The Hourglass Door (34 page)

“What’s going on here?” Leo said, appearing suddenly in the doorway of the club, his arms full of groceries. “Dante? What are you doing? Put that back.”

“Abby needs your help,
Papa,
” Dante said, taking my free hand. “We both do.”

Leo’s forehead wrinkled as he frowned. He set the groceries down on the table nearest the door. He snapped the lock and flipped the sign to “Closed.” When he turned back to us, I was surprised to see the change that had come over him. Gone was the benevolent bartender; the man striding across the floor toward us was as regal and powerful as a lion.

In one swift motion, he took the keys from Dante’s hands and the brass machine from mine. He replaced the box on the top shelf and locked the cabinet, clucking his tongue at the disorder and destruction inside, and pocketed the keys. “Tell me everything,” he ordered, looking from me to Dante.

There was no question of disobeying that voice. Dante and I sat down at a table. Leo towered over us, his hands wrapped around the back of a chair. I didn’t know where to begin. How could I tell Leo I might have broken the most important rule he’d laid down? Thankfully, Dante spoke first.

“When I told Abby the truth . . .” Dante was barely able to meet Leo’s steady gaze. “I didn’t tell you everything that happened that night.” He swallowed. “There was a bridge. It appeared when I took Abby to the bank.”

Leo gripped the back of the chair so hard the wood splintered in his hand.

“Tony saw what happened and he told Zo about the bridge. This last time I was on the bank, Zo confronted me about it, demanding that I tell him how I did it.”

Leo’s mouth dropped open and he sat heavily into the broken chair. “You . . . saw the bridge?” He grabbed Dante’s arm. “What about the door? Did you see the door?”

Dante continued as though Leo hadn’t spoken. “I think that when I took Abby to the bank something . . . I don’t know, broke through, opened up. Changed. Things changed.” He glanced at me and then back to Leo. “I think Abby might be able to access the bank by herself.”

“What?” The color drained from Leo’s face in one instant.

“I didn’t mean to,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”

Dante nudged me. “Tell him what you saw.”

I told Leo about my dream, every detail I could remember, every scrap of conversation, everything.

Leo seemed to age before my eyes. “Tell me about the bridge,” he said finally.

“It rose out of the river as soon as Abby passed through.” Dante’s face was grim. “And it led directly to the door.”

Leo flinched as though he’d been struck. “How long did it last?”

Dante weighed his answer. “It’s hard to tell. Long enough for someone to cross.”

“And now Zo thinks he can go back.”

“He
can
go back. If Zo opens the door and goes through . . .” His voice trailed off into ominous silence.

“Is that bad?” I asked. “Zo going back, I mean.”

Dante and Leo exchanged a look.

“It can’t be that bad, can it? I mean, wouldn’t he just go back to the same time as when he left?”

“The machine doesn’t work like that.” Dante fidgeted with his gloves, finally stripping them off in agitation. “When we passed through it the first time—from past to future—we broke the bonds of time. We were placed beyond the reach of time. But we’re still bound to the bank, to the balance.” He rubbed at the dark chains around his wrists. “It was da Vinci’s way of keeping us from permanently corrupting the river with our . . .
unnaturalness.
”

“But passing through it a second time—from future to past . . .” Leo shook his head, clearly unhappy. “If Zo travels through the door a second time, he’ll break the binding of the bank.”

“And that means . . . ?” I asked, glancing between Dante and Leo.

Dante looked at me, an unreadable expression in his eyes. “Without the necessity of balancing between the bank and the river, Zo could stay in the river without having to leave. Ever.”

“And he’d still be immortal,” Leo said bleakly.

“And invincible,” Dante agreed.

“But without any danger of losing his mind.” Leo slammed his fist onto the tabletop. “Going through the time machine once made him a prisoner . . .”

“Going through it a second time would make him a god,” Dante finished.

“Once he figures out a way to bring someone to the bank so he can cross the bridge and go through the door,” Leo said grimly.

Dante shook his head. “No. Once he figures out a way to bring
Abby
to the bank.”

“What? Why me?” I hated to hear the crack in my voice, but I could scarcely believe the conversation flowing around me.

Dante brushed my hair behind my ear. “There’s something special about you, Abby. I’ve always known that.”

“I’m not special—” I protested weakly.

“It was your presence on the bank that summoned the bridge and the door,” Dante reminded me.

“But Zo won’t be able to take me to the bank, will he?” I asked Dante. “I mean, you’re the only one who can do that, right?”

“I thought I had something to do with it,” he said gently, reaching out to clasp my hand in his. “But if you can go alone . . .” He rubbed his thumb against my skin. “Maybe Zo doesn’t need me. Maybe all Zo needs is you.”

I swallowed down a dry throat. The image of Zo’s face rose up in my memory. He may have looked like an angel, but I knew better. I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but Leo spoke first.

“He may need Abby to summon the door, but he can’t open it if it’s already broken.”

Leo’s chair scraped against the floor as he stood up from the table. Crossing to his glass cabinet, Leo unlocked the case and lifted out the brass object from the top shelf. Hefting it in his hand, he brought it back to the table and set it down in the center with a dull thud.

“I can’t believe you keep it out in the open,” Dante said flatly, shaking his head.

Leo shrugged. “I like to be able to keep an eye on it. Besides, no one but us even knows what it is.”

“What
is
it?” I asked, reaching out to touch the symbols carved onto the three notches of the brass square: a spiral shell; a half-sun, half-moon circle; a musical staff. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s the hinge to the door of the time machine. Without it, the door won’t open. Not for Zo. Not for anyone.”

