I glanced around the shop, expecting to see Orlando, but the room was empty except for the three of us.
Empty? Where was Orlando? He should be around here somewhere.
“Wait here,” I said to Dante, touching his arm.
Stepping back outside, I let the door swing shut behind me and turned in a tight circle outside the shop, studying every inch, every alley, every building around me.
A slight movement in the shadow of the building across the way caught my attention. I hurried over with quick steps.
“Orlando?”
He flinched away from me, his face pale. “Impossible,” he whispered.
I glanced over my shoulder, but we were alone. Dante was still inside with Valerie. “No. No, it’s all right. It’s me. I’m back.”
He swallowed hard. “You . . .” He drew a hand over his face. “It’s impossible,” he said again.
Too much about this situation—about my new life—was impossible. I touched Orlando’s arm. “It’s all right,” I said again, trying to make myself believe it too.
I wasn’t sure he heard me. His attention hovered past my shoulder and when he gently pushed me to the side, I turned, already knowing what he was looking at—or, in this case, whom.
Dante closed the door to the apothecary shop behind him, standing for a moment in a patch of sunlight. He removed his bandage, letting the strip of fabric dangle from his fingertips. He tilted his face up, his eyes closed to catch the warmth of the sun.
“Dante?” Orlando reached out his hand partway and then changed his mind, rubbing at his eyes with the edge of his wrist. He stepped out of the shadows, his stride uneven as he stumbled forward.
At the sound of his name, Dante spun on his heel, immediately balling up the bandage in his fist and hiding his hands behind his back. His eyes found mine and a strange mix of panic and relief flickered across his face. If I hadn’t been watching, I would have missed it.
“What are you doing here?” Orlando asked in confusion, drawing closer to his brother. “Why aren’t you with da Vinci? Is something wrong?”
I trailed after Orlando, wondering if I should say something. I even opened my mouth, but I didn’t know what to say. In my other life—my life before I crossed through the door—Dante and I had talked about many things, but never about what to do when we faced overlapping timelines. Here, in this time, there was only one of me and only one of Orlando. But there were two Dantes: the one standing before us with the scar across his eyes and the gold chains across his skin, and the one crouching in a dark corner of a dungeon cell, unmarked, untested, and already counting down to the end of the world.
I knew instinctively that it was important to keep the two Dantes separate, to keep their timelines pure and parallel. But what about this? Dante and Orlando were face-to-face, with too many of the wrong questions waiting to be answered.
“Hello, Orlando,” Dante said, his voice husky. His eyes never left his brother’s face, though I knew he could only see Orlando in his memory. “I’ve been given leave to come home for a time.”
I drew alongside Orlando, who spared a moment to glance at me, a question in his eyes. “But I saw him on the bank . . .” he said to me.
“It’s all right,” I said with quiet confidence. I seemed to be saying that a lot, but I wasn’t sure I believed it myself yet. I could feel the pause in the flow of the river as time debated what to change, and how. I felt like I was standing on a bridge, holding a rock out over the edge, wondering when the rock would slip free and how big the splash would be when it did.
“What happened to your eyes?” Orlando asked Dante, a touch of horror in his voice.
Dante hesitated. “A fight I couldn’t avoid. I’m all right, but my sight is . . . compromised.”
“But you’ll get better?” Orlando said, and it was less a worried question than a hopeful statement.
“Eventually.” But Dante didn’t look at me when he said it. His expression closed, making it clear that that line of conversation was over. He cleared his throat. “Have you been home? Have you spoken to Mother and Father?”
Orlando faltered, and his eyes darkened with anxiety. He shook his head. He scratched at his arm, then, glancing down, quickly stopped. “If . . . when you speak to them . . . don’t tell them about me. Please?”
My heart hurt to hear the sadness in his voice.
Dante swallowed and I saw his body start to tremble. The muscles in his arms tightened as he gripped his wrists behind his back, trying to stay in control. “Why not? Don’t you want them to know that you’re safe? That you’re well?”
“Of course I do,” Orlando said automatically. “It’s . . . it’s complicated. It’s best if they don’t know where I am.” He ran his hand through his hair in a gesture so familiar to me, my mouth went dry. I’d seen Dante do it himself a thousand times before.
I looked between them both. They shared so much—the same hair and face and mannerisms, the same family. Now they shared the same secret, though Orlando didn’t know that yet. And, I realized with a rising sense of panic, he couldn’t know.
“You shouldn’t know where I am either,” Orlando said to Dante suddenly. “It’s not safe.”
That was the truth. Orlando had told me the story of how he hadn’t seen Dante at all between leaving him at da Vinci’s studio and finding him on the bank all those years later. My heart stuttered. Maybe it was already too late. Maybe this meeting had already changed things.
The rock was slipping free; the river was flexing.
