re you willing to pay the price?

As if that were a real question. With each passing minute the Sleeper grew more powerful. And if they didn’t find the real Kalpavriksha, he could win the war. Aru only had to shut her eyes for her mind to conjure images of the Otherworld laid to waste. The beautiful tents of the Night Bazaar ripped open like sacks of grain. The heavens on fire. Her friends and family…gone.

“Yes,” she said.

Vishwakarma bowed his heads, and the walls of the office drew closer together.

“Very well,” he said from all four mouths. “In this part of the world, payment must be made in advance. If you can capture the key, it is yours.”

The walls shimmered, so bright they were almost impossible to look at. Aru shielded her eyes, blinking rapidly. When she could open them again, she was in an entirely different room.

The god had vanished, and so had the walls and the windows with their views of distant cities.

Aru looked down to see cold rock beneath her feet.

The five of them had been plunged into an area that resembled a crypt. It was lit by a handful of candles mounted in niches of the rock wall, and slick, leafy vines netted nearly everything. When the candlelight flickered across them, it almost looked as if the plants were moving.

Aru detected a slight flutter in the corner of her vision. Was that a moth? No, she realized as she looked closer. It was a small white flower hopping along a vine.

At the very center of the room stood a glass column. And within it hovered the shimmering orb containing the golden key.

Brynne took one look at the column and raised her mace. “We just have to break it and—”

“No!” cried Mini, grabbing hold of Brynne’s arm. “If we do that, Mr. V will know we’re Pandavas.”

Brynne frowned momentarily before flashing a grin. “Then we’ll try brute force.”

She walked over, revved up her arm, and punched the glass. Inside, the key trembled but didn’t move. Something else did.

From overhead came a terrible creaking sound.

“You broke the room!” exclaimed Rudy.

Aru looked up. The ceiling bore the likenesses of Vishwakarma’s four faces, all of them carved from stone and fixed with identical stern expressions.

“Can I be excused?” called Rudy loudly. “I’m not the one paying for the key—they are!”

“You’re the one who wanted to be part of this quest,” said Aiden.

“Yeah, quest, not fatal shopping experience!”

“I’ve seen the Kingdom of Death,” said Mini. “It’s not that bad.”

Rudy whimpered, calling out, “Helloooo?!”

Something broke off from the ceiling, clinking on the ground like a pebble. Aru crouched to pick it up…. It was a pebble. More and more pelted down on them, accompanied by an eerie groaning sound, like someone was moving a heavy boulder into place.

“Guys…” said Aiden. “Is the ceiling collapsing?”

Sure enough, the four faces of Vishwakarma had slowly begun to descend. The glass column holding the golden key shrank little by little, and Aru realized what Mr. V had planned for them:

Death by architecture. He was going to squish them.

“Better he finds out who we are when we’re alive and not dead,” said Brynne, raising her mace once more. She looked up at Aru and Mini. “Any other ideas?”

“I just…” Aru started, then paused.

Something struck her, and it wasn’t a rock. The key in the center of the room…The falling ceiling…The way Vishwakarma’s voice had twisted when he spoke of the key as alive…

“What?” yelled Aiden, but then the ceiling groaned once more and Aru lost her train of thought.

“We don’t have time to talk! Let’s break the glass!” said Brynne, baring her teeth.

Mini nodded, sweeping Dee Dee to the right. Her Death Danda turned into a long, blunt hammer. Aru flexed her fingers, and Vajra shot into her hand as a lightning bolt. Aiden pushed a button on Shadowfax, and the camera folded up and disappeared as two long, shining scimitars grew from the bands around his wrists.

Beside them, Rudy’s eyes widened. He awkwardly patted the front of his jacket. “Huh,” he said. “I think I missed the memo about carrying a concealed weapon. Can I borrow one?”

“Can you even fight?” demanded Brynne.

“Um, yes,” said Rudy, holding his hand to his heart. “I am a trained prince of my realm, after all.”

Aiden pulled a short dagger from his satchel. He tossed it to Rudy, who reached out, failed to catch it, and scrambled to pick it up off the floor.

“How do I—?”

“Pointy end out!” yelled Brynne.

Brynne waved her wind mace overhead, creating a funnel of air, and volleyed it at the column of glass. The wind bounced back, swiping her feet out from under her and sending her sprawling against Aiden. He caught her right before she hit the floor.

Above them, the ceiling loomed closer. Close enough that Aru could see the details in the stone faces and smell the rock, which had an iron tang like dried blood. Terror shot through her veins, but Aru pushed it down.

