Masque of the Red Death (22 page)

I wonder how he can be so arrogant. And why I believe him.

He falls silent as we approach the university. This place has strong memories for me, too. Father in his white lab coat. Finn standing on a chair to peer into a microscope, looking at germs, while I pretended not to be bored. I haven’t been here in years.

We drive past a domed building and a row of white columns. The lawn of the university campus is lush and green and the white buildings are clean of graffiti. The buildings gleam in the late afternoon light, and the shrubs have been cut into neat squares.

“The people who live here choose to spend a large part of their time on upkeep,” Elliott explains. “There are even unofficial classes held in some of the buildings. Though I guess they’ve canceled them now.” He points to a message that’s been painted above an arched window.
THE CONTAGION WAS CREATED HERE
. “Ugliness has seeped into every part of the city.”

“Or maybe the ugliness is in us. Father says that’s just the way we are. Underneath the pretense of civilization.”

“That’s an odd thing for him to say. He saved humanity, after all. Do you think he regrets it?”

“Sometimes, maybe,” I say, mostly to myself, because it isn’t the sort of thing Father would ever admit. “Especially after Finn died.”

Elliott parks his steam carriage behind a tall building and leads me up a set of narrow wooden stairs to his apartment. Every surface inside is covered with books except a table under the window, which is littered with vials and beakers. I feel a stab of desire looking at all of the residue in the beakers. With what Elliott could concoct, I could forget all of this for a little while. I’m not sure what is deeper, my disgust with myself for wanting oblivion, or the wanting itself.

Through the window I see groups of maskless young people sitting together in the courtyard. I put my hand to my own mask. It’s cool to the touch, like it always is in late fall and winter. How wonderful it would be to discard it, even for one day. But I never will.

Elliott is gathering papers from his desk and from a table near the desk. He crumples them into a large metal bowl. The basin is blackened already; these aren’t the first papers he’s burned. I wonder if he ever made copies of the blueprints I gave him. I don’t suppose it matters now.

Smoke stings my eyes. I like this apartment much better than the one he keeps at the Debauchery Club, but the smell of smoke reminds me of earlier today, and I feel slightly ill.

“I’m going to walk over to the science building,” I say. “You can watch me from the window, if you want to check on me.”

He’s pacing back and forth, muttering to himself.

“Be careful,” he says, looking up at me for a moment. “You know this campus pretty well, though, don’t you?”

I’m fairly certain that I never discussed the university with Elliott. I don’t answer before I walk out the door.

The wind outside is cool.

The science building was Father’s favorite place, before. Finn and I played beside the stream that runs behind the building while Father did research in the university laboratory. I find that stream now, and sit beside it, wondering how to question Elliott. How to ask him for details about his rebellion. He must have more in mind than what he has revealed to me.

I am startled when someone puts a hand on my shoulder.

“I have some questions for you,” I say, surprised at how completely I welcome Elliott’s presence.

Except it isn’t Elliott.

CHAPTER

TWENTY

“I
HAVE SOME QUESTIONS FOR YOU AS WELL,
” Father says. “And warnings. The prince has your mother.”

“Will she be safe?” I choke out the words.

He sits down and puts his hand over mine. He is wearing a heavy coat and has cut his hair and shaved. Somehow he looks both younger and more worn.

“How could you not have told me?” I whisper.

“That she was a prisoner?”

I hate knowing that Finn died believing that Mother had abandoned us.

“It was her secret, Araby.”

I pull my hand away.

“She thought it was worth your anger to protect you both. There is no right answer. Did you feel you were doing the right thing when you stole plans from my laboratory?” When he puts his hand back over mine, it’s as if I never pulled away. “Nothing is easy, I know.” His voice is impossibly sad.

“I’m sorry.” It seems inadequate, and also, somehow, unnecessary. I’m worried about him. “How will you hide from the prince?”

“It’s better that you don’t know, but I won’t let Prince Prospero take me into custody without a fight.”

A fight? My father is the most peaceful man I know.

