Dance of the Red Death (Masque of the Red Death)

  Elliott nods, and the group plods away.

  “I should check in with Kent,” Elliott says. “He’s in the brew house, working on the water problem. We need more of everything.”

  “Yes.” We’re back in sight of the Debauchery Club. Elliott makes a move to walk with me, but his attention isn’t on me anymore.

  “Go to Kent,” I tell him. “I can walk down the street by myself.”

  He doesn’t argue, so I set off. After a few moments, I hear footsteps behind me, and I turn to tell him that I’m not completely dependent on him to protect me. But the street is empty.

  I speed up. Malcontent’s people could grab me from the street and sweep me into a tunnel deep underground.

  And . . . maybe that’s what I want. To make contact with Malcontent. But not before trying the Akkadian Towers. And on my own terms, not as a prisoner. I’m close enough to the club that Elliott’s guards will hear me if I scream. So instead of being afraid, I find myself annoyed that someone is following me. I turn, waiting for the person to emerge. It’s a man in a dark hood.

  Before he can react to me waiting for him rather than running away, I reach up and push his hood back. I don’t recognize his face, but his skin is unblemished.

  “Who are you, and what do you want?” I ask.

  “Are you the scientist’s daughter?” the man asks.

  “Yes.”

  “I want to know if there is still a reward for information about Dr. Phineas Worth.”

  “Yes.” My voice quavers, and I put a hand to the lamppost beside me to steady myself. “Yes, of course there is.” I have gold to reward him for his information, but it’s in Elliott’s room, in his pack.“What of my father?” I ask.

  The man steps away from me. “I want to see my payment first.”

  I reach into my pocket. The diamond ring is there. Can I trade it to this man for his information? I can’t take him to my chamber, and if I go up to retrieve the gold, he might well disappear.

  “Take this,” I say.

  The man stares at the ring, and unexpectedly, his eyes fill with tears. A long-lost memory of some other diamond ring? I don’t know, or care. “What do you know of my father?”

  “He’s dead,” the man says. I can’t tell if he’s happy or sad. His voice is weary. Emotionless. I study his face for some sign that he’s lying, but he meets my eyes. He believes what he’s just said. The world wavers for a moment, and I have to grab the rough wall of the building beside me to keep from falling.

  “How do you know this?”

  “He used to feed the fish in the stream behind the science building, at the university, yes?”

  Father always saved bits of bread for the fish, in the same way that he saved food for hungry children. That stream is the place Elliott and I last saw him.

  “Some of the students realized who he was. They went after him. Killed him and threw his body in the river. It’s better, I think, throwing them in the river, than leaving them in the streets.”

  It’s this detail about the fish that convinces me.

  Could he be dead? A wave of dizziness and nausea sweeps over me, but I force it down. My father, who took me to parades. Who comforted me when I was hurt. Who made me sleeping drafts and kissed my forehead as I drifted to sleep.

  “Did you see it happen?” I ask. “Or simply hear about it?” Either way, his story rings painfully true.

  He reaches into his robe. I step back, expecting some weapon, but instead he pulls out my father’s spectacles. I put out my hand, and the man drops them onto my trembling palm.

  They are lighter than I would have expected. But they are his. The left earpiece is twisted. I’d recognize them anywhere.

  My legs refuse to hold me up, and I collapse there in the street.

  “I’m sorry,” the man says. And this time I can hear the regret in his voice. He steps to the mouth of the alley, calls to the guards at the club. They come running, helping me to my feet. The man is gone. Along with Elliott’s diamond ring, and my hopes for repairing my world.

  Without my father and his elusive antidote, there is only one person who can save April. Malcontent. He claimed that he had a cure. If it isn’t too late for that. If he isn’t too angry that she allowed me to escape. Would he forgive her transgression if I turned myself over to him? I need to prepare myself to find out.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  AS I APPROACH APRIL’S ROOM, I’M EXPECTING the worst. But she is sitting up, dressed in a bright gown.

