Dance of the Red Death (Masque of the Red Death) (20 page)

Elliott wants to use me. April once told me that Elliott liked poetry better than women. She should have said power. But I promised to be by his side.

“I will always help you, however I can,” I whisper, inching my hand from where I was holding his forearm, toward the pocket and the green ribbon. “How did you get in?” I ask. “Did Prospero send men after you that night in the Tower?”

“No, your father and I escaped that night. I took the clockmaker’s invitation.”

Did he kill the clockmaker? The horrible suspicion makes me stumble, though Elliott catches me. I don’t meet his eyes. He’s ruthless. I am trying to be. In the end, maybe we will be the same, but I’m not there yet.

“I told you not to trust me,” he says, and smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes. And I don’t trust him. Whether he’s telling the truth or not, he’s not here without Prospero’s knowledge. I thrust my hand into his pocket and pull out the ribbon.

Elliott jerks away, releasing his hold on my arms. I trip over my feet and fall to the floor, a heap of skirts, and stare at what is lying in the palm of my hand.

I’ve never seen it before in my life.

It’s a small gold pocket watch. I press the release, and it springs open. Inside, there’s an inscription:
TO FINN. HAPPY BIRTHDAY. LOVE, PAPA.

“Where did you get this?” I ask.

The distant clock tolls.

For a few moments everyone on the dance floor freezes. Listening? Waiting?

Elliott extends a hand to pull me to my feet, but I wave it away. On the floor, I finally have a chance to untie my dagger. Removing it from beneath the midnight-blue skirts, I slide it, along with the small gold watch, into the black satin bag.

Then I climb to my feet without his help.

“I am sorry,” I say. Apologizing for having to tell him about April. For not loving him. For the death of whatever might have been between us.

He puts his hand under my chin and raises it.

“Don’t be sorry,” he says. “I can’t afford distractions, not now. Not even pretty ones.”

The music ends.

In a ripple of movement, people begin to bow. The prince has mounted a dais in the center of the room. The musicians stare at him in apparent surprise.

The clock strikes once, a different peal than the one I’ve heard before. Deafening. The lights flicker, and a woman screams. Even the prince is completely still.

And I am alone. Elliott is gone. While I was watching Prospero, Elliott abandoned me. Without telling me how Finn’s watch ended up in his pocket.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

M
Y KNIFE IS WITHIN REACH, AND SO IS THE PRINCE
.

I edge closer to the dais. Now that the shock of the clock striking has worn off, people are moving again. The prince claps his hands and tumblers flip into the room, pushing the guests back to the walls. My eyes are still trained on Prospero, but then a man grabs me, and holds me in place, just for a moment. It’s long enough for the prince to disappear.

To force me to continue the game.

I find a door at the back of the room leading to two staircases. One goes up, and the other down. Which to choose? In the end, surely they will all lead me back to wherever Prospero wants me to go.

Holding the black bag, and my knife, close, I go up and through an arched entryway into a room that hurts my eyes. Everything burns orange.

Contortionists do tricks on a brightly lit stage, and servants in orange dresses circulate with drinks.

Guests kiss in the corners. And on low divans, and on the dance floor. My face burning, I thread my way though. A servant hands me a chilled beverage, but instead of drinking, I rub the cool glass across my forehead. This room is very hot.

Dozens of shiny objects have been suspended from the ceiling on nearly transparent strings, so they appear to be floating. A diamond catches the light and flashes. I can’t escape from Elliott’s ring. As many times as I’ve traded it or given it away, it always returns. This time with a finger inside. It hangs from the ceiling, shimmering. The nail bed of the severed finger is covered with dried blood. I try not to imagine how it got that way, whose finger it was.

I slide the ring from the finger and drop it into my black purse. And then, before the gong can sound, I stumble out of the room, into a long corridor. No one interferes or follows. My footsteps echo.

