“They don’t always die.” He looks at me for a long time. “I knew a boy who lived with the contagion.”
“What happened to him?” I’m not sure that I want to know.
“He bruised easily, his skin oozed. Everyone waited for him to die, but he didn’t even seem sick, certainly wasn’t bedridden. Instead people who came in contact with him died. At first it was deemed coincidence. When his own mother came down with the contagion, he hung himself.”
I gasp.
It isn’t unheard-of for people with the contagion to kill themselves. But it still horrifies me.
“They are dangerous, these people with the disease. Especially to the people who love them. Most of them leave the city voluntarily for the marshes. Others are run out of the city. Or killed.”
I’ve never been in the swamps, but it seems like an inhospitable place, full of reptiles and biting insects. I see a few chimneys, maybe a village with four or five houses. I wonder if Father knows that there is a village here. He must.
Among the heaps of stones that line the shore, I see a statue. It has been shaped like a girl rising from the rubble with her arms outstretched. I point to it.
“Talent doesn’t disappear when you get sick,” Elliott observes.
“Not until you die. Then it’s gone forever,” I say quietly. “Does the prince know that people can survive for so long?”
“Yes. Of course. Why do you think it’s legal to kill anyone who has the disease?”
We hear laughter from the bow of the boat, and the well-dressed passengers surge toward whatever diversion is being offered.
I can’t look away from the three figures on the shore.
One falls to the ground. Another runs, hiding behind the heaped stones. The last figure sits staring out at us. We’re too far away to see his face, but I imagine that his expression must be defiant. Either he’s daring the guards to shoot him or he doesn’t care.
A volley of musket fire startles me again, even though I should be expecting it. Sparks fly as the musket balls hit the limestone. I breathe deeply, relieved that they’ve missed.
But with a last burst of fire, the man slumps forward.
The body falls with the hand palm up, close to the water, and as we watch, a massive crocodile lurches out of the swamp.
Tears course down my cheeks. My oblivion should have lasted longer. Reality is proving stronger than Elliott’s drugs. Blinded, I hurry away from the merriment.
“See?” Elliott is following me. “See what I mean about savages?”
I hate the look on his face, as if he’s happy about what is happening because it proves his point. I close my eyes.
“Just because you don’t want to see something doesn’t mean that it will go away. Do you think inhumanity doesn’t exist if you pretend not to see it? Or maybe get too drunk to understand? We’ve forgotten the things that make life worthwhile.”
I put my hands over my ears to block the sound of his voice.
Mother believes that music makes life worthwhile. Music, art, literature … maybe the survivors in the swamp believe that too.
Elliott pulls my hands down. I understand that the gesture irritates him. But I don’t want him to touch me. Anger clouds my vision. I can’t even look at him I’m so frustrated. Disgusted. He’s brought me to this terrible place and won’t tell me anything. Twice he’s asked me to risk myself. Twice I’ve sneaked into Father’s laboratory. And I don’t even really know why.
“You’re playing at revolution.” I say it in a low voice so the other passengers won’t hear me, but I put all of my scorn and frustration into it. “You say you want to change things, but you can’t do anything.”
I turn away from him, and then, with no warning, he wraps his arms around me and lifts me. He twists my body up, above the low railing on the side of the boat, dangling me out over the water. I go limp with shock.
“Don’t look down,” he hisses. “The water is swarming with crocodiles. Do you know that they pull people under the water, lodge them beneath a rock or a fallen tree to snack on later? They don’t just eat the dead, Araby. There’s a place, just around the bend, where there was a cage. People put human sacrifices out for the beasts. They’ve taken to worshipping them. I witnessed it myself. Human beings chained a girl there and left her to die. That is what my uncle has done to us, to our city.”
Elliott’s gone mad. My back is pressed against his chest, and I can feel his heart racing. He’s gasping for breath. If I struggle, he might drop me. I look for something to grab on to, but there is nothing close enough. Nothing but him.
The other passengers are mostly in the bow, fawning over the prince. As far as I can tell, we are alone. The water reflects the midmorning sunlight, blinding me.
I suck in my breath, wanting to scream, but I can’t make a sound.
“I didn’t get there in time. It was terrible. We tore down the platform and threw the chains into the water. Two days later they had put up another platform and killed another girl.”
Elliott’s arms are very strong. He pulls me back, but my legs are still dangling.
“So why are you doing the same thing to me?”
I feel him flinch.
“I told you not to trust me.” His voice is harsh. I’m sure, for a moment, that he really is going to drop me. “But you started to, didn’t you? Last night. This morning. I could see it in your eyes.” He drops his forehead against my hair. For a torturous moment, as one of my shoes begins to slip, he doesn’t move.
“And I’m falling in love with you,” he whispers. “But I would throw you in the water and watch crocodiles tear you to bits, if I thought that doing so would accomplish my goals. Do. Not. Trust. Anyone. Especially me.”
He pulls me in. When I move, one of my toes touches the wood railing. The deck is below me, but I’m still too afraid to struggle. His thumb caresses my cheek.
“What’s wrong with you?” I gasp.
“I don’t know.” His sincerity is almost more frightening than anything else.
