n theory, getting to work by going down a giant slide sounded great to Aru. In practice, though, it was downright terrifying. Wind howled against her face as she zoomed down what felt like the dark throat of a giant monster. Their hand link had totally broken in the fall, and Aru started flailing. She summoned Vajra in ball form, but it was as if the slide were enchanted against any light. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if she could’ve heard her friends, but an intercom system started blasting through the tunnel, and a voice that she could only assume belonged to the great Vishwakarma—or Mr. V, as Brynne called him—thundered:

“TODAY’S CREATIVE THEME IS MINDFULNESS! WHICH IS TO SAY…I’VE GOT A MIND THAT’S FULL. DO NOT APPROACH MY OFFICE WITH WORTHLESS DESIGN IDEAS LIKE TRANSLUCENT STAPLERS. YES, THAT IS A DIRECT REFERENCE TO YOUR BUFFOONERY, CASEY LIEU. WE NEED TO DO BETTER. DAZZLE ME, PEONS! I’M OUT!”

The voice paused, and then said ominously:

“AND REMEMBER…EVERYTHING IS BY DESIGN.”

At last Aru tumbled out of the chute, landing facedown on shiny blue tiles. Her first thought was Poor Casey. Her second thought was Where the heck am I? She stuffed Vajra in her pocket, pushed herself up on her elbows, and turned her head to look around.

They were beneath a giant stained-glass dome designed to represent a magnified butterfly’s wing, each segment of color outlined in white. The walls loomed sleek and pale, with one of them covered in a display of polished mirrors that bore reflections of different settings: seashores and desert dunes, cloud-wrapped cliff tops and steaming green jungles.

Aru got to her feet and read a little glass plaque on the wall:

THIS BUILDING IS CELESTIAL LEED CERTIFIED. ALL MATERIALS USED HERE ARE 100 PERCENT RECYCLED! THE RECLAIMED WOOD IS FROM THE LOST CIVILIZATION OF KUMARI KANDAM; THE STAINED-GLASS PANES WERE PRESSED FROM THE FORAGED TEARS OF DESPAIRING PRINCESSES; AND ALL THE BORDERS WERE MADE FROM THE DISCARDED BABY TEETH OF LEVIATHANS FROM OFF THE INDIAN COAST. REDUCE YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT/HOOFPRINT/PAWPRINT BY INQUIRING HOW OUR ARCHITECTS CAN ASSIST WITH YOUR BUILDING NEEDS.

Along one of the pale walls was a glass bubble with a receptionist standing inside. He was dark-skinned and handsome. He wore an oversize white tee full of holes, a ginormous pair of bright-red framed glasses, and jeans with so many rips it looked like he’d somehow wrested them from the jaws of a shark.

“Namaste,” he greeted the group, pressing his palms together. “How can we redirect the energy of the universe to”—he hesitated, looking them up and down—“better serve your needs?” His voice tipped up a bit at needs.

Aru looked down at her outfit. Okay…so, it wasn’t exactly couture or anything, but it wasn’t that awful. Or maybe it was, judging from the receptionist’s curling lip. Mini ducked behind Aiden, who defiantly shoved his hands in his pockets. Rudy, who was the only one who didn’t earn a sneer from the receptionist, adjusted his collar. Brynne took the lead and approached the desk.

“We’re here to see Mr. V,” she said.

The receptionist peered over his glasses at her. “Do you have an appointment?”

“Well, no, but you see, we’re…”

Brynne paused. She couldn’t say Pandavas.

“You’re…what?” repeated the receptionist. “Lost, perhaps?”

A cold draft swept through the lobby, indicating that Brynne was not pleased.

Rudy stepped toward the desk and cleared his throat. “Sorry about my assistant,” he said smoothly. “She must’ve hit her head on the fall down the slide. We don’t have an appointment, but Mr. V is expecting me. I’m Prince Rudra of Naga-Loka, and I’ve come to solicit his services. These are my”—he gestured at the others—“entourage. Photographer, cook, assistant, healer. Traveling with a skeleton staff today.”

The receptionist’s eyes widened a bit, and he rose to his feet, quickly bowing. “Oh!” he said. “Excuse me, Your Highness!”

“Please, call me Rudy.”

