Why hadn’t Mahishasura and his Asuras just killed us instead of putting us here? I was the only person who could banish Mahishasura back to the Nowhere Place, after all, so it made sense to get rid of me as quickly as possible.

He wanted something from me. That was the only answer I could come up with.

But what?

Unless, of course, he was just doing what every wicked witch in every fairy tale did: he was going to fatten us up before he ate us.

Pip stretched and yawned, then promptly fell asleep with his head on my shoulder. I jostled him awake so that I could put my arm around him and let him cuddle up properly. “Thank you for coming with me today,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry I got you into this mess, but I’m glad you’re here with me.”

“Me too,” he said, and started to snore.

I must have gone back to sleep, too, because the next thing I knew, I was startled awake by a loud clang as the cell door opened. A stag Asura loomed in the gap, two bowls in his cloven hands.

“Stew,” he grunted, plonking the bowls down.

Something gray sloshed inside the bowls. Pip made a face. “Blech,” he said impolitely.

“That’s your dinner, so eat it or you’ll get nothing until breakfast,” the Asura growled, pointing his antlers at Pip in warning. He shut the cell door, turned a key noisily in the lock, and loped away.

I knew they were trying to fatten us up.

“Kiki,” Pip whispered. “I think he dropped the key.”

“That seems unlikely,” I said doubtfully.

Pip waited until the Asura’s footsteps had completely faded before wriggling over to the cell door. He pushed his arm between two of the bars, as far as it would go, and scrabbled around the floor outside the door.

Then, with a look of pure delight, he pulled his arm back into the cell and opened his hand. There, on his palm, winked a set of keys.

I jumped up, incredulous. “No way!”

“That has never happened before,” the Good Witch said, sitting bolt upright on her cot.

“I guess they’ve gotten careless,” Pip crowed. His glee was infectious. “Come on. Let’s get out of here!”

I hesitated. It had been careless. Maybe too careless? What if the Asura had dropped the keys on purpose? But why? Was it possible one of Mahishasura’s minions actually wanted to help us?

What if it was a trap?

Or what if it really had just been an accident?

“Kiki.” Pip tugged at my arm. “Come on.”

I had to stop this. We were only here because I kept overthinking things. I had to stop letting my anxiousness run away with me.

Once Pip had unlocked our cell door, I swallowed my uneasiness and followed him out. He let the Good Witch out, too.

“Can you cast any spells at all?” I asked the Good Witch. It was one thing to get out of a cell. Quite another to get out of a fortress full of monsters.