Page 42 of The City of Stardust

“Aleksander?”

CHAPTER

Twenty-One

THERE’S AN INFINITEpause before the man turns around. And in that infinity, Violet recalls all the times she thought she’d caught glimpses of him: the curve of his smile in a crowd; a flash of sea glass-grey eyes across a busy shop; a laugh that sounded just like his, sharp and unexpected.

His eyes meet hers, and surprise washes over his face. “Violet?”

Itishim.

A million thoughts fly through her head.What is he doing here? What happened to him?And the one that sends a jolt of fear through her:he is still Penelope’s assistant.

“Wow,” Aleksander says. “Violet Everly. Hi. Hello.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I don’t even know what to say.”

Neither does Violet. Her breath catches in her throat.

She’s thought about this moment for so long. Every scenario she’s constructed in her head has been a delicate ballet of conversation. An argument, or accusations, or an apology more than a year in the making. He could have come back for her. He could have at least tried to explain before he vanished from her life altogether. It would be better if she was furious with him, if she knew exactly what ground she stood on. He told Penelope everything, she reminds herself. Yet her anger is falling through her fingers like water.

Has he spent the last year searching for her in crowds? Does he remember the night of the Verne party the way she does, his hand skimming her face, his fingers laced in hers?

But nothing seems enough in the wake of sheer bloody coincidence, while she’s still reeling from her conversation with Johannes. If itiscoincidence.

They look at each other, breaths held.

“I almost didn’t recognise you,” Aleksander says. “You look… different.”

“So do you,” she says truthfully.

There’s a tiny scar above his eyebrow, the glimmer of a new tattoo snaking underneath his collar. And his hair—his stupid, curly man bun that she’d grudgingly liked—has been shorn down to his scalp, leaving a soft scruff that looks like velvet. The man from the party had worn a certain fragility, but this new Aleksander looks a little more lived in, as though the world fits more comfortably around him.

And what does she look like? What changes has a year wrought on her?

“On another errand for Penelope?” she asks, too casually.

He shakes his head, raindrops gliding down his face. “No. I’m not—I—Look, can we go somewhere and talk? I know I owe you an explanation.”

His hands twist around each other nervously, before he buries them in his coat pockets. She would so dearly love to say yes. But the spectre of Penelope looms over them both like a shadow.

“What are you doing here?” she asks again.

“Messenger,” he says, grimacing as thunder rumbles overhead. “Letters. Some people have family across both sides of the, er—well, you know.”

“And Penelope?” she asks.

She doesn’t care if she’s being too obvious. If Aleksander knows the truth of her mission—if he’s always known—then it’s already too late. Her eyes flicker over his shoulder, searching for blonde hair, blue eyes, a smile to carve her to pieces. If he registers her worry, then he shows no sign of it.

“It’s just me,” he says.

Violet clenches her teeth against the cold. She could claim she’s busy. She could say she has an urgent errand, a meeting she can’t miss, a train to catch. He would respect that.

And then he would walk out of her life, again.

She has already let so much go.

“It’s really good to see you,” she says at last.

Aleksander runs a hand over his hair, slick with rain. “How about a drink? I know a place near here.”

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