The Hourglass Door (40 page)

“He’d want to know,” I insisted. “He deserves to know.”

Leo shook his head. “Some secrets are best kept secret.”

“And some secrets are more valuable when they’re finally told,” a melodic voice sang out of the darkness by the front door.

I whirled around, my heart in my throat, my palms slick with sweat. What was Zo doing here? I scanned the darkness, looking for Dante, but all I could see in the glow of golden light from above the bar were the frosted white tips of Zo’s hair and the gleam of his teeth bared in a wicked grin.

“So the famous Leo is really just the coward Orlando.
That
is a useful bit of information to know.”

“You’re not welcome here, Lorenzo,” Leo thundered, a spark of his old fire back in his voice. “Not after what you’ve done.”

“You don’t know the half of what I’ve done.” Zo sauntered fully into the light. “But I didn’t come to compare stories and battle for bragging rights.” He held up a ring of small keys, jingling them in his hand. “You really shouldn’t leave your doors unlocked. Why, just anyone could walk right in and steal a set of keys, replace them with copies, and you’d never know the difference.”

I took a few steps into the shadows, still hoping to find Dante. If Zo was here, then where was Dante? Had he saved Valerie? Was he even now taking her home and to safety?

“Why did you come?” Leo demanded.

Zo tucked the keys into his pocket. “I seem to have run into a slight snag with my plans.”

“And you honestly thought we’d help you?”

“Oh, no, of course not.” Zo perched elegantly on a bar stool, leaning his back against the bar and propping one foot on his knee. “When Dante showed up on the bank, I was pretty sure he wasn’t there to help me.” His eyes froze me in place. “But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t proven to be very helpful after all.”

“He would never help you—” I said fiercely.

“Yeah, see, here’s the thing, Abby. Dante’s no match for me on the bank. And when it came right down to it, he didn’t have much choice. Just like you don’t have much choice right now either.”
  

“What do you mean?” He couldn’t mean that Dante was dead, could he? I didn’t breathe.

Zo dropped his foot to the floor, leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees. “Shall I make this easy for you, Abby? Come with me back to the bank, or I’ll destroy Dante. Completely. Utterly. Finally.” He spread his hands and grinned at me. “It’s your choice.”

It was no choice and Zo knew it.

I told myself that Zo had to be lying. It wasn’t possible that he could destroy Dante like he threatened. He couldn’t have that much power. He was bluffing.

I walked up to him, my body trembling with an emotion I didn’t dare name in case it was fear. I stopped in front of him, studying his hooded eyes, his self-satisfied grin, the black tattoos that marked him a criminal and a traitor. Dante had been marked the same way, but he was the innocent one. I decided my emotion couldn’t possibly be fear.

“Dante was sent through the time machine because of
you,
” I said, tasting the metallic tang of truth and anger on my tongue. “
You
said he was guilty when he wasn’t.”

I slapped Zo across the face. Hard. My hand flared red, tingling with my righteous anger.

Zo looked back at me, rubbing his cheek. His grin was still firmly in place.

I lifted my hand to hit him again, but he caught my wrist. I curled my fingers into a fist, struggling to break free.

He tightened his callused fingertips around the delicate bones in my wrist. He brought his mouth close to my fist, his lips not quite touching my skin. “Such passion,” he said. “How refreshing.”

“Let her go,” Leo said, pulling Zo’s hand away while Zo laughed.

I glared at Zo, rubbing the circulation back into my hand.

Leo took my place in front of him. “Is that true? Dante is here because you told them he was one of us?”

“You told them my name. I told them Dante’s,” Zo said, shrugging as though it made perfect sense. “I warned you what would happen if you betrayed us, if you told our secrets.” Zo’s eyes glittered. “None of this would have happened if you had just followed the rules.”

“That’s not true,” I snapped at him. “This is all
your
fault.”

“Fault?” Zo jumped to his feet and trained his furious eyes on mine. “If you want to lay blame, look there, Abby. Look to Leo. We’re all here because of his actions. We’re all paying the price for his cowardice and his fear. I’m just trying to set right what he caused to go wrong.”

“You lying—” I started, but Leo’s soft voice covered my words.

“You’re right, Zo. I made a mistake—more than one—but I have been trying to atone for them ever since.”

“That’s not good enough, old man,” Zo barked, pushing Leo in the chest. “Your apology is way too little, way too late.”

Leo stumbled back a step. I grabbed his arm to help steady him. “I helped you when you and your friends came through the door. I helped you even though I knew who you were and what you’d done.”

“And you think that makes you some kind of hero? That we’re somehow indebted to you?”

“No—” Leo started.

“Then stop interfering. If you were smart, you’d stay out of my way.”

He shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

“I warned you,” Zo said.

“Stop it! Both of you!”

Leo looked at me with confusion, Zo with anticipation.

It seemed like forever ago that Leo had spoken to me about the four rules: the rules to keep me safe. But how could I stay safe while people I loved were in danger?

I’d thought my way through a hundred different scenarios, trying to find a loophole in the choice Zo had presented me. But I couldn’t see any way out. Valerie was likely still trapped on the bank. Zo was holding Dante hostage. Leo couldn’t go without risking his own sanity. There was no one else but me. In truth, I didn’t have any choice. I didn’t want to make any other choice. Dante needed my help. I couldn’t leave him, abandon him. I didn’t want to. I was his Beatrice.

“I’ll go,” I said quietly.

“Abby—” Leo reached for my arm, but I stepped away from him. I had made my decision, but it was fragile and I couldn’t risk Leo talking me out of it. My red-hot flare of anger had faded into an ember of weary resolve.

“I have to. It’s the only way.” I took a deep breath and took a step toward Zo.

