To my ancestors,
Parents, partner, children,
Writerly siblings
You who protect our stories
From extinction
You who weave words
And worlds
Into being
And to all the storytellers
At the margins
Memory keepers, path breakers,
Dream weavers all
You who honor our yesterdays,
Imagine our tomorrows,
You who sing, tell, speak
To keep alive
The beating heart
Of our storied lives
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1: I Saved Your Life (Now Say Thank You)
Chapter 2: The Return of the King
Chapter 3: Birds and Lizards and Pumpkins, Oh My!
Chapter 4: A Tiger Named Bunty
Chapter 5: A Tangle of Tales
Chapter 6: My Mother, the Moon
Chapter 7: Down the Rabbit and/or Wormhole
Chapter 8: Rude Riddles
Chapter 9: A Boy in a Tree
Chapter 10: Colonized Beyond Repair
Chapter 11: Bizarro Middle School
Chapter 12: Rock-Star Scientist of the Multiverse
Chapter 13: The Principal Is Not Your Pal
Chapter 14: Middle School Monsters
Chapter 15: Speak Friend and Enter
Chapter 16: The Death of Difference
Chapter 17: A Game of Wits
Chapter 18: The Dirt-Biking Musketeers
Chapter 19: Science, Sports, and Wedding Cards
Chapter 20: Black Holes and Singularities
Chapter 21: The Return of the (Other) King
Chapter 22: Demonic Wedding Crashers
Chapter 23: The Trojan Rakkhosh
Chapter 24: The Power of Stories
Chapter 25: Romeo and Demon-ette
Chapter 26: The Gift Givers
Chapter 27: The Choosing
Chapter 28: A Council of Jazz Hands
Chapter 29: The Big Musical Number at the End
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Sayantani DasGupta
Copyright
In most folk- and fairy tales, saving someone else’s life is a super-big deal. Afterward, there’s usually a royal wedding, a vault filled with gold, or some sort of kingdom-wide bouncy-castle party for the rescuer. So after I saved Prince Neelkamal from my evil biological father’s underwater demon detention center, it’s only natural I expected some sort of extra-special thanks, right?
It’s not like I actually thought somebody would present me with my body weight in precious jewels or the keys to the Kingdom Beyond Seven Oceans and Thirteen Rivers or something. (And I didn’t want a wedding. I’m only twelve, after all! I mean, gross!) But this wasn’t the first time I’d saved my friend Neel’s life, and this go-around, I’d traveled across the dimensions in a magic auto rikshaw, risked life and limb, solved impossible riddles, and fought monsters like a serious shero kick-butt daredevil. And what did I get for all my trouble? Bubkes. Seriously. Like, nada, zilch, zippo, nothing.
I’m not saying this to be greedy, but to explain why, when I saw the fancy royal party gathered on the shore of the Honey-Gold Ocean of Souls, I thought they were there for me. Particularly since Neel was Mr. Too-Cool-for-School-Princie-Pants and a bit slow with the thank-yous. I guess I figured he’d magically called ahead and set it all up for me. Which is a little embarrassing now that I actually think about it. Before we escaped my bio father Sesha’s crumbling hotel-slash-casino-slash-underwater-detention-center, we were kind of busy. I mean, we were breaking Neel out of jail, fighting evil snakes, and stopping Sesha from killing me with two magical jewels turned neutron stars because he wanted to fulfill some prophecy, cheat death, and live forever. It’s not like there was a ton of time for party planning. But I didn’t think of all that until later.
“Oh my gosh! You shouldn’t have!” I said in what I hoped was a surprised and yet humble voice as Neel, Naya, and I stumbled to our feet on the sandy beach. (The three of us having nonhuman parents was the only thing that made this swimming-up-from-the-bottom-of-the-ocean stuff remotely possible.)
“Oh dear!” squeaked Naya as she took in the scene. “We’re not properly dressed for a formal state engagement!”
That was a serious understatement. Neel, Naya, and I were all soaked to the skin. But they, being respectively a half rakkhosh and full-blooded rakkhoshi demon, hardly looked tired. On the other hand, despite being part serpent princess and part moon child, I was not only bent over and gasping for air, but had my hair all plastered to my face, seaweed hanging off my clothes, and what felt like a live school of fish in my left sock.
