Dance of the Red Death (Masque of the Red Death) (21 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

E
LLIOTT’S SHADOW FALLS OVER ME, AND
I
LOOK
up at him over his uncle’s body. He’s looking at Prospero, his face stricken.

Two guards take my arms, but even as I find my footing, one of the guards begins to convulse. Red tears streak his face.

“I told everyone to clear the room,” Will says from somewhere behind me.

“She killed the prince,” the other guard insists. “Elliott ordered that he be taken alive.”

Elliott silences him. “Araby Worth has always worked for me. She killed the prince at my command.” He pulls me up and leans in to my ear. “I still need my execution,” he whispers. “But don’t worry, I have a prisoner who will do.”

Father. The shock hits me like a blow. I see the truth written on his face, which is so close to mine that we could be about to kiss.

Elliott lets me go. Will catches me, giving me a moment to find my strength.

“We should get out of this room,” I say, taking Will’s hand so he knows I can stand now. “We don’t know . . . how well protected we are.” Will just emptied his vial this afternoon, and I’m unsure how long it takes for the antidote to enter his system.

“The party is over,” Elliott calls. “Everyone should return to the city.”

Our camaraderie, whatever held our small band together over the past weeks, is gone.

“You should find your mother,” Elliott says.

I don’t look back at him or at Prospero’s corpse as I guide Will out of the room.

“It’s over,” he says.

I don’t feel any triumph. April is dead. Elliott hates me. My father is a prisoner. I just killed Prince Prospero, and all I want to do is collapse to the floor and weep.

“What do we do now?” I ask.

“Pick up the pieces,” Will says. “Right now we find your mother. Tomorrow we hire some sort of lawyer to defend your father.”

“Are there any lawyers left?”

We step out into the corridor and come face-to-face with a group of revelers.

“The party is over,” Wills tells them, echoing Elliott.

They stare at us, stunned, as we brush by.

“At least we got fancy new clothes from the experience.” Will adjusts the lapel of his jacket. But, as usual, my dress is in tatters. I stop to rip off a bit of blue fabric that drags the floor.

Will leans close. “It looks good on you that way.”

I look up at him. When he kisses me, every nerve in my body tingles. My toes curl up, and my heart pounds. Prospero is dead, and we are alive.

We find my mother sitting alone in the white room, staring at the wall. When I call to her, she stands.

“So it’s over,” she says. “And you killed him.”

“Yes.” I don’t know what else to say.

Will puts his arm around me. “We need to get to the roof. If Elliott is here, then Kent must have brought him.”

“Do you know the way?” I ask Mother. She leads us silently. We pass through two mostly empty rooms, up a flight of stairs.

As we go, she takes in Will’s tattoos, our linked hands. But she says nothing, and her face remains expressionless. I think maybe she’s in shock.

On the roof, the wind whips my hair back and forth. It’s midmorning now, and the sun burns my eyes. Kent smiles when he sees us, but it fades when he notes that April isn’t with us.

The ship is beautiful. The great balloon floats above the roof, and the wooden deck gleams under the feet of the two children who spill out of the cabin as soon as we appear, leaping onto Will, hugging him, hugging me.

“Who is this?” my mother asks. It’s the first time she’s spoken since we left the party. Henry turns to her and solemnly holds out his hand. My mother leans down and shakes it.

“I’m Henry,” he says. “And that’s Elise.”

“Why are you wearing those masks?” Elise asks. “Are you in disguise?”

“Does it look silly?” I ask her.

I put my hand to my velvet mask. One last peacock feather remains. I pull the mask from my face, and she takes it from my hand and peers through the eyes, holding it over her white protective mask.

“No, you looked magical,” Elise says.

“Where is April?” Kent comes across the deck of the ship. The girl Mina is behind him, her face filled with concern.

“She’s dead,” I say, because April would be annoyed if I dragged it out. She wouldn’t want me to be coy. She would want shock and drama and weeping. “I had a plan to get her out, but the contagion . . .” When I reach out, Will is there to support me.

Kent’s face goes completely colorless. Mina sniffles. We stand together, unable to say anything. At least I know they understand.

“Where is she?” Kent asks. “We should bring her . . . body . . . but we shouldn’t have her on board with the children, and Elliott wanted me to find the pumping station as soon as possible.”

“It’s in the swamp,” I say. Everyone turns to me. “In the old manor house. That’s what all those locked doors were hiding. Prospero almost gave the keys to the machine to Malcontent, but I hid them in the cathedral.”

Kent pushes his glasses up on top of his head and runs his hand through his hair.

“Kent, we’ll come back for April’s body, if Elliott doesn’t bring her,” I say. “But we should go now.”

He nods and moves to the wheel. The ship begins to rise. The wind is brisk, and we move quickly.

“What’s the plan?” Will asks.

“The keys,” I say. “Then the swamp.”

“Exactly,” Kent says. He’s tapping his foot against the deck, as if he can make the ship move faster just with the force of his nervous energy. “We need to set up a hero, someone the people can look up to besides Elliott, so his power won’t be absolute,” he says. “You already saved those little girls. You killed Prospero. Now you’re going to find a way to bring fresh water to the city. To cleanse the swamp. And Will and I will be there to help you. And it’s . . . probably best that Will isn’t within stabbing distance when Elliott returns to the city.”

Will pushes back his hair, his expression somewhere between guilty and embarrassed.

“What did you do?” I ask.

He pulls a pamphlet from his pocket and hands it to me.

In an effort to right the wrongs of my forebears, I plan to hold an official election in two weeks’ time. All occupants of the city are invited to vote. Anyone who would like to claim office may run for it. I shall be running for the office of mayor of the city.

“It doesn’t even sound like him,” I say. But we all know that it will do exactly what Will intended. Elliott can’t renege on this election without looking like he plans to be the newest tyrant. And maybe it will keep him from executing my father without a proper trial.