A hallway materialized in a formerly blank wall.

“I’ll let him know you’re here,” he said. “But I have to warn you, Mr. V is not in the best of moods today.” He motioned to the corridor. “Go right ahead…if you dare.”

The hallway to Mr. V’s office was lined with blueprints revealing all the great cities he had designed, like Dwarka, where the god Krishna once ruled and lived, or the mythical golden city of Lanka, ruled over by Kubera, the god of riches.

“So what’s this Mr. V like?” Rudy asked Brynne in a whisper. “Gotta adjust my attitude, you know? Am I going for charming? Rich? Rich and charming? Kinda weird? But, like, intellectually weird? Or—”

“Silent?” suggested Aiden.

Rudy paused, then tapped his own chin. “Yeahhh. Silent and brooding, like you! Okay, so give me some tips. Do you hate everyone, or is it more like an inward, self-loathing thing?”

Aiden glowered. “I don’t hate anyone, but you’re proving to be the exception.”

“Okay, so not an inward, self-loathing thing….”

Aru couldn’t help herself. A terrible snort-laugh escaped her lips. Rudy caught her eye, and the corner of his mouth lifted.

“Gunky says that Vishwakarma is really creative,” said Brynne. “But that sometimes he can be a little unpredictable—”

At the end of the corridor, a wastebasket flew out of an office, followed by a howl of curses. The five of them flattened themselves against the wall as the trash can rolled to a stop in front of them and caught fire.

“WHY ARE PEOPLE OBSESSED WITH YOU?” yelled Mr. V to someone in his office. “I don’t understand your appeal! Give me some inspiration! None of you are inspiring—”

A loud clattering sound echoed around them. Mr. V must have knocked a bunch of stuff off his desk.

“That’s it!” he yelled. “GET OUT, YOU FLATTENED DISCOUNT ARTICHOKES!”

Aru raised her eyebrows.

What a weird insult.

And then dozens of succulents emerged from the office doorway and rolled down the hall. Some of them looked slightly charred. One of them quivered as it sped faster and faster away from Mr. V.

“Huh,” said Aru, staring at the little plants. “They do kinda look like discount artichokes….”

Rudy took a few tentative steps toward the office door, and all of a sudden the marble floor under his feet lit up, veins of gold brightening and casting light onto the walls.

“WHAT IS IT?” screamed Mr. V. “COME IN HERE WHERE I CAN SEE YOU!”

“Maybe we should send our proposal by email instead?” asked Rudy, inching backward.

Brynne shoved him forward. “It was your idea to be the front, and we need that key!”

Aru cast an eye toward the door, her heart beating loudly in her ears. What if Vishwakarma refused to make the key? They’d have no way of opening vault A7 in the crypt and hopefully learning the whereabouts of the wish-granting tree. Then again, if Mr. V decided he hated them, they might never even make it to the crypt.

“I need a second!” said Rudy. He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. “Happy thoughts, people. Tell me some happy things.”

“I perfected my macaron recipe,” offered Brynne.

“Cool, I’ll take it.” Rudy looked at Aiden, who glared at him in return. “Okay, I’ll skip you.”

He turned to Mini. “Got anything?”

“I, um, well…” Mini turned red. “There’s about forty thousand bacteria in the human mouth? And the human intestine is twenty feet long, and—”

Rudy wrinkled his nose. “All right, let’s stop there. I’m going in.”

Inside the office, floor-to-ceiling windows let in the sunlight and looked out on skyscrapers in different cities: Mumbai and New Delhi, New York City and London. In the corner of the room, next to a golden potted plant, sat a pure-white goose. It honked when they entered and Rudy reared back, probably still traumatized from their earlier encounter in the vimana. But the bird didn’t leave its nest.

At the center of the room, seated behind a huge mahogany desk with a single sheet of paper on it, was the god of architects and craftsmen, in a charcoal-gray suit. Mr. V had four heads, each one sporting a neat white beard, black hair with silver stripes at the temples, and rimless half-moon glasses perched on the tip of the nose. His skin looked like bronze, and his four arms swiveled around him in an agitated manner. In one hand, he wielded a fountain pen. In another, a highlighter. In the third, a golden hammer, and in the fourth, a slim black ruler.

