I glanced at Karyn, skeptical. “What type of wish?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “You’re still carrying your last one around,” I teased, smirking at the reminder.
“Exactly,” she said, her tone resolute. “We need to make a wish to guarantee that nothing out of hand can happen again.”
She reached out, eyes set on the stone, but I instinctively pulled it back, holding it firmly in my grasp. “Whoa now,” I said, cautious. “How about we talk this one through first? No more rash wishes.”
She pouted, leaning forward with a playful glint in her eyes. “Come on~ Don’t you trust me?”
“No,” I replied, my expression unbothered.
Her eyes widened, and she clutched at her chest dramatically, pretending to be hurt. I couldn’t help but smirk at her antics.
“But seriously,” I continued, “no surprises. Now, tell me, what’s this wish of yours?”
“Well,” she started, a spark of excitement in her voice, “I kept thinking that if we knew exactly how wishes were interpreted, we’d be better at changing up old ones.”
I nodded slowly. “Okay, that does make sense.”
“And,” she added, leaning in as if to reveal a grand secret, “if we wished to have the power to grant wishes ourselves, we could undo any of those wishes, because we wouldn’t be bound by the stone’s rules.”
A laugh burst from my chest before I could hold it back. “There it is! We don’t even understand how this stone’s world-bending power works, so let’s give ourselves the power to wield it directly. Great plan, Karyn.”
She huffed, undeterred. “But think about it! We could do whatever we wanted, and we’d know exactly how the mechanics worked.”
“Sure,” I shot back, “and what happens when we find ourselves tangled up in some mystical bureaucracy, bound by supernatural rules like a genie?”
“That’s why we make the first wish—to understand how the wishes are interpreted,” she argued, eyes shining with determination.
I let out a long sigh and rubbed my eyes, tired despite how early it was in the day. "Sure" I finally concluded. "Not the second one, but the first one. We could wish to understand how the stone works."
Her pleading expression broke out into a grand smile and she made another grab for the stone.
I pulled it back again. "This is still mine you know."
She waved a hand flippantly. "What's yours is mine Jonny-boy, now come on, I have the exact wish figured out in my mind. I've been thinking about it all night. You can hold it, but at least let me make the wish."
"I'm going to regret this..." I muttered.
"Maybe, but you're too chicken to make the wish yourself. Fortune awards the bold!" She declared.
I stretched out the stone in my open palm, and she grabbed my hand, rather than the stone, and my cheeks turned red as I realized I'd been duped.
She gave me a flustered smile, gazing into my eyes to catch my response to her advance.
We both had a twinkle in our eyes.
"I wish." She began. "That we could see and understand exactly how and why the stone interprets wishes as it does, exactly as the stone understands and sees it."
I was startled that she included me in the wish, but... then... I didn't have time to think about that any further as the world around us flashed white, and we blinked ourselves into our new fate.
