The Hourglass Door (42 page)

Yes, I knew the blessings the bank bestowed—immortality and invincibility—as well as the curse it carried—insanity. Maybe he couldn’t destroy Dante’s body, but if Zo trapped him here, he would certainly destroy Dante’s mind. I couldn’t let that happen.

But with the door open, Zo would no longer be bound by time and bound to the bank. Zo would be able to go anywhere, any
when,
he wanted to. He would truly be immortal and invincible. Able to go back and change the course of the river entirely. I couldn’t let that happen, either.

My eyes met Dante’s and I felt a stream of tears fall down my cheeks. Now what was I supposed to do?

Open the door and hand over control of time to Zo? Or keep it shut and condemn the man I loved to an eternity of insanity?

Be sure of your heart before you answer.

Set my brother free.

The ghost of a small smile appeared on Dante’s mouth.

When I saw that smile, I knew what I had to do.

I closed my eyes and made my choice.

Chapter

29

I snatched up the brass hinge, pulling it open to its full length. The metal moved smoothly through my fingers. Quickly, I aligned the three notches with the spaces along the side of the door and pushed them home. They fit perfectly, and the melody that had been only a murmur suddenly rose into a wild crescendo.

I inserted the small silver key into the lock with a hand that only shook a little. As the key turned, I heard a high chime ring out.

The door swung open.

Darkness spilled out into the void.

Darkness and an icy cold breath of stale air.

I stepped back and turned away, my eyes immediately finding Dante.

He nodded ever so slightly and I sighed with relief. It was going to be all right.

Zo jerked his head, and Tony and V hauled Dante to his feet. The four men crossed the bridge to join me on the far side.

Tony and V dropped Dante at my feet and Zo walked directly to the door. He reached out his hand, gently caressing the dark wood. “It worked,” he breathed. “It’s open.”

I crouched at Dante’s side, my hands checking his forehead, his face, his body. I helped him to his feet. He leaned on me, his arm weighing heavily across my shoulders.

Zo wrenched the door back, forcing it open as wide as it would go, and then stepped back, embracing the darkness that flowed out like a fog.

I expected the hinges to protest, but they were as silent as if they’d been freshly oiled that morning. I saw that the brass hinges had locked into place, the wood fitting against the metal seamlessly. There would be no getting them out again without destroying the door. I glanced at the small silver key, the smooth knob protruding slightly from the wood. Quickly, I reached up and pulled it free, palming it into my pocket. Dante had given it to me; I wasn’t going to leave it in this place if I could help it.

“It’s beautiful,” Zo said. “Last time, it happened so quickly I didn’t have time to enjoy the artistry.” He slid a glance at Dante from the corner of his eye. “I’ll be sure to pass along my compliments to the artist when I see him again. His work is flawless—as usual.”

“Thank you,” Dante said, his voice rasping through his bruised throat. “I’m glad you appreciate my work.”

“
Your
work?”

“I didn’t just run messages for da Vinci. Sometimes he let me help.”

Surprise filled Zo’s face. “Everyone is just full of secrets today, aren’t they?”

“Let’s go already,” V growled. Tony shuffled a step closer to the door.

Zo flung up his hand, stopping them where they stood. He fixed Dante with a dark look. “I know you’re thinking of following us like some kind of hero. A friendly bit of advice—don’t. If you do, I’ll make sure you regret it all the days of your life. Keeping secrets is a dangerous business, Dante. And I have some secrets that are positively deadly.” He parted his lips in a sharp grin.

I glanced at Dante, but he simply stood by my side, his gaze locked with Zo’s dark eyes.

Zo dropped his hand and Tony slipped through the door. Then V.

The darkness of the door bulged slightly and I heard a low rumbling like footsteps running in the distance.

Zo paused, his hand curled around the door frame. “Thank you to you both. I couldn’t have done this without you.” He laughed, then, and the sound felt like insects crawling on my skin.

He was still laughing as he vanished into the darkness as completely as if he’d been swallowed whole.

I rounded on Dante. “Why did you let them go?” I demanded. “I thought you were going to stop them.”

His eyes traced the carvings on the door, his attention far away.

“What about all that talk about not letting Zo control time? Now he’s gone and—”

Dante took a step toward the door, his hungry eyes distant and angry. His pale skin was luminescent in the flat, harsh light. He looked like a lost ghost—or an avenging angel. “I can still catch him as long as the door is open. When it closes, though, the door will be destroyed.” His smile was grim. “A final, fail-safe feature of da Vinci’s design.”

The door still gaped wide open, a toothless maw of unending blackness. My skin was unaccountably cold.

“Dante!” I called out, terrified that he would walk through the door and leave me alone. “Dante, don’t. Please.”

He stopped and slowly turned his back to the door. The edges flickered, softening and melting. It couldn’t last much longer. And when it shut, Zo would be gone. Out of reach forever.

Dante looked from me to the door, anguish etched into his silver, gray-shadowed eyes, aging him even as I watched. I could see an echo of Leo’s features in his face.

“Abby.” His mouth caressed my name, but all I heard was
good-bye.

Tears welled up and spilled over my cheeks. I brushed them away roughly with the flat of my hand. My tears were the only flowing water besides the river in this hellish, barren place. I wasn’t going to sacrifice them here.

Dante caught my tear-stained hand and brought my fingers to his lips. As he kissed the tears from my skin, I felt the rough texture of his lips an instant before they met mine.

He pulled me to him, wrapping his long arms behind my back, sliding his strong hands up to cup the back of my head. His face was wet with tears too.

