Alaina looked at Sebastian expectantly, waiting to hear what question he would ask first. Instead of diving right in, he shifted on the bed and then cleared his throat. It dawned on her that he was nervous and, putting herself in his place, she could understand why. By her own reasoning, he was a normal teenager, going through life confident in his knowledge of the way the world worked. Some things were real, some things weren't, and all were supposed to be handled in a specific way. Now he was being faced with something jumping out of the boxes he had been raised to believe in, and it had thrown him for a loop.

Hoping to make things a little bit easier for him, she made a suggestion. "You know, you don't just have to ask about you and me and this," she waved her hands vaguely, indicating the situation as a whole. "You can ask about anything you want. Anything you want to know about genies in general, or about me specifically. I can tell you about my training, my friends, my family, if you want."

The final statement seemed to catch his attention. "You have a family?" he asked, appearing surprised. She smiled at him.

"I was wondering if you would find that odd. Yes, I have a family, contrary to what you may have heard. My mother and father are back home, doing what they do."

"Are your parents genies, too? Or are they normal people?"

"They're genies. I've never understood how the whole 'Genies were humans that got enslaved' myth came to be. I mean, if someone evil had enough power to make a genie to grant his or her wishes, why wouldn't they just grant their own? What would be the point of creating a middleman, and then tacking on all the rules that would make it so easy for them to betray you? And why only three wishes?"

"That's actually a good point. I guess I never really thought of it like that before."

"Why would you? Up until this afternoon, you didn't think genies even existed, so why would you spend time pondering the loose ends of the supposed rules of confinement?"

He seemed forget a bit of his nervousness, sliding farther back on his bed and moving until he sat cross-legged in the middle. "So if genies aren't made, how do you . . .well, exist?"

Alaina nodded sagely, folding her fingers into a steeple and tapping them against her chin. "Ah, that is a great question. Unfortunately, it's also one I can't answer. It's been a great debate for a long time, and no one seems to know exactly how we came to be. Were we once human, or were we always something else?" She frowned. "You know, it just occurred to me how odd it is that a race that can divine the future and make wishes into reality can't even keep an accurate account of their history. It's kind of sad, when you think about it." She giggled. "I guess we're just lazy."

Although he didn't go so far as to actually roll his eyes, Sebastian's face clearly expressed his belief that she was a little off her rocker. Since his assumption was probably more than a little accurate, she didn't bother to get offended. "Okay, next question."

He thought for a moment before brightening. "You mentioned training. How exactly do you train to be a genie? Did you have to learn how to grant wishes and things like that?"

"Actually, all genies are born with the power to do that. The training, magic wise, is about controlling it and also learning to do little things that are related to but not truly the same as granting wishes." At his confused look, she tried to explain a little better. "Um, let me think. Oh! You remember the lake from earlier?" He nodded. "Well, you didn't wish for that, but I could create it because at the time, I felt it would benefit you to see it." She snorted, giving him a toothy grin. "Of course, we both know how well that idea worked out in the end."

He smiled back, a slight blush spreading across his cheeks. "Yeah."

Her first instinct was to tease him about fainting, but she knew their relationship wasn't on solid enough ground to go there yet. Although he was talking with her and asking questions, he was still a little uneasy. Alaina hurried to occupy her mouth before it said something she would regret.

"The magic thing is just part of what I learned at school, though. The major thing was learning to deal with humans. Master/genie relations, they called it. We talked about everything up to an including how to convince your master that ruling the world is a bad career choice."

"What do you do if you can't convince them and they wish for it anyway?"

"Ah, here's where the misconceptions I mentioned earlier come in. Contrary to what you might think, genies have quite a bit of control over what wishes get granted. There are rules to the wishing, you see, and the biggest one is that you can't allow your master to wish for something that will ultimately make them unhappy. Ruling the entire world would be quite stressful. Learning all the languages alone would have anyone pulling out their hair in no time flat."

"But couldn't they just use translators? They wouldn't have to speak all the dialects themselves."

