“I’ve seen you make a firework out of matchsticks and some chewing gum,” Suki said to him. “I’m pretty sure you can do better than those terrible stink bombs.”

“They’re supposed to be terrible—”

“We’ll all help you, Kiki,” Samara said quietly. “But you shouldn’t give up on the idea of using what you’re already good at, either. Books saved me. Maybe your art will save you.”

“It helped me in the real world,” I admitted. “On the other hand, it also helped Mahishasura escape the Nowhere Place. My sketchbook is the reason you have to spend your lives fighting him.”

Pip turned to me. “Oh, hey, I wanted to ask. Why’d you call us the Crows?”

“I like them,” I said a little sheepishly. “A lot of people think they’re noisy and a nuisance, but they’re actually really loyal and smart.”

“To be fair, we are noisy,” Suki pointed out, giggling.

“And you and Pip are definitely a nuisance,” Jojo added with a straight face.

“Hey!”

“There’s this story that they tell where my granddad is from,” I went on. “They say that when people die, they don’t leave the world straightaway. Instead, they become crows, and they stay for a while to make sure the people they loved are okay.”

“I like that,” Pip said happily. “Maybe all the crows in the world are actually the souls of loving, loyal people. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Jojo put his empty cup back down on the tray. “We’d better go to bed,” he said a little reluctantly.

“Thank you for this,” I said as the others stretched and got to their feet. “It was really kind of you.”

“It seemed like you needed a friend,” said Pip, with that sweet, joyful smile. “So we decided to bring you four.”

Warmth spread across my body, lifting my heart up out of the dark place it had been swallowed up by. One by one, my new (and old) friends crept out of my room. Suki was the last one to go. With her hand on my doorknob, she paused and looked back at me.

“Try to remember, okay?”

“Remember what?”

“Little girls can beat big bad wolves. We have teeth, too.”

14

The next day, the warmth was gone. As I picked at my toast and looked at the others around the breakfast table, from Ashwini making sure everyone had plenty to eat to Simha drinking his tea out of a ludicrously tiny cup, I felt cold and horrible.

Once the gandaberunda’s eye was broken, this Mysore would be gone. They would all be gone. Simha, who loved his tea and had chosen to stay here to protect me. These kids, who had been so kind to me and were so brave. All gone. Banishing Mahishasura would mean losing them all.

And I knew this world was never supposed to exist. I knew that. But it was still hard to think about it un-existing again.