“What do they have at this club that I can’t get at the Morgue?” April examined her own gloved hand, faking disinterest.
“If you have the money, they have the means to make you forget,” the girl said.
April looked up at that. Forget? She made her decision in an instant, a habit that she’d developed in her uncle’s castle. Split-second decisions were better than agonizing over choices with no obvious answers. Agonizing was what her mother spent her days doing. It had turned her hair prematurely gray.
“I’ll go with you,” April declared.
“Excellent.” The girl took April’s arm, and April let her, pleased at having someone to walk with. She hesitated only a moment before leaving the line. It stretched out behind her, around the building. If the other club didn’t work out, she would have lied to her mother for nothing, and who knew when she would manage to get out of the Akkadian Towers again. Her heart swelled with the need for adventure. The line to the club wasn’t moving, so she let her new friend lead her away from the lighted avenue.
“What sort of club is this?” she asked breathlessly, as the girl pulled her along toward an alley.
“Ex—”
“Don’t say exclusive again,” she warned.
“Exciting,” the girl said.
And then someone grabbed the girl, shook her, and threw her across the alley. April froze, pressing her back against the building. The only ways out of this dark passageway were blocked by two men, one in either direction.
“What do you know?” one asked. “Two girls alone on a Friday night. If nothing else, we’ll get an umbrella and a cloak.”
Thieves. Was the cloaked girl with them? But she was cowering where she’d fallen, plainly terrified. One of the men pulled her up and, without ceremony, slit her throat with a single vicious stroke of a knife. Blood sprayed everywhere. April threw up her arm to shield her face. The bleed-out was fast, and the girl collapsed, dead. The murderer threw her cloak to his friend.
“What about the other one? She looks a bit more affluent.” At least the man was observant.
April slid both hands to the wood handle of her umbrella, gripping it tightly. Defensively.
“Be a shame to kill her. She’s beautiful.” This from the man who had killed the cloaked girl.
Beautiful. She blinked. The man could’ve slit her throat already, but instead he was admiring her. Her mother’s constant advice, the repeating refrain of her childhood, played through her mind. Be pretty. Be pretty. April lowered her eyes. She’d applied her makeup by candlelight. She knew that even in the uncertain light of this alley her eyelids sparkled with glitter.
The murderer took one step forward, two. He reeked of garlic and poverty.
Then, the length of his body close to hers, in one swift motion she raised her knee, hard, hitting him between his legs. At the same time, she swung the umbrella. It was sturdily built, and connected with the side of the man’s head with a thud.
He fell to the ground. Luckily Elliott had taught her a few things her mother hadn’t.
April swirled to face the other man, but he hadn’t left the shadows, and he was laughing.
With a swift kick to the side of the prone man’s head, April took off running. She made for the entrance to the Morgue, pushing her way through the hostile umbrellas to the front of the line.
“Whoa.” The bouncer held out his hand, but she knocked it aside.
“The prince is my uncle,” she gasped. “Prospero. And I’ve just been attacked.”
The bouncer shifted back, suddenly unsure.
“Your uncle doesn’t own this club,” he said. “This is the Debauchery District. It isn’t a safe place for little girls.”
April raised herself to her full height, which was considerably less than the man who was blocking her path. Under other circumstances she might have been offended at being called a little girl. She was sixteen, after all.
“I’m familiar with the Debauchery District,” she lied. “There’s another girl back there, too,” she said in a softer voice. “They killed her.”
“Come inside,” said a voice from behind the bouncer.
It was a relief to step through the doorway, into the relative safety of the club. Her savior was as tall as the bouncer, but slender. Dark tattoos swirled over his arms and neck. His hair was dark, as were his eyes.
“It really isn’t safe,” he said. “No matter how well you know the Debauchery District.” She couldn’t tell if he truly believed her lie about being familiar with the area. And it didn’t matter, because his dark eyes were full of concern.
“I don’t suppose it is,” April said. She hugged her arms to her chest. She was beginning to shake and didn’t want this terribly attractive boy to see it. “I need a steam carriage to take me to the university. It’s not far, but I don’t want to go alone.”
Chances were the criminal she’d bested would be out for revenge.
“A simple enough request,” he said, “for the prince’s niece. He may not own this club, but he runs everything else.” He gestured for the bouncer. “I’ll take the door. You drive the girl to the university.”
April’s heart sank. She’d hoped the handsome one would take her. Still, all that mattered was that she make it to her brother’s side. Unlike her mother, he could handle what had happened to her. It wouldn’t be pleasant, but at least she wouldn’t have to hide how shaken she was.
