It was a whisper. It seemed extremely unlikely that I could hear a whisper over the roar of the thunder, but I could.

“Kiki.”

“Who is that?” I jerked, pressing a hand to my ear. “Who are you?”

“You know who I am.”

And as I looked up at the doors ahead of me, the domes above me, the palace that seemed to reach for me, I did know.

“You’re the palace,” I breathed in wonder.

“Yes.”

Ashwini was staring at me, baffled, and I could only guess how weird I looked standing there apparently talking to myself.

“Why didn’t you speak to me when I was here before?” I asked the palace.

“You were not ready to listen.”

Great. A cryptic palace.

“Ropes and tools will not get you to the gandaberunda,” the palace went on. “Only you can do that.”

“So I can come in? You’ll show me the way?”

“You do not need me to do that. You are enough.”

I was pretty sure that wasn’t true, but there was something about the palace’s voice in my ear, the sense of welcome, that made me feel like I had to find out one way or another.

“Leave the ropes,” I said to Ashwini. “The palace thinks I can get us past its traps.”

Ashwini took this in stride. “Okay then,” she said, dropping the ropes and coming back to my side. “Let’s go.”

Suddenly, I remembered one of the first things she had ever told me, back in London. You have more power over that world than even Mahishasura does. I had let myself forget that. I had spent so long convinced that I was helpless, that I was weaker than the monsters, that I had had both my world and my mind stolen from me, I hadn’t considered that maybe none of that was true. Maybe I had more power than I had ever realized.

“The only other way into the palace is the botanical garden,” I said.

“The maze you said you couldn’t get past last time?”

I took a deep breath. “I think I can now.”

So, with thunder crashing above us, we skirted the edge of the palace and slipped around the eastern side, to the tall, overgrown hedges that surrounded the botanical garden. There was a rusty unlocked gate tucked into the corner of a hedge. I pushed it open and we stepped into the maze.

At first, nothing about it seemed unusual. Like just about every outdoor maze ever, the shrubs and trees were tall and dense, forming walls on either side of us. Glowing flowers and sparkling leaves were sprinkled across the dark green foliage, and tiny twinkling fireflies danced around us (or were they fairies? I definitely remembered drawing fairies in my sketchbook!).

But as we walked carefully down the only path available, our feet crunching on the dry leaves underneath, there was a rustling all around us . . . and the hedges moved. Ashwini jumped backward as shrubs slid in front of her, closing off the path ahead.