“The door and key are for you. My gift.” None of his experiments were supposed to leave the workshop, but he didn’t care. “Just, uh, let me work out the kinks first, okay?”

Tears glistened in Tanvi’s eyes, turning them into chocolate opals, and he couldn’t tear his attention away. Despite all her efforts to make herself small, her heart, her fire, blazed in those eyes.

It was wrong, and he knew it, but suddenly all he wanted to do was cross the few feet separating them and crush her close, burying his face in her beautiful hair.

Tanvi watched him, the tilt of her head almost a challenge.

“Tanvi,” he said, the syllables sparking like a damselfly born of a diya’s flame.

Before he could take a step toward her, an ominous rattle rang out from the hallway, accompanied by a theatrical hiss.

Tanvi ripped her gaze from his and plunked herself down on the bed, her arms crossed tight.

Asha, Venkat swore, had the worst timing in the universe, worse than even Madhu.

A rattlesnake zipped across the floor in a wave of undulations almost too swift to see and stopped at Tanvi’s feet, where it transformed. If Madhu had looked bizarre beside the tiny room, Princess Asha was a fanged streak of lightning hurled down from the sky, all high-voltage energy and coruscating scales, with a store of amusing comments on hand for any occasion. Normally Venkat would have welcomed that.

At that instant, however, he had never wanted to see her less.

“At lassssst!” she exclaimed. “I was certain I would expire by the time she left.”

Burying his frustration deep, Venkat shut the door. “How kind of you to join us, Your Highness.”

“Count yourself fortunate I could steal away at all,” Asha rejoined, daintily settling herself next to the bed. “Either Madhu or one of her sycophants harries me day and night, ensuring I never have a moment to myself. And if not them, then Chintu or my parents.” She gave a haughty sniff. “Do you know how exhausting it is, pretending to care for a buffoon?”

Venkat thought, but wisely didn’t say, how exhausting it was pretending to keep up with her.

Asha hissed at Tanvi, her jewelry tossing golden sparkles around the room like one of the palace’s chandeliers. “And you! Why could you not sssssimply wait rather than seeking me out so publicly?”

“It was just a note!” Tanvi yelled. “It’s not like anyone knew I was talking about Nitya.”

There was a note? Venkat wasn’t following.

“If you had waited but a few more hours, I would have come of my own volition.” Asha’s mouth curved in a parody of a smile. “When you are beset at every turn by the ceaseless joys of nuptial preparation and assuaging the fears of the people, carving out quarter hours for clandestine rendezvous rather becomes a luxury, you see.”