Aru Shah and the End of Time (Pandava Quartet #1)(71)

“I don’t think I can hold on any longer!”

“Don’t think, then!” shouted Aru. “Just do. I believe in you, Mini.”

“There were so many things I wanted to do!” moaned Mini. “I never even got to shave my legs.”

“That’s your life’s biggest regret?”

Aru braved a glance at the sign. The neon riddle flashed and flickered. ANSWERS HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT. Well, Aru was looking around (as plainly as she could) and there was nothing to help them. Nothing at all.

Mini was straining in the wind. Her backpack was now flying behind her. Her knuckles had turned white. One of her hands lost its grip. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Their eyes met.

Aru watched as her sister was flung back against the dark throat. Sister. Not just Mini. Now that she had thought it, she couldn’t unthink it. It had gone from idea to truth.

She had a sister. A sister she had to protect.

Aru didn’t waste any more time thinking. She just reacted. She reached for the ball in the pocket of her pants. In her palm, it glowed a little brighter, like a creature waking from a long nap. She let the ball loose.

Above her, the teeth descended. She could feel the hilt of the sword sinking into her shoulder blade. Aru could just see the outline of Mini, suspended in a moment of falling.

Aru imagined a fishing line. Something that could fly out, and reel back in—

Light haloed in front of her. It unfurled from the ball, unspooling in the air like loopy cursive letters. The tethers of light stretched around Mini, gathering her up and yanking her out of the creature’s throat.

Aru whooped happily. The golden ball zoomed back into her hand. Only this time it wasn’t a golden ball at all. It was a lightning bolt.

The sheer size of it was enough to prop open the creature’s jaws, which she immediately started to do.

Before she could finish, Mini came running toward her, screaming. And not in a happy YOU-SAVED-MY-LIFE-WE’RE-FRIENDS-4EVA way. It was more like a GET-OUT-WHILE-YOU-STILL-CAN kind of scream. Which didn’t make any sense. Aru had just saved her life….

That’s when Aru felt it:

The barest scrape of teeth along her scalp. But she couldn’t move! Aru tried to jump out of the way, when a violet light burst around her, hardening into an enormous sphere. The whale’s teeth glanced off the sphere.

Before her, triumphant in a sphere of her own, stood Mini. In her hand was the danda of the Dharma Raja, a staff that was as tall as she was and braided with purple light. The whale’s teeth pressed down on the sphere, causing faint lines to spider across it, but the protective device held, and finally the jaws relaxed. Light filled the cavernous space, and the two spheres dissolved.

In the back, the neon riddle flashed. ANSWERS IN PLAIN SIGHT. That had been true after all. The glowing ball had been Vajra, the lightning bolt of Indra, the whole time. And Mini’s compact hadn’t been a compact at all, but the danda stick of the Dharma Raja. It had just been waiting for a reason to show up. Which made Aru think of the words Urvashi had said so long ago when they had visited the Court of the Sky: You must awaken the weapons…go to the Kingdom of Death. Their trying to save one another had activated the weapons. Maybe what they’d done had proven to the weapons that they were worthy of wielding them in the first place.

“You’re welcome,” said Mini breathlessly.

It took Aru—who was still staring at the lightning bolt in her hand—a full minute to realize what Mini had said.

“Um, excuse you,” she said, crossing her arms. “You’re welcome. I saved you first.”

“Yeah, but I saved you right after that. It was basically at the same time. How about we’ll both be welcome?”

“Fine, we’ll both be welcome. But who’s going to say thank you first? I think that—”

“NOSE GOES!” shouted Mini, promptly thwacking her face.

She had her there. Aru grinned, feeling strangely proud of Mini. She offered her elbow. Mini bumped it.

“Thanks.”

“Not Thanks, sis?” asked Mini.

“Mini, no one says sis. Like, ever.”

“We could bring it back! Make it retro-cool.”

“There’s nothing retro-cool about sis.”

“Fine. What about sister from another mister?” asked Mini.

“No.”

“What about…?”

This continued for far too long.





I’ll Be a Cow in My Next Life


Lightning bolts are much heavier than they look.

After Vajra had revealed its true form, it seemed reluctant to revert to the size of the ball. Aru had finally solved the problem by imagining Vajra as flip-flops to be worn on her feet after they’d walked on that goopy whale tongue. The weapon had shuddered at the idea and obediently shrunk.

Mini, on the other hand, preferred to use the Death Danda (or “Dee Dee,” as she had nicknamed it) as a walking stick, and was currently acting as though she were twelve hundred years old instead of twelve.

“I think I’m predisposed to having joint problems,” she said. “And you only get two knees. I mean, I guess I could replace them, but it won’t be the same, and getting surgery isn’t something you should do lightly. Tons of things could go wrong. You could even die.”