And even lonelier than Aru had first imagined. All locked up without the chance to go outside? No thanks.
“Look, I’m sorry, but I have to go, and I can’t take you with me,” said Aru. “It’s just too big a risk—”
“Wait!” said Kara, grabbing Aru’s wrist. “What if…What if I told you that it’s even a bigger risk to leave me behind?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Dad calls me his ‘secret weapon,’” said Kara, her words coming out in a rush. “And lately, he keeps talking about how the right time is coming soon…. I’m scared, Aru. I don’t know what it means.”
“Secret weapon?” Aru nervously took a step back.
“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” said Kara. “I can’t do anything. Honest. I mean, he trained me to fight, but I don’t really have any special powers.”
Aru’s mind snagged on the word really. That meant she probably had something, but what?
“Since you came, I’ve accessed even more of his memories. I saw his battles…all those ruined cities…all those scared people…” said Kara softly. “I don’t want any part of that—it’s wrong. But he’s my family, and I don’t want to hurt him. I just need to stop him. But I…I don’t know what else to do.”
Tears ran down Kara’s cheeks, and Aru felt a sharp jab in her heart.
She understood what Kara was going through. It was the ugly, swooping sensation of missing the last step on a staircase, waiting for your foot to land…and falling flat on your face instead.
Aru had felt it when she realized how much her mom had kept hidden from her. She’d felt it when she learned that her teachers, Hanuman and Urvashi, had been part of the reason her mom had trapped the Sleeper in a lamp. She’d felt it when Boo—Aru’s greatest mentor, the person who’d made her think he believed in the Pandavas the most—had turned them over to the Sleeper. She still felt like she was falling and her feet would never touch the ground.
“You have to take me with you,” said Kara, scrubbing away her tears with a fist. “I know what he’s looking for, Aru. I’ll tell you what it is if you let me go with you.” A fierceness spread across Kara’s face, and she kind of looked like Brynne before a fight. On Kara’s hand, her white-gold ring flashed like a sunbeam. Vajra sparked in response.
Aru was dying to find out what the Sleeper was after, but she hid her eagerness from Kara. The moment someone knows what you want, it becomes a weapon in their hands, Hanuman had taught them.
Aru made her expression go blank. “How do I know you’re not gonna go berserk on me?”
“Berserk?” repeated Kara. Her gaze brightened. It was like glimpsing the person Kara must be when she wasn’t scared and nervous. A curious person…It made Aru think of Mini.
“Did you know that word comes from Nordic legend?” Kara went on. “Berserkers were warriors who wore bearskin shirts and then went kinda crazy right before charging into battle! Berserk comes from ber for bear and serk for shirt! Isn’t that cool?”
Privately, Aru thought, Ooh, intriguing. Out loud, she said, “How is that supposed to convince me?”
“It won’t,” Kara admitted with a sigh. “You don’t have any reason to trust me. But…I’m your best hope of getting out of here, Aru Shah. So will you take a chance on that or not?”
Aru frowned.
“If it helps, I don’t actually have a bear shirt?” said Kara.
Aru wanted to grin, but she forced it back. Part of her couldn’t fight the instinct to trust Kara. There was something about her that really did remind Aru of her sisters.
What if she’s lying? whispered another voice in Aru’s head. She wouldn’t be the first to betray you.
But what if she wasn’t? What if, by leaving Kara behind, Aru ended up putting the Otherworld in even greater danger? No, she couldn’t have that on her conscience. If Kara tried anything, she’d have Brynne, Mini, Aiden, Nikita, Sheela, and Aru herself to answer to. Besides, how else was she going to escape?
Aru took a deep breath. “All right, fine. You can come. Now get us out of here.”
Kara dragged her finger along one of her many bookshelves. Aru scanned the titles—some were familiar and some weren’t. There was a collection of Grimms’ fairy tales, three whole shelves dedicated to the Amar Chitra Katha comics that Aru loved to read, and nearby, she saw a novel she didn’t recognize called Sal and Gabi Break the Universe.
“Is this one of those libraries where you pull out a book and a hidden passageway opens?” asked Aru, feeling mildly jealous. If she ever got to make her own villain lair, it would definitely have a secret book doorknob.
“Maybe?” said Kara.
“What do you mean ‘maybe’?”
“Well, um, I haven’t exactly done this before. In theory, the portal only opens for Dad, but lately I’ve been trying to watch how he does it…. It should work for us, too, if I can just find the right book. It’s always the same one, but he never lets me see the title, and I think he puts it back in different places. When he grabs hold of it, a door opens, and he can step through to anywhere he wants to go in the world,” said Kara. “Dad’s really proud of the portal. Not even the devas know that it’s here.”
“But you don’t know which book? So we could be stuck here! Which—Wait, where exactly is here?”
“I dunno,” said Kara. “He’s never told me. Every now and then he takes me out in the world, but he usually chooses remote places. Except a couple of months ago, he took me to a pastry shop in Paris for my birthday! It was so beautiful there. I ate the most amazing pink macaron—it was rose-flavored.” Kara smiled to herself. “Dad likes the pistachio ones best.”
Dad likes the pistachio ones best.
Aru felt those words like a knife slash. All she knew about the Sleeper were the memories he’d sacrificed. She didn’t know anything about the kind of music he liked or books he read. He may have told Kara that Aru was his daughter, but he’d never been Aru’s dad. It made her wonder what kind of father he would’ve been. Would he have taken her on trips, too? Would he have been the kind of dad who always snuck her ice cream, even when she was in trouble?
Aru almost asked for more details, but she stopped herself. What difference did it make? She pitied the Sleeper, but he was still her enemy. Imagining who he might’ve been was pointless and painful. Besides, if Kara was telling the truth, then he had betrayed Aru’s mom, and so even the man he might’ve been wasn’t that great.
“I’m sorry,” said Kara. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Aru was jolted.
“I know you see him…differently,” said Kara. “And, I mean, it’s not like I know him as well as I thought, either. But—”
“It’s fine,” said Aru roughly. “Just tell me what to do.”
Kara pointed at five shelves at the same level. “Mind going through these? The room will change when you pull out the right book.”
“Yeah,” muttered Aru. “Maybe I’ll find a how-to on being a liar and a cheat.”