"What… are these?" Maya asked, visibly confused. "I've never seen needles like this, not even in Ayurveda."
Nivedita laughed softly. "Neither have I. These… weird silver threads? I've never even seen Das use them before. But he's been working on these for days. He even made dad buy all sorts of crazy rare herbs and stuff. Some of them had to be flown in from god knows where. I think he even ordered extracts from some old monk in the northeast. Spent over a crore on it."
She lowered her voice like she was sharing a secret. "He worked day and night. Boiling, grinding, meditating. I swear, one time I saw him meditating while burning something that smelled like wet thunder."
Maya blinked. "Wet thunder?"
"I don't know how else to describe it!" Nivedita giggled. "Point is—you're about to get something real. Not your five-star hospital drip."
Vikram cleared his throat. "That's enough."
