April hurried toward the wooden stairs that led to her brother’s apartment. Most university residents shared living spaces, but Elliott lived alone. She wanted to barrel though the door, to get inside, but he had it barred. She knocked hard with her fist, breathing his name, until he threw the door open.
Books and papers lined every surface. Plates of uneaten food stood on top, like mildly disgusting paperweights. Bottles were strewn about, some empty, some half full.
Elliott’s eyes, the same blue as her own, were shadowed. His blond hair was mussed and none too clean. He was usually meticulous in his grooming, and April realized as he embraced her that he’d consumed the contents of at least a few of those bottles. She felt guilty suddenly for coming to him for help.
Their mother hadn’t rescued him. She’d left him to their uncle’s torture, and April had gone with her. The warning, the one defense her mother had devised—Be pretty—hadn’t worked for Elliott. Which is not to say that he wasn’t attractive. It might have been his gold hair and pink cheeks that had drawn their uncle’s ire.
“What are you doing?” She gestured to his apartment, the heaps of paper. The leftovers from various meals, pushed aside for more books and papers.
“Trying to make sense of things.”
April picked up a paper. Elliott started to reach for it, but then waved resignedly. She skimmed what he’d written. An account of his life at their uncle’s palace.
“I thought it was important to write things down,” he said. “To document what happened.”
“I’d rather forget,” she said.
“Some things are impossible to forget.” He shrugged. “When the city has burned to the ground, I think it will be important that we leave some record.”
“Do you think it will burn?” she asked.
“Eventually.”
“Then why don’t you stop it?”
Elliott smiled as if she had made a joke, but as he took the paper back, his eyes grew distant.
“Do you think I could stop it?”
She shrugged. And then she collapsed onto his sofa, and he made her hot tea, with a shot of something to calm her nerves.
ONE YEAR LATER
The Debauchery Club was quieter than usual. April leaned forward to adhere Araby’s last fake eyelash. Araby’s hair shimmered purple, and she smiled the slow, sad smile that she didn’t know was alluring. She had no idea of the effect she had on boys, and that was, April suspected, part of the attraction. April had always been too self-aware. Probably her mother’s fault.
Not that the self-awareness made her unattractive to boys. It was just that she knew instinctively how they would respond to her and how it would turn out. At seventeen she was jaded by romance. Watching Araby’s wide-eyed surprise when boys flirted with her was both fascinating and heartbreaking.
Araby had moved into the apartment across the hall nearly a year ago. Not only was she convenient, but she needed April. Though sometimes April wondered if Araby would even notice if she disappeared.
“I’ll mix up something that’ll make you forget that the plague ever happened,” the bartender said. April ignored him. He was always saying things like that, and his drinks weren’t that good. Elliott was supposed to have met her here an hour ago. She was trying not to worry about him, but he didn’t make it easy; lately, he was usually doing something dangerous.
A boy with blue eyelids caught her attention from across the room, raising his eyebrows when she met his eyes. She liked that he didn’t smile. His pout was alluring. He waved and she saw a tattoo on his palm. It reminded her of something, but she couldn’t think of what. She tilted her head coyly and when she glanced up from under her eyelashes, he was threading his way through the crowd toward her. When he approached he handed her a tall glass, and gave another to Araby. April threw hers back in one long drink. He put his hands on her shoulders.
And then he was kissing her. And she didn’t have to think about anything at all for a while.
Yet even a sultry boy with blue eyelids couldn’t keep her worry for Elliott at bay forever. Eventually she pulled away, and without another word, the boy slipped into the crowd. “How disappointing,” she muttered.
The bartender slid another drink across the bar, but she ignored it. “Has my brother arrived?” she asked.
“I think he’s upstairs,” the bartender said. “I delivered some wine to the game room, and he was there, playing chess.”
