“I’m still dead, thank you,” Moli said shortly. “Very, very dead.” She’d steered away from the jagged black rocks that made up the base of the Mountain of Flames. “If you two don’t want to die as well, save all your lovey-dovey talk for after we’re in the clear. Those demons might still be behind us!”
Ren’s ears turned bright red. “Th-there’s nothing lovey-dovey about this!”
My own face was flaming, but Moli was right, at least about the demons. This wasn’t the spot to be catching up with old friends, even if old friends had popped up like daisies out of nowhere in the middle of the Underworld.
We needed to finish this as quickly as possible. Find the Ruyi Jingu Bang, find my ancestors and the memory-restoring elixir, get out of Diyu, and return to Sun Wukong before the end of the Hungry Ghost Festival.
“Hey,” Ashley greeted Ren. “Haven’t seen you since before we left the New Order. Where ya been?”
“Uh … here and there,” Ren said evasively.
“You missed a lot of cool stuff,” Jordan informed him. “We almost died a couple of times, I ate some orange chicken, and look—I grew my first bit of stubble!” He rubbed his chin and grinned at Ren.
Ren squinted. “I don’t see anything.”
“You gotta take a closer look than that, dude,” Jordan grumbled.
“Where’re we headed now?” I called to Moli over the others’ chatter.
“Youdu,” she shouted without turning back to look at me. “That’s the capital of Diyu. It’s this huge walled city where the Ruyi Jingu Bang is being held. I’ve seen it. Once we get to Youdu, we need to find the Last Glance to Home Tower.”
A huge walled city and a giant, ominous-sounding tower. That would be pretty hard to miss. In theory. “How do we get there?”
“Um … not sure. Youdu’s location changes, but as long as we keep following the moon, we’ll be able to find it.” Moli pointed toward where the moon hung high above us, looking like it wasn’t in any particular direction.
Of course. Nothing would ever be that easy for a warrior on a quest, especially not in the Underworld’s mazelike setup.
We approached another mountain. This one appeared to be filled not with lava but with sharp silver objects.
“Are those knives?” Jordan gasped.
“It’s the Mountain of Knives,” Moli said gravely. “Sinners who have killed sentient beings with knives are trapped walking up and down it forever.”
I shuddered, turning away from the sight of miserable-looking groups of men and women traipsing up and down the mountain. Beside me, Ren was turning green. For a startled moment, I thought he was turning into a dragon like he had several times during our quest of the Lunar New Year, but then I realized he was probably green-faced from the sight of the grisly mountain.
“What was it like, being at the palace?” I asked Ren.
Ren ran a hand through his white hair. “It was … amazing, at first. It took me only half a day by taxi to find the entrance to the underwater palace of the Dragon King of the Center Sea, and then once I did, I was able to swim and breathe underwater. It’s hard to explain. I just … knew where to go and what to do, you know?”
I nodded like I understood, even though I couldn’t even navigate Manhattan’s Chinatown without Google Maps.
“So many dragons.” Ren’s face lit up. “Some were even like me. Half-dragon, half-warrior. We trained for eight hours every day, and we feasted on all kinds of fish at night. I almost didn’t want to leave. Except … I got bad vibes. Not from the other dragons—from the Dragon Kings. They … well, at first they were divided on which side to support, but they had a meeting to make it official.” His shoulders slumped. “They’re going to stand by the Jade Emperor.”
“Oh.” I was disappointed but not surprised. The Dragon Kings answered to the Jade Emperor, after all.
“Yeah. Plus, my mother wasn’t there, and I still want to find her.” Ren shrugged with forced nonchalance.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I didn’t really think she’d be there,” Ren said with a soft, sad smile. “Anyway, then I had that vision about you all, plus I wanted to come here … to get some closure about—about my mother. I’m pretty sure now that … that she’s …” Ren’s eyes welled up, and he turned away.
I could fill in the blanks myself. Any logical person would conclude that, since Cindy You hadn’t been seen or heard from since before the Lunar New Year, she was dead.
I put my hand on Ren’s shoulder. “I’m sure we’ll find your mother,” I whispered. Maybe mine, too. My head was still swimming with heavy thoughts when I heard a high-pitched scream.
CHAPTER
17
The scream belonged to Ashley. “Look!”
We’d moved away from the base of the Mountain of Knives, but the Underworld seemed to have shifted while I’d been talking to Ren and not paying attention to my surroundings. We stopped in front of a huge, glassy building with double doors. It didn’t look particularly dangerous from the outside, but I was certain there was something terrible on the inside, like fire-breathing demons or green-bean casserole.
“It’s the Chamber of Mirrors,” Moli said in a hushed voice. She backed away from the building.
I wasn’t sure why she was so freaked out. “That doesn’t sound so bad. Much better than Mountain of Flames.”
“Or Mountain of Knives.” Ren cringed.
“You don’t understand. The Chamber of Mirrors messes with your mind.” The petrified expression on Moli’s face was so intense that I got the feeling she was speaking from personal experience. “It shows sinners their crimes, their regrets, their deepest fears …” She shuddered. “It shows them their true selves.”
I had no idea what that meant. Would the Chamber of Mirrors show that pimple I’d hidden so painstakingly with concealer? I looked at Ren. He shrugged.
“Fine. We’ll just avoid the Chamber of Mirrors, then,” Jordan said. “Piece of moon cake.” He stepped around the building. As we
