The Last Fallen Star

by Graci Kim

  Emmett shakes his head.

  “Essentially, the north wind wanted to prove he was mightier than anyone else in the universe. So one day, he challenged the sleepy sun to a duel. If he could remove the jacket from a human faster than the sun could, there would be no doubt that he was the mightiest of all.”

  Emmett is listening carefully, so I continue. “So the north wind went first, and he huffed and puffed, blowing on the man as hard as he could. He thought it was going to be easy, since he was so powerful, but the more wind he created, the colder the man felt, and the tighter he held on to his jacket. Eventually, the wind ran out of breath and fell into a heap, exhausted.”

  “And the sun?” Emmett asks.

  “Well, then the sun shone her gentle warm rays on the man. The man started relaxing, and yawning, and eventually he got too warm from all the heat. Before long—bam!—he took off his jacket.”

  Emmett slaps his thigh. “That’s gotta be it, Rye. It’s the sun.”

  The cheollima flaps his wings and clips his hooves on the washing machine. “Righto, time’s up, cinnamon creams! What’s your final answer? The sun or the wind?”

  “The sun!” Emmett and I call out together.

  The cheollima pauses. “Are you sure?”

  For a second, I waver. Maybe it’s the wind?

  But Emmett’s confident expression erases my doubt. “Our final answer is the sun,” he says. “Lock it in, thanks.”

  The cheollima takes flight and does a few 360s in the air. “Hooray!” he cries. “The cookies are mine!”

  Emmett and I high-five each other and fist-pump the air. We did it!

  “You have earned passage into the gifted library, my sweet dumplings! But remember, you don’t have all day. My shift ends this afternoon, and after that the next guard will eventually notice you’re in there.”

  Emmett lifts off the lid of the Tupperware container to take out two cookies. Then he changes his mind. He walks over to the cheollima and places the entire thing on top of the washing machine.

  “You know what? Why don’t you have all of them,” he says. “You’ve been really good to us, and we’re grateful for your help.”

  I smile at the gesture. It’s a very sweet, very Emmett-like thing to do.

  “Oh boy, oh boy, how kind of you!” coos the cheollima. He flaps his wings excitedly. “And to reward your utmost generosity, my little cheesecakes, I will offer you a piece of advice about the place you are about to enter.”

  We lean in, listening eagerly.

  “The library may not be what you expect. But books have a way of finding their rightful owners. So trust in their wisdom and you’ll have a hoot.”

  And with that, the cheollima presses the red button on the washing machine, and the round door on the front opens with a satisfying click. “Jump in whenever you’re ready!”

  “You want us to go in there?” I ask, horrified. I look down at Cosette’s long limbs, and then at Emmett’s even longer Adeline limbs, not to mention Boris the dragon scooter. Suddenly, the washer doesn’t seem so big anymore.

  The cheollima looks at me, confused. “You do want to enter the library, don’t you?”

  “Ugh. Of course that’s the entrance.” Emmett shakes his head. “Why do I even bother acting surprised anymore? Magic is wack.”

  “It’s just a quick spin,” assures the cheollima, “one at a time, with no water. You’ll be there in a jiffy.”

  Emmett takes a big breath. “Here goes nothing.” He extends a long Adeline leg and starts climbing into the open mouth of the machine. The angle doesn’t work, though, so he then backtracks and tries to enter butt-first. This time, he manages to squeeze himself in there—just barely—but it doesn’t look comfortable by any means. This would be so much easier if we were in our own shorter bodies and not these gazelle-like supermodel disguises….

  Emmett waves at me awkwardly, his arm wedged between the machine and Adeline’s boob. “See you on the other side, Rye.”

  The cheollima closes the door and pushes the START CYCLE button on the washer. As the machine whirs into action, Emmett/Adeline’s surprised face begins to spin—slowly at first, then faster and faster, until he’s nothing but a blur of colors. Eventually, there’s a sharp bing!, and when I look inside the barrel again, Emmett is gone.

  “Your turn!” the cheollima says to me. He chuckles and glances happily at his container of cookies. “Get it? Your turn? This is turning out to be such a great workday.”

