Masque of the Red Death (17 page)

“Dr. Worth has always claimed that being in a medieval palace stifles his creativity,” Elliott says. “Don’t do this.”

“Why? Are you trying to get her to trust you? Tell her how I used to make you dip your chubby little toes into the water with the crocodiles when you were a boy. Maybe she’ll feel sorry for you.”

The prince chuckles. If I had any sort of weapon, I could kill him right now.

“You look pale, my dear,” the prince says, “Here, I have something that will rejuvenate you.” He pours white wine from a glass bottle into a tarnished silver cup.

The wine burns my throat, but with his eyes on me, I have to empty the cup.

“We’re going back to the city to search for April,” Elliott says. I can’t tell if he is saying this for my benefit or for the prince’s.

“And I wish you luck in finding her,” the prince says. “Though I am pleased that she hasn’t been making a spectacle of herself of late.”

“It’s difficult to embarrass your family when no one has seen you in days,” Elliott mutters.

“Indeed. Now here’s your steam carriage, waiting by the gate, all packed with your bags.”

I’m relieved and surprised that the prince is letting us go. He recognizes my relief and smiles to himself. Mocking me.

CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

E
LLIOTT HELPS ME OUT OF THE PRINCE’S CLOSED
steam carriage and then lifts me into his open one.

“That was too easy,” he says. “Maybe he does have April after all.”

“Will he take my parents prisoner?”

“He wants to. He has always wanted to.”

And now I’ve meddled, captured his attention. If he takes them now, it will be my fault.

Elliott drives too fast, careening around the twists and curves that we traversed just yesterday. We are both relieved when the palace is out of sight.

“I don’t feel well,” I say, maybe an hour into our journey. My face is hot, but my arms are covered in gooseflesh and I am shivering. My first thought is the Weeping Sickness. Is this how it begins? My mask was never off, except when Elliott was kissing me. And it was askew the morning I woke at Will’s. I suppress a shudder.

“You’ll feel better the farther we put that place behind us,” Elliott says. But I don’t feel better. I lean back and watch the passing trees, trying to ignore the pounding in my head.

Finally I reach for the silk scarf Mother loaned me, but I lose my balance and fall against Elliott.

“You’re feverish,” he says. As he touches my face, I note that his fingernails are impeccably clean, but that one of them is slightly blackened.

“Araby?”

“I think I’m sick,” I whisper.

“Tell me exactly how you feel.” He’s concerned now, stopping the carriage.

I’m glad he’s concerned, but I can’t answer his question because I’m doubling up over the side, gagging. He pulls my hair gently back from my face. “Get it out of your system,” he says. “That bastard may have poisoned you.”

“Poison?” I ask weakly. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and collapse back into the steam carriage.

“Your eyes are dilated. Hell and damnation, I should have realized…” His hand is still on my hair.

“How are you going to tell my parents?” My voice breaks, and I realize that I am crying, but there’s no moisture left in me, so it’s only dry, heaving sobs.

Elliott fumbles with some vials and bottles that he’s grabbed from under his seat. “I don’t have the right ingredients for a general antidote. I have to get you to a friend in the city.”

He hands me a bottle of water.

“We’re going to drive fast, but if you need to throw up again, you should. The more you can get out of your body, the better.”

“Am I going to die?”

Either he doesn’t hear me or he chooses not to answer.

I curl up on the seat of the steam carriage, trying to ignore the pain. I’m not stupid. Even if he finds his precious antidote, there will be negative effects. I think of Will. I want desperately to live.

Elliott hands me a handkerchief. “I’m sorry. This has nothing to do with you. This was an attack on me. He’s showing me that he can take away anything that I care about.”

I close my eyes. Right now I don’t care about his uncle or his rebellion. I’m going to die in the middle of this unending forest, and I’ll never have the chance to apologize to my parents.

“It’s only another hour back to the city.” Elliott takes my hand, and I bite my lip and pretend that my crying is from the pain, for tree roots and debris jolt the carriage mercilessly.

“I’m not going to let you die,” he says. “I won’t let you die.” He repeats it over and over until it blends with the sound of the wheels and the grinding of the engine. Eventually his voice is all I’m aware of, and then I close my eyes.

