Once Nitya had left, and Venkat had given back her drink, Tanvi made herself say the words she’d been shoving down. “I already left my family once. I need to stay here. With them.”

She dug her toes into the dirt, knowing he’d tell her they couldn’t be together, then.

Venkat pressed his forehead to hers. “I figured as much,” he whispered. “And it won’t be easy. But I’m not going anywhere—at least, not without you. We’re family, too. You’re the one who told me that.”

Tanvi looked up at him in astonishment. “But what about being a dreamsmith?”

“I’ll still be one. Plus, I have to finish healing the other runners and get them settled here.”

She ran her thumb over his knuckles. “I’ll come back sometimes and help.”

“I knew you would.” Venkat grinned. “So we’ll see each other all the time. And once you’re ready, you can even introduce me to your mother.”

Tanvi had never felt so shy in her life. He’d really do that for her?

Venkat held up a tiny book on a chain. “I forged this for you. It’ll tell you any story you want, whenever you want. All you have to do is ask it.”

He fastened the chain around her throat. As his fingers skimmed the nape of her neck, she shivered. “What if I want it to tell our story? What then?”

Venkat laughed. “I think we have to write that one ourselves.” He moved aside, freeing her path to the house.

Tanvi took a deep breath, studying the red door and pondering what lay beyond.

It wasn’t a dream anymore. She could rub her eyes, and the door would still be there, as solid as ever. Her life still waited for her behind it.

She didn’t have to go in. But she wanted to.

Tanvi smiled at Venkat one more time. Then, touching the pendant of stories for strength, she walked toward the door, prepared to meet her family all over again.

Acknowledgments

Writing a second book under contract is hard enough, but writing—and revising and revising and revising and revising—a second book in the wake of your debut and while in the throes of a raging global pandemic? Let’s just say there were many, many points along the way where I seriously doubted this vague premise in my imagination would ever become a physical object readers could hold in their hands. And yet here we are, all thanks to the wonderful people I’ve been blessed to have on my team and in my life.

First, thank you, as always, to my agent, Beth Phelan, for working with me on the pitch for The Dream Runners until it was ready to submit and for always championing me in so many ways, some of which I’ll never even know about. #TeamBeoples!