I touched Orlando’s arm with a quick hand. “Wait here.” I closed the short distance between me and Dante, grabbing his arm and pulling him around the corner of the building.
“I’m sorry. I’d hoped he would be here when we returned, but I didn’t think . . . What should we do? How can we fix this?” I said fast and low; I didn’t want Orlando to hear me.
Dante drew in a deep breath. He reached his hands around to grasp mine, their touch cool and steady. He pressed his bandage into my hands and, after a quick squeeze, he let me go. Then very slowly, very deliberately, he folded his sleeves back, revealing the chains he had kept hidden. First one, then the other.
“Dante,” I hissed. “What are you doing?”
“What needs to be done,” he said quietly, his eyes clouding over.
“No. It’s too dangerous. For him. For everyone.” I glanced around the corner to see Orlando slumped against the wall, stripping thorns from the stalks of the rosebushes growing next to the sign. He kept glancing up, anxious for our return, wary of passing strangers and the possibility of being identified as a fugitive.
My heart sank under the weight of all the new questions I was sure he was dying to ask.
The river shivered and shifted, bending around this unexpected encounter.
“Why did you come back here, Abby?” Dante asked.
“What? You know why.”
“I know. But do you?”
I exhaled in frustration. “Of course I know why. I came back to close the loop, to stand in front of the dungeon doorway before you—the other you—traveled through the door. I’m here to protect the river and get it back on track. And keep it on track.”
Dante nodded. “And?”
“And if I can do that, then I can save my family as well. Restore them to the time and place where they belong.”
He relaxed. “Exactly,” he breathed. “That’s all I want to do too.”
“But how will telling Orlando the truth—about his past, his future, about everything—help restore my family?”
His eyes met mine, and I thought I saw a storm of light pass through them like lightning behind a cloud. “Because it can also restore my family.”
Understanding flooded through me. “Oh, Dante.” The words barely had shape or tone, just a sigh of empathy and love.
“I lost him once. I don’t want to lose him again.”
I slipped my hand back into Dante’s, our fingers automatically folding t
ogether.
“He’s my brother. How can I keep this secret from him? If I can help him, prepare him for what is coming . . .” Dante shrugged eloquently. “He would do it for me. He did do it for me.”
“But what about the river?” I asked. “What will happen now?”
“I don’t know. But the river is designed to accommodate change—it is change. And what did we come here for if not to change things? Fix things? Set things right?” He squeezed my hand in his. “I have to do it now. Once the door closes behind me—the other me—it’ll be too late. Whatever we have changed—or not changed—will be locked into place.”
He was right, and we both knew it. The rock was falling and there was no way to call it back. No way of telling how far the ripples would spread.
“Will you help me save my family?” he asked me.
“Of course I will.”
“Thank you.” He brushed the back of his fingers against my cheek. “We should probably go back inside the shop.”
“Is that a good idea?” I asked. “I mean, Valerie is in there, isn’t she?”
Dante hesitated. “I don’t want to leave her alone for too long. It’ll be better if we’re all together—less dangerous for everyone. And if she needs help when she wakes up, I’ll be there.” He paused, swallowing hard. “Will you help me?”
“Yes.” I could feel the nervous energy crackling off him. I pressed his bandage back into his hand, but instead of covering his eyes with it, he shoved it into his pocket.
“Are you sure?” I asked, surprised.
He nodded, and I gave his hand a quick squeeze before leading him around the corner of the shop.
Orlando looked up as we approached, his eyebrows lifting at the sight of me holding hands with Dante.
“We need to talk,” I said. “All of us.”
“What’s going on?” Orlando asked me in a low voice. “How do you know my brother? He’s not even supposed to be here. Are your memories back? How . . . ?” He exhaled slowly, his mouth flattening into a thin line. “I don’t understand.”
“I know how you feel,” I said with a faint smile. “There’s a lot to understand, and all of it a little strange. And yes, my memories are back. Thanks to Dante. Come inside and we’ll answer all your questions. We’ll talk about everything.”
I could see his uncertainty battling with hope across his face. But in the end, I knew he would come. I knew hope would win. Dante was his brother, and Orlando always came through for his brother.
We entered the shop together, and I immediately looked at Valerie. She was still asleep and quiet. I hoped she would stay that way.
I helped Dante sit in the chair next to the window, then stepped back, close enough to help if he needed me, but far enough away to not intrude on the conversation.
Orlando sat down in the opposite chair. Tension hummed from his body. “Dante? What’s going on?”
Dante was silent for a long moment. Then he carefully pulled his folded sleeves even higher up his arms. The golden chains around his wrists were bright in the sunlight that fell through the window. He simply held out his arms . . . and waited.
Orlando sucked in a breath, his eyes flashing to me.
I half shrugged. “It’s okay,” I said, hoping that those small words would be enough to set him at ease.
