“Stuck?” Jeannie grinned. “While it’s true you tricked me into this inescapable lamp, there’s a simple way out.” She made air quotes on the word ‘tricked,’ which made her breasts jiggle seductively.
“You can get out?” I asked.
Jeannie walked over to the glass wall and tapped it with a perfectly manicured fingernail. Although the strike was small, the globe rang like a bell. Then she curled her fingers and tried scraping the wall, eliciting a hypersonic screech. Ariel and I covered our ears; Mike ignored the sound.
“Well wrought,” she said. “Stronger than diamond, nearly frictionless.”
She turned and waved her hands in a grand ‘but wait, there’s more’ gesture. Glyphs appeared inside the glass, glowing brightly in the magical spectrum.
The symbols enraptured Ariel. “I see the Seal of Solomon. But what the hell are those others?” She made a pencil-grabbing gesture, looked down at her empty hands, and cursed when the symbols faded before she could copy them.
“This globe is much nicer than my old lamp. Just needs a genie’s touch to make it homier.” Jeannie crossed her arms in front of her chest and nodded once, producing a boing! sound. The sand below our feet transformed into opulent rugs. Sand swirled up and formed into palm trees, creating shade from the sun that beat down through the glass. From the distance came the sound of running water, like a babbling brook.
“That’s much better,” said Jeannie with a self-satisfied grin.
“Glad you’re happy with Mason’s demon trap,” I said. “You’re going to be here a long time.”
“Ah, yes. That one-way dimensional twist at the entrance, creating a controlled event horizon.” Jeannie smiled like a mother proud of a toddler’s drawing. “Tricky. But a competent genie could bypass that. Demon traps don’t really work as well on us.”
“You can get out?” I asked.
“Well,” she drawled, “not without help from one of you.”
A wave of relief swept through me. “Yeah, that will not happe—”
“How?” interjected Ariel.
“I have more than enough power to exit this globe, no matter how well-made it is.” She frowned prettily. “But I have to follow the rules.”
“Like in that Disney movie?” asked Mike.
“The details were wrong, but the essence was right.”
“Can you explain the rules?” Mike asked.
“Only by example.” Jeannie put a forefinger to her chin and continued. “For example, once I was tricked into coming into this lamp and made it my new home, the orders from my previous master no longer held sway.”
“That’s why you stopped trying to kill us?” I asked.
“Essentially. I might have been a bit easier to trick because I don’t like my ex-master.” She smiled at us warmly.
“You’re bound by unbreakable rules?” asked Mike.
Jeannie made a weighing gesture with her hands. “It’s not that simple. Sure, I could break the rules. But I’d lose points.”
“Points?”
“It’s hard to explain in human terms. Think of it as a cross between upvotes online and basketball scores.”
“Wait a minute. Upvotes? Basketball scores?” I shook my head. “You’re stuck in the middle ages and you know about online karma?”
“We keep up with the outer world. My list of Facebook friends would amaze you.”
We were going off-track. “So the rules keep you from breaking out?” I asked, to bring us back to the subject at hand.
“Essentially.” She made a moue of disappointment. “But we can help each other out of here.”
She leaned forward, squeezing her arms together to emphasize her breasts. “We just need to make a deal. Any one of my captors can make a wish, as long as that wish also lets me out.”
She smiled warmly. “Just think. Anything you wish for can be yours.”
She looked at me. “Your husband. Returned to you in full health and form. That six-fingered demon vanquished.” She leaned closer. “Queen Mab at your feet.”
“Pass,” I said. “I’ve watched too many Twilight Zone episodes to believe that would end well.”
She stood straight and made a tiny gesture. The sand behind her swirled up into two columns, about six feet apart and six feet high. Sand then flowed between the columns, creating a sheet from the top to hip height. The sand solidified and transformed into a whiteboard.
When I looked back at Jeannie, her long hair had shifted into a tight bun and she was wearing enormous round glasses. Her harem outfit had shifted to an adolescent boy’s fantasy of a schoolteacher: tiny miniskirt, black blazer over a button-poppingly tight silk blouse, and hooker heels. She was holding a pointer.
“My magic brings all the boys to the yard,” she sang as she shook her butt. “I could teach you, but I’d have to charge.”
She turned and reached up to write on the board, which pulled her skirt up to reveal lace panties.
She put a series of symbols on the board, in a mixture of Fae writing and magical glyphs. I recognized one of the magical spell puzzles that Mason had taught me: the spell he used for calling up rare minerals from deep in the earth.
Jeannie looked over her shoulder and winked, then wrote the transformative solution to the spell below the first line. This was different than Mason’s solution, simpler. This solution wouldn’t require juggling multiple equations at once. Jeannie didn’t complete the spell but left a question mark at the essential last step.
My heart skipped a beat as the answer became clear. With this spell I could put the mine back into production without waiting for Mason to recover.
“I see you’re an independent person,” said Jeannie. “One who doesn’t want wishes handed over like candy to a baby. You’re someone who would rather be given the tools to make her wishes come true through her own actions.”
She turned toward Mike. “I can teach you all the magic your brain can hold. Show you wonders to sate your appetites, both subtle and gross.”
“I’m not interested in queuing up for that,” he said.
Mike looked at me and I shook my head. She seemed to be speaking to Mike as if he was the magician—but why? To keep my secret from Ariel, or
