Aru Shah and the City of Gold - Roshani Chokshi Page 0,55

exploded behind Aru’s eyes. When her vision finally cleared and she looked up, it was like she was staring out from the bottom of a deep pit. Hundreds of feet above them, the milk-white cow poked her head into the hole.

“Jeez, I hate to do this to ya,” she called down. “But, ya know…tough tomatoes.”

Aru tried again to go for her lightning bolt, but her arms were yanked backward. Heavy silver chains magically attached themselves to her wrists and dragged her down into a chair. The next second, a huge silver spoon appeared in her hand, the handle at least three feet long.

“What the—?”

Aru looked around, confusion turning swiftly to horror. All five of them had been shackled to a chair of their own, and each held a huge spoon. Their chairs were brusquely pushed up to a giant metal table, and a cauldron appeared in the middle.

Aru swiveled her neck to see hundreds of other “diners” in the same predicament. They thrashed in their seats, their jaws dripping black saliva, their faces so thin that their cheekbones and tendons stood out. The hair had fallen off their scalps. Some of them were screaming, a raspy sound of terror. The other tables also held cauldrons brimming with a shimmering liquid.

Vajra frantically threw off sparks of electricity, but the weapon was now encased in a little net dangling from an elastic loop around Aru’s elbow.

They were trapped.

“How do we get out of here?” asked Brynne, struggling against her restraints.

“You shouldn’t have stolen!” yelled Aru.

“I was trying to help!” retorted Brynne.

“Stop yelling!” said Mini. “We have to figure this out—” But the rest of Mini’s words were cut off as she winced in pain.

Kara sighed, slumping forward. A slit appeared in the middle of her chest, leaking a silver liquid. It dripped onto the tabletop and formed a thin stream that ran up the side of the cauldron.

“What’s happening to her?” asked Aiden, panicking. “Aru, Brynne—”

But whatever else he was going to say was choked off in a scream as a slit materialized in his own chest. Aru looked at Mini and saw an identical line forming.

Across the table, Aru’s eyes met Brynne’s, and she said, “We’ll figure it out, it’s going to be—”

Then Aru groaned, crumpling forward. She would have grabbed the bottom of her neck if she weren’t restrained. It felt like someone had taken a hot knife to her skin, and yet this pain was different…it seemed to go deeper. As if her soul had been covered in paper cuts.

“Aru!” cried Brynne.

She thrashed. Gogo glowed bright blue at her throat, but her wind mace could not save her.

A woman’s voice echoed in the space around them.

My poor thief, you must pay the price for trying to steal from me. Your heart was not strong enough. Look at the cost of what you have done, daughter of the god of the wind.

“Help!” yelled Brynne. “Please!”

What shall you do?

Aru tried to respond, but she felt herself…dissolving. Being erased. Her very soul was flowing out of her in a thin stream of silver that hit the metal table. Her consciousness slipped away…. She was…

Huh.

That was strange.

She was seated at a table with people she did not know. There was a girl with chin-length black hair and glasses, her head lolling to the side. A slumped-over girl with polished curls. A boy with wavy hair, his dimples flashing even as he grimaced. And last, a girl with wide shoulders and a grim-set mouth that was roaring at someone.

Who was she?

It didn’t seem to matter anymore.

Aru was the silver liquid on the table. She was in the cauldron, mixing with the silver soul-streams of the others. And then…

Darkness.

Brynne Tvarika Lakshmi Balamuralikrishna Rao was a lot of things.

She was an amazing cook, and a fierce wrestler. She had an awful temper and once tried to crack a cinder block just by barreling into it headfirst. Granted, she got knocked out for an hour, but the cinder block definitely had a line through it, so that was pretty much a win. Brynne was even fairly decent at playing the harp, though she hated admitting that her uncles, Gunky and Funky, had signed her up for lessons on that instrument.

But if there was one thing she was known for, it was never giving up. She absolutely, flat-out refused.

It wasn’t even a thought worth entertaining up until this very second. Because, for the first time, Brynne was completely alone.

Her arms were shackled to the armrests of her chair,