But he just blocked her path. “You’re not allowed,” he said again. “Only Nitya is.”

The neon lights flashed a violent purple veined with venom yellow, and klaxons blared, forcing Tanvi to clap her hands over her ears. All the exhibit posters became distorted mirrors that turned the cheery yellow museum into a fun-house nightmare. She dodged around the boy and started running, but before she got to the hallway, a red door with a half-moon window and a deadbolt slammed down. And beyond that, another. And another, into infinity.

Not allowed. Not you.

The marrow in her bones melted in anguish. Whoever those people had been, she’d lost them forever.

Tanvi woke with a start. Snapshots zipped through her mind: The poster of the exhibit. The woman walking away with her giraffe pretzel. The girl and her sunglasses.

And there had been a name . . .

Something about the setting had felt so familiar. Almost like Tanvi was remembering it. But she’d never been anywhere like that.

The false sense of recognition gripped her, dream residue she couldn’t scrub off.

Horror clogged her chest. If she couldn’t even separate dreams and reality anymore, she might as well hand in her remaining dreamstones now.

The sunlight pouring through the strip of window had grown stronger, a reminder that she was due to meet with Venkat in half an hour.

Her body and the bracelet screamed at her to get up. Tanvi had a routine to follow. A boon to claim. But no way could she face Venkat with the ugly dream—her ugly dream—spinning around inside her skull like this.

Resisting lit her nerve endings on fire, and she bit down on her lip to keep from screaming.

She rolled herself up in the covers and fought the urge until it finally died away.

When the door banged open, Tanvi had no idea if she’d been huddled in her bed for five minutes or five hours. “Why are you sitting like that?” Asha demanded. “Are you ill?”

“Get out,” Tanvi croaked, reluctantly lifting her head to glare at Asha.

Just because Asha was a princess, did she always have to wear such flashy clothes? The bold red of her choli hurt to look at.

Behind Tanvi’s nearly screwed-shut eyelids, the dream replayed itself, and the horror grabbed hold of her all over again, biting through her skin and into her mind. A mewl rose in her throat. She was going to crack into a million pieces.

Tanvi pinched the skin between her index finger and thumb hard. Stop.

Asha started pacing, like this was her room and not Tanvi’s. “It was never meant to be this soon. Sameer is still expecting me to help with his documentary!”

Spots smudged Tanvi’s vision as she hauled herself up, and her stomach gurgled. She was going to be sick, she knew it.

“Oh, fine,” Asha babbled. “I did not promise him. But I promised myself.”