We were far away from the green valley with its strange bazaar, and had arrived in a place equally as breathtaking. There was a forest to our left, with cackling monkeys and cawing birds. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a herd of brown-and-white-dappled deer run by. Rising majestically to our right was the most awesome palace I had ever seen—not that I’d seen any in real life, but it was more beautiful than any movie or storybook castle. Its spires were golden, studded with diamonds, sapphires, and rubies. Its walls were silver and bronze, with carved decorations in them. Each carved panel on the palace walls seemed to tell its own story. Scenes showed a festival, a wedding, and … yup. Two turbaned princes setting off on a journey mounted on their winged horses.
“We’ve got to find Minister Tuni. He’ll probably have some useful ideas about where we should start looking for Just Kiran’s parents.” Lal’s words melted me a little. Even though he’d lied, he was obviously still willing to help me find my family.
“Let’s, ah, get the horses settled first.” This suggestion of Neel’s was made with a funny, teasing tone.
“If you insist, Brother.” I was curious to see Lal squirming a little.
I wasn’t sure what that was about, but Snowy and Midnight seemed to like the idea. As soon as we dismounted, they trotted off in the direction of what must have been the palace stables. The stables were like twenty times nicer than my house—even before it got totaled by a demon with a sinus infection. The walls were made of bronze, with pillars of marble, and images of flying horses were carved into the outer walls.
“Hurry, Princess! I wanna show you my favorite place in all our kingdom!” Lal dashed off, forgetting at last to act like a fancy prince.
Even though I was still annoyed at him, I couldn’t help smiling. Unlike his brother, it was so easy to see what Lal was feeling. And right now, the handsome prince was happy to be home.
“Come on, he wants you to meet Mati.” Neel frowned at me as he said this, as if irritated that I was still there. At that, all my fear and worry transformed back into anger.
“So do you ever smile?”
Neel raised that eyebrow again. “Only when I have something to smile about.”
He really should change his name to Mr. Smirky Cool Guy, I thought. If Lal was always trying to be princely and proper, at least he was actually nice underneath that fake accent. Neel, on the other hand, kept trying to make himself unlikeable. And boy, was he doing a good job of it.
“You really think highly of yourself, huh?”
“You’re really nosy all the time, huh?” Neel countered.
“I wouldn’t call wanting to know the truth about where we’re going or where my parents are being nosy.” I felt my face heating up and my voice rising. “You’re the ones who lied to me.”
“Well, I’m so sorry this rescue isn’t going exactly according to your schedule, Princess. Would you rather we just didn’t help you and let you get on your way alone?”
“You know that’s not what I meant!” I snapped. “But you could have told me the truth back in New Jersey!”
“Would you have come with us if we told you we didn’t know exactly where your parents were?”
I had nothing to say to that. We’d left Parsippany in such a rush, escaping from that rakkhosh. But if I’d really had time to think it through, would I have gone off with two princes I didn’t know, who didn’t even know how to find my parents? Probably not. And where would that have left me? Alone and no closer to rescuing Ma and Baba.
We walked in a tense silence behind Lal to the palace stables. The big double doors had been hastily shut after the horses had trotted in. A little light shone from in between.
“May I come in?” Lal called through the half-open door.
“No, you may not,” answered a musical voice from inside. A girl’s voice.
I glanced at Neel, who muttered, “It’s the custom here,” without meeting my eyes. “You never—never—say you invite someone through a door.”
Before I could ask any more, the ornately carved doors of the stables flung open.
“My princes, you are home!”
Standing before us was a sturdy, capable-looking girl with shoulder-length dark hair. She was dressed like the boys, in loose pants and a flowing top. She had on knee-high boots and held a broom in her hand.
“Princess Just Kiran, I am honored to introduce you to my very best friend.” Lal grinned ear to ear. “Except my brother, of course! This is Mati!”
Mati joined her hands. “Namaskar, Princess Just Kiran, welcome to our kingdom.”
“Um … hi.” I awkwardly namaskar-ed her back. Even with all the stuff I’d discovered about myself in the last day—that I could fight demons, that I really was a princess—I still didn’t like meeting new people that much. I could never think of what to say. Except with Neel, of course, but His Royal Pain-in-the-Heinie was obviously an exception to the rule.
I stepped through the stable doorway and took in the surroundings. The place was sparkling, and smelled like … the closest thing I could think of was the smell of freshly washed cotton—like when Baba pulled me out a shirt straight from the dryer. And what was that other smell? Was it honey?
“This is nectar from the bees in our forest.” Mati pulled out a silver pitcher and poured a rich golden liquid into Midnight and Snowy’s troughs. “It’s the best food for a pakkhiraj horse.”
“A pakkhiraj?” I repeated.
“The name for this type of flying horse.” As Mati moved from trough to trough, I noticed that she dragged one of her feet a little. It was barely noticeable, but one of her shoes had a thicker sole than the other, making up for the shorter leg. “Didn’t Their Royal Highnesses tell you?”
“Cool it with the royal highness stuff, Mati,” Neel ordered. He had taken off his jeweled turban and collar, and his dark hair was sticking up on end. “We’ve known you for way too long to take that kind of beetlejuice from you.”
“Mati is the daughter of our stable master,” Lal explained. “A wise teacher who taught all three of us to ride, to use weapons, to care for animals, and many more things.”
