“Tanvi . . .” Venkat didn’t know what else to say. Her anguish buffeted him, too, almost palpable in its intensity. It was too big for either of them. Even Asha looked beaten down, her hand clutching something at her hip.

“In your story,” Tanvi continued, her tears drenching her choli, “Uloopi gave up being with Arjun for the good of everybody else. I can hold off on being reinitiated until I know my family’s safe. I owe them that.”

“Wait, that wasn’t what I—”

“I keep remembering stuff, but it’s not enough. I can’t— The memories, they’re killing me. It’s . . . it hurts, so much. I have to remember, but I can’t, not totally.” Her voice ramped up in speed and pitch, as if she couldn’t restrain it any longer. “They’re tearing me in half. They won’t leave me alone, so I need them back. I need to remember. It’s the only way. Please, Venkat, you have to help me.”

He’d known she was struggling, but not like this. “Oh,” he said, because he had to say something.

“I have to protect Nitya and my mom until Asha’s wedding,” Tanvi finished, and collapsed back against her pillow, panting like she’d sprinted across the palace.

“Yesssss,” Asha sibilated. “Until my wedding.” She thrust whatever she’d been holding at Tanvi, who unthinkingly plucked it out of the air. “Here. Now I must go. I have already overstayed.”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Venkat said. “You owe me an explanation, Your Highness.”

Asha waved him off. “And you will have it. But not now. They will be searching for me even as we speak.”

Tanvi eyed the folded piece of paper like it might detonate. At least her tears had subsided, replaced by distrust. “What is it?”

Asha was already shape-shifting. “You wish to speak with your sister, do you not?”

Both Venkat’s and Tanvi’s heads snapped toward her. “How?” Tanvi demanded. But Asha, now in cobra form, slithered off as abruptly as she’d arrived.

And then Venkat was alone with Tanvi again. He didn’t know what to do, what to say.

“Can you just go, too?” she asked, eyeing the note.

Venkat still felt dazed. He still had so many questions. And he was dying to hear more about Nitya and find out what that note said. But he couldn’t deny Tanvi’s requests, not either of them.

He nodded, running through his inventory of dream elements, considering the forged pieces that, so far, had endured. He’d come up with something.

He had to.

“Yes,” he said, on his way to the door. “I’ll help you get your memories back.”

26

The paper in Tanvi’s hand was starting to soften where she gripped it. She didn’t know whether to read it or throw it out. Had Nitya gotten in touch with her? How? Why?