Maybe, Venkat thought, the old self-loathing coating him like rubble from the collapse, I do.

He hadn’t let himself think that way in years, but then, he hadn’t had that dream in years, either, not since the parade of books had replaced it. Shame, raw and scorching, rekindled in his chest, threatening to suffocate him, the same way he’d watched his family suffocate.

You failed us, his mother’s long-dead voice chanted, like a corrupted mantra. You failed us, you failed us, you failed us.

Someone banged at the door, jolting him out of the dark spiral.

Asha. Finally.

Just like Nayan had taught him, Venkat locked the memories away in the invisible chest in his heart. “Took you long enough,” he called, schooling his mouth into a pleasant smile.

But it wasn’t Asha.

Instead Madhu stood there, wrapped in a cardinal-red sari, her thick white bun threaded through with strands of gold. The matching red bindi between her eyebrows dipped as she glared at him. “Lord Nayan wishes to see you before your appointments.”

Venkat’s smile sagged. “He does?”

“Jyotsna and Anand have delivered your breakfast to the archives.” Tiny bells on her golden ankle bracelets tinkled as she moved. “Come; Lord Nayan awaits.”

Nayan never sought Venkat out so early in the day. Was it Jai? Was it Tanvi?

Madhu didn’t say a word as they hurried to the archives, which didn’t help.

She barely waited to throw open the double doors, each with a pull in the shape of a praying nagini, before announcing, “I return to you the absent child, uprooted from his own fancies!”

“Ha, ha.” Venkat entered after her, braced for Nayan to take one look at his face and work out everything that had happened yesterday.

Nayan was seated at his desk, washed in the pale blue-green glow from the skylights. The ledger lay open before him, and scrolls tied with silk cords sat piled to one side. In his heavily embroidered cobalt sherwani and surrounded by the vast shelves of gilt-bound volumes and vials of previously mined dream fragments, he seemed aloof, the court historian engrossed in other times, other places.

The single incongruous object was the table set beside the desk. Two chairs ringed the table, and two golden plates bordered by emeralds and sapphires matched the covered platter gleaming tantalizingly at the center of the table.

Venkat’s stomach rumbled at the aromas drifting out from beneath the domed cover, a pointed reminder that he never did pay his second visit to the buffet last night. But the thought of what he had to tell Nayan crushed his appetite.

“Good morning?” he tried as Madhu served the food.

“Thank you, Madhu.” Nayan rose and pulled out both chairs. “Sit,” he told Venkat.

Venkat sat.

Madhu poured them each a glass of jewel-fig water and stood back. “Enjoy.”