Dance of the Red Death (Masque of the Red Death) (19 page)

Then I give one last look to April, hidden, shapeless beneath the blanket, before joining Mother in the other room.

She shuts the door to the bedroom gently.

Finally I’m able to ask, “Did she suffer?”

“No. She said she wanted to lie down for a moment, she made a great show of arranging her hair so she wouldn’t muss it. And then it seemed she fell asleep. I went to sit beside her, and realized she wasn’t breathing. She just—”

“I wish I had been here,” I whisper. Mother, cradling her injured hand, looks away from me. “And I wish I had been there with you when Finn died.”

I have a feeling that at this moment, she will answer anything I ask. “Why did Father release the Red Death?” I watch the emotions cross her face. She drops her hands, and for a brief moment I think that I was wrong, that Mother is going to treat me like a child. Lie. Suggest that Father didn’t do it. But she doesn’t.

“Do you remember the night you and April went to the club . . . you were wearing a long black dress, with a corset you had just dyed?”

I remember everything about that night. Will testing me, saying I should wear the silver eye makeup. Elliott following me through the women’s powder room, offering me his silver syringe.

“April brought you home. She had one of her servants carry you in. For a moment, we thought that you were sick, or dead. He’d been trying so hard to protect you from the prince. But he couldn’t protect you from yourself. And he couldn’t stand that. He couldn’t stand the world we lived in, and he blamed himself for everything. Including your misery and your pain.”

“He released the Red Death that night?”

“That was when he began to talk of it again. Then, when you were gone, when everything went to hell, I think Prospero called his bluff. But he wasn’t bluffing.”

My face feels stiff and frozen. “He asked me, after I returned, if I could be happy in this world.”

“And what did you say?” She’s whispering now.

“I didn’t answer.”

Mother looks away from me, and I’m ashamed. Why couldn’t I offer Father something more?

But no, I won’t hold myself responsible for my father’s actions. Prospero was the one who used Father to start the first contagion. Who killed my brother. And then, instead of finding a cure, my gentle, loving father gave up on people. On humanity. On everything.

The door to our room is slightly ajar. The maid didn’t lock it when she brought me back from visiting Will.

I could make a run for it now, could race down the corridor holding my gown up to my knees so that I don’t fall. I could go back to Will. But Mother is holding tight to my hand, and she is the only one who understands, at least a little. She found me, holding Finn’s hand. And tonight she held April’s, even though April meant nothing to her. I have to succeed tonight. I saved those little girls. I refuse to give up, to make the same horrible mistake my father did. Instead, I will change the course of our world.

“Maybe you can escape,” I whisper. I could send her to Will, even without April.

“It’s too late,” Mother says. And she is right.

A shadow falls over the threshold, and there’s the prince. He notices the open door, and his eyebrows go up.

“I come bearing gifts,” he says. As if he never tried to hang me, or to crush my mother’s hand.

He’s carrying three boxes. From one he extracts a circlet of glistening stones. Diamonds for my mother. A fortune in one velvet-lined box. I can’t watch him fasten them at her throat. I don’t want to see him touching her.

“Come here, Miss Araby Worth,” he says to me. Sapphires flash as he takes them from the box. Ostentatious oversized blue stones, surrounded by tiny, sharp diamonds that reflect every light in the room. The prince seems to take pleasure in placing the gemstone collar directly over the rope burns at my throat. I don’t give him the additional pleasure of seeing how it hurts.

His gift does not hide my injury. If anything, the necklace accentuates it. I want to tear it off and throw it away, but of course I don’t dare.

The prince knows how I feel. He’s smiling, and I hate him.

He holds the third box for a moment. I wait for him to ask where April is, but instead he says, “It’s almost time.” And taps his fingers together in a gesture that is, perhaps, supposed to indicate glee. “My most lavish party,” he adds. “I’ve been planning this for years. I hope you enjoy yourselves.”

He reaches out to kiss my mother’s hand, lingering over her maimed finger. My stomach lurches as his lips touch her skin, and he looks up to meet my eyes.

Then two of his guards enter the room. Each of them takes one of Mother’s arms, and they lead her away. She gives me a reassuring smile as they practically drag her out.

“When you locate my niece, bring her to me,” he tells them as they are leaving. And then his attention is focused completely on me.

“I’d like you to walk with me,” he says. “Because you and I are going to have a little fun. Do you like to play games?”

“No.”

But of course it doesn’t matter. He hands me a black satin bag lined with velvet. It is held shut with a heavy silk cord that I can wrap around my wrist to hold.

