Page 13 of The City of Stardust

The air in her lungs freezes. “It’s complicated.”

“Complicated how?”

Her hands go to her bracelets, one of Marianne’s few possessions Violet’s claimed in her absence. How could she possibly begin to explain? Marianne seems to haunt every one of her uncles’ hushed conversations, and yet Violet still has no idea where she went or why, if she’s even alive—

She forces a smile. “Just… complicated.”

For the first time, she catches something in his expression like unease. But it’s gone in the next second, and she wonders whether it was just a trick of the light.

He drains the last of his coffee and sets the empty cup down. “I’d better go. It was lovely to meet you properly, Violet Everly.”

Violet has the sudden panic that if she waves him goodbye, she’ll never see him again. And the soap-bubble dream of today will burst, leaving her with nothing in her hands but those tantalising echoes. She knows there’s more—so much more—to ask.

“You should come again,” she blurts out. “To the café.”

God forbid Aleksander show up at the Everly house. If Ambrose and Gabriel are entitled to their secrets, she’s more than earned her right to keep this one.

He smiles at her, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “I’d like that.”

“Here, then.” She hands him a small card—ten illustrated coffee cups, with the first two already stamped over in blue ink. “If you keep coming, you’ll get a free coffee.”

He looks at it and smiles. “Then I guess I’ll have to come back, Violet.”

That evening, Violet coaxes her rusty bike across countryside lanes as she makes the familiar, meandering journey home. She turns into the driveway, and as always, something knots in her stomach at the sight of her home, with its Gothic turrets and overgrown rose bushes climbing the gate. Not for the first time, she wishes it could be enough.

Ambrose, as usual, is at the kitchen table, trying to read a sheaf of handwritten documents and patch an old jumper at the same time. As soon as Violet enters, he shuffles the papers underneath the jumper, out of sight. Irritation prickles over her skin.

“Good day?” he asks. “Anything exciting happen?”

She shrugs, feeling the half-guilty thrill of a lie. “Not really.”

Leaving Ambrose in the kitchen, she heads to the library. It’s still her favourite place in the house, a treasure trove of books and curios gathered over generations of Everlys. A rusty sword hangs precariously along one wall, framed by a dozen family photos and scraps of artwork from some obscure Victorian artist. She used to spend hours imagining the knight that bore it, and the places he must have seen.

Now Violet pulls down atlas after atlas, flipping through the pages she used to pore through as a child. Something that Aleksander had said is still worrying at the recesses of an old memory, wreathed in dust and the crinkle of old paper. Nothing jumps out at her—and yet she knows she’s heard that name before.Fidelis. When she whispers it to herself, it tastes like spun sugar, like snowmelt and starlight.

Eventually, she comes to her favourite book of fairy tales, bound in green silk, with foil decorations stamped in burnished gold. It wasthe last gift she received from her mother, and it’s the most precious, her mother’s dedication scrawled in her handwriting.

For Violet—may the stars sing for you one day.

Half of the foil has rubbed off and the deckled edges are soft with age, but Violet loves it all the more for its worn beauty. Every story is set in a different imaginary city, with hand-painted maps and beautifully precise details. Suspiciously precise, now that she’s re-examining it.

She flips through until she finds the one that she’s after. It’s more illustration than map, showing a city perched high on a mountainside. She’s always loved it for the way the streets seem to twist around themselves, with fanciful names likeTullis Gate-ArchorEtallantia Sky Way.Her hands touch the top of the page, where the name of the city is hand-lettered in delicate serifs.

Fidelis.

CHAPTER

Seven

IN THE ALLEYWAYnext to the café, Aleksander checks to make sure no one’s watching before he pulls out a reveurite key from under his shirt. He holds it out in the air, feeling for the slight resistance that marks the boundary between worlds. It’s easier with a door and a keyhole, but Aleksander is well-practised now, and the thin membrane parts easily for him. A flash of blue light, a whirl of metallic noise, and then he’s standing inside Penelope’s quarters, half a step from the open archway and the view of Fidelis. Outside, snow is falling in fat, heavy flakes, visible against the honeyed lights of the city below.

From a hook next to the archway, he retrieves his assistant’s robes and pulls them on over hiselsewhereclothes. Better if they were full scholar regalia—dense silver embroidery on navy silk, with a thicker fur lining of his choosing, and whatever vestments he wants underneath—but it’s only his position that keeps him from being forced to wear the simpler novice robes, which he is nearly too old for, anyway.

As he reaches for the door, he hears the sound of one of Penelope’s gatherings in full swing. His stomach tightens; he’d hoped to catch Penelope on her own. Dread winding through him, he opens the door. The conversation dies as he steps in, and five scholars turn to stare at him in accusatory silence.

“Aleksander,” Penelope says brightly. “We were just discussing the resourcing for this winter. Please, join us.”

Yet another task tacked on to a scholar’s remit: procuring suitable resources and lines of business across both worlds, to accommodate the limitations of this one.

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