With a loud sigh, Tanvi got up and headed to the cabinet. “I have dreams to harvest,” she said bluntly. “Do you not want me to do my work?”

“Certainly not. Indeed, I will come with you.”

“What?” Panic apparently came in different flavors. Who knew? Tanvi made her face as indifferent as she could. “Dream runners work alone. It’s the third—”

“Rule. Yes, yes, I realize that.” Asha brushed that aside with a flick of her wrist, making her bangles tinkle. That small sound grated on Tanvi’s eardrums. “Surely you have heard the mortal adage that sometimes rules are meant to be broken?”

She sniffed and helped herself to Tanvi’s rejected plate. “If you do not plan to eat these delicacies I strove to bring you, I suppose I will have to. So ssssstubborn.”

Tanvi hadn’t been ready to look at the plate again, and the glimpse of the rich food sent her reeling. She was going to pass out right here in front of Asha, who would go straight to Venkat and Nayan. And then the game would be over.

Asha daintily nibbled on an apple. “Sameer thinks Binh would not approve if I joined them on their urban explorations. How silly boys can be!”

It was all too much. Tanvi couldn’t stop thinking about the moment she’d been seen, when the strange girl had talked to her. It sent goose bumps over her arms.

That girl. My dreams.

My bracelet, my bracelet, my bracelet.

The mad racing of her thoughts broke off, and Asha’s chatter dimmed into static. Tanvi mentally traced the familiar charms of her bracelet, counting until she’d reached the end of the circle, and then starting over.

When she finally left the safety of the imagined bracelet, everything around her had returned to normal, smokelike shadows with the vaguest of proportions. She breathed out in relief and grabbed her Prithvi wardrobe of jeans and a T-shirt.

Only the dreamstones were real. Their range of shades called for dreams to fill their vacant depths. For Tanvi to find those dreams.

After she’d finished getting dressed, she packed her pouch with vials from the cabinet. “I’m leaving,” she announced. “You should, too.”

“Nayan Uncle has not yet approved my request.” Asha’s mouth tightened. “Then again, nor did he leave me time to make said request, what with the influx of sudden betrothals demanding his attention.”

Tanvi had no clue what she was talking about and couldn’t care less. “You can’t come. I told you, I have work to do.”

Asha grinned. “Suit yourself. I am certain you will enjoy being thoroughly interrogated by the guards. I, however, possess methods of travel that permit me to bypass the gates.”