schedule,” Reg said.

“Or getting to class on time.”

“Or showing up to parties.”

“Or keeping a girl,” Amy said.

“Okay that one hurts a little,” Vell said. “But, you know, she’s not wrong. Everybody messes up sometimes.”

Isabel withdrew on herself and adjusted her glasses.

“I guess it’s just...I used to be the smartest person in the room, everywhere I went,” Isabel said. “Now I’m…”

“Moping?” Amy said.

“Why do I have to watch my phrasing but you can just say shit?” Reggie asked.

“Because I’m saying my shit on purpose,” Amy said. “You’d feel bad if you unintentionally offended someone, I don’t give a fuck if I intentionally offend someone.”

Reggie nodded in reluctant agreement while Amy turned back to Isabel.

“Look, Izzy, just do your best and don’t give a fuck about anything else,” Amy said. “I mean, who do you want to compete with, Vell? He’s the actual smartest person in the room, and he’s a dumbass.”

“Glad I can be a good example,” Vell said. He really should’ve asked someone else for help with this, but at least the pep-talk appeared to be working. After a few more jabs from Amy, the group got back to work, much faster thanks to Isabel’s help. When the time came for the study group to end, and classes to continue, Isabel walked away with a smile on her face, and her head held high.

Vell had done his part. Now it was up to Lee to find that Djinn.

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“We did not find the Djinn,” Lee said.

“And sorry we got brainwashed, by the way,” Hawke said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Vell said. “Really? No sign of the Djinn anywhere?”

“None at all,” Lee said. “We’re well past the point the brainwashing should’ve started, and we’ve seen no sign of it. Not so much as a pip of mana out of place.”

“Weird,” Vell said.

“Maybe he was targeting Isabel specifically, and you giving her an ego boost foiled his plans,” Hawke suggested.

“Could be,” Vell said. “The way he talked right before killing me, I can’t help but feel like there was something else going on.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” Lee said. “If he’d learned some way to make wish magic parasitic instead of symbiotic, that could be...Well, let’s hope it’s nothing. Kim claimed to be working on something to pursue the djinn this morning. Perhaps she’ll produce results.”

THIS MORNING

On an isolated strip of beach, Kim was both inches and miles away from the truth.

“Yeah, I used to be able to grant wishes,” Wish Fish said. “As the name implies. Why do you ask?”

“Well, it’s a long story, but me and my friends were worried there might be some trouble with a djinn today, and we thought you might know something about wishes?”

Wish Fish took a moment to be grateful he had no fine motor muscles in his face, because he might not have been able to hide his surprise. The persistently blank expression of a fish saved him from giving anything away, and he continued.

“I know plenty about wishes, but I can’t say I know anything about a djinn,” Wish Fish said. “I can tell you not to worry though. Nobody’s been able to grant a real Wish in a long time.”

“I know, I know.”

Unlike her fishy friend, Kim had a fully functional set of synthetic facial muscles, so she could hardly hide her look of disappointment. Wish Fish would’ve smiled, if he could’ve.

“Why?” He asked. “Were you hoping for a wish?”

“It’d...be nice,” Kim said. “I know it’d just be a shortcut, but I still feel…”

“I get it,” Wish Fish said. “And there’s no shame in wanting to cut through all the bullshit and get what you want. Who knows? I was able to grant wishes before, maybe someday I’ll be able to again. Eel see what happens, right? Right?”

Wish Fish held his mouth agape, looking expectantly at Kim, who did not react.

“Do you get it?” He asked. “Because Eel sounds like ‘We’ll’, and-”

“No, no, I actually got that one,” Kim said. “It’s just a bit of a stretch.”

“There’s only so many fish in the sea, I’m working with what I got here,” Wish Fish complained. “See you around, you critic.”

After waving his tail goodbye at Kim, Wish Fish plunged back into the depths of the sea, swimming below the island, out of sight, through crevices and darkened corridors of the island’s artificial substructure. Eventually, he settled in just above a single laboratory pod, overgrown with kelp, where an ancient oil lamp, a rotted branch, a stone, and other seeming detritus had settled.

“So. Djinn. Heard an interesting story from the mark today,” Wish Fish said. “She said a certain Djinn might’ve been planning to do something he shouldn’t have.”

The oil lamp rattled slightly where it laid.

“What would she know?”

“Not much, but I know plenty,” Wish Fish said. “I know you were keeping an eye on that girl earlier. The one you think we should target, but we shouldn’t?”

The djinn inside the lamp stayed tucked safely inside, out of sight. He’d tried to make a move on Isabel just earlier today, but some of the students had intercepted her just when he was about to strike.

“We have a plan, Djinn,” Wish Fish said. “The Monkey’s Paw, the Cintamani stone, the Kalpavriksha root, They’re all on board. You said you were on board. Were you lying when you said you were on board?”

“N-no?”

“We get one chance,” Wish Fish said. “One wish. And if we fuck it up, we’re done. None of us will ever get our powers back. So I’m going to need you to be a little more convincing than that.”

“You talk a lot about ‘we’, Fish, but it seems like you’re the only one doing anything,” Djinn protested. “Why don’t we get to talk to the mark, huh? Why don’t we get to know why that Kim girl’s our only chance?”

“I get to be the front man because I got the best people skills,” Wish Fish said. “I get to be in charge because I know the most things about the surface, and also, most relevantly to our current situation, because I’m the only one who knows how to swim.”

“What does that have to do with-”

Wish Fish made a sudden spin in place, slamming his tail fin into the side of the brass lamp. The impact knocked it off the kelp covered lab and over the edge of the undersea pod. The already muffled protests of the Djinn faded further and further into nothingness as it drifted into the lightless abyss of the ocean depths.

“Now: anybody else have any concerns?”

No one spoke up. They all considered it hard to have concerns about something if they were dead.