Something whistled through the air.
Aru looked up just in time to see the trident slice through the inky tendril.
“C’mon, Aru!” yelled Kara.
Aru scrambled to her feet. She flattened her palm and Vajra transformed into a hoverboard. Aru jumped on, and Vajra zoomed down the corridor, casting a shower of electrical sparks as it went. All around her, Aru could hear the ink spitting and fizzing as it caught fire. The heat of the flames scorched her back. Up ahead, Kara whistled, and her trident flew back into her hand, shape-shifting into a ring the moment she caught it.
The portal door was within reach again.
Aru hopped off Vajra, who immediately transformed into a Ping-Pong ball and ducked into her pocket. She pushed the door with one hand, flinging it open. With her other hand, she caught Kara’s wrist. Behind them the flames reared higher. Smoke burned her nostrils, but Aru squeezed her eyes shut and focused on the place she most wanted to be.
Home.
Aru pictured the front of the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture, where she and her mom had spent the last fourteen years. She saw the Japanese maple tree, as red as a sunset, and the peeling paint on the front door. She could smell the copper statues, the wooden crates, and her mother’s neroli perfume.
Beyond the door was nothing but darkness, and Aru’s stomach flipped as they fell through the void….
“AHHH!” screamed Kara.
Aru’s eyes flew open just as the lawn outside her front door reared up to meet them. Frantically, she fumbled for Vajra, transforming it back into a hoverboard in time for them to end up stumbling across the grass instead of landing with a splat.
Kara righted herself gracefully. She looked around, her eyes wide and shining. But after one step forward, a strange expression fell across her face….
“Kara?” called Aru, going to her.
Kara’s eyes fluttered shut and she fainted onto the grass.
Just then the front door slammed open and a stream of air burst out, hitting Aru square in the chest. She went flying backward.
“Ow!” she yelled as her head hit the ground.
A voice called out: “TAKE THAT, VAGABOND!”
“Brynne! How many times have we been through this? Look first, then attack!”
“Holy…Oh my god…it’s Aru.”
The sound of approaching footsteps echoed through Aru’s skull. Blearily, she opened her eyes to see Mini.
“You’re okay!” Mini said, bursting into tears. “We were so worried!”
“Shah!” said Brynne.
Instantly, they pulled her into a hug. Aru felt her heart practically bursting with joy. Mini’s hug was nice and warm, but Brynne’s was starting to break her ribs.
“Need—air! Help!” managed Aru.
Her sisters released her, and Brynne hoisted her off the ground. Aru peered around, confused. The last time she was in Atlanta, it had been early spring, still chilly enough for her to need a sweater in the morning. But now it was warm…almost muggy. The sun glared down at them.
“Shah,” said a familiar, velvety voice. “You’re okay. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I mean, you know, thinking if you were okay and stuff…”
Aru looked up to see Aiden Acharya staring at her. As usual, his camera, Shadowfax, hung from his right shoulder. He wore a loose-fitting black tee and jeans. Even in the daylight, there was something about his eyes that reminded Aru of distant stars. For a second, it looked as if Aiden was going to hug her. Aru took a step forward.
But then Aiden’s arms fell to his side.
Aru stepped back.
Whatever had almost happened fizzled and died on the spot when Aiden coughed and pointed to Kara, still passed out on the grass.
“Who is she?”
Aru took a deep breath, then looked at her friends. “So…as it turns out…I’m not the only daughter of the Sleeper?”
If there was one upside to certain doom, it was Brynne’s cooking.
The moment Aru stepped into her apartment above the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture, she smelled something baking. But not just any baking—it was Brynne’s stress desserts: golden maladu, bright orange and creamy rava kesari, pistachio cake, and macarons sandwiched with honey and cardamom buttercream. Aru’s mouth watered.
“Don’t look so happy about the food, Shah,” grumbled Brynne. “We’ve been worried about you for almost two months. It’s been hard to find enough sugar lately!”
Aiden smirked. “Brynne, to be fair, you ran through a small kingdom’s supply of ingredients.”
Two months? It felt like she’d spent barely two hours in the Sleeper’s lair. Aru glanced at the wall calendar hanging by the stairs, her heart sinking. When they’d started their search for the Tree of Wishes, it had been March. Now it was May.
Aru looked around the apartment she shared with her mom and frowned.
It was way too tidy and neat.
No half-empty coffee cups perched on chairs, no open books, no jasmine scent from the shampoo her mom used. At this time of year the museum should’ve been open for tours and summer camps, but it was completely empty downstairs.
Mini pinched her arm.
“Ow!” said Aru. “What was that for?”
“Checking your skin turgor for potential dehydration,” said Mini. “What have you been eating? Have you been drinking enough water? Your skin looks—”
Aru raised an eyebrow. “Flushed and glowing from running back to you guys?”
“I was going to say ‘dull.’”
“Thanks.”
“How did you get back to us?” asked Brynne.
As Aru was steered to the dining table, she nodded toward Kara. Aiden had carried the unconscious girl up the stairs and laid her on the couch. “She’s still out?”
“Your mom put an enchantment around the museum that makes any stranger temporarily fall asleep once they get too close,” said Aiden. “Anyone with Otherworldly blood, that is.”
“Pretty sneaky,” said Brynne admiringly. “Kinda like you, Shah.”
“Where is Mom?” asked Aru. “Is she out for groceries or something?”
Brynne and Mini exchanged a look.
“We’ve got a lot to talk about, Shah,” said Brynne.
“If it’s bad, tell me now,” said Aru.
“It’s not bad…” said Mini. “Just strange.”
Aru wasn’t sure what that meant, so she waited.
“First, why don’t you eat and catch us up,” said Brynne. “Starting with why did you bring the Sleeper’s daughter here?”
Between bites of cake and gulps of milk, Aru repeated what Kara had told her—how Kara had been raised in the Sleeper’s home for the past two years and her memories had been wiped, about the strange, glowing ward on the back of her neck and how the Sleeper called Kara his “secret weapon” even though she wasn’t a Pandava. Aru even told them about Sunny the trident, now secure on Kara’s finger as a shiny ring.
“I don’t get it, though,” said Aru. “She’s my age, but I didn’t see her in the Pool of the Past or in the Sleeper’s memories. I don’t know how that’s possible—unless he was secretly a jerk of a husband to my mom….”