ru held her breath as that familiar weightless sensation of the portals swept through her. Bright light washed over her face, and when it finally cleared, Aru stumbled forward, still determined to keep her eyes shut. They were going to Amaravati, the capital of the heavens! It was going to be drenched in terrible divine light, and what if Aru found herself standing in a beautiful arena surrounded by huge, angry gods and—?

“Gross!” said Nikita.

Wait, what?

Aru opened her eyes.

Her first glimpse of heaven wasn’t the awe-inspiring, fall-to-your-knees-puny-mortal landscape at all…but the inside of an office. She blinked, staring around her. It looked like an administrative building. No windows, just thick walls made of graying storm clouds, and fifty or so desks scattered about. Down one of the halls, Aru could hear raucous shouting.

“This can’t be Amaravati!” said Aru.

Aiden coughed, pointing up at the sign splayed on a wall right above them.

MARUTS OFFICES

PROTECTIVE SERVICES AND

STORM POLICE OF AMARAVATI

“Police?” squeaked Mini. “They brought us straight to the police station? Do we need a lawyer? Are we going to be allowed a phone call? Should I call my mom?”

Aru patted her pocket reassuringly. Vajra had dived inside to hide and was currently a trembling ball of lightning. Beside her, Brynne had started to pace, and Aiden kept twisting the lens off Shadowfax.

“Now, children,” said Boo, even as he fluttered anxiously above their heads. “I know that meeting with the crisis manager might be stressful, but— Hey! Come back here!”

Sheela and Nikita had started backing toward the portal, their hands tightly entwined. Sheela’s normally serene—if not a little out-of-it—disposition had been replaced with fear. And Nikita seemed no better. Her flower crown looked ten times sharper, with an added layer of wicked black thorns, and her eyes kept darting around the room.

“Whoa, what’s wrong?” asked Aru.

“Protective services?” said Nikita. “We don’t need them! We don’t want to go back—”

“Go back where?” asked Mini.

“We’re Pandavas now,” said Nikita sharply. “You can’t just send us back!”

“No one’s sending you anywhere,” said Aiden gently. “Why don’t you explain what you’re talking about…?”

Just then, on one of the desks, a voice crackled from a little monitor that was shaped like a storm cloud.

Scrrritch. “Uh, hey, this is Seven paging Forty-Two. Yeah, we got a report about two missing kids from the Otherworld Foster Care System? You hear anything about that?”

Two missing kids? Aru looked over at the twins. Sheela hid her face against Nikita’s shoulder, and Nikita’s flower crown was now a weapon of war.

“We’re looking for a pair of twins, dark-skinned, speak English and Guyanese Creole, surname self-reported as ‘Jagan,’ but possibly inaccurate—”

Nikita snapped her fingers, and a thick snakelike vine shot toward the desk, toppling the monitor to the floor. The audio cut in and out, but Aru still caught most of it:

“Parents…unable to be contacted…Our records show…deported to Guyana three years ago—” Scrrritch! “Covering east and west perimeters now…”

Boo alighted on Aru’s head. Aru, Brynne, Mini, and Aiden stared at the twins, not sure what to say. No wonder the girls were on edge and didn’t want to answer questions about their parents.

“You can’t report us!” yelled Nikita. “We’re Pandavas, too, and we have a right—”

“No one is going to report you,” said Brynne.

Nikita looked up at her, shocked. “You’re not?”

“You’re with us now,” said Mini.

Boo hopped angrily around Aru’s scalp. “What a preposterous notion that you would be taken from my care! You’re mine now. Do you understand?”

“Welcome to the brood,” said Aru, grumpily smoothing down her hair.

“We’re not hens!” cried Nikita.

“You must have been manifesting powers since the beginning,” said Boo to the twins. “And no one thought to inform anyone?”

“We tried, and so did our foster parents…. They were really nice, but they had a lot of kids to look after,” said Sheela, lifting her head from Nikita’s shoulder. “Anyway, the OFCS thought they were lying, and so when I saw you guys in my vision, we…we ran away. We thought once we joined the Pandavas, things would be different.” Her face fell. “We thought maybe we’d be able to talk to our real parents again.”

