No way was Aru going down those stairs first. And Mini looked like she was about to faint.
“Age before beauty,” said Aru, grinning at Boo.
Sherrilyn, her babysitter, liked to say that line whenever the food trucks came to the museum and she wanted to order before Aru. Aru didn’t mind, though. At least it meant someone thought she was pretty. With a pang, Aru realized she hadn’t thought about Sherrilyn since the second she lit the lamp. She hoped she was okay.
Boo grumbled, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he flew into the darkness complaining about the “privilege of youth.” “In my day, we treated our elders with respect!” he huffed.
Aru and Mini walked down the steps. For the first time, Aru felt…hopeful. She wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like she’d done anything heroic beyond trying to save herself.
But she had two companions on her side, and so far, aside from lighting the lamp, she hadn’t made anything worse. Was she a heroine if all she did was fix a mistake she made? Or was it heroic because she was willing to fix it in the first place?
Aru wasn’t sure what to expect ahead. The category THINGS YOU NEED seemed to cover a wide range of possibilities. For example, she needed water, sleep, food, and air.
At the bottom of the staircase, wind rushed past her. But it felt like three different things one after the other. At first, it was a gust of hot desert air that left her throat parched. Then it became the kind of sticky, humid air that felt like summer in the South. Her pajama top clung to her back, damp with sweat. In the next second, frost spangled across her skin and Aru shuddered with cold.
Beside her, Mini inhaled sharply.
Aru looked up, her eyes widening. Here there were no shopping aisles, just forest.
Aru and Mini stood in the center, Boo circling overhead. Around them, the forest was divided into six pieces, like a pie. In one section, frost sleeved the tree branches and icicles dangled like ornaments. In the next, a heavy downpour of rain made the trunks difficult to see. The third section was a riot of blossoms, the rich earth bursting with flowers and perfume. The fourth section was bright and dry, sunlight dappling the leaves. In the fifth, the leaves had turned scarlet and gold. The sixth section was a rich dark green.
“Where are we?” asked Mini.
“It’s like we’re stuck in all the seasons,” said Aru, her voice soft with awe.
“We are,” said Boo. “We’re in the Court of the Ritus. The Six Seasons. Be on guard. They’re brilliant, but horrible.”
Aru’s heart raced. “Why? Do they eat people?”
“Worse,” said Boo, his feathers ruffling. “They’re artists.”
“I thought there were only four seasons?” asked Mini.
“Four?” repeated a voice from somewhere in the trees. “How boring! How bourgeois!”
“I don’t know about that,” said another voice, this time behind Aru. “I could make summer endless. Imagine that. An installation of infinite fire.”
“People would burn up,” said the first voice.
“Good! I don’t like people anyway.”
Figures from two different seasons made their way toward Aru, Mini, and Boo. A pale-skinned man with frosted hair and silver eyes sauntered forward first. He wore a shiny blazer and pants that looked as if they were made of glass. When he came closer, Aru saw that it wasn’t glass, but ice. Fortunately, it wasn’t see-through, but white.
“I’m Winter,” he said coldly. “I’m underwhelmed by your acquaintance.”
“Summer,” said the other, extending a warm hand.
As Summer turned, the light seemed to change the spirit’s facial features from feminine to masculine and back again.
Aru’s confusion must have showed, because Summer shrugged and said, “Hotness doesn’t belong to any one gender.” The spirit winked before flipping their bright gold hair over one shoulder. Summer wore a tunic of flames. Their skin was the color of a smoldering ember, red-veined with fire.
“Why are you here?” Winter asked the girls. “Did that wretched sign bring you? Because we’re not in the mood to design anything. Especially not for random people who haven’t made an appointment. Besides, the inspiration to create just isn’t there, is it?”
“It certainly is not.” Summer sighed. “We only make dresses for the most fabulous of beings.”
They glanced at Aru and Mini, making it clear that they did not consider the girls remotely fabulous.
“You’re…tailors?” asked Mini.
“Did that just call us tailors?” asked Winter, aghast. Winter bent down to Mini’s height. “My little sartorially challenged slip of a girl, we are ateliers. We dress the world itself. I embroider the earth with ice and frost, the most delicate silk in the world.”
“I make the earth the hottest thing out there,” said Summer with a blazing smile.
From the rainy section of the forest, a third figure appeared: a gray-skinned woman whose hair clung damply to her face. She looked soaked to the bone, and delighted about it.
“I am Monsoon. I make the world elegant with a dress of water.”
A fourth walked up. Vines crawled over her skin. There were flowers in her hair. Her mouth was a rose.
“I’m Spring. I dress the earth in jewels,” she said haughtily. “Show me a ruby darker than my roses. Show me a sapphire brighter than my skies. Impossible. Our other two siblings, Autumn and Pre-winter, would join, but they are in the outside world, attending to a number of designing needs. All celebrities need an entourage.” She looked down her nose at the three of them. “But you wouldn’t understand that.”
“Do you always travel in pairs whenever you go into the world?” asked Mini.
“I will ignore the fact that you addressed me directly and will now face the empty space next to you to answer your question,” said Spring.
Aru thought this was a bit much and wanted to roll her eyes, but she controlled the impulse.
“Of course!” said Summer, looking pointedly at the air next to Mini. “One for the incoming season, one for the outgoing. It’s important to keep up with the times. Don’t you know anything about fashion?”
Aru looked down at the Spider-Man pajamas she was still wearing.
“Apparently not,” said Summer drily.
“What do you children want, anyway?” asked Spring, breezily.
“Well, we were hoping you could tell us?” Mini turned redder with each word. “Because, um, we were led here, and um—”
“Um-um-um,” mocked Summer. “You were led here? By a pea-brained foul-looking fowl? I’d believe that.”
“Puns!” said Winter, clapping his hands. “How devastating. How delightful. Chic cruelty never goes out of style.”
“Watch yourself,” warned Boo.
“Or what? You’ll poop on us?” asked Monsoon.
The four Seasons started laughing. Aru felt as though someone had grabbed her heart in a tight fist. It was the same acidic feeling she got when she was called out for not arriving to a school in a fancy black car. This was just like Arielle and Poppy taunting and jeering, making her think she was small.
But they were wrong. She was Aru Shah. Daughter of Indra. And yeah, maybe she had made an epic mistake, but that didn’t make her any less epic.
Most important: she had a plan.
They needed additional armor to reach the Kingdom of Death safely. Some extra weapons wouldn’t hurt, either. That’s why the sign had led them to the Court of the Seasons. And she wasn’t leaving without what she needed.
Aru grabbed Mini’s hand. Then she squared her shoulders and tossed her hair. “Come on, Mini and Boo,” she said. “I’m sure we can find better.”
Mini shot her a questioning look. Boo cocked his head.
“They’re not good enough,” Aru said, glaring at the Seasons.
Aru started marching through the forest. The Court of the Seasons was the size of a football field, but she could see an EXIT sign glowing in the distance. Even without looking back, she could sense the shocked gazes of the Seasons. She would’ve bet all her pocket money that no one had ever walked away from them.