I feel Will come up behind me. He’s standing very close but doesn’t touch me. “You can do this.” Then he takes my hand.
He eases forward, waiting for me to take the first step. I draw a deep breath—I’ve done things that were harder than this—and follow Will into the darkness, through a door and into a dimly lit room. Luckily this cellar didn’t get any overflow from the flooded tunnels, so it’s not wet, just stuffy. I imagine spiders in the corners and other insects under the faded rug.
A bed is pushed against a far wall of the room, and a chest sits beside it. There are also several low tables and oil lamps. Elliott has already lit some, and Will lets go of my hand to take care of the rest.
A large wardrobe stands against the back wall.
“Is anyone thirsty?” Elliott pulls a bottle of wine from his pack and pours it into a few short glasses. He passes one to me, and I drink deeply, trying to force myself to be calm. This cellar is safe, secret, and nothing like the one where Finn died.
“You take the bed, Araby,” Elliott says. He wraps himself in his own blankets and settles in a corner.
I set one of the lamps on the chest beside the bed. The quilt thrown over the mattress has a dark stain—not unlike the blanket we wrapped my brother in. But I will the panic away, taking a blanket from my pack and spreading it on the floor. Neither of the boys says anything or moves to claim the bed. Will sits at the table. Both he and Elliott seem lost in their own thoughts.
I carefully position myself near the center of the room, away from corners where spiders might nest. I wrap myself tightly in the blanket so that nothing can crawl in and touch me. Sleep doesn’t come easily, but eventually, lying very still, I nod off.
My dreams are dark. Men descend the stairs with knives. A familiar armchair sits where Finn and I used to read. In my dream, the men carry bloody knives. They have killed Finn. April is next. Someone grabs me. I throw myself to the side . . . and that’s when I wake, my throat tight, my shoulder throbbing. And I can’t move. I thrash for a moment until I realize that I’m wrapped in Will’s arms and I’m holding on to him as if he will save me from my memories.
It’s like the first time I woke beside him, the night he took me home from the club. I shift carefully, propping myself on one arm just enough so that I can see him. Two buttons are undone on his shirt. Were they like that earlier, or did it happen as we moved together and intertwined? His hair is so dark against his collar.
As if he feels me looking, he opens his eyes. I start to pull away, embarrassed to be caught like this, looking down at him.
But then he reaches up to touch my cheek.
“Araby, go back to sleep. Otherwise you’ll hate yourself in the morning.”
“I already hate myself.” I should pull away, but instead I settle back against him and pretend that this isn’t a cellar. That Elliott isn’t sleeping only a few feet away.
In the darkness, my eyes find the single lamp that the boys left lit. The floorboards are hard and unforgiving. I think I hear something from behind the wardrobe, a soft tapping that reminds me of a frightening story that Finn used to tell me when Father worked late in the laboratory and the two of us were alone in the dark. If I got too afraid, he would hold me, like Will is now.
And just like it used to, it keeps the nightmares at bay.
The next morning I wake lying alone, and the three of us walk across the city to the Debauchery Club. It takes hours, so by the time we approach the club it’s afternoon.
The day we fled the city, Malcontent’s soldiers were climbing up from the sewers, swarming through the district. They chased us up three flights of stairs at the Morgue, and the Debauchery Club was not left unharmed either. The door leans against the frame, the hinges twisted and broken.
Elliott lifts it from the entrance and props it far enough aside that we can enter. Once we do, Will puts it back into place as well as he can.
“Who’s there?” a voice calls. We all jump, and a serving boy peers around the corner. “Oh, it’s you,” he says to Will, relief in his voice. “And you, sir.” He gives Elliott a long, unfriendly look. “I prepared rooms,” he tells Will. “We expected you last night.”
The paneling in the hallway is slightly charred from fire, but otherwise this area seems fine. The lights in the floor are still glowing. I run my foot over them, relieved at the familiarity.
“My old rooms?” Elliott asks.
The boy nods. “They weren’t damaged, much. The young lady’s room is across the hall.”
Elliott’s eyebrows shoot up. Will smiles to himself.
“Excellent,” I say to the boy. Regardless of Will and Elliott’s power plays, I’ll enjoy having a room to myself tonight.
“I’ll check everything,” Will says. And then he’s gone, following the boy to the servant’s quarters.
When he’s gone, I immediately feel less secure. Even though that’s preposterous. I’m safe with Elliott.
“I’m going to go examine my steam carriage,” Elliott says. “You can go upstairs if you’d like.”
But it’s worthwhile to see where his carriage is housed, so I follow him to the stables. A few saddles hang from hooks on the walls, as well as strips of metal that I think were used for guiding horses, but the stalls have been removed.
Elliott’s steam carriage is in the center of the stable. Even in the dingy surroundings, it gleams. He runs his hands over the metalwork.