Alaina worked up an expression of righteous disbelief. "Oh come on! If you're going to hand down laws that oppress people to bend them to your will, the least you can do is do it in their native tongue."

Sebastian took a long moment to answer. Apparently thinking over her words. "That's pretty convincing reasoning, actually."

She smiled at him again. "Yeah, my teachers thought so, too. That little argument got me an A on my persuasion final."

"You seem really good at this. You must have done well in school. Or do you just have a lot of practice?"

Moment of truth, Alaina thought, fighting the urge to grimace. When she told him he was her first case, there was always the chance that Sebastian would become even more unsure than he had been before. After all, did anyone really want a novice warping reality and aiming the results their way?

She remembered what her mother had always told her while she was growing up. Her words drifted through her mind as though her mom was standing right beside her, whispering them in her ear. "Honesty in the best policy, dear, especially for someone who lies as poorly as you do."

She took a deep breath before beginning her explanation. "Well, the truth of the matter is that, well, you're kind of my first master." She smiled at him, although the gesture was lacking the effusive happiness of its earlier incarnations.

His eyebrows arched upward immediately. "Excuse me?"

"You're my first master. In fact, I just passed my final exam this morning. How's that for a speedy turnover?"

"You've never done this before? And what do you mean you only passed this morning?"

She hurried to try and reassure him of her abilities. "It sounds bad, I know, but it's really not. I'm more than ready for this. In fact, I actually got more training than most other genies, since I had to go back twice . . ." Alaina trailed off as she realized that her last statement could do more harm than good.

He obviously caught her quick retraction and jumped on it. "What did you mean when you said you had to go back twice? Does that mean you failed?"

"It's not as serious as it sounds! There were a few little things that I had trouble with and needed to spend extra time on. If you think about it, me having to go back is almost a good thing. It means that I worked even harder than most genies and that I had more practice under a trained teacher . . ."

She stopped her rambling reasoning when Sebastian broke into gales of laughter. He was laughing so hard that he soon had to wrap his arms around his waist as he bent double. He bit his lip, obviously trying to stop, but when he finally looked up, the sight of her exasperated expression set him off again. She was tapping her foot and building up a fine head of steam by the time he managed to get a hold of himself.

"I'm so-sorry," he gasped, still struggling to catch his breath. "I didn't mean to be rude. It's just that you were trying so hard to convince me and . . ."

"I'm so pleased that you find my failures so amusing. It really brightens my day to see you enjoying yourself at my expense, really." She crossed her arms across her chest and huffed, sticking her nose in the air and pointedly looking in another direction.

"No!" Sebastian cried, all humor gone from his face. "I didn't mean it like that. It's just . . .I was just thinking that I'm glad you're new at this. It actually makes me feel better, that I'm not the only one who doesn't know exactly how this is supposed to go." He offered a hesitant smile.

Alaina dropped back into her chair, feeling deflated. Of all the things that she had expected he might say, that was not one of the options she had supplied to herself. She had been so worried that her inexperience would hurt her chances of calming him enough to explain everything. It had never occurred to her that what she had seen as a failing was the best tool in forming a connection. She looked at him from the corner of her eye and her voice was tentative when she finally spoke. "You really don't mind?"

"Not at all." His expression was so earnest that she believed him immediately. In looking closer, he did seem more relaxed than before. His shoulders were no longer hunched and he was looking at her instead of the floor or walls. She sighed in relief, and then felt her conscience prod her to be completely truthful.

"A better trained genie would probably have finished explaining and gotten to the wishes already. And they never would have made you faint."

His eyes widened. "I didn't fa-"

"I forgot, guys don't faint." She waved her hand dismissively. "That's not the point, anyway. The point is that someone with more experience would have been able to do a better job at this than I've done so far."

"I think you're doing a good job. Doesn't that count for something? Besides, you said a good genie takes care of their master, making them comfortable and things like that, right?"

"Yeah, so?"

