The driver shrugged. “Sure about that? I thought you said you didn’t know what to do?”
“Well, I don’t, not exactly, but—”
“So, what’s the point?” asked the driver. “What are you going to end up doing, then?”
This was the question that had haunted her for days. Maybe the zigzagging car was making all her thoughts collide properly. Or maybe it was that, in the moment where the worst had happened, she’d realized there was still a choice. A choice that was all her own.
Aru slammed her foot on the floor of the car. Thunder rattled outside. The hair lifted on the back of her neck, and when she spoke, her voice might as well have been shot through with lightning.
“I’m just going to do my best! That’s all I got!”
The words seemed to hang in the air, sparkling.
“I don’t know what to do,” said Aru, breathing hard. She wasn’t even sure if she was talking to herself, Baby Boo, the driver…or just the air. “I don’t know if I’m going to make a mistake or if everyone’s going to hate me. I don’t know if it’s going to work. And I don’t even know if it will matter in the end…but Ihaveto try.”
The car jerked to a stop. The seat belt caught Aru, holding her back. Baby Boo let out an irateCheep!Before Aru could ask what was happening, she heard theclick!of the car door unlocking. It swung open.
In the rearview mirror, the driver grinned. Aru knew he had a face, but it was hard to really look at him, as if she could only see him in bits and pieces. Starry dark eyes? Skin the color of midnight? She couldn’t be sure. It gave her a headache to try.
“I guess that’s all any of us can really do, huh?” he asked.
The rain had stopped. The sky had cleared. Straight ahead, the gates of Lullwater Park gleamed. Aru glanced at the clock.
It was11:07a.m.
Hardly five minutes had passed inside the car. But how was that possible? Especially with all the twists and turns he’d made….
“Well, I guess that’s the end of our drive, Aru Shah,” said the driver. “Sorry we couldn’t do this sooner, but, you know, I’ve got a lot of jobs to juggle.” He winked in the mirror. “Anyway, you’ll learn this on your own, but it’s worth telling you. Life is a heck of a battlefield, but I gotta say, the scenery is totally worth it.”
Aru didn’t remember getting out of the car, but the next thing she knew, the door had slammed shut behind her. The driver revved the engine and sped off down the street. Mist still hung in the air and the sunlight had gotten all tangled up in it. When that happens, the world can play tricks on your eyes. Aru now knew that for a fact, because as the car disappeared down the road, she could’ve sworn it wasn’t a car at all.
It was a chariot.
Aru stared at the iron gates of Lullwater Park once again.
The rain had cleared. The world smelled clean and fresh. When Aru looked up, she saw a thread of lightning snake across the sky and then hover there, as if waiting for a signal. She felt a growing static around her, a soft crackling of energy building in her very bones. Aiden’s words floated back to her.
You’ll find a way out of this, I know it.
She grinned. There was no way she was going to let him down.
Cheep?
“I know,” said Aru, gazing down at Baby Boo in Aiden’s backpack. “I can’t walk into a battlefield with two backpacks. One, I’d look like a deranged tortoise—”
BB squawked, and Aru imagined her old pigeon mentor pecking at her and shouting:NOT THE POINT!
“And two, I’m going to need my hands free.”
Baby Boo hooted, pleased with her words. Aru shrugged off her bag and laid it next to a lamppost, then slung BB’s cradle across her back. Even through the pack, the warmth of his feathers reached her. It felt a bit like a hug.
Aru almost walked away, then she paused.
Nothing inside her backpack was useful, but some of those things had been given to her as gifts. She couldn’t leave them like that. Aru opened her backpack and rummaged through the graveyard of candy wrappers until she found what she was looking for—Menaka’s earring, Urmila’s anklet, Jambavan’s claw, and Aleesa’s bangle. Last, her fingers closed around the small, star-shaped blue tile from the Palace of Illusions.
Years ago, the palace had given a piece to both her and Mini.It can give you the part of me that matters most: protection. When Aru squeezed it in her palm, she felt a little stronger.
Aru smiled a little as she stuffed the small treasures deep into her pockets. Then she flexed her hands.
