They took off, racing toward the tunnel, but the opening had disappeared. Behind them, someone started chuckling softly.
“Always so eager to run from your problems, aren’t you?” asked a silky voice. “Well, you’re just children. I suppose that’s to be expected.”
Aru turned slowly, expecting to see the snakelike Sleeper slithering toward her. But as it turned out, the Sleeper could take many forms. Before her eyes, the skin from the ceiling dripped down, coalescing into the shape of a man.
He no longer had a star-studded snake tail, but his hair was the same inky shade of night, and it looked as if there were stars caught in his hair. In the form of a man, he was tall and thin. He looked…hungry. His cheekbones stuck out. He wore a blacksherwanijacket over dark jeans, and an empty birdcage swung from his hand. Aru frowned. Why would he carry something like that? Then she looked up at his eyes. They were strange. One was blue, and the other was brown.
She felt like she knew him from somewhere. How was that possible?
“Hello, daughter of Indra and daughter of Dharma Raja,” he said. “Remember me? It’s been a while….A couple millennia. And then some.”
His voice took her back to the moment she lit the lamp.
Aru, Aru, Aru, what have you done?
“I apologize for not stopping to chat after you let me out of that drafty diya, Aru,” said the Sleeper, “but I had business to attend to. Things to gather.” He grinned, revealing unnervingly sharp teeth. “But it seems I went to all that trouble for nothing. This won’t be much of a fight.”
“We don’t even want to—” Aru started.
He slammed his foot against the ground, and the earth rattled. Books fell off the shelves and scattered around them. One of them, entitledAfloat, flapped its endpapers, drifted to the ceiling, and refused to move despiteArtful Guiletrying to tempt it back down with a bookmark.
“Don’t eventhinkabout interrupting me,” he said. “I’ve waited for ages. Eons.” He glared at Aru. “Ever sinceyour motherlocked me into that miserable lamp.”
“My…my mother?”
“Who else would smile as she slid the knife into my chest?” the Sleeper chided. “And you’re just like her, aren’t you? A liar. I saw you when you lit the lamp. Anything to impress your friends, right? What a coward you are, Aru Shah.”
“My mother isnota liar!” shouted Aru.
“You don’t even know her,” sneered the Sleeper.
Aru didn’t want to listen. But she felt a twist in her gut. All those times she had waited for her mother, the dinner she’d made going cold on the table. All those doors that had been closed in her face. All the questions that had been shushed. It was a different kind of pain when the hurt came not from a lie, but the truth. Her mother had hidden an entire world from her.
She reallydidn’tknow her mom at all.
The Sleeper gestured to Mini with a fake frown on his face, but he kept his gaze on Aru. “And what’s this? Your little sister here didn’t know that you summoned me? That you are the reason her whole family is in danger? Thatyouare the cause of all this, and not poor old me?”
Aru risked a glance at Mini. Her eyebrows were drawn together. Aru may have freed the Sleeper, but she hadn’t done it on purpose. Would Mini ever believe her now? Aru couldn’t get the words out—they were clogged by guilt.
“I—I can explain, Mini,” she said. “Later.”
Mini’s face hardened, but she nodded. There was no point hashing it out now, right before certain death.
The Sleeper’s eyes narrowed. He dropped the birdcage beside him. It wasn’t empty after all. Small clay figurines in the shape of horses and tigers rattled together as they hit the floor.
“Give me the sprig of youth,” he said.
Aru and Mini started inching backward. Aru was aware of Boo flying in frantic circles above them, as if trying to signal something. She risked a glance up. Boo dipped, landing on a book with a silver spine. It was too far away for Aru to read, but she knew what it said:Adulthood.
The second key was right over their heads. If they could just distract the Sleeper, they could get it. Mini caught Aru’s eye and nodded once. Apparently they’d had the same thought. Which would’ve been really cool if Mini didn’t also look as though she’d like to strangle Aru at the first chance.
They wedged themselves between the stacks ofA-shelves.
“How’d you find us?” asked Aru.
“Rakshas are very talkative,” he said, smiling. “Two little girls entering the Night Bazaar with enchanted objects bearing the marks of Lord Indra and the Dharma Raja? How curious.”
“What kinda name is Sleeper?” asked Aru. “Are you just really good at napping?”