“Elliott wants me to go with him on the voyage.” The wind scatters the dead heads of a row of dandelions, the fluffy kind that children blow and wish on. Father was once excited about the possibilities of the steamship.

“I have nothing left to bargain with. The prince’s nephew may be the only one who can protect you now. Stay away from the prince and the religious fanatics. Go, get out of the city.”

“But—”

“Araby, I have a question for you,” he interrupts. “The most important thing I’ve ever asked.”

I stare at a blue fish darting back and forth in the stream.

“Are you ever truly happy? Could you be?” How can this be the most important thing he’s ever asked?

I want to say yes. This morning, in Will’s apartment, I would have said yes, but in my mind I keep seeing Henry falling to the ground, his mask cracking. I don’t say anything.

Father sighs. “So your answer is no.”

No is too final. I grip his hand the way I might have held on to it as a child, before…

“I don’t know. The plague happened.” My voice catches on the word plague.

“The plague happened,” he agrees.

“And we lost Finn.”

“And we lost Finn.”

Mother said that he must believe there is good in the world, so I promised never to tell him. I couldn’t wash Finn’s blood from the crease between my thumb and my forefinger, no matter how much soap I used. But I kept the secret.

“You’ve given me the answer I need,” Father says.

But I’ve given the wrong answer. Dread settles over me. I pull Will’s coat tight and struggle to think of a way to tell him that I could be happy, I might be happy, but I have no words. And now Father is speaking again, his voice low and rushed.

“Whatever happens, remember that I love you, and your mother loves you.”

I can feel him pulling away, and I want to cling to him. But we’ve never been that open.

“Don’t take your mask off, not for any reason.” He hands me a vial filled with clear liquid. “If you get into trouble, drink half of this and give the rest to the person you love most.”

I start to ask what it is, what it does, to ask what he knows about the Red Death—but before I can, someone grabs me from behind.

“So you found him,” Elliott says. One arm is snaked around me. In his other hand, he is holding a knife.

“I didn’t find him,” I gasp, trying to figure out what he thinks he’s doing. “He found me.”

Is Elliott suggesting that I meant to find Father, that perhaps I’ve betrayed Father? Again?

“My uncle wants you dead,” Elliott tells Father.

I kick him and he lets me go. With both eyes trained on Father, he shifts the knife from hand to hand.

“I know.” Father stands, and for the first time in years, I see the heroic father of my youth. The father who could do no wrong. He’s a hero to many people, but that never mattered to me, not after Finn died.

“Who are you working with?”

Father blinks, surprised.

“I’m not working with anyone. I’m not working at all. I’m hiding.” Father’s eyes bore into Elliott’s, and I can’t tell if Elliott believes him. Or if I do.

“I need to know everything there is to know about the Red Death.”

Father gives Elliott the look that he reserves for incredibly stupid people. I see Elliott’s knuckles turn white around the hilt of the knife.

“Please—,” I begin, trying to find a way to stop this.

“It’s a virus.” Father’s voice is low and unfriendly. “The masks help, but they don’t guarantee immunity. I have pages of notes about the illness. You can read them, if you think the information would be helpful. They are in a journal I kept as I studied various diseases. It’s hidden behind the third drawer in my desk.”

The journal isn’t in his desk. It’s in the pocket of my coat, and my coat is in Will’s wardrobe.

“I want those notes,” Elliott says. He takes a step backward, as if to make himself less threatening. “Are they enough?”

“Nothing is going to be enough. But I recorded everything I know.”

“And did you include the information that has prompted my uncle to command his guards to kill you on sight?”

Father laughs. “At this point, blame is useless, wouldn’t you agree?”

Elliott stares at Father for a long moment. “Not for Araby,” he says. “Did you even consider—”

A bullet zings past my face and hits the wall of the science building, dusting us with bits of red brick. I stifle a scream. Elliott scowls and turns, and Father starts to run. Without thinking, I grab the sleeve of his coat.

“Father, I—”

“Soldiers are coming,” Elliott says. “They’ve been following us.”

