The Forgotten Locket (20 page)

A scrabbling sound pulled my attention away from the standoff between Zo and Orlando. Valerie stood up from behind the counter, swaying on her feet. She held on to the edge of the counter with hands that visibly shook. Her ragged hair was matted by sweat, and tears streaked her face. She blinked, looking from me to Dante to Orlando before her eyes came to rest on Zo.

I braced myself for her reaction, for her to fly across the room in another attack, but Valerie simply drew in a shuddering breath and closed her eyes. An expression of true peace—the first I’d seen on her face in a long time—softened the tension in her forehead, her shoulders, her back. She exhaled a sigh.

“Valerie?” I called to her softly. “Are you all right? Do you need help?”

She opened her eyes and brushed at her bathrobe as though she could dislodge the ground-in dirt with a few swipes. She tied the belt around her waist. Rubbing her hands over her cheeks, she wiped away the last of her dried tears and then fluffed her hair with her fingers.

Gliding from behind the counter, she made her way across the room with slow and measured steps. She stopped in front of me and Dante and curtseyed as low and graceful as a noble-born lady.

“I must thank you, my darling River Policeman,” she said, looking up at Dante with adoring eyes. “You held true to your promise. You found him and you caught him and you put him in prison, where he belongs. I am in your debt.”

“You’re welcome,” Dante said gently. “But I had help.” He tightened his arms around me. “Your thanks should extend to her as well.”

Valerie immediately threw her arms around both of us. “My angels,” she whispered.

I untangled myself from Dante’s arms so I could embrace Valerie in a proper hug. I wondered how long it had been since I’d been able to hug my friend like this—too long, I knew.

“Abby?” Zo’s voice slithered into the stillness. “Can I have a hug too?”

I turned around and saw Zo standing with his arms open and his eyes soft and vulnerable. His pose didn’t last long; a smirk cut through the façade, turning into a full-fledged grin.

The three of us joined Orlando next to the shell of time, lining up in a row in front of Zo. He lowered his arms, laughing. Orlando reached out toward the shell.

“No! Don’t!” I grabbed his hand before he could make contact. “If you touch it—if any of us touch it—we’ll break it open and set him free. Plus, I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“So does that mean you want
me
to be hurt?” Zo asked. He shook his head in mock sorrow. “I thought we were friends, Abby.”

“What gave you that idea?” I snapped.

Zo arched an eyebrow. “You were so nice to me at the cathedral. You trusted me.”

“I only trusted you because you made me.” My skin crawled even being this close to him. I moved away from the edge of the glass, wanting to put as much space between me and Zo as possible.

He quirked his lips as though that were a minor point, as though he hadn’t been the cause of my fractured memory. “Still—it was nice.”

“No. It wasn’t.”

“You would be wise to stay quiet,” Orlando snapped at Zo.

“Or what?” Zo asked. “You’ll come in here and make me?”

“He won’t,” Dante said quietly. “But I will.”

Zo swallowed down his sneer and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“You should be careful,” Valerie whispered to Dante in a voice loud enough for all of us to hear. “He’s not to be trusted.”

“And yet you’ve all done it at one time or another,” Zo commented. He turned his gaze to Orlando. “You believed in my vision.” He moved his focus to Valerie. “You followed me willingly.” Then to Dante. “You told me your secrets.”
And finally to me. “You gave me your heart.”

My fingers touched the empty hollow of my throat where Dante’s locket should have been, but wasn’t.

“Looking for this?” Zo asked, withdrawing his hand from his pocket. A silver chain dangled from his fingers, a heart-shaped locket spinning in the air.

I heard Valerie gasp next to me.

Dante leaned toward me and spoke softly. “What is it? What does he have?” His voice was heavy with frustration at not being able to see.

“My locket,” I choked out. “He still has my locket.”

Dante’s mouth thinned into an unhappy line. He shifted his weight next to me as though he wanted to rush forward, break open the shell around Zo, and take back the locket by force. But he settled back onto his heels, his arms folded across his chest and his fingers tapping his arm impatiently, anxiously.

“
Your
locket?” Zo asked, amused. He flicked the heart into his palm and then slipped it up through his fingers, making it walk across the tops of his knuckles, back and forth, back and forth. He paced the perimeter of his prison, following the curve of glass and shadow with careful, precise footsteps. “I’m surprised at you, Abby. You’ve worn this little bauble for months now and yet you still don’t know what it is. What it means.”

I narrowed my eyes, sensing a trap behind his words but unable to see the trigger that would snap it shut.

“Then again, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that Dante hasn’t told you the truth about the locket. Maybe you’d like to believe that he didn’t know the truth about it himself.” Zo looked from me to Dante and back again, and his voice sharpened. “Though after what he did to my guitar, I doubt that possibility very much. No, he knew exactly what he was doing.”

“Give it back,” Dante growled. “The locket belongs to Abby.”

“And now it belongs to me,” Zo said, the silver heart catching the light as it continued to travel through his fingers. “That’s my point. Don’t worry. I’ll give it back when I’m done with it.” Zo pinned Dante with a hard look. “That is, if there’s anything left.”

“What truth?” I demanded. “What are you talking about?” I was tired of Zo’s hints and thinly veiled barbs. I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake the words out of him, but the shell that kept him inside so effectively also kept us out.

Zo silently arched an eyebrow at Dante.

I touched Dante’s arm. His muscles were in tight knots; his skin felt like stone.

“What truth?” I asked again, my voice quiet, gentle. “Dante?”

“The locket is more than just a symbol of my love,” Dante said. “It’s more than just a heart.” He touched the scarred links along my neck. He hesitated, then whispered, “It
is
my heart.”

