Page 96 of The City of Stardust

Violet hurries after him. “Aleksander?”

“There must be some explanation,” he says, more to himself than her. “There has to be.”

Violet follows him across the mosaic roads, with barely time to process the beauty of the city. She glimpses walkways protruding beyond the cliffs, greenhouses with flora bursting behind their misty windows, rounded whitewashed houses with terracotta roofs gleaming orange in the moonlight. It should be beautiful. Itis.But the silence is unnerving, and most lights are conspicuously out, or else glow behind tightly shut curtains. The dark shadow of the scholars’ tower looms over everything.

They reach the entrance, a stern mixture of mountain stone and iron lanterns capped with snow. The ground beneath their feet is mostly clear, with hundreds of faint shoe imprints left behind in the slush.

Aleksander shucks off his cloak and hands it to her. “You can’t be recognised as an outsider. If you are—”

“I won’t be,” she says, sounding more confident than she feels.

She swings the cloak around her shoulders. It’s lined with fur and smells like Aleksander: woodsmoke and the scent of old books. She flips up the hood, shrouding her face on the off-chance someone recognises her for what she isn’t.

Aleksander, though, isn’t paying attention. He listens carefully before easing open the thick oak doors and ushering her in. Inside, an enormous staircase dominates the centre, with a ceiling that stretches up so high Violet can’t see the top. Thick ropes and pulleys hang in the stairwell, with half-full pallets dangling in mid-air. Dozens of hooks line the walls of the entrance, with matching shoe stands at the bottom. It’s the mundanity that strikes her, that the scholars would even need a place for their winter boots or cloaks.

The lights are dim, and it’s utterly silent.

“Something’s not right,” Aleksander says.

Now that they’re inside, she can sense it, too, though she can’t place why. She shouldn’t be able to, surely? A moment later, it hits her—their footsteps echo, and her breathing is loud in her ears.

Even in the middle of the night, it’s too quiet.

Aleksander leans over the banister, glancing up and then down, where the stairwell continues into glacial darkness. “The pulleys have stopped. But they’re always active. I—wait. I see something.”

He takes the stairs two at a time, Violet rushing to catch up. Absentmindedly, she notes the gilded portraits on the walls, each with an accompanying plaque. Noted scholars, she guesses, with varying levels of painted severity. And it’s stupid to look—as if Penelope would ever give an Everly aplaque—but she finds herself watching for hazel eyes, a proud chin—

Aleksander stops suddenly, and she almost bumps into him.

“Stay back,” he warns, but it’s too late.

There’s a body. Wrapped in navy scholar’s robes and lying awkwardly on the stairs. Dark blood stains the steps around his head.

“Oh my God,” she whispers.

They’ll never be able to get the bloodstains out of the marble, she thinks ridiculously. Aleksander gently nudges the body over, and though she has no idea who the scholar is, Aleksander must because he makes a sound like someone’s knocked the wind from him. An older man with a greying beard lies at an awkward angle, his neck twisted in a clean snap. His eyes stare sightlessly at the ceiling.

“I hated him,” Aleksander says, dazed. “He used to make me fetch things for him because he didn’t like that I was Penelope’s assistant. But he was afraid of her, too.” He stares at the body. “He must have tripped and hit his head. Why hasn’t anyone moved him yet? I don’t understand.”

Violet looks past him, up the staircase. Her stomach lurches. More bodies, more blood. She places a hand on Aleksander’s shoulder in warning.

“Don’t look,” she says, but his gaze follows hers.

“There’s—there’s more…”

He walks past her as if in a daze, stopping to kneel at every body. As they ascend, there are clusters of them, some with daggers still clutched in their hands, like they’d known what was coming. Others wear frozen expressions of shock. Blood crusts their dark robes, as though an animal tore through them.

“Who could have done this?” Aleksander says repeatedly, like he believes it could be someone else, anyone else.

Violet keeps her lips pressed tight. But she recalls Penelope’s claws, how very deadly they’d seemed.

“Maybe there are scholars still hidden,” he says, sounding foolishly hopeful, even to Violet. “We have to check. Come on.”

Violet hesitates. “Aleksander…”

He turns to her, his eyes hard. “There are novices housed here.Children. Someone needs to rescue them, tell them it’s going to be okay.”

Abruptly, he makes a sharp left, down one of the many narrow corridors. Violet follows, her heart thumping. Maybe Penelope did just descend the tower and leave. Maybe there are still survivors, hidden away.

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