Elliott is not going to take this lightly.

“I knew the risk I was taking,” Will says. “And I’ll accept the consequences.”

“Not alone,” I say.

I watch Kent steer for a few moments, wondering if I should say anything more about April, but then Will pulls me away. We stand at the rail at the back of the ship, but instead of the breathtaking scenery below, we look at each other.

“I don’t deserve—” he begins, but I put my hand up to stop him. It’s too close to what I thought after Finn died. That I didn’t deserve happiness.

Neither of us should be thinking that way any longer. Not when he was the one who convinced me that living is worth it.

“Don’t apologize again,” I tell him. “It’s over. We’ve both done terrible things. And we’d do them again if we had to.”

He starts to say something, but I stop him with a quick, mostly innocent kiss. The wind ruffles his hair. He stares out over the landscape, and then he looks back to me, a hint of a smile on his lips.

“Let’s go into the cabin,” he says. And with that, the contrite Will is gone. He’s the Will I first met, whose movements are smooth, and whose eyes promise excitement. He shuts the door behind us, and then, as if we have all the time in the world, he runs his thumb over my cheek, lifts my chin. My eyelids flutter closed. But he doesn’t kiss me. His hands caress the line of my throat before sliding to my shoulders. Every movement sends sparks through me. And though I can’t help appreciate the skillfulness of his touch, I don’t let myself melt. Not yet.

“Be still,” I say, grabbing his hands, and placing them at my waist. Even there, resting lightly at my sides, his fingertips makes me shiver.

Starting at his collar, I trace his tattoos, ever so slowly, up, up, up. My hands are in his hair, delighting in the feel of it slipping through my fingers, silky and coarse at the same time. I follow the tattoos back down. I could keep touching him forever, but his slow smile indicates that he’s not going to just stand there while I do it.

He leans in, and his lips capture mine.

It’s nothing like the times before. Not gentle, not questioning. Just passionate. I’m pinned against the door, and he’s devouring me.

At some point, my knees give out—it’s been a very long day and night—and he guides me to the cot. We don’t stop kissing, even when the springs protest loudly. I can’t get enough of him.

“Araby!” my mother calls. We hear the door creaking open and we break apart, but it’s not enough to hide what we’ve been doing. She stands on the threshold, scandalized, her hand covering her mouth. She steps back, as if she might faint, and though she’s had a terrible night, I can’t help smiling—even knowing that I should be embarrassed, because she has to see that though I’m still wearing what’s left of my dress, I’ve halfway unbuttoned his shirt.

Even now, his face red, he has to pull his hand back to stop an inadvertent caress. If she hadn’t interrupted, I’m not sure we would’ve been able to stop.

“It isn’t proper for you to be alone in here,” she says. I’m not sure what she thinks I was doing, all those nights at the Debauchery Club. I wasn’t kissing boys, but I could have been. Still, she is my mother, so I don’t argue. Will and I follow her back out to the deck.

Now that the passion has faded to a bearable level, I can’t help thinking of April. She wanted this for me. Encouraged it.

But April will never kiss a boy again. Not the ephemeral boys she used to meet at the club, or Kent with his glasses and messy hair. I hug myself and look down, realizing with surprise that we’re over the city. Approaching the cathedral.

“Ladder drop in just a few moments,” Kent calls. “Araby, you know where the keys are. Mina will go with you. The two of you are lightest.”

“And neither of them is afraid of heights,” Will says bitterly. Kent ignores him.

The cathedral has lost none of its grandeur and very little of its dark menace, even in the daylight.

“Be careful,” I tell Mina once we’re on the ground. “I shot a gun up into the ceiling, so the structure may be damaged. And there are bats.”

“Bats?” Her hand goes immediately to her hair. It reminds me too much of April, and I turn away for a moment.

Inside, the smell is horrifying. I forgot that several men were killed during Malcontent and Prospero’s fight. Mina gags as we move past the bodies, to the chapel where I hid the keys.

At first I’m afraid they’re gone, but then I see the glint of gold. I point them out to Mina.

“How’re you going to get up there?” she asks. I study the wall below the gargoyle. The stonework in this building is ornate; maybe I can climb it.

“Give me a boost.”

It’s difficult to find firm places to hold, but I slowly feel my way upward, using fissures in the ancient stone.

The key ring is looped over the gargoyle’s snout and ear. I grab it and slip it over my wrist like a bracelet. I’m bracing myself for the treacherous climb down when something crashes in the nave of the cathedral.

Below, Mina curses. The sound of hundreds of wings thunders above us.

“Get out,” I call to Mina, but she shakes her head.

“Not without you.”

I slide down, having trouble finding my handholds. I hit the stone floor hard. The key ring is around my wrist, and I have Mina’s trembling arm, dragging her toward safety. The keys jingle loudly. Whatever caused the crash, I don’t want to know.

Outside, the sky is dark with bats flying up and around the airship. Kent drops the rope ladder. We will have to climb up through them.

I steel myself and start up.

As I reach from one rung to the next, all the wounds I’ve accumulated begin to throb. Halfway up, a bat flies straight toward me and I shriek, ducking my head. Its wings brush my hair, but I keep going. And then I’m at the ship, and Will has me in his arms.

“With this wind we’ll be over the swamp in an hour,” Kent says after we pull up Mina. “Better bandage up whatever needs bandaging.”

We stand at the prow of the ship, watching the terrain beneath us devolve into swampland.

“There it is!” Elise exclaims as the manor house comes into view.

At the edge of the swamp we see a few steam carriages, but we have no way to know who they belong to. “We don’t want Elliott here, playing the hero for the people,” Kent says. “But I hope those are his men. There aren’t enough of us to fight Malcontent’s army.”