The bouncer helped her into a steam carriage, and pulled out, his driving jerky and unskilled. “We use this thing for picking up supplies,” he explained. He meant liquor. April was sorry again that she hadn’t made it inside the club. And then he was turning and their destination was in sight—the university, an oasis of pristine white buildings in the midst of the derelict city, just down from the banks of the river that separated the upper from the lower city. She pointed to her brother’s dormitory building, and then started to climb down before the carriage had even come to a full stop.
“Here.” She handed him some coins, though he hadn’t asked for payment. “For your trouble.”
“Be careful,” he said reluctantly. And then, looking down at the quantity of gold in his hand, continued, “If you ever need to get into the Morgue, come to the front of the line. Ask for me, Bartholomew. Or Will.”
April hurried toward the wooden stairs that led to her brother’s apartment. Most university residents shared living spaces, but Elliott lived alone. She wanted to barrel though the door, to get inside, but he had it barred. She knocked hard with her fist, breathing his name, until he threw the door open.
Books and papers lined every surface. Plates of uneaten food stood on top, like mildly disgusting paperweights. Bottles were strewn about, some empty, some half full.
Elliott’s eyes, the same blue as her own, were shadowed. His blond hair was mussed and none too clean. He was usually meticulous in his grooming, and April realized as he embraced her that he’d consumed the contents of at least a few of those bottles. She felt guilty suddenly for coming to him for help.
Their mother hadn’t rescued him. She’d left him to their uncle’s torture, and April had gone with her. The warning, the one defense her mother had devised—Be pretty—hadn’t worked for Elliott. Which is not to say that he wasn’t attractive. It might have been his gold hair and pink cheeks that had drawn their uncle’s ire.
“What are you doing?” She gestured to his apartment, the heaps of paper. The leftovers from various meals, pushed aside for more books and papers.
“Trying to make sense of things.”
April picked up a paper. Elliott started to reach for it, but then waved resignedly. She skimmed what he’d written. An account of his life at their uncle’s palace.
“I thought it was important to write things down,” he said. “To document what happened.”
“I’d rather forget,” she said.
“Some things are impossible to forget.” He shrugged. “When the city has burned to the ground, I think it will be important that we leave some record.”
“Do you think it will burn?” she asked.
“Eventually.”
“Then why don’t you stop it?”
Elliott smiled as if she had made a joke, but as he took the paper back, his eyes grew distant.
“Do you think I could stop it?”
She shrugged. And then she collapsed onto his sofa, and he made her hot tea, with a shot of something to calm her nerves.
ONE YEAR LATER
The Debauchery Club was quieter than usual. April leaned forward to adhere Araby’s last fake eyelash. Araby’s hair shimmered purple, and she smiled the slow, sad smile that she didn’t know was alluring. She had no idea of the effect she had on boys, and that was, April suspected, part of the attraction. April had always been too self-aware. Probably her mother’s fault.
Not that the self-awareness made her unattractive to boys. It was just that she knew instinctively how they would respond to her and how it would turn out. At seventeen she was jaded by romance. Watching Araby’s wide-eyed surprise when boys flirted with her was both fascinating and heartbreaking.
Araby had moved into the apartment across the hall nearly a year ago. Not only was she convenient, but she needed April. Though sometimes April wondered if Araby would even notice if she disappeared.
“I’ll mix up something that’ll make you forget that the plague ever happened,” the bartender said. April ignored him. He was always saying things like that, and his drinks weren’t that good. Elliott was supposed to have met her here an hour ago. She was trying not to worry about him, but he didn’t make it easy; lately, he was usually doing something dangerous.
A boy with blue eyelids caught her attention from across the room, raising his eyebrows when she met his eyes. She liked that he didn’t smile. His pout was alluring. He waved and she saw a tattoo on his palm. It reminded her of something, but she couldn’t think of what. She tilted her head coyly and when she glanced up from under her eyelashes, he was threading his way through the crowd toward her. When he approached he handed her a tall glass, and gave another to Araby. April threw hers back in one long drink. He put his hands on her shoulders.
And then he was kissing her. And she didn’t have to think about anything at all for a while.
Yet even a sultry boy with blue eyelids couldn’t keep her worry for Elliott at bay forever. Eventually she pulled away, and without another word, the boy slipped into the crowd. “How disappointing,” she muttered.
The bartender slid another drink across the bar, but she ignored it. “Has my brother arrived?” she asked.
“I think he’s upstairs,” the bartender said. “I delivered some wine to the game room, and he was there, playing chess.”
“Finally.” But she was irritated, and her annoyance grew as she climbed the stairs. He must have passed her to go to the game room. Why was he so inconsiderate? And where had Araby gone off to? The way that Will, the tattooed doorman Uncle Prospero had hired away from the Morgue, watched her, April wondered if Araby was finally breaking that silly vow of hers.