A loud crash echoed from a hallway to the left.

“The police are coming to get us, aren’t they?” asked Sheela softly.

Aiden moved in front of the twins. He turned his wrist, and Aru saw the sharp gleam of his scimitars poking out from the ends of his sleeves. “I don’t think so,” he said.

Aru, Brynne, and Mini joined him to form a protective wall. Aru snuck a glance behind her. Nikita and Sheela were huddled together, but for the first time, the thorns spiking out of Nikita’s crown looked smaller, and when she met Aru’s gaze she didn’t look haughty or furious…but shocked.

“I’ve never heard of Maruts,” whispered Mini.

Aru turned her attention back to the hallway.

“They’re minor storm deities tasked with keeping rabble rousers out of the heavens,” said Boo, from the top of her head.

Mini bit her lip. “I hear they’re super-violent and aggressive—”

The floor began to tremble. The shouts grew louder.

“Yeah, they’re the worst,” whispered Brynne. “Gunky and Funky can’t stand being around them.”

Aru winced. Gunky and Funky were Brynne’s uncles and literally the friendliest couple in the world. If they didn’t like the Maruts, then the storm deities had to be seriously awful.

Just then, a stream of hulking warriors wearing gold-plated armor and pointed helmets marched into the room, their daggers sparking with electricity. One by one, they lined up against the walls, only their grim mouths showing under their visors. On each of their golden breastplates was a number from two to forty-nine. The last Marut to enter wore number one. He strode toward the group, even as Brynne, Mini, Aiden, and Aru closed ranks in front of the twins.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Boo demanded from the top of Aru’s head. “I’ll have you know that I am a member of the Council of Guardians, and we have been summoned for an appointment!”

Number One clicked his heels together. “Due to the circumstances, the crisis manager requested that you be held here until she is ready to see you, for she has much to discuss.”

Aru’s stomach sank even lower. Behind her, she sensed that the twins were on edge. They hadn’t yet used their telepathic Pandava link with Aru, but she could feel their anxiety like a candle flame held too close to her skin.

“While we wait,” said Number One, “my men and I have a question.” His head turned as he regarded the line of them. “Which one of you is the daughter of Indra, king of the gods and Lord of the Heavens?”

Aru held her breath. Had they pegged her as the sister that would ruin everything?

“Why do you wanna know?” demanded Brynne.

“It’s a simple question,” said Number One gruffly.

Aru imagined saying ME! with the same force as Lady Éowyn in that scene from Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers when she flung back her helmet and shouted, “I AM NO MAN!”

Instead, she sounded like a hamster choking on air. “Me!”

Beside her, Brynne cringed. Even Mini, who could usually fake a smile, looked like she wanted to sink into the ground.

“We have something to ask you,” said Number One.

Aru waited.

A second later, the Marut pushed up his visor to reveal eyes sparkling with excitement. “Can I fight on your side in the war?”

“I was gonna ask that!” said one of the other Maruts.

“Too slow, bro,” said Number One.

In a rush, all the Maruts started lifting their visors and breaking ranks.

“Pandavas! Real Pandavas!” shouted Number Forty-Three. “Yo, this is so sick—”

“Dude, I’m so hyped for war,” said Number Thirty-One. “Like, so hyped. This place is way too peaceful and harmonious. Ugh.”

Someone else hollered, “Yeah! This party sucks!”

A sword was thrown to the floor, where it sparked loudly. The Maruts went silent, stared at the sword, and then started cheering.

“YAY! WAR!”

Brynne leaned over and whispered, “I think I know why Gunky and Funky said they were the worst….”

Behind Aru, the twins relaxed. Boo flew to Aru’s shoulder, clucking in disdain. “I despise young deities,” he muttered darkly. “I am going to go look for the crisis manager and try to preserve what few brain cells I have after listening to them for two seconds.”

And with that, he flew off.

“Who’s the Daughter of Death?” asked another Marut.

