She had Venkat there. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll put in a good word for you with Nayan when he gets back. But no promises.” Asha preened. “Now can you please let me do my job? I still have to get out there and deal with the customers!”

Her lovely features screwed up in annoyance. “I suppose so. But only if you agree to leave this stuffy prison and celebrate with us tonight. You never have any fun.”

Venkat sighed. Every year, Asha tried to drag him out during Navratri. Like a spoiled older sister, she’d harass him with her constant need for the limelight, but then, right when he was ready to toss her out the window, she’d charm him with a little gesture like this. Even though he never brought it up, she hadn’t forgotten what that date meant to him.

“Oh, do come!” wheedled Asha. “You never go anywhere. Even Nayan Uncle says so.” Her scowl had turned as bright and cloying as the jalebi pops she’d once brought back from the Night Market, oozing enough sweetness to send him into a sugar coma.

But Venkat had had years to build up a tolerance. Channeling his best evasive Nayan, he shrugged. “We’ll see.”

As though she’d gotten the answer she wanted, Asha beamed and slithered out, leaving him alone with Tanvi. “Thank you for waiting,” he told her, and pulled a pouch of dreamstones from the cabinet beneath the table.

She held out her hand for it. The hollow way she stared at nothing, her pretty face blank until her fingers dipped into the pouch and found the loosely packed vials, snagged on something inside him.

He’d seen that detached look thousands of times before, but as if Asha’s invitation had pried open the floodgates of memory, he suddenly recalled Tanvi the day she’d arrived—she’d been ten, curious, and feisty. As she took the pouch from him now, an echo of that girl radiated around her like an aura before dispersing.

The dreamsmith in him had to wonder: Who might she be if things were different?

That question was its own kind of forbidden fruit, and he shook it off. “Happy harvesting. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” But when she didn’t leave, he frowned. “Yes?”

She’d lost herself to the pouch, her fingers digging into the fabric and letting go, digging in and letting go. He resisted the urge to wave his hand in her face.

“Tanvi?” he tried. “Is there something else?”

The silence between them hung as dense and dark as smog. Was she burning out, then?

“No,” Tanvi said after what felt like an hour. She turned and scuttled through the panel.

Venkat stared at the place she’d been. If only he could believe that.

5

Back in her room, door shut, Tanvi chanted one word over and over and over: bracelet.