ru was mortified.

Brynne burst out laughing. Aiden and Mini looked at the chakora bird with pity.

Rudy just shrugged. “You know, I had an aunt who married a bird. Huge family drama, actually. At the wedding—”

“But we just met?” blurted out Aru.

This was, probably, the least of her concerns about a bird professing its undying love to her.

“I know,” said the bird, shaking its head. “But you, O glowing one, complete me.”

“Or maybe you’re just missing a lot,” whispered Brynne, tapping her temple.

“I’ve never seen lights as electrifying as you!” declared the chakora.

“Uh, thanks?” said Aru, taking a step backward.

“The world is dimmed in your presence!”

“I—”

“You’ve shocked me!”

“You’re welcome?”

The bird flew toward Aru, and she instinctively raised her arms to shield herself. It alighted on her arm, and Aru was plagued with the thousand things she didn’t know about birds. First, did birds try to kiss people? Was that a thing? She really hoped not.

The bird bumped its forehead against her lightning bolt. Bird eyes are fairly dark and round in the first place, but if it were possible, this bird’s eyes got even rounder.

“Wrought from the heavens themselves,” whispered the bird adoringly.

Vajra shocked it, and a sheen of neon blue shirred over the bird’s feathers.

“Ah!” it declared. “A feisty thing, you are!”

Okay. So, the bird was not in love with her.

The bird was in love with her lightning bolt.

Aru was both relieved and, if she was being honest, a little insulted.

Vajra turned from a towering lightning bolt to a bracelet trying to inch its way up Aru’s sleeve and hide from the moon bird’s affections.

“I’ve been too forward,” mourned the chakora.

“A bit,” said Aru. “Listen, now that I’ve got your attention—”

The bird finally glanced at Aru. It hopped up her arm, looked her up and down, and declared, “Ew!”

“Thanks a lot,” said Aru.

“A mortal!”

Aru did jazz hands. “Surprise!”

“What are you doing here, frightful being?”

“I really don’t think adjectives are necessary—”

“Perhaps it’s a boon that the fair lightning bolt has dimmed so I might bear your visage.”

Mini frowned, then leaned over to Aru and whispered, “I think it’s calling you ugly….”

“Yes, okay, noted!” grumbled Aru. She gestured to Rudy to hold up the rectangle of moonlight. “We need you to decipher this.”

The bird hopped down her arm, tilting its head. “Ah! The Council will be able to read that. I am not yet permitted to learn the vernacular of moonlight, though I recently taught myself English.”

“How’d you do that?” asked Mini.

The bird turned to her, startled all over again as it looked between Mini and the others. “More frightful mortals?”

“I think it’s calling you guys hideous,” muttered Aru, smug.

“I learned English by chancing upon a wondrous collection of documents on the camping grounds. I believe it was called No Fear Shakespeare. Who is Shakespeare? Why did he feel compelled to shake a spear? I may never find out….” The bird sighed wistfully. “The world is full of enigmas.”

“So can you help us, or not?” asked Aiden.

The bird shivered, all its silvery feathers sparkling. “It is forbidden to bring mortals before our Council.”

Brynne swung her mace. “Are you sure about that, bird? Because I’ve never made rotisserie chakora, but I’m prepared to try.”

The faint gleam of Vajra caught Aru’s eye, and an idea took root in her mind. She murmured a silent apology to her lightning bolt who—as if it could read her mind—at first stung her reproachfully, and afterward grudgingly sent a warm prickle of electricity over her skin.

“Then I guess we’ll just have to leave,” Aru said, waving her hand very deliberately.

The bird honed in on her wrist and squawked with alarm. “No! Do not steal the luminous one from me!”

“Then take us reprehensible mortals to the Council,” said Aru.

The bird hemmed and hawed, then flew to a nearby tree branch.

“I shall,” it said, reluctantly. “But only for the sake of my beloved.”

“Good!” said Brynne, taking a step forward.

“Swear it,” said Aru.

She might love the Otherworld, but that didn’t mean she trusted it.

The bird glared at them, then sighed. “I swear on a heart that I’ll lead you to the brightest moonbeam of them all!” declared the bird. “I shall take you to none other than the entrance to the House of the Moon, where all of my kind roost and hold council. We watch over the elevator that belongs to Chandra, god of the moon himself, and the twenty-seven nakshatra constellations who are his wives and queens!”

Twenty-seven wives? thought Aru. And she’d thought poor Draupadi ending up with five husbands was bad.

In her head, she felt Mini’s message, soft and cool as velvet: House of the Moon? Isn’t that where the twins were headed? Maybe Nikita is still there….

“Uh, excuse me…moon bird…. Why did you swear on a heart?” asked Aiden. “Why not your heart?”

“Well, there are plenty of hearts lying around the world—I’ll just use one of those. Besides”—the bird looked at Aru’s bracelet and sighed dramatically—“from the moment I laid eyes upon you, I decided that my heart belongs to you, O illuminating, resplendent, lambent creature.”

Vajra cringed, which registered as a high-voltage electric shock through Aru’s skin.

“Easy, Vajra!” she said.

“Vajra!” cried the bird. “What a lovely name! I am called”—it bowed its white head—“Sohail.”

“Well, Sohail,” said Aru, pointing ahead and making sure Vajra was visible on her wrist, “lead the way.”