“Oh, that’s useful!” The pigeon lifted its wing and glared at her. “You should’ve thought about that before you plunged us into this mess! Just look at you…The horror.” It covered its face with both wings, muttering to itself. “Why must every generation have its heroes?”
“Wait. So there’s been five Pandava brothers in every generation?” asked Aru.
“Unfortunately,” said the bird, throwing off its wings.
“And I’m one of them?”
“Please don’t make me say it again.”
“But…how can you be sure?”
“Because you lit the lamp!”
Aru paused. Shehadlit the lamp. She had lowered the flame to the metal lip of the object. But it was Poppy’s brother’s lighter. Did that count? And she was only going to light it for a second, notkeepit lit. Did that make her only a smidge of a hero?
“I’m fairly positive you are a Pandava,” continued the bird. “Mostly positive. I am, at least, definitely not going to say no. Otherwise why would I behere? And on that note,whyam I here? What does it mean to wear this wretched body?” It stared at the ceiling. “Who am I?”
“I—”
“Ah, never mind,” said the bird with a resigned sigh. “If you’ve lit that cursed lamp, the other one will know.”
“Who—?”
“We’ll just have to go through the Door of Many. It always knows. Plus that’s a great deal easier than putting something in Google Maps. Most confusing contraption of this century.”
“You’re a bird! Shouldn’t youknowwhich direction you’re going in?”
“I’m not just anybird, you uppity hero. I am—” the bird spluttered, then stopped. “I guess it doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is that we stop this before any true destruction takes place. For the next nine days, Time will freeze wherever the Sleeper walks. On the ninth day, the Sleeper will reach the Lord of Destruction, and Shiva will perform the dance to end all Time.”
“Can’t the Lord of Destruction just sayno thanks?”
“You know nothing of the gods,” sniffed the pigeon.
Aru stopped to consider that. She wasn’t shocked by the idea that gods and goddesses existed, only that a person could actually get to know them. They were like the moon: distant enough not to enter her thoughts too often; bright enough to inspire wonder.
Aru looked back at her frozen mom and classmates. “So they’ll just be stuck like that?”
“It’s temporary,” said the bird. “Provided you aren’t riddled with ineptitude.”
“In-ep-tee-tood? Is that French?”
The bird knocked its head against a wooden banister. “The universe has a cruel sense of humor,” it moaned. “Youare one of the few who can make things right again. Then again, you are also the one who started it. And so you, and the other, must be heroes.”
That didn’t sound very heroic to Aru. It just sounded like an epic mess that required an epic cleanup. Her shoulders drooped. “What do you mean, ‘the other’?”
“Your sibling, of course! You think you can quest alone? Questing requires families,” said the bird. “Your brother—or perhaps sister, although I don’t think that’s ever happened—will be waiting for you. When one Pandava awakens, so too does another, usually the one who is best equipped to deal with the challenge at hand. Until now, the Pandavas have always appeared as fully grown people, not squished bundles of hormones and incompetence.”
“Thanks.”
“Come along, girl child.”
“Whoareyou?”
Aru wasn’t going to move a step without some kind of verification. But she doubted the bird carried a wallet.
The pigeon paused, then said, “Though such an illustrious name should not be uttered by a child, you may call me Subala.” It preened. “I am—I mean, well, Iwas…It’s a long story. Point is: I’m here to help.”
“Why should I go with you?”
