“For shame, I’ll make you quiet,” his uncle replied, and the threat was plain in his voice. “Go to, and cheerfully.”

It was a dismissal, and Tybalt took it as such, though he looked straight murder upon my cousin Romeo, and I knew very well that this would not end with the eldest son of Capulet being sent away without his supper. He pushed his way through the crowd, leaving in the same direction as his sister but with a good deal less grace.

I watched, in outright horror, as Romeo drew the Capulet girl off behind the shadow of a pillar, and their hands entwined in love knots, and their lips met first softly, then more strongly. A Capulet girl would be well ruined tonight, without doubt, but I had not looked to find it here, and from the earnest hands of my cousin.

I was obscurely relieved to see the fat old nurse of the Capulets waddle over to spoil the moment, sending Juliet off to attend her mother, and staying a moment to answer eager questions from my cousin before shaking him off like dust.

I made my way to him, and marked well the pallor of his face, the dark and shocked look of his eyes.

“She is a Capulet,” he said; I do not think he said it to me, more to himself. “My life is my foe’s debt.”

“We must begone,” I said, and grasped his elbow to lead him out. “The sport is over.” If sport it had ever really been. I searched the room for Mercutio, and saw him emerging from an alcove. He spied us, and arrowed our direction, pausing to deliver mocking bows to Capulets along the way.

Capulet himself rose to block us from the exit. His eyes were bitter and black, but his tone had a honeyed, poisoned sweetness. “Gentlemen, do not prepare to be gone just yet; will you not have food from our feast?”

“We’ve had our fill, gentle Capulet,” Mercutio said, and gave him his very deepest, most mocking bow. “Our thanks to you.”

Capulet’s smile curdled like sour milk, and he nodded. “I thank you all; I thank you, honest gentlemen. Good night.” He called for torches to see us home, and as if our departure were a signal, many others began to offer their good-byes as well.

Romeo, like Lot’s wife, could not but stare back with pure and aching fascination while I drew him onward, and when I glanced as well I saw the Capulet girl Juliet straining to follow us, against all sense and decorum, and her nurse firmly anchoring her in place.

I felt the same irresistible pull through my cousin’s flesh, trying to draw him back to her. It was more than infatuation, more than love.

It was something darker than that, and with a darker end.

“I must turn back,” he said, as soon as we had him outside in the street. The chill of the night bit hard after the overheated gaiety of the feast, and I wrapped my cloak tighter around my shoulders as I fought to keep hold of him. “Benvolio, I must go back!”

Mercutio threw his own arm over Romeo’s shoulders and steered him firmly away from the Capulet palace, and toward our own safer territory. “Madness,” he said, and laughed to rub knuckles over Romeo’s curls. “Give him a taste of his fair Rosaline and he’s hungry all over again. There’s nothing so fair about that wench, or any.”

Romeo began to hotly fire back, but then withheld his choler, and I realized why almost at the same moment: Mercutio, it seemed, had missed Romeo’s encounter with Juliet, and therefore thought his longing was for his obsession of this morning. But no man who’d gazed so hotly on a girl as Romeo had on Juliet could still harbor feelings for another; he’d forgotten Rosaline in the second he’d fixed eyes on her younger cousin.

For some obscure reason, I did not wish to tell Mercutio of it, and I could see that Romeo was likewise reluctant.

“Mayhap you’re right,” I said, drawing the focus from Romeo’s sudden silence. “Home with us, then. We’ve scored a coup this night; Capulet had to swallow their pride and allow us to put our feet beneath their table. Grandmother will be well pleased with that.”

“I put my feet beneath more than their table,” Mercutio said, and gave me a wild, sharp grin like the edge of a dagger. “She’ll be better pleased than you know.”

I felt a surge of anger, of dislike, and looked away from him. He was not, I thought, the friend I had known for so long. He was whole without, and ruined within, twisted and burned and blackened, and I mourned for him, because the Mercutio I had loved died on a rope months ago.

“Home,” I said, under my breath. “Home and safe.”

Though I had the disquieting notion that what had just occurred would follow us no matter how far we ran, and that safety would never again be ours.

FROM THE DIARY OF VERONICA MONTAGUE, BURNED UPON ORDERS OF LADY MONTAGUE

My brother, Ben, has done everything possible to avoid me these past months, since the death of the pervert outside the city wall; God wills that these vile, unnatural sinners be condemned and cast out, and whatever Benvolio believes (heretic that he is), I believe that I did God’s business in whispering of the assignation—still, best the blame fall on the Capulet whore, for safety’s sake, for Mercutio makes a bad enemy. I had thought he would swing alongside, but his father was too merciful, and now I must beware constantly of his wrath. ’Tis lucky I thought to swing the guilt toward our enemies when I did.

