“They all connect.” Elliott turns to the clockmaker. “Does this one come up someplace near?”
“Yes, if you go down, and then to the left. You will come out near the library.”
“Perfect,” Elliott says.
I take two steps down, running my fingers over the crumbling masonry. Bits of red brick rain down to the grimy floor. Then I turn, waiting for Elliott. The clockmaker hands him a candle on a metal holder.
“I’m sure you have something to light it with.”
In answer, Elliott strikes a match against the wall. Then he makes a formal bow. “As always, I am sorry.”
If the clockmaker makes any reply, I don’t wait to hear it.
At the bottom of the staircase the tunnel widens, though not quite wide enough for us to walk side by side. The floor here is made of packed earth. It’s not muddy, but it is damp. Malcontent’s flooding must have swept through here, too.
“I can walk in front if you’d like,” Elliott offers.
I shake my head. I’m tired of following him around. “No.”
“Don’t blame me if you walk into a spiderweb,” he mutters. “Here, take the candle.” The darkness beyond my candle is absolute.
“I didn’t think he would tell you,” Elliott says, “About what I did.”
The horror of it overwhelms me.
“He wanted to punish you. You’d visited him before?”
“After I left the palace, I visited him often. I made sure he had enough food. He never seemed to appreciate it.”
“It’s hard to blame him. . . . Your visits probably reminded him of what he had lost.” We walk on in silence. “Did you check on all of the people your uncle made you hurt?” I like that he cared enough to do this.
“Only those who are still alive.” And the conversation seems to be over. We move slowly, fumbling through the passage. Every few feet there is an arched area made of brick. The mortar crumbles down on us as we walk along.
“I can still remember the way my hands shook, holding the hammer. I was thirteen years old.” His voice is steady, neither confession nor bragging. Just simple fact. I don’t know how to respond. But even with this new insight, I can still believe that Will saw Elliott kill a man while smiling. “My uncle doesn’t always kill the people who anger him. Sometimes he does worse.”
“Did you have nightmares?”
“Yes.” He is silent for a time. “Eventually I found ways to deal with them.”
The first time I met Elliott I asked for oblivion, and he brought out his silver syringe. “That night in the Debauchery Club, you said that you rarely shared . . .” My voice is soft.
He puts his hands on my waist, pulling me back and spinning me around. “I know all about the need for oblivion,” he says. His mask hangs down around his neck. He lets his pack fall to the earthen floor of the tunnel.
We are very much alike, Elliott and I. He takes the candle in its bent metal holder from me and sets it on a rough rock ledge. It flickers, casting weak shadows around us.
“But I haven’t needed it since I met you,” he tells me. And then he pulls my mask away from my face and kisses me.
This time he’s not gentle. He’s rough, and my head snaps back, hitting the wall. Bits of stone to fall all around us. I kiss him back, just as hard.
My hair catches on the rough stone of the wall as he lifts me, so I’m pressed against him. I wrap my legs around him. What’s left of my dress bunches up around me. The bandage on my shoulder shifts and the wound stings, but we don’t stop. My arms are around his neck.
I’ve been looking for oblivion in all the wrong ways.
I pull back for a moment, and in the flickering candlelight he’s so handsome. His eyes are just slightly open, and I want to memorize all of him in this instant.
Elliott sets me down.
“I’m sorry,” he says. He lifts one hand to smooth the mortar and dirt from my hair. “We shouldn’t be . . . this is not a suitable place. . . .” I can’t pull my eyes away, fascinated and confused as his sudden regret is replaced by wariness. His eyes narrow. “It’s been a long time since I lost control like that, even for a few moments.”
I retrieve the candle, readjust the shreds of my dress. My heart is racing, and yet I feel ashamed that we stopped here to kiss when so much is at stake.
Eventually I start walking again. Leading the way back to Will.
Ahead of us is a ladder leading upward, much like the one that April and I climbed to escape when the tunnels were flooding. A draft from above blows the candle out.
“Elliott?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think there are crocodiles in these tunnels?”
He laughs. “No. Why do you ask?”
I caress the tender area to the left of the wound on my shoulder. “No reason.” I reach up, and Elliott gives me a boost. His hands linger at my waist, and for a brief moment I think that he may try to rekindle whatever just happened between us. I pull away, ready to see sunlight again.
“Wouldn’t want to keep Will waiting, would we?” he remarks.
But we have. I’ve lost track of time, but it must have been more than an hour. It feels like we’ve been underground for a very long time.
At the top of the ladder is a heavy metal cover. Instead of asking Elliott for help raising it, I push with all my might, relying on my left hand, and the metal circle clanks to the side. I like being in the lead. I feel like everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve been following April, or Elliott, occasionally even Will. I’m ready for someone to follow me.