“She’s like our little sister. She’s a lot tougher than she looks.” As he passed by her, Neel playfully messed up Mati’s hair, to which the seemingly mild-mannered Mati threw the nectar pitcher at his retreating head. It hit Neel’s shoulder and bounced harmlessly to the stable floor.
“Nice! Your throwing arm’s improving!” Neel examined a big blob of nectar on his shirt, and took a taste. “Maybe you’ll make it as a bowler in the royal cricket league after all!”
“All credit goes to you for giving me so much reason to practice my aim, Your Royalness!” Mati stuck out her tongue, then lobbed a horse brush at him, which Neel caught with a laugh and a bow.
This was a different side of Neel than I’d seen before. With me, he just seemed irritating and self-centered and maybe even a little dangerous, but with Mati he seemed almost like a nice person. Almost.
As I thought this, I looked over at Lal, and noticed that he wasn’t joining in his brother and Mati’s teasing. He made big eyes and gaped a little at Mati, then caught himself and studied a nail in the floor, a beam on the ceiling, and, finally, a little thread on his sleeve. In fact, he made such a big show of looking everywhere but at Mati, it was totally obvious that was the only person he wanted to look at. If the girl noticed, she didn’t say anything, but kept throwing random stuff at Neel. Suddenly, the reason for Neel’s earlier teasing of his brother became clear. Had we all been at school, I would have passed a note to Zuzu in class with the word *AWKWARD* written in big curly letters.
“Unlike some people, I still have work to do.” Mati shook her finger playfully at Neel, and moved over to the white horse.
“Excuses, excuses.” Neel tossed the horse brush back at her. “You’ll never fulfill your potential as a cricket star with that attitude.”
I felt a pang of jealousy at how comfortable Mati was with the princes, how much she fit with them. They were all so relaxed in one another’s presence—there was no arguing, no lying, no calling one another 2-Ds or anything else. Instead, everyone seemed to just be so happy and, oh, I don’t know, at home with each other.
As Mati worked, she radiated such a sense of purpose and competence that I could almost feel it. Snowy nuzzled her cheek, leaving a nectary trail on her neck. “There you go, my handsome one, my Tushar Kona, my star,” the girl murmured.
“What did you call him?” I asked, feeling a little shy.
Mati looked up at me with steady caramel eyes. “Tushar Kona—snowflake.”
“You didn’t realize that was his name, my lady?” Lal asked. “I thought you must have heard that from us—and perhaps that was why you were calling him Snowy.”
The white horse whinnied and I could have sworn he was grinning at me.
“No, I didn’t know,” I admitted. “But maybe Snowy told me himself.”
I would never have thought such a thing possible back in New Jersey, but stranger things had happened to me since leaving home than in my entire life.
“He likes you,” Mati said. I believed her. Mati knew a lot more than I did, it seemed. About a lot of things. I peeked at her from under my eyelashes, watching her clean bejeweled tack and brush glossy coats. Now she was laughing at something Lal said, shaking her head. What made her so comfortable with herself? Did she ever wonder how people saw her, what they thought of her? Did little kids laugh or point or whisper about her on the street like they did sometimes with me and my scars? Somehow, I got the feeling that she didn’t care, even if they did.
Mati was over by Midnight now, and she took the comb with which Neel was attempting to untangle the horse’s mane. “Here, give me that, Your Highness; Raat doesn’t like it when you pull.”
“Whatever you say, boss lady!” Neel said as Mati gave him a shove.
My skin got all hot and prickly. I felt completely alone. These three were each other’s family, and I was a total outsider. I bet they wished they hadn’t brought me along. I bet they wished I wasn’t even here.
“And I suppose Raat was the one who told you his name meant night?” Lal asked.
I nodded, not trusting my voice. I felt a sudden and overwhelming urge to get out of the cozy stables, to do something—anything—productive toward finding my family.
“Should I go look for this minister guy?” I asked, moving toward the stable doors. “Maybe you could just tell me where he is …”
“No, you won’t be able to handle him alone. He’s a bit of a birdbrain.” Prince Neel fell into step with me and beckoned to his brother. “Come on, Bro.”
Lal looked sheepish. “Um, you two go ahead, I’ll catch up.”
Neel stopped and turned around so abruptly I almost bumped into him. “I am not leaving you alone here.”
“Wait.” I was so surprised I actually snort-laughed. “Aren’t you the same guy that wouldn’t save his brother from the rakkhosh on my front lawn until it was almost too late?”
“That was different.” Neel didn’t even have the courtesy to look at me as he said this.
I didn’t necessarily want to be alone with Neel, but I also didn’t want to rob Lal of his precious time with his friend. Plus, it was fun to annoy the bossy older prince.
“So here’s the thing—Lal’s a big boy. I’m pretty sure he and Mati will be okay.”
“You don’t understand—” Neel began, but Lal cut him off.
“Just Kiran is right, Brother, I am not a child any longer. I will be fine here in the stables.”
“Lal, you know we should stay together …”
“Neel, stop worrying! We’ll stay inside the stables and we won’t invite anyone in,” Mati said in a calm voice. “You said it yourself, I’m tougher than I look.”
Neel seemed about to argue, but he looked from his brother’s face to Mati’s and then just nodded. “Come on, Princess.”
I shrugged and followed him. Boys were so weird.