rynne groaned.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said flatly.

Aru turned in a circle, expecting to see a magical tree or, honestly, just magic. But the room was empty. There was nothing! Not even a leaf. Or a note that said At least you were on the right path!

The invisibility glamour had melted off all three Pandava sisters, revealing an angry-looking Brynne and a confused Aru. As for Mini, she seemed…proud.

“Nice work, Mini,” said Brynne, impressed.

Aru gave her a thumbs-up before looking around the room. “You sure it’s okay for us to ditch the invisibility?”

“Yeah, but maybe not talk so loud?” whispered Mini, holding a finger to her lips.

“Oops.” Brynne spun Gogo over her head, creating a wind cyclone that would allow them to speak without being overheard.

Aru was on the verge of walking farther into the room when Rudy lunged forward and grabbed her arm.

“The floor!” said Rudy.

The ground was crisscrossed with yellow and green tiles. The yellow tiles glowed warmly. But the neon green struck Aru as a warning.

“It’s the yalis’ alarm system,” Rudy said. “My father always said to step carefully—the colors tell you where it is safe.”

“I’m guessing we should avoid the green tiles?” said Aru.

“Green?” asked Rudy, frowning. “What green tiles?”

“The ones all around us?” said Aiden, pointing at the floor.

A fleeting look of panic crossed Rudy’s face before he laughed it off and ran his hand through his hair. “Oh, duh. Yeah, no green.”

Aru tracked Rudy’s eyes. He didn’t seem to be looking in the right place.

“What’s the point of an alarm when there’s nothing here to steal?” asked Brynne. “Where’s the tree?”

A soft caw sounded above, and the five of them went silent. Aru glanced up. At first, she didn’t see anything, but then there was a darting movement above her head. She spotted a small creature flitting around the ceiling—a bird no bigger than her palm, circling around and around in the same corner.

“Why would the goddess of the forests hide a bird in here?” asked Aiden.

“Maybe it’s secretly a bird of mass destruction?” ventured Mini, shrinking away from it.

“Or it’s a clue,” said Aru. “Aranyani could’ve hidden a long trail of clues to the tree’s actual hiding place…especially if she thought someone could break into the crypt.”

“Only one way to find out,” said Brynne, turning to Aru.

With Brynne still making sure no one could hear them with her wind cyclone, and Mini keeping up the illusion at the door with Dee Dee, it was up to Aru to retrieve the bird.

“On it,” said Aru.

She tapped Vajra on her wrist, and the lightning bolt sprang out and immediately flattened to form a hoverboard. Aru jumped onto it and arced upward. On the floor below, she saw the bright green tiles still flashing their warning. If she fell, the yalis would come into the vault. Aru didn’t want to imagine those three sets of black jaws stretching wide….

She urged Vajra higher, toward the bird flying in its relentless circle. The closer Aru got, the easier it was to hear the bird’s strange, rough call, which sounded like its syrinx had been ripped out. The noise reminded her of a broken machine. When she saw the thin clear string affixed to the bird’s back and attached to a circular gear on the ceiling, she realized the bird itself was a machine.

The bird was made of pale wood and must have had some kind of mechanism inside that enabled it to squawk and pump its wings. Its beak held a small sapphire, the color of which Aru had only seen in one other object.

Her mother’s necklace.

Aru’s hand automatically flew to the pendant as Dr. K. P. Shah’s words floated through her head. Years ago, a yaksha gave this to me. He promised me it was for guardianship and for finding lost things. I hope this will protect you from whatever danger Suyodhana found on his journey.

“Mom,” whispered Aru.

It was too much of a coincidence not to mean something. As her fingers worked over the three depressions in the necklace, Aru realized that the stone inside the bird’s beak would fit perfectly within one of those hollows. She remembered what Mr. V had said about the Sleeper having lost parts of himself along the way. Her throat tightened with sudden longing…and then misgiving. Whatever that bird was carrying…could it possibly be one of those pieces?

“Speed it up, Aru!” called Brynne from below.

Aru’s pulse raced. She stretched out her arm as far as it would go, the tips of her fingers reaching for the bird. After a few misses, her hand finally closed around it, and she yanked it from the string. Its wooden body felt warm, and its exquisitely carved feathers fluttered as if it were alive.

“Got it…” she started to say, before faltering.

The moment she tightened her grip, images flashed through her mind. She saw a young man pleading, Please! You don’t understand—I have a daughter on the way. I can’t let her inherit a world I am destined to destroy. Tell me what I must do. Please, tell me—

It ended there, but Aru knew there was more to the flashback, which must have been unlocked by the living key. She’d gotten a glimpse of truth—a truth she had wanted so desperately to know.

Her dad had made a wish—for her. And, in the process, he’d somehow lost pieces of himself. Then he’d returned home…only to be trapped in a lamp.

Aru still couldn’t believe her mom could do such a thing.

Neither of her parents were who she thought they were.

In her shock, Aru lost her balance and nearly slipped off the hoverboard. She fumbled with her footing, frantically trying to right herself, when she lost hold of the mechanical bird.

“ARU!”

“Don’t let the bird hit the ground!” she called down.

Time seemed to slow down and speed up all at once. Brynne lunged forward, careful not to touch the green tiles that would summon the yalis. She angled her wind mace upward, directing a stream of air at the wooden bird and steering it toward the others. Aiden and Mini were focused on protecting the threshold, but without Brynne’s silencing wind, the yalis would be able to hear everything.

“Rudy!” ordered Brynne. “Grab it!”

The naga boy hesitated, glancing down at the ground and then up at the wooden bird coming right at him. Just as his hand snatched it, his foot crossed the boundary of light, slamming onto a green tile.

A loud blaring echoed throughout the chamber, ringing in Aru’s ears. Reflexively, she turned Vajra back into a bolt, falling the rest of the way.

She crashed down next to Brynne and Aiden, only for the floor beneath all five of them to give way, plunging them into darkness.