Page 60 of The City of Stardust

He turns over the next card, already regretting this endeavour—and stops. It’s undeniably Berias and Tullis, twined in their classicpose of love and betrayal. But Berias wears a woman’s body and Tullis, his unseen knife angled high—

It’s Violet and Aleksander.

The likeness is undeniable: Tullis’ tattoos match his, down to the three dots curving around his ear; and Berias possesses Violet’s teasing smile, her curling hair. Aleksander glances at the asteria, but she only tilts her head to the next card.

He swallows, and keeps going.

The third card is Etallantia, bearing her book of wisdom and cup of knowledge bestowed only to the scholars. But once again, the astral wears Aleksander’s face. Then Illios the First Scholar, who bridged the gap between mortal and astral, surrounded by his Hands. Aleksander’s painted expression is screwed up as he drinks golden liquid from the goblet that will elevate him to godhood.

The fifth card is Tamriel the Desecrator. An astral in the raw breastplate and skirt of a warrior, his hands uplifted to the sky as blood runs red in the city below. Aleksander’s smile of ecstasy. Aleksander’s hands stained red.

Unable to stop himself, Aleksander turns over the next card. He doesn’t recognise this one, and yet he is in it again, the wings of an astral erupting behind him, golden tears tracking down his face. A body hangs limp in his arms, the face hidden in the crook of his elbow. But the soft brown hair, the graceful curve of the neck, the dangling wrist with one half of a pair of bracelets he knows so well—

He stumbles backwards, knocking over a stray candle. Its glass cup breaks, scattering shards across the floor. Wax pools on the floor.

There is just one card left, but Aleksander can’t bring himself to touch it. He doesn’t want to know what it will reveal.

“I can’t,” he whispers.

Dispassionately, the asteria flips over the final card: Erriel, astral of the lost. Her face, illuminated by a single lantern, is solemn. The rest of the card is streaked black. Nothing.

The asteria surveys him, her face unreadable underneath the face paint. Her gaze meets his, and he reels back. Her eyes are so terribly ancient. How had he not noticed before?

“We see the shadow behind you,” the asteria says. “We see the shadow ahead. From nothing, to nothing.”

Aleksander takes a step back, then another. It is all deception and trickery, he tries to remind himself. This is someone’s idea of a joke. The cards are just cards.

Tullis and Berias. Aleksander, entwined with Violet, his lips against hers—

In the last glance before he flees, he notes that the cards placed together look like an archway. A door.

CHAPTER

Thirty-One

VIOLET WALKS WITHCaspian along the endless underground hallway, away from the asteria’s shadowy nook. Caspian is no less at ease here than he was at Yulan’s party. He seems to know everyone by name, and those few he doesn’t, he greets with effortless charm. It’s not lost on Violet that he’s using this same charm on her, which means he wants something. But it’s still awfully hard not to fall for it.

“I suppose I can’t ask why you’re here in Prague,” he says eventually. “With Aleksander of all people.”

Violet glances sideways at him. “You could.”

He steeples his fingers thoughtfully. “Ah, but then you would tell me an untruth, and then I would have to pretend I believe you. Let’s not make liars of us both,” he says—then adds with a sly smile, “Besides, I would be disappointed if it wasn’t as exciting as the rumours.”

“What are the rumours?” she asks curiously.

“That you’re chasing a lover across the world,” he says, ticking down his fingers. “That you’re a spy. That you are already walking between worlds.” Caspian halts mid-step. “That you’re looking for a doorway to the lost scholar-city, Elandriel.”

Violet gives him a sharp glance. He’s not looking at her, but she has the sense that he’s listening very carefully to every intake of breath. He runs his hand across the crooked nub of an exposed brick.

“What do you think?” she asks, as breezily as she can manage.

He just smiles at her, but she has the feeling she’s already said too much.

They pause by a nook with dozens of maps for sale pinned to the walls. Violet recognises the outline of Fidelis from her fairy-tale book, but it’s still odd to see it so obviously displayed, and not squirrelled away like a secret. The other maps are all squiggles and vague instructions, with little enough detail that they could be anywhere. Violet’s seen a few of these before, all claiming to lead to fairy realms, or other worlds entirely.Drink this potion at midnight on a blood moon and walk three steps backwards into a stone circle under moonlight, et cetera.

There is a part of her that knows these aren’t real instructions, or even real places. But there is another part of her that imagines all too easily the stone circle, moonlight pouring downwards, the steps backwards into the unknown. To the witches in their forests, to the stairs inside the wardrobe. A word that still rattles around the inside of her skull, clutching the edges of her dreams.Adventure.

“I’ve seen it, you know,” Caspian says quietly. “The gateway to another world.”

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