Brynne was already racing to the door.
“Do you hear me?” Durvasa shouted after her. “I am only watchingonedocumentary and then I’m gone!Gone!”
Aiden grinned, patting Shadowfax. “No one has ever documented the inside of the celestial realms. It’s going to beawesome!” When Aru scowled at him, he added, “And we’re gettingMini!”
“What about the part where we battle our nightmares?” pointed out Aru.
“It’s the celestial realms, Aru, not nightmare land. I’m sure he’s exaggerating.”
Aiden followed after Brynne, but Aru lingered.
“What made you decide to, um, not help us?” she asked Durvasa.
The sage studied her, and in that second he looked very tired and very old.
“Let us just say that there are some endingsthat I, too, wish could be avoided. Now go. See well.”
See well.That was what Varuni and Varuna had told her in their palace. But Aru didn’t have long to think about it. Brynne and Aiden had already gone through the door.
Aru opened it to discover that the other side was an empty white expanse. The idea of stepping into nothingness was intimidating, to say the least.Do it for Mini, she toldherself.
She took a deep breath and jumped in with her eyes closed, assuming she’d fall through the air. Instead, Aru floated upright, as if on an invisible hoverboard. She opened her eyes and found herself next to Brynne and Aiden in a beautiful moonlit stand of trees. A small sign had been staked into the ground in front of it:
THE DREAMING GROVE OF RATRI
Ratri was the goddess of night. Arudidn’t know much about her except that her sister was Ushas, the goddess of dawn, who brought forth a new day in a chariot pulled by red cows.
A path of pure darkness cut through the grove, winding toward a bridge in the distance. It was the same silver bridgeAruhad seen from below, when they were in the cosmic gallery. A tingle of nervousness shot through her. They weren’ttechnicallyin theclouds, so she didn’t need cloud slippers, but they were standing on a narrow strip of solid black—like one of those glass sky bridges—and it felt as if it would give way at any second.
Now that they were getting closer to Mini, Aru cast out her Pandava senses, trying to reach her telepathically … but it was like a call that kept going straight to voice mail. She just wasn’t getting through.
“Wow,” breathed Aiden, snapping a couple pictures of the beautiful scene.
Aru really wanted to walk over and examine the trees up close, but she didn’t dare move from the path. There was no sign that saidDON’T DEFILE THE NIGHT GODDESS’S GARDEN, but for Aru, there didn’t need to be. Growing up in a museum, she had learned not to disturb rare and unusual objects. In fact, she considered herselfthe museum’s designatedNO TOUCHIE!hollerer, a job she took very seriously.
Brynne, however, went straight for the strange night trees. Their trunks looked like spirals of dark smoke, and their branches were like black lace against the starry sky. Hanging from their branches were oval fruits with glittering silver rinds.
“I bet I could make a really yummy pachadi with this …” mused Brynne.She reached out to touch one of them.
“Brynne, don’t!” called Aru.
The moment Brynne’s fingers met the fruit, it fell from the branch, hitting the ground and chiming like a struck bell. Aru ran forward and snatched up the silvery fruit before it could make any more noise.
All three of them held very still.
ThenAiden let out his breath. “That was close. For a second there, I thought—”
Therest of his words were cut off by a low growl.
Slowly, Aru turned to see three huge night-black hounds prowling toward them. Saliva dripped from their jaws. Their eyes looked like round mirrors, but instead of reflections, they revealed moving images. Aru’s blood ran cold as she saw the Sleeper taunting her … then a scene of four Pandava sisters turning against her. She saw Boo still imprisoned,his feathers falling out, because she had failed him. As the hounds stalked closer, she saw her mom shutting the apartment door behind her and never coming back. Aru squeezed her eyes shut, trying to keep the nightmares out.
“Don’t look at their eyes!” she warned the others.
She bent down and fumbled for something on the ground. She found a stick and threw it far away from her. Then she crackedopen one eye. “Go fetch?”
Instead, the nightmare hounds started barking and snarling at her.
“Never mind!” she shouted to the others. “RUN!”
