The Chaos Curse (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #3) - Sayantani DasGupta Page 0,90

heard? Cricket is a thing people play with a bat!”

They had given me strange looks but let us go through.

The sangeet performances were all taking place at an outdoor stage in a huge amphitheater that had been set up next to the palace complex. I paced nervously backstage, sure we were going to get caught, sure something was going to go wrong. This was a risky thing we were doing, and since my fight with Neel and of course Naya’s near death, I was pretty sensitive about jumping to conclusions, or putting my friends in danger. I was learning by experience about humility—to believe in myself but also not let my overconfidence swell my head.

“Take a breath, and look up,” Neel whispered. He took my hand in his and pointed at the bright moon, high and dazzling in the sky. “She’s watching over us.”

I looked up and let out a sigh. “I’m glad she’s here,” I said, squeezing Neel’s hand in gratitude.

In the dark backstage, standing so very close to him, I felt something skip in my chest. Neel’s hand reached out and touched my cheek super softly. “Thank you for doing this with me. Thank you for saving me—so many times. Thank you, Kiran, for everything.”

I thought about how badly I had wanted his thanks just a few days ago. Now it felt so totally unnecessary. “You’re welcome,” I whispered. “But as my baba always says, no thank-yous among family.”

Neel chuckled, low and soft. “My mom always said that too.”

“But thanks all the same,” I said. “To you too. For all the stuff.”

I felt rather than saw Neel nod, and I don’t know why, but I felt so cracked and open all of a sudden, I almost cried. I could feel everything—the light, the dark, the stories, the stardust that made up each of us.

But then I was stopped from crying by the awful, fateful words of the sangeet announcer, a dude in a headset and horrible purple velvet suit who waved maniacally in our faces: “You’re on!”

Our mostly rakkhosh secret-resistance-group song-and-dance number started out okay. Everyone step-ball-changed and hip-swiveled in the right order and in the right directions. There was silly eyelash-batting followed by arms-in-the-air-dancing followed by a lot of really literal acting out the words. Like “my heart” (touch my heart) “beats” (flutter my hand on my chest) “for” (hold up four fingers) “you” (make like a sheep and baah on the ground). Get it? Because a female sheep is a “ewe”—which sounds the same as “you.” Anyway, you get the idea.

It was at the second set of step-ball-changes and jazz hands that everything that could go wrong did go wrong. One rakkhosh tripped, knocking off a nearby rakkhoshi’s wig, and then the two dancers were pushing and punching and biting each other as the lyrics of the song were dripping on about how much love was like a shyly blooming flower. Even as they fought, the two dancers kept trying to smile at the audience. “You’re in my spotlight!” “No, you’re in my spotlight!” “You’re blocking me!” they shrieked. And soon other dancers who also felt their spotlights were being blocked got into the fight too, and there were claws scratching and fists flying and all mayhem breaking out even as most of the dancers kept on going, fake smiles on their faces, pretending like nothing was wrong.

The audience started booing long before we were meant to be done—there were still two more sappy verses left about souls and eyes and hearts and lips and ladybugs and who knows what else. “Neel, I think the performance is going downhill fast!” I whispered.

When a fire rakkhosh set his partner’s costume ablaze, it was clear the time had come. “We’d better get going with our plan now!” Neel shouted, waving for the spotlight to move away from the fighting rakkhosh dancers and onto us.

As soon as the giant spotlight hit me, I froze in place, terrified. It hadn’t occurred to me when I was just one of many dancers, but now I could feel Sesha’s presence out there in the audience. His eyes were on me, and I could practically feel them burning my skin. I hoped my disguise was holding—I had a lot of makeup on, not to mention the giant bouffant of a wig. I got so nervous, I couldn’t remember the choreography from this part of the song, so I started doing all the stupid dances I could think of: the running man, the moonwalk,