The fruit stopped falling. Vikram moved to my side just as the three monkeys approached us. Dread gripped my heart in a fist of cold. Magic clung to the air, pushing the air out of my chest. When I blinked, something shimmered behind the trees. A ghostly outline of cities. Nocturnal eyes blinking open. The Otherworld felt like a body in the dark, a presence hiding its true face.
I didn’t need a ruby to tell me that these creatures were connected to the Otherworld. They walked like men, wore gold jodhpurs and one even had a helmet. The tallest—black-furred with a silver scar down his forehead—eyed us, a bright sword gleaming in his hands. I tensed. I knew I couldn’t fight with one hand, but I wasn’t entirely useless. Magical or not, everything bled.
A pile of dirt and fruit peels caught my eye. I kicked it hard, aiming straight at the monkey’s eyes.
“Run!” I shouted at Vikram.
My aim was true. The monkey screamed, dropping the sword. Just as I reached for the blade, something sharp grazed my throat. Knives floated in the air. Poised to kill. One of the monkeys had forced Vikram to his knees. Three enchanted knives formed a collar at his throat.
“Get these things away from us, monkey—”
“Not monkeys,” hissed Vikram. “Vanaras.”
Vanaras.Realvanaras.I ran through what I knew about them from Maya’s stories. Cunning. Ruled over by the legendary Queen Tara in the cold kingdom of Kishkinda. I couldn’t use any of that information, though. Maya’s stories had failed to mention that they weren’t short, talking monkeys but tall beings that looked as strong as Bharata’s best soldiers. Worse, they knew magic. And they showed no hesitation in wielding it to kill.
“You!” screeched avanara,jerking his head at Vikram. “We came for you! A thief always returns to the spot of plunder.”
Vikram’s eyes widened. Sweat gleamed on his brow.
Is this what you wanted out of magic?
“I didn’t steal anything.”
“You can’t fool us,” said avanarawith a yellow ruff of fur. He took out a knife and cut a slash in the air.
A thin ray of light stretched where the air had been cut, widening into an image of a man running through an orchard of bone trees. He reached into the bark, pulling out a golden apple. There was no mistaking the man: It was Vikram. In the image, he ran away with the apple before hurling it through the branches.
Then the image disappeared.
“See?” said thevanara.“We’ve waited for you for a hundred years.”
“I’ve always hoped to age with grace, but a hundred years? That’s impossible. Look at me. That can’t be me,” protested Vikram. “I’ve never seen an orchard like that.”
But thevanaraspaid him no attention. The yellowvanarasmiled slowly. “I know what thievsies and beasties gets.”
“A trial!” shouted another.
“But the Queen is not here,” said the gray one. “She left us. More than a thousand moons have since guarded the sky and not one has seen her.”
“What the Queen does not sees, the Queen does not scolds.”
“Then why not just behead them and be done with it?” said the yellow one. “I like their horses.”
I couldn’t fight like this, so I reached for a second tactic: bargaining.
“If you want the fruit, then just take it back!” I shouted, holding out my hand where the fruit refused to budge. “You can take it and keep him. I don’t care.”
“The fruit has claimed you, girl,” said the grayvanara.“It is useless to us now. But if you wish to see even the hope of a new day, I would not eat it.”
New tactic: lie.
“If you behead me, you’ll have to answer to the army of Bharata,” I said, trying to hold my head high. “And they won’t hesitate to slaughter beasts. I—”
Thevanarasstilled. “What did you call us?”
The largest one stepped forward. “You would reduce our proud and ancient race tobeasts?”
Cold twisted my heart. The knives dug into my throat, on the threshold of blood and flesh. This was it. I wanted nothing to do with magic and now it was going to kill me—