I pushed my hair from my face in what I hoped was an elegant gesture, and took in all the people who’d obviously been waiting for us. There were a bunch of girls in pink saris—all a part of the resistance group known as the Pink-Sari Skateboarders, or PSS, which was headed up by my adopted cousin-sister, Mati. Half of the PSS girls were human, and the other half-rakkhoshi demons—an idea I was only just getting used to. But there were others too—two or three old bearded men who looked like the Raja’s ministers, and a load of people who were a combination of nobles from the palace and royal servants. Everyone was dressed up and facing the water. Above their heads was a small gathering of bright blue butterflies, who seemed like they had been waiting for us too.
On one side of us, a singer with one hand on his ear and the other waving around in the air started warbling an up-and-down-the-scales classical tune while some musicians accompanied him—blowing on a shehnai, drumming on a tabla, and playing a stringed tanpura. Problem was, everybody seemed to be playing a slightly different song. To the side of the seated musicians were people carrying flower garlands and others with small lamps and incense holders.
“Aije, Princess Kiranmala!” yelled someone. It was one of the maids who had been assigned to take care of me when I was competing on the game show called Who Wants to Be a Demon Slayer? as the Kingdom Beyond’s champion. I’d been so popular, with my face on billboards and posters and everything, that people had even taken to dressing like me. In fact, the maid waving wore an exact replica of my silver sparkly combat boots. I grinned drippily back at her, trying to give her a casual wave, like celebrities do when meeting fans.
“Thumbs-up on freeing Prince Neel! Shabash!” called another girl with a big green streak in her braid. She obviously hadn’t gotten the memo that my hair had gone back to its normal black. I wondered if I should ask the Kingdom Beyond’s teen fashion magazine, Teen Taal, to do an article on my hairstyle change.
“Too bad the game show turned out to be a big scam, and that the Serpent King wanted to kill you with the Chintamoni and Poroshmoni Stones so he could cheat death and live forever!” added a third girl, who was carrying, I noticed, a replica of my own bow and arrow. “We saw it all on the live broadcast! What a bummer!”
“Totally! Yeah! I mean, thanks!” I managed to call back. I guess you could classify my birth dad turning out to be an immortality-seeking homicidal maniac as a serious bummer. But I didn’t let the smile fall from my face. This huge crowd was here to see me, or so I thought, and I didn’t want to let them down. I wondered if I should offer to sign autographs or something.
That is, until I realized that no one was actually there to see me after all.
“Your Royal Majesty,” squeaked someone in a ridiculously high voice.
I turned around graciously, trying to channel every royal princess I’d ever seen on television, only to realize that the man with the high voice w
asn’t talking to me at all. It was one of the bearded minister dudes, a tiny fellow with a purple turban on his head the shape of a state-fair-prizewinning turnip. And he was addressing Neel, holding out a little pillow to the prince. Wait a minute, none of this pomp was for me? I felt my face heat up like the sun.
Then I looked more carefully at the diamond-and-pearl-encrusted pillow in the minister’s hand. On it, weirdly enough, was a cheap paper crown—the kind a little kid might get in a fast-food restaurant with a side of fries and a shake.
Neel, who had been a little more jumpy than usual since his imprisonment, kind of scooted back at the minister’s offering. Like it was going to hurt him. “What’s with the crown, Sir Gobbet? Am I just imagining it or is it made of construction paper?”
“We did the best we could, Majesty,” said the little minister named Gobbet. “We were in a rush, and a coronation isn’t a coronation without a crown.”
“Ooo! A coronation!” Naya clapped her hands like the goofy ray of sunshine she was.
“A coronation?” I mumbled, like the confused and disappointed girl from New Jersey I was.
“Coro-what-tion?” repeated Neel, looking both annoyed and confused.
“Your Majesty.” With some difficulty, because of her one shorter leg, my cousin Mati now knelt before Prince Neelkamal in the sand. She then pressed her hands together in a respectful namaskar. Neel jumped back even more. He may have been the Raja’s oldest son, while Mati was the daughter of the palace stable master, my uncle, but I’d never seen Mati get down on the ground before Neel like this. Apparently, Neel hadn’t either.