"So, if that's all that any genie, experienced or not, can do, then you're doing great."

Alaina had to disagree. "But I've been here for hours and I haven't even gotten to the rules yet, let alone the actual wishes. Don't you think that's a little unmotivated?"

It was Sebastian's turn to sigh. "What I'm trying to say is that I'm not ready to deal with having wishes granted to me. I feel like I need to know more before I can make any decision as important as this all seems to be. I wanted to ask questions, and you let me. And because I'm getting honest answers, I'm much more comfortable with the idea now than I was earlier. You weren't going too slowly; you were going at exactly the right speed for me. Understand?"

She looked at him, making sure that he meant what he said. Once she was sure that he did, she smiled. "I understand. Whew!" She swept a hand across her forehead in an exaggerated gesture. "That's a relief." Becoming serious, she moved to sit beside him on the bed. "Sebastian?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

"Okay, so the different classes of genies are ranked by letter, only backwards. That means that Z is the highest and A is the lowest, got that?" Sebastian nodded, urging her to continue with a motion of his hand. It was growing late and he hadn't run out of questions about her life and the history of people like her yet. "Your names depend on your class, since they begin with whatever letter you’re currently ranked. Every time you advance a ranking, your name changes to something beginning with the new letter."

Sebastian frowned. "Doesn't it get confusing, changing names all the time? And what if you liked your old name, and don't want to change it?"

"Well, the whole changing thing is just the was that things have always been, so we're used to it. And genies live a lot longer than humans. We'd get bored if we had to keep the same name the whole time." He nodded, although she wasn't sure if her really understood. It would be hard for someone who didn't live it to realize just how long the lifetime of a genie really was. "Changing every now and then keeps things interesting, and it's also a sign of achievement. You have to work hard to move up in the rankings, and the whole new name thing is a good way to show it off." She laughed. "You get the built-in excuse of informing people of your new name as a way to brag about moving up. It's a pretty nice deal, when you think about it."

"I guess. I just don't think I'd like having to give up my name, though."

"Names are a lot more personal for humans. Your parents gave you yours before they knew what kind of person you'd become. It holds all their thoughts about your future, and all the good things they wanted for you."

"You mean your parents didn't name you?"

"Not really. You see, it works like this: In the beginning, genies were named just like humans. But some got bored over time, and that's when the changing came into play. As you can imagine, it got a little confusing very quickly. The council met and decided that choosing a new name would go along with being promoted, and since what the council says goes, it's been that way ever since.

"As a kind of homage to our history, each family chose the names of their two greatest ancestors, one male and one female. Those are the names given to every new child in that family until they can earn their own."

Sebastian's brow furrowed in thought. "So you only just became Alaina?"

"Actually, I was kind of lucky. The greatest female genie in my family's history happened to be named Alaina. She came before the name and rank coupling, otherwise it would have been a lot further along in the alphabet."

"So she was powerful?"

Alaina thought for a long moment, trying to find the best way to explain. "Not necessarily. The term they always use is 'great', which could mean just about anything. She might have been exceptionally wise, or brave, or even just rich, since that was before the whole sharing the wealth thing was instituted."

"You mean you don’t even know why she was the one whose name was picked? Isn't that kind of . . .weird?"

"If I remember my teachers correctly, and I can't promise that I do, because I'm not really good at paying attention sometimes, they decided against telling us that detail to avoid pressuring us into living up to their deeds. Of course, that could have been some lie to lead into the 'You are your own person with your own talents' lecture that always followed."

Sebastian shook his head as he leaned back. "It's really strange to hear you talk about these kinds of things so casually. Our lives are completely different, and yet some things are alike, like school. Of course, my teachers and tests are completely different from yours, but the idea is the same."

"I'm pretty sure that's why you got me and not another, older genie. They were trying to find someone who could relate to your life."

"That explains why I got stuck with you, but not why you got stuck with me." With the simple sentence, his whole demeanor changed. He sat a little straighter and his hands clenched in the blanket that was lying beside him.