When I open them, we are in the city. The hot-air balloon of the Debauchery District floats above us in a haze of low clouds. Elliott pulls his steam carriage into an alley and through an opening in the back of a building.

When it stops, I stumble out of the carriage, awkwardly catching myself as my feet hit the stone. They don’t stay on the ground long, because Elliott sweeps me off my feet.

“Where are we?” I ask.

“The workshop we are using to manufacture masks.”

“Really?” At some point, even before his madness today, I had stopped believing in him. It was easier to hate myself, to think that I’d betrayed Father for nothing than to believe Elliott might keep his promises.

“Look at me,” he says. I do. The only reason I haven’t panicked is because he’s been so calm, but now he’s starting to look worried. I want my parents. When we met, Elliott accused me of not being afraid to die, but I am terribly afraid right now.

“I’m glad you had such faith in me,” he says.

He carries me down a set of narrow cellar stairs. He only stumbles once.

In a subterranean boiler room, illuminated by gas lights, a young man is bent over a table, fiddling with pieces of porcelain. Above his mask he is wearing a pair of thick spectacles, and there is a magnifying lens on the left side. He doesn’t look up as Elliott bursts through the door.

“I was expecting you yesterday with the money. I can’t finish these without—”

“Help,” Elliott says simply.

The young man jumps to his feet. “Is that the daughter—”

“Kent, I think she’s dying.”

I gulp when he says the word dying. And then my stomach burns and I twist back and forth in his arms. He lays me on a metal table. I’m sweaty, and my hair is soaked.

“It’s an ugly poison,” Elliott says.

“Your uncle?”

I try to complain because the tabletop is metal and I am shivering with cold, but Elliott and his friend Kent ignore me. They are fumbling with jars and bottles.

“Let me do this,” Kent says. “It’s too personal for you.”

Could Elliott have meant it when he said he was in love with me? No, I can’t trust that.

“Araby, can you hear me?” Kent asks. “Did you taste anything out of the ordinary? Any particular flavors?” I make eye contact with Kent and realize, with a start, that I recognize him.

“I’ve seen you before,” I croak. “At the bookshop.”

“Yes,” he says. “I suppose we almost met, once.”

He gives me a beaker full of thick, cold liquid.

“Drink this.”

I choke it down.

“I didn’t notice any … flavor,” I say. “Maybe it was overly sweet?”

He pours something from a test tube into a cup. It foams and fizzes.

“I’m going to make an injection,” Elliott says. I focus on the magnifying lens that Kent is wearing.

“You’re a scientist,” I hear myself say. A rogue scientist in hiding from the prince. Helping Elliott with the revolution.

“I’m actually an inventor. My father was a scientist.”

And then Elliott puts a needle in my arm, and I lose consciousness.

When I wake up, Elliott is holding my hand and we’re back in his steam carriage.

“I couldn’t protect April, but I swear I will protect you,” he is whispering. “We’re home.” I lift my head to see that we are in front of the Akkadian Towers. Hours must have passed, because it’s late afternoon. Elliott helps me out of the carriage and smooths my hair.

“I’m not sure how you manage to look pretty—”

“Sir?” The doorman is standing behind him. “The elevator is still not safe,” the operator says. “I am so sorry, sir. Is Miss Worth ill?”

“My driving nauseated her,” Elliott says quickly. He doesn’t want the doorman to think that I’m contagious. The last thing anyone wants in this city is to be suspected of harboring the plague, but he should realize how many times I’ve stumbled past these same workers, coming home from the club.

The sunlight hurts my eyes, and my head pounds.

I should ask Elliott if the poison has done any lasting damage, but I’m not sure I want to know.

The lobby of the Akkadian Towers is as elegant as ever. Three guards sit in a semicircle, but today they are not throwing dice. They are staring across the room, at an armchair upholstered with gold-and-white striped silk. The girl in the armchair turns and smiles. April.

Elliott’s arm, wrapped around my shoulder, goes rigid.

“Can you stand on your own?” he asks under his breath.

“Yes.” My voice is shaky.