“The ball is held in seven interconnected rooms,” he tells me. “In each room, I have hidden something that has a special significance to you. If you can find what I have hidden, and place the items in this bag before the clock counts down the hours, then you win.”

“What do I win?” My voice has never sounded so cold and uncaring. Not even in the moments when I tried to punish Mother for all of the slights I imagined. For leaving me alone, for Finn’s death.

“My prizes are always worth winning.” He puts one hand under my chin and raises it so my eyes meet his cold, dead ones. I’ve made a terrible mistake. “At the end of the game, if you’ve succeeded, I’ll let you choose. Your mother, or your beau. Don’t worry. If you leave her with me, I’ll take good care of her. I won’t promise the same for the boy.”

My hatred for him chokes me. Did he know my plan? Have the maids gotten Will out, or could he still be a prisoner?

“I’ll play your game,” I say through gritted teeth. But I won’t choose. I won’t have to, because somehow, before this night is over, I will kill him.

He puts out his arm, and reluctantly I take it, waiting for his answer. As we glide through the corridor, courtiers move out of our way. We pass mirror after mirror. I refuse to look into any of them. He smirks. He never doubted that I would play. I don’t want to see his gloating face, and I don’t want to see myself, not in this costume he created for me. Not when April will never wear a beautiful dress again.

Instead I study the other guests in their finery. How odd to see their mouths but not the expression around their eyes. It’s the very opposite of everything I’m used to, and I can’t read anyone. I am completely isolated in this throng of revelers.

And I’m going to have to accomplish this task, his so-called game, alone.

“How do you know seven things that are important to me?” I ask. “You barely know me.”

He laughs. “But I know your mother
very
well, and she loves you. I’ve been collecting information about you for some time.”

“Then you should know that I don’t like games.” I didn’t think, when I tied the knife to my leg, how impossible it would be to retrieve. If I could get it, I would stab him right here. I would slip the blade up under his ribs or into his gut like Elliott showed me.

“And you should know that I don’t care in the least what you like or don’t like,” the prince answers, his eyes gleaming.

CHAPTER TWENTY

W
E FOLLOW SATIN DRESSES AND JEWELED MASKS
to carved wooden doors standing open at the top of a staircase. I hesitate only for a moment before I step over the threshold.

“Have fun,” Prospero says, and gestures for me to descend before disappearing into the crowd.

This place is dark and deep. Perhaps what Elliott said about his uncle importing this castle stone by stone is true. The walls are a blue deeper than my dress. They feel like they might close in and crush me. Though the ceilings are high, my impression of the room is subterranean, as if we are in one of the dungeons, if Prospero hadn’t flooded them.

A thumping drum passes for music, and people press in from every side. One thousand guests were invited to this ball, and it seems like all of them are in this room. Dancers wear primitive masks and costumes. I’m not sure if they are guests or were just placed here to entertain.

I force a smile because, in this mask, everyone can see my mouth. The sapphires at my throat are cool, but not cold enough to soothe the throb of the rope burns. At least, in this room lit only by torches, the welts won’t be so noticeable.

The doors at the top of the stairway slam shut. No one else can enter. Drums throb. Faces are obscured. A girl steps on my foot. The pain is sharp, as if her slippers are adorned with spikes. Torch smoke burns my eyes.

I wish I understood Prospero’s game. What kinds of objects am I looking for? What might Mother have told him about me?

Across the room, there’s a deep shadow between two torches. Since the room is mostly an open floor, those shadows are one of the only places that Prospero could have hidden anything. I force myself to move, following the light of the torches.

But the shadow is only a bare, rough wall.

I feel my way along the walls, bits of blue paint flaking off under my fingers. This room is dark. How am I supposed to find—

The wall ends. Turning a corner, I come upon an alcove where dainty feet dangle before my eyes.

The maids who did my hair, who offered to help me, swing from nooses, limp. I swallow hard. They can’t have been dead long. About the same amount of time as April.

I whip around. Surely the prince is watching me, gloating at the horror he orchestrated, showing me that he learned my plan to free April and Will. He can’t hurt April, but what might he have done to Will?

Scanning the room for some evidence that he is watching, all I see around me are scantily dressed dancers, some writhing together on a raised dais while others whirl about the dance floor.

I force myself to look back. I killed these girls. I asked them for help, and somehow he found out. The little one is in the center, her serviceable boots a bit higher than the rest. I take two steps forward. Then a third. A deep-blue ribbon is tied around her ankle. Something hangs from it. Two more steps, and I recognize it. Elliott’s silver syringe.

