ncoming!” hollered Brynne.

The girls moved immediately into defense mode.

Aru cast Vajra, and the lightning bolt transformed into a net. A swath of birds was caught in mid-flight. They squawked as they dropped to the forest floor, squirming beneath the mesh.

“Knock ’em out,” Aru commanded Vajra.

With one pulse of the lightning net, the birds fell unconscious. Vajra zipped back to Aru’s side, electrifying Aiden’s scimitars on its way.

Brynne tossed her mace between her hands, looking hungrily at the birds. “Braised, roasted, shredded…I like fowl,” she said.

At that, some of the birds veered away, swooping close enough that Aru felt a breeze on her face.

Aiden leaped in front of Brynne, swirling his scimitars to amplify her wind vortex. It blew through the birds and they cartwheeled away, cawing angrily.

“Adrishya,” said Mini.

Violet light swept up the Pandavas, Aiden, and Rudy, instantly rendering them invisible.

They ducked, weaved, and sidestepped to avoid attack, and the birds whooped and cawed in frustration.

“Now!” said Brynne.

Aru, Brynne, and Aiden channeled everything they could at the flock—concentrated tornadoes, winnowing electrified blades, and bolts of lightning. When a large percentage of the birds had fallen away, Mini replaced the veil of invisibility with a violet shield. The birds that had somehow managed to slip through the cracks were rewarded with a powerful conk to the head when they hit the force field.

The Pandavas regrouped, quickly catching their breath. Aru glanced over at Rudy to see that he was kneeling on the ground, rummaging around in his messenger bag.

“Rudy, what are you doing?” demanded Aiden. “Go hide!”

“No,” he said. The wooden eagle lay before him on the grass. He pulled out glowing stones with a glimmering mesh overlay—something that looked like the heart of the moon, and a chunk of quartz that wriggled as if it were alive. “Garuda thinks it’s broken, but I can fix it.”

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” asked Aiden.

“Of course not!” said Rudy cheerfully.

“Then why—?”

“Because I’m the only chance you’ve got.”

Aiden spun as a furious albatross dove toward him, nearly taking out his eye with its vast wings. Mini’s force fields were getting better with practice, but they could still just barely cover the five of them. A flock of sparrows dove repeatedly at the violet shield until small cracks appeared in it, like ice breaking on a puddle. At one point, a horde of parakeets flew at Brynne, spurring her to leap into the air and shape-shift into a huge blue bird with skinny legs, and squawk, “SURPRISE OSTRICH!”

The parakeets screamed as Ostrich-Brynne kicked them out of the air and plopped back to the ground.

“Surprise ostrich?!” yelled Aru. “That’s the best, most random thing you’ve ever—” She dove behind Mini’s shield as a flock of hummingbirds with needle-sharp beaks zigzagged toward her.

While Aru was on the ground trying to get her bearings, she noticed that only one figure remained silent and still in all the chaos:

Garuda.

He never moved, never flinched, and never took his eyes off the Pandavas. She bet that even when they were invisible, the king of the birds could see them just fine. The fact that he refused to fight sent a chill through Aru.

He didn’t fight because he didn’t need to.

Garuda was invincible…and he was biding his time until he was needed to close the deal. Which meant Rudy had to fix that broken eagle, stat. Aru didn’t think Garuda was the type to make small talk. Or, actually, any kind of talk.

Aru looked over at the naga, who was nodding and…humming along with the jewels.

“This isn’t rearrange-your-playlist time, Rudy!” shouted Aru. “Can’t you go any faster?”

Gogo had just blown away another group of birds, but the sky buzzed with new attackers.

Rudy sat with his knees pulled to his chest while the mechanical eagle perched on his shoulder and croaked its hoarse tune into his ear. He closed his eyes as he worked, rearranging jewels by touch until he’d shaped what looked like a lopsided star. “Just a little more time!” he said. “Keep doing what you’re doing.”

He shoved a sapphire into place, then set the eagle in the middle of the jewels. A wild look of joy spread across his face. “There! Listen! Don’t you hear it?”

Aru tilted her head, expecting something grand. But she didn’t hear anything except the powerful beat of wings just outside Mini’s force field.

She stood up. This is it, thought Aru. A parakeet is going to be the death of me.

“I hear it…” said Mini, a look of awe blooming across her face. She lowered her hand for an instant, and the violet shield flickered out.

“Watch out, Shah!” yelled Aiden.

Holding up a sparking Vajra just in time, Aru repelled a flock of cackling chickadees. At the same instant, she heard something, too. It was a sound that made the whole world seem like poured honey—slow and thick and golden. She glanced at Brynne and Aiden as they spun in perfect tandem. Pollen from the springtime trees dusted them like stars. Even the chickadees didn’t look so awful now.

The eagle was singing a new song. It made Aru think of the slow shift of something vast and celestial, like the rotation of a planet, or the sound constellations made when they settled into the sky at night.

All at once, the birds stopped attacking.

