Star Daughter(35)

This, though, was a much better dream. An A-plus dream. Good job, she told her brain, then snuggled up in fetal position beneath the cirrus cloud coverlet, ready to find out exactly how comfy imaginary beds could be.

“Oh, good, you’re awake.” Minal tugged on her arm, rudely cutting into her research. She was wearing a beautiful silver satin dressing gown that gleamed in the morning light. “Time to get up.”

Sheetal stared muzzily at her. “Excuse me, I’m not done sleeping? Get your own dream.”

“That’s a shame,” Minal said, not budging, “because your family’s waiting for us.”

Sheetal buried her face in the pillow. “Tell Radhikafoi . . . not . . . hungry,” she mumbled.

“Sheetu, do you even remember last night? Your mom, the competition?”

The competition. It hit Sheetal all at once, and she almost smacked her skull against the ebony headboard trying to sit up. She was in Svargalok, where her mother lived. And all the other stars, some who had made it clear they couldn’t stand her, and others who thought she was going to fight House Pushya’s battles for them. “We have to save Dad! Right now.”

“Whoa,” said Minal. “Slow down there.” A private smile flitted over her face. “You were so out of it, we had to carry you in here last night.”

“Where’s ‘here’?” Sheetal demanded. How could she have fallen asleep? Dad needed her. “What’d my mom say?”

“The guest quarters for all the champions. All I know is, your family wants to have breakfast with us, and Padmini’s going to be back any second to dress us. I already washed so you could sleep longer.” Minal tapped the headboard. “You owe me.”

Sheetal tried to keep up. Breakfast with her family. Being dressed. “Who’s Padmini?”

“Your grandma’s lady-in-waiting.”

“She must be cute for you to be so chipper in the morning.”

“Funny.” Minal waited a second, then asked, “How do you feel?”

“Dry.” Sheetal’s mouth was as desiccated as her fingers had been the time she’d helped Minal with a mosaic project, and it tasted just as foul as the grout had smelled.

Minal poured her a glass of water muddled with what looked like blue rose petals from a crystal pitcher on the bedside table. Next to the pitcher glinted two room keys embossed with the Pushya nakshatra and a small blue basket of silver and black candies, like in a luxury hotel.

Sheetal tested the water. It had the same sweet floral notes she’d tasted last night.

She drank more than she actually wanted, taking forever to swallow each sip. Maybe if she kept drinking, she’d float away. She wouldn’t have to think about how she’d let Charumati take care of her as if she were still the na?ve little girl who was so sure her mother would always be there.

The water left her replenished and even energized, like it had magic electrolytes. It even calmed her fear. Charumati still cared about Dad. She’d give Sheetal the blood, and Sheetal would just have to explain to Nani and Nana that this whole competition thing was a big mix-up.

Minal poked her in the shoulder. “That’s it?”

Sheetal returned the poke. “What else would there be?”

Minal pressed her lips together the way she always did when she was contemplating something. “I wasn’t going to say anything,” she began. “I can’t even imagine what this must be like for you. But I think maybe you need to hear that as cool as Magic Land is, it’s okay to be mad at your mom. Or to not even know what you’re feeling. I mean, you just had how much stuff dumped on you in less than twenty-four hours? Huge, life-changing things?”

“I’m not mad,” Sheetal protested automatically. The shame of last night festered like a bruise on her heart, and she cringed away from it.

“Your mom left you. Whether or not she had a good reason for it, she left you. And no one told you why, and now it’s up to you to save your dad and deal with this competition stuff. Seriously, I’d be freaking out if I were you.”

Sheetal didn’t know what she felt, and that was the problem. Feeling things hadn’t been part of the plan. What she did know was that she didn’t want to talk about it. “I’m fine. Let’s just worry about the blood.”

Minal let out a gigantic sigh. “You’re the most stubborn person I know. Also, you sound like a vampire.”

Sheetal bared her teeth in a fake snarl.

“Sheetu!”

But the image of Dad lying helpless in the hospital bed chased her grin away. How long could he survive without the blood?

“Okay, okay, I’m up,” she said, kicking her legs over the side of the bed. “Where’s the bathroom?”





12


Scraps of sun-burnished blue sky peeked between the pillars lining the corridor as Sheetal’s grandmother’s personal attendant, Padmini, led Sheetal and Minal from the champions’ quarters to the Pushya nakshatra’s wing of the palace.

Where Nani and Nana waited. Or as Padmini called them, the Esteemed Matriarch and Patriarch.

Once Sheetal had dried off from her bath, it had taken Padmini all of ten minutes to fit her with a choli, dress her in a blue-and-silver sari, plait jasmine blossoms into her hair, stick a diamond bindi to her forehead, and cleverly cover up the pimple sprouting on her chin—because of course there was one.