Madhu nodded, a crisp, decisive motion. “The lock must be on the outside.” She gestured for emphasis.

“Got it,” Venkat replied. The thought of locking the runners in made him ill. Weren’t they already trapped as it was? “I’ll take it from here.”

“Lord Nayan’s work is far more significant than you could possibly fathom.” Madhu’s cobralike gaze bit into him, molten with the promise of paralyzing venom. “He would not wish me to tell you this, but someone must: despite his many burdens, he has chosen to keep you, tiresome foundling, close. To award you a place of honor at his side.” She spared a scathing glance for Tanvi, who clung to the back of the wooden chair and stared at the purple book on the table as if hypnotized. “One might believe you would acknowledge that honor by striving not to compound his troubles.”

Venkat swallowed hard. She was right, and he couldn’t argue. Not with that, anyway.

“I will not report your laxness this time,” Madhu went on, “so as not to disturb him, but if you fail to keep your own runners in check, do not make the mistake of assuming further leniency.” She jabbed a finger at the door. “Locks on the outside. Do not forget.”

Then she was gone, her footfalls echoing down the corridor.

The unexpected reprieve only made Venkat more nervous. Madhu wasn’t doing him a favor. She was reminding him how Tanvi’s presence here—maybe even his—was at her whim.

“Wait here,” he told Tanvi, who’d finally sat up, then led Bharat back to his room and reiterated in detail that the runners had to stay put. Whether it got through this time, Venkat couldn’t say.

Everything was slipping through his fingers like lakeshore sand.

When he found Tanvi again, a thunderhead of terror and gloom had swept over her features. She was blinking rapidly, like she couldn’t focus.

Venkat didn’t think he’d ever been as angry at anyone as he was at Madhu right now. What she’d said was only half true: Yes, Venkat owed Nayan a huge debt, one he’d never be able to repay. But Tanvi had a claim on him, too. She needed him, and Madhu had no right to scare her like this. No right to try to control Nayan’s operations, and especially not Venkat’s own.

He imagined Tanvi alone in this dismal place, descending again and again into the loss of her bracelet, falling into nightmares with no one to wake her. Forget books—she deserved all the enchanted things he could forge for her, all the time and help he could offer. She and the other runners deserved him. I’m sorry, he thought, like an incantation. I’m sorry.