Page 69 of The City of Stardust

“She wished to leave. She came to us weary, filled with nameless sorrows and frustrations.”

She wished to leave. Shock hits Violet like icy water.

“Did Marianne say where she was going next?” she pleads. “Did she reach Elandriel? Did she find what she was looking for?”

Erriel touches Violet’s cheek, her fingertips warm. “She said you would be full of questions. You have her likeness, Violet Everly, and O how we have missed her.”

Then Erriel steps aside, and Violet sees what the light has blinded her to. A silver door, hung in a reveurite frame. Though it’s hard to tell, she’s certain she senses something behind the door. A susurration. A hum that could be a chorus of voices.

“She went through this door. We would follow, if we could, though it does not lead to Elandriel, or the homeland that is still precious to our memory. If we hear the song of the stars, it is only distantly through her echoes.”

Violet takes a step towards the door, but Erriel’s staff comes crackling down hard on the ground.

“We do not give without taking,” Erriel says. “We wish it were otherwise, but that is the nature of who we are.”

“What did Marianne give you?”

Erriel looks at her curiously. “A hand. She offered it on her own terms,” she says, seeing Violet’s expression. “We did not suggest it.”

Violet swallows. “Do I have to give you… flesh?”

“We would consider it an appropriate exchange,” Erriel says. “And your blood is so very sweet, so very like our own.”

Violet stares at her own hands, horrified. What can she offer that isn’t herself? She has already lost so much. Time. A future that she should have been grateful to have at all. A memory that bores a hole through her mind.

“We offer you another suggestion, Violet Everly,” Erriel says. “We would take something that you will not miss, except in your dreams. Your talent.”

“My talent,” Violet echoes.

Thesomethingthat scholars search for, that lets them manipulatereveurite and walk between worlds. Aleksander had once told her it looked like golden sparkles in his vision, but she’s never seen so much as a shimmer.

It’s not like Violet has ever done anything with this mysterious talent anyway. But still, even on the brink of so much promise, she hesitates. All this potential bursting inside her, and she’ll never know how to use it. Never know what it’s like to make magic with her fingers, or cross worlds with a key. It’s the only legacy her mother has truly ever left her.

Erriel holds out her hand. “Take it and follow Marianne where you will. Or leave. We will not force you.”

Violet’s hand hovers over Erriel’s. But she can’t seem to move.

“If you pass through this door, you may never be able to return,” Erriel says.

Violet’s hand closes into a fist as she pulls away. What would her uncles think? She recalls every single bitter word about Marianne, every argument between them, every disapproving scowl from Gabriel. She thinks about Ambrose, sitting in his fireside chair, growing older and waiting for the day for his niece to return. He would never know what happened to her.

Maybe, in the back of his mind, he would always wonder whether Violet simply gave up on her family and disappeared. The way Marianne did.

“There must be another way,” she says.

“The cost to travel through a door is always sacrifice, Violet Everly,” Erriel says softly. “Did you not bestow us with your blood upon arrival? This door may not lead to the fabled city of old, but it is all the same to us.”

Violet bites her lip. If she goes through for her mother, she could find a way to come back. She could bring both of them back. But she would have to vow to herself that she wouldn’t be swayed by her mother or the new world in front of her, by the safety that it would afford. She would have to be resolve itself.

And if she couldn’t come back… She’d have to live with that decision. She might never see Ambrose and Gabriel again. And if Penelope got hold of them—

Could she do that? Even knowing what happens if she stays here?

Slowly, Violet reaches for Erriel’s hand.

“I think—”

A blur of darkness shoves Violet aside.

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