“Does Zo know what it is?” Dante asked.

“No—” Leo said at the same time I said “Yes.”

They both looked at me.

The memory was clear in my mind. “The night of the Poetry Slam the three of them were standing next to the cabinet, arguing about something. They were looking at this.” I brushed my finger over the hinge again. “I bet he’s known for a while this was important. He just didn’t know how important until he heard about the door.”

The three of us were silent for a moment, contemplating the consequences we faced.

“Leo, we have to do something,” Dante said, bleakly. “We have to protect Abby. We have to take her away from here.”

Leo’s face was grim. “You’re right. We have to do something.”

“What!” I protested. “I can’t leave. What about my family? My friends? I’m going to college next year—”

Leo held up his hand, cutting off my words. “Dante, we’ve both known Zo a long time and we both know that if Zo wants Abby, he’ll find a way to get her, wherever she is. Sending her away is not the answer.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Dante pushed back from the table, a wild look in his eyes. “I won’t let him have her, Leo—”

Leo grabbed the hinge from the table and slammed it to the floor, shattering Dante’s words into silence. One of the delicate prongs broke off with a discordant clang. Cracks spiderwebbed across the top of the brass case.

Leo looked down at the fractured remains glittering on the floor. When his eyes met mine, I recoiled from the darkness that filled them like storm clouds. “Like I said, Zo can’t open a broken door.”

Leo lifted his foot and brought his heel down hard on the edge of the hinge. The second notch fractured with an audible snap.

“No, don’t!” Dante yelled. “Wait!”

He grabbed the broken notch and examined it closely. Then he licked his thumb and brushed it over the half-moon, half-sun symbol on the end. The dark paint smeared.

Leo’s labored breathing was loud in the suddenly quiet room.

Dante looked up with horror in his eyes. “This isn’t the hinge,
Papa.
It’s a fake.”

Chapter

22

Leo sank into the chair, an old man again.

“How do you know it’s a fake?” I asked quietly.

“Because the real hinge was brass, the carvings were done by hand, and the machine was filled with gears and springs of da Vinci’s best design.” Dante spun the broken prong across the table. “
This
is simply painted yellow and brown and is hollow inside.” Dante dropped his head in his hands. “It’s a fake.”

“So . . . where is the real one?”

Dante and I both looked to Leo, who looked away.

“Leo?” Dante asked. “Do you have it here? Somewhere in the back room, or in the apartment?”

“No. If this is a fake, then the real hinge is gone.” Leo spoke mechanically, his face and lips the color of ash.

“Where is it?” Dark anger entered Dante’s voice.

“My best guess? Zo has it.”

A sharp zing raced through me, making my fingers and toes tingle. It felt like the room shifted around me, even though I knew I was on solid ground.

“How would he have gotten it?” Dante asked in carefully controlled tones.

Leo looked shaken. “The break-in.”

“What break-in?”

“You said that Tony saw you and Abby on the bank and that he told Zo about seeing the door. That was the same night I came looking for you on the bank and then went to the park to take Abby home. When I returned here, the back door was unlocked. At the time, I wondered if it had been a burglar, but nothing had been taken. I didn’t think something might have been
replaced.
I figured I must have left the door unlocked in my haste that night.” Leo paused, thinking. “Zo must have seen his opportunity and taken it.”

Dante was silent for a long time. I could see the cords in his neck tighten with the strain of biting back the words I hoped he wouldn’t say. He swallowed once, shaking his head, and said them anyway.

“Just so we’re clear—Zo knows where the door is
and
he has the hinge he needs to make it work.”

Leo nodded. “But at least he can’t summon the door by himself.”

Dante looked grim, his gray eyes the black-blue shade of rage. “Then I guess Abby is the only key he needs.”

~

I couldn’t stay at the Dungeon. I had to get away from the bleak helplessness in Leo’s eyes, from the even darker anger in Dante’s.

I pushed through the door, stumbling a little on the steps. I blinked in the bright sunlight—how could it still be the same day? I felt worn out. Wrung out. Washed away on a wave of rising fear. I took a few deep breaths, but it wasn’t enough to quell the panic. Neither was Jason’s counting trick.

I heard the door open and close behind me and I inhaled Dante’s unique scent the instant before he wrapped his arms around me. He gently eased me back against his chest and rested his chin on my shoulder.

“Essere calmo,
Abby.
Sono qui. Essere calmo.”

I didn’t know what he said, but the tone of his voice soothed my nerves.

“What’s happening?” I asked. “I don’t understand what’s going on. Or how I got involved—” I felt a sob in the back of my throat and closed my mouth around it so it couldn’t escape.

“I am so sorry,” Dante said after a long moment. “I have failed you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I made you promises—to keep you safe, to always tell you the truth—promises I haven’t been able to keep.”

“When haven’t you told me the truth?”

“It’s what I haven’t told you.”

I half laughed. “You mean there’s more? Being a time-traveling criminal isn’t enough?” I felt Dante tense behind me, and I groaned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound like that.”

“It’s all right,” he said. “I understand.”

I closed my eyes and sighed. “It’s just so weird, you know? When Leo broke the hinge and you said it was a fake—I swear it felt like something inside of me died. And all that stuff about Zo . . . I’m worried he’ll find me and take me to the bank anyway. And if he already has what he needs—”

“I won’t let him take you,” Dante said. “I promise.”

“How are you going to stop him?”

Dante tightened his arms around me, moving slightly so his forehead instead of his chin rested on my shoulder. I could feel his breath against the back of my neck, cold and trembling. “I don’t know yet.”