Page 64 of The City of Stardust

IN A SMALL, high room, sharp fangs flash in the darkness. A breathy gurgle. A shuddering swallow. And then—silence.

Four scholars kneel at the altar, their hands lifted, trembling with adrenaline. Their robes indicate positions of power: an archivist, a notary, and two master scholars—all well versed in this particular ritual.

Because of Penelope, they will lead longer lives, fulfil their obligations to the tower and restore lost knowledge. Her fledgling city trying its hardest, even if no one remembers the grand empire it once was.

She drinks deeply, coppery blood staining her mouth as strength flows back into her bones. But not as much as she needs. A thousand years ago, it was a drop of blood. Three hundred years ago, it was an offering from the wrist. Fifty years ago, it was a sacrifice. Now it is a steady stream of children with light singing through their veins—or the occasional incompetent scholar, if needs must.

None of it as sweet, as bitter, as potent as Everly blood.

She’s meted out their bloodline for centuries, holding back for as long as she can. Now though, she feels the gap between generations, the time stretched too thin. Despite every effort, her body is failing on her. If she had Marianne, and the key to Elandriel—

If she had them, she would not be here at all, languishing amongst ruins.

How deeply she regrets this savagery. But ten years is ten years. And Penelope always keeps her promises.

Another child stumbles up the tower, gripping a scholar’s hand tightly. Already sedated, the child looks up at her and smiles. Hopefully. Foolishly.

“Close your eyes,” Penelope whispers, soft as a kiss.

A storm is coming.

The Everly brothers are together for the first time in nearly a year. Sitting side by side, heads bent over a purloined volume on the astrals, their shared resemblance is, for once, impossible to ignore. Twin aquiline noses, twin mouths with deep philtrums, both pulled downwards in worry. They exchange looks of apprehension at the page before them.

The night before Yulan Liu is supposed to get on a plane to Prague, she lies twined in bed with a scholar, tracing the soft curve of her breasts. They are still supposed to be pretending that this is a fling, that either of them could walk away unharmed. Then the scholar touches Yulan’s face and says, “Don’t go to Prague.” With Illios’ Blessing at hand, there are plenty of opportunities for Yulan—new customers, new books to acquire, new avenues to work—but the scholar’s expression is serious. After a beat, Yulan curls into her warm body and kisses the divot of her collarbone. “I won’t,” she whispers, and so she doesn’t.

In an underground city built on the ashes of the dead, Caspian Verne thinks of his shadow-self, Aleksander: the man who he could so nearly have become. Very rarely does he let himself consider the path taken from him—what point is there ruminating on a past he had no hand in, when the future is all to play for? Yet tonight, it takes all his effort to drag his thoughts away.

Carelessly, he tosses a coin in the air. Heads, he stays to see how it all pans out. Tails, he leaves. It lands in his palm and he claps his other hand over it. Silver sword or golden feather? Later, he will curse himself for cowardice; later still, he will thank every god he knows for the slip of luck that makes him leave.

Yury Morozov wakes from the purest dream yet; his armour is nearly complete. He eases his trousers past his skeletal hipbones to probe the necrosis that has at last made its way to his groin. There, right at the seam between his pelvis and his left thigh, a shiny reveurite scale protrudes from his skin. The promise of a miracle on his flesh, come too late.

Deep within the mountain caves, where the ground is still soft and loamy from centuries of ice melt, Penelope offers the last rites to a child, in a graveyard known only to the master scholars. There are well over a hundred graves, all unnamed and unmarked—and yet Penelope recalls every one. So much potential lost to a greater cause. But she cannot stop, not now.

Aleksander presses his fingers to his mouth and closes his eyes.What do you want from me, Aleksander?Nothing he’s allowed to have.

In the dim corner of a hostel, Violet cradles her phone in her hands, the light illuminating the remnants of her tears. Carefully, she reads over an unsent message to Ambrose. For a long time, her thumb wavers, ready to press send. Finally, she wipes her face and deletes it, word by word.

And then…

In a long dead world, amidst the pin-drop silence of books no one will ever read and doorways no one will ever pass through, along passageways furred with dust and alleyways untravelled for thousands of years—

Something stirs.

CHAPTER

Thirty-Three

SEVERAL DAYS LATER, Violet waits underneath a streetlamp, smoothing out the last few creases in her new outfit. Her dress is powder blue, with a high collar and long sleeves to conceal her lack of tattoos. After so long wearing the same comfortable, travel-worn clothes, she’s grown used to soft fabric and forgiving elastic. Her new shoes pinch her toes; the stitching along her ribs itches. She adjusts her cuffs, pulling them down as far as they’ll go.

Violet checks the time again, trying not to worry at a cut on her lip. Aleksander is running late. She hadn’t planned to ask him to come with her, but she isn’t a scholar, and she doesn’t have the tattoos to give the illusion that she belongs. Caspian had unexpectedly refused her, citing an unmissable family meeting. So she’d had no choice but to ask Aleksander.

You take too much from me.

They’ve barely spoken since the argument. Since the kiss. Her mouth still feels bruised from that night, like a wound she can’t stop touching, even though it hurts. Too much, and not enough, all at once.

It doesn’t matter. After tonight, they’ll go their separate ways. Caspian is right, much as she hates to admit it. There are the scholars and Aleksander, and then there are people like Violet. Even if she wasn’t on a deadline, even if she wasn’t trying to find her mother, and stop Penelope, and just live her goddamn life—

She will always wonder about him. But Violet is tired of pretending that they could still slide back into their friendship as easily as puzzle pieces. He’s changed. So has she.

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