Page 66 of The City of Stardust

As they turn the corner, the street is awash in light from the church. Several people mingle outside smoking thin cigarettes in holders, their heads bowed together. A man monitors the entrance.

Violet’s stomach churns as they approach the doorway. But the man only has to see the tattoos on Aleksander before he nods and lets them through. Gold keys glint on his cufflinks, and his hair is tied back in silver ribbon.

“See?” Aleksander whispers. “Easy.”

He’d said, after all, that he could gain them entrance, even though she hadn’t really believed him. She glances at the tattoo visible on his hand: seven thin black lines disappearing, she knows, up to the inside of his forearm where they twist into abstract branches, or roots. She’s spent so long with the scholars, but there’s still so much she doesn’t know. What draws a person into their circle; what shuts them out forever.

Apart from a few other revellers, the church is quiet and the faint scent of incense still lingers. Saints gesture mournfully at one another in stained-glass windows, artificial light throwing faint rainbows on the floor.

Another man—this one in a midnight-blue tuxedo and matching mask—leads them down the nave, before turning left to the north transept, and towards a door. As they descend the spiral staircase, a strange hum intensifies, echoing off the stone walls. And there’s a heavy pressure in Violet’s head, as though they’re underwater. She glances at Aleksander, but he looks just as puzzled as she feels, his forehead puckered in a frown. The stone seems to glitter, even in the darkness.

Then, with an audible pop, the air pressure releases. The stairs finish.

And Violet steps out under an open sky.

She blinks and then blinks again, but it’s real. Clouds scud across the moonlight, and the chilly breeze makes her grateful for her long sleeves. Mountains curl inwards on them, imposing and unbreachable. The floor is worn stone, but Violet catches glimmers of silky silver and gold veins running through it. It’s too smooth, too perfect to be the product of natural erosion. Around the edge, tall pillars wend their way upwards, and even though half of them are broken or smashed, it’s still a spectacular sight. A courtyard, made by human hands.

Violet recalls Caspian’s words.A door to another world.

Her skin prickles with excitement.

The party surges up to meet them, larger than any she’s been to before. Scholars, dozens of them from across the world. They all wear masks in stunning displays that put Violet’s and Aleksander’s to shame. At a glance through the crowd, Violet spots wrought-iron cages and veils of silk, masks made of gold leaf and delicate stained glass, or bracketed by pearls dripping from fine silver chains. A string quartet plays amidst them, in sombre black masks.

Now that they’re actually here, Aleksander is all nervous energy, twisting his hands over themselves. She doesn’t blame him; so many scholars together makes her jittery, too.

Then she sees it: a heavy archway with a pointed roof, supported by twin columns carved to look like wings flaring outwards, and yet crumbling with age. This was what had struck her in Tamriel’s vision, that she’d never seen anything quite like it in all her travels, or her books. That it had instantly felt otherworldly.

She’s about to walk over when she notices someone staring at her. She recognises him instantly: Mr. Velvet Jacket, who had so unsettled her in Adelia Verne’s home. His eyes catch Violet’s, and narrow.

“Come on,” she says, tugging Aleksander away.

A sudden spike of fear thrums through her. Who else has decided to attend this party? What if Penelope is here somewhere, circulating amongst the guests? In their masks, it’s hard to tell, but any one of them could be her—smiling, drinking, devouring. Violet shivers.

Aleksander takes off his suit jacket and swings it over her shoulders. “It’s cold out.”

“What about you?” she asks.

He shrugs. “I’ll be fine.”

Violet looks at him—really looks. The man she once knew and the stranger, overlapping in the way he smiles at her. Again and again they seem to be walking this thin line of friendship, moving through the same dance-like motions and yet circling back to the beginning. She told herself she wouldn’t be distracted tonight, but how can she not ask?

“Aleksander—”

He cuts her off. “We must be in another part of Fidelis.”

She blinks at him. “We didn’t have a key.”

“No, but…” He tilts his head up to the night sky dotted with stars. “I recognise the constellations. Tullis and Berias, see? And that’s Etallantia.”

All Johannes’ talk about the fractured remnants of Elandriel had made no sense in the moment. But here, standing under these stars, she knows with sudden clarity where she is. An island, broken off a greater whole.

She glances back at the doorway they came through. From here, it’s another entrance nestled within the mountain, a curious wooden door that seems incongruous against the heft of its rocky pillars. But it’s halfway open, and she can see the staircase winding its way up from the church basement. The two images wrestle side by side, headache-inducing.

“The Blessing is this way,” Aleksander says, nudging her to the archway. “That’s what you came for, right?”

A man in a gold mask stands underneath the archway, a knife in his hands. Violet glances anxiously at the other scholars. Without the tattoos, she feels naked, dangerously exposed. One quick glance at her unadorned skin could see her thrown out—or worse. But she has to find a way to get close, so she swallows her apprehension and approaches.

The archway reveals a snug hollow with just enough room for the man in the gold mask, one or two scholars and what at first glance looks to be a lectern. Up close, Violet notes that it’s more like a church font, with a convex basin instead of concave. A knife flashes in the darkness, as one by one, scholars slice open their palms and wipe blood on the convex mound.

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