As Asha made her way back to him, he let himself remember. That first year in Nayan’s house, Venkat had loathed Deepavali here. Sure, it had resembled Deepavali on Earth, even if the people celebrating had scales and bifid tongues, but he’d been alone. No parents telling him he’d eaten too many laddoos. No brother complaining that Venkat’s sparklers always stayed lit longer than his. No grandfather recounting the story of Lord Rama’s triumphant return to Ayodhya after having defeated Ravana, no grandmother folding a rupee note into his hand for offering during Lakshmi pooja at the mandir. No friends from school to race him through the streets. For their part, Asha’s friends had only seemed interested in siphoning free dreams out of him.

Not to mention that Navratri was the last time he’d seen his family alive. With that memory emanating like an apparition from the flame in every diya, he’d vowed then never to celebrate it again.

And yet here he was in the thick of the revels, decked out in a sherwani woven from green-and-yellow plumage and embroidered with tiny gold parrots while toting a bag of the dream scraps Nayan had sent with him. Venkat had to admit this wasn’t so bad. He didn’t even mind the curious glances or speculating murmurs. Meeting a particularly attentive—and cute—nagini’s gaze, he flashed her a playful smile.

Asha bared her fangs, startling him so he almost tripped over the rangoli’s winking eye. The women on the ground glowered, their slit-pupil stares heating up from brown to blazing gold. “Ceassssse your shameless flirting with everyone!” she hissed in his ear.

He backed up as fast he could. “What? I’m not—”

“Do you not see how they look at you?” She swept her arm to take in the landscape as they resumed their trek.

Arguing with Asha was a fool’s game, so he changed the subject. “Where’s my barfi?”

“You did not say you wanted any,” she retorted with a smirk, happily munching.

They passed a series of stages arranged to mimic a wave, all blues and greens, as if the ocean itself were taking part. Children crowded around each one, where troupes performed scenes from the various epics: Queen Kunti telling the Pandava brothers to share whatever they’d brought home, which that afternoon happened to be Princess Draupadi, who then married all five of them; Princess Sukanya recognizing her husband, Rishi Chyavana, though he’d been enchanted to wear the same youthful, dashing face as the Ashvini twins, who’d hoped to win her for themselves; the nagas fleeing their cousins and mortal enemies, the garudas. The nagas, of course, were sleek and graceful, while the garudas were monstrous, their eagle heads overripe red melons with cruel hooked beaks, their feathers and talons dirty yellow knives.