Page 31 of Aru Shah and the End of Time

“Mini! The compact!” hissed Aru.

Maybe there’s a reason Madame Bee surrounds herself with false mirrors,thought Aru. All that talk of beauty had given Aru an idea. She fumbled for the bright Ping-Pong ball in her pant leg.

Suddenly, Madame Bee crouched down. Her face appeared upside down. “Peekaboo!” she sang, her ghastly smile stretching wide.

Aru faced the demon, ignoring the goose bumps crawling down her spine. “I lied,” she said. “You’re not that pretty. See?”

Mini turned the compact mirror toward the asura. The demon’s face turned even paler. Her hair crackled and snapped like she’d been electrified by the sight of her own ugliness.

“Nooooo!” the asura screamed. “That’s not me! That’s not me!” She writhed on the floor.

Aru and Mini scuttled backward. The golden Ping-Pong ball warmed Aru’s pocket. She drew it out and squinted. It glowed like a mini-sun.

“I’ll get you!” screeched the asura.

Aru threw the ball straight at her face—

“Not if you can’t see us!” shouted Aru.

The ball’s light blinded Madame Bee, and she fell back. “My eyes!” she howled.

A rosy golden glow filled the salon, and Aru had a strange vision of someone gathering up the first light of dawn in hundreds of buckets.

“Cursed heavenly light,” growled the asura.

Huh, thought Aru.Sothat’swhat’s in the ball….

Maybe it wasn’t so useless after all.

Aru raised her hand and the ball zoomed into her palm. Mini was still holding up her compact and when she saw the ball, she gasped. In Mini’s other hand, an identical golden orb appeared.

“What the—?” started Aru.

Mini closed her fingers around the ball. It vanished.

It was an illusion.

“How did you do that?” asked Aru.

“I…I don’t know,” said Mini, confused. “I just looked at the golden ball andthoughtabout it, and then one appeared? But it wasn’t real!”

“Where aaaaare you, Pandavas?” sang the asura.

Both girls backed away slowly.

The asura was crawling, turning her head from side to side, scanning the room. Aru’s heart rate kicked up a notch. The demon’s eyesight was returning!

“Now what?” asked Mini breathlessly. “How are we going to steal the you-know-what?”

Something was nagging at Aru. Where was that persistent smell of smoke coming from? Where was the asura burning things?

“Show me the room again in your compact,” said Aru.

Mini turned the mirror toward them.

There was one detail Aru hadn’t noticed before.

The unenchanted view of the room hadn’t changed, but Aru’s eyes snagged on a detail: handprints here and there. Handprints ofash. Maybe that smoky smell was coming from Madame Bee herself? Something clicked inside Aru. Everything started to make sense. Even the name of the salon:Bee Asura. B. Asura.