“Don’t do that! Stop!” Poor Neel tried to help Mati to her feet, his face horrified. “Get up, Mati! It’s not like that with us! We’re friends!”
“Sooo dreamy!” drawled the rakkhoshi Priya as she came over to stand next to me. Like the other Pink-Sari Skateboarder demonesses, Priya had been down in Sesha’s undersea hotel when it started to crumble, but had been sucked out into the ocean a little before us. Yet somehow, her camo pants, tank, and the pink sari she wore around her neck like a cape were already dry.
By the look on her face, I thought at first Priya was talking about Mati being dreamy, but then she went on in a fake-girly voice, “Prince Neelkamal’s just so darned dedicated to equality, you know? That kind of attitude is, like, really attractive in an absolute monarch filthy with inherited wealth and unearned power.”
The fire demoness breathed stinky smoke out of her nose as she shot the sarcastic words out of her mouth. I was still feeling stupid for thinking that all these people were here for me, but at least I wasn’t soaking anymore.
“Thanks for the blow-dry.” I coughed, waving my hands in front of my face. “What’s with the shave?”
“The revolution doesn’t have time for hair products.” Priya ran a long-taloned hand over her newly bald head. “But apparently, it does have time for fangirls. And boys.”
Priya pointed, and I realized Neel was having an odd effect on the crowd. Not only was no one even looking in my direction, but a bunch of the younger servants, not to mention most of the palace ladies and more than a couple of the palace lords, were staring all googly-eyed at Neel. One courtly guy pretended to faint while a lady next to him fanned him with her hand.
“He’s ba-ack!” I heard someone trill.
“And about time!” I heard someone else say all breathy and giggly.
Gross. I mean, seriously, people. Okay, maybe they were right about Neel being cute, but all this public swooning was really too much.
Meanwhile, even though his ears were a little darker than normal, Neel was acting all casual, like being an equal-opportunity heartthrob was his royal right. I rolled my eyes but stopped short of making throw-up noises, because I’m mature like that.
Priya’s fangs glinted as she went on. “Don’t be jealous. I know you have a thing for our half-demon prince.”
“I do not!” A mixture of anger and some other emotion shot straight through my system. Where had Priya gotten that ridiculous idea? I really, really, really hoped Neel hadn’t heard it too. “He and I are just friends! And not even that most of the time!”
Right then, the musicians stopped their songs, and as if on cue, the small crowd of people all knelt. The only one left standing in front of Neel was the turnip-headed minister, who waved his pillow, nearly dropping the paper crown.
“Your Majesty, you must be crowned!” the minister squeaked.
“Crowned! As what? Raja of french fries? Monarch of meat rolls?” Neel shot me a panicky look, then put his hands out straight, palms flat, as if to stop the paper crown from getting anywhere near his head. “Look, I just got out of a horrible detention center. Plus, I’ve lost my grandmother. I don’t have time for sick jokes.”
“What did you say? What happened to Ai-Ma?” Mati’s voice was sharp. I felt my heart squeeze painfully at the mention of Neel’s grandmother’s name.
“It’s true.” Priya bowed her bald head, her sarcasm all gone now before Mati’s distress. “Ai-Ma sacrificed herself to save her daughter. And Princess Kiranmala.”
The blue butterflies I’d seen before swarmed around me now, like they were mourning Neel’s old demoness grandmother too. Ai-Ma had died saving Neel’s mother, but she’d also saved me. If not for her jumping in, Sesha would have killed me, and I couldn’t help but wonder if that made Neel blame me, even a little bit, for her death. I reached into my backpack and felt the warmth of the Poroshmoni and Chintamoni Stones, the two jewels that Sesha wanted to use to live forever. Instead, they had caused Ai-Ma’s death. I pushed them deeper into my pack, promising myself I’d get rid of them the moment I found a safe place.
“I’m so sorry.” Mati stood up with Neel’s help now, grasping his hand. “I didn’t know.”
“It happened so fast …” Neel’s voice cracked, and I felt my own eyes almost spill their tears. Naya was openly blubbering, and next to me, even Priya sniffed, loud and long.