“No more walking,” he murmurs.
“They say your uncle is requisitioning carriages,” I remind him. “We have to be cautious.”
“He can only take it if he can catch us. With the modifications I’ve made to this one, it can outrun any other carriage in the city.”
That won’t help if someone ambushes us, like Malcontent tried to do before, stretching ropes across the street to stop us. But Elliott won’t be careless with one of the last steam carriages in the city. Will he?
In the doorway to the stable, we look up at the mishmash of buildings that form the Debauchery Club. Three buildings interconnected around a courtyard.
“What is our plan for the rest of the day?” I ask. I haven’t prompted him to look for Father today, but yesterday passed too quickly. I know we need a permanent place to stay, where Father can find me if he gets my messages. Still, I’m ready to begin the search again.
“I asked Will to compose a rough map of the building and all of its entrances.” Elliott says. “He already compiled a list of the current residents. Servants. Aristocrats who never went home after the last attacks. Anyone who could be lurking around the building.”
“And when will we search for Father?”
“Soon,” he says. “And don’t worry. I have people searching.”
Yes. I heard him say that he wanted Father taken alive.
We enter through a side door that is still on its hinges, the very door that Will led me through when we fled the club for the one next door, the Morgue.
“Are his men on the third floor still here?” I ask, meaning Prospero’s old henchmen who used to watch us from the shadows of the club.
“They’re still here,” Elliott says darkly. “As always, avoid them.”
In this quiet passage of the Debauchery Club, it feels like the outside world can’t touch us, and yet we have enemies, even here.
As we pass the door that leads to the kitchens, Elliott says, “If you are ever in the cellars, watch for trapdoors. Secret rooms. I want to know where that printing press is located.”
“Why don’t you ask Will?”
“Because, my dear Araby, he won’t tell me,” Elliott says. “And I think you would object if I suggested torturing him.”
He’s testing me. But I’m not sure what he is trying to determine. Whether I care about Will? Whether I’m completely dedicated to his cause?
“I would never let you torture any of our friends.” I smile at him, but his response is completely serious.
“I doubt I’ll need to resort to it. The printing press is large, it can’t be that cleverly hidden. We’ll find it.”
“Unless we’re going to search for it now, I suppose we’d better move on,” I tell him.
“Come upstairs.” He offers me his arm, and after a moment, I take it. “You’ll need something to wear,” he says. “We need to eat, to regroup with the men and whoever’s left here. And your dress reeks of smoke.”
His rooms are exactly as I remember them, except for the state of his bookcase. The leather volumes are shoved haphazardly on the shelves, some even upside down. Elliott leads me through the sitting room to his sleeping chamber. I pause at the threshold, but he continues to the dressing room.
“Here,” Elliott brings out a dress and tosses it to me. “This should do. I’ll wait out here.”
Once I’m alone I scrub my hands quickly in his washbasin, wincing at the state of my fingernails. I take off the flowery dress and kick it to the side. The new dress is a soft silvery-gray silk, shot through with threads that are almost white.
It fits perfectly, and when I open the door of the dressing chamber, Elliott has changed too. Waiting for me. He’s wearing black, with a gray vest of the same fabric as my dress. He takes out a matching silver pocket watch and considers it.
“This dress is lovely,” I say. “I’d have expected something brighter from April’s spares.”
Silence stretches out between us. His posture is stiff and uninviting. I touch the fabric of my sleeve. He never said the dress belonged to April. I am a fool. The green one he gave me for the steamship’s christening was probably not April’s either. Elliott’s life didn’t begin when he met me. I never assumed it did. But the way the vest and the dress match—that had to be intentional.
Before I can find the words to question him, he snaps the pocket watch closed. “Let’s go to the dining room,” he says. Elliott takes my arm, and as we pass by a mirror I can’t help admiring the picture we make.
As we enter I search the room for Will, but the table holds six chairs and he isn’t in one. All of the men are older. The frightening one, with the face of a lizard, the one who tried to keep me from taking the book of maps, is flanked by two other villainous-looking fellows. Between them sits a slumped man with wild hair and sad eyes. He is the only person in the room who doesn’t have a mask, so perhaps that is why he looks so out of place. Or maybe it’s his obvious nervousness.
Elliott’s step falters as he sees the man, but he recovers immediately.
“Dr. Winston,” Elliott says smoothly. “When did you leave my uncle’s palace?”
Dr. Winston nearly falls out of his chair when Elliott greets him. “Just days ago. I . . . used the tunnels.”
“We’re lucky a man of your knowledge grew tired of my uncle’s hospitality, then.” Elliott draws out a chair for me, then takes one himself.
A servant enters the room from the opposite side with a great tray, and I look up too quickly, some part of me expecting it to be Will. But it’s the boy from earlier, staggering under his heavy burden.