  “You keep leaving this,” she says, instead of “hello” like a normal person. She’s holding my makeup bag.

  I throw myself into her arms and hug her. “How do you feel?” I start to ask, but she puts her hand to my mask, shushing me.

  “Let’s not talk about that. We’re back in the Debauchery Club.” I stare at her, at a loss, and then she laughs. “Let’s dye your hair.”

  She pulls bottles and vials from her own bag. I want to laugh with her, but I’m afraid if I do, something inside me might break. The most I can summon is a smile.

  “This is the first time I’ve seen you smile in a long time,” she says softly.

  “There hasn’t been much to smile about.” My father can’t be dead; April can’t be dying.

  But I know better than that. I held my twin brother while the life bled out of him. Bad things happen every day. Unspeakable things.

  “You aren’t even going to recognize yourself,” she says, and it takes me a moment to realize that she’s talking about my hair.

  The first time she dyed it was so that I wouldn’t see Finn when I looked in the mirror. Whether or not the color had anything to do with it, I rarely see him now. For weeks, since Malcontent’s attack, I’ve barely thought about him. But the memories are still there. With Father dead, and if Malcontent kills me, then only Mother will be left to remember Finn.

  Preserving his memory is important. But he’d still want me to fight for April. Even if it means losing everything. Including him.

  “You told Elliott about our father,” April says, pouring water into a basin. “I can tell by the way he looks at me. Halfway pitying, half angry.”

  April’s room is more opulent than mine. Hangings cover the walls and carved furniture looms over us, dressing tables and mirrored chests and armoires. A dressing room stands open, and a variety of dresses are strewn about. The tray from this morning with the remains of breakfast is still on the bedside table. The servants haven’t come back for it, too afraid of catching the contagion.

  “He needed to know.”

  April turns me so that she’s behind me. Her hands are in my hair, massaging in the herb mixture that will change the color.

  “Does he deserve to know that you’re in love with Will?” she asks softly.

  Even though she’s working with my hair, I move to face her. Her blond hair is lustrous, falling in waves over her shoulders. But a sore oozes over her left eyebrow, and she isn’t wearing eye makeup because of it. Her eyes look naked.

  “I’m not in love with him,” I say.

  “You’re angry at him. That doesn’t mean you don’t love him.”

  “I’m not angry anymore. I understand what Will did. The decision he made. And I won’t pretend I’m not attracted to him. But I’m not in love with him. I’m not in love with anyone.”

  “Is this the same speech you gave Kent?” she asks, spinning me back around and smearing something that smells of lavender into my hair. “‘April is more important than kissing boys,’” she mimics. “He believed you. I don’t.”

  This is what girls are supposed to do with their best friends. Gossip about boys. My lack of interest in it has always been a sore spot with April. And now . . . the weight of the world seems to be on my shoulders. I can’t forget that Father is dead, that April is sick. That I shouldn’t be sitting here—I should be devising some plan, no matter how crazy, to save her.

  She wraps my hair in a towel and drops into a matching chair, so close that our
knees touch.

  “Who is a better kisser?” she whispers. And then her nose wrinkles. “If it’s Elliott, I don’t want to know details. Is it Elliott?”

  “I’m not going to tell you details,” I say, indignant. But then, because she’s my best friend, and because she’s waited a long time for this sort of discussion, taking me to the club two or three times a week . . . I sigh. “Elliott is insistent. Intense. With Will, it’s like I forget that anything else exists.” I feel my face burning. “I don’t know,” I say quietly. “They are both important to me. Without kissing.”

  “But kissing makes everything better,” she says. Her eyes meet mine, and I laugh. A real, true laugh.

  I reach out and take her hands. “What can we do for you?” I ask, though I know that this change in subject will kill the laughter.

  “Nothing. Kent has tried everything. If there were any cure, he’d know. He lost his mother to the plague, and he knows everyone who’s been experimenting and inventing. He’s smarter than anyone I’ve ever met.” She glows a little when she says this.

  “What about your father? He said that he could cure you.” This is as close as I will come to revealing my desperate plan.

