side. Good thinking, Brynne.”
Brynne beamed.
Boo was right—they were more than just the items they fought with. Sometimes a weakness felt like a blade turned inward, but that meant it was sharp enough that when turned around, it could be a weapon. You just had to be willing to face it and adjust your grip. And that made it a magic far more powerful than any celestial weapon.
“So what do we do?” asked Rudy.
“What you do best,” said Mini, pointing at his orange messenger bag. “Cause a distraction.”
A cautious smile slipped onto his face. “All right. I’m on it.”
“We’ll play defense,” said Aiden, looking at Aru.
She nodded and transformed Vajra into a flashing spear.
Mini said, “Lowering the shield in three…”
Rudy reached inside his messenger bag, his face tight with concentration.
“Two…”
Brynne took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Aru reached for her hand, and Brynne squeezed back so hard that Aru temporarily lost feeling in her fingers.
“One,” said Mini.
The force field dropped, and Chandra’s voice rushed into the void:
“Given up already?” he asked, sinking into his pale throne. “How utterly boring…”
Aru’s hair lifted off her shoulders in the sudden wind. Beside her, there was a burst of violet light. Twenty-seven silver arrows with cruel tips hovered in the air above Mini’s hands. Rudy crushed a jewel under his heel, and all the noise in the room got sucked into silence. A beat later, a hypnotic rhythm took over, as lulling as rain on a roof. Even Aru felt the magical music tugging at her senses. On his throne, Chandra reached for his whip, but his gaze became unfocused and he stilled.
“Now, Brynne!” yelled Rudy.
She raised her wind mace high above her head. In a rush of air, she picked up all twenty-seven of Mini’s arrows and sent them hurtling toward the constellations. “Run!” Brynne yelled.
The five Potatoes raced across the room, leaping from one piece of the floor to the other as a bottomless abyss yawned beneath them. The arrows sped toward the constellation-wives. Aru looked up and saw their eyes widening, flicking between the weapons and their dazed husband. They tried to get away from their assigned doors, but their feet were stuck fast to the floor. Fury swept over their faces, and a chorus of different voices yelled out “Chandra!” and “This has gone too far!”
The moon god finally snapped to attention. He whirled around in his seat, appraising his wives and then the arrows as they zoomed closer. Twenty feet away, then fifteen…now ten.
Chandra fused the floor and dove to the fifth door, wrapping himself around the woman in an effort to protect her. Rohini, thought Aru.
Mini snapped her fingers, and the arrows vanished.
Chandra looked up, stunned.
Aru and Aiden kept barreling toward him. In Aru’s hands, Vajra’s weight became more solid. More powerful.
“Open up,” she commanded, taking aim with her spear and letting go.
Vajra smashed into the fifth door and it swung back, creaking loudly. Mist poured out from the room. Aru’s heart beat frantically. Had they made a mistake? Had they somehow gotten everything all wrong?
But when the mist thinned out…
There was Nikita, asleep on the ground.
Bent over, with her hands braced on her legs and heaving with every breath, Brynne grinned at Chandra.
“We win,” she said.
Gods Don’t Nap. Ew.
“You won by trickery!” said Chandra. “I do not accept defeat!”
“Then stop us!” yelled Brynne.
Aru looked back to see Chandra take a step toward them and falter. It was as if his own palace knew that the Pandavas had won fair and square and wouldn’t let him get any closer. He tried using his whip, but it refused to lift off the mirrored floor.
Aru knelt beside Nikita. She was wearing a dress made of blue flowers, all the blossoms closed up as if they were taking a nap.
“Nikita?” asked Aru, shaking her shoulder.
But she wouldn’t move. Mini checked Nikita’s temperature, then held her wrist and looked at her watch to take her pulse.
“I don’t understand,” said Mini. “She seems fine?”
“Let’s just get her out of here,” said Brynne, scooping up the twin.
Nikita’s head drooped, and Aiden rushed to tuck it more securely in the crook of Brynne’s elbow.
“Watch her head,” he scolded.
Rudy stood guard at the threshold. A couple of Chandra’s wives poked their heads in to see before drawing back to let the Pandavas exit.
The rest of the constellations had surrounded Chandra. Their twenty-some-odd faces now looked completely different from one another. Some of them scowled. One of them walked off, throwing up her hands and declaring,