Valerie squeaked in surprise and covered her mouth with one hand. With her other, she grabbed Orlando’s arm. “Oh no, no, no,” she murmured. “This is bad. Oh, so very, very bad.”

Zo remained silent, his eyes unreadable through the wall of time.

I tried to pull my thoughts together. “But I’ve always known that. You told me that when you gave me the locket.”

Dante started to shake his head before I even finished. “No, Abby, listen to me. The
locket
is my heart. When I said that my life and my heart were always in your hands, I meant it. I am linked to the locket, and so whatever happens to
it
—”

Dante didn’t finish the thought, but he didn’t have to. Understanding crashed over me and I turned in horror toward Zo, who held the locket in the palm of his hand. He closed his long fingers into a fist and smiled at me.

No. It couldn’t be true. I wouldn’t let it be true. I hadn’t come so far and risked so much only to lose Dante now. I gripped his hand with mine, my thoughts spiraling away like so many loose threads. How had we ended up in this impossible situation? How had Zo managed to collect and control so much of our hearts? First Orlando, his heart broken by a loyalty betrayed; then Valerie, her obsession repaid with pain. Zo had invaded my mind, twisting both my memories and my heart. And now Zo held Dante’s life, literally, in his hands.

I couldn’t look away from Zo’s fist. My heart beat high and hard in my throat. I had regretted giving Zo the locket the moment it had left my hands. Now that I understood exactly what I had done, I had to do whatever I could to get it back.

Zo lounged against the shell of time, clearly enjoying my distress. “When I came to you in the cathedral, Abby, I was so mad at Dante for breaking my guitar. I was—if you’ll pardon the expression—blind with rage. I wanted to make him hurt. I wanted to make him bleed. And I knew that making you mine would kill him. After all, what would be worse than seeing the woman you loved be with the man you hated? But then you gave me the locket like the obedient little girl that you are, and when I realized what I held in my hands . . .” Zo smiled in delight, a teacher whose pupil had unexpectedly provided the right answer. “I couldn’t believe my luck. Imagine it. I can have you, Abby”—he held out his left hand, palm up, as though waiting for me to take it—“
and
I can destroy Dante”—he opened his right hand where the silver locket lay tangled in its chain—“at the same time.”

“No,” I whispered.

“A victory like this deserves an audience, don’t you think? And I suspect Dante’s destruction will be even more satisfying to watch than his death,” Zo said, tipping his right hand and allowing the locket to clatter to the ground.

It bounced once, twice, and the moment it settled on the ground, Zo lifted his boot and slammed the edge of the heel down hard, directly onto the locket.

A sound like a shot rang out and Dante fell to his knees, his hand clutching at his chest.

I screamed and crouched down next to him, immediately wrapping my arms around him as though I could hold him together. He groaned in pain at my touch.

Orlando roared in protest, leaping toward Zo, but stopped short of contact with the shell. I had told him not to touch it, and, ever true to his word, he wouldn’t, even though the effort of his restraint caused him to ball his hands into fists. I could see the hard muscles in his arms pull tight under his skin.

I brushed Dante’s hair away from his face, trying to see where he had been hurt. He seemed fine, but I had seen Zo’s boot hit the locket. I had heard the snap. I feared the wound was internal, somewhere I couldn’t see it. Where I couldn’t fix it.

Zo’s maniacal laughter cut through the sound of my blood roaring through my ears.

Looking up, I saw him lift his boot again, ready to deliver the final, crushing blow.

It felt like everything around me—everything inside me—froze in horror.

And then I saw a blur of movement out of the corner of my eye. Valerie hit the shell with the flat of her hand. A web of cracks appeared beneath her palm, the thin black lines racing away from the epicenter of the blow.

Zo dropped into a crouch, looking up at Valerie in surprise.

“Valerie!” I screamed. Dante groaned in my arms, his skin clammy and cooling fast.

Orlando whipped his head around at my shout and grabbed Valerie, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her away.

“No!” she shouted, fighting to get free. “He isn’t supposed to have the River Policeman’s heart! We have to get it back!”

A crackle of neon-blue energy arced off the curve of the glass, leaping across the distance to Valerie’s hand. She screamed in pain, cradling her hand against her chest. A bright light surrounded her entire body, the glow bleeding over Orlando’s hands. She shook like a leaf on a tree, and she would have fallen if Orlando had not been holding her up.

But it was too late. The damage was done.

The crack zigzagged vertically along the shell, branching out into multiple fragments, each break sounding like an out-of-tune chime.

Zo’s small prison shattered to pieces around him.

“The locket!” Valerie called out. “Take the locket from him. Take it!”

I stood up in a half-crouch, torn between wanting to snatch the locket away from Zo and wanting to stay close by Dante’s side.

Orlando spun Valerie out of his grip and jumped toward Zo, his hands spread and murderous anger in his eyes.

But his hands closed around nothing, and he stumbled to a stop, standing where Zo had been only a moment ago.

Zo had moved too, and faster than ever before. He was gone without even a ripple in the air to mark his passage. He left nothing behind, in fact, except for the echo of his laughter and a small silver locket that had been split in two.

Chapter 15

Orlando bent down and carefully, reverently picked up the two halves of the silver locket from the floor.

Even though Dante’s skin was cold, I was the one shaking uncontrollably. Everything had happened so fast. I could barely keep the sequence of events straight, but that didn’t stop me from replaying the action in my head, looking for where I could have changed something or done something different. But all I saw was the moment when Zo had broken the locket and Dante had fallen to the ground.

I had failed. And now Dante was paying the price for my weakness.

Without looking up, I held out my hand for the locket.

As Orlando placed the pieces in my palm, one of the halves broke again.