“Hira,” said Aru, “could you stand over there and keep watch? Let us know when you see Lady M coming back.”
Aru didn’t want Hira to overhear their conversation. She was a little too sympathetic to the rakshasi.
Aru pulled Brynne, Mini, and Aiden into a huddle. “We can’t let Lady M—or anyone else—getthe nectar,” she said.
Lady M was working with the Sleeper, and Aru knew all too well the kind of beings the Sleeper kept in his company. Demons dripping in shadows. Foul-smelling asuras with blood on their hands. Those who’d lost out on the nectar of immortality the first time it was pulled from the Ocean of Milk, and couldn’t let go of the grudge.
All of this made Aru’s head hurt.
Brynnenodded. “So we fight.”
“We fight,” echoed Mini.
“Yeah,” said Aiden, resigned.
Aru couldn’t take it anymore. She blurted out the doubt inside her:
“This is the right thing to do, isn’t it?” she asked. Then,ina quieter voice: “I feel bad for her. But then … look at what she did.”
The four of them surveyed the vast army of Heartless. People stolen from their lives, their free will yanked fromthem.
“Answering a wrong with a wrong doesn’t make it right,” said Aiden.
“If we don’t fight her,allthose people andweare going to pay for it,” said Brynne. “We have to fight.”
She said this last part more to herself than to anyone else.
Aru agreed, and yet … what Lady M had said made her think of the Sleeper. If everyone had gotten her story wrong, what about …his? Aru shook her head.It felt dangerous to even have that thought.
“Is there something else, Aru?” asked Mini quietly.
Aru realized the three of them had been watching her.
“No,” Aru lied. “Nothing at all.”
If she said it enough times, maybe it would become true.
Aiden looked over his shoulder toward Lady M. “The second we give her that answer, she’s going to want to take our heads off.”
“I know,” said Aru.
“And none of our weapons are working,” said Mini, fear edging into her voice.
“Yet,”said Brynne. “It’s like our weapons called a temporary truce.”
“Plus, all the nagas and Heartless are on her side.”
A thought snuck into Aru’s brain.
The nagas at the entrance to the ramp hadn’t been able to tell the difference between Hira and Lady M. If the nagas couldn’tdistinguishbetween them, then maybeTakshaka wouldn’t be able to, either.
“Uh-oh,” said Aiden. “Shah’s making that face.”
“What? What face?” asked Aru.
“That’s, like, your signatureI’ve-got-a-planface,” said Brynne excitedly.
Aru liked the sound of that. She had asignature face? Excellent.
