“I thought you wanted to tell me more about Sameer?” Tanvi suggested, the words sitting oddly in her mouth. But if that was what it took to distract Asha from her blunder, she’d do it. Anything to keep her bracelet safe.

“Interesting.” Asha tilted her head. “Sssssuddenly I have your attention?”

Tanvi let her expression go slack. “Well, this way, maybe you’ll finally leave.”

“We will leave, yes,” Asha said. “Now, in fact, after I see Nayan Uncle. You will stay out of sight while I obtain authorization for my scouting mission. Come.”

“You want to go now?” What was Asha thinking? Tanvi hadn’t seen proper daylight on Prithvi since she’d become a dream runner. And did it have to be Philly? “I was sleeping!”

But if she didn’t go, Asha might get even more suspicious. Then Tanvi might never get her bracelet.

The idea almost broke her in half. She could survive without the harvest if she had to, but not without the bracelet. Its gold links, its dangling charms, the way it would fit around her wrist and make that tinkling noise . . . what else was there?

She wouldn’t let that happen. If Asha was testing her, she refused to fail.

“That is when I scout, yesssss,” Asha replied, even her hiss amused.

“Fine.” Tanvi stomped to the door without waiting for Asha. “Let’s get this over with.”

4

Every so often, even though he didn’t need it, Venkat liked to wear a jeweler’s loupe while alone in the workshop. He remembered sneaking into Mummy’s and Papa’s closets as a kid and cobbling together costumes—Mummy’s Indian and Western jewelry and bindis, Papa’s ties and hats. He’d told anyone who would listen that he’d be a treasure hunter when he grew up.

That was all gone now, of course, just like his family, but Venkat had never quite outgrown the urge to pretend. According to Asha, role-playing was popular in the mortal world these days, and while he had no plans to leave Nayan, Venkat did wonder what it would be like to attend a convention dressed up in an elaborate outfit, even donning someone else’s identity. But the character he had in mind wasn’t one anybody would recognize. No, he would zip himself into the Venkat who might have been and discover the path his life could have taken.

Was that any different than the nagas’ desire to experience mortal dreams?

He had maybe a quarter hour before his first appointment of the morning, but Venkat drew out the loupe from its silken case in a drawer anyway. Then he spun the dial on the burnished brass device and stared through the diamond lens at the shelves upon shelves of dreamstone vials lining the gold-and-cobalt-and-grass-green walls. His own well-stocked wizard’s laboratory, courtesy of the nagas, keepers of precious metals and jewels.