Victory gleamed in his eyes.

Then Leo pushed me aside and swung his fist at Zo’s jaw.

I heard the crack of bone against bone and Zo fell, hitting his head on the edge of the bar on his way to the ground.

Startled, I looked at Leo, my mouth open in surprise.

Leo cradled his right hand with his left, pain drawing deep lines on his face. “Go!” he barked. “I’ll take care of Zo. Go, now, while there is still time.”

“Go where?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at the door.

“To the bank. Go. Save Valerie. Save Dante.” He placed his good hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently. “Set my brother free.”

I nodded, my blood pounding with adrenaline. I felt the sharp flare of hope behind my heart and grinned.

Leo fished out the set of keys from Zo’s pocket and nodded toward the “Employees Only” door. “Lock it behind you. And whatever happens, don’t come downstairs. Don’t open the door. Dante’s room is on the left if you need a quiet place to concentrate.” Leo pushed the keys into my hand. “You can do this, Abby. I trust you.”

I took a last look at Zo, still on the floor, waiting to see if he would move; then I spun on my heel and ran for the door.

Chapter

28

I locked the door with hands that shook. My whole body shook. I could almost feel the passage of time flowing against my skin. Every heartbeat simply counted one more second of the head start that I was losing.

I took the stairs two at a time. I pushed into the first room on my left and slammed the door behind me. Pressing my back against the wood, I took in Dante’s room with one glance.

A bed pushed into the far corner. A closet. A bookcase filled with papers, books, and odds and ends. I wanted to look at everything, examine every inch, riffle through his books, open his closet and breathe in the scent of him that surely lingered on his clothes.

But I didn’t have time.

I closed my eyes and tried to remember what I had done before to make it to the bank. I thought back to that night in the clearing when Dante had held my hand and . . . and . . . What exactly had he done?

I tried to reconstruct the night in my mind but kept stumbling over the tactile memory of his hand around mine. How his long fingers twined with mine. How perfectly they fit together. How . . . it was no use.

I shook my head in frustration.

What about the night I had dreamed my way there? I laughed in despair. I wasn’t exactly capable of falling asleep at the moment.

I felt tears prickling in my eyes. Time was running out. If I didn’t figure something out—and soon—Zo would recover from Leo’s knockout punch. And when he did, it would only take him an instant to make good on his promise, and Dante would be lost to me forever. I recognized the irony and grimaced. Dante was trapped in a place outside of time, and yet I still had only so much time to spare before it would be too late. Too late to save Valerie from certain death. Too late to save Dante from the insanity that threatened him every time he set foot on the bank of the river.

How could we have underestimated Zo so badly?

I paced Dante’s room, prowling like a caged animal but feeling more like a mouse than a tiger or a lion.

Maybe that was it. Maybe I should be thinking of how to slide past, slide in, instead of barging in with a frontal assault.

What was it Dante had said once? That stepping out of the river and onto the bank was like sliding in between the moments of time.

That was the key. In between. After all, between the notes of song lived the melody. Between the particles of light shone the dawn. Between the words spoken breathed the creation of life.

Maybe I could slide
between . . .

I lay down on his bed, forcing myself to relax. It was hard—my heart kept skipping beats, slowing down, only to speed up again.

I tried Jason’s counting trick, then counting my heartbeats in between my breaths. Counting the pulse of blood in my fingers and toes. Counting the stars I could see from the curved window high on the wall. Counting the spaces between the stars.

So slowly, too slowly, I felt my surroundings start to fade.

I kept counting the spaces between, afraid I would lose my own focus, lose track of where I was, where I wanted to be. Afraid I’d lose Dante.

The silence deepened around me, thick and heavy. I heard a low ringing begin deep inside my inner ear, a straining to hear something. But there was nothing to hear. Not my breath, not my heartbeat, not the whispered numbers that fell from my lips like a prayer. Everything faded away.

I knew before I opened my eyes that it had worked.

I could feel the pressure clamping down on my lungs. The silence that had been soft as a winter snowfall turned sharp and painful. Still I hesitated opening my eyes. What if I’d made it, but not to where Dante was? I knew the answer before I even finished asking myself the question.

If I opened my eyes and Dante wasn’t there, I’d die. I couldn’t survive without him to protect me in this place. Burning fire blazed through my lungs, scorching what little breath remained in me.

I felt a kiss pressed to my mouth, rough and perfunctory. Dante never kissed me like that. His kisses were soft and sharing. I opened my eyes—and recoiled when I saw V leaning over me.

He pulled away from me but kept his hand clamped around my arm.

“So nice of you to join us, Abby,” Tony said from behind him, a malicious twist to his lips.

I looked around quickly. The churning flood of the river surged close by us but there was no sign of Zo. Not yet.

No sign of Dante, either, but then I saw a shape a short ways in the distance next to the river. A lithe, willowy figure stepping lightly, bending low, reaching out, reaching up. It looked like she was picking nonexistent flowers, or perhaps dancing. The person turned and I saw her face clearly.

Valerie still wore her deadly nightshade dress, though without the gloves or her shoes. The darkness of her dress hurt my eyes. The bright emptiness in her face hurt my heart even worse.

When she saw me, she danced barefoot over the flat ground of the bank until she had reached V’s side.

“You brought me a doll to play with!” she said, clapping her hands together like a small child. “Oh, she’s pretty. I like her hair.” She frowned. “I hope I have some dress-up clothes to fit her.” She twirled, her arms extended high above her head. “I wonder what I should name her?”

She saw Tony standing nearby and ran to him, asking him if he had any ribbons in his pockets.

I locked eyes with Tony, horror clogging my thoughts, blurring the edges of my vision.