It plopped through the leftover water, twinkling like a dreamstone as it vanished beneath the surface. She hoped it wouldn’t need much in the way of sunlight, because with the inverted naga pupil she had for a window, it wasn’t getting any.

Then she waited, afraid to breathe, but nothing happened, good or bad. Maybe Madhu wasn’t spying. Or maybe Asha was playing her cruelest prank yet.

Nothing, and more nothing, and still more nothing. Tanvi got itchy.

More memories spiked, aching like a rotten molar, until her brain seethed and her stomach knotted. If Venkat couldn’t help her, Tanvi swore she was going to bash her head against the wall.

The bracelet. It would soothe her.

Tanvi was halfway to her closet before she caught herself.

Whatever happened when—if—the seed sprouted, she thought, before the pain swallowed her in a stupor the exact tarnished gold of her bracelet, it had to be better than this.

Tanvi came to on the floor, her mouth disgusting. She’d been dreaming—something about a garden of miniature girls in sweet-scented flowers?—but the vision faded, insubstantial as the ether it had come from. The part of her that was still a dream runner hated to lose the dream before it could be properly harvested and stored in a vial. Another part, the one that screamed for reinitiation, couldn’t wait for it to be gone. It hadn’t really been hers, anyway. Just mental clutter passing through.

And the third part, the part that had agreed to be a dragon, wondered how it all ended.

Trying to quash that traitorous thought, Tanvi aimed her attention at the white walls, the plainness of the furniture. This room was meant to be a way station, she realized. A place to recharge before heading back out. If it felt like a home, she might start to think she was someone she wasn’t. Someone who not only dreamed but also cared about those dreams.

She should have gotten rid of Asha’s annoying gifts a long time ago. Every single one, starting with the gaudy vase of flowers.

The vase. The seed! Had it sprouted?

Tanvi raced over to the shelf. A plant had sprung from the water while she’d slept, green enough to be sculpted from emerald. No, blue as star sapphire. Wait—was that the violet of sugilite?

A plant that thought it was an opal. Tanvi wondered if she was still dreaming.

As she watched, a lone leaf bud sprouted from the color-changing stem. She gingerly prodded it. It shivered, unfurling like a fiddlehead fern, but instead of a leaf, rows of green barbs splayed in a graceful shape, one she recognized. A peacock feather.

What in the worlds did this have to do with Nitya?

The plant shivered again, and the feather tumbled onto the shelf. The rest of the plant dissolved as if it had never been.