I covered the serpent scar on my right upper arm with my other hand. I was so ashamed that my biological father was responsible for Ai-Ma’s death. If I could cut the scar off my arm, I would.
“This terrible news is all the more reason to crown Prince Neelkamal right away!” blustered Sir Gobbet. “Sesha grows in power every day! We must gather the forces of resistance, no matter how, er”—here the little man gave the PSS demonesses, then me, sideways glances—“unusual our alliances.” He waved the pillow again in Neel’s direction.
“No way.” Neel backed up, swiping angrily at his eyes. “I’m not even the crown prince. My father made sure of that. Where is he anyway?”
I saw worried looks being exchanged among all the lords, ladies, servants, and musicians.
When no one answered, Neel asked again. “Why exactly are you trying to make me the Raja? Where is my father?” I reached out to touch his shoulder. Neel was looking way less confident than he ever had. Being in that detention center had really affected him.
“The Raja is all right, as far as we know,” Mati said in a rush. “But he’s gone into hiding. Had to flee the dimension with a few of his ministers in fear for his own life.”
I started. I too had spent my life in a different dimension because I had been forced to go into hiding from the Kingdom Beyond.
“Gone into hiding? In fear for his life? Why?” Neel’s voice got a little louder with every question. “How could you let this happen, Sir Gobbet?”
“It was shocking. A violent and unexpected takeover of the throne by the Kingdom of Serpents,” began the tiny minister.
“A coup d’état!” It was the talking bird Tuntuni. He flew in a circle above our heads, then landed on Neel’s shoulder, amending, “Or a coup d’snake, if you will.”
“Tuni!” Neel gave our birdie friend a high five.
“Say, Princie! What did the ocean say to the shore?” squawked the bird. Next to complaining, telling bad jokes was one of his favorite hobbies.
“This
is really not the time,” I began, but Naya interrupted me. “What did the ocean say to the shore? Nothing! It waved!”
“Yes!” The bird collapsed in laughter while the rest of us rolled our eyes. “Oh, I’ve got another good one! Why did the fish blush?”
“Dude, my dad’s gone into hiding in another dimension. I’d like to hear how that happened,” said Neel.
“Why did the fish blush?” Naya crinkled her nose. “Because it was gill-ty?”
“No!” shrieked Tuntuni. “Because the sea weed! Get it? The sea wee-ed?”
I had to laugh at that one. Tuni and Naya were practically in stitches, and I even caught Neel and Mati cracking little smiles.
“Sire, let me tell you about the coup d’snake,” sputtered little Sir Gobbet. “And why it really wasn’t, most absolutely, my fault.”
This brought all our attentions back to the matter at hand. “How could this happen? Sesha was just with us in the undersea hotel,” Neel said.
“Not true.” Naya showed us the time on her miraculously-still-working cell phone. “It took us a while to swim to the surface.”
“And he did disappear into that puff of green smoke,” I added. “He could have magically teleported to the palace!”
“It all happened so fast, Your Majesty!” Sir Gobbet was in tears now, and they dripped fatly from his tiny eyes all the way down into his long white beard. “One minute, the Raja was on his throne, and the next, he’d lost control of the kingdom!”
“That imposter, that fiend who took my job was in on it!” shrieked Tuni, flapping his yellow wings in agitation. “That bane of my existence, that worm-eater of a minister, Gupshup! He handed the kingdom right over to Sesha! That shutki-fish-eating stinker!”
I was about to tell Tuntuni to chill, but I didn’t. Because just then, there came from the ocean behind us a tremendous splashing. Tuntuni squawked and spit, and we all whirled around. When I saw what was rising out of the water, I felt anything but calm. I fumbled with my bow and arrow, fear shooting through my body.
“Rakkhosh!” I shouted. “It’s an attack!”
The crowd of demons rose out of the Honey-Gold Ocean of Souls. There were air rakkhosh with their wings unfurled, fire demons shooting flames out of their noses, water demons with webbed fingers and toes, and land demons who looked every-which-way weird, with horns sticking out of their foreheads and teeth for hair. Plus, all the rakkhosh looked bruised and battered, with banged-up noses and broken wing joints, like they’d just come from a fight. It was a surprise attack!
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