Page 75 of The City of Stardust

“You forget yourself, little dreamer.”

The shadows in the room thicken. Darkness pools at Violet’s feet. When she tries to move, her feet freeze in place. Thick black tendrils loop over her shoes and wind up her legs, burning where they meet bare skin. She struggles, but every time she moves, another coil fixes her in place.

Penelope walks forward, her shadow lengthening behind her. With every step, the pews on either side crack and splinter. For a second, Violet sees not one, but two versions of her: Penelope, as she’s always known her, blonde hair carefully tucked behind her ears; and then a woman of darkness, tall as the ceiling with wings of smoke unfurling behind her.

Goddess. Astral. But it’s as though someone has sucked all the light from her, a black hole instead of imploding star.

“I am centuries old, Violet Everly. I remember when the stars walked the earth like mortals. I remember when humans were a whim of the cosmos, stardust and clay and idiocy.” Her voice suddenly takes on a strange longing. “I remember when the skies werehome.”

Penelope lifts a finger—a claw, nails tipped with flame—to Violet’s throat. It burns like acid. Every single window shatters, stained-glass shards falling like rain. Golden sparkles burst in her vision, so many it leaves her stomach roiling.

“Your talent is a drop in an infinite ocean.Myinfinite ocean.”

Abruptly, the shadows retreat. Violet collapses to the ground, as the dark coils rooting her in place vanish. She can barely breathe. Penelope looms above her, a woman once more.

“Thirteen days,” Penelope says. “I suggest you use them wisely.”

She sweeps out of the church, leaving Violet gasping on the floor. Distantly, Violet hears the sound of voices—Aleksander, acquiescing to something—then blue light floods underneath the doorway. The church falls silent once more.

Violet sits on the ground, surrounded by shattered glass and broken pews. Then she slams her fists on the ground until her knuckles burn. Until pain blooms bright and red, leaving smears of blood across her skin.

There is no key.

Her mother is gone.

Violet has lost.

CHAPTER

Thirty-Seven

PENELOPE AND ALEKSANDERarrive back in the scholars’ tower in a whirl of blue light. She lets Aleksander make his own way back to the forges. He could do with a hard night or two—punishment for his hesitation. A reminder of what happens when he tests unbreakable loyalties.

“Wait for me there,” she commands. “I have a few things to take care of.”

“Yes, Mistress,” he says, the ring of obedience at last in every syllable.

She dismisses him with a gesture and he descends the stairs, limping slightly from some injury or another. Her unwavering blade.

Despite herself, she feels a flicker of pride for her assistant, to whom she has had to impart such tough lessons. Now, it’s easy to nudge him in the right direction. A pull onthis, a tug onthat. For all his strength, he still wears his weakness on his sleeve, like an open wound. But she will cure him of that, one day. Then, he will stand by her side as the purest of scholars. The bedrock of her new world.

She waits until he is out of sight before returning to her chambers. Already she can feel the effects of her “show” wearing on her; every step is a little more effort than before, every breath heavier in her lungs. The exhilaration of resuming her exalted shadow-self has already dissipated. But it chases her like a ghost, reminding her of all that she once was, and could be again.

In her chambers, a jewelled cup awaits her, brimming with lifeblood. Penelope picks it up and examines it, saliva coating her teeth.But she holds back, letting her hunger cramp her stomach, riding the wave of pain that crests over and over.

It is not Everly blood. Itshouldbe. No one else has their talent, which the gods saw fit—shesaw fit—to bestow upon them. And once upon a time, it had been enough to sustain her longevity, to reclaim what was once hers, Everly by Everly. Precious blood spooled out over generations. But even gods need more than the vestiges of stardust to live as their true selves.

Finally, she lets herself drain it in one. The hunger doesn’t disappear—it never does—but the animal snarling within her settles for now. Tomorrow, she will have to take another child, or even two, into the cold, bleak mountainside, and bury her secrets with them.

But she could afford to be showy today. Because today is a victory.

From her chambers, she makes her way down the scholars’ staircase, then past the basements, and the dark rooms where justice is meted out. There are several keys involved, as she opens gates that scream with rust, though she’s so far away from the rest of the scholars that it doesn’t matter.

Finally, she stands in the room with the reveurite door and its worn verses. In the past she would sink to her knees and plead silently, as though her brethren might hear her thoughts from beyond. That they might ignore the inscription that so condemns Penelope to her haggard, piecemeal existence here.

Today, she doesn’t do any of that. Instead, she looks at the door anew, her mind working. She has read all the fragmented texts the Hands of Illios left behind, all their whispers of keys, with nothing else to suggest the contrary. But she has never considered… the metaphor.

All she would talk about was sacrifice. Sacrifice and doors.

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