Tanvi looked at her askance. “What does your wedding have to do with anything?”

“Perhaps,” said Asha, “it is not the wedding I care for, but rather avoiding additional scrutiny when Madhu and Nayan Uncle already suspect us? Come, Tanvi. Surely you are smarter than that.”

Venkat moved closer to the bed and held up a hand. When Tanvi and Asha continued to glare at each other, he added, “Tanvi. What are you remembering?”

Tanvi fiddled with a loose thread on her choli. “Memories.” She shrugged, and her hair shimmered, framing the misery in her cheeks and mouth. “I guess from before?”

“Which memories?” he pressed. “When did this start? With the dreaming?”

He’d expected her to resist, for any confession to be like wresting a too-tight cork from its vial. Instead, the answer burst out of her in a hasty staccato. “My head’s like Swiss cheese. I remember stuff, but it’s all full of holes and broken. If—if I think about it too hard, it hurts.”

Venkat parsed the torrent of words, trying to find the sense in them. “Okay. Why didn’t you tell me before, though?”

We cannot have secrets between us, he thought inanely in Nayan’s voice.

Tanvi grabbed his arm hard enough to hurt. “You can’t say anything to Nayan. Or Madhu!”

She was terrified, he realized with a jolt. Really and truly terrified. What had Madhu done to scare her like this?

That question would have to wait. He wiggled his wrist and, when Tanvi didn’t get the hint, said, “Could you let go? I promise not to tell.”

Though she narrowed her eyes, plainly not believing him, she loosened her grip. He started to rub the spot where her fingers had dug in, but thought better of it. “I promise,” he said again. “Just tell me what’s going on.”

Tanvi exchanged a glance with Asha, who waggled her head. “Go on.”

“I didn’t just dream about my sister,” Tanvi mumbled. “I met her. The other day, I mean. We went to her house.”

It was Venkat’s turn to stare. “You did?”

“The garudas know how to find her.” Tanvi dabbed at her face with the edge of the blanket, leaving wet spots on the white fabric. “Because we went there!”

“She speaks truth,” Asha announced soberly. “I myself took her to the house.”

Asha had done what? Venkat was being mauled from every angle. Tenderized.

“When I ran away and let Asha spirit me here, I hurt her. I hurt my whole family. My parents got divorced because of me.” Tanvi sobbed so hard that the back of the bed vibrated against the wall. “I did that.”

Venkat’s breath snagged in his throat. “You can’t think that’s your fault,” he managed to get out. It’s Asha’s and mine.

“When I saw her, she told me they thought I’d died.”