He crossed his arms over his armored chest. “What is this?” he boomed across the distance between us.

“This is the end, Mahishasura,” said Chamundeshwari. “It is time to finish this.”

He snorted. “You are merely a pale imitation of the goddess who banished me,” he said. “What makes you think you’ll do any better than she did?”

“It is not I who will conquer you,” said Chamundeshwari gravely.

I took a step forward, then another. “I will,” I said to Mahishasura. “I want to fight you, just you. One fight.”

“Why would I bother with such nonsense when I could just defeat you and all your companions in battle?” the demon king demanded. “You are hopelessly outnumbered.”

“Are we?”

There was a clank of steel behind me and I saw Mahishasura’s eyes dart over my shoulder. I knew what he could see: a goddess, a lion, a witch, four kids, and over a hundred of the brave ordinary people of Mysore. There were familiar faces in the crowd, too, like the old man with the coconuts, the witch from the black market, and the woman who swept the square outside Crow House every morning.

And behind them all, marching out of the streets onto the driveway like a flood, were three hundred soldiers in black, red, and gold.

What Mahishasura didn’t know, of course, was that the soldiers weren’t real. They were just toys—small tin soldiers I had spent all day sketching to life in the front room of Crow House, and the Good Witch’s spell had made them human-sized. They could march with us, and stand with us like an army, but they would crumple if they were attacked. They couldn’t take on a horde of Asuras.

But they didn’t need to. They just needed to make Mahishasura hesitate.

Another shriek split the sky in half. Mahishasura’s head snapped up and his amber eyes widened as an enormous silhouette swooped out from behind the clouds and circled over us. The gandaberunda’s wings were so huge that they almost blocked out the setting sun. Talons raked the air and four bright jewel eyes glared down at the demons. And the demons, rather sensibly, took a step back.

“I think we can win,” I said to Mahishasura. I didn’t try to hide the way my hands were clenched white around the sword, or the tremor in my voice. I didn’t care if he knew I was afraid. In fact, I wanted him to know it. “But after what you did to Pip, I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. So if I can end this one-to-one, just you and me, I’d prefer to do it that way.”

“What foolishness has possessed you to make you think you can defeat me in battle?” Mahishasura scoffed. “Did you not listen to anything I told you? Look at you! You are no match for me.”

“If you’re so sure of that, you have no reason to turn me down.”

His eyes burned into mine, cold and calculating. “And what are the terms of this fight?”