The City of Stardust by Georgia Summers

Author:Georgia Summers [SUMMERS, GEORGIA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2024-01-30T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

Thirty

TWO DAYS LATER, Violet meets Aleksander in an alleyway just as dusk settles over the city. They cross the Charles Bridge, past the magician-saints and the sketch artists packing up for the evening. But instead of heading up the hill towards the castle, Violet veers left, along the river, then down a series of increasingly narrow alleyways. Shadows chase at their heels.

“Do you know where we’re going?” she asks.

He frowns at her. “Well, since you’re the one who invited me, not really. Unless I’m supposed to?”

She’s surprised to hear the pang of anxiety in his voice. She waves it away, her smile widening.

“No, this is my surprise,” she says.

Aleksander has taught her so much that it feels like a victory to find something he might not actually know about.

She memorised the directions earlier for no real reason other than to give Aleksander a bit of a show, but she still holds her breath as she knocks once, then twice, then once again on an unremarkable door. Seconds tick past, and now it’s Violet’s turn to be uncertain. Either she’s about to be confronted by one angry stranger, or—

The door eases open and a woman holds out her hand. “Token, please.”

Dutifully, Violet hands over the coin Caspian gave her in New York.

“And a plus-one,” she adds, gesturing to Aleksander.

The woman gives Aleksander a once-over just long enough to make Violet nervous, then she nods.

“You’ll vouch for him.” It’s not a question.

The door leads directly to a stairway bracketed by candles dripping wax across the floor. The stairs lead down, where the sound of thumping bass judders upwards. Something hangs from the ceiling and it takes Violet’s eyes a moment to adjust before she realises what it is: keys, hundreds of them, in all shapes and sizes. Feathers, too, dipped in gold paint and strung up so that they twist gently above.

Aleksander takes in a quick breath.

Feeling bold, Violet takes his hand. “Come on.”

She’s been brushing up on her reading, and there’s an entire city underneath Prague, like a second skin. Old cellars bricked up and then rediscovered; eerie dungeons engraved with illegible graffiti; whole streets buried underneath the new buildings. Officially, no one’s allowed in except via carefully guided tours. Unofficially, there are hundreds of entrances, and no one to police them.

She suspects that if she ever sees Elandriel, it’ll look something like this.

As they reach the bottom of the stairs, Aleksander gives her hand a quick squeeze. But he doesn’t let go. Violet smiles to herself in the dark.

The stairway opens out to an enormous cellar with a low barrel-vault ceiling. Candlelight competes with strobe lights, bouncing off the brick walls. Bass pulses underneath their feet from an enthusiastic DJ. Someone has laid down carpets to muffle the sound, and people kick off their shoes to lounge on them. It’s a chilly evening, and others have brought down heaters, plugged into “borrowed” electricity, or drape themselves in blankets. Violet spies a grubby pack of asteros cards, spread out for a small but captive audience.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.