As soon as Alarda had uttered that final word, the pendant shook slightly in the center of the ring, and a string of glowing words fluttered away from the pendant and hit the invisible wall that the iron ring had erected, disappearing with a soft pop. She wiped her brow, damp with sweat from the heat of the candles and the anxiety she'd experienced when the spell hadn't worked, sighing with relief. She'd broken the seal. And...

---

Sadi unfurled himself slowly from the pendant, a lazy curl of purplish smoke that drifted downwards to the carpet and solidified into legs, torso, arms, and last, the head. He had contemplated a more impressive entry into the mortal world during the long hours of solitude; maybe a few bangs, or an illusion to suggest that the room was on fire or to make him appear bigger and more impressive, but he didn't want to be whooshed back to the Immortal realms on accident because he was mistaken for a demon or something like that...

Sadi had no idea what sort of being his new master or mistress would prefer, although he remembered with a wince that a couple of his last few masters had specifically requested that he take on the appearance of a youth, and, that being the form that he was best at creating, he shifted into that body. But he hoped that his new master wouldn't make him wear quite so few clothes. Mistress, he corrected himself, sensing that the shape through the smoke was female, and not quite yet a woman.

Then he noticed that he stood in the center of an iron ring.

---

The kawi opened his mouth to speak, but Alarda had been prepared for that, and immediately shut her eyes. All she had to do was keep on talking and block the kawi's voice out of her mind until she'd bound it to serve her purpose.

"Hey—" the kawi began, sounding slightly affronted by the iron circle, but Alarda projected her voice over his and pronounced in a loud voice, "O creature of the immortal realms, you have been summoned thus to fulfill a task I require of thee." Oh, shit. What do I say next? She hadn't really thought of what she was going to say to the creature; she'd just assumed that an impressive speech would just come rolling out of her mouth, the way it always seemed to on the Sunsday primetime flicks and in those autobiographies of the famous magi that her brother pored over obsessively. Damn The Dummy's Guidebook to Summoning, book 1. It had failed to leave out miniscule details like that.

The kawi was trying to talk again, and she interjected desperately, "Silence! You may not speak unless I specify it!"

"But—"

"I told you to shut up!" Ooh. That was bad. Oh well. Just skip to the end part and screw the long, impressive speech.

"Creature of the deeps, I hereby conjure you to serve me unconditionally until I specify otherwise!"

It blinked. "Umm... that's... what I'm here for, isn't it?"

---

Sadi was completely and utterly floored.

What in the name of the Eight was going on?

He supposed some sort of ritual would be required to break the seal that Khajal had placed on the pendant. After all, his former master's skills had been formidable and this... girl, if anything, was a rookie. She couldn't be more than fifteen or sixteen, and despite her shockingly masculine appearance—from her pants, made of some blue rough material, to her face, completely devoid of any rouge or kohl as was proper for a young lady of her age—she was, well... female, and he'd never met a female magician, in all of the two hundred and seven years he'd spent on Bashir (this didn't include the years spent in the pendant, of course).

But there was no call for the iron ring, or making him swear an oath. It wasn't like he was going to bite her or anything...

He intended to get to the bottom of the matter right away. "Am I allowed to talk now?" the djinn asked in a small voice.

She opened her eyes, blinked, obviously confused, and said hesitantly, "Yes. Go ahead."

He bowed, but when his head started to protrude over the edge of the iron ring, making his hair fizzle, he hastily straightened up and, eyeing the binding circle with distaste, he pronounced, "I am called Sadi in the mortal realms. It is my duty to serve the master—or mistress," he added hastily, "—of the necklace, as is required of every djinn by the Eight..."

His mistress's eyes widened, and as a flush spread across her dusky skin, Sadi gulped. What did I say wrong? "Are you quite all right, zara?"

---

No, she wasn't all right. Alarda wanted to throttle the kawi... no, wait. A...djinn?

"You're lying!" she almost screamed, but he wasn't. He couldn't, inside the circle, even if she'd drawn or cast it wrongly (which she doubted). If the circle had been broken somehow, that would be another story, but no. "I'm a failure," she moaned, kicking the powder of the binding circle so that the djinn would be able to step free of the circle and flinging herself on her bed in a foul humor.

"What do I need a djinn for?" she wailed. "Djinn are for lazy rich girls that live off of being fawned over. Djinn are for pasha snobs who have sad little competitions with other pasha snobs to see how many djinn they can accumulate. Djinn are ornamental."

Sadi twitched, but managed not to say anything in response to that little slight. "But..." he protested. "I could... I have lots of domestic skills. I can scry things for you. I can transform things, to a certain extent."

Alarda dismissed his claims with a wave. "Bah! Any high-school girl could do the same. Is that all you can do?"

"No, that's just all I can think of at the moment," he admitted. "I haven't had a chance to practice my skills much, being trapped in the pendant all that time, but I'm sure I would be able to do other things for you. Do you want me to clean up that mess? The goat is starting to drip onto the carpet... what were you going to do, anyways? Summon a kawi?" He had meant it as a joke, but the stony look on the girl's face made the grin slide off his face, and he coughed uncomfortably. She drew a symbol on the air impatiently, and the iron powder levitated and poured neatly into a bottle on the floor. She vanished the goat next, sending it to a dustbin a few doors down, and snuffed the candles out with a slight puff of wind. A slight stain remained on the carpet, but out of spite Sadi "forgot" to mention it.

"You see?" she exclaimed angrily, not noticing the stain. "I have no use for you."

The djinn's face crumpled, and Alarda avoided his purple eyes guiltily. Damn him... he seemed so young... if he'd been a human, he probably wouldn't have been much older than she, and his ridiculous outdated getup—geez, he looked like something out of a kid's movie, with the pointed slippers, white puffy trousers, and only a blue vest to cover his bare, very muscled chest...—She shook her head. I'll already be in deep shit for using magic in my room... and if Mami finds out that I've had a male in here...

"You can stay. For now," she added quickly. "But you don't appear to other humans unless I say you can and you don't do any of my magic for me," she added with a glare. "I have my pride too, you know."

His gratitude was too much for her to bear, and when he tried to kiss her feet she drew back in disgust. "By the Eight, Sadi, you don't have to do that. This is the twenty-first century. Just... get into the necklace."

When he had vanished, she sat down on her bed with a thump, vaguely aware that her mami was coming up the stairs, and arranged the necklace beneath her shirt.

-

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School has started once more... Ugggh. Sooo... tired.

But thanks for the positive reviews! I'm so glad you guys like this story of mine.

Gah... I think I'm having an off day... I am so completely braindead. You guys might have to wait for the next installment for a little while... I have an AP Bio test and an AP Spanish test to study for.

But for now, ciao!