“Finally.” But she was irritated, and her annoyance grew as she climbed the stairs. He must have passed her to go to the game room. Why was he so inconsiderate? And where had Araby gone off to? The way that Will, the tattooed doorman Uncle Prospero had hired away from the Morgue, watched her, April wondered if Araby was finally breaking that silly vow of hers.
The game room was filled with smoke. Elliott sat in the center of the room, in front of a low table, toying with a pawn.
The young man across from him had hair that was either very dusty, or a shade of brown so nondescript that it appeared colorless.
When he saw April approaching, the boy flushed and stood. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” he said, and pulled a pair of goggles down over his eyes. April, amused by the abruptness of his retreat, stood in front of him as he prepared to leave and gave him a slow, provocative smile. The boy turned from pink to bright red.
“Don’t tease him,” Elliott admonished, gesturing to the chair the boy had just vacated. By the time April had settled herself and arranged her artfully tattered skirts, the boy was gone.
She raised her eyebrows.
“You’ll give him a heart attack,” Elliott said in explanation, “and I need him.”
“I wouldn’t dream of distracting your friend,” April said. “But have you seen mine? Have you decided whether I’m right about Araby being exactly who we need?”
“Not yet. But I look forward to it.” Elliott leaned in then, and April knew whatever he was saying was important, but her head was swimming. She put up her hand to stop him and rose from her chair. “Later, Elliott. I need some air.”
As she left the room, the edges of it began to blur. She remembered a small courtyard somewhere within the labyrinth of the club; if only she could find it. But instead, turning a corner, she found the boy with the blue eyelids.
“Here.” He handed her a glass, and the tattoo flashed once more. He led her to a velvet armchair and helped her sit.
“It’s hot in here, isn’t it?” she asked him, trying hard to focus on his face.
She propped herself up and hacked at her skirts with a pair of nail scissors from her makeup bag, something she’d done a dozen times at the club, reinventing the clothes that were mostly hand-me-downs from her mother. She pressed the glass against her face, relishing the coolness of it, and then emptied the drink.
The last sounds she heard were the ice cubes tinkling against one another and then the beads at the entrance clinking together. Someone was carrying her out of the Debauchery Club, and she wasn’t drunk, certainly not . . . but then she lost consciousness.
She woke on a low couch. A man was standing over her, holding out a glass. She felt woozy, but not hungover. And she definitely wasn’t home. This place was stark, with a low ceiling, a few gas bulbs. It smelled earthy. She didn’t have her mask, but the man wasn’t wearing one. Perhaps the air was safe.
“Was I drugged?” she asked, trying to make sense of what had happened.
“It was the easiest way for my associate to apprehend you.” The man loomed over her. His eyes were dark, his hair graying, and something about his demeanor said that he was used to being obeyed. And he was wearing dark robes, like some sort of thief.
April looked up at him from under her lashes, stalling for time as her head cleared. And then she ruined it all by saying, “Well, I wouldn’t want my apprehension to be too inconvenient for you.” Fear rushed in. Who was this man? Why was she baiting him?
“It was surprisingly easy.” The man readjusted the scarf tha
t was tied around his throat. The way he stood seemed familiar. “You should drink this. It will help.” He gave her the glass. “It’s only water.”
April gulped it down, and held it back out toward him.
When he took it, she gasped.
They’d had servants when she was a small child, but sometimes at night, if April was sick, her father was the one who brought her a glass of water. He always kept one beside his bed. Drink this, it will help.
It couldn’t be.
She’d watched her father die. Had seen Uncle Prospero standing over him, holding the knife. She was having some sort of hallucination caused by the drugs.
His hand went back to the scarf. When he dropped his hand, she could see the beginning of an ugly scar. Her father’s throat had been slashed. The man—her father—saw the beginnings of belief on her face, and smiled.
“You grew up to look like your mother,” he said. “Beautiful.”
April tossed her hair. It was what she did when anyone complimented her appearance. Behind her, someone coughed. When she glanced back she saw a boy in manacles.
