Above the smoldering city, the airship rocks violently. The rain stings my face and cold gusts of wind threaten to dislodge me, but I can’t look away from the destruction below.

From this vantage point, the city is simplified into rectangles and squares. Burning rectangles and shattered squares. Smoke pours from windows. The cathedrals are skeletons, open to the rain.

Kent, the one who built this amazing ship, stands at the wheel, fighting the wind that threatens to blow us off course. We are escaping, to recover from the ambush that almost killed us, and from the onset of the Red Death, the horrific new plague.

“You should go inside,” Kent shouts over the wind and rain. I shake my head, shielding my face with my arm, and keep my eyes on the city. The river, a ribbon of frothy blue, winds through the symmetry of the streets, everything in miniature from this height, even the destruction.

It reminds me of the model city that Father built for my brother using toothpicks. A man who would spend hours gluing tiny slivers of wood into round towers with his son couldn’t be the man who would destroy all of humanity, could he? Not on purpose . . . tears start at the corners of my eyes.

“Araby?”

Elliott is right behind me. I feel him, though he doesn’t touch me. Not yet. I pull myself to a standing position, unwilling to let him see how afraid I am.

“It’s cold without you.” His voice is ragged, and I imagine that if I turn, I might see into him for once, but the ship lurches and I can’t do anything but hold on. My knuckles are bone white against the railing as the ship is blown from side to side with each gust of wind.

My hair whips around us. Elliott touches the nape of my neck. Something between us has changed, but I’m not sure what it means, not sure what I feel, besides this terrible pain at the thought of what my father may have done.

“Do you still love it?” I ask. “This city?”

“Yes.”

He’s looking down, but I don’t think he’s seeing the bodies.

“We’ll save it,” he continues. “The city
and
the people. But we have to save ourselves first.”

Our journey should be over soon. Kent is heading for the thickest part of the forest, between the city and Prospero’s palace. It’s far enough to be safe, but near enough that we can return quickly. Elliott runs his hands over my hair, trying to tame it. It’s an impossible task, but the repetition is soothing, and part of me likes that he is so close.

A sudden fierce gust of wind drives the ship downward, and my stomach drops at our sharp descent. Kent yells something I can’t decipher as he wrestles the controls. When he has steadied us, the roofs of the tallest buildings are just below. The highest is only a grid of rectangular beams. Others have furniture and potted trees.

Boys stagger out across one of the most dilapidated rooftops, half a dozen of them, laughing and shoving. When they see the airship, they stop, staring up at us and pointing. One of them raises a bottle and salutes us, but then he stumbles and spills his drink. All of them hold muskets, and some fire aimlessly toward the street. Then several of them fire up into the clouds.

“Damn it,” Elliott says. “We are far too close.”

And the wind seems determined to push us closer. The airship dips again. I drag Elliott toward the stern, still clutching the railing with one hand, until we are close enough to speak to Kent.

He pushes his goggles up on top of his head, his brown hair sticking out wildly.

“Another half hour and we might have passed unnoticed,” he says darkly. After the sun went down, we would have been nearly invisible. But not now. Kent’s hands move quickly, trying to take the ship up, but the storm keeps pushing us down. He curses under his breath, and I steel myself for a crash. The ship careens toward the closest building.

“We have to go higher,” Elliott says.

A loud shout comes from the boys on the rooftop.

Discarded bottles of wine litter the roof, as if these young men have emptied someone’s wine cellar. We are close enough to see that their faces, lifted toward us, are suddenly hostile.

“We pose no threat to them,” I say, even as I grip Elliott’s arm tighter.

“I don’t think they care,” Kent says as one of the boys raises his musket and aims it right at us.

As the barrel swings my way, reality seems to waver for a moment. Or maybe it’s simply the way the world looks through the cold, driving rain. How can we be shot down when we are only beginning?

“Get down,” Kent yells over his shoulder, still fighting with the wheel of the ship. Gunfire cracks and Elliott throws me to the deck, wrapping his arms around me.

Will bolts out of the cabin. “What was that?”

Kent turns the wheel hard. “Not my ship,” he mutters. “Not my beautiful ship.”

The sky is almost completely dark now.

Lightning flashes, and the boys whoop and shout and shoot their muskets wildly into the air.

April follows Will out onto the deck, and as it lurches, she falls into me. I put my arm out to brace her. Because despite nearly falling, she’s still trying to fix her hair.

“We’re a hell of a target,” Elliott says to Kent. “They’re drunk. They won’t be able to resist. If we don’t get farther away, they’ll shoot us out of the sky, and there’s nothing we can do.”

