Page 101 of Aru Shah and the End of Time

“Why couldn’t your mom have dated a nice doctor instead?”

“Why does it always have to be a doctor?”

“I dunno,” said Mini, shrugging. “That’s what my mom always says: ‘Go to school, study hard, then go to medical school, study even harder, and marry a nice doctor.’”

A minute of silence went by. For the first time in her life, Aru had nothing to say. Whatcouldshe say after seeing those visions in the pool? It felt like her life had been completely readjusted.

Was this why she never saw her mom smile? Because she’d had to rebuild her whole life as if she were just some room in the Palace of Illusions? She’d done it not just for the Sleeper…but also forher?

Mini touched her shoulder. “You okay?”

“Not even a little bit.”

Mini gasped. “You didn’t even try to lie. Do you have a fever?” She smacked her hand against Aru’s forehead.

“Ow!”

“Sorry,” said Mini sheepishly. “My patient bedside manner needs some improvement….”

“I’m not your patient!” snapped Aru, batting at Mini’s hand. Then she sighed. “Sorry. I know this isn’t your fault.”

“It’s okay, Aru. But what do we do now?” asked Mini. “Urvashi said that we’d get the answer about how to defeat the Sleeper from the Pool of the Past….”

“And we did,” said Aru. “But it’s not exactly helpful. You heard my mom. She said that she’d used his secrets to bind him, notkillhim.”

“Right, and she said he can’t be killed by anything made of metal, wood, or stone. Or anything dry or wet. Your mom bound him with her heart, but I feel like she meant that more metaphorically than literally. I have no idea how she did that, do you?”

Aru’s head was spinning. “Nope. And if we did know, what’re we going to do with a bunch of hearts? Throw them at his head?”

“So what does that leave?”

“We could pelt him with slightly undercooked pasta?”

Mini rolled her eyes. “What about animals?” she asked.

“It has to beus,” said Aru. “That’s what Urvashi said. Besides, he’s a demon. Even if we found a hungry man-eating tiger, it would probably turn on us—the humans—before it turned on him.”

“Maybe slightly undercooked pasta is the right call.”

“I could use a pasta sword.”

“Pasta mace.”

“Pasta club.”

“Pasta…pasta bow?”

“Weak.”

“Pasta lightning bolt?” joked Mini.

“Wait,” said Aru. “The lightning bolt. It’s not dry or wet—”

“Or metal or stone or wood!”

Aru’s grip around the ball form of Vajra became clawlike. When she blinked, she saw the Sleeper in the hospital room, wearing theI’M A DAD!T-shirt.

Her eyes burned. Her home dad hadn’t left them at all…he’d just been locked away. In a lamp. By her mom.This is so messed up, thought Aru.