“Who is that?” she asked.
“No one of importance.”
“I’ve seen him before,” she said, frowning at the boy’s spectacles. His unremarkable brown hair. “With Elliott.” She snapped her mouth shut.
Don’t give information to your captor. The shock, the drugs, her exhaustion were taking a toll. She couldn’t trust this man, despite the memories that rushed in.
“Ah,” her father said, and he sounded very sad. “I suppose you already know that your brother is a traitor.”
“A traitor? Of what?” She shouldn’t have said anything.
“Decency. He’s loyal to your uncle.”
As far as April knew, Elliott hadn’t spoken to Prospero in over a year. Elliott gave her hope. He hadn’t succumbed to Prospero, but even if he had, she wouldn’t have blamed him. He’d been a child and everyone had abandoned him. If Father had been alive all along, then he should have moved heaven and earth to save Elliott from the prince. He had no right to curl his lip when he spoke of her brother.
And yet, somehow the tides had turned. Elliott had escaped from their uncle, and here she was, alone with this stranger who used to be her father. Was Elliott searching for her? What about Araby? Her mother?
April scanned the room. It was built from dull stone. Ugly. The only windows were high on the wall, and the light that came through was muddy and thick. They were underground. A cellar? This room had several doors, but no staircase. If it was a cellar, then the building above must be large. She’d have to leave this room to find a way up. Maybe she’d even take the other boy. He was important to her brother, after all. She turned her attention to her father.
“Why are you wearing those robes?” she asked. “Have you been hiding in some sort of monastery?
He laughed, but it was the boy in the corner who answered.
“He’s the Reverend Malcontent. The one who’s stirring up the city.” His voice went low and accusatory. “Bombing churches.”
April considered her father, wishing she had a fan, or something else to hide behind.
Was he going to hurt her? Was he like Uncle Prospero? Would batting her eyelashes save her?
“Well, those robes are not very becoming.”
“Tell me about yourself,” her long-lost father suggested, settling himself stiffly on the other side of the sofa.
What to tell? What not to tell?
“I belong to a club,” April said slowly. “The one where your associate found me, in the Debauchery District. It’s a good place for . . . making friends. Passing the time. It’s where I go when I can’t stand being home with Mother anymore.” He must have cared for Mother once. Should she tell him that his “death” had ruined her? That she couldn’t stomach the world created by the plague? That she’d abandoned Elliott half a decade ago and was barely a mother to April? And he’d been alive the whole time and never contacted any of them. A flash of anger flooded her. He’d abandoned them for what? Wearing robes and masquerading as some sort of religious figure? Bombing and burning? The city had had enough of that.
“You’ll be with me when my army takes the city.” His eyes gleamed. “They have been through hell and back, but you will give them hope.”
“Because I’m so . . . ” She glanced at the boy in the corner. In the gray light his face was sickly pale. For some reason, knowing that he was listening, she couldn’t bring herself to say the word “pretty.”
“They’ve been in the swamp,” Malcontent continued. “Away from civilization. And you represent everything the city can give them.” April had more than her share of experience with madness, but the mania in his eyes was more than she could stomach without shuddering. Was he simply seeing her as a pretty girl—some sort of prize—an incentive? Why had he gone through the trouble of abducting her now?
“I spend my afternoons putting on fake eyelashes,” she stuttered. “It’s a lengthy process that I’ve mastered with a bit of practice. Sparkling eye shadow. Sequined dresses.” She launched into detail about the feathers she collected for her hair. His posture never changed. He nodded, and his eyes bored into her. She forgot about the boy in the corner in her rush to appear unthreatening and simple.
“Lovely,” Malcontent said, standing. “I was right to save you. You will be very useful. So, I can’t have you disappearing, little peacock. I’m going to lock this door behind me. If you need anything, you can ask the guard.”
