“That’s not how it works,” she whispered.
Zara thought about it. She looked at the seagulls bickering, the crab still muttering curses, the quiet magic of her strange little bookshop. Then she looked at Shalimar—the restless energy, the way her eyes flickered like pilot lights, the sheer ancient weariness beneath the beach-babe veneer.
“I wish,” Zara said slowly, “that you get to be the one to choose your next master.”
For the third wish, Shalimar sat cross-legged on a stack of nautical maps, peeling an orange with her mind. “Make it good. I’m not going back in a bottle after this. You’re my last master before retirement.”
Shalimar went very still. The orange slices hovered in midair. For the first time, she looked genuinely startled.
