Page 77 of The City of Stardust

In the dead of night, he rows to an island on the outskirts of the city. There, in the ruins of a cathedral, he builds himself a cage of god-metal. For all his knowledge, he is just a man. But what better way to combat a god than a godly creation?

On the last night of his year and a day, he climbs into the cage and locks it tight. Now, the star cannot touch him. She arrives in a whirl of flame, which transforms to the colour of deepest violet when she realises his intentions. She paces the outside of his cage.

“You men are traitorous, treacherous creatures,” she says. “Give me your soul.”

“It is too dear to me,” the man says.

“I will destroy your city,” she vows.

He considers this. “But I will live.”

“So be it.”

On the first night, the darkness is alive with the sound of screaming.

On the second night, he sees flames lick at the horizon.

On the third night, every single star in the sky vanishes.

On the fourth day, the city is silent. He tentatively turns the key in its lock and the cage door unlatches with a soft whisper. When he emerges, the city is ash. The star is gone.

He has won; yet his mouth is dry with the taste of charred bone. His workshop is a black wreck. Scorched jewels litter the floor, twisted metal warped by vengeful heat. On the front door, someone has written in deep golden blood:As long as your soul walks free, so will I.

As the first days of his new-found freedom roll in, he undertakes the final part of his plan. He bars the doors to other worlds that he spent so long creating, or smashes those that he cannot close. The star is elsewhere for now, and if he is both clever and lucky, he will never have to face her again.

A week later, he climbs the highest hill in the city to watch the sunset. Blood red spills over ruins.

He is a clever man.

He is also a coward.

CHAPTER

Thirty-Eight

THE KEY DOESN’Texist. And Marianne has vanished, taking with her any hope of escaping Penelope.

Then there is Aleksander. A dagger, hidden inside burning want.

With nothing left to do—nothing shecando—Violet heads home, feeling miserable and useless every mile of the way. In the taxi from the station, she leans her head against the window and stares at the trees, already half bare and shedding amber leaves.

Over and over, she replays the scene in her mind. Every agonising step of the way, when she could have turned back, or told Aleksander no, or been a little more careful about to whom she divulged secrets.

She hates Aleksander for what he did. But she hates herself more for letting him. If she’d been a little less enamoured, if she’d stopped to ask herself what he really wanted from her—but then she would have had to acknowledge what she wanted from him.

Maybe there had been something there, between them, during that kiss. Awful and exhilarating and ravenous because it was true—perhaps the only truth he’d told her. But perhaps desire is all it was, and more fool Violet for thinking it could ever be more.

As the taxi deposits her in the driveway, she takes a moment to simply look. Home again. Upon closer inspection, she notices the moss creeping up the brick, the slate tiles vanished from the roof like missing teeth. The garden looks abandoned and half-dead, spindly grey branches shrivelled and bent low.

Gabriel’s hideous car is parked in the open garage, the convertible roof down. Violet swings over the edge, the suspension bouncing underneath her. She places her hands on the steering wheel, her foot on the pedal. She closes her eyes, and imagines pressing down, the jolt of sheer power, the wind snarling her hair. A road, open and unending.

She opens her eyes again and presses her forehead against the steering wheel.

Inside, the house is freezing, and it becomes clear very quickly just how little attention it’s received since she’s been gone. Dust coats the windows and muddies the paintings hanging in the hall. Violet kicks off her shoes and wanders through to the conservatory, where a green slime has made its home, obscuring the view. It’s as though she’s stepped back through time, to being twelve again and wishing for a world away from this one.

Well, look at where that wishing has got you.

Gabriel and Ambrose are in the house somewhere, but she can’t bear to face them, not yet. She climbs the long, winding staircase up to her room, the wood creaking underneath her weight. The paint is flaking off the walls, and she spies more than one water stain creeping across the ceiling. To see the house crumbling hurts her heart in a way she can’t describe.

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