ou won by trickery!” said Chandra. “I do not accept defeat!”

“Then stop us!” yelled Brynne.

Aru looked back to see Chandra take a step toward them and falter. It was as if his own palace knew that the Pandavas had won fair and square and wouldn’t let him get any closer. He tried using his whip, but it refused to lift off the mirrored floor.

Aru knelt beside Nikita. She was wearing a dress made of blue flowers, all the blossoms closed up as if they were taking a nap.

“Nikita?” asked Aru, shaking her shoulder.

But she wouldn’t move. Mini checked Nikita’s temperature, then held her wrist and looked at her watch to take her pulse.

“I don’t understand,” said Mini. “She seems fine?”

“Let’s just get her out of here,” said Brynne, scooping up the twin.

Nikita’s head drooped, and Aiden rushed to tuck it more securely in the crook of Brynne’s elbow.

“Watch her head,” he scolded.

Rudy stood guard at the threshold. A couple of Chandra’s wives poked their heads in to see before drawing back to let the Pandavas exit.

The rest of the constellations had surrounded Chandra. Their twenty-some-odd faces now looked completely different from one another. Some of them scowled. One of them walked off, throwing up her hands and declaring, “That’s it! I need a bubble bath.” Still more took one look at the Pandavas, bowed their heads in acknowledgment—or was it apology?—and vanished on the spot.

A handful stayed behind to berate their husband.

“You did not tell us we would be rooted to the spot,” spat one of the wives.

“We are the constellations, husband,” huffed another. “Do you think you can pin down a star goddess just because you married one?”

“Do not forget that your power waxes and wanes because of us,” said another.

Chandra wilted a little, and he seemed to shrink—literally—beneath his wives’ angry gazes.

“Now, now, my loves,” he said. “It was merely a precaution! I didn’t actually think—”

“What a novelty,” said another wife, yawning.

“And making them all identical to me?” demanded Rohini. “Tacky!”

“If you ever bothered to look at the rest of us, maybe you could’ve been more creative,” added another star goddess, tears shining in her eyes.

“But, my dearest…” said Chandra, reaching out to Rohini.

She shushed him and turned to face Aru and the others. “My sisters and I grant you full leave of the House of the Moon, with our blessings,” she said, raising her hand.

The green heart in Nikita’s neck grew dim. Rohini had fulfilled Chandra’s promise to deactivate the tracking device.

“I just wanted one of their weapons,” grumbled Chandra. “Make them give me one of their toys!”

“Alas, your hour of power is up, my dear,” said another star goddess.

All of a sudden, Chandra looked different. He seemed younger and smaller, like a teenager. His once-muscular arms now appeared thin and scrawny. There were even some pimples on his chin and across his forehead, and his voice broke when he complained.

One of his wives laughed and patted his head. “Come now, little husband,” she said. “The moon in the sky is no longer full, and you know your strength diminishes with it. It’s time for you to get to bed.”

Chandra pouted. “I hate bedtime! I am a god.”

“Yes, yes,” said another wife, holding his hand. “Now, how about some milk and cookies? Or just milk?”

“Milk and cookies.”

“If you are very good, I will let you sit with me as I review the lunar reports,” said another star goddess.

“But I was going to have all their weapons,” he whined, flailing a hand at Aru, Mini, and Brynne.

Chandra’s antelope vahana trotted beside him, occasionally nudging its lord with its muzzle. The moon god did not turn to say good-bye to the Pandavas, which was just as well.

“I must apologize for Chandra,” Rohini said when he and all the other constellation queens were gone. “Our husband is not usually like the person you just encountered. One might even say that our father’s curse was the best thing that ever happened to him. It made him kinder. He can be thoughtful and secretive, illuminating and inspiring. But for four days of the month, we must handle him when he’s at his worst. The whole house is flipped upside down, all the decor changes, and it can be quite annoying. But we manage.”

“You have to deal with that four days out of every month?” asked Rudy, shuddering.

“Many women are accustomed to such monthly inconveniences,” said Rohini, lifting an eyebrow.

She gestured widely, and the room from which they had retrieved Nikita transformed into a corridor that led them back out to the grand boulevard that linked all the planetary mansions.

“Quickly now,” she said. “There’s only one day left before the Holi celebrations, and this is the path you must take.” She pointed down the avenue.

Aru narrowed her eyes. “Do you know something we don’t?” she asked, then immediately regretted how she’d phrased the question.

“Inevitably,” said the goddess. “But that is for me and my sisters to know, and for you to discover. Now, to exit this place, you must pass by the House of Saturn. Beware the baleful gaze of the god Shani, or you will never make it to the Door of New Day.”

Mini raised her hand shyly. “Um, excuse me…but what’s wrong with Nikita? Why won’t she wake up?”

Rohini frowned. “My husband might have given her a draught to lull her to sleep, for she was in such poor spirits about her sister. A couple of loud noises should do the trick, but I wouldn’t risk it in this place. Wait till you are in the mortal realm.”

The mortal realm? Aru mused. They had to go back there to save the Otherworld? They still had to find the tree, and Nikita was their only hope….

Aru paused on the palace’s front steps before following her friends. In many stories she’d read, there were terrible consequences for looking over one’s shoulder when you were supposed to move on. Someone’s wife would turn into a pillar of salt. Or the wife would become a ghost and float back to the Underworld. Or the wife would—

Why was it always the wives? Rude. Good thing she didn’t have a wife. She stole a glance at Aiden just ahead, gilded in moonlight. He turned to her, his lips quirked in a smile, and Aru quickly looked away. Nope. Definitely no wife.

Rohini’s eyes met hers. “Yes, daughter of Indra?”

“I was just wondering if…Well…you said all this stuff about the path we must take and all that, and I was hoping you could tell me if…um…”

The star goddess seemed to know the question Aru couldn’t bring herself to ask.

“You’re wondering, perhaps, if you are on the right path?” Rohini guessed.

Aru nodded.

“Right is a word invented by humans, little one,” said the star goddess. “We are all stitches in a fabric too vast to comprehend. But perhaps that is a good thing, for it means we are always exactly where we need to be.”

Rohini stretched her hand over the night-dark Boulevard of Stars. For a moment, the world slipped away and Aru saw only the vast shimmering cosmos, and within it, each object, place, and feeling wrought of the myriad decisions of millions of people. It made her head ache just to look at it. Honestly, she could barely comprehend even a corner of what Rohini showed her.

“No matter what happens to us, we have choices,” said Rohini. “We choose how to look at our lives. We choose what we can live with, and what we cannot, and only you can decide.”

Rohini snapped her fingers, and the images faded immediately.

“Now go, Arundhati, named for the morning star,” she said warmly. “For your father has caught wind of the Pandavas’ hunt…and there is much left to be done.”