Free The Golden Spiral by Lisa Mangum

I should mention his kiss, but decided against it. Some things were better kept private.
    Leo frowned. “You were on the bank last night? By yourself?”
    I shook my head. “I wasn’t there exactly. It was more like a dream—”
    “The bank is dangerous. You shouldn’t have been there.”
    “Believe me, I didn’t intend to go.”
    “Something changed on the bank last night. The sky turned black. That’s never happened before.”
    “I know. But what about Dante?” I looked at Leo, feeling frustrated and maybe a little desperate. “He’s not on the bank, he’s not in the river, and he’s not with Zo. Where else could he be?”
    “But if he is trapped in the machine, and the machine is gone . . .” Leo trailed off in thought. “Where is he, exactly?”
    “You don’t know? I thought you knew all about the door and how it worked.”
    “I know a lot, but not everything. This is new territory for me too.”
    “So, what do we do?”
    Leo looked at me with sadness in his eyes. “We’ll have to wait. Until we know more, learn more, there isn’t much else we can do. But we’re not going to leave him, Abby. I promise.”
    I looked down at the ballerina in my hands. I knew how she felt: fragile and alone, teetering on a point. I knew I had made the right choice in letting Dante go, even though it had been a hard choice, but now I wondered if I was partly to blame for the danger he was in. The thought twisted in my heart like a knife.
    “Why did you leave me?” I didn’t mean for the pain I felt to come through so clearly. Once I’d started, though, I couldn’t stop. “You just vanished. Do you know what it’s like to wait for someone who isn’t coming back? It was bad enough to know that Dante was gone, but I was counting on you still being there. Then you were gone too.”
    Leo’s face crumpled. “Ti chiedo perdono, mia donna di luce. Mi dispiace di averti causato pena.”
    “I don’t want your apologies,” I said, recognizing some of the words from Dante’s brief lessons in Italian. “I want an explanation.”
    “Would you believe me if I told you I left to make it easier for you?”
    “Easier? Nothing about this has been easy.”
    Leo exhaled slowly, and the lines around his eyes and mouth seemed to deepen, aging him as he stood there. “You’re the only one who knows my story,” he said quietly, not looking at me. “You know I’ve lived a long life—a life of sacrifice. I don’t say that for sympathy or to make myself into some kind of martyr. I say it because it’s the truth. My life has been a constant series of good-byes. I can settle down in a place for only so long before I have to say good-bye. When I moved here
and built the Dungeon, I did so with the knowledge that
eventually I would have to leave it all behind. I’ve gotten very good at leaving. Maybe too good.”
    He stooped and gathered up a handful of ashes and dust, letting the gray shadows slip through his fingers.
    “When the Dungeon burned, I knew it was time to leave. I couldn’t stay.”
    “But why not? You knew I needed your help.”
    “If I had stayed, there would have been questions. Awkward questions. How would I have explained Dante’s absence? What would I have done about the Dungeon? Rebuilt it? It’s difficult enough to hold down a regular nine-to-five job with my . . . condition. I lost my home. And it’s not like I have family I could stay with.” Leo shook his head. “My life here was over, I could see that clearly.”
    “So where did you go?”
    A ghost of a smile appeared on his weary face. “Nowhere.”
    I drew my eyebrows together in confusion.
    The smile solidified. “I packed up; I told everyone I was moving away. I had to appear to leave, but I never left you, mia donna di luce. I couldn’t.” He looked out over the quiet houses. A soft breeze ruffled his hair. “I stayed on the bank for as long as I could. When I’d come back, I was careful to stay hidden, isolated. I had time;