Aiden Brings the Smolder
Aru, Aiden, and Brynne followed the bright smoke out the door.
The second they crossed the threshold of the chaat shop, Aru felt a pull of magic right behind her belly button. It was the same feeling she got every time she used a portal. She blinked, and when she opened her eyes, they were no longer on a street in Edison, New Jersey. Instead, they were standing ona stretch of lawn facing a massive building. The trail of bright smoke led right to the front door.
It was, Aru thought, the mostunmagical structure she had ever seen. Squat, long, screamingnine-to-five adult job, and painted a shade of depressed supermarket egg. And yet, she knew they were somewhere in the Otherworld, because no matter which direction she faced, she found herself staring atthe same building. It didn’t feel like winter here. It didn’t feel likeanything. Aru couldn’t even see the sun.
“Freaky,” said Aiden, spinning in a circle.
“Thatis the Department of Many Voices?” asked Brynne.
“Definitely looks like a DMV,” said Aiden.
“Not only the DMV,” said Aru, looking at the plain white sign on the lawn. In small letters, it readASHRAM. Whenever Aru thought of an ashram,she imagined a posh spa where rich people paid someone to identify the color of their aura. But she knew that the wordashramhad originated in India. It was like a monastery, a place where hermits went. The austere outside of the DMV definitely fit that definition.
The three of them walked up the sidewalk and through the pair of glass entrance doors. In the lobby—which had both hand sanitizerand hoof sanitizer dispensers on a stand—there was a wide reception desk with a calendar and a box of paperclips, and a box of what looked like Kleenex but read:CURSE WIPES. A girl their age poked her head up behind the desk. She was a fair-skinned nature spirit, a yakshini, with tendrils of frost for hair. A badge on her black shirt read:
WINTER INTERN
MY NAME IS IRIS. HOW CAN I HELP?
“What,”said the yakshini girl, clearly bored, when they approached the desk.
Brynne stepped forward and slid the S. Durvasa business card across the table. “We were referred by Lord Kamadeva, the god of love—”
“Identification,” the yakshini said in the same exact tone.
“I’m getting to that,” said Brynne, bristling. “You see, we’re actually Pandavas—”
“Right, and I’m Kim Kardashian,” said the girl.“The waittimewill be”—she paused to consult a stack of papers on her desk—“three centuries. You can take your place in—”
“THREE CENTURIES?!”exploded Brynne.
“If you’d like to lodge a complaint about the wait time, please fill out this form in standard blood-of-my-enemies ink,” said the girl. A piece of paper popped up in front of each of their faces—except, in Brynne’s case, the piece ofpaper smacked her in the nose. “Please take your number and have a seat.”
“You can’t speed it up? Please, Iris?” asked Aru, flashing her most charming smile.
Iris reared back as if Aru had a super-contagious gum disease.
“Um,no,” said the girl. “If youwantto be first in line, you’ve got to have one ofthese”—she paused to wave a glowing green ticket sitting on her desk—“and you don’t. Sosit downor get out!”
Aru was going to try again, but Brynne yanked on her sleeve. Aru followed her and Aiden to the entrance, which was out of the yakshini’s range of hearing.
“What?” asked Aru.
“We gotta get that green ticket,” said Brynne.
“How are we going to do that?” Aru laughed. “Just pluck it out of her hands and run?”
“Yeah, pretty much. You know what that means, Aiden.”
His eyeswidened. “Oh, c’mon. Don’t make me do it—”
“It’s the only way!”
“What’sthe only way?”
“So, as the kid of an elite apsara, Aiden can—”