  I clasp Hattie’s heart vial around my neck and send her a mental message. We’re getting close, Hat. Just be patient—we’re going to save you, I promise.

  And I hope, wherever she is, she can hear me.

  After picking up Boris and wedging him in before me, I somehow defy physics and squeeze us both inside the washing machine. I poke my head out to bid the mini cheollima good-bye. “Thank you for all your help,” I say. “The Godrealm should appreciate you more.”

  The cheollima dips his head in a grateful bow and then he looks me right in the eye. “Don’t forget to smile!”

  He pushes the door closed with a click of his hoof. And two seconds later, the world starts to spin.

  ONCE I’M EJECTED FROM the spin cycle and my brain stops whirling, my first thought is: Why is it so hot and stuffy in here?

  My second thought is: Why is my skin so itchy?

  I open my eyes and have to shield them from the glare. Light is pouring in through glass walls, and I realize I’ve landed on my butt in some sort of huge conservatory. Ferns, palms, and other lush, leafy greens fill every inch of the space, and the air is so thick and humid, it’s like I’m in a tropical rain forest.

  “Emmett, where are you?” I call, getting to my feet by using Boris as a crutch. At least the dragon-on-wheels doesn’t look any worse for having been tossed like a salad.

  I wander around and finally find Emmett sitting by a small pond in what looks like the heart of the greenhouse. Although, to be honest, I can’t be sure about that. This place is seriously big. It stretches so far to my left and right, I can’t see where it ends.

  “You okay, Em?”

  He’s scratching his thigh furiously with one hand, and poking a water lily with the other. He looks like his normal self again.

  “Rye, did we just get punked by the cheollima?” Emmett wipes sweat off his brow. “This does not look like a library. Also, they need some AC in here.”

  “I mean, he did say the library wouldn’t be what we expect….”

  I lean over the pond to check out my reflection. My familiar angled features look up at me, and I frown back. Ah, I get it now. The itchiness must be from Cosette’s glamour wearing off. We’re going to have to find our way out of here as our real selves.

  “Cosette said no one’s been able to activate the sacred texts since they left, right?” he says. “So maybe we need to figure that out to reveal the real library?”

  My image in the water gives me a wide, welcoming smile, and I let out a yelp. “Em! Did you see that? My reflection just smiled at me.”

  He looks at me as if I’ve grown cheollima wings. “Are you feeling okay? I thought I just heard you say that your reflection smiled at you.”

  I steal a glance at the water again. Sure enough, my reflection is grinning like it’s won the Powerball. Without thinking, I reach out to touch the surface of the pond. The water ripples under my fingers, and my reflection blurs. But as soon as the image clears again, water-me winks.

  I frown even harder.

  The words of the cheollima echo in my ears. Don’t forget to smile. Is this what the horse was talking about?

  Tentatively, I move my face muscles. It feels weird to smile at a reflection that isn’t actually mine, but I force myself to do it anyway.

  As soon as my cheeks stretch and my expression mirrors the one in the pond’s surface, the water begins to swirl as if someone’s flipped a switch. A red glow emanates from below, and I take a sharp breath. “Em, look at the wat—”<
br />
  “Rye, turn around! Now!”

  The tone of Emmett’s voice throws me off guard, and I swivel around in a hurry. My jaw drops open.

  The conservatory has become overpopulated by birds. Fowl of every shape and size are perched in the greenery side by side, stacked on each branch like colorful book spines on a shelf. There are orange-beaked toucans sitting in the palms, kingfishers balanced on the ferns, and even tricolored scarlet macaws rustling their tail feathers on the lily pads.

  And they’re all staring at us.

  Emmett gawks. “Where did they come from?” He shudders. “So many eyes…Just. So. Many. Eyes.”

  I study the birds carefully and realize there’s a certain order to them. Each one is different, but they’re organized by color, size, shape, and plumage.

  “It’s weird,” I think out loud. “It’s like they’re waiting for something.”

