Her cheeks on fire, she pointed to the nearest carriage. “That one!”

Venkat followed her to the pearlescent scallop-shell carriage. There was no driver, but four swans drew it on thin golden chains they carried in their beaks. “Sounds good to me,” he said, and together Tanvi and he climbed onto the turquoise-and-gold velvet seats.

She’d expected a long, leisurely ride over the ground, but before she could get situated, the swans, feathers glimmering, soared into the sky. Not even thirty seconds passed before the carriage sailed high over the landscape, which resembled a gemstone mosaic.

A watery shape appeared below them, a cosmic looking glass reflecting Lord Surya’s radiance. “The Lake of Lovers’ Tears,” Venkat announced. “It’s really more of a lagoon, seeing as how it opens onto the ocean, but I guess that didn’t have the same ring to it.”

Tanvi couldn’t take her eyes off the numerous topaz shards cresting the surface. How many tears had been shed across the worlds, only to end up here, transformed into jewels by the sun’s rays?

But she forgot the question as a wave of black-and-orange monarch butterflies descended on the lake, devouring the chunks of topaz. The black veins and dotted borders of their wings lit up with a lemony halo as they flew away again.

She didn’t even notice that their carriage had touched down on the shore, not far from the butterflies’ feast, until Venkat nudged her. “This way.”

They hurried barefoot to the far side of the lake. Lavender grains of sand like decorative sugar wedged themselves between Tanvi’s toes, and she glanced at Venkat. “Where are you taking me?”

“I want to show you something,” he said, his eyes crinkling with mischief. “Almost no one ever comes back here, because they all want to see the monarchs. But that’s not the only beautiful thing here.”

They headed toward a group of lambent moonstone boulders. “You want to show me rocks?” Tanvi asked. “I already have dreamstones.” But there was something weird about how the light hit the boulders. “I see it!”

Venkat grinned. “You and I may be the only people who ever noticed.”

Without thinking, Tanvi grabbed his hand. “Well, come on!”

He glanced sharply at her, but didn’t say anything when she pulled him forward.

There, tucked away in a niche in the rocks like a secret, was a carving of a woman in a snake-scale sari. A nagamani flamed from the circlet set across her forehead, and her cupped hands held out a crescent moon. The boulders were near enough to the water that, with each reunion of sea and shore, spray frothed around her feet.

“I think this is for Lord Chandra,” Venkat murmured, his remark almost lost to the salty wind.

“But is she praying,” Tanvi asked, “or rejecting him? The moon, I mean.”