“I understand you have a proposition for me, Princeling,” he spat, fixing the eyes of Head Two on Rudy.

The other heads didn’t follow suit. One stared at the paper. The third gazed out the window, sighing. And the fourth narrowed his eyes at Aiden, Brynne, Aru, and Mini. Aru shrank back. The last thing she wanted was Vishwakarma figuring out that they were Pandavas.

“Yes, I do,” answered Rudy, pitching his voice lower.

An immediate change took place in the snake boy. His grin didn’t waver, but he stood up straighter and arched his eyebrows as if he’d just heard something supremely unimpressive. “My father’s kingdom has long loved your exquisite designs, and he—”

Vishwakarma leaned back, plunking his feet up on his desk. “Let me guess…wants a golden kingdom?” he said with a sneer. “Because I’M ALL OUT.”

“No—”

“A flying swan chariot with gilded wings and eyes of jet?”

“No—”

“Then what? Spit it out! You’re wasting my invaluable brain energy on guesswork!”

“A key,” Rudy sputtered.

Vishwakarma stared at him for what seemed like ages. At last he blinked, then threw his head back and laughed.

“A key?” he howled. “What am I to make next? Roombas?” Mr. V paused. “You know, that might not be a bad idea. They’re strangely charming…. Perhaps they could be a sort of hybrid pet–device. It would need some improvements, of course. It has no capacity to defend itself, so fangs are critical. A tail could also serve as a mop. And then—”

“We need a key that can unlock all doors,” cut in Aru. “Including magical and enchanted ones.”

Mr. V paused and turned to scrutinize them a little more closely. “Who did you say your companions were?” he asked Rudy.

“I didn’t,” said Rudy casually. “They hardly matter. My entourage changes daily.”

Vishwakarma’s fourth head craned its neck toward Aru. “That one looks familiar.”

“She gets that a lot,” said Brynne. “Very, uh, generic face.”

Aru cut her eyes at Brynne, who gave her a grin and a tiny wave.

“Oh, come now, Four,” Head One said. “It’s just a little girl.”

The fourth head scowled. “I don’t trust little girls.”

“Well, now you just sound like a curmudgeon,” said Head One. “What do you think, Two and Three?”

“Fanged roombas…” the third head said dreamily.

“We’ve lost Number Three,” Head One said with a sigh. “I, for one, am thinking about the utility of such a key. Would it be used to free imprisoned maidens? Steal treasure? Hide cookies? I do like cookies….”

“I’m known for building cities, Princeling,” thundered Head Four. “Palaces! Things of beauty! Not hardware! What does a naga prince want with such a key, anyway? It would be a hungry, curious thing indeed.”

Rudy cleared his throat and crossed his arms. “In the realm of Naga-Loka, we have an extensive underground tunnel system where we store our jewels and treasures. We’ve had these for at least”—he flipped his hand dramatically—“four millennia. Sadly, we sometimes find ourselves locked out of our own vaults or forgetting the passwords. A key like yours would solve the problem.”

For the first time, Vishwakarma looked troubled. He stroked his four chins with his four hands. Then his third head ducked so that one of the hands could scratch the tip of his nose.

“I have not taken such a commission in some time,” said Head One. “I suppose it’s not an outrageous request, given your status as a naga prince. And it would be within my power to grant….”

Mr. V raised his four hands. When he twisted them, the room went completely dark. A glowing orb appeared in the air, rotating slowly before darting around like a laser pointer and shifting into different forms—from orb to shovel to key and back to a ball of light.

It was unlike any key Aru had ever seen. Vajra bobbed up from her pocket, as if curiously inspecting this new magic. Vishwakarma’s fourth head stared hard at the glowing ball, and Aru quickly shoved Vajra out of sight. Her lightning bolt shot her with a quick, disgruntled zap!

“Using a key like this will not be easy,” mused Mr. V. He reached up, caught the ball of light, and spun it on his palm. It shifted into a slithering snake, and then a fish with rainbow scales. “A key that unlocks all things has to be able to see what it’s doing. It is, in a sense, alive, and it might demand something in return for its services.”

Mr. V glared at them with all four pairs of eyes when he said, “Are you willing to pay the price?”