He is actually panting as he pulls away my mask and searches my face. His is already gone, though I have no idea when he took it off.
He kisses me.
I’m trembling all over from the intensity of the last few moments. I allow him to kiss me. And then I tear myself away.
I put all of my rage behind my fist, connecting, hard, right below his eye.
It’s been years since I’ve fought, but I had a brother. I know how. Both of us collapse onto the polished wooden deck. I scramble to get my mask back on.
He has his hand up to his eye, touching where I’ve hit him. Now we’re both gasping for breath. His mask is on the deck beside him. I hold it out to him.
There is a barrage of shooting from the front of the boat, but the prince isn’t watching the murders. He’s leaning over the railing of the top deck of the ship, watching us.
Suddenly Elliott scoops me up and carries me below into a storage room.
“I’m sorry,” he says in a low voice. He’s still trembling, hiding behind his mask, trying to pretend that the depth of emotion he just revealed wasn’t real. He’s trying for nonchalance. But I know better.
I see with satisfaction that his eye is already turning purple. He takes the silver syringe from a pocket. He’s offering me a few more moments of oblivion. He looks so devastated, so earnest. But he just held me over a crocodile-filled river.
I consider the syringe and feel an odd burst of strength. “I don’t need it.”
“Really?”
“Put it away.”
Later a servant tells the two of us that we are to ride back to the palace in the prince’s enclosed carriage.
Prospero has barely settled himself into his seat when Elliott asks, “Where is my sister?”
“Is that the only reason you came? Because you thought April was also … visiting? You wound me, nephew.”
“You asked me two weeks ago to stop her from making such a spectacle of herself.
And before I could do anything, she was gone.”
“And you think I had something to do with that?” the prince asks. He gives Elliott a slight smile.
Elliott doesn’t answer.
I struggle to remain completely still, to keep my face impassive. The prince cannot see how much I despise him. That would be disastrous. The silence stretches out. Unbearable.
“I do not have your sister. If you discover her whereabouts, send a courier to tell me, immediately. Whatever you think, everything I’ve done, I’ve done to make you and your sister stronger.”
I don’t move or make a noise, but the prince’s attention shifts away from Elliott. His eyes crawl over me, and I wonder if I remind him of my mother. “I will send men into the city to make inquiries about April. Will that please the two of you?” His gaze returns Elliott’s. “Three days from now, you will captain my steamship. Your project. Your voyage of discovery. The scientist’s daughter can go with you. While you’re gone, we’ll move her parents to the palace so that they won’t be so lonely without their only living child.”
He pauses on the word living. It was his fault, and I’m just now comprehending the depth of it. His fault that Mother missed the last year of Finn’s life. So many moments when we could have been together. He’s hurt so many people.
“Dr. Worth has always claimed that being in a medieval palace stifles his creativity,” Elliott says. “Don’t do this.”
“Why? Are you trying to get her to trust you? Tell her how I used to make you dip your chubby little toes into the water with the crocodiles when you were a boy. Maybe she’ll feel sorry for you.”
The prince chuckles. If I had any sort of weapon, I could kill him right now.
“You look pale, my dear,” the prince says, “Here, I have something that will rejuvenate you.” He pours white wine from a glass bottle into a tarnished silver cup.
The wine burns my throat, but with his eyes on me, I have to empty the cup.
“We’re going back to the city to search for April,” Elliott says. I can’t tell if he is saying this for my benefit or for the prince’s.
“And I wish you luck in finding her,” the prince says. “Though I am pleased that she hasn’t been making a spectacle of herself of late.”
“It’s difficult to embarrass your family when no one has seen you in days,” Elliott mutters.
“Indeed. Now here’s your steam carriage, waiting by the gate, all packed with your bags.”
I’m relieved and surprised that the prince is letting us go. He recognizes my relief and smiles to himself. Mocking me.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
ELLIOTT HELPS ME OUT OF THE PRINCE’S CLOSED steam carriage and then lifts me into his open one.
“That was too easy,” he says. “Maybe he does have April after all.”
“Will he take my parents prisoner?”
“He wants to. He has always wanted to.”
And now I’ve meddled, captured his attention. If he takes them now, it will be my fault.
Elliott drives too fast, careening around the twists and curves that we traversed just yesterday. We are both relieved when the palace is out of sight.
“I don’t feel well,” I say, maybe an hour into our journey. My face is hot, but my arms are covered in gooseflesh and I am shivering. My first thought is the Weeping Sickness. Is this how it begins? My mask was never off, except when Elliott was kissing me. And it was askew the morning I woke at Will’s. I suppress a shudder.
“You’ll feel better the farther we put that place behind us,” Elliott says. But I don’t feel better. I lean back and watch the passing trees, trying to ignore the pounding in my head.
Finally I reach for the silk scarf Mother loaned me, but I lose my balance and fall against Elliott.
“You’re feverish,” he says. As he touches my face, I note that his fingernails are impeccably clean, but that one of them is slightly blackened.
“Araby?”
“I think I’m sick,” I whisper.
“Tell me exactly how you feel.” He’s concerned now, stopping the carriage.
