Soft paws thumped on the floor behind me. Then Simha brushed his enormous, warm head against my clenched fist. “Take heart,” he rumbled. “All will be well in the end.”

“What if it’s not?”

“If it is not well, trust that it is not yet the end.”

I didn’t know if that made me feel any better, but it was kind of him to try. Just as it was kind of him not to eat any of us, a generous gesture I did not take for granted. (But if he did want to eat someone, I was happy to point him in Lej’s direction.)

“Do you think I could beat Mahishasura?” I asked, hating how small and unsure my voice sounded.

Simha moved closer, letting me curl one hand into the rich, soft fur of his mane. “Not with a sword,” he said.

“He’s the king of all the Asuras,” I said. “How do I destroy him without a sword?”

“I cannot answer that,” said the lion.

Restless, fidgety, I chewed on my thumbnail as I stared out of the window at Mysore. A world that had once been joyful was now dark and cold.

Except for places like the black market in Tamarind Station. And this house. Crow House, and everyone inside it, would turn to ink and paper if I banished Mahishasura back to the Nowhere Place. And if I didn’t, if I tried to fight him instead, I’d lose and they’d be gone anyway.

But at least both of those choices were a choice. I could choose to banish him, or I could choose to fight him. What wasn’t a choice was letting him find me. Letting him slip into this beautiful house and destroy everything that was good and joyful inside it.

Because if he had my desk and my curtains, he could find me. And if he found me, I could see the inevitable sequence of consequences already. They would come, probably when it was dark and quiet and everyone was asleep, and they would rip apart the doors like they were paper. Ashwini and Lej and Simha would fight, and would probably be killed, and Jojo would try to fire arrows at them, but they’d get to him, too. They’d pull the twins out of their beds, and burn Samara’s beloved books and Suki’s beautiful plants, and then they’d come upstairs and find Pip and me, and by that point, it wouldn’t matter what we did because the house would be on fire and everyone else would be gone—

Simha let out a small yelp, and I jerked my head down to see that the hand stroking his mane had clenched into the fur.

“I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”

“Startled, mostly,” said Simha with a snort. “It would take more than a child’s overenthusiastic grip to make me not okay.”

It would take the teeth and the claws of Asuras, dozens of them, and I was watching them do just that inside my head.