I grinned, feeling proud of my accomplishment. “Anytime.”
The nest shifted. The weight of the dead bird hanging off the edge of the nest was too heavy. The bird was falling and taking the nest with it. Kishan grabbed branches on both sides of my head.
“Hold on!” he shouted.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, and clung to him as the nest tilted several feet into the air and snapped in half. Half of the nest fell with the dead bird and the other half—the half we were in—hung precariously from two almost sheared off limbs. My stomach lurched as the nest and everything around it, including the branches holding us, suddenly dropped three feet and hit with a bone-jarring bang. Three of the eggs fell out of the nest and broke on the branches below. We fell into what was left of the nest before rolling to a stop.
“Where’s the Scarf?” I yelled.
“There!”
The Scarf had blown out of the nest and was draped loosely on a broken limb several feet below. It fluttered in the breeze and would probably blow away at any moment.
“Kells, hurry! Grab my hand. I’ll lower you down so you can reach the Scarf.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure! Go!”
He gripped my arm and lowered me. I couldn’t believe he had the strength to do it, but he wrapped his other arm around a branch and held the weight of both our bodies with one arm. It still wasn’t good enough.
“I’ll have to go lower! Can you hold my leg instead?”
“Yes. Come back up for a minute.”
He grunted and pulled me up, throwing me into the air as if I was a sack of groceries and caught me around the waist as I began to fall. I gasped and grabbed his neck again.
“What do I do?”
“First—” he ducked his head and kissed me hard. “Now wrap your left leg around my waist.”
I gave him a look.
“Just do it!”
I swung back and forth, then managed to hook my leg around his waist. Next, he let go of my waist and grabbed my leg. It was frightening, but I trusted that he was strong enough to hold both of us with only one arm. Compared to this, standing on Ren’s shoulders in Kishkindha was child’s play.
I grimaced, wondering what insane things I’d be expected to do in the next two tasks. I mentally willed the branches holding the nest to support us a little bit longer, just long enough for me to grab the Scarf. Realistically, I expected to hear them snap at any second, causing us to plummet to our deaths.
I let go of Kishan’s neck and slowly turned my body upside down, holding the waistband of his pants, then his leg, and then his foot. I mumbled as he lowered me, “Why couldn’t they pick a girl from Cirque du Soleil to do these tasks? Hanging upside down from a broken branch thousands of feet in the air is just too much to ask from a girl in beginner wushu!”
“Kells?”
“What?”
“Shut up and get the Scarf.”
“I’m working on it!”
I stretched farther and heard Kishan groan. “Just another few inches.”
His grip slipped deliberately from my calf to my ankle, causing me to swing out over the green abyss.
Frightened, I yelled Kishan’s name and closed my eyes for a second, swallowed, and swung my body back toward the Scarf. The wind whipped it off the branch. It swirled in the air and shot past me. I grabbed the tail of it at the last second—hanging upside down, blood pounding in my head, the tips of my fingers desperately grasping the Scarf, with Kishan barely holding on for both of us—and had a vision.
The green canopy dizzily swinging back and forth in front of my eyes faded to white, and I heard a voice.
“Kelsey. Miss Kelsey! Can you hear me?”
“Mr. Kadam? Yes, I can hear you!”
I saw the vague outline of a tent behind him. “I can see your tent!”
“And I can see you and Kishan.”
“What?” I looked behind me and saw a blurred image of Kishan clutching the leg of my upside-down limp body. The Scarf dangled precariously from a hooked finger. I heard him shouting as if from a great distance.
“Kelsey! Hold on!”
The vague outline of another person was coming into view.
Mr. Kadam instructed, “Don’t say anything. Don’t let him provoke you into speaking. Just pay attention to every detail—anything could help us find Ren.”
“Okay.”
Mr. Kadam’s medallion was glowing red. I glanced at mine and saw