Izzi was ready.

“I will not give you my name, creature,” she said, “but I will tell you I am the daughter of a sorcerer who commanded the oases of the desert, and you will obey me as you did her.”

“Really,” said the fishy spirit, “a shred of history, is that all you have? Hardly an imposing being, are you? I can’t think what you could possibly have to bargain with. Perhaps you offer more than you intend?”

Izzi’s tired mind thought for just a merest moment about the charm in her scarf.

“Scarf,” said the wile, its bulbous eyes narrowing, water flowing freely from their corners. “What is that tucked in your scarf?”

Oh, no. A moment’s loss of her pinprick focus had betrayed her. She had to divert its attention quickly, before she brought the conversation from her head and out into the hall for all to hear.

“Forget the scarf,” she said. “Greater boons await one of your omniscient cunning, chiefest of all wiles, if you can keep up in this game.”

The wile laughed, a noise like the crashing of waves on a jagged reef. “Start your game, child, but be prepared to lose.”

Izzi swallowed, steeled herself, and returned to the proper sequence of a wile possession. “I grant you power to speak through the mouth of the one before us, who drank of your water.”

The spirit vanished from her mind vision, and Izzi opened her eyes. Before her, Beena stood slightly sagged, as if hanging from invisible strings. Her eyes seemed even darker than usual, and her lips were slightly open.

“What is your name, fish?” Izzi asked.

“I am Tenebezkian,” said the water-wile in the sweet voice of her friend, “master of the deeps that swirled here before they dried to desert sands.”

Izzi knew she had to hit the target early, aim straight for the bull.

“But I bet you are weak now, and have no power to grant water to the cisterns of Zakra.”

Beena gurgled an wet laugh. “Weak? I will wager with you, if that is your game,” she said. Her body had stiffened now, and she appeared to stand taller than usual, looking down on Izzi. 

“If I can fill the cisterns of the city, then you will give me this body to keep,” her friend’s voice stated it as if it was already fact. 

This was exactly the kind of disaster she’d been supposed to avoid. Now she had to be strong. If she could not counter this threat, she would forever lose her truest friend. Kalu would consign the possesssed Beena to the deepest dungeon under the Magekadeh, the sorry end for failures like this, and Izzi would need to live on somehow, knowing her friend was in perpetual torment far below the city. She could not let that happen at any cost, even to her own destruction at the hands of the wile. 

Calm, she berated herself. Stay calm—panic will not save Beena. 

“I will not provide so high a stake,” she countered. “If you can grant a mere five hundred barrels of fresh drinking water to the cisterns of Zakra city only, then you may swim in the cisterns for a night. But you may not harm any who live in our walls, or in the armies without, or in the lands around.”

She knew a bargain with a wile had to have the strictest terms, yet they had to believe they had the upper hand. It would now ask for more.

“Grant me swimming in the oases of the lands around also, and we have a bargain.”

“Yes, but for only one night,” said Izzi. 

“Agreed, a night of my choosing.”

“But the water must be delivered now,” Izzi countered. Otherwise she would fail the assessment.

“Actually,” said Tenebezkian through Beena, “I have grown fond of this body already, and I think I shall keep it anyway. Unless of course, you give me what you have hidden.”

Unconsciously, Izzi placed a hand to her neck, covering the spell folded into her scarf.

“That’s right,” cried out the voice of Beena with glee and greed. “Give it to me! I will command all the waters!”

“No!” Izzi shouted. She had to save her friend. She pressed on the charm within her scarf, and mouthed the entirety of the hidden charm.

The hall darkened as if clouds had obscured the light-shaft prisms. A deep rumble rose from beneath the hall, slowly became louder and louder as if something gigantic approached through the rock under the desert.

Then a sharp clap echoed through the hall, and for a moment it seemed to shake like the ringing of a giant temple bell. 

But no Ifrit djinni appeared to save Beena.

“That was disappointing,” said Tenebezkian. “Oh well, although you are naught but the troublesome daughter of a dead sorcerer, I accept your terms.” 

Kalu stepped forward at last, his arms folded. “Disappointing? Stupid wile, that thing would have consumed you.”

The wile shrugged Beena’s shoulders and pulled her mouth into a too-wide smile. “Anyway, I win.”

Beena crumpled but Izzi caught her before she hit the floor.

“I’m okay,” Beena said breathlessly, rubbing at her arms, “but what happened? Did you get the water?”

“Yes, she did,” said Mogh Kalu. “And she also got a suspension for attempting to summon an Ifrit into this sanctuary. If I had not stopped it, this would have ended so badly, perhaps for the entire kingdom. An Ifrit is a dangerous being that would make that water-wile seem like a mere ripple, and Izbel fully knew the consequences. 

“But she saved me!” Beena said. 

“Even so, the risk was too high,” said Kalu. “Izbel, daughter of Penza the Merchant, son of Enzel the Executioner, you are today suspended from the Magekadeh for the remainder of the season.”

His words hit Izzi like a hammer. Her relief at Beena’s safety collapsed into anguish. Not sent down. Suspended.

Just like that, everything she had worked for—gone, at least for now. 

The hall wavered around her. Kalu’s face was stone. Beena’s face was pale with shock.

“Report to the gates immediately,” Kalu said.

She walked with shame, seeing only the door, hearing nothing as if she was deaf. 

No one patted her on the back.