Star Daughter(39)

“But I didn’t sign up for this.” They thought they could send for Sheetal out of the blue, and she’d jump to do their bidding? “And I’m not an artist.”

“Then what is your music?” Nana asked. “That is the mortal part of you.”

“We are music,” Nani put in. “You, however, are a musician. We have witnessed that.”

What did that even mean? Sheetal thought she was good, even awesome, at music in the way mortals were, but with the astral melody always “helping,” she’d never gotten the chance to find out for sure. She hunched into herself. It was one thing to be in her secret room and know the sky outside was watching and another to hear it in person from the family she’d only just met.

“No,” she said. “I’m here for Dad.” It felt like she’d said the same thing a hundred times, and no one was listening. “Mom—Charumati—knows. Ask her.”

“She spoke with us last night,” Nana said. “Gautam will have the blood. Indeed, we shall deliver it to him.”

Really? It seemed too easy, but Sheetal wasn’t going to question her good luck. “That’s so great! Thank you.” She hopped up. “I’ll take it right now. Why wait?”

Something unsaid passed between Charumati and her parents. “Anything for our own granddaughter,” Nani said slowly, “but it is not as simple as all that.”

Sheetal stared at her. “What are you trying to say?”

Nani smiled. “It seems we are both in difficult situations and can be of mutual assistance.”

The trap, so glittering and hypnotic at first, was closing around Sheetal. She could almost feel its jaws snapping shut.

She walked to the bookshelf, keeping her back to Nani and Charumati so they couldn’t see how mad she was. And so they couldn’t mesmerize her with their unearthly beauty into doing what they wanted. “What do you need from me, exactly?”

Charumati replied this time. “We will inspire you, and you will play your music for the panel of judges in the competition.”

“We stand behind you, dikri,” Nana said, his voice kind. “Always.”

“How do I even qualify?” Sheetal hoped she sounded indifferent. “I mean, I’m half star.”

“Ah, but you are half mortal, too.” Charumati’s satisfaction was unmistakable. “An advantage no other house can claim.”

“And when is this competition?” Running her finger over the silver-gilded spines in front of her, Sheetal fell right into one of her oldest daydreams. She’d sit onstage in an elegant silk dress, her harp leaning against her shoulder, and smile out at her adoring audience before launching into a beloved folk song, her voice soaring like a kite. Her name would be everywhere from the marquee to the program to her cheering fans’ lips. “It’s got to be at least a few weeks from now, right? I’d have to go home first and help Dad. . . .”

“Two days from today. The anniversary of your birth,” said Nani.

Sheetal spun around. “Two days?! I don’t even know what I’m doing!” At the very least, she’d have to pick a song and rehearse in front of other people.

“We will have our first lesson anon,” Nani continued smoothly. “It would have been ideal if you had arrived when the call for the champions first went out, but never fear; I have drawn up a rigorous schedule to make the best of what time remains to us.”

Calm down, Sheetal ordered herself. This had to be a prank. Weird star humor. “What—what about Dad? You said you would take the blood to him. He’ll die if you don’t!”

“Win the competition for our house, and anything you wish for will be yours,” said Nani, unmoved. “Including a drop of blood from my own veins.”

Wow. Sheetal almost laughed. All she had to do to save Dad was win a contest she hadn’t even known about twenty-four hours ago. When she’d never played in front of strangers in her entire life, and the very thought made her stomach shrivel. No pressure.

But her hands tingled. She’d be inspired, the way she’d apparently inspired Dev. He’d smashed through his creative block like demolishing a dam.

The memory kindled something at her core. Fire like mercury flame traced over her skin, glittering against the onyx of the sitting room, threatening to engulf her. What had she actually done to inspire him? She didn’t know that any more than she knew how to untangle her music from the starsong. . . .

Silver in the bones, the astral melody seemed to sing then, silver in the blood. It gushed through her, a current of starlight and suggestion sweeping her along, and all she could do was try not to go under.

Sheetal was minuscule, a pathetic puppet for forces so immeasurable she couldn’t begin to understand them. They would devour her. They already were.

“Where is Gautam?” Nana asked, coming closer. “Can you describe his condition?”

“I don’t know. He had a heart attack. I—I tried giving him a drop of my blood, but it didn’t work,” she babbled. “I thought— I don’t know what I thought.”

She didn’t realize she was tearing at the cuticle on her thumb until she looked down. Blood welled up—the blood that wasn’t enough. That would never be enough.

Nani traipsed over and looked Sheetal in the eye, searching. “Tell me, child. What brought on this sudden case of cardiac distress?”