Special significance.

Mother didn’t tell Prospero about this. She doesn’t know.

But there is no doubt that it’s meant for me.

And to take it, I am going to have to touch this poor dead girl. I brace myself and stand on my toes, reaching up, fumbling, ashamed that I am allowing Prospero to force me into this horrible game.

The syringe is cool in my hand. I stare down at it, realizing that I have never held it before. Elliott always handled it as he injected oblivion into my veins.

The music stops.

As horrible as the pounding drum was, hearing the whisper of the dead girls’ petticoats in the sudden silence is worse.

I back out of the alcove and slip the syringe into the bag.

From someplace deep in the castle, a clock bell tolls. The dancers blink. Someone bumps into me, and one of the sapphires on my choker tears into my throat. Hot droplets of blood fall down onto my dress, but instead of soaking into the heavy satin, they roll off, disappearing to the floor.

The clock thunders seven times.

Then the drums pound, and the primal rhythm begins again.

I study the position of the torches. Another set, barely visible across the room, gives the same impression that the ones I’m standing beneath did. They’ve been placed at intervals to create the illusion that something lies between them.

So perhaps the real door is not marked at all. I look to where the shadows are the deepest, and after turning nearly in a complete circle and running my hands over the dark blue of the walls, I finally spot the doorway and pass through to the next room.

This room is lit by glowing gaslight bulbs in a huge chandelier that dangles low over the dancers’ heads. The floor is mosaic tile, cool and elegant. The walls are purple, trimmed with gold, adorned with antique portraits, ladies and gentlemen in tall wigs posing with unnaturally thin dogs. Some feature gentlemen riding horses. In the corners of the room, ladies sip tea from china cups. Some have exposed legs; others wear skirts that touch the floor, like those from before the contagion.

The doors here are not hidden; in fact, there are too many. Dozens of white columns line the wall, and between each pair is another door. All are propped halfway open. I look for mirrors or some other sort of illusion; this chamber cannot be as large as it seems.

Across the room, I see April’s mother. I hadn’t expected to meet her here, and she’s the last person I want to see.

As I try to decipher where the prince might have hidden an object of significance, she spots me and comes forward. The gold hair that both of her children have inherited is artfully arranged to hide the streaks of gray.

My breathing becomes quick and shallow. I have to tell her. I’m going to have to look in her face and tell her.

But she doesn’t ask about April.

“Come.” She sweeps me across the room, out of the way of the revelers. Throughout the room, the guests are dancing, their ball gowns swirling around them.

“We need to talk, you and I,” she says, in a tone that suggests we have spoken more than a few words before tonight. Her tone is crisp. When I would visit April, her mother always sounded overly friendly, as if she couldn’t believe anyone wanted to spend time with her daughter. But she sounds different tonight. It hits me that she’s speaking to me not as April’s friend, but as Elliott’s . . . whatever she believes I am to her son.

I need to get away from her, but she’s holding my arm tightly, and I don’t think it’s in my best interest to cause a scene.

She’s led me to the ladies with their china teacups and feathered fans. They wear lacy white masks and pastel dresses, in contrast to my dark, bold one.

“You have to help Elliott,” April’s mother says. Sharp blue eyes peer at me through her mask. Pink feathers caress her cheek. “He won’t be able to kill his uncle,” she says. “The man has power over him. You have to find someone who can actually kill the prince.”

“Elliott hates his uncle,” I tell her. I’ve run my hands over the network of scars on his back. I know a little of what Prospero put him through.

“He does. But that doesn’t mean he can do what needs to be done. When you were here before, the prince poisoned you, yes?”

When I nod, the sapphires at my throat jab again into the delicate skin.

“You were alone in a carriage with Prospero. Elliott was planning a rebellion. Did you never wonder why Elliott didn’t kill him then?”

I stare at her. What is she suggesting?

“Do you think that he didn’t have a weapon, hidden somewhere? Or did you doubt that Elliott could kill a man with his bare hands? His uncle trained him very, very well.”

“I don’t doubt it,” I whisper.

Around us, ladies sip their tea to the sounds of stringed instruments from some hidden alcove. Everything in this place is hidden under layers of deception. Like this woman’s motives.

“Every day Prince Prospero is alive is a day that he will cause suffering.”

“I understand,” I say. And I agree with her.