“I’m trying to turn the ship,” Kent retorts, “but I only have so much control. The wind is forcing us directly over them.”

They’ll laugh as they fire at us, as our ship crashes and burns. If there is an explosion, they will cheer. Because who cares about life when they could die any moment from the plague? I wonder if my brother would have grown up to be like them. Thoughtless and destructive. Father used to whisper that humanity didn’t deserve saving. He said it with tears in his eyes, but I never thought he meant it. I know differently now.

“April, bring me a musket,” Elliott says.

“You’ll have to let go of Araby.” She pushes herself up and steps back into the cabin, then emerges with two guns, one in each hand.

Elliott climbs to his feet. He smiles grimly as he takes a gun from April and aims. Now that he isn’t holding me, the cold is shocking.

Beyond Elliott, Will approaches the railing. His coat is loose, and it flaps around him as the wind howls and propels us forward.

April steps up beside him and raises her own musket.

“Don’t shoot to kill,” Elliott says. “They’re just stupid drunk boys.”

I stagger to my feet. I won’t hide while my friends face this danger.

One of the boys cocks his head and aims his gun directly at me. Elliott shoves me toward Will, who staggers back, as if he’s afraid to touch me.

The gunman shifts, following me. “I changed my mind,” Elliott says. “Kill him.”

April and Elliott fire their muskets simultaneously, and then we are directly over the building and blind to whatever is happening below.

I hold my breath. The boys are shooting at us, the sound nearly lost in the storm. April and Elliott reload. Will finally moves to stand beside me, our shoulders just brushing. The gash in my back from my escape through the tunnels begins to pulse.

“We’ll be out of range soon,” Kent calls.

Lightning crashes again, and thunder rolls through the sky. The deck of the airship trembles with it.

As we clear the roof, I join Elliott at the rail again. Despite an odd thrill at his protectiveness, if he or April shot one of those boys . . . I steel myself, but no one looks wounded, and they seem to have lost interest in us. Instead, they have gathered in a circle.

“You didn’t hit anyone?” Elliott asks April. He sounds surprised.

“Neither did you.” She lifts her gun, as if determined to rectify the situation, but she doesn’t shoot.

“What are they doing now?” Kent asks. The wind has shifted, blowing into his eyes. He wipes the lenses of his goggles on his shirt, but as soon as he puts them back on, the lenses are covered with condensation.

“I wish I knew,” Elliott says. “Araby, go to the cabin.”

I ignore him. We all shift along the rail to keep them in view as the ship moves away.

Sparks fly from the huddle of boys on the roof, frightfully bright in the gray of the storm. They back away, revealing a rocket. Sitting harmless for a moment before it shoots up, trailing flame. Headed straight for us. April aims, but before she pulls the trigger, the rocket loses momentum and spirals downward.

The boys howl with disappointment, and Elliott, pushing his hair back from his face, laughs. His cheeks are flushed. “They sound like Kent when one of his inventions doesn’t work.” He’s still smiling when a musket shot cracks again from below.

The boy who fired stands alone at the edge of the roof.

“Impossible,” April scoffs. “We’re too far away.” She waves her scarf at him, and he waves back, friendly enough.

“Nearly impossible,” Kent says through gritted teeth. The wheel spins uncontrollably before him. “Our steering mechanism has been hit.”

The ship turns.

“We’re completely at the mercy of the wind.” Even now, Kent’s voice is steady.

“I heard shooting.” Henry’s high-pitched voice carries perfectly. He steps out of the cabin, pointing his finger as if it is a gun. Elise is right behind him.

I go to push them back inside, but Will is ahead of me. He takes Henry by the hand, and all three disappear into the cabin.

“Araby, you’re bleeding again,” April says, coming over to me. “This needs to be stitched right away.”

She’s right. The wound has reopened. I can feel it now, soaking through my dress. Unlike the rain, it’s warm.

I’m starting to sway, and it’s hard to say whether it’s from the motion of the airship or the loss of blood.

Elliott lifts me off my feet, careful not to touch my wounded shoulder.

“Will we crash?” he asks Kent.

“Depends on the wind. We won’t make it to the forest, though.” We had planned to land there, just for a day or two, to recoup as we decided the best way to return to the city, to put things right.

“How far can we get?” The rain has plastered Elliott’s fair hair back from his face.

Kent shrugs, but above his goggles his brow is creased. “We’re headed straight for the swamp.”

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

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