Orlando waited another moment, then returned his attention to Dante. “How did you get those?” he demanded.
“The same way you did.”
Orlando cut him off with a sharp gesture and an even sharper word. “No.”
Dante nodded slowly, his eyes sad but determined. “They came for me in the middle of the night. I was at da Vinci’s studio.”
“No.” Orlando’s voice rose in volume.
“They took me. They imprisoned me. They tried me, judged me. Sentenced me.” Dante’s voice was relentless.
“It’s not possible.” Orlando’s lips barely moved. His face had paled to a shade beyond snow.
“They marked me.” Dante clenched his fists, the veins standing up beneath the golden chains.
Orlando shook his head, his eyes locked on his brother’s hands.
“They stood me before the black hourglass door. And they sent me through.”
“No,” Orlando said for the third time, but this time it was only a whisper. A sigh. More of a wish than a denial. “Not you. They didn’t . . . they couldn’t have . . .”
Dante nodded. “I found myself on the bank.”
Both brothers turned toward me. They looked so much alike that I felt my heart skip a beat.
Dante reached out and gripped Orlando’s hand with his, drawing his attention and holding it steady. “You found me on the bank.”
Orlando swallowed. “When?”
Dante turned his right wrist over, revealing the letters etched into his flesh: MMIX.
Orlando closed his eyes. “That far? They sent you forward that far?” A muscle quivered in his jaw. “How did you survive it?”
Dante turned back to me, his gray eyes unreadable behind the scar. “I had help,” he said simply.
I caught my breath, feeling the air burn in my lungs. I closed the space between us in two quick steps and knelt by his side. I joined my hand to Dante’s on Orlando’s arm. At my touch, Orlando opened his eyes.
“I know this is hard to hear,” I said, “but it’s the truth. I promise.”
Orlando nodded, but his gaze was unfocused, distant. “It’s my fault. He said he’d do it. He warned me. I didn’t believe him. It’s my fault,” he repeated.
Dante and I exchanged a glance. We both knew the man to whom Orlando was referring: Zo. He had coerced Orlando’s obedience by threatening to implicate Dante as one of the Sons of Italy. And when Orlando had turned in Zo to the authorities, Zo had turned in Dante as well.
“No,” Dante said firmly. “It’s not your fault. And I understand—now. Everything is all right.”
“How can you say that?” Orlando demanded. “I ruined your life.”
“You saved my life.” Dante wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me closer to his side. “You made it possible for me to find my life.”
Orlando looked from Dante to me, and his eyes wouldn’t let me go. A spasm of pain traveled along his jaw. He clenched down on his teeth with a sound like cracking ice. “So, I wasn’t dreaming just now when I saw you on the bank?”
“No. I’ve been through the door and back. It’s how I was able to come here. How I could come home,” Dante said.
Orlando was silent for a long moment. “And your marks? They are gold because you’re from . . . from the future?”
Dante nodded and gave me a little squeeze. “We both are.”
“It’s where we met,” I said.
Orlando looked at me, the pain in his face touched with shadow. “That’s how you knew,” he said quietly. “What to tell me. How to help me on the bank. Because you’ve been here before.”
“Not exactly,” I said. “I haven’t been here before. Not in 1501. I know what I know because of you, Orlando.” I reached out to touch his knee, but I stopped short; he seemed unusually fragile and I didn’t want to add any more pressure. “Because when you find Dante on the bank all those years from now, you will teach him what you know. And he, in turn, will teach me. So I, in turn, could teach you.”
Orlando squeezed his eyes shut and dropped his head in his hands. “It makes my head hurt to think of it.” When he looked up, his eyes were bloodshot. He rubbed restlessly at the marks on his wrists. “I’ll never be free of it, will I? None of us will. We’ll be trapped in this endless spiral of past and future forever. Doomed to pay for our mistakes for an eternity.”
“No!” I said with more force than I’d intended. “That’s not true. We can still change things. We can still choose.” I reached for Dante’s hand without looking and gripped it tight. “We’re here to close the circle—lock it so it is safe. So it is protected. And once we do, we can leave the past behind and move forward. It i
s possible, Orlando. I promise.”
He drew in a deep, shuddering breath. As he exhaled, he took my free hand, linking the three of us through a common touch, a common goal. “You’ve asked me to do a difficult thing, but . . . I will choose to believe you.”
The moment of time that had been in flux snapped back into its flow, running fast toward the future. The ripples were spreading; I shivered as a shroud of unexpected possibilities seemed to fall over all of us.
“I wouldn’t ask you to do it if I didn’t think you could,” I said quietly.
“Thank you,” Dante chimed in, his voice low and raw, and I knew his gratitude extended to both me and Orlando. The first connection back to his family was complete, though it remained to be seen how strong it would hold, how long it would last.