Page 113 of The City of Stardust

Marianne would run.

But then the wheel would turn. Penelope would devour her uncles, Aleksander, the world, before she devoured herself. Nothing would change.

“Violet.”

Somehow, Aleksander has found her. He must have run because he’s slightly out of breath, but in several quick strides he’s by her side. He looks at her like he knows exactly what she’s about to do.

“Aleksander, I—”

He cuts her off. “I’ll rebuild the door. I’ll go with her. I’ve already made up my mind.”

“How very touching, my assistant.”

Penelope stands at the edge of the dais. Gone is the tall, unassuming blonde woman who stepped through the Everly front door to wreak so much havoc. And in her place, something else entirely. Her wings trail smoke across the ground, rolling off the edge of the ground. Flames curl around her head in a halo of white light. She holds two swords streaked in fire, clasped in fists.

She looks like a goddess, terrible to behold.

“It is admirable to think you can take Violet’s place,” she says. “But only an Everly—”

“It doesn’t have to be an Everly! It doesn’t have to be anyone,” he says, and no one is more shocked than Violet at the way he raises his voice.

“There is aprice,” Penelope hisses.

“You could leave them alone. Please,” he says.

Penelope’s gaze flashes dangerously. “You will know your place, my assistant, when this is all over.”

He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. “Not if you do this.” Then he opens his eyes again. “But if you let her live… I will rebuild the door for you. I will go with you wherever you choose. If you wish to punish me”—he stumbles on the words and has to take another breath—“then I will accept what is given.”

He takes a few steps forward, but Violet puts out a hand to stop him. He looks at her, anguished and afraid.

“I will survive it,” he says.

But survival is not living. And she has already seen the damage Penelope has wrought, the scars that won’t heal. There is a person wearing Aleksander’s body who may very well survive Penelope. But the Aleksander she knows and loves now would not. He has already faced so much, just by being here.

“You’re not an Everly,” she says gently. “But I am.”

Aleksander reaches for her hands, and she realises she’s trembling. “You don’t deserve this. You didn’t make this deal.”

Neither did Gabriel and Ambrose. Neither did her mother.

Violet recalls the asteria’s words of sacrifice and loss, of the terrible hand she’d been dealt. Even then, she’d hoped there would be a magic last-minute reprieve, a way out that would be both bloodless and easy. But she grew up on a feast of fairy tales and myths; there is always blood.

And she is so very tired of curses.

Up close to the reveurite boundary, the hum of power is like an ache in her teeth. Violet presses her hands against the pane and it ripples back like a curtain. Penelope steps through, awful in her magnificence. Horrific and wondrous.

“You keep your word,” Violet says, “and I will keep mine.”

“Very well,” Penelope says.

She sheathes her swords and holds out her hand expectantly. Violet stares at it. Her uncles have made so many sacrifices to keep her safe, so many terrible decisions to give her a life worth living.Because that’s what the Everlys do for one another; she just wishes it hadn’t taken her so long to see it. Now it’s time to return the gift.

It will be okay. It will be quick. It will beover.

“Someone has to go,” she says, rallying herself.

“Yes,” Ever agrees. “Someone must go.”

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