“One-third,” he declared, “and that’s my final offer.” He dropped the fraction of boon into Bharat’s hand.

It fused with the two-thirds Bharat had previously accumulated, a soft white orb shining over his skin until he, too, glowed. “My console,” he said breathlessly, invoking the boon.

The boon wavered, then dissolved into a handheld video game console.

Bharat immediately began punching buttons. When the panel he had stepped through minutes ago slammed aside hard enough to shake the bare wall, Venkat jumped, but Bharat didn’t even react.

Princess Asha burst into the appraisal room, her night-dark hair streaming out behind her in bejeweled waves, and her green-gold eyes with their slit pupils blazing as intensely as the gold-and-pearl belly chain that marked the point where her brown midriff merged into her undulating serpentine tail. She might have been a dreamstone herself, the mauve of her gold-trimmed choli shifting in the light of the overhead lanterns, one second a shimmering ruby, the next a vivid amethyst.

Three people already put the room at capacity, but just beyond the panel, Venkat caught a glimpse of Tanvi—her own loose hair unadorned, her simple salwar kameez a muted yellow, and her dark eyes cast down—before she slipped out of sight again.

Odd—she wasn’t on today’s appointment roster. For her to show up like this, she must have run low on dreamstones. Venkat made a mental note to check that the other runners were still well stocked.

“I must speak with Nayan Uncle,” Asha announced. “Where is he?”

Venkat pointed Bharat and his new console toward the exit. His fingers still tapping away, Bharat left.

“I’m busy, Asha,” Venkat said. He adopted his best fake fawning tone. “But never mind my work; it loses all meaning before your fulgurating presence. Pray tell, Princess, how may I best serve your every arbitrary whim?”

Asha hissed, long and loud, her serpentine gaze glinting and her fangs flashing, as if any of that would intimidate him. “Do not test me. Where is he?”

“On his morning stroll,” Venkat said lightly, trying not to laugh. “You know, the one where you’re not supposed to disturb him? That one.”

“Yet I am in need of him.” Asha gestured to the dreamstones left by the other runners, positioned in a row like a necklace waiting to be strung. “I am overdue to return to Prithvi, and I must remedy that straightaway.”

A scouting mission. The laughter turned to spikes of dread in Venkat’s throat. Asha couldn’t have noticed Jai’s condition. She hadn’t even been around much lately.

But if she had . . .

Everything was happening too fast. Venkat should have updated Nayan already, but he had made excuses, had let himself keep hoping, as if things would somehow fix themselves.

Calm down, he told himself, swallowing the dread before it could climb any higher. She doesn’t know.