He finally released me, but I could still feel the weight of his body encircling mine, I could still smell the scent of his skin on my own, I could still breathe the sweetness of his breath inside my lungs.

“You still owe me two questions, you know,” Dante said with a rueful half-smile. He leaned down until our foreheads touched. “Two getting-to-know-Abby questions. Do you remember?”

“I remember,” I whispered, closing my eyes, dreading what questions he might ask at a time like this.

“Do you remember the rules?”

I nodded against his cheek. Total honesty. It’s what we had always asked of each other, even when the questions were hard, even when the answers were harder.

“So, Abigail Beatrice Edmunds, here is my first question.” Dante swallowed hard. He trembled in body and in voice. “Do you love me?”

My eyes flew open as a wave of fresh tears spilled down my face. I suspected he would ask me hard questions, but not this one. Not here. Not now. I opened my mouth but he quickly pressed his finger to my lips. “Be sure of your heart before you answer.”

“I
am
sure,” I said without hesitating. “I’ve been sure for so long, sometimes it seems like it’s the only thing I’m sure of anymore. Yes, Dante, yes, of course I love you.”

It was as though my words revived him, resurrected him from the brink where Zo had trapped him. His smile lit up his whole face. Warm color rushed into his skin, replacing the pale, waxy hue with soft pinks and golden browns. He sighed with relief.

I buried my face into his chest, nestling into his embrace. Here, finally, was the Dante I had come to save.

“
Grazie,
Abby,” he whispered as he pressed a kiss to the crown of my head and brushed my hair with his fingers. “You don’t know how much it means to hear you say you love me. How much more it means to know it is the truth.”

“Of course it’s the truth,” I mumbled.

“I know. Which is why I have to ask my second question.”

I leaned back and looked up into his face. “Don’t,” I said, suddenly sure he was going to ask the impossible. “I don’t want to answer any more questions. Ask me later. Please? Let’s just go back right now. Zo’s gone—they’re all gone—” I choked off my words as Dante glanced over his shoulder at the door standing halfway open behind us.

He overrode my words with a single whisper. “If you love me, Abby—then will you let me go?”

A thousand
no
s filled my mouth, but not a single one emerged. How could I say no? How could I deny him this one chance to follow Zo through the black door? When the door closed, it would be closed for good—destroyed. I couldn’t take that chance. I couldn’t force Dante to take that chance.

I tried for a smile, but it felt wobbly on my face and I let it go rather than forcing it. I slid my hands down Dante’s arms, my fingers tracing his taut, corded muscles one last time. I twined my fingers with his and looked past Dante to the door. It had almost closed.

“
Because
I love you,” I said, proud that my voice hardly cracked at all, “you don’t have to ask.” I let go of his hands and took a step backward. I clasped my hands tightly together behind my back to prevent myself from reaching out for him again. Tears slipped down my cheeks, but this time I let them fall to the barren ground.

Understanding illuminated Dante’s eyes, lining them in silver. He swept me into his arms, lifting me off the ground, and kissed me, his lips at once hard and fierce and yet still gentle and insistent. I wanted the moment to never end.

But all too soon Dante lowered me back to the ground. He reached out and touched the silver locket around my throat. “No matter what happens, you still hold the key to my heart,” he murmured.

I curled my fingers around the locket, not wanting to miss these last few moments with Dante. The door was almost closed. Almost gone. There was only a sliver of an opening left, but it was enough for Dante to slip his fingers through and wrench the door back open. The hinges screamed like a dying creature and I shivered at the unwelcome comparison.

Countless words rose to my lips, but I stayed silent. I had to let him go, knowing he would take my heart with him.

Dante looked back once, one last glance, one last look. His eyes found mine without even trying. The darkness haloed around him like a jagged cloud. “I love you,” he called out. The words shot to me like an arrow. “
i love you
—I love you—
I love you.
” The strange triple echo was back, this time repeating Dante’s declaration to me through all the days of the past, the present, and the future.

A supernova of white light flared from the center of the door, so bright I had to look away, blinded. The music I’d heard cut short midchime and the familiar silence of the void enveloped me again. I felt the heat of the flare blister against my skin, scorching the locket around my throat, searing the pattern of the chain around my neck.

I screamed in pain, falling to my knees.

I don’t know how long I stayed there, blinking back tears, but when my vision cleared, I saw that the door had been incinerated. No lump of melted brass, no charred door frame—nothing remained.

Dante was gone. And the door was destroyed.

Chapter

30

The floor of Dante’s room was cold. Bitter cold.

I could still hear his parting words:
I love you.
It was the first time he’d said those words to me. I feared I would never hear him say them again. I pulled my body even tighter into a ball, trying to hold on to the last memory, the last moment I’d shared with Dante.

A flash of light painted my eyelids red. I opened my eyes and vibrant colors burned across my vision. After the desolation of the flat bank, any color seemed painful, but these reds and oranges and yellows felt like needles in my tired and swollen eyes. I tried to focus, blinking and squinting, but the colors flickered and danced, bouncing close to me and springing away again. I couldn’t see anything clearly except for the wildly shifting light around me.

What was going on?

I placed my hands on the floor beneath me, hissing at the ice cold that burned my skin. Pushing myself up, I hit my head against something low that curved over me. Dropping to the floor again, I rolled onto my back and looked up at the thin shell that arched over me, completely encasing me like a butterfly in a glass jar. The realization of what had happened dawned in my tired mind. Just like the last time I’d fallen through the river, I’d brought some of the bank’s timelessness back with me.

But unlike last time, I wasn’t trapped in a flicker of midnight while the day dawned around me. This time I was frozen in a breath of ice while the Dungeon burned around me in an inferno of fire.