Tanvi’s eyes wrenched open. The first thing she saw was the door to her room—unfinished brown wood. No fallen folder lay on the floor.

Suddenly the sheet was balled up in her fists, her knuckles paling with the force of crushing the cloth.

No. No, no, no.

Say it, she ordered herself. Say it!

She’d been dreaming. And this one couldn’t be blamed on residue.

Tanvi choked down the scream that wanted to rip loose from her throat. Nobody needs to know. Nobody needs to know. Nobody needs to know.

She repeated the sentence until it quit meaning anything. As long as nobody knew, she was safe. It would be okay. She would be okay.

No matter how hard she tried to convince herself that was true, though, she couldn’t deny the most fundamental rule of all: dream runners collected other people’s visions, yes—but they were vessels, and empty vessels never, ever dreamed. That was the point.

Tanvi’s breath shuddered out of her, ragged and frantic. Her eyes felt gritty, as if she hadn’t rested them in weeks.

Why was this happening? She’d passed the initiation. She’d successfully harvested dreams all this time. She was a natural dream runner; even Asha said so.

It was her own fault, she decided, flinging the sheets away. She’d been too careless with her last harvest, too cocky, and the dream residue had clung to her. It was the only explanation. She could fix it, though. She could slow down and make sure every last bit of the dream ended up inside the vial.

Except, a cold voice insisted, residue didn’t create new dreams. It couldn’t.

If anyone found out, she was done for. No more dream running meant no more boons—and no more bracelet. Her hand encircled her wrist, feeling the bare skin.

No. The dream had to have been a fluke. She wouldn’t let it be anything else.

This time, when Tanvi slept, she didn’t dream.

6

Well, mused Venkat as Asha hauled him toward the palace’s grand audience balcony, where the nagaraja and nagarani would soon be speaking, the nagas do like their holidays.

The Hindu lunar calendar was packed with festivals from different regions and traditions to the point that someone could practically find something to celebrate every day of the year. And in the capital city of Bhogavati, they did.

Sharad Navratri, the post-monsoon autumn jubilee, was really just an excuse to break out the treats and the fanciest of already impossibly fancy clothes. Monsoons might be common on Prithvi, but here they were nothing more than the stuff of myth and legend, and most people’s spiritual sentiment lagged behind in a distant second place to the shopping and feasting.