  I walk toward the closest flock and tentatively extend my hand toward a bright hornbill. It has a heart-shaped mark on its head, and it squawks at me before nipping my finger. But as soon as I touch its feathers, the bird vanishes. Instead, it is replaced with a heavy tome entitled The Art of Infusing: Love Tonics, Part II. It floats in the air above the tree branch, spine up, flapping its pages like wings.

  I gasp and pull it toward me. “Em! They’re not birds—they’re books!”

  The sacred texts had been lost to the witches ever since the scholar clan was banished. But I had somehow managed to awaken the books simply by smiling at my reflection in the pond water. Was it because I was of Horangi blood? That might explain why Emmett’s reflection hadn’t smiled at him….

  My mind reels. It strikes me that I could’ve had access to a whole world of magic if history had gone differently and I had been raised Horangi. The thought leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

  “The birds are books? Shut up right now.” Emmett walks toward a blue parrot and gingerly reaches out to touch its tail feather. Immediately, the parrot disappears and is replaced by a blue hand-bound book about the Spiritrealm and its numerous boroughs. He grabs the flapping book from the air and shakes his head in disbelief. “This is so cray.”

  Hope surges through me. “There has to be a book about fallen stars in here, Em. Keep looking. We have to find it!”

  We transform birds into books for what feels like hours, all the while growing more and more worried about the cheollima’s shift ending and the new guard discovering us. As we discard the books, they fly in a flock above our heads. And though we find loads of volumes I’d die to read, none of them have anything to do with the Godrealm’s fallen stars, or even the dark sun and dark moon.

  Exhausted, we fall onto a bench, startling a nearby stack of books and sending them flapping to the ceiling.

  “We’re never gonna find anything,” Emmett whines, rubbing his bird-pecked fingers. “There are just too many, and we’re pushing our luck with time. We need to get out of here, like, now.”

  I look down at Hattie’s heart vial and bite the inside of my cheek. “We can’t give up. Hattie wouldn’t lose faith. We just need to be smarter about it.” I scan the next section of birds and think hard. “What else did the cheollima say when you gave him your cookies?”

  Emmett thinks. “He said something about books finding their rightful owner. Oh, and if we trust in their wisdom, we’ll have a hoot.”

  “Wait, hoot?” I say.

  Emmett’s eyes widen. “Holy shirtballs, we need to find an owl.”

  Propelled by a second wind, we run up and down the conservatory, until, eventually, we find the owl section behind the giant Venus flytraps.

  Emmett rubs his palms down his face and groans. “Who knew there were so many owls?”

  There are countless types of them, all similar and yet distinctly different in color, markings, and shape. Some with black spectacles around their eyes, some with spotted orange tails, and even some that look like they’re covered in white fluff.

  I study their big eyes. The last thing I want to do is get in touch with my cursed Horangi side, but for a moment, I wish I could channel the part of me that summoned the birds in the first place. Maybe if I could, I would somehow know which owl to touch.

  Emmett and I roll up our sleeves and get started on the lowest row of owls. I’m just about to tap the third one when something bangs into my head.

  “Ouch!” I yelp, as the claws of an owl dig into my hair. “Argh, get it off me!”

  Emmett swats at the pointy-eared owl and manages to chase it off for a second. But as soon as it regains its balance, it swoops in and lands on my crown again. It hoots loudly.

  I freeze. Books have a way of finding their rightful owners, the cheollima had said.

  I get a rush of adrenaline. “Em, wait—I think this might be the one.”

  I try to stay as still as possible. And when the bird stops flapping and scratching, I quickly reach up and pat its side. The owl immediately transforms into a book, falling with a heavy thump onto my shoulder.

  “Ow! Why couldn’t they have just made this a normal library, darn it!” I rub my shoulder and pick up the brown leather-bound book. The cover reads The Loyal Tales of the Haetae.

  Emmett and I open the book and skim the contents, hoping for clues. But instead, the pages are full of old stories about Mago Halmi’s guardian lion-beast using his time-manipulation powers to help her. I sigh and close the cover.

