An Indian YA fantasy filled with friendship, magic, romance and mystery

When Anya finally then reaches out to Shui, instead of apologising, she asks her to join her in her quest for the Grimoire and embrace how powerful Mara has made them. Shui is unable to talk her out of it and Anya threatens to hurt her again if she tries to stop her. To top it all, she later finds out Anya has kidnapped a powerful, but disabled witan, from the Bile Rath. Łis time they warn Shui that she has brought everything upon herself by summoning a god. As a result her mother might never be well again. And Anya would surely hurt the witan she has kidnapped enraging the community, all because Shui and the coven went too far for power. So Shui goes home to nothing- no friends, no family and no real power sans a coven, and the realisation that this was probably all her fault- because she wanted to be special, to be like Anya. But then a powerful witan tells her to look inside herself and go back to when it really began, to stop ignoring the door, so she returns to that summer with her grandmother and faces a nightmare she’s always looked away from, and behind it she sees a woman reaching out to her, asking her to come home.

Shui goes home and confronts her grandmother- the mastermind behind the cover up, and her family comes clean. In the aftermath, her brother reveals the name of their family home in Calcutta and Shui realises that she, much like Anya, is related to Abha and so the Grimoire was probably Shui’s as well. It explained why Anya had reached out to her. If the Grimoire was indeed hers, she could use it to stop Anya and fix everything they had broken. Łey could rescue the witan while saving Anya in the process because without Anya, despite everything, Shui would still be lost and Shui owed her. So, she calls Jai and Nallini, who welcome her back, and using Malvika- who Shui now knows is a proper witan herself - they figure out where the Grimoire could be and decide to find it before Anya does.

At 10 pm the next day, four of them, Malvika included, set sail for Elephanta caves in a rickety sailboat. Once there, Malvika takes Anya’s place as coven leader and guides them until Shui finds herself

in the place she’s been dreaming of all this time, ever since that first spell they cast to call Mara Shui decides to take the plunge and trust her grace and find out if she is indeed as powerful as Anya thought she was. It works and they travel to an alternate dimension where they confront both Anya and a rejuvenated Ruksana and battle it out for the Grimoire. In the process, Anya reveals her mother’s killer is no other than Shui’s own mother which Shui dismisses as ludicrous. Anya goes on to explain that the two of them met in Scotland, bonded over their shared ancestry but Shui’s mom killed her and took the book, and its power, for herself.

Łe combined eRorts of Jai, Nallini, Malvika, Shui and the witan enable them to defeat Anya and Ruksana but Mara appears and tells them that they cannot leave without honouring Anya’s initial bargain. Anya pushes Shui to tap into the book to dismiss him, and in the process, Shui finally awakens her own power and transports them back to Elephanta Caves. Łey eventually manage to escape the earthquake that follows the dismissal of a god and sail away from the island with everyone safe on board. But just as they relax, one big wave, Mara’s last attempt to thwart them, engulfs the boat and they lose Ruksana to the ocean. When they get to Gateway of India, Shui watches as the Bile Rath take Anya away. Malvika breaks down at losing her best friend and they all comfort each other as they look towards the horizon, wondering what happens next.

At home, the Grimoire reveals Anya was right - their mothers had indeed known each other. So she confronts her mother and 4BCB tells her that it wasn’t she that killed Isolde but Rahel- her sister, and Anya had been right because Shui was Rahel’s daughter. Once Rahel discovered her lineage, she left Shui behind to claim the Grimoire she thought was rightfully hers. Abandoning her daughter was the price she chose to pay to become extraordinary. 4BCB decided to adopt Shui as her own and the family moved to the US to protect Shui from the world of Witana, believing it brought nothing but sorrow and darkness.

Shui realises the person trying to reach out to her from behind her memories is probably her own mother, a psychotic killer who’s possibly still alive. But despite everything, a sense of calm washes over her driven by a knowing- she knows who she is now, and it’s time to find out what she can do- she goes to her room and stands by the window and summons them the way Anya did. In the distance, she sees them flitting towards her, heeding her call. And that’s how Shayamukthy Mukherjee learnt how to speak to a butterfly.

(This excerpt from ‘The Lost Prisoner’, written by Reshma K Barshikar, has been published with permission from Two Ravens, Rs 322)