“Elliott chose wisely in you. Share a drink with me before you got to the next room.” She heads for a table covered with silver goblets.

I haven’t found whatever’s hidden in this room, but I can’t stand to share a drink with this woman, when I know her daughter is dead and she does not. I can return to this room after I’ve found the other items.

People come and go. But I realize that they aren’t really leaving. They waltz through one door and then back in through the next. It’s a series of closed-in arches rather than passages to another room. But to the left is a wall draped with purple hangings. I’m guessing that, as in the last room, the main door is obscured. Edging forward, I’m about to brush one of the curtains aside when a guard blocks my way. He smiles and pulls a vicious-looking knife from a sheath at his side. So this is what happens if I try to move on without succeeding in my search. I take a step, as if to challenge him, but the extent of his smile unnerves me, and finally I step back. It’s Prospero’s palace, after all. He makes the rules.

April’s mother is watching me. She raises her goblet in a mock toast. It’s silver, like the one the prince used to poison me. What does she know? As April’s mother sets her cup on the table, I see that a purple ribbon has been tied around the heavy stem of one of the goblets, and I lunge forward to take it.

Inside is Henry’s toy airship.

I spill it into my hand. Is this supposed to tell me that Henry is in danger, that somehow the prince has found not only the treasured toy, but the child? I deny the sudden crippling fear. Henry and Elise are safe. It’s Will I need to worry about. As I drop the toy into the bag, April’s mother melts into the crowd. And the gong of the clock sounds once again, clear, loud, and deep.

Does it mark the hours, or my progress? It doesn’t seem long enough for an hour to have passed.

I square my shoulders and move on, ignoring the dozens of open doors. Instead I go back to the wall covered with purple silk curtains. I push the first aside only to see bare stone, but the second one reveals a narrow passage. It leads to a room that is completely green, from the tapestries on the walls to the ornaments on tables.

A woman steps into my path and says, “At your age, you should be married.” When I dodge her, I end up on the dance floor, nearly colliding with a pair of revelers. I stumble out of their way and look up to see a figure approaching me from across the room. He looks no different than the other revelers in his dark suit and vest. But the black mask accentuates his fair hair.

The first time I came to this terrible place, Prince Prospero said that at a masked ball, I might not even recognize his nephew.

But I know Elliott. He is all subtle grace and elegant menace.

Elliott’s on my side. He can help me through this maze. Help me find and kill Prospero.

The green-tiled floor is filled with dancers.

But someone, somewhere, is watching me, recording my progress, and even as I allow Elliott to take me into his arms, as one hand moves to my shoulder and the other to my waist, I know that whether Elliott realizes it or not, this meeting is on Prospero’s terms. That I can’t let myself be swept up in the relief of not being alone. Even in Elliott’s arms, it’s still me against Prospero.

We glide across the floor without speaking.

Finally he says, “If you see Will, tell him I want that walking stick back. It once belonged to the mayor of the city, and as such, was precious to me for a long time. I thought it was all I had left of my fath—”

“Prospero has Will and my mother.” I cut him off, his teasing tone not sitting well with me.

“Where’s April?”

I hate telling him like this, in the middle of all these people. I reach up, putting my hand to the front of his well-cut coat. And that’s when I see that a slender green ribbon has been affixed right above the pocket of his vest. Somehow Prospero has pulled Elliott in, hopefully unwittingly, and made him a part of his game. At least now I don’t have to search this room. What I need is right in front of me. But first I have to tell him about his sister.

“Elliott, April is dead.”

He misses a step. And then another. A pair of dancers collides with us, hard, and I’m knocked out of Elliott’s arms. He stands there stunned, and guilty, and altogether too young for the amount of responsibility he has taken on.

The couple who crashed into us find their rhythm and glide past. Elliott closes his eyes briefly. When he opens them, they are bright with unshed tears. He doesn’t ask for details, and for that I am thankful.

“Why are you here?” I ask.

“I came for food,” he says. “And weapons. Thousands of people sought out my protection. With what Prospero has here, I can care for them.”

Despite everything, he could make a good ruler.

“And to look for you,” he says, but he says it dispassionately. As if I am something he misplaced. “After you rescued those girls, the city was abuzz with rumors about the scientist’s daughter. I need you, at least until I’ve shored up my support.”

Now the emotion is in his voice. A sort of longing that makes my heart ache. Because it isn’t for me. Not anymore. Our feelings are so twisted and confused. We don’t love each other, not in the way that begets complete trust and sacrifice. Not the way I need to be loved.