Page 48 of The City of Stardust

Breathless, she halts outside of Johannes’ house. Her heart stops in her chest. An inferno churns in front of her—right where his house should be.

A dozen firefighters struggle to contain the blaze, as neighbours pace up and down anxiously in their pyjamas. Even on the other side of the street, Violet can feel the heat of the flames against her face. The noise is a crackling roar, as windows explode and furniture shatters inside.

She watches for more than an hour as the fire slowly recedes and extinguishes. The police arrive and start cordoning off the street. He’ll come out, she thinks desperately. He’ll be okay.

Then she sees it. A gurney. A sheet.

The body.

One of the police officers sees her and shouts something in German, but she barely notices. This can’t be coincidence. Whoever did this… it was because of her.Shesought out Johannes.Shewasn’t careful enough. She might not have killed him, but this is her responsibility, her fault.

Johannes is dead because of her.

Violet turns away and throws up, retching until there’s nothing left.

The next moments are a blur. But when Violet’s thoughts finally return to her, she’s streets away from the fire. Exhaustion fogging her thoughts, she checks her phone. A missed call pops up, hours old, and for an awful, hopeful second she thinks it’s from Ambrose.Come home, he would say.

But to her surprise, the voicemail is from Johannes.

“I’ve changed my mind; it’s too dangerous. I’m leaving—now,” he says, his voice tinny in the recording. “I… I’m not a good man, Violet. None of the scholars are, whatever they tell you. But if Marianne thinks she’s found a way to Elandriel… I believe her.” He laughs to himself. “I was an idiot.”

These are the words of a ghost, a dead man, Violet realises. Maybe the very last.

The voicemail is long, punctured with the rustling sounds of packing. But at the very end, Johannes gives her an address. And a warning.

“Violet, this object—you must be careful. If you knew what you were really searching for, you would not go,” he says. “Most scholars who went looking did not come back. It’s—” Johannes pauses, his breathing heavy on the other end of the line, as though listening for something. “I’ve got to go.”

The voicemail ends.

Violet listens twice more, taking down the address. A building in a French village, hours by train from here.

For another second, she thinks longingly of her home, of Ambrose mending jumpers in his favourite armchair, Gabriel teaching herhow to throw a punch again.Thumb over fist, kiddo!Of them together, safe in the shelter of the Everly house.

What she wouldn’t give to be there right now, to set aside her anger and simply write off the last year as a bad dream.

Then she forces the thought aside, and sets off towards the train station.

Aleksander stands outside the scholars’ tower in the cold, watching movement flicker from the crack in the doorway. As always, it’s alive with activity, humming with messengers and errand runners, scholars and their assistants. He watches them for as long as he can bear, then longer. From his vantage point outside, he can just about smell the ink, the warm bread baking in the kitchens below.

How easy it would be to cross that threshold. And how impossible.

Before anyone can notice his presence, he flips his hood over his head, sinking into shameless anonymity. He walks around the side, to the edge of the terrace, where the cliffside falls away into a deathly nothingness. From here he can see the lower settlements in the valley, lights twinkling defiantly against the persistent fog.

Penelope is standing on the very edge, watching with interest as an airship docks below. She barely glances at him as he comes to stand beside her. He waits, in agonising silence, to be acknowledged.

“How is she?” she asks.

He swallows, thinking of all the things he could say. That seeing Violet had been like a punch to the stomach. Older, and yet unchanged, still half feral and recklessly beautiful. Still compelling in the way that fire captivates from a distance. He hadn’t even realised he was already halfway to burning himself on her. Then everything that followed came flooding back, wave upon wave of shame.

She has no idea what she’s cost him.

“Look at me,” Penelope says.

He raises his head, afraid to think of all that he’s revealing to her in his face alone. As his eyes meet hers, he tenses, bracing himself for her fury.

It’s his fault. It’s all his fault.

“I have granted you one last chance to prove yourself worthy,” she says. “If you fail me again, there’s no going back, do you understand?” Then her sternness falls away, and she becomes the Penelope from his childhood once more. “Aleksander, I was loath to give you up. But you broke our most sacred rule. And I can’t bring you back now, untested. The council won’t allow it.”

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