Her limbs felt as clumsy now as they had all those years ago. She might not dream, but she did need to sleep if she wanted to stay alert, and passing out on a hard floor for the second night straight wasn’t going to cut it.

The rattle came again, hurtling up her spine. Someone was shaking the doorknob. Still groggy, Tanvi pressed her palms over her face.

“Sssssilly creature,” crooned an incredibly aggravating voice through the door, right on cue, “would you sssssleep away the entire morning?”

It wasn’t even dawn yet. “Go away!” Tanvi called, jumping up one second too late.

The knob turned, and Princess Asha glided in, the shine of her chevron-patterned scales an assault on Tanvi’s sleep-raw eyes. “Why is it always so dismal in here?” she demanded, waving at the ceiling until the overhead lanterns flared to life. “One might almost believe you runners prefer to dwell in drabness.”

Tanvi headed her off by the foot of the untouched bed, then stabbed a finger at the doorway.

Asha, of course, ignored the hint and flounced past her. “Do you like my new barrettes? Sameer gifted them to me.”

“Why are you here?” Tanvi mumbled, her thoughts slowly defogging. “My appointment with Venkat’s not until tomorrow.”

“How perfectly ssssstultifying! Do you not want barrettes of your own? A necklace? A pair of jhumka earrings? Or . . .” Asha edged toward the closet. “I realize we are dipping our tails into unknown territory here, but perhaps even a dress or a sari? Some flowers to freshen up the space—jasmine to start with?”

The ambush made Tanvi’s teeth hurt. Asha didn’t usually badger her like this. And she definitely knew better than to poke around the closet.

Asha suddenly slithered over the threshold. “You and this fixation,” she called, shaking her head. “What exactly do you think this charm bracelet will bring you?”

Tanvi barely heard her. “Get away from there,” she growled.

With a single ripple of her coils, Asha reappeared in the room proper. She huffed. “You dream runners are all so predictable. I shall tell you about my day, then.” In less time than it took Tanvi to blink, Asha morphed into her human form and reclined on the bed, hugging a cushion to her chest before diving into her story.

Tanvi itched with impatience. Until recently, Asha had been busy scouting potential candidates for Nayan’s stable, leaving Tanvi to her own job of harvesting. She’d been the one to spirit Tanvi away to Nagalok in the first place.

But now that they were both physically—if not chronologically—seventeen, Asha had decided she was bored with her cushy life as a princess and invented a human boyfriend.

Except everyone knew that nagas were forbidden to consort with mortals; it put them at risk of being captured by the garudas. Not even Asha could get away with that.