The suspicion that had buzzed just beneath the surface of her thoughts burst free.

I’ve been here before.

Suddenly she knew why this place and its pineapple knocker were so familiar. Why Sameer was.

Her whole body quavered, and it hurt to breathe.

She’d harvested his dream. The one about breaking into a house with his buddy. She’d harvested a dream from Asha’s secret human boyfriend.

His house pressed in around her. The chandelier’s crystals turned into serrated prisms designed to carve Tanvi into ribbons.

“What about Nitya?” Asha asked, cupping Sameer’s face in her hands. “What about her ideas?”

Nitya.

Sameer bent forward. “Ask her yourself at garba.”

Tanvi couldn’t stay here any longer. Not even the thought of the bracelet, with all its golden charms, could soothe her. That terrified her more than anything, more even than her own—she hesitated to think the word—dreams.

Nitya, Nitya, Nitya.

Tanvi backed out of the kitchen and fled.

8

A lambent mist bathed the workshop balcony, varnishing the blues and greens of the walls in salmon and violet as Venkat finished setting out the dream elements for Nayan’s inspection: a tree of ebony apples growing in a barren sandscape; a first date despite a sultry, suffocating lust for someone else eternally beyond reach; a fully ripened wrought-iron lantern fallen from its lamppost-tree, rich with custardlike glowing pulp and seed; and of course, the restaurant fire.

“Rebirth and renewal,” Nayan said, appraising the table. “What have you come up with?”

Impress me. Venkat heard the challenge in the question, and he selected the isolated element from Bharat’s harvest.

“I think the restaurant fire works best here. It’s both”—he opened his awareness to the emotions in the vial—“poignant and hopeful. A broken heart, but paired with the promise of healing.”

Dreamsmithing was, at its core, an art of revelation. Venkat listened to each element in turn, the way a composer selected a note or a chef sprinkled in the perfect spice, until he found the one that fit, letting it lead him through a winding labyrinth of imagination. The rightness of it always sang in his chest, a logic beyond words.

Nayan nodded, then held up the agate dreamstone containing the custard lantern. “And why not this one?”

How Venkat answered was the real test. He thought hard. “It could’ve worked, too. Except something was missing. That sense of loss to be overcome.”

“But you felt it with the fire?”

“Yes.”

“Well chosen.” Nayan smiled, and the pressure was off. “Your sense of nuance has grown by leaps and bounds these past few months. Shall we begin, then?”

Pride swelled in Venkat, only to be stained by the confusion and hurt he’d felt during yesterday’s royal audience. Why hadn’t Nayan told him about the betrothal? Wasn’t he Nayan’s foster son? But he didn’t know how to say that.

“Sure,” he agreed instead.