Benvolio knows the truth, and hates me as much as a brother might hate a sister, but I do not think he would break ranks to betray me to his friend. I keep a watchful eye, nonetheless.

The banns have been cried, and my marriage day approaches! Would that I could marry a young and virile man, but Lord Enfeebled is still rich, and I will have wealth and position enough to move among the finest company. God grant that he expires soon, or I will have to visit that witch they whisper of in town to procure something to speed him on his way. My old nurse says that many a gouty old goat of a husband has been hurried to paradise; I think it more likely they have been shown the straight path to the devil’s own bedchamber.

When I am wedded, for safety’s sake, I will put it about that Benvolio and Mercutio are . . . more than friends. It will be easily believed, and this time, both with pay with their lives; even the softhearted prince will see that it must be done. All that I need do is purchase some commoner witnesses to swear they glimpsed such unnatural practices, and any risk from my brother will be finished.

But first, the wedding. I have insisted upon the finest quality for the feast, as befits a woman with such a well-endowed purse, and I am inviting the better half of Verona to celebrate with me. My mother is pinch-faced about the expense, but she’s ever treated me as her lesser child; I will see she pays me some due before I leave her maternal embrace.

’Tis a pity that men run the world. I was born to be a prince.

I suppose I will settle for marrying one, when this old fool is dead.

Weeks passed.

The mood between our houses turned ever darker. Hatred grew on hatred, quickly and violently, for slights both real and imagined. No edict from the prince could stop it from coming to blood. First, a distant Capulet cousin was knifed in the street by someone not even allied to our house, yet it was cried about on Montague; next, a Montague servant was set upon and beaten to death while on an errand for my aunt, and this was—possibly unfairly—set at the Capulets’ door.

And as untimely as ever, my sister’s wedding approached at the speed of a runaway horse, and with as much decorum; Veronica had turned shrill and moody, and nothing was good enough, not even the fit or fabric of the gown. My mother was tight-lipped on the subject, but my uncle was not so circumspect; he complained, loudly and often, of the lavish expense in ridding himself of the unwanted burden of a niece. Whatever he had cheated from her bridegroom would hardly cover the cost, though we all secretly rejoiced that she would soon be gone.

I came around the corner from my apartments on a bright Thursday morning, with the Angelus bell’s chime still hanging in the air, and found Veronica weeping on a bench in the garden. She was sitting uncovered in the sun, which was strange to see—she always claimed that sun ruined a woman’s skin, and yet here she was, bathed in the glow, disheveled and red eyed, with a single maid hovering anxiously nearby to catch the wet kerchiefs as Veronica finished with them. The maid had not escaped my sister’s ill temper, I saw; there was a red mark on her cheek in the shape of a plump small hand. Perhaps she’d not brought enough kerchiefs to soak up Veronica’s tears.

I tried to move past without incident, but Veronica looked up and in a choked, watery voice, whispered, “Benvolio? Please . . .”

I could not remember a time she had ever used such a word, and so I paused, to gaze down at her. I did not feel any sympathy. Whatever troubles she suffered, she had more than earned them, and I had not forgotten our filthy family secret. The blood that was on her dainty hands had rubbed off on mine, and I would never forgive her for that.

“What?” I asked. It sounded abrupt, but I did not care, not at all.

She burst into tears again, this time (I was sure) feigning grief. I was tempted to walk on, but the maid sent me a beseeching look, and since I pitied her mightily for her role in soothing Veronica, I sighed and sank down on the bench next to my sister. “What?” I asked again, more gently.

“Nothing’s as I thought it would be,” she said, and muffled her words against the kerchief. “The dress is wretched, Benvolio, our uncle has imposed such a restraint on it that it won’t flatter me, and the feast—why, there’s hardly a feast at all! It’s the one day when I can show my quality to the women of Verona, and he’s making me hardly better than a common fishwife. . . . How can I rise in esteem with such a beginning?”

Not so much a female complaint as a problem of ambition meeting its limits, then. “It’s of no matter,” I said. “You bring the family blood of Montague, and your husband is rich enough. Society will embrace you as a woman of quality, Veronica.” God help society, but what I said was true. “Now stop your tears. It ill becomes a woman grown to weep like a spoiled child.”

She sent me a murderous glare through swollen lids, but she wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and threw the soiled kerchief to her attendant. Then she stood up, smoothed her skirts and patted her hair (none of which made any difference to the red mottling on her tearstained face), and took in a deep, trembling breath. “You are acid and vinegar, brother dear, but at least you are bracing. Tell me, then, how fares your friend Mercutio?”