He climbs up the side of the house where the interior stairway was once exposed, easily scaling the sections that Kent tried to make impassable with his ax.
“Thank you,” Elliott says. “You’ve done a great service—”
“I did it for Will,” the boy says. “He saved my life. Took the blame for me. And for Miss April, because she was kind to me.”
“Fair enough,” Elliott says, ignoring the fact that he was the one who posed a threat to Thom.
Below us, windows shatter and crocodiles swarm out of the lower levels of the house. The manor seems likely to fall to ruin, destroyed by the machine within. We are falling to ruin as well—gashed, tattered, burned. Will wraps his arms around me.
Elliott looks over at us. “I’ll be a good leader, Araby. Better than the others.”
“A benevolent one?” I ask.
“Doubtful,” Elliott says. “One who gets things done.”
“I hope so.” Kent heads to the ship. “Would you like to go back to the city in style?”
For a moment Elliott seems ready to take us up on it, but he shakes his head. “I’ll stay with my men. We’ll need to organize patrols. Clear out the bodies of the dead crocodiles before they block the water wheel. And I’m going back to the palace for April. I won’t leave her body in that place.”
“We can take him,” I gesture to Malcontent.
“Oh, I think he’ll stay with me,” Elliott says. He prods his father with his boot. “The reverend will answer for his crimes. As will your father.”
Will goes with Kent toward the airship, but I’m unable to walk away from Elliott yet. I want to scream at him. I want to hurt him. More than I already have. He’s going to punish me for what I’ve done to him. I can see it in the tilt of his head, the coldness of his eyes.
“Let’s not forget that we still need each other,” I say.
He slumps against the chimney, and though he kicks at his father again, the movement is desultory. I turn away and climb the steps onto the deck of the airship.
Kent lifts off, and it seems that everyone needs Will. First he’s being attacked and kissed and hugged by Elise and Henry. Then he’s applying salve to the slash across Kent’s face.
“A physician is a respectable profession, with some training,” my mother says to no one in particular as she watches Will patch everyone up. The seams of Will’s shirt come apart a little more as he dabs at Kent’s forehead.
“Araby.” Mina’s eyes are huge. “I . . . think there are more tattoos.”
So much for respectability.
My mother seems ready to say something else, but my attention is on Will. The way he moves. The way he scans the deck, making sure Henry and Elise are safe. The way it feels when his eyes catch mine and his attention is focused completely, for a few moments at least, on me.
“You were amazing—”
“What about you, with the heights?” My voice is teasing, and his mouth turns up in the corners.
“We make a good team.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
IT IS RAINING AGAIN, AND THE CITY SMELLS OF dead leaves. Will holds a black umbrella over me. Henry and Elise stand close to my mother to avoid the downpour.
In front of us stand three statues, weeping angels holding out their hands in supplication.
“She will be missed,” Elliott intones, and he shuts the book that he was reading from, pushing wet blond hair from his eyes.
The cemetery is filled with black dresses beneath white masks. It’s the first time I’ve been to a funeral in years. The first time we’ve had the luxury to bury our dead.
Cold water washes over the ankles of my boots. It is a fitting day to bury April. I waver a bit, too miserable to cry, and Will holds me tight. Thom, our newest hero, rearranges flowers and then settles beside the grave, his head bowed.
But the rainwater running through the streets is clean. Already the swamp has receded a few feet.
Elliott postponed the election, but he’s going to have it—even though he’s unopposed. Will now prints a newspaper, reporting on Elliott’s every move. Kent is making plans to leave the city, though at the moment Elliott has requisitioned the airship to bring food to the populace. It’s a daunting task.
Father is still in Elliott’s custody, and when he goes outside escorted by his guards, people yell obscenities. But he’s alive. My father is a murderer. But so am I. The magnitude of what he’s done hits me sometimes. And then I think that maybe Elliott is right to seek retribution.
At least I’ve had a chance to tell Father that I love him, and soon I may be able to tell him that I forgive him. He’s helping to produce the white-powder vaccine and mixing it with the water supply. New cases of the Weeping Sickness are almost unheard of. No one has died of the Red Death in days. People still wear masks, but eventually we may not have to.
I go to the Debauchery Club every day, to beg Elliott to release my father. Most days he won’t see me. Sometimes he speaks as if we are friends, but on those days, when I finally bring myself to mention Father, his eyes go frosty.
Perhaps it would be different if April were alive. I don’t know.
By the time we leave the cemetery, the rain has stopped. Everything is still wet, but the sun is shining now.
We pass over a low bridge, and I rest my hands on the stone rail, listening to the unfamiliar sound of childish laughter. In the green space between two buildings, a group of boys is kicking a ball back and forth. Laughing. Henry watches them with interest.
“You can cry,” Will says. “She . . . would want you to wail. Loudly and dramatically.”
And something opens up inside me, because he’s right. She would want dramatics.
“I wish she could see this.” I gesture past the children playing, to a new hat store that has opened down the street. Imagine a store that sells only hats. With sequins and feathers.
I cry for a long time, and Will holds me.
The children are with us, silent and still. I know this must be hard for them, and yet I draw comfort from them being here. Elise takes one of my hands and Henry takes the other.
“I miss her,” I say into Will’s shirt.
“I know.”
I wipe my eyes. The river runs bluish gray through the center of the city, and even though the rain just cleared, crews are already hammering at burned-out buildings.
Perhaps tomorrow Elliott will listen when I beg him for my father’s freedom.
“Could we go talk to them?” Henry asks. “To play for a little while?”
Will grumbles a little as Henry pulls him toward the boys.
Henry is glowing with anticipation, but when one of the boys kicks the ball too far, it’s Elise who retrieves it. She hands it back to him, and he smiles at her shyly. Will’s eyebrows go up.
Two of the boys wave at me. I helped their mother move their belongings to a new apartment last week. My status as hero has earned me some responsibility, helping to reunite families, particularly children who were lost.
“We shouldn’t stay . . . ,” Will begins. He’s bothered by my mother’s continuing disapproval of him, and it’s getting late, but I shake my head. The children have been absorbed by the group. The boys gather around Elise to show her how to kick, but she’s a natural and doesn’t need much instruction. Henry is laughing with the younger children. A bit of parchment is half buried in the dirt at the edge of the field. I pick it up, half expecting an indictment of my father, but it’s merely . . . an invitation to a party? Not a sumptuous masquerade ball. A child’s birthday party.
When is Henry’s birthday? I wonder. And Elise’s? Perhaps this year I will even celebrate my own. And Finn’s. April would approve.
I wipe away the last of my tears and settle into Will, watching the children play.
“Is your birthday coming up?” I ask him. “Maybe we could throw a party.”