Glitter & Doom: A Masque of the Red Death Story by Bethany Griffin Read Free Book Online

said it, if he was making a mistake.
    “I’ll see you again,” she said. It wasn’t a question. And then she was gone, through a side door, into the tower.
     
    Kent went back to the basement lab that Elliott had procured. He was close to recreating the design of the protective masks. And after days of making a bomb for Malcontent—even a fake one—he needed to do something to help others.
    He’d been working without much rest when Elliott arrived, panicked, with the scientist’s daughter. They’d escaped from Prospero, but the girl had been poisoned.
    Kent worked frantically, trying to calm Elliott at the same time. He was painfully aware of his lack of sleep. That his brain was fuzzy. But he did it. At last, the girl’s fever broke and her breathing eased.
    “Thank you,” Elliott said, grasping Kent’s hand. “We need her if we’re going to succeed in his venture.” And then he handed over the exact plans for the masks, with all the blanks Kent had been trying to fill already filled in for him. The girl had stolen them from her father.
    “Wait. Prospero’s no longer our biggest concern.”
    He told Elliott of Malcontent’s plan to target the steamship, but that he, Kent, had built a fake bomb. Elliott took it in, growing more rigid with every passing minute. Finally he nodded, scooped Dr. Worth’s daughter up, and swept from the room. Not until he was gone did Kent realize he hadn’t mentioned April. Elliott was going back to the tower; he’d find her, and Kent’s part in her story would be over.
    But once again, Kent was wrong.
     
    Two days later one of Elliott’s men came with a message. Kent read it carefully. The plans were a variation of what he’d discussed with Elliott multiple times.
    The launch would go as planned that night. Their own rebel soldiers would be posted, just in case. Elliott would play his part, leaving on the steamship, and Kent would follow on the airship and pick him up, returning to the city to start the revolution. But now April was going on the ship with Elliott. Kent told himself that they knew all the risks. They knew Malcontent was targeting the launch and they’d be vigilant.
    He closed up the mask workshop for now and walked across town to the Morgue, where he’d wait until it was time for his move. The Morgue was already full of people looking for oblivion. He ignored them and locked himself in the spare room he’d rented. For a full half-hour he sat on the floor looking at all of his drawings. The flying machines that he’d imagined since he was a boy. And then he went to the roof. The balloon that marked the Debauchery District was his. Though it’d been manufactured before the plague, he’d modified it, and used it to make calculations needed for his greatest flying device, his steam-powered airship.
    As Kent moved away from the edge, Will materialized, the way he sometimes did. He was too graceful for his own good.
    “Araby is going on the ship with Prospero’s nephew,” he told Kent. Will’s voice, when he said her name, sounded desperate and sad and thrilled, all at the same time. Kent understood how his friend felt. And yet, Elliott had been frantic when she’d been poisoned. This was not going to go smoothly. He’d never seen Elliott show such emotion, and Will . . . he never asked for much, never wanted anything for himself. He deserved to fall in love with a girl whose heart wasn’t divided.
    “I want to take her up in the balloon,” Will continued. “She has to see that there are good things here . . . before it’s too late.”
    Kent agreed, reluctantly, to keep watch while they went up and then to pull it back down. Will disappeared down the stairs, off to fetch the scientist’s daughter.
    When he returned, pulling Araby along with him, his cheeks were flushed, and Kent suspected he’d had a drink or two along the way. And the girl . . . Kent didn’t know what to think. He watched Will help her into the basket, let the balloon