Glitter & Doom: A Masque of the Red Death Story by Griffin Bethany

Author:Griffin, Bethany [Griffin, Bethany]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-03-25T23:00:00+00:00

This time, he was locked up with the most infuriating girl. Elliott’s sister, with her fake eyelashes and glitter smeared above her eyes. Kent could barely look at her.

People were dying in the city every day, and this girl wasted precious resources. Like air. Here she was, bantering with him about some imaginary girlfriend. As if he had time for such things.

But then she told him, her voice steady and completely serious, how she planned to watch her father die under Elliott’s sword.

“You should’ve been an actress,” he said finally.

“I know.” Her voice was light again. “My mother trained me well. Too bad the plague closed all the theaters.”

“Too bad,” he repeated, trying to cover his sudden confusion. She was the silliest and the most fearless person he had ever met. The silence stretched between them.

“So, we’re near the harbor, and I’ve freed you from that manacle,” she prompted. “Are you going to escape?”

“No,” he said simply.

“You should. I’d enjoy being rescued.”

He gave her a smile that he hoped was apologetic.

“I can’t,” he said. “The Reverend wants me to set a bomb, but he didn’t tell me where, or what he wants me to blow up. I’m far from the only person who can build explosives in the city, as we both know. I have to figure out what he wants me to blow up, so I can tell Elliott. So we can subvert Malcontent’s plans.”

“I understand,” she said quietly. “But then, what a waste of a good hairpin.”

And he could see that she understood everything. That he’d carefully balanced the danger to her against the many people who would die if Malcontent had his way. And he’d chosen to stay because he could save the most lives this way.

He forced himself to stop thinking about the girl before him on the floor. What did Malcontent want him to blow up? What was he missing?

“I’ll have to put it back on if someone comes, but I don’t consider being able to do this a waste.” He stood, his muscles protesting after sitting for so long on the cold floor. And he paced.

Just a few nights ago, he’d seen the damage from Malcontent’s bombs. He’d seen a dead child, buried by the rubble, when Elliott took him to examine what was left.

The traces of the bomb had been negligible. But the despair of the residents of the apartment building behind the church had been overwhelming. The sadness. The expectations that someone would come along and change their miserable lives. Elliott had been perfect, reassuring, comforting. Kent had stood in the background, uncomfortable and mute.

But he could stop Malcontent from setting another bomb. If the madman wanted Kent, cared enough to have kidnapped him, then he must want something huge. An explosion that the city would remember. Unless it was simply because he’d killed whoever made the last round of bombs.

His pacing was controlled; he stepped softly so that any guards who were outside wouldn’t hear the movements. He went over the schematics for his fake bomb once again.

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