  “Don’t believe him, Araby. I’ve thought about it, wondered if I should’ve stayed.” She gives me a sad smile. “Not because I regret saving you. That was the good part.” She runs a comb through my hair, untangling it. And then she rinses it with water from a small pitcher.

  My heart sinks. If Malcontent can’t save her, then she’s doomed.

  “Why shouldn’t we believe him?” I ask.

  “Because he’s a liar,” she says. “And he’s crazy. If he could cure the contagion, wouldn’t he cure all those men who are following him?”

  But I’m not so sure. It’s convenient that Malcontent has never gotten the disease. His men believe he is a saint. But we know better. He must have some cure that we aren’t aware of. He’s my last chance to save April.

  She’s running her hands through my hair, though surely the tangles are all out by now. I lean into her, comforted by her touch.

  “Will took me up in the hot-air balloon, the one that used to be tethered on the roof of the Morgue,” I say. Because I’ve not told anyone. I’ve not let myself think of it. But lately Will is slipping back into my thoughts.

  “What? Why didn’t you mention this before? Tell me everything!” She’s animated suddenly, spinning me around to look at her.

  “He showed me the city and said that I had to believe in good things.” This is where my heart drops. “Because he was getting ready to betray me.”

  Tears well up, and I force them down. April squeezes my shoulder, then busies herself by lining up the leftover vials of hair dye on the bureau across the room.

  “You’re pale. We need more of that sparkly eye shadow,” she says.

  “Yes,” I agree. “We do.”

  “I left some in Elliott’s room, before we left the city. I’ll call for Mina to fetch it.” Her new protégé seems happy to do April’s errands.

  April helped me through my darkest moments, and now she’s doing the same for this delicate girl. When she comes back into the room, April has finished with my hair.

  “It’s beautiful,” Mina says.

  “Sit down,” April commands. “I’ll put makeup on you, too.” The girl smiles, but her expression is sad. She’s still in mourning for her brother, when every bit of happiness is followed by guilt. Mina pulls up a chair and April carefully lays out a selection of makeup brushes on a silver tray. “Close your eyes,” she tells Mina, and smears something over her eyelids.

  “Tell me about your brother,” I say.

  Mina’s eyes fly open, and April tsks. Mina closes them again immediately. The silence stretches so long that I think she isn’t going to say anything, that she’s still mad at me, but finally she answers.

  “He had a crooked smile,” she says. “He kept me out of the orphanage. Made sure that I was always cared for.”

  “My brother liked to play pranks,” I say. “I hated it every time he put a spider in my bed or jumped out from behind something. But I miss his laugh.”

  “At least he had a sense of humor,” April says. “Elliott was always too serious for pranks. Too intense.” She arches an eyebrow at me.

  “Elliott’s eyes scare me,” Mina says. “I think he sees everything. That he can see through people. But Will’s eyes are dreamy.”

  “Will’s eyes are dreamy,” April agrees, giving me another knowing look.

  April reaches over to examine the color of my drying hair. Her fingers, as she brushes my forehead, feel warmer than they should. I raise my hand to her cheek. She’s still feverish.

  “Close your eyes, Araby,” April says. “We didn’t get all this glittery stuff for nothing.” And then the brush is moving over my eyelids, feather soft, and I’m transported for a moment to the simplicity of getting ready for our evenings at the Debauchery Club. “Perfect.” April turns me toward the mirror.

  Mina claps her hands. “Oh, I love it.” I glance over to see if she is sincere or if she is mocking me. Her eyes are shining. She claps once more, as if to emphasize how much she loves it.

  I stare at myself. April has done it again. Last time she dyed my hair violet. This time, she’s colored half of it a dark midnight blue that shimmers in the candlelight. I look like someone new. Not the scientist’s daughter. Not Finn’s twin sister. Just Araby.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  April smiles.

  Footsteps in the hallway distract me. Has Elliott returned? April doesn’t seem at all surprised when I excuse myself, hurrying to Elliott’s rooms. But he isn’t there.

