"That is the truth." He watched her carefully, his gaze ever piercing into the very heart of those he looked at. "Before you start your questions, I wish to subvert them by showing you this." He put down his arms, both having bore the blue magic yet only one bearing the resembling tattoo. He let silence sit between them a moment.
"My contract here is not the same as the employees. I get no choices. I am bound to the Cirque- to Management and follow far stricter rules than those I tell to the newcomers." He licked his lips and looked down between them. "So when I say that you might not wish to push the subject of the time between our meetings, I am not being playful. I am no longer free."
The whispers of the Djinn and their powers and constraints never mentioned how one bound them into service. All that was known was that it took tremendous power and the few that had managed it tended to have taken power from other creatures to ensure the binding worked.
"I expect that conveys enough information to sate your appetite, old friend." There was a strange look of embarrassment over the matter that he tried to hide behind an emotionless face. It had been over two millennia since Kennet lost his other half, yet that was a short period considering how long they had been alive and an even shorter period had gone by from that moment to his own capture and contract by Management.