Page 88 of The City of Stardust

Maybe it won’t hurt. Maybe it’ll be a quick mercy, so that by the time Violet knows it’s happening, it’ll be all over. Knowing Penelope, though, that feels like wishful thinking.

At least she has the truth in her hands, even though it’s one she would rewrite if she could. After years of wondering whether Marianne was dead, or trapped, or still on her “adventure,” it’s a bitter consolation prize to know that her mother abandoned her long before Violet ever stepped into the world of the scholars.

In her room, the reveurite sword sits on her desk amongst its nest of bubble wrap and parcel string. No longer brittle and corroded with rust, the metal shines like oily lacquer, sharp and deadly. Violet hopes she’ll never have to use it.

But if she does, she hopes it works.

Limbs aching from the cold, she unfurls herself and straightens up. Even though there are still a few minutes to midnight, she wants to settle her mixed feelings about the effectiveness of the stupid sword. With so much on the line, she feels like an idiot for even considering a grab-bag of fairy tales as truth—or at least, truth enough for her to stave off Penelope. God-metal to stop a goddess.

What she really needs is a miracle.

With one last glance at the moon, Violet climbs back into her room—and collides straight into Aleksander.

CHAPTER

Forty-Four

THERE IS Amoment, between the split-second expression of shock and collision, where Violet thinks she’s dreaming. Then they bash into each other, knocking heads, and stars flash in her vision. No dream at all—Aleksander is really standing here, in her room.

Anger burns her vision red.

“You lying piece of shit,” she snarls. “You absolutescum.”

It’s barely been two weeks since they stood in the church in Prague, and yet Aleksander already seems different, though she can’t quite pinpoint all of the changes. He’s lost some of that irritating bravado and his shorn hair is quickly growing out, softening some of those razor edges.

But then she’s been fooled too many times to believe anything his face says.

“Did Penelope send you?” she demands. “Is this some fucked up pre-ritual?”

He winces. “Violet, I—”

“Get out.” She points a finger to the door. “Now.”

“We have to talk,” he says, then his gaze strays towards her desk and he falters. “Is that a sword?”

She almost laughs in disbelief. Here she is, moments away from calamity, and Aleksander is playing scholar in her room. The incredible audacity of it all.

“You were right,” he says, still staring at the sword. “Not to trust the scholars. Or me.”

How dare he tell her something she already knows, to admit to his betrayal without even really acknowledging it. It’s too easy for him. He’s not evensorry.

Violet folds her arms tightly. “If you think you have any right to waltz in here just to clear your conscience—”

“I took a child,” he blurts out.

This brings Violet up short. “What?”

“I took achild. And I just—I don’t know what I was thinking. But that’s what she wanted me to do. That was the test.” He hesitates. “And God help me, I did it.”

He starts to pace in her room, one hand pressed to his head as though that would somehow erase the memory. Violet tries to process what he’s just told her.

“Penelope asked you to steal a child,” she repeats.

Aleksander looks at her, eyebrows creased in heartbreak, and she realises the odd emotion that she couldn’t immediately put her finger on: despair.

“You mean Astriade,” he says.

Violet’s stomach drops. “You know.”

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