I’m glad he’s concerned, but I can’t answer his question because I’m doubling up over the side, gagging. He pulls my hair gently back from my face. “Get it out of your system,” he says. “That bastard may have poisoned you.”
“Poison?” I ask weakly. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and collapse back into the steam carriage.
“Your eyes are dilated. Hell and damnation, I should have realized…” His hand is still on my hair.
“How are you going to tell my parents?” My voice breaks, and I realize that I am crying, but there’s no moisture left in me, so it’s only dry, heaving sobs.
Elliott fumbles with some vials and bottles that he’s grabbed from under his seat. “I don’t have the right ingredients for a general antidote. I have to get you to a friend in the city.”
He hands me a bottle of water.
“We’re going to drive fast, but if you need to throw up again, you should. The more you can get out of your body, the better.”
“Am I going to die?”
Either he doesn’t hear me or he chooses not to answer.
I curl up on the seat of the steam carriage, trying to ignore the pain. I’m not stupid. Even if he finds his precious antidote, there will be negative effects. I think of Will. I want desperately to live.
Elliott hands me a handkerchief. “I’m sorry. This has nothing to do with you. This was an attack on me. He’s showing me that he can take away anything that I care about.”
I close my eyes. Right now I don’t care about his uncle or his rebellion. I’m going to die in the middle of this unending forest, and I’ll never have the chance to apologize to my parents.
“It’s only another hour back to the city.” Elliott takes my hand, and I bite my lip and pretend that my crying is from the pain, for tree roots and debris jolt the carriage mercilessly.
“I’m not going to let you die,” he says. “I won’t let you die.” He repeats it over and over until it blends with the sound of the wheels and the grinding of the engine. Eventually his voice is all I’m aware of, and then I close my eyes.
When I open them, we are in the city. The hot-air balloon of the Debauchery District floats above us in a haze of low clouds. Elliott pulls his steam carriage into an alley and through an opening in the back of a building.
When it stops, I stumble out of the carriage, awkwardly catching myself as my feet hit the stone. They don’t stay on the ground long, because Elliott sweeps me off my feet.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“The workshop we are using to manufacture masks.”
“Really?” At some point, even before his madness today, I had stopped believing in him. It was easier to hate myself, to think that I’d betrayed Father for nothing than to believe Elliott might keep his promises.
“Look at me,” he says. I do. The only reason I haven’t panicked is because he’s been so calm, but now he’s starting to look worried. I want my parents. When we met, Elliott accused me of not being afraid to die, but I am terribly afraid right now.
“I’m glad you had such faith in me,” he says.
He carries me down a set of narrow cellar stairs. He only stumbles once.
In a subterranean boiler room, illuminated by gas lights, a young man is bent over a table, fiddling with pieces of porcelain. Above his mask he is wearing a pair of thick spectacles, and there is a magnifying lens on the left side. He doesn’t look up as Elliott bursts through the door.
“I was expecting you yesterday with the money. I can’t finish these without—”
“Help,” Elliott says simply.
The young man jumps to his feet. “Is that the daughter—”
“Kent, I think she’s dying.”
I gulp when he says the word dying. And then my stomach burns and I twist back and forth in his arms. He lays me on a metal table. I’m sweaty, and my hair is soaked
.
“It’s an ugly poison,” Elliott says.
“Your uncle?”
I try to complain because the tabletop is metal and I am shivering with cold, but Elliott and his friend Kent ignore me. They are fumbling with jars and bottles.
“Let me do this,” Kent says. “It’s too personal for you.”
Could Elliott have meant it when he said he was in love with me? No, I can’t trust that.
“Araby, can you hear me?” Kent asks. “Did you taste anything out of the ordinary? Any particular flavors?” I make eye contact with Kent and realize, with a start, that I recognize him.
“I’ve seen you before,” I croak. “At the bookshop.”
“Yes,” he says. “I suppose we almost met, once.”
He gives me a beaker full of thick, cold liquid.
“Drink this.”
I choke it down.
“I didn’t notice any … flavor,” I say. “Maybe it was overly sweet?”
He pours something from a test tube into a cup. It foams and fizzes.
“I’m going to make an injection,” Elliott says. I focus on the magnifying lens that Kent is wearing.
“You’re a scientist,” I hear myself say. A rogue scientist in hiding from the prince. Helping Elliott with the revolution.
“I’m actually an inventor. My father was a scientist.”
And then Elliott puts a needle in my arm, and I lose consciousness.
When I wake up, Elliott is holding my hand and we’re back in his steam carriage.
“I couldn’t protect April, but I swear I will protect you,” he is whispering. “We’re home.” I lift my head to see that we are in front of the Akkadian Towers. Hours must have passed, because it’s late afternoon. Elliott helps me out of the carriage and smooths my hair.
“I’m not sure how you manage to look pretty—”
“Sir?” The doorman is standing behind him. “The elevator is still not safe,” the operator says. “I am so sorry, sir. Is Miss Worth ill?”
“My driving nauseated her,” Elliott says quickly. He doesn’t want the doorman to think that I’m contagious. The last thing anyone wants in this city is to be suspected of harboring the plague, but he should realize how many times I’ve stumbled past these same workers, coming home from the club.