I couldn’t answer him. How could I? Everything he said was true.

But Pip was not silenced so easily. “Ever since Kiki got here, you’ve hunted her. You’ve had your whole army out searching for a little girl. Why would you do that if you’re so sure she can’t hurt you?”

“Quiet,” growled the demon king.

“No,” said Pip defiantly. “I want an answer. If Kiki has no power, why are you so afraid of her?”

I knew at once that it was the worst possible thing he could have said. Mahishasura let out a snarl that rattled me all the way down to my bones. The Good Witch covered her ears with her hands, but Pip didn’t move. He stayed put, his chin up, eyes blazing.

One of Mahishasura’s enormous hands closed around Pip’s throat. He lifted him high and threw him across the courtyard like a ragdoll.

There was a crack, and Pip went quiet forever.

20

There was a scream, but the whoosh of blood roaring in my ears was so loud that it took me a moment to realize it had come from me. The shape of my scream was Pip’s name, called out over and over, in the desperate hope that he would hear me and bounce up to his feet with that joyous grin and prove that somehow, impossibly, he was okay.

But Pip didn’t move, or grin, or do any of the things that were so completely Pip. I ran to him and knelt beside him on the stone. “Pip! Wake up! Please wake up!”

I didn’t get an answer back. I held his hands in mine, and squeezed as hard as I could, but he felt so limp, so cold.

A shadow fell across Pip’s face. I looked up into Mahishasura’s pitiless eyes. “Why? He didn’t do anything to you!”

“Why didn’t you stop me?”

Each word hit my heart like a thousand sharp needles. I tried to speak, but nothing came out of my mouth.

“You didn’t stop me because you couldn’t,” he said ruthlessly. “You could not save him. And you cannot save this world, either.”

I bent my head, wrapped my arms around Pip, and sobbed. He had been my first friend, the made-up boy who came with me on hundreds of adventures, and now he was gone.

For a moment, that was all there was, just the grief and his soft, messy hair against my cheek, and then I felt a warm golden glow slide over my skin.

I looked up in confusion. The Good Witch was gone. With Mahishasura’s attention on me, she had slipped out of the archway and down the steps. She wasn’t inside Lalith Mahal anymore.

She could use her power.

I clutched Pip tighter, terrified that we would be separated, but the golden glow wrapped itself around both of us, like a bubble, an orb of light in the dark night.

And then, suddenly, we weren’t in the courtyard anymore. We were in Crow House, right smack in the middle of the cozy front room, and there were startled shrieks from Suki and Jojo, who had been quietly minding their own business before we materialized out of thin air.