“They will kill me,” Father says simply, looking at me. Before I can open my hand to let him go, he’s ripped the coat away, knocking me off-balance and into Elliott. Soldiers surround us, their muskets aimed at Father.

“No.” Elliott holds up his hand. The soldiers point the loaded muskets skyward.

“Nearly all the soldiers within the city are loyal to me now,” he says. “But there are a few who still look to my uncle for rewards.” Elliott turns to the man who shot his musket at us.

“Deal with him,” Elliott says to another soldier, who I recognize now. It’s the man who I spoke to in the dark hallway at Akkadian Towers, what seems like years ago.

He gives me a tiny nod of recognition and then asks, “Did you get what you want from him?”

Elliott shrugs. “Enough for now. I need you to disappear for a few more days.”

“Of course.”

Elliott pulls me away. “And you thought I was playing at revolution?” His blond eyebrows nearly touch the fair hair that is hanging over his forehead. “We really should go. There was too much damning evidence in my apartment, so I set a small fire. Except it got out of hand.” He smiles. “Oh, and I have something for you.”

Two presents, one from Father, one from Elliott.

He hands me his knife, the one with an ivory handle. The one he was toying with while he spoke to Father. “Hide it, in your boot or under your skirts.” His eyes travel up and down my body. “Not that you have much left in the way of skirts.”

I take the knife, holding it nervously.

“We really should leave now, before something explodes.”

The air is thick and heavy, as though the city is closing in on us. Elliott lifts me up into his steam carriage. We have to get out.

“Why do you hate my father?”

“I don’t hate him.” I can’t tell if he’s lying, and before I can ask more questions, we round a corner and Elliott has to swerve to avoid hitting a black cart that’s sitting in the middle of the road. An emaciated arm dangles over the side, white and limp.

“Where are the—” Then I see one of the corpse collectors, dead in the middle of the road. Blood streaks his face.

“The other one is probably dead, too.” Elliott’s words are calmer than his hands, working the controls. “People are dying. Like before. This voyage might keep the two of us alive, and the return I have planned will surprise my uncle.”

But who will keep Will and the children alive?

I expect to see the body of the other corpse collector as we pass the cart, but instead, in an abandoned doorway, I see a girl.

“Don’t look,” Elliott says. His face has gone a sickly shade of green.

She’s lying half in and half out of a doorway, and her skirts, ripped and tattered as mine, are pushed up around her waist.

I swallow hard and look away.

Elliott picks up speed until we reach the Debauchery District and then swerves to a stop in front of the club. My face smacks against the side of his carriage, and I put my hand up to my mask to make sure that it is intact.

“There are two swords in the back of the carriage,” he says. “Take one. I’m going to teach you to hold it. You will never end up like that poor girl. Not if I have anything to do with it.”

He opens the double door at the front of the club and leads me into an enormous room with high gold ceilings and murals of dragons feasting upon the entrails of fallen knights. The carpets are red, the exact same shade as the bloody intestines featured in the paintings.

“I never knew this room was here.”

“It’s a ballroom,” he says.

It’s a direct violation of my vow. Finn will never learn to fight with a sword. And I know he wanted to. When we were little he was always hitting things with a wooden sword that Mother gave him. The handle was painted gold, and he used it so much the paint flaked off.

Finn will never do this. But I can.

Elliott grins. “I won’t be teaching you to fight so much as teaching you how to look like you know how to fight. Stand here.” He grabs my shoulders and pulls them back. “Hold the sword like this.”

The corners of the room are dark and far away. An ornate balcony extends the length of the room.

“Hold your sword stable,” he says. “And keep it upright, even if I hit it hard.”

I grip the hilt and grit my teeth, bracing for his blow.

“You can take off your mask in here, you know.”

“I’m going to keep it on,” I say. “Wearing it doesn’t make me uncomfortable, so it will be to my advantage.”

“You’ll need every advantage you can get.”

Elliott circles me. He is amazingly light on his feet, and he keeps his mask on too. It’s a tiny victory.

“If you take off your mask, I guess I’ll know you’re ready for a kiss. Like in the park today. With Will.”

“I wasn’t—”