Whatever that meant.
In Aru’s head, it sounded like adult-speak for You really screwed up.
She sank a little lower in her seat. The five Pandava sisters and Aiden were squished on a bench atop a grassy hill that looked over the glittering gem of the Night Bazaar. To the right of the market was a wall of entrance portals. To its left loomed the moonlit arches of the chakora forest. Boo had flown through one of those arches to get to the heavens.
Aru could barely bring herself to look at the Otherworld. Guilt weighed heavily on her, and she knew she wasn’t the only one feeling that way. Brynne was tight-lipped and stony-faced. Mini looked close to weeping. And Aiden was so out of it he wasn’t even fiddling with his camera.
Aru sighed. Almost two years ago, the Sleeper had gotten away because of her, and now, after their latest fiasco, the Otherworld was even more at risk.
Aru felt the threat of war all around them like the atmosphere before a thunderstorm. Which only made her feel guiltier because, despite everything, she still felt a rebellious streak of doubt. It had started gnawing at her after they defeated Lady M in the Ocean of Milk not more than a year ago. Lady M had stolen the god of love’s bow and arrow as part of a wicked plan to turn people into Heartless zombies, but she’d done it because the devas had disgraced her. Lady M had told Aru that to many people the Sleeper wasn’t a monster—he was a hero.
The whole ordeal had jumbled everything Aru thought she knew about good and evil. Sometimes it kept her up at night, wondering about whether she was doing the right thing by fighting on behalf of the devas. Were they really the “good side”?
Ugh. She needed a nap.
You don’t deserve a nap! hissed a corner of her brain.
Aru was on the verge of putting her head in her hands when she heard someone softly ask, “Does the Otherworld always look like this?”
Aru turned sharply to her left. She’d been so lost in her thoughts, she’d almost forgotten that the twins were sitting next to her. Sheela stared out at the great expanse of tents that had been magically decorated for the holiday of Holi. Clusters of marigolds spangled the air. Fireflies darted among the floating orange blossoms like little living stars. In the market proper, the tents’ usual colorful ribbons had been replaced with a mirrorlike silk that reflected the rainbow-painted floor, the garlands of spring flowers, and strings of twinkling lights, turning the whole bazaar into a dizzying array of sunny yellows, fiery reds, and sapphire blues.
The sight of it made her heart ache.
All this…All of it could be destroyed because they’d failed.
“Kinda?” Aru said. “But right now it’s decorated extra special for Holi.”
Her mention of Holi momentarily perked up the others.
Holi was Aru’s favorite Hindu holiday. Depending on who you asked in India, the festival was about love or springtime…or both. But the best part about it? COLOR PARTY! Every year, the Night Bazaar went wild. Everybody showed up wearing white and threw fistfuls of different-colored powders at one another while the apsaras danced overhead and the gandharva musicians played a hundred songs on their enchanted instruments.
But because of the war threat, this year the celebrations would be different.
They might even be cancelled entirely.
“Holi is the best. Holiday. Ever. Period,” said Brynne. “Last year, I was so covered in color that I sneezed blue for, like, a week. That’s got to be a world record.”
“Well, I looked like a tie-dyed Oompa-Loompa for ten days,” said Aru smugly.
Mini shuddered. “I almost got stampeded.”
“It’s not a competition.” Aiden sighed.
“Don’t be jealous, Wifey,” said Aru.
Nikita frowned. “Wifey?”
“You can call him that too, you know,” said Aru, glad to be distracted from her thoughts.
“Please don’t,” said Aiden.
“Or Ammamma,” added Brynne with an almost smile. “Aiden is a serious grandma. Always has candies in his purse—”
“Satchel!” corrected Aiden.
“Complains about ‘kids these days’—”
Aiden grumbled. “I just think it’s kinda sad how our generation—”
“And he gets tired at, like, seven o’clock.”
“That was one time!” protested Aiden. “And you were tired, too!”
“But why Wifey?” asked Nikita.
Aru was about to answer when Sheela spoke up.
“Once upon a time,” she said, in her singsong voice, “Aiden’s soul lived within a beautiful and powerful princess who married all five Pandava brothers—which was sometimes strange, but mostly okay, because she got five times the presents on her birthday and anniversary. The only sad thing was that she loved one brother more than all the rest.”
Sheela didn’t bother to look at them until she finished, and when she did, her gaze went straight to Aiden. Her eyes flashed silver for a moment, like someone had flipped a quarter in a beam of light. And then she tilted her head. “Even lifetimes later?” she asked, as if to herself.
Aiden frowned. “What are you talking about?”
But Sheela ignored the question, turning her attention instead to the leaves on the moonlit branches.
Boo came soaring out of the trees. Normally, he would’ve alighted on Aru’s head. Or Mini’s shoulder. But this time, he just hovered in the air.
“Come along, children,” he intoned. “We have an appointment.”
Mini piped up first. “With Hanuman and Urvashi?”
“No,” said Boo in a clipped voice. “They’ve left.”
“What? Why?” asked Brynne.
Boo quoted the last lines of the prophecy: “But the tree at the heart is the only true cost. No war can be won without finding that root; no victory had without the yield of its fruit. In five days the treasure will bloom and fade, and all that was won could soon be unmade.”
Aru was glad he left out the part about the untrue sister and the whole world receiving “its due” from a single choice.
“The Council believes the prophecy means that the nectar of immortality is at risk, and so they have left for Lanka—”
“The city of gold?” asked Aiden, awed.
“The very same,” said Boo. “Deep in the city lies the labyrinth containing the nectar of immortality. The rest of the Council is conferring with Lord Kubera to make sure it is well protected, especially over the next five days.”
“Are the Guardians mad at us?” asked Mini, in a small voice.
At this, Boo finally relented. With a sigh, he swooped down and alighted on Mini’s head.
“No one is mad at you,” he said.
Mini sniffed. “You’re just…”
Oh no, thought Aru. Mini’s least favorite word.
“Disappointed?” Brynne guessed.
Boo looked at all of them and then shook his head. “Scared,” he said. “We are too close to war…. We cannot make such mistakes. And you…You should have been able to handle this. That you couldn’t is not your fault, but ours. Now come. We have a meeting with a crisis manager to figure out what must be done about you.”
“All of us?” asked Nikita.