It’s mostly empty and drab after the decadence of the room behind me. Could I have left the path I was meant to follow? But no, signs have been scrawled above each door of the corridor. Elliott’s eye symbol. The red scythe. I stop before a door covered with mathematical equations. It reminds me of father’s incessant scribbling, and of solid, dependable Kent. I have something that reminds me of Elliott, of Finn, of Will, and of the Debauchery Club. Could the next be something of my father’s?

I choose the equation door, but have no idea if it’s the right decision. Behind it is a quiet room, not a lavish ball.

As I look around the room, I realize that it feels familiar. It is almost the same as our sitting room in the Akkadian Towers. I tiptoe closer to the white curtains. Behind them is a garden nearly identical to ours except for a stunted sycamore tree in the center.

Leaning against its trunk is a figure dressed in black robes. A mask streaked with red tears covers his entire face. He is holding a scythe.

If Prospero had captured Reverend Malcontent, why would he place him in this garden, instead of using him as part of his gruesome entertainment?

But then the figure reaches up to adjust his mask, and I know his hands. The same hands that held me during the parade, that soothed me, that gave me sleeping drafts night after endless night.

I fear death like everyone else, but this is only my father.

And then he sees me. He raises his hand, as if to ask me what I am doing here. Covered in dark robes, he picks his way to the glass door that separates us. On my side, it is in an alcove, mimicking the closet Elliott took me through in Penthouse A.

The door of the garden slides open.

“Araby,” he says, putting a hand on my shoulder.

“Father.” I throw my arms around him.

“Not too close,” he says. But still, he pulls me into him, crushing me against his chest. “Find your mother and get out of here, as far away as you can.”

I don’t have to ask why he’s here. With his disguise, with everything the prince has done to our family, Father is here for revenge.

And he deserves his vengeance. But I traded my safety for his.

“You need to go back to the city,” I say. “The prince would love to kill you.”

“My life isn’t worth anything,” he says.

“It is to me,” I say, “and to Mother. Please. You go. I can kill the prince, but you’re the only one who can help the people dying in the city.”

“I’m so sorry,” he says. “So very sorry.” There is so much regret in his voice that I think he’s apologizing for all the deaths, for Finn. The atrocities I’ve been waiting for him to atone for. “I can’t let you do this. I should never have let you trade your safety for mine. If you die, then I have nothing to live for.”

He pushes me into the garden and slams the door. I hear the deadbolt slide home.

“No!” I throw myself at the window. Father turns away, dramatic in his costume. I pound the glass with my fists and scream for him to let me out, but he doesn’t even look back.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I
DON’T WASTE A MOMENT
. I
F THIS GARDEN IS A
replica of the one in the Akkadian Towers, then there must be a trapdoor leading out. Father didn’t cover his tracks; he didn’t expect to be locking me inside. I can see where the earth is disturbed, and I feel something metallic beneath my heels. The trapdoor. As I kneel, frantic to clear it, I see something else in the dirt. Father’s glasses, tied with a white ribbon. The ones the man in the alley gave me to convince me that Father was dead. Did Prospero go through my room at the Debauchery Club? And does Prospero know Father’s here, or is this simply a twisted reminder of the hero I thought my father was?

Clearing the hatch is messy but not difficult. As I work, the clock strikes again. I pry the door open and peer into the smoky darkness. This opening has no ladder.

The room below does not seem to be a closet like the one in the Akkadian Tower, but part of a larger chamber. Voices and laughter float up.

I swing down, wincing at the pain in my bad shoulder. My dress makes a horrible tearing sound as I fall to the floor with a thump. I’m in a long antechamber.

At the end of the room is an archway. People stand beneath it, their eyes pass over me, but none of them seem surprised that I’ve appeared through a hole in the ceiling. I take a deep breath but choke before I’ve fully inhaled. Directly in front of me, a man lights a pipe. The smoke that billows around him is more than any one pipe could produce.

The walls of this new room are covered with lavender silk. The lights are low and purplish, streaming through windows with leaded violet panes. Low couches line the walls, and people recline upon them, laughing quietly. The conversation here is intimate, sedate.

