Page 98 of The City of Stardust

The careful block walls give way to cavernous mountain stone, dappled with chisel marks. It’s almost too dark to see, and the stairs are dangerously slick underfoot. The last gate is open, as all the others, but it’s been swung so hard that it’s embedded in the mountain rock. Whoever did that, did so with inhuman strength.

Then there are no more stairs. Just a thin archway overhead and a single flickering oil lamp, illuminating the room ahead. The sickly-sweet stench of death drifts out. She readjusts her hold on the sword—though what kind of good it would do her now, she has no idea—and steps inside.

There is… a lot of blood.

It’s a good thing she’s come alone because this sight would floor Aleksander. As it is, she stops to retch, covering her mouth and nose with the robe until her stomach settles. Penelope isn’t here, but evidence of her presence is everywhere. Dead scholars have been tossed to either side of the room, piled up against one another like flotsam against a bloody tide. Whatever colour the floor used to be, it’s now awash in crimson. The smell is so thick she can taste the iron in the air.

And in the middle of the room is a door.

It looks like the kind of door Violet sees in dreams. The kind she’d once imagined would appear in her library wardrobe. It towers over her, at least twice her height, with the oily gleam of reveurite. Ancient script unravels along the metal, in an alphabet she’s never seen before. On the other side, there’s nothing, only an empty space for the door to swing into. There’s no keyhole—just two reveurite hands outstretched, gory with blood.

Violet leans closer, then holds her breath to listen to the stale air. It could be anything—the metal creaking in the cold, the bodies sighing out their final platitudes; hell, even Aleksander breathing too loudly upstairs—but she’s sure it’s none of those things. It sounds like… singing.

Violet bites down hard on her lip and gives the hands a hesitant tug. Absolutely nothing happens. The door stays stuck fast.

For a long five minutes, she stares at the door. She tries opening it in every way she can think of: yanking again on the grotesque handles, pushing on the door, then stomping around the other side to lean against the back. But it refuses to yield. If Caspian were here, he’d have probably figured out the mechanism in seconds. All she has are hands covered in blood that doesn’t belong to her.

In the dim recesses of her mind, a light bulb turns on.

Bracing herself against the pain, Violet scrapes her hand against the jagged edge of the door. Her skin shivers open, wet red bursting from a cut on her palm. In response, the door seems to shudder, and golden sparkles light up the edge of her vision. A faint breeze tugs at the cuffs of her trousers.

Is it really so simple?

She sees the carnage around her, the blood pooling at the edge of the doorway, the all-too-obvious handprints smeared along the walls. It’s a particularly damning kind of simple, but one that Violet has become familiar with.

Just a little bit of flesh. Just a little bit of blood.

The cost to travel through a door is always sacrifice.And there is no one but herself to give it.

The sword.

Violet snatches it, curling her hand around the hilt.

In her favourite stories, the heroes fought until they were up against the wall, their weapons vanquished, stemming their wounds with bloody hands. The enemy looms. The defeat beckons. And then, with their last ounce of strength, they fight back. One more blow, to cut through everything.

A curse is just a contract, really.

In one swift movement, she twists the blade towards her.Courage.

From behind her, Aleksander’s voice: “Violet, wait—”

She plunges it through her heart.

PART FIVE

A Beginning

IT IS NOTthe man that attracts her initially. Rather, it’s the crowd: an endless queue snaking out the door from dawn to dusk, save for the hour when the shop closes for lunch. They enter, biting their lips to hold back grins, and exit carrying parcels of varying sizes, tenderly wrapped in ribbon. Their smiles only falter when they see the astral, watching them exit the shop.

She is still young, still coltish compared to her older, wiser brethren. But to the people in the city, she’s a star, blinding and unknowable. A wondrous terror, or a terrifying wonder. So she stops coming during the day, even as her curiosity deepens.

During her sleepless midnight walks, though, she can’t resist coming by the shop. She peers through the windows, her wings illuminating the wares within and tinting everything gold. Dainty carousels nestled in crushed velvet; iridescent paper-and-wire butterflies dangling from the ceiling; silver lockets and sweetheart keys and jewellery boxes inlaid with gems. Gorgeous delicacies that give her a strange feeling just below her ribcage, as though someone is tugging at a thread behind her heart.

Every night for a week she passes the shop and looks through the window, wondering what kind of person could enrapture a crowd when the city is already brimming with craftspeople, with miracles displayed on every corner. She imagines someone powerful, soaked in astral blood and magic and who knows what else besides. Someonewho can make marvels the way other people breathe. Perhaps an astral; perhaps another creature entirely.

On the seventh night, she’s examining the display again, her hands on her hips, when the door opens. Warm light pools over brick. She reaches for the twin swords at her side, before recalling that she’s the interloper here.

It’s a man. Just a man.

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