“I— I’m sorry,” Venkat said, but it was automatic. His nerves still tingled. What in the worlds?

“I just need you to help me stop this.” Her legs kicked under her chair. “That’s all. Then I’ll leave you alone.”

How was he supposed to do that? “I can’t help you if you won’t tell me anything.”

Tanvi shook her head. “Just—just fix it. And you can’t tell Nayan, and definitely not Madhu.”

“I won’t.”

Though she glared at him, her chin quivered. “Promise me.”

Venkat didn’t know if that was a good promise to make, but fresh guilt filled him, gray and heavy. Failing the dream runner initiation meant he’d skipped all this. It meant he’d lived a pleasant life in Nayan’s house, playing with stories and dreams, while Tanvi and the others suffered. And he didn’t have even an inkling of how to make it better.

“I promise,” he said earnestly. “Just tell me what’s going on.”

Tanvi touched her temple. “It hurts.” She wailed. “Make it stop.”

“It’s okay,” Venkat soothed, though sirens were going off in his own head. “It’s okay.”

It wasn’t okay, of course. It was really bad.

Ire sparked deep in his chest. Why hadn’t Nayan told him this could happen?

Then the spark went cold, extinguished by a worse question. What if he doesn’t know?

How was Venkat possibly supposed to fix this on his own?

A handful of hours later, marginally rested and dogged by his own version of dream residue, Venkat set about visiting his stable of runners. The nagarani was right; they couldn’t be out harvesting if the garudas were on the prowl. He still couldn’t believe they’d struck in broad daylight. The problem was, confinement to their quarters would leave his runners at loose ends, trapped with no purpose and irritable.

At least, he thought with a touch of irony, they wouldn’t pick up on his own bad mood.

He’d never been to most of the runners’ rooms, and Indu’s was as good a place to start as any. The few touches of color among the serviceable furnishings and bare white walls merely drove home how little she had. Venkat balked at the soccer balls dumped in her closet, while Indu stared vacantly at her cabinet, her hair matted in snarls that must have formed while she was sleeping.

This isn’t right, insisted a voice deep within him.

“Show me your wares,” he said, feigning clinical disinterest and Indu, lighting up, pulled them from her cabinet.

Pretending to examine them, Venkat looked her over for signs of Tanvi’s strange alertness. Luckily, Indu appeared as hyperfocused on boons and the soccer ball she would buy as always.

“This is boring!” she complained, but it was flat, lacking the passion of Tanvi’s anger. The life in it. “When can I go harvesting again?”