  Back in my chamber across the hall, I find quill and ink and carefully pen a message to Malcontent. I tell him that I will trade myself for April’s life and where to find me. Even if that man was wrong and somehow Father is still alive, I don’t have time to waste searching for him. April doesn’t have time.

  Pushing the letter deep into a pocket, I open the door to my chamber, prepared to go down to the cellar, to try to find a passage that connects to the ones Malcontent is using. But Will is coming down the hallway, pulling Henry along with him, and I can tell immediately that something is wrong. Anger and distress radiate from him. His hair is wild, and his brow is furrowed.

  He shoves Henry at me.

  “Elise is gone. She went outside for a moment and Malcontent’s men snatched her.”

  I fall back against the paneled wall. “Oh, no,” I breathe. “How do you know it was Malcontent?”

  “Henry said they had dark robes. I have to go try to find her, and I can’t take him. I know I have no right to ask, but will you keep him safe?”

  Henry’s eyes are huge in his face. I wrap my arms around his too-thin shoulders. “You’re scaring him.”

  “He needs to be. In a world where someone grabs . . .” His voice breaks. “I kept her inside for years. I kept her safe. I’ll do anything to get her back.” He turns away.

  “Will, wait.” I lift Henry to my hip and block Will’s path. “You don’t know where to go, you don’t know—”

  “I know that Malcontent is stealing little girls. I’m going underground. To the place where I took you when he had the children before. The tunnels by the pier. If she isn’t there, I’ll keep looking.”

  “Do you need me . . .” I start to ask. “You could take me again . . .”

  I hold Henry close and look directly into Will’s eyes. Without breaking our gaze, he grips Henry’s shoulder in a way that must be painful, but the little boy doesn’t complain.

  “It’s amazing, how right your boyfriend was. Prophetic, really.”

  “He’s not—” I begin, but then I shake my head. “Right about what?”

  “The dangers of caring for too many people.” The flash in his eyes makes my heart stop for a moment. And then he releases Henry and walks around me.

  Henry and I watch him until he turns a corner, a
nd then listen to his footsteps get farther and farther away. “Let’s go downstairs and find you something to eat,” I finally say to Henry. His face is white and drawn, and he buries it in my shoulder. Before we reach the kitchens, a servant stops us.

  “You have a visitor,” he says. “An old servant of your family?”

  Our old courier stands in the hallway. I’m so glad to see him alive and well that I would embrace him, if I wasn’t already holding Henry.

  He rushes up to me and grabs my arm. His fingers are shaking, and his eyes are sunken in, as if from some terrible pain or worry. “Miss Araby! Thank God I found you. Prospero’s men took my daughter.”

  “Prospero’s men?”

  “Yes. They say they are rescuing them, but the people in the lower city know better.”

  “Are you sure it wasn’t Malcontent?”

  “It’s Prospero,” he insists. “You must have heard of his orphanages, where he trains his servants and his . . . entertainers. He’s planning some last entertainment for his great masked ball.”

  I look at Henry. I swore to protect him, but Will is after the wrong man. Elise and who knows how many other girls are in danger.

  “Do you know where this orphanage is?”

  “No. People whisper about it, but . . .”

  “Come upstairs.” I set Henry down and lead him and the courier back to April’s room.

  April is in bed, propped on pillows. The tray of food still sits ignored on her vanity table. I push Henry toward the food and gesture for the courier to help himself, too; he’s grown gaunt in the weeks since I’ve seen him.

  “I was planning to eat that,” April says as Henry discovers a pudding and spoons it into his mouth with such intense concentration that I think his eyes have crossed.

  “I’ll ask the servants to send more,” I say. “Where’s Mina?” Even as I ask, the girl pops her head in from April’s dressing room. I wave her into the room. “The orphanages. You said your brother protected you from them. Can you tell me where they are?”

  “The building is near the last place we lived. It’s one reason my brother wanted to get me out of the city, why we ran away. . . .”