“This is why we will miss them when they go,” whispered the vanara.
At her touch, a strange whorl of smoke appeared in front of the musician. It took life and shape from the vishakanya’s touches and whispers, becoming a man made of smoke. The smoke being beckoned to the musician, and his face constricted in want. The moment the vishakanya lifted her hand, the smoke being vanished. The musician stood up, a thin line of blood dribbling from his lips. He wiped it away and stared at the vishakanya hungrily. Like an addict. Violent applause burst through the crowd. Vikram’s stomach turned.
The yellow vanara turned to them, his pupils dilated to the point where they had nearly eaten away the whites of his eyes.
“You sees?” he asked. “They can show you what you want the most. You can drown in it.”
The gray vanara laughed. “Ah, desire. Such a poisonous thing.”
Vikram frowned. Where had he heard that? But the thought faded as they were once more dragged through the Otherworld. For all its beauty, there was something unfinished about the Otherworld. Many stalls were in the middle of construction. An orchard with silver saplings lay enclosed by a pearl fence. Even the sky looked sewn together; pieces of the night sky wore strange white scars that were neither clouds nor stars, but thread. Vikram recognized the looks of the place. The city bore the aftermath of war, as if it had grown harder and more wary.
“Who won the war?” asked Gauri. “You said there was a war here.”
“Oh yesses,” said the vanara. “The Dread Queen and her Cold Consort soothed Chaos to sleep, muddled the stars, broke the thread, ate the dark and spits it up!”
Vikram rolled his eyes. Their captors were insane. Which didn’t bode well for whatever would happen next. He steadied his nerves. He had knowledge about a weakness, and that was the greatest weapon he could demand. He’d talked his way from tight spots before and if he had to sell his soul to get them free and take them to the Tournament, he would.
At the bottom of a sloping valley lay a glowing number of pools. The land looked like the earth after thunderstorms, divots of silver puddles lighting up the world. The gray vanara expertly picked his way through the pools. Vikram peered into the pools, and what he saw stole his breath. He saw a forest of glass birds. A hundred suns. A thousand moons. As the reins tugged him forward, he caught a glimpse of the gray vanara. His hands were gripping something glittering. A shining ruby. For a panicked second, Vikram thought the vanara had stolen from him. But then he felt his own ruby grazing his chest from the concealed pocket in his jacket. What was a vanara doing with a ticket to Alaka? His thoughts went no further. The vanaras jumped into a pool. His feet skidded over the edge. A rush of hollow terror filled his stomach and he shut his eyes, bracing for the fall.
7
A BITE OF VENGEANCE
GAURI
I was dying.
I had to be. Hunger like this was impossible. Hunger started threading through my body when we were in the Night Bazaar. It was as if the apple wanted me to bite it. Only the vanaras’ threats kept me from sinking my teeth into the rind. When we jumped through the mirror portal, the hunger became impossible to ignore. Hunger smeared my vision. I hardly saw the ghost city we were led through. Low fires burned in faraway embankments but the streets were empty. Vaguely, I could just make out tattered pennants hanging from lopsided turrets. In the distance, the crooked teeth of a mountain ridge grinned and widened, as if preparing to snap the world in half.
“Home,” sang the yellow vanara. Even through the haze of hunger, I could hear the hurt in his voice. “One day, Queen Tara will return. One day, her penance will be enough.”
I couldn’t remember being shuffled from one place to the next. It was only when I heard dungeon doors clanging shut behind me that I realized we’d been locked inside.
“The trial will be held at first light,” called the gray vanara through the door.
A dank, fetid smell wafted through the room. I bit back the urge to retch. Slabs of wet, gray stone formed the walls. In one corner, an iron tree sprang up to brush the ceiling. It was too thick to break apart the pieces and try to lever the stone slabs apart. Besides, I could hardly stand. Something hung from the iron branches, a bulky cloak probably left behind by some former doomed inmate.
Now that the chains had been removed, I rubbed my neck with one hand, wincing at the swollen and bruised skin. Vikram leaned against a wall, murmuring to himself.
“I think if we can fool them into thinking that we have some ties to the Queen, we can sneak out. You can still fight, can’t you?”
My face must have given away my answer, because he groaned.
“Show me that apple.”
I was too tired to fight, so I held out my hand. The apple’s golden rind had begun to wrinkle like day-old fruit. It looked molten in the stingy light.
“Strange,” he said.
“Is there no end to your wisdom?”
He ignored me. “How do you feel?”
“Like I will die if I don’t eat this apple.”
He considered this. “Then why don’t you bite it? See what happens.”
“Are you mad?”
“I prefer curious.”
“It could kill me!”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “The vanaras kept a tight leash on your throat. You couldn’t have possibly eaten anything with it on.… What if it was to prevent you from eating it?”
“No.”
I couldn’t put into words what terrified me about the apple. I felt as if it were capable of devastating consequences. It had to be, if a group of people was willing to guard it with no hope of its return for almost a hundred years.
“They warned me against eating it.”
“And you trust them?”
“No,” I said. “But I trust eating this fruit even less.”
Vikram stalked off, muttering things that sounded a lot like “stubborn” and “why me” under his breath. I tried to will away the pangs of hunger, but they only seemed to grow louder and more insistent. My gaze fell on Vikram. Exhaustion had stamped bruises beneath his eyes. His face—severe and sharp—drank up what little light filled the dungeon. His body was less skinny than I’d first thought. He was muscular, but trim, with the lean angles of a runner. Nothing in excess. And it made me …
Hungry.
Maybe if I ate him, I’d have the sustenance to fight my way out of here.
Maybe if I ate him, I’d survive.
What was wrong with me? Horrified, I stepped back. But whatever demon possessed me demanded a voice. I croaked out:
“You’d be more use to me dead than alive.”
Vikram’s head snapped up in the same instant that another voice chortled and hissed from the corner of the room:
“I agree entirely.”
I jumped. Cold sweat ran down my back. I looked up to the iron tree standing flush against the cold wall. I thought I’d seen a former prisoner’s cloak hanging from its limbs. But it wasn’t a cloak. It was a corpse. Pale. With only a handful of flesh left to stretch over its bones.