Not today, Shah, she told herself. You are not going to be squished like a bug by a giant NOSE.

She aimed her lightning bolt at the crystalline column and let Vajra loose. With a loud crackle, the bolt sparked against the glass. Prickles of light shot up only to spin outward. The column was unscathed.

Aiden frowned, then charged the column himself, his scimitars flashing. His blades landed with an empty thud. Nothing. Mini slammed Dee Dee against the pillar. Violet light burst through the room, but still the enchanted cylinder wouldn’t break.

The stones from above fell faster. Now the ceiling was hardly five feet above their heads. Rudy held his hand over his perfectly coiffed hair and measured the distance between it and the descending ceiling. “Shouldn’t you guys be doing something?!”

Brynne growled and whirled on him. “We’re trying to break this thing! If you have any smart ideas, feel free to chime in!”

She charged the column once more with Aiden and Mini right beside her, but Aru hung back. “Shah!” called Brynne. “Get over here!”

But Aru knew that column wasn’t going to budge. Against all their powers, it remained as pristine as ever. And yet…off to the side that small white flower danced and hopped, skipping from vine to vine as if it were…

Alive.

“Forget about breaking the glass!” hollered Aru. “It’s not the real key!”

“What are you talking about? It’s right there,” insisted Brynne.

“It’s a trick,” said Aru.

She ran over to the small white blossom, which had jumped to a leaf at Aru’s shoulder level. She reached out and gently cupped the flower in her hands. It lay still in her palms for a moment before a flare of light shot through the petals. Luminescence skittered up the vine, moving from the top all the way down and disappearing into the ground…..

“The roots,” said Aru. “The key is in the roots!”

The ceiling kept descending. Brynne glared at it. “You work on the roots, I’ll take care of the ceiling,” she said.

In a flash of blue light, she transformed into a sapphire-colored elephant kneeling on the floor. Her broad back held up the ceiling.

“Can’t—do this—forever,” she managed.

Aru gripped the plant tightly. She felt a sudden pressure around her waist and looked down to see Brynne’s trunk was wrapped around her.

I’ve got you, Shah.

Aru smiled. “I know,” she said aloud. “Mini, Aiden, stay alert. Whatever’s at the base can change and come alive, so you guys have to be ready. On my count…One, two—”

On three, Aru and Brynne yanked out the vine. The root ball emerged from the dirt, glowing intensely, and on the bottom of it, something thrashed and twisted. The light was so bright, Aru almost couldn’t see it, but eventually she caught fluctuating shapes—a silver fish turned into a silver bird turned into a silver key. An impossible key that fluttered like a heartbeat.

The vine wrestled with Aru, flapping like a possessed octopus.

“Grab the key!” she called to the others.

Mini lunged for it, but the tiny thing wriggled out of her reach. She dove again, trying to pluck it off the roots, but the key was too tricky.

A clang sounded, and out of the corner of her eye, Aru saw Aiden leap forward, his scimitars blazing. He sliced off the root ball with one sharp move. The strange plant howled and flopped to the floor.

Aru reached forward and snatched the key off the ground just before Brynne collapsed with a groan, changing back to human form, and the rock ceiling finally gave way.

There was a flash of violet and a yelp of surprise from Rudy as a translucent dome covered the group, protecting them from the falling rubble. Mini stood with her Death Danda pointed upward, a triumphant look on her face. An expanse of afternoon sky stretched above her.

Rudy turned his face to the light, gazing up at Mini in shock. “You made this shield?” he asked. “If you hadn’t, I could’ve died in, like, a second.”

Mini lowered Dee Dee, her smile spreading wider. “I don’t think it would’ve happened that fast,” she said. “Eventually you might have suffered from asphyxiation—that’s when you suffocate.”

“Um, thanks?”

“You’re welcome!” said Mini brightly, before adding, “Brynne protected us, too.”

Aiden crawled over to make sure Brynne was okay. She gave him a thumbs-up. “Cleverness saves the day again,” said Brynne, nodding with genuine appreciation.

Aru closed her fingers around the cool silver object in her palm. As she did so, she felt as if she were seeing the past few months in a new light. Something had begun to shift among the group. She felt the weight of her friends’ reliance on her, as if she were supposed to know what to do when she was just trying to figure it out like the rest of them. Brynne was right that Aru usually came up with the plan, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be in charge of what they did. That much trust…it felt like a burden. What if she let them down? Aru thought of Opal’s words: Or you! The flesh-and-blood daughter of the Sleeper…

Aru wanted to respond, but just then a voice thundered above them:

“YOU’RE PANDAVAS?”