That didn’t buy Venkat much time, though. He didn’t believe for a second that Karan had lost interest in what he’d seen, any more than he’d bought Venkat’s feeble excuse. Venkat still didn’t know how he’d been able to cover for Tanvi to begin with; stumbling onto her amidst the trees like that had thrown him. She’d looked so lost and vulnerable in her violet-and-silver chaniya choli and borrowed—stolen?—jewelry, a human girl completely out of her league.

He gripped the goblet tighter. Among the nagas, wasn’t she?

Venkat headed back to the palace, weaving his way through the clusters of people enjoying the night. With any luck, he could catch Tanvi before she left for Prithvi.

The other day, when she’d shown up unannounced in the appraisal room, haunted him now. He’d known something had been off, with how slow she’d been to respond after he’d asked about her dreamstones. Like her attention had gone somewhere else.

He shouldn’t have written that off. Venkat’s heart squeezed. Tanvi and Jai were the last of their cohort, and burnout was just a matter of time.

Venkat glanced furtively around again, in case either Nayan or Madhu was nearby. It was silly, and he knew it. Even Nayan couldn’t read his thoughts.

A hatchling swayed across his path, much more graceful than a human toddler. Venkat paused to let the small boy by. The miniature scales in his cobra tail aligned seamlessly, each iridescent section perfect in itself but also a fundamental building block of something larger and magnificent, like the elements of Venkat’s dreamsmithing project.

If Tanvi was burning out, too, Venkat knew he couldn’t hide it. He had to tell Nayan.

Except, he thought, half mesmerized by the hatchling’s tail as it rippled away, Tanvi hadn’t acted like Jai. Jai had been fixated on the idea of selling his dreams, obsessed with the boon that would get him his beloved tricycle. Venkat could have asked him about anything—how he’d slept; going camping as a kid; the best kind of cake—and Jai would have turned the conversation right back to the boon.

In contrast, Tanvi had been strangely absent. Vague, even.

Anxiety pressed down on him, dark and heavy. If she wasn’t burning out, what was wrong?

Venkat stared at the palace, its golden domes and jali balconies aglitter in the gentle blue-green halo. Whatever was happening to Tanvi felt like a piece that belonged to a different puzzle than the one he’d been painstakingly assembling all this time, and he had no idea what to do with it.

Asha appeared at his side, breezy as a spring day, and clinked her goblet against his. “Drink and smile, you ssssstubborn thing,” she hissed under her breath. “They are watching!”

Venkat started to answer, but she dug her elbow into his ribs. “Ow!”