Mini’s force field vanished. Brynne and Aiden lowered their weapons, and Vajra snapped back into a bracelet on Aru’s wrist. A shadow fell over them, and Aru looked up just in time to see Garuda hovering above them. The shiny raven on his shoulder cawed once, then flew off to join the other birds, shouting, “False alarm! False alarm! If we want a fight, let’s watch The Bachelor!”

And with a vast whump! of wings, all the birds vanished into the air. Only Garuda remained. He landed, his eyes pinned to the repaired eagle on the ground. Rudy swayed as its haunting melody washed over him.

“How did you do that?” asked Garuda. His voice was raspy, like he’d yelled too much in battle. It wouldn’t be great for karaoke, but everyone would probably be too scared to tell him so.

“I…I have a good ear,” said Rudy finally.

Garuda cocked his head, as if he weren’t just looking at Rudy but weighing his whole life.

“Do not forget it, little prince,” said Garuda. “May I have that?”

Rudy picked up the bird and handed it to Garuda, his face shining with pride. Rudy had said his family thought he couldn’t do anything important. They were wrong.

At Garuda’s touch, the bird warbled another tune. Aru could only describe it as moonlight melted into song. It wasn’t of this world, and she knew she’d never forget it for as long as she lived.

Then the bird fell silent. As they watched, its segments rearranged themselves until the eagle had transformed into a flat translucent rectangle with a silver streak in the middle, like a moonbeam pressed between glass. Indecipherable writing was scribbled across it.

Garuda’s face grew thoughtful. “I see now,” he said. “You did not break the bird.”

DUH! Aru wanted to yell.

Beside her, Brynne glowered, and even though she remained silent, Aru 100 percent imagined her saying, Oh, now you see?!

“You’re welcome, dude,” said Rudy happily.

Mini elbowed him sharply.

“But you entered the crypt under false pretenses,” said Garuda. “Why were you there?”

“That’s our business,” said Aru quickly.

“It is my business too,” said Garuda. “After all, I am one of the protectors of the treasures that arose from the churning of the Ocean of Milk. And one of those treasures is the Tree of Wishes.” The king glared around at them meaningfully.

Busted, thought Aru.

“Why you?” asked Brynne. Then she promptly added, “Um, no offense, of course. Your Highness.”

The king of the birds took a step back. He extended both arms, held up two talons on his left, and made a wide circle in the air with his right. A couple of moments passed with the five of them standing around and wondering what was happening.

In the space where the king had been waving his arm, an image popped up. A young Garuda flew through the skies, carrying a heavy golden pot. He dove through a dense jungle and then alighted in a shady grove full of huge dark snakes that reminded Aru of those climbing ropes that gym teachers brought out just to torture her.

“I have brought the nectar of immortality as you commanded,” the Garuda in the vision said, eyeing the snakes warily. “Now you must free me and my mother from your servitude.”

The snakes’ soft hissing sounded like laughter.

“Very well, giant bird,” they mocked. “You are free. But perhaps you shall not stay that way. Who knows what power we might wield once we taste the nectar of the gods?”

Garuda hesitated at that, and he held the pot of amrita closer to his body. “It is, as you said, the nectar of the gods. You cannot approach it in an unclean state. Go bathe yourselves, and I will wait here.”

The snakes murmured in agreement, then slithered away toward the river.

Once they were gone, Garuda’s head dropped to his chest. “You are free, Mother,” he said aloud, thrusting the pot into the air. “O Lord of Preservation, I have no intention of sharing this nectar with my brethren, and I have no wish to ingest it myself. What must I do?”

A bright orange light filled the air and the vision faded. Garuda clasped his talons. “That is how I entered the service of Lord Vishnu,” he said. “He rewarded me for resisting temptation when power was within my grasp, and then he took the amrita and buried it in a labyrinth beneath the Ocean of Milk.”

“That’s also how half my family ended up with forked tongues,” muttered Rudy. “Some of the amrita spilled on the grass, and they got super excited, licked it up, and cut their tongues.”

He stuck out his, tapping the end of it. “But not me!”

Although it sounded more like: Bah nah nee!

“Because of how I protected the amrita, Aranyani, goddess of the forests, entrusted me with the task of helping to hide Kalpavriksha,” said Garuda. He lifted the panel of moonlight. “This sacred object can reveal its whereabouts. But that secret is not meant for your eyes. The tree demands too great a sacrifice—it may only be used at the will of the gods.”

“There was a prophecy…” said Mini. “We think it’s about us and the tree. If we don’t find the real Kalpavriksha within two days, the Sleeper’s army could destroy the Otherworld.”

Garuda took his time responding. “If you could use the tree, what would you wish?” he asked quietly. “To win at war? You know nothing of what victory looks like. I regret what I must do, but I cannot let you continue.”

He stretched out his wings, snuffing out the torches and letting the night’s darkness crash around them. Aru was going for her lightning bolt when she heard a loud squawk. There was a flash of tufted gray and an indignant caw that could only belong to one bird.

Boo soared toward them, screeching at Garuda: “NOT MY PANDAVAS, YOU BIRDBRAIN!”