“Salutations, Master. I am a jinn, and I can grant you any wish you desire. What is it you wish?”

She stared at the jinn who’d emerged from the lamp after she rubbed it. She hadn’t actually expected a jinn to be in the lamp, and even less had she expected the jinn to be—

In a quiet voice she thought, to be so hot.

The jinn’s smooth skin looked flawless, her long hair flowed like a swift stream, her nails looked cut from gems, full lips soft, breasts high and round, her hips poised floating in the air with the confidence that—she glanced at a nearby mirror—she had always lacked.

Her hair had always been untamable. Her skin, where not dry and cracked, pocked from thick oil. She was thin at the wrong places, too fat where it didn’t count, and she didn’t understand the first thing about makeup, fashion, or looks. She’d never been pretty.

She looked at the lamp then at the jinn.

“I wish I was beautiful as you—I mean, beautiful as, um—” She hadn’t meant to reference the jinn in that wish, but the jinn smiled and floated closer.

“Your wish, my dear, is my command.” She waved her hand and light spilled from it. Her master watched as it circled her, staring at the light that spun around her, spun through her vision, into her mind.

She worried that the transformation of her appearance might hurt, but as she felt her body shift, her muscles adjust, her skin slide, she felt no pain—she felt nothing. She just stared at the light swirling around her. She tried to look in the mirror, but the light was too bright to see anything, and soon she couldn’t move her head to look. She couldn’t move anything. She felt empty, yet she felt something fill her as the light swirled tighter around her.

Memories floated through her mind of mockery, trying to look pretty and failing, lonely nights; then they floated out of her mind and were forgotten as her history transformed with her appearance.

She blinked and the light changed from swirling wisps to flashes. A crowd clamored around her. She was walking on stage, poised and posing for the cameras.

She was a model now, beloved by millions for her beauty and glamour.

The old her would have cried tears of joy at her new life, but the new her—she was only along for the ride now as her body strutted on its own. She was but a wisp of consciousness, crowded and blocked in her body as it was possessed, filled to the brim with a vigorous spirit controlling her actions and leading her thoughts.

“Salutations, Master. I am a jinn, and I can grant you any wish you desire. What is it you wish?”

He grinned. Rubbing random lamps he found may have been an unlikely gamble, but it was low-cost and had paid off in a big way.

“I wish I was rich beyond my wildest dreams!” he shouted. The jinn chuckled.

“Ah, such a classic wish. Your wish is my command.” She waved her hand, and light spilled out around him. He watched the light swarm him and his vision blanked white.

He remembered his losses. The wrong cards, the wrong slots, the wrong chips, bleeding money like a wounded deer.

Then he remembered his wins, but they weren’t his wins. They weren’t the wins of games he was familiar with. They were the wins of buying and selling. Buying low, selling high. Stocks, trading, amassing a fortune by counting not the cards but the money.

When he felt he could blink again he stood in a mansion, walls as high as the casinos he felt fading from his memory. Before him a window big enough to drive a car through showed a pool big enough to park a car in. Gold trimmed the walls, and above hung a gem-studded chandelier.

He laughed. He laughed like a maniac. He saw a safe in a wall and opened it, somehow knowing the code despite never having seen it before in his life, at least until he looked closer and remembered the very day he had it installed. Inside the safe, a pond of bills. Perhaps gauche to a real wealthy stock trader, but it was all he ever wanted to see. Piles of money.

“I can buy anything I want!” he shouted. “Cars, yachts, fame, power, women—”

Someone cleared their throat behind him. All his thoughts froze at the sound, and when they melted they were new thoughts.

He turned around to the woman on the couch. She seemed familiar, like he met her in another life—but that was silly, because he knew her in this life, and she was—

“Yes, dear?”

—she was in control. She was the beauty he could only see, never touch. She possessed him, mind and body, inside and out. She was everything, and would be granted everything. She was the master, and he was the servant.

“Call that publisher. I would like to move forward with having a book of my life story written.”

“Yes, dear.” He had his phone in his hand. His body moved of its own—or someone else’s—volition. He called, not thinking, only doing, someone else thinking.

“And I think I would like to have a movie theater installed in the mansion. It would be so much nicer to see them in private without having to go out among the common folk.”

“Yes, dear.”

The figure who possessed his life smiled.

“I do always enjoy the films you humans produce.”

The monarch looked out across the balcony at the lands out to the horizon. A bustling city sprawled before him, trade growing, structures building. Around it sprawled farmlands for crops, animals, food, raw material. A forest in the distance supplied lumber, a lake supplied water, and precious mineral was mined near the mountain.

All of it under their command.

They marched back into the throne room, where royals chatted and advisors organized papers. After the monarch sat on the throne the advisors approached them.

“Your Majesty,” the leader said, “we have news from the neighboring country. It appears they are willing to set aside this recent belligerence and form a truce with us—even an alliance, if things go well.

“I see,” the monarch said. “Yes, this would be a grand alliance between our—”

No.

They could feel the power inside them that gave them the power over this kingdom.

Their neighbor would not be granted such peace.

The monarch felt a flash of memory. Something about that neighboring country felt so familiar, at times. In another life, they felt they had been a citizen of that country. Had they loved their country? Such things didn’t matter. They ruled their country now. And they were ruled by . . .

“No, we cannot let what has transpired be forgiven,” the monarch said. They struck their staff on the floor. “We will go to war, and we will crush them for their insolence.”

Their advisors looked as if an arrow had struck them. Clearly they were anticipating a joyful reception to the potential alliance.

“My Lord,” one spoke, “our nations have never—”

“We will go to war!” the monarch shouted. They felt the power well inside them, forcing them onward. “We will invade those insolent fools, and we will conquer them!” They struck the floor with the staff again. “Now leave us! All of you! All of you leave us be!” they howled.

Everyone—advisors, royals, the jester—poured out of the room as if a bomb had been lit. They knew now not to stick around when the monarch was in such a mood.

With the room empty, swathed in darkness, the monarch buckled forward. A smooth, manicured hand gripped their head and lifted it up, their eyes glowing and expression blank.

“It is for the good of the nation.”

“The good of the nation, master.”

“You know you were never a citizen of that other country, yes?”

“I was never a part of that country.”

The jinn grinned and pressed the monarch’s face in her soft hands.

“You wanted to rule a country, your majesty. You have to make the hard decisions when you do.” She chuckled. “Well, someone has to make the decisions, anyway.”

A small part of the monarch could still remember—not where they were, not who they were, but only that feeling when they’d made that wish, that wish to be monarch of their own country. They’d felt power like they’d never felt before—not the power of the monarchy, but the power of magic, changing their history, changing their life, and filling their body, possessing their mind, binding them to the jinn and her magic.

They ruled a country, but the jinn ruled them.

“And with me behind you,” the jinn said, stroking her hands across the blank-faced monarch, “we will conquer that country.” She pulled them close and grinned. “And you will give it to me to rule.”

“Yes, my master.”