Page 19 of The City of Stardust

Aleksander freezes in the doorway, his pulse ratcheting. Penelope’s back is turned to him, but her tone is silky. Dangerous. Frantically, heruns through all the things he might have fucked up in the last week. His mind comes up a terrifying blank.

“Mistress?” he says nervously.

“How many weeks has it been now, Aleksander? Eight, nine?”

It takes him a fraction too long to realise what she’s getting at. “Since—”

“Since I charged you to extract information about Marianne Everly from her daughter.” Penelope turns, her mouth thin with anger. “And have I not been patient? I’ve listened to your useless tidbits about her café friends and her likes and dislikes. Do you know what I haven’t heard yet, Aleksander?”

Aleksander bows his head, shame creeping over him. “I just need a few more weeks, I swear. I’ve been working on it, but she’s very reluctant to talk about Marianne—”

The blow is not unexpected, yet it catches Aleksander’s jaw with shocking ferocity. Fire blooms across his face, pain briefly eclipsing his thoughts. He glances up, eyes watering, to Penelope’s impassive expression, her hand still raised.

“I dragged you out of the gutter to give you the chance of a decent life. To fulfil the potential I thought you possessed.”

Aleksander’s head is still reeling, but he tries to pull himself together. He resists the urge to touch his face and probe the damage. He has to say something to fix this. But all he can think about is the starburst of pain, the metallic taste of blood in his mouth.

“You are not a Verne, a Hadley, a Persaud or any of the other families of note.Theirfailures might be tolerated, even indulged, but then their places are secured.” Penelope’s tone finally softens. “I cannot advocate for you if you do not advocate for yourself.”

“Yes, Mistress,” he whispers.

“I am running out of patience, Aleksander,” she says. “I will give you a few more weeks. But that is all.”

Aleksander exits, trying to ignore the hot throb in his jaw. When he glances at his reflection in a window, the red outline of a handprint is streaked across his face. Already a bruise is forming.

He’s trying to do his best by Penelope, to be her blade. But he is failing. As usual.

On his next trip to the café, he stands outside for what feels like forever, despite the frigid weather. Through the fogged windows, Violet moves between tables with ballet-like precision. The café is quiet today, and he watches as she meanders back to the countertop, where two of her colleagues are clearly bickering over something. The window gives Aleksander a perfect view of the area behind the till point—and the book Violet has cunningly stashed there. She tucks a curling wisp of hair behind her ear, drawing his gaze from the soft curve of her neck to the way she bites her lip, clearly engrossed by her contraband. It’s only when he catches his own reflection in the window that he realises he’s smiling like an idiot. Smiling at her.

Aleksander debates for a minute, but there is no one watching him. He allows his eyes to refocus, greying out the surroundings. His mind falls still, seeking out the presence of another dreamer.

Only those with talent can use the keys. Only those with talent can become scholars. And the Everlys are not a scholar family, even though they possess so many of the hallmarks that Aleksander still wonders what they did to make themselves outcasts.

Even if by some miracle Violet did possess talent, it would only be a whisper of gold that would never see her admitted as a scholar, nor anything else that Fidelis might need. So she’ll never know the mountainside song Aleksander loves so much, never see the year’s first snowfall, never stand at the edge of the city with him, in a world he has only just begun to dream of sharing.

He’s spent long enough indulging the foolish whims of an imagined friendship; there’s simply too much at stake. But he has toknow.

His breathing slows, stops—

The world explodes in a shower of golden light. Violet at the epicentre. She’s not just another dreamer, not just another anything.

It’s impossible, he thinks. And yet.

CHAPTER

Ten

THE YEAR ISturning; a visit is owed.

Midnight breaks across a village deep within the French mountainside. Stars cluster against the night sky in their brilliance, and the roads are all but silent. Then a flash of blue light intrudes on the darkness, and Penelope ducks through a doorway into an alley. She holds a small package, which occasionally wriggles in her grasp.

A man with sunken cheekbones and a haunted expression steps out of the shadows to meet her. Penelope dumps the package in his waiting arms.

“I almost thought you weren’t going to come,” he says nervously.

She observes him levelly. “I always keep my promises, François.”

Penelope leads the man through the one main road in the village and then to the wild countryside beyond. The road turns to rock and dust underneath their feet, and the trees grow larger, midnight black. François’ eyes dart to the bundle in his hands, but he says nothing.

---