Once we’re out, I let Elliott put it back in place.
Will is lounging on the third step of a columned building that must be the library. A small bottle and a brush sit between his feet. His left boot is untied, and the laces are muddy. His eyes travel up my body, from my own muddy shoes, to what’s left of my dress. When he gets to my face, I inadvertently put my hand to my mask, as if he can see through it. As if he can tell how my lips are still throbbing.
“Your paint.” He holds a bottle out to me.
“Maybe it’s stupid, to try to leave a message,” I falter, but then I catch sight of a wall unmarred by graffiti, and my resolve returns.
I uncork the paint and test my brush strokes. They are messy and the surface of the building is uneven, but it will do.
FIND ME, I write. IF YOU REMEMBER FINN.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I HATE WRITING MY BROTHER’S NAME. IN ALL these years, it was never said aloud in our home. But if Father sees this, he’ll know it’s from me.
“How can I tell him we’ll be at the club?”
Elliott grabs my wrist to stop me from writing. “We don’t want to announce that. Not yet.” He takes the paintbrush and draws an eye.
“I’m not sure Father knows about your—” I begin.
“He will,” Elliott says. The meeting with the clockmaker certainly didn’t affect his arrogance for long.
I scrawl messages wherever there is room, desecrating every wall with any proximity to the science building. Elliott paces, checking alleys and scanning balconies. Whenever I need more paint, Will is next to me, holding the bottle.
“He’s manipulating you,” Will says finally, in an undertone, eyeing Elliott.
I answer him while still painting my message. “From the stories April tells me, and from my only experience . . .” I flash him a look. “That’s what guys do.”
“You deserve better.” His hand hovers near the side of my skirt, where the seams are nearly destroyed and the green satin is stained from my time in the tunnel with Elliott.
We’ve circled behind the building once more. Evening has fallen, and the quiet of this area has become ominous. Once the university had the most well-preserved buildings in the city. Now it feels haunted.
“Time to go,” Elliott says, surveying the area. “We need information. The best way to collect it is to buy some drinks, and to listen.”
Will and I fall into line behind him as he winds his way off the university campus. Dropping beside me, he opens his pack and removes the terrible flowered dress that the innkeeper’s wife gave me.
“You should change. Yours is in extremely poor condition, and we’re trying to avoid undue attention.” As if he has any right to complain about the condition of my dress. Especially when his hand strokes down my side, lingering where my skin shows.
“This was a nice dress,” I mutter, taking the cotton one from him. Elliott leads us into a narrow alley, thankfully free of corpses, through a back door, and into a dimly lit room.
Low tables, sofas, and chairs are scattered through a series of interconnected rooms. A makeshift bar has been set up on a table, with an array of bottles and glasses. Though I can’t see into the darkest corners, I think I see a door opened to a bedroom or sleeping chamber of some kind.
“This place was popular with university students,” Elliott says, “when the university was still open.” He points to the back. “The washroom is back there.”
I can already tell this is not the sort of place where one wants to linger in the washroom. And I’m right. Though a mural has been painted on the wall, an alfresco painting of flowers and a scene that I think is supposed to be Venice, the room smells of mold and something even worse. A wide mirror is flanked by several candles, so at least there is some light as I attempt to make myself presentable.
I pull off my dress and fold it, then hold the new one in front of my body. It has a wide lace collar, and the hem falls almost to my ankles. Once I slip it over my head, I no longer look like a girl who spends her evenings at the Debauchery Club. I look sallow and lumpy in places where I am not. I know it’s silly to care—at least I am alive—but . . .
At least by candlelight my hair still looks lustrous. April always said that candlelight was flattering to almost anyone.
I step out of the washroom and retrace my steps to where Elliott leans against the bar. Will stands next to him.
“You’re good at this,” Elliott is saying to him. “People talk to you. Circulate and listen. We need any rumor, no matter how ridiculous, about Araby’s father. Everything people are saying about our enemies.”
“I’ll keep my ears open.” As Will disappears into the shadows of an adjoining room, the way he walks takes me back to the days before I knew his name, when he was just the tattooed guy who worked in the Debauchery Club. The one whose voice made shivers run up and down my spine.
Elliott gestures to the barmaid, who shakes her head. “You can’t afford the price,” she says, taking in his muddy shoes and the poor condition of his clothing.
“You’re new here.” He throws several coins on the bar. Within moments she’s brought us a chilled bottle and two glasses.
“We won’t be drinking the water in the city,” he says. “So this will have to do.”
Elliott strikes up a conversation with her and several men sitting around us. I listen closely but don’t say anything. Voices rise and fall. The anger and fear are practically palpable. This place is dangerous, but I suppose it’s no more so than the city itself.