Page 5 of The City of Stardust

Between their absence and its dilapidated condition, it’s been practically wiped from the map. Certainly removed from any correspondence, archives or detritus the Everly brothers could get their hands on. As long as Ambrose kept quiet—as long as Gabrielconducted his business elsewhere, as long as Violet didn’t leave the house—who would suspect they were hiding a child here? Penelope couldn’t seek what she didn’t know existed.

Until now.

He can just about claim a desire for peace and quiet if she pushes—but they both know how much solitude can look like secrecy.

Penelope taps her fingers on the edge of the armchair. “You owe a debt, if you’d care to remember.”

“So you say,” he says carefully. “But I don’t recall asking any favours.”

He’s on thin ice speaking to her this way, but he can’t let go without a fight. Maybe it’s because this is the first time he’s seen a glimmer of peace, a faint reward for having to while away time in this house. Maybe he just doesn’t think his family deserves to be served up to a monster.

“I’m not negotiating, Ambrose,” Penelope says with infuriating calm.

“The Everly name owes a debt. Not me,” he says.

“And aren’t you an Everly?” she asks.

“Don’t pretend that this is the same, that—”

“Ambrose.”

She doesn’t have to say his surname for him to hear it echoing close behind, the way it has his entire life. Stubborn like an Everly, brave like an Everly, doomed like an Everly. But an Everly nonetheless. If only he could reach into his ribcage and pluck the Everly out, tender and intangible as dreamstuff. If only he could erase that part of himself for good—which is to say, all of him.

He would do it without hesitation, if he thought it would save them.

“Fine,” he spits out, “but that doesn’t mean—”

“Then you are indebted, as is your niece. I could simply take the girl now, if you’d prefer,” she continues. “Violet is quite as good as her mother, I assure you.”

His stomach lurches at the thought.

“We can find Marianne,” he says quickly. “Gabriel is looking for her as we speak.”

He is just buying time, he tells himself. As much of it as he dares. And if that puts Marianne at risk, if they find themselves at these crossroads months from now, with mother and daughter weighed up on the scales and no way out—

He’s not a gambling man, but here he is, putting every last coin on his sister to be smarter than their clumsy machinations.Forgive me, he thinks desperately.

“You’re very confident in him. Are you sure he isn’t hiding her?” Penelope asks softly.

“Yes,” Ambrose says. Then he adds, “We don’t even know why Marianne left.”

Which, of course, is a lie. But he practised this in front of the mirror, saying it until the words felt like meaningless syllables. Until they became their own kind of truth.

“Violet’s just a child,” he continues, stretching out the lie. “She’s worth nothing to you.”

Penelope’s smile widens, and Ambrose feels the ground shift underneath his feet, the tilt of the knife-edge sliding them all towards disaster. Yet neither of them say the word strung between them: Violet is worth nothing—yet.

Penelope stretches out the pretence of civility by taking a sip from her cup of tea, and every second is agonising. “Very well. I will make a deal with you, Ambrose Everly. I’ll leave Violet alone if you find Marianne. But I won’t wait forever.” Her eyes narrow. “Ten years is a sufficient amount of time, don’t you think?”

“Ten years,” he echoes. “And you won’t harm Violet in the interim?”

“I see no reason to,” Penelope says.

“That is…” He swallows. “Generous of you.”

Ambrose notes, the way he always does, how ageless she seems, like a rose stretched to fullest bloom and then frozen in unnatural beauty. Like a glass just before it shatters.

“We have a deal,” he says, forcing the words out.

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