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away!  She seeks to undo the love match that you so wisely orchestrated."
    The alley was at once filled with spreading peacock feathers and the goddess with the terra cotta curls delicately stepped out of hiding.  Her anger was painted on her face as exquisitely as any masterpiece, but she did not reply.
    Faunus pressed, insisting she respond.  "Need you more proof?  From her own hands, you hear her plotting the Capulets against the Montagues while using a mortal man for this destruction."
    Juno turned and paced the narrow cobblestone path.  Finally, she turned and gave her decision.  "I shall wait to see how this game plays out, Faunus, for plotting is a far stretch from action, and wisdom might yet sway her from this path.  The dreams of night are powerful and I must have proof for my own preservation, else I find myself under the scrutiny of eyes who would bore a hole even in my soul.  Patience, Faunus.  Let us see how the pieces fall.  If they fall out of favor, well... it is not the first time a queen shall be taken by a pawn."
    With a swirl once more of feathers, Juno was then gone.
    Faunus looked where she left and promised, "I shall make sure it is so." 

Chapter Seventeen
    F aunus's words troubled Mab with a disquiet she could not shake through the remaining night and even into the day when she faded to nothing.  It stayed with her when she opened her eyes and found herself awake in her world of ice.  Indeed, as the sun set once more and woke again in Verona, the sense of foreboding was enough to make her fear.  Would life be so cruel?  Could life be so unkind?  After so many years alone to give her one who knew her heart and then to take him from her?
    As she drove her hazelnut across the nighttime sky and the silent sleepers below, she knew that even if it meant losing her world to Faunus, she could not allow Mercutio to be her champion.  She would keep him far from these games of the gods.  She would hide him from the fates and let him live as if never knowing her touch. 
    But she thought back to his nightmares of stone and horror.  She knew this would be where his dreams would live without her there to shift their forms.  Could she abandon her love?  Was it any less cruel to leave him unarmed to fend against the darkness of his mind?  She did not know the difference between selfish want and selfless longings anymore.  She did not know how to give him the happiest days when choosing between two such terrible paths.
    She rested her chariot on Mercutio's windowsill knowing that the choice would soon no longer be hers to give.  And so, bravely, she stepped into his room knowing she must say goodbye.
    She rested beneath the bower of the tree, a weeping willow which kissed the earth.  And there drew Mercutio.  He wiped the heat of the day from his brow and stepped into the blessed cool of the shadows.  He knelt at her feet, throwing himself upon the spongy ground.
    "You vanquished the night, my Mab.  Look upon this glorious sun!" he laughed.  "Upon this summer's day, I am so warm."
    "And by these shadows that I live within, I am so cold," she replied.
    "Cold from the heat?" he said reaching for her, "My love, let me warm you through and through."
    A flock of ravens crossed the sky.
    "No arms can chase away this chill," she replied, knowing what she must do, all the while praying for some sort of heavenly intercession to prevent her from doing it.
    "But what of the arms of he who is more than man?  Who has tasted the fruits of the other realms and sipped from the nectar of the gods?  What of he who is man but is more so, too?  Does he perhaps hold the heat to warm you?"  He wrapped himself around her now, his heart beating in fast rhythm against her skill. 
    The taste of life, of human life, was intoxicating, of resting here with another instead of trapped alone. 
    No, she thought.  She must leave this one to bear out his days in joy without her, and in doing so, save him.  She