There was no way they were going to get those weapons. She knew it now. Behind her, the light shrank.
“I don’t think I can hold on any longer!”
“Don’t think, then!” shouted Aru. “Justdo. I believe in you, Mini.”
“There were so many things I wanted to do!” moaned Mini. “I never even got to shave my legs.”
“That’s your life’s biggest regret?”
Aru braved a glance at the sign. The neon riddle flashed and flickered.ANSWERS HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT.Well, Aru was looking around (asplainlyas she could) and there was nothing to help them. Nothing at all.
Mini was straining in the wind. Her backpack was now flying behind her. Her knuckles had turned white. One of her hands lost its grip. “I’m sorry,” she said.
Their eyes met.
Aru watched as her sister was flung back against the dark throat.Sister.Not just Mini. Now that she had thought it, she couldn’t unthink it. It had gone from idea to truth.
She had a sister. A sister she had to protect.
Aru didn’t waste any more time thinking. She just reacted. She reached for the ball in the pocket of her pants. In her palm, it glowed a little brighter, like a creature waking from a long nap. She let the ball loose.
Above her, the teeth descended. She could feel the hilt of the sword sinking into her shoulder blade. Aru could just see the outline of Mini, suspended in a moment of falling.
Aru imagined a fishing line. Something that could fly out, and reel back in—
Light haloed in front of her. It unfurled from the ball, unspooling in the air like loopy cursive letters. The tethers of light stretched around Mini, gathering her up and yanking her out of the creature’s throat.
Aru whooped happily. The golden ball zoomed back into her hand. Only this time it wasn’t a golden ball at all. It was a lightning bolt.
The sheer size of it was enough to prop open the creature’s jaws, which she immediately started to do.
Before she could finish, Mini came running toward her, screaming. And not in a happyYOU-SAVED-MY-LIFE-WE’RE-FRIENDS-4EVAway. It was more like aGET-OUT-WHILE-YOU-STILL-CANkind of scream. Which didn’t make any sense. Aru had just saved her life….
That’s when Aru felt it:
The barest scrape of teeth along her scalp. But she couldn’t move! Aru tried to jump out of the way, when a violet light burst around her, hardening into an enormous sphere. The whale’s teeth glanced off the sphere.
Before her, triumphant in a sphere of her own, stood Mini. In her hand was the danda of the Dharma Raja, a staff that was as tall as she was and braided with purple light. The whale’s teeth pressed down on the sphere, causing faint lines to spider across it, but the protective device held, and finally the jaws relaxed. Light filled the cavernous space, and the two spheres dissolved.
In the back, the neon riddle flashed.ANSWERS IN PLAIN SIGHT.That had been true after all. The glowing ball had been Vajra, the lightning bolt of Indra, the whole time. And Mini’s compact hadn’t been a compact at all, but the danda stick of the Dharma Raja. It had just been waiting for a reason to show up. Which made Aru think of the words Urvashi had said so long ago when they had visited the Court of the Sky:You must awaken the weapons…go to the Kingdom of Death. Their trying to save one another had activated the weapons. Maybe what they’d done had proven to the weapons that they were worthy of wielding them in the first place.
“You’re welcome,” said Mini breathlessly.
It took Aru—who was still staring at the lightning bolt in her hand—a full minute to realize what Mini had said.
“Um, excuse you,” she said, crossing her arms. “You’rewelcome. I saved you first.”
“Yeah, but I saved yourightafter that. It was basically at the same time. How about we’ll both be welcome?”
“Fine, we’ll both be welcome. But who’s going to say thank you first? I think that—”
“NOSE GOES!” shouted Mini, promptly thwacking her face.
She had her there. Aru grinned, feeling strangely proud of Mini. She offered her elbow. Mini bumped it.
“Thanks.”
“NotThanks, sis?” asked Mini.
