As if she’d heard her, Kara grinned.
“Listen to me—you all have to leavethisinstant!” shouted Boo.
“You’re not our teacher anymore!” shot back Aru. “You left that behind when you betrayed us to the Sleeper.”
“I did what I had to do to protect you!” pleaded Boo. “I willalwaystry to protect—”
Raw fury zipped through Aru. She was sick of people lying to them and going behind their backs. She didn’t know exactly what to believe anymore, but there was one thing she knew for certain: she didn’t believe Boo.
Aru raised Vajra high over her head. “I’m giving you one chance to get lost,” she snarled.
A wounded expression flitted over the pigeon’s face. He cocked his head to one side and squinted.
“You will always be my Pandavas,” he said. “I can explain. I would never—”
No!thought Aru violently. “Enough!” she screamed.
Vajra shot up in height, towering nearly eight feet in the air. The lightning bolt cast a harsh glow over the platform.
“I wish you would just get out of our lives!”
Ugly words have a tendency to burn the mouth, and as Aru spoke, she felt scalded. Even more so when the words seemed to hang in the air between her and Boo.
The pigeon’s wings drooped, and he fell a couple of inches in the air. But the next moment, he seemed to recall something. With a burst of effort, he dove toward them, squawking, “I’ll get out of your lives the moment I knowyoursare safe!”
Aru was so stunned that she lurched backward. Boo batted at them with his wings, expertly weaving in and out between their weapons, forcing them back step by step.
“What—are—you—doing?” demanded Bear-Brynne.
“It’s a—” Boo started to say.
But at that moment, the golden platform was ripped apart by an explosion. Huge slabs of gold suddenly jutted up like icebergs. The force of it threw Aru onto her back. She scrambled to sit up just as fragments flew at her head. Aru couldn’t perceive any sound beyond the ringing in her ears, but she didn’t have to hear Boo finish his sentence to understand what he’d been trying to tell them.
Trap.
It’s a trap.
Aru felt like all her movements were slow, like she was swimming in a tank of honey. She fumbled for her lightning bolt, but she couldn’t do anything to stop a hunk of gold the size of a couch from heading straight for them. Dimly, she could hear Boo shouting for them to dive into the waves. Aru wanted to do something,anything, but she was too sluggish. She braced herself, squeezing her eyes shut, and…
BAM!
Aru looked up to see the huge piece of gold bounce off Mini’s violet shield. Mini panted, red-faced with effort. Her shields had never been this strong before. This one was like an impenetrable shell around Kara, Bear-Brynne, and Aru as they stood in a hole in the destroyed floor, knee-deep in the seawater, waves sloshing up the side of the shield.
Aru watched, helpless, as the remains of the floor drifted away. She could now see that bright golden shards had lodged themselves in the joints of the Nairrata soldiers’ armor, inhibiting their movements. As the golden army slowed down, the Sleeper’s army gained momentum, and Hanuman and Aiden fought furiously to contain them.
“What are we going to do?” asked Mini. “Maybe Boo can—”
“No,”groaned Brynne, dropping her bear guise. “No!”
Aru turned. Something in her broke even before she saw her worst fears confirmed. There, bobbing on top of the waves a few feet away, lay Boo. His eyes were open. The force of the explosion had blown off some of his plumage, and as Aru stretched out her hand to scoop him up, a single gray feather sifted down from the sky and landed in her palm.
I didn’t mean it!she thought wildly.I take back what I said!
But it was too late. Or rather, it didn’t make a difference.
Boo was gone.
Forever.
