Page 71 of The City of Stardust

The man falls to the floor, his hands glistening with gold. He leans over Erriel’s body and presses his lips to her neck. Her eyelids flutter, their sunlight tint leaching from them. When the man lifts his head again, his teeth are luminous and golden with her blood.

Violet backs away, terror clouding almost every thought.

She sprints towards the staircase, half tripping on the hem of her dress as she takes the steps two at a time. Her shins feel hot and wet from where she fell, but she can’t stop to check if she’s bleeding.

Behind her, something distinctly inhuman bellows.

Aleksander is still milling around near the top of the staircase, holding on to her mask. She grabs his hand and pulls him towards the exit, stumbling as she tries to put her shoes back on at the same time. His eyes widen with alarm.

“Violet, your arm,” he says. “Yourface.”

She touches her cheek, and her fingers come away stained gold. Astral blood.

Goddess blood.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” she says tightly. “Now. Before—”

“Oh my God,” he whispers, looking straight past her. “Yury.”

She follows his gaze and her stomach lurches. The man staggers up from the stairwell, the fabric of his trousers flaking away from him in embers. Sparks hit the floor and burst in an audible hiss. He seems to shine from within, white light shooting from the cracks of his gangrenous skin.

There’s a split second where no one notices him, the dancers still waltzing, the music playing a vigorous jig. Someone laughs, and the sound carries in the courtyard.

Then he crashes into a side table, and several people turn to look at him.

“Oh bloody hell,” someone mutters. “Who let him in?”

“He’s drunk.”

Mr. Velvet Jacket saunters up to the man, then stops as he notes the light radiating off him. “Yury? What on earth are you—”

The man grabs Roy by his collar, impossibly strong. “It burns! O Bozhe moy, God save me—”

Yury places his hands on Roy’s face, and presses. Roy’s scream cuts across the music, the chatter. Then, abruptly, it stops.

Silence rings out as everyone freezes, the violinists’ bows mid-draw.

Roy crumples to the floor, his flesh bubbling with burns where Yury touched him.

The courtyard bursts into shouts and frightened cries. Scholars peel away from the party towards the exit. But the stairway is narrow—only made for one—and a crowd surges around the entryway, bodies seething in panic.

Yury clutches his head, screaming in a mixture of English, Russian, and the same unearthly language as the astrals. He wrenches at his chest, tearing skin.

“What happened?” Aleksander says urgently, as they fight their way to the exit.

“I think… he drank her blood.”

There are still traces of it on her hands, from where she accidentally touched the floor, and on her face.

“Whose blood? Violet—”

Someone crashes into Aleksander and he collapses into a table stacked high with glasses, bringing it all shattering down with him. Blood seeps into his silk mask, red against blue.

Yury crouches by another person—another body, Violet registers with dim horror—but his head snaps around at the sound of glass. He wipes his mouth, crimson mingling with gold, and heaves in a shuddering breath.

“I asked her to take the pain away, I asked her to take it—but you refused, you said no—I will be remade anew—I owe a debt—oh God, it burns—”

Yury stalks towards Aleksander as he scrambles backwards. His eyes glow with incandescent light, burning his pupils to pinpricks.

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