“That’s why you disappeared.” Nitya laughed bitterly. “You’re kidding. You ran away because I was mean to you at a party?!”

“It was our birthday party!” Tanvi couldn’t access the details, but it didn’t matter. “And you were always mean to me! Always ganging up on me with everybody.”

The pain had been branded into her. The betrayal. The knowledge she’d always, always be on the outside of everything. Even her sister, her twin, didn’t care about protecting her.

She scowled. That awful feeling was all the memory she needed.

“Tanvi,” Nitya said, picking at the hem of her top, “you left us.” Tears shimmered in her eyes. “We thought you were dead! For seven years. Do you understand that?”

I’m not, though, Tanvi almost said, before a small blue head lifted slightly from her wrist, green-gold eyes alert. It was a wonder Nitya hadn’t gotten bitten.

The room went wavy. Asha. Hadn’t . . . hadn’t Asha said Nitya’s name to Sameer? Hadn’t she brought Tanvi to his house?

That meant she’d known whose house this was, too.

Since Tanvi couldn’t tear into Asha with Nitya looking on, she channeled all her wrath into her glare.

Nitya must have thought the glare was meant for her, because she rushed to say, “Don’t look at me like that! Tanvi, we thought you died. Mom said you needed a little time to yourself, but when you didn’t come back for an hour, we all went to look for you. . . .”

She explained how they’d searched and searched, and eventually the guests had left, but Nitya and Mom and Dad kept searching. No matter where they tried, no matter how many times they called Tanvi’s name, no one answered.

The neighbors reported having briefly seen Tanvi outside, and no one had had any leads after that. The cops hadn’t been any help, claiming she’d show up on her own. Of course, she never did.

“Do you know what it was like, wondering every day if you’d come home?” Nitya visibly vibrated with outrage. Her tears spilled over, and Tanvi wished she didn’t have to see them or listen to any of this. “To wait for the day someone found your body? I couldn’t sleep, Tanvi. I kept thinking I should have done something differently. That it was my fault you ran off.”

It was, Tanvi thought, but doubt chewed at her. She’d never stopped to think about how her parents, her sister, would have felt when she vanished. What it would have been like for them to imagine she was dead.

Or if she had, she’d forgotten after the initiation. She’d forgotten everything except this kernel of bitterness at the center of her heart. And the link to her sister, the thing that had made her dream.

Why? Why did Nitya mean anything to her?