On a low table is an assortment of implements. Syringes, pipes. Gauzy curtains caress my face.

“This is the good stuff,” a girl murmurs. “It’s been in the prince’s storehouse for years. They say it gets better with age.”

A dark-haired boy leans close to me. His hair is tousled like Will’s. I wish, fleetingly, I could go back to the time when I was merely a patron of the Debauchery Club, waiting breathlessly for Will to flirt with me. That April could be beside me, laughing at my awkwardness whenever he appeared.

“I have what you want,” the boy says, trying to entice me. But it’s not Will’s voice, and it’s easy to say no.

Among the pipes and the vials on the table is a small brush with a painted handle. It’s beside a small jar of sparkly silver eye shadow. April’s eye shadow. She used it just hours ago. I grab both and drop them into the bag, pulling the drawstring tight.

I leave behind these people, lost in oblivion, as the gong sounds once more.

Six objects. The game is nearly over. And then I’ll have to choose. Not between Will’s safety and my mother’s. I won’t accept that. I’ll have to choose how to kill the prince. Unless my father gets to him first.

The room that I’ve stepped into is completely white.

The music is sedate, but after the silence of the last room, it seems loud. Musicians play sitars and violins. I imagine that the girl from the Debauchery Club might be here, singing about suicide. The dances in this room are informal, people swaying to the music, too close for propriety. Mother would not approve.

Will—the real Will—is standing across the room. My heart stops. And when it starts up again, it hurts. It beats wildly. He’s wearing a formal jacket, velvet with brocade trim, but underneath, it’s the same sort of thing he wore when he was examining us at the club—a fitted shirt, dark pants. No vest or other fashionable additions. He’s scanning the room, the dancers. He’s looking for me.

He sees me before I reach him, and I stop a few paces away, too overcome with relief. Too confused to speak. He’s wearing the same dark mask as all the other men, but on him it is entrancing.

I look at his mouth, exposed as it is. And then it’s impossible to focus on anything else.

We’ve only stood here for a moment, but it feels so long that I’ve begun to believe that he is never going to touch me again. Finally he puts his hands on my shoulders and draws me in. His thumb caresses the base of my throat, carefully avoiding the rope burns.

Our masks bump together, and one of the peacock feathers drifts slowly to the floor.

But the moment is interrupted as the horrible clock toll pulses through the room, shaking the walls and the floor with a peal that is louder and longer than any before.

The crowd surges, pushing us back toward the bare white walls.

“It’s the prince,” someone says. “A madman is chasing him.”

I have to stand on tiptoes to see anything, but indeed, the prince is running through the room. His mask is askew, and his eyes dart this way and that.

A figure in dark robes and a mask that covers his face follows. He carries a scythe in his hand. He moves like he’s stalking prey, slowly, methodically.

The revelers are crying, falling to the floor, scrambling over one another to get away from Father and his blood-streaked mask.

“Who let him in?” I hear a man scream.

“The Red Death,” a woman moans.

“Don’t let them out of your sight,” I tell Will.

Pushing myself away from the wall, I force my way through the hysteria, pulling Will along. We hold hands even while pursuing death. My hand fits so perfectly in his.

Before we reach Father, guards pour in from every direction. Everyone freezes, from the half-dressed revelers to the contortionists in their unnatural positions.

The guards surround the prince. But Father has disappeared. I eye the soldiers. Before Will and I can proceed, Elliott enters the room.

He halts just inside the doorway, but his jaw clenches below the line of his mask, and I know he sees me. With Will.

“Take the prince,” he says to his men, without taking his eyes from me.

“Araby, Prospero is up to something.” At Will’s warning, I look to the prince, who raises his arms and then drops them dramatically. Debris begins to rain from the ceiling. At first it’s simply confetti, but then orange marbles pour down. The sound is like raindrops, and when the marbles hit, they sting. Courtiers trip as they run for the door, trying to shield their faces. Some scream as sharp glass slivers begin to fall.