He lets me go, waiting until I’ve grabbed the back of another armchair for support, and then he takes three quick steps across the floor and pulls his sister out of her chair and into an embrace. She squirms away.

My relief at seeing April alive is followed by frustration. Why couldn’t she have returned two days ago? Where has she been?

“I’ve been waiting all morning,” she says to me, ignoring Elliott. “I didn’t think you were ever coming home.” I sway on my feet, and Elliott is instantly back at my side.

“If I help you, do you think you can make it up the stairs?” he asks me.

“I’ll help. I’ve had enough practice supporting her,” April says.

She puts one arm around me and leads me into the stairwell. The left side of her face is bruised and swollen.

“One of your concoctions?” she asks Elliott.

“The prince poisoned her.”

“Did you find a way to fix her? An antidote?”

“Of course.”

“You both need to be careful. There are terrible things happening in the city.” She says this earnestly. She’s worried about him, about us, but he doesn’t see it.

“April, you have to tell me everything—” Elliott begins.

“Yes. So you can use it. You’ll want to know who took me, and what they did to me. Your enemies.”

Elliott flinches.

April is staring up into his face. He looks away first, as if he can’t stand seeing the bruises.

“Yes. I want to know all of that. But first I should take you to Mother. She’s worried sick. And Araby wants to spend some time with her parents, I’m sure. Shall we reconvene this evening, to make plans?”

“Not in the secret garden,” April says. “In our living room.”

“Of course,” he says. And we begin to climb again.

It’s warm inside the stairwell, and I’m sweating. I push my hair back from my face.

“Nice ring,” April says.

“Thank you,” Elliott and I say at the same time.

We pause at the top of the first flight of stairs, and Elliott puts his hand to his mask.

“Sometimes I just can’t breathe through this thing.”

“You have to force yourself. It isn’t safe—” I stumble, and Elliott grabs me. We teeter on the edge of the stairs. He pulls me back, and we fall against the wall. He laughs, and for some reason I laugh too.

“That’s funny?” April asks. “Almost falling down the stairs?”

“It’s funny because she was lecturing me about staying safe, and then she almost…” Elliott’s smile fades. He frowns at his sister. “I found it slightly comical. Absurd.”

She puts her hands on her hips and glares back.

“I bet you like the big words he uses,” April says.

I could say a lot of things to her. “I don’t actually like him at all,” I say.

We climb the rest of the stairs in silence. I want desperately to get away from April and Elliott for a few hours. To be safe in my home with my parents. I practice my apology in my mind, and then we’re on the top floor and home is right in front of me. I lift my feet, stumble forward. As we turn the corner, our courier opens the door. I dive through, away from conflict and conspiracies, and shut and lock the door behind me.

“Mother? Father?”

I am alone.

I walk through each room, calling for them, surprised by the way my voice echoes through the empty spaces. Sinking to the floor of the living room, I put my head in my hands. Mother isn’t here to bring me crackers. Father isn’t here to look at me as if I’m a stranger. For all I know, the poison is still running through my veins, and without my parents, I cannot make amends before I die. I’ve put them in so much danger. I want them to comfort me, to tell me everything is going to be okay. Even Mother. Especially Mother.

I hurry through Mother’s room, to the closet, and stare at her dresses. Are any of them gone? Maybe a leather trunk has been removed from her closet?

How did Father negotiate his freedom, in this apartment that once belonged to the prince? Removing Father’s journal from my bag, I open to his words.
Everything is my fault
. I need to know what he meant. But the words blur, and I find that my head is pounding.

The clock chimes. An hour passes, and my parents are still not here. I am beginning to suspect that they are never returning.

The scent of the prince’s cologne clings to my dress.

The light in my bedroom has changed. In the back corner, a small window looks into the garden. I’ve never paid much attention to it, as it’s always been covered with vegetation. But the tree branches have been pulled back and away. For the first time since I’ve lived here, I can see through the window. And anyone who is in the garden can see into my room.

I turn to get a blanket, and that’s when I see the box, placed on my bed like a gift. Sometimes Father buys books for me and places them among my pillows, but this is larger than a book. It is a heavy box, and the wood is glossy and varnished. Inside there is a small mask.