April held her breath until he was gone. She should have begged him to take her with him, but any effort to escape would have just alerted him that she wasn’t as stupid as she had pretended. And with her exhaustion and woozy head, she wasn’t going to be winning any prizes for alertness or intelligence. She leaned back, glad she was on the sofa.
“So you’re Malcontent’s little peacock now.”
She jumped. For a moment she had completely forgotten about the boy who was chained to the wall.
“I suppose I am.” She’d been called much worse than a peacock. She stifled a yawn. “What did you do to draw his interest?”
“I’m an inventor,” he said.
She peered over the back of the couch.
“Did he want you to invent something? Or does he just want an inventor to shackle to the wall?” she asked, thinking of her uncle’s dungeon full of scientists.
“He wants me to destroy something,” the boy said darkly. “To build a bomb for him. But I won’t.” His voice had quivered before when he’d spoken of Malcontent’s bombings. What did he know of such horrors?
“That’s good,” she said. “I admire a touch of rebelliousness.” She tossed her hair over her shoulders.
“I know what you admire. I saw the boy who brought you here.”
Was he jealous? Or just angry? At the club he’d blushed when she looked at him, and Elliott had suggested that she intimidated him. Apparently being chained to the wall had loosened his tongue.
“He was pretty, wasn’t he?” April kept her voice steady, her eyes trained on the inventor. He was completely still, knees pulled up to his chest. With the manacle around his wrist he didn’t have much freedom to move.
He raised his chin, as if giving her permission to scrutinize him. It was the sort of thing she might do. Except she would lower her chin a bit, close her eyes for a moment so her lashes would flutter delicately, turn so that he could see her excellent profile.
Since he was giving permission, she didn’t hide her interest. High cheekbones. Thin lips. Nothing seemed terribly wrong with him, but she couldn’t tell anything about his eyes through the goggles.
“Why don’t you wear regular spectacles?” she asked. Their eyes locked for a moment. But it held no magic because the goggles looked so ridiculous.
“I was working when Malcontent’s men grabbed me. When I work I look down a lot, tinkering with parts. Eyeglasses in frames tend to fall off, and to break. The lenses that I require
to see are quite heavy.” He pushed his hair back, but it just flopped into the same place, partially covering his magnified eyes.
“They look it,” she said. They were also surprisingly good at making him appear homely. What if he was actually handsome underneath? It was much more exciting to be imprisoned with a secretly handsome boy.
“The strap messes up your hair,” she observed. But it was nice hair. Slightly curly. He shook his head from side to side, his lips twisting in amusement. The movement made the distortion of his eyes even worse, and suddenly it was impossible for her to imagine him as devilishly handsome underneath a disguise. What if he was scarred, or if his eyes were terribly squinty? What if he was cross-eyed? At least his teeth looked normal. April had a horror of boys with bad teeth.
She put one hand to her aching head. Why on earth would someone dedicate themselves to inventing things, anyway? If she hadn’t found lipstick and the Debauchery Club, would she have taken up invention as a hobby?
“Are there any girl inventors?” she asked.
“If you’re looking for a pastime,” he said, “then you should probably take up something a little simpler.”
Did he think that was the sort of thing that would hurt her feelings?
“I wasn’t looking for a hobby.” April turned her back to him, settling on the sofa. But the silence was unpleasant, so she added, “I just wondered if there were girls who invented things. A clever girl could be good at it.”
“As if I would tell you. Every inventor I know is already in hiding. A female would be even more at risk.”
“Ah yes, more at risk than you or me? We’ve been captured by a crazy man, if you haven’t noticed.”
“I noticed. And I saw the damage that he did, the other night. I was out with Elliott, surveying it. He may be your father, but he’s not a nice person.”
“Many of my relatives aren’t.” Prospero was at the top of that list. “I’m not likely to trust him.”
“That’s the most intelligent thing I’ve heard you say.”
As if their relationship had been long enough for him to hear her say anything of consequence.