“That didn’t work out so well yesterday,” I reminded her.

“No weapons this time,” she said cheerfully. “I’m going to teach you other stuff first. Like how to find an Asura’s heart if it’s not in the usual place. Or how to poke the fleshy part in an Asura’s armpit just so to make it let you go.”

So that was what we did, at least until Suki wailed up the stairs to us that she was absolutely starving and could Ashwini please come and fix the mess Lej was making of dinner?

As Ashwini stomped downstairs to do just that, I couldn’t help noticing that she looked exhausted.

“I’ll make dinner,” I offered. “I make really good grilled cheeses!”

So we all ate grilled cheese sandwiches, and then we shared what was left of yesterday’s stale but still perfectly nice chocolate cake, and Lej and I didn’t murder each other, so it was, all in all, a pretty good day.

The night wasn’t as good. I dreamed of Mahishasura. He was waiting for me on top of a white throne, but when I got closer, I saw that his throne was made up of Mum, Emily, and the Crows, all frozen in marble.

“You failed them all,” said the demon king. “You were weak and afraid, and now I have won.”

I woke up shaking. It was still dark outside, but I knew I wouldn’t get back to sleep, so I picked up When You Can’t Beat Monsters, Trick Them and read it until the sun came up and Pip came bounding into my room to fetch me for breakfast.

• • •

The next three days had an almost comforting pattern: forced to stay put until Ashwini found us a way to the gandaberunda, I spent my time on plants and potions with Suki, traps and tomfoolery with Pip, books with Samara, enchanted tailoring with Jojo, and more dubious lessons from Simha. Before dinner, Ashwini showed me a number of ways to defend myself, many of which seemed to involve armpits, and then, when the others had gone to bed, Pip and I would stay up to play Giants & Gargoyles, read books that weren’t about monsters, and talk about the adventures we had back when he was still imaginary.

I spent a lot of the time gazing out of the windows of Crow House and looking at the kingdom I’d made and broken. Those were the not-good moments, the moments when I wondered if maybe it wouldn’t matter that I’d learned how to sew sunbeams into fabric and brew a potion that could freeze a small creature in its tracks. What was the point of any of it if I couldn’t do the one thing these kids and this city really needed from me?

Then, on my fifth day in my sketchbook world, Ashwini came home with news. “I found the Witches’ Guild,” she said triumphantly.

Suki clapped her hands in excitement. “Did they tell you about the Good Witch?”