Then I stepped into the little tear of light—

And tumbled out onto the floor of my bedroom.

The first thing I noticed was the cold. Had it always been this cold in London?

I clambered off the floor and looked around. At the window without curtains. The pencils and pens strewn across every available surface. The tin Ashwini had taken a few cookies out of. The slightly crispy blankets and open sketchbook on the floor. Outside the window, I could hear the honk of a distant car horn, the muted voices of people coming home from a late night out, the rattle of a train far away.

More than a week had passed for me, but no time at all had passed while I’d been gone. It looked like that was one thing Ashwini hadn’t lied to me about.

I could hear Mum above me, rolling over in bed. I wanted to rush up the stairs and hug her, but I resisted. There’d be time in the morning.

There was a sudden noise behind me, the violent flapping of wings and then a quiet thump.

I spun back to my sketchbook. There was a bird flying around the room, bumping merrily into the walls and letting out little caws of glee.

“Did you follow me back here?” I asked incredulously.

The bird hopped onto my windowsill and cocked its head at me. Its eyes twinkled.

It hit me, suddenly, that it wasn’t just a bird. It was all black, with a little gold on its beak.

It was a crow.

And that twinkle in its eyes . . .

My voice cracked. “Pip?”

The crow winked.

Throat tight and heart racing, I reached out a hand. But before I could ruffle the crow’s feathers, it opened its beak and nipped my thumb.

“Oi!” I protested, bursting into surprised laughter.

Definitely Pip.

I picked up my sketchbook, where the tiny crack glowed weakly, and then, with a flicker, it vanished like it had never been there. I ran my hand over the spot where it had been. A fat teardrop fell on the paper, but I wiped my eyes and flipped through the book.

There had been several blank pages in my sketchbook the last time I had looked at it, but now it was full. There were new sketches in colors so vivid I could have sworn they were alive: a witch in a white fortress, ashes on a river, a two-headed eagle soaring across the sky, a girl and a demon king inside a room with no doors . . . and a crow.

I had given my Mysore a happy ending, but this wasn’t the end of my story. This was more of a happy middle for me.

“Are you going to stick around for a little while?” I asked the crow.

With a little caw and a shrug of its wings, the crow found itself a nice nest on top of a pile of books on my windowsill, and went promptly to sleep.