“I want him alive,” Elliott calls, lunging into the crowd. His fair hair shines in the candlelight.

I put my hand on Will’s arm, allowing Elliott to pass us. The doorway he’s headed for is one that I explored earlier. And Prospero is long gone.

Like the first two rooms of the ball, the shadows behind the stage hold a less obvious door. We have to fight the crowd running the other way, but eventually I drag Will into a black corridor. Only steps from us, two guards are pushing Father, in his deathly black robes, against the wall.

“Dr. Phineas Worth, you are under arrest.”

“No!” I hurl myself at them.

One of the guards shakes his head. “We have our orders. Step away, Miss Worth. Your father is a murderer.” But neither one touches me. They probably still think that Elliott and I . . .

Will tries to break in, but the guard blocks him. While they are distracted, I throw my arms around Father.

He strips off the dark robes and mask and presses them to me. “Do what has to be done.”

The guards pull us apart, but they don’t take the robes away.

Cradling the bundle, I feel something in the pocket. My heart constricts.

I look to Father as the soldiers shove him toward the violet room. He nods. When they are gone, I reach into the pocket and pull out a glass vial. Holding it to the light, it looks empty, but I know something horrible lurks inside. Not only is there a cork stopper, but it has been sealed with wax. Will draws a sharp breath.

“Are you going to try to stop me?” I ask him. Because I know he has strong opinions about murder and death. About right and wrong.

“No,” he says. “But I’m going with you.”

I couldn’t ask for anything more than that.

I drop the robes and the mask of the Red Death. Clenching the vial in my fist, I lead Will through another door. And now we have reached the center of Prospero’s labyrinth.

The walls, the floors, the ceiling, all black. Everything except the windows—those are a horrible bloody crimson.

This room is smaller than the others, and already crowded with courtiers fleeing my father and Elliott’s guards. We move through the press, pushing when we have to. Like the outer room, everything in this room is black, from the wood floor to the wall panels. Manacles line the walls. Instruments of torture. And the clock looms over everything, ebony, tall, menacing.

Prospero cowers in the shadow of the great clock. No one recognizes him, because these people have never seen him cower. They don’t expect the pathetic, trembling man with tears streaming down his face to be their cruel, sardonic prince.

Elliott warned me how difficult it would be to kill someone. Even this man who deserves it more than anyone. Prospero and I stare at each other.

“Elliott is coming.” Will puts his hand on my wrist. The movement reminds me of the black velvet bag that is hanging there. Of Prospero’s mockery of decency and love. His destruction of my own family, and so many others. I consider dumping the contents over the prince’s head, but these items are too precious to me.

“Tell everyone to get out,” I say to Will. “Clear the room.”

Will doesn’t hesitate. “Move!” he shouts. “Out of the room, get out, or face certain death.”

Most flee, but some wait, expecting some sort of show. They’ve been at Prospero’s court too long.

Taking the final steps across the room, I break the wax seal with my fingernail. I stop when the toe of my shoe touches Prospero’s silk jacket. He pulls his arm away, still hunched in the shadow of the clock.

I scrape at the cork to coax it out of the vial, but it breaks off, too far down in the vial to get at.

“What is going on?” Elliott is behind me now. I look back for a moment, and our eyes meet across the black room. He won’t forgive me for taking his revenge from him.

I throw the vial to the floor. It shatters at the prince’s feet.

The clock begins its thunderous peals, and Prospero’s mask hits the floor with a crack.

He climbs to his feet and stretches out to me, but I just shake my head. A single red tear rolls down his face.

Elliott’s men flood the room even as he collapses. Prince Prospero is dead.

The sun rises, blazing through the red windows. The glass shards sparkling against the wood floor are far more beautiful than the diamonds Prospero fastened at my mother’s throat.

And then someone knocks my feet out from under me, and I hear the word “Murderer!” leveled at me as I hit the floor.