Page 72 of The City of Stardust

Violet pushes against the sea of people frantically, her heart in her mouth. She took Aleksander here; if anything happens to him—

She pulls free just in time to see Yury reach Aleksander. Without thinking, she grabs what remains of Yury’s waistband and yanks. Hespins around to face her, and somewhere underneath the bloodlust, his eyes light up with recognition. Violet backs away, one eye on Aleksander.

“You,”he hisses. He storms towards her, every stride closing the gap between them. “Too late in New York, Vienna—buthere.”

Violet’s foot hits stony cliff. She’s trapped.

Yury barricades her against the rock face, hands on either side. His breath reeks of coppery blood, and heat radiates off him like a furnace. For a split second, she’s back in Tamriel’s basement, his soft voice ringing in her head.Just one taste.

Yury looks at her, fat golden tears streaking his face. His mouth wrenches with agonised sorrow. “I just wanted to feel warm again. I just wanted warmth. Bozhe, I am sorry. But a debt is owed.”

He reaches in, as if to caress her face.

She only has one chance to get this right.

Thumb over fist.

Her hand smashes upwards, connecting with Yury’s jaw. Pain flares across her knuckles, bright with heat. In the second between recoil and rebound, she ducks out of his arms.

Yury reels back, knocking a brazier on to a table. Flames burst across the wood, licking up the tablecloth. But the fire consumes his attention immediately. She catches the briefest glimpse of his face—painful longing. He lunges towards it, dipping his hands directly into the flames.

Taking advantage of his distraction, Violet sprints towards Aleksander. He has only just managed to heave himself upright, and his mouth is pinched with pain.

“You—are you okay?” he says, which is a ridiculous question, but she nods anyway.

“Are you?” she asks.

He gestures to his foot and grimaces. “I twisted it when I fell.”

The scholars have mostly cleared out, but there are bodies, silent and unmoving, on the floor.Bodies. Yury’s head is bowed over one of them, and the sound of cracking bone is unmistakeable. When he breaks away from the body to scream, it echoes across thecourtyard—and, for the first time, in Violet’s head.He is changing,she thinks with horror.

It’s only a matter of moments before Yury realises there’s more to consume.

“We have to get out of here,” she says.

“But—the scholars—” Aleksander says.

“We can’t save them,” she says, aware of how awful she sounds. “Listen to me: either we leave now, or we end up likethat.”

“I—” He glances back to Yury, who is starting to tear at the skin on his back. “Okay.”

They’re only a few paces from the doorway when Yury snaps up. Their eyes lock. All at once, he rises from the ground, his body impossibly elongated. Light bursts from his skin in a fiery glow.

Violet doesn’t think; she grabs Aleksander’s hand and drags him towards the door. She hears a hiss of pain, but she ignores him. They have to reach the door before Yury. He reaches out for her, claws snaring the back of her dress, shredding fabric—

And then she’s through the door, slamming it shut, Yury on the other side. There’s blood on her arm, on her face, hot on her back. They’re safe. But—

The door. Her mother. Erriel.

“Violet?” An entire world of questions in Aleksander’s voice.

“I’m coming. I just…”

She could still turn back. She could still fight her way past Yury, towards the reveurite door that leads to her mother, and somehow fix it. She could still try.

And she almost reaches for the handle, she really does.

Violet is only a few steps up the stairs when the door splinters into a thousand fragments, plunging them into darkness.

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