He combed through the threads and located the boy from Nayan’s origin story, King Takshaka’s hotheaded nephew. Venkat watched, sick, as Garuda disposed of the boy and took his place. So much anger driving so much violence. It fed off itself.

That thread wove into the ones showing how Garuda as Nayan had initiated runner candidate after candidate until he found one with the potential for dreamsmithing—Venkat.

Venkat wanted to go in and rip out that last thread. It would be so easy. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get over Garuda’s deception. It threatened to destroy everything good about the past ten years. Everything he’d come to believe as secure and true.

But if he did that, he’d sever so many other threads, too. Shred the lives of people who’d never done anything to him. Like Tanvi.

His grandmother would never have stood for that.

Moving into the present, Venkat sifted through the threads one last time and tugged on one, then another. He mined, he gathered, he soldered.

He didn’t even feel human anymore. He’d soared beyond that, his fingers deftly sorting through elements of dreams and combining them to create something greater. Inspiration flowed through him, almost as if the revisioning itself were guiding his hands.

Tanvi had shown him you couldn’t just paper over mistakes and pretend them away.

And if she could be brave enough to face her sister again, then Vinata and Kadru could face each other. What happened after that was up to them.

When he emerged from the trance, the grounds around him were silent. Garuda and King Vasuki were frozen in mid combat. The other soldiers, too, had stiffened in place, a gruesome tableau he wouldn’t want anyone to see in their dreams.

As the tapestry dissolved, Kadru floated out of the sky and settled next to Vinata. “Hello, sister,” she purred. “Did you forget to invite me to the party?”

“What did you do, you impudent boy?” Vinata cried. “You have ruined everything!”

She rushed at him, her timeless beauty contorted into a mask of fury. The expression Madhu had worn all too often, especially these last few weeks.

“Wrong,” said Venkat, even as her nails gouged lines of fire into his wrist. His skin screamed, but he couldn’t afford to get distracted. “You’re the ones who did that.” He concentrated on Tanvi, who nodded her encouragement. “So now you’re going to be the ones to fix it—if you can.”

Ignoring the pain, he sent his fingers dancing over the easel once more. A dome of colorless crystal arced up and around the sisters, shutting them in.

He watched as their eyes cleared. Their howls of outrage stilled as they gazed at each other.

“A moment of unclouded sight,” he explained. “Also, that really hurt.”