  “Hey, what’s this?” Emmett picks up a piece of paper that dropped out of the book.

  It’s a letter, dated almost thirteen years ago and signed by someone named Sora. It reads:

  Dear H,

  If you are reading this, we have already lost the battle.

  We will continue to keep the seventh artifact hidden, but I worry it may already be too late. Something is brewing, and I fear the elders may have figured out our secret.

  Please let us know what we should do. Our safety is in your hands.

  In Knowledge and Truth,

  Sora

  On the back of the letter, there are additional scribbles:

  Fifth artifact: sword—presumed destroyed

  Sixth artifact: midnight bow—presumed destroyed

  Seventh artifact: sunstone ax

  Eighth artifact: unknown—a celestial object?

  I rub my eyes. My mind feels like mush. I don’t understand what this letter is, or why it was in the book. And why did this owl choose me?

  “Who do you think H was?” Emmett asks. “And what about Sora?”

  I swallow. “Well, Knowledge and Truth is the Horangi clan motto—it’s written on their statue’s plaque in the Gi sanctuary. So maybe they were two scholars writing to each other?”

  He clenches his jaw. “This Sora person says that they’re keeping the seventh artifact hidden. But why would they write down what it is when the note could fall into the wrong hands?”

  I shake my head, feeling despondent. “I wish I knew. Maybe it wasn’t Sora who wrote that stuff on the back.”

  He pauses. “Do you think the artifacts have something to do with what we’re looking for?”

  It’s my turn to pause. I study the list and read the words eighth artifact: unknown—a celestial object? over and over again. “Well, a star is a celestial object. So the eighth artifact could be the Godrealm’s last fallen star, couldn’t it?”

  Back at Santa Monica Pier, the goddess had told us that the fallen piece of her world could grant divine power here in the Mortalrealm, and it had driven humans mad with greed, leaving only destruction and despair in its wake. She had called it evil. Maybe the sunstone ax had the same effect on people, and the power-hungry Horangi had been keeping it for themselves. Then the council discovered their secret….

  I shake my head again, too confused to articulate my thoughts. “I’m not sure yet, Em. But something tells me we’ve stumbled across something big. Something much bigger than us.” I fold the letter and put it in my pocket. “And we’re gonna have to get to the bottom of it if w
e want to save Hattie.”

  I hear a weird clonk, as if something small and hard has fallen on the ground. I look down to see a cloud of smoky purples and midnight blues mushrooming from a tiny round stone.

  “What the…?”

  Fear creeps into my bones. Did the new guard figure out we were in here?

  The weird fog keeps growing until it has swallowed me up to my chest. I try to cover my mouth and nose, but my head is starting to feel a bit woozy.

  “Em!” I manage to cry out. “Don’t breathe the—”

  Emmett drops to the ground like a rag doll.

  My body suddenly feels so heavy, like it’s tied to an anchor. And the next thing I know, everything goes dark.

  ONCE CONSCIOUSNESS RETURNS to me, I realize I’m lying on a cold stone floor. I turn my head to the left and right, looking for Emmett. Where is he? Is he okay?

  Groaning loudly, I try to get up, but I can only manage a sitting position. My head feels like it was removed and then surgically reattached by Mong’s fluffy paws. What was in that weird blue-and-purple fog?

  I blink a few times. I seem to be back in the basement laundromat, but some of the lights are flickering and others are completely out, making it hard to see. There’s a dark figure standing in front of me with his hands behind his back.

  “Who…Who are you?” I instinctively scoot away a little.

  A man steps out of the shadow. He’s tall and statuesque with wide-set shoulders. I estimate he’s about Appa’s age, but he’s less well-groomed—he has a mop of thick, unruly hair and an impressively bushy beard falling from his chin. He’s dressed in a full three-piece suit, and he’s even holding one of those old-school pocket watches attached to his vest by a chain.

  As he slips the watch back into his front pocket, I steal a glance behind him. The winged horse isn’t on the washing machine anymore. This must be the Miru guard who took over the cheollima’s shift. I knew we were wasting too much time with those owls!