Page 47 of The City of Stardust

A man blocks the doorway. It’s not someone he recognises.But it wouldn’t be, would it, Johannes?an awful voice whispers in his head. It’s been so long since he’s visited the scholars’ tower, or attended the soirées. His own key rusts in a box, packed deep in one of his suitcases.

When was the last time you heard the stars sing, Johannes?

“I—I haven’t done anything wrong,” he says, levelling the gun at the intruder. “Who the hell are you?”

The man doesn’t answer. Instead he reaches into his pocket.

Johannes takes aim and fires.

Nothing happens. He fires again, but the chambers are all empty. Impossible. He’s certain he left it loaded.

“Penelope said you would be here,” the man says, half to himself. “That you’d talked to an Everly. You know the rules. The consequences.”

The intruder takes something from his pocket—a packet of glittering rocks and a lighter, tucked between his gloved fingers. Visibly shaking, he tips the packet into his mouth andcrunches. Johannes has a flash of relief that it isn’t a gun after all, before he locks eyes with the man and recognition strikes him.

“I do know you,” he says, his eyes wide. “Yury Morozov.”

Yury flicks the lighter on, off, on again. Itishim, though the passing years haven’t done him any favours. His clothes hang on him likea starved man, and a painful-looking scab crawls across the underside of his jaw. His eyes shine black under the lighter’s flame.

Ingesting reveurite will do that to a man.

Yury mumbles something under his breath that could be a prayer, or a curse. Then he pulls out his own gun, sleek and shining.

“You shouldn’t have talked to her,” he says.

Johannes’ stomach drops.

“Wait, wait, I can give you what you want! You want the Everly woman, don’t you? I can give her to you—the map, whatever you want—whatever she’s asked—”

“Where did she go?”

“God help me, I didn’t want any of this. I didn’t have anything to do with Marianne, I swear! I just need a little more time,” he says, pleading. “Please.”

“You cannot give me what you do not have,” Yury says. “I’m sorry, Johannes.”

Wet warmth creeps down Johannes’ trouser leg as terror overtakes him. He lunges for a cane—at the same time that Yury raises his hand and fires.

The bullet takes Johannes between his ribs. White pain engulfs his chest, and he slumps against his bed. His hands scrabble against his wound, and they come away stained red. He sucks in a ragged breath and the pain is like a red-hot iron laid bare through his chest. Briefly, he blacks out.

When he wakes, Yury is gone. Thick, acrid smoke roils in the room; flames crackle in his doorway hungrily. He tries to stand, but his legs don’t seem to be connected to the rest of his body. Every breath burns, the heat from the flames kissing his cheeks.

Poor Johannes Braun, they’ll say. A lonely, peculiar man. House like a tinderbox.

In the doorway curtained by flames, he sees Marianne Everly, her arms folded, her expression scathing.You are a weak man, Johannes. He tries to talk to her, to tell her he’s sorry, but his mouth is dry with ash. If only he could undo it all.

The fire reaches in tenderly, and engulfs him.

CHAPTER

Twenty-Four

APREDAWN HUSH HOLDSover the city as Violet makes her way through the streets, her heart thumping in her ears. It’s utterly silent, and golden light streams from the lampposts. Twice she feels a prickle between her shoulder blades and whirls around, certain that someone’s watching her. But it’s only the wind, rustling through the trees.

The address is on the edge of the city, in an otherwise unremarkable suburban street. As she gets closer, she pictures a neat, two-storey home with trimmed hedges and prim rows of flowers bordering the garden fence, like every other house around it.

But even before she reaches the address, she knows something’s wrong. The loud wail of sirens cuts through the quiet morning, and two fire engines race past her. The air is acrid with smoke.

She breaks into a run.

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