Page 29 of The City of Stardust

“Anything,” she whispers.

“Okay,” he says.

She glances up, startled. “Okay?”

“Not tonight,” he says, glancing back at the brightly lit windows. “But yes, I’ll do it. I’ll take you to Fidelis.”

CHAPTER

Fourteen

THERE IS ONEweek every year when Fidelis shakes off the cold and becomes something ancient and daring. An enigmatic smile of a city. People don starry crowns and paper wings, pluck multi-stringed instruments, steal a kiss from their beloved or beg an extra pinch of luck for the forthcoming year.

Illios’s Blessing. The week novices are made into scholars.

The week that Aleksander normally dreads. He can hardly bear to watch another cohort of scholars go through with their newly inked tattoos and shared, secretive smiles. The way their expressions change when they see him, knowing how complete his failure is. But tonight it’s different.

Tonight, he is going to steal Penelope’s key.

He would never dare to ask her for it outside of her pre-approved outings—and he can’t, not after she’s been so adamant about keeping the Everlys and Fidelis separate.You can tempt her with Fidelis, but that is all,she’d said. But after months of visiting the café, Aleksander finally has a lead on Marianne Everly. If he can get Violet to trust him, if he can just pull this off correctly, he’ll fulfil Penelope’s request. She’ll see that he hasn’t outgrown his usefulness.

And if he feels a little guilty about using Violet’s trust like this—well, it’s something he can live with, if it means he’ll be a scholar. Surely there’s nothing so terribly wrong if they both get what they want?

Tonight, the mountain’s song is drowned out by preparations for Illios’s Blesssing. Instead of their usual chores, novice and assistantscholars clear away the snow in the square so that the mosaic tiles gleam. Forge bearers string up tiny beads of reveurite that glow like stars, while the masters build the enormous effigy of a winged creature in the centre, muttering to themselves secretively over the hidden fireworks display within. Coffee houses open late, stalls are erected, and fortune tellers pull out their cards, still glittering with reveurite dust from the previous year.

It’s an unspoken rule that Aleksander has the week off, as long as he doesn’t ask questions. In all the years he’s known her, Penelope’s never attended, despite the importance of the ritual. Instead she simply vanishes into the city. He doesn’t know where she goes, but she’s not in her chambers, the archives, or anywhere else he’s surreptitiously searched. Yet she’s in Fidelis somewhere; twice he’s had to fetch something from her rooms—a forgotten notebook, a misplaced scarf—and seen her key hanging from its hook.

When he was eleven, and only two months into his overwhelming new role, he’d asked her where she went. He felt it before he saw it: fire blooming across his cheek, her hand raised to strike again. And when he looked up, he saw the wrath of a goddess, elemental fury. Penelope’s eyes were the flat blue of a glacier.

“Do not make me regret you,” she said.

So, no questions. But tonight offers him the perfect chance to steal her key: any number of distractions to keep the other scholars occupied; Penelope away to wherever she goes; and best of all, the kind of night Violet will love. Even though he’s bringing her for a mission, rather than revelry. Normally, he’d be nervous of discovery.

Not that it’ll matter, though, he thinks, trying to smooth away his worries. Because he won’t get caught.

For most of the day Aleksander clears away snow from the streets, his back aching with the effort. Then, as afternoon draws to a close, he joins the other revellers to work on their costumes. These are thin strands of copper wire twisted into loops for wings, with feathers cunningly pieced together out of scrap paper, silk and fraying linen. With a few clever tricks, the resulting creations are surprisingly convincing, fluttering in the breeze.

The novices cluster around one another, adjusting wire crowns and pulling stray threads from fabric feathers. The crowns are always elaborate affairs: golden circlets ringed with tiny stars, diadems of leaves dipped in silver, bands speckled with painted constellations. Aleksander puts hasty touches on a simple band for himself. No one comes over to adjust his wings or remark on his handiwork, but he’s used to that, and tonight he’s banking on it.

On any other year, he would put more effort in; it’s rare he gets a night away from Penelope, and rarer still that it isn’t filled with another chore. But his mind keeps returning to the highest floors of the scholars’ tower, and the bend in the corridor that snakes towards Penelope’s chambers.

In the evening, he peels away from the crowd and makes his way against the tide of people surging towards the lower tiers of the city, past the greenhouses and the airship docks. Another load of visitors from the valley’s farmland disembark the aerial lifts, half of them complaining about the cold.

The scholars’ staircase is unusually empty, though there are still scholars milling about, finishing up work or descending to the festival, already tipsy. His hands are sweaty with nerves, and he hastily wipes them on his cloak. There’s no reason to be concerned about their sidelong stares; in fact, he’d be worried if one of them smiled at him. Still, it’s as if every scholar can see straight through his head, as he turns the corner to the uppermost corridor, where only a single set of rooms live.

Penelope’s quarters feel empty without her presence, as though she takes a piece of furniture with her every time she leaves. Without her, it’s just another series of rooms, stark in their ordinariness. Although she must have travelled to countless cities, there are no souvenirs, no knick-knacks or maps. He’d asked about this, too, when he was younger, right before Penelope had told him the story of the singing blade.

“That world is full of pretty things, isn’t it?” she agreed. “But it’s an impure, poisoned beauty. They have forgotten the stars above, the gods.” She ruffled his hair with unexpected affection. “Better that weremember who we are—where we really belong. That world is not for us, little dreamer.”

If that world isn’t for Aleksander, then why has he spent so long trying to prove that he belongs in this one?

He can’t spend the rest of his life in the shadow of all the things he’s not, all the deficiencies the scholars have impressed upon him. Not from the right family—or any family at all, for that matter—not grateful enough, too eager to please, too quick to ask the wrong questions.

That damning voice inside his head whispering,they are right.

This will change everything. It has to.

Penelope’s key hangs in a cupboard in the antechamber before the travelling room. Aleksander wipes his hands on his cloak again, and then opens it. Every key is unique, handcrafted by a forge master at the height of their talent and skill, twisted into being from reveurite. Most are embellished with fanciful whorls and tiny etchings, veined with gold or silver and strung on a necklace with precious gems. Some are even imprinted with quotes from long-dead poets, or the names of the stars that were once said to walk amongst mortals. But Penelope’s is stark and straight, a harsh line glittering onyx under the light.

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