Mini, confused, raised her hand slowly. Instantly, a knot of fans swarmed her.

“Can I fight with you?” asked one of them. “I’m super-tough. Check out my tattoos!”

“Uh, okay?” said Mini.

One Marut approached Aiden and flexed his bicep, where the words LEDGENDS ONLY appeared wrapped in inked barbed wire.

Aiden sucked in his breath sharply.

“It has that effect on people,” said the Marut. “Wait till you see this one.” He lifted his other arm, where the words YOUR A BEAST stretched across his forearm.

Aru wasn’t quite sure how much time they wasted—sorry, spent—with the Maruts. It seemed the police didn’t have much work to do, and so their days were consumed with spontaneous push-up contests (Brynne won today’s), eating contests (Brynne also won), and secretly watching reruns of The Great British Bake Off (which Brynne insisted she could win).

While everyone else mixed with the Maruts—Mini offering medical advice, Aiden explaining how there was more to photography than selfies, Nikita fixing their outfits, and Sheela reading palms—Aru walked to the single window that looked out over Amaravati. It afforded a perfect view of the celestial city hundreds of feet below. The metropolis was divided into cloud islands connected by sky bridges. On one island, Aru saw an expanse of bright greenery that had to be Nandana, the sacred grove of the heavens. A bridge bearing the sign I-85N CONSTELLATION BLVD/LUNAR MANSIONS disappeared into a shimmering fog.

Amaravati was a place rich with splendor. But it wouldn’t be there at all if the devas hadn’t won back their immortality by churning the Ocean of Milk. They couldn’t do it alone, so they’d asked the asuras for help, promising to share eternal life. But in the end, they’d broken their promise, and people got hurt. People like Lady M, who had just wanted to be remembered for her true self. And even Takshaka, the serpent king who hated the Pandavas because in another life they’d set fire to his forest home and killed his wife.

Those two hadn’t been wrong in their anger. They just hadn’t been right in how they dealt with it.

All of it made Aru uneasy.

She was still looking out the window when Boo flew through the doorway.

“She’s coming!” he squawked.

Instantly, the Maruts scrambled. Sleeves were rolled down, conversations abandoned, helmets shoved into place. Within seconds, all forty-nine were flattened against the wall, serious and silent once more.

Aru wasn’t sure what to expect of a “crisis manager,” but it certainly wasn’t what stepped across the threshold: an apsara with slender, dark limbs, wearing a jumpsuit made out of starry fabric.

She flung up her hands, one of which held a blinged-out tablet. “Helloooo, Pandavaaaas! I’m Opal. You’re welcome in advance. Before we get started, let’s snap a quick BTS, shall we?”

“What’s that? A disease?” asked Mini.

“It means behind the scenes,” said the apsara, swiveling around to take a selfie with the Pandavas.

She caught Aru in the middle of saying, “HUH?” which probably made for an awful picture.

Opal quickly edited the photo. “Adorbs. We can use that for a little day in the life promo. Just think of what we’re doing as curating reality.”

“Then it’s not reality,” said Aiden flatly.

Opal looked up, catching sight of the camera on his hip, and smiled. It was a beautiful but weirdly hollow expression.

“Well, if you’d prefer reality, how’s this? You’ve landed the heavens in a serious crisis, and you do not want to face the wrath of angry gods, trust me. Right now, half the Council of Guardians is on an off-the-grid mission to Lanka, where they’re trying to decipher the prophecy before the five days are up. The other half is here, trying to keep everything from becoming a marketing nightmare. A lot of people heard about the commotion in the magical dead zone, and now they want to know what this prophecy is about, so we’re spreading word that it was nothing more than a false alarm.”

“We can help!” cut in Brynne. “Just tell us how to fix it—”

“Oh no, no, no,” said Opal with a laugh. “Sweet, but no. As if anyone would trust you with a mission after that last botched plan. You have to keep training and stay out of sight. So leave it to me to salvage the only thing you’ve got left.”

Opal’s teeth were so bright, Aru caught a rainbow sheen at the edge of her wide smile when she said, “Your image.”