Free Prince of Shadows: A Novel of Romeo and Juliet by Rachel Caine

clutched me when I realized the risk he had taken in returning?
    That last glance of Benvolio Montague had shown me too much of what feeling was within him, too. The stark, stunned horror told me that he’d seen my brother, Tybalt, come fast upon me, and that he knew what would come.
    But what he could not know was how often it had come to this before. My brother was—in the parlance of our honey-mouthed aunt—of a high blood, and he often drew it from others—namely, from me. Of late I had begun to fight back, since I had come into a height where it was possible—though strictly forbidden—to do so. I had scored him with my nails more than once, and even bruised him, but never did I hurt him enough to matter.
    I had thought, from the look on Benvolio’s face, that he might risk all to defend me, and it struck me with a deep horror, and also with a traitorous yearning. I had never known anyone to feel overmuch for me, since my father’s death. I had scarce known my mother. I had been exiled from our father’s home with Tybalt, passed from one uncaring set of hands to another until we had come to the chilly splendor of Verona, and this palace built of bones and memories.
    I wished we had never come, and yet I am glad of it, because
he came back.
Benvolio Montague, wearing not his Prince of Shadows mask, but the robe of a postulant brother, trailing like a pet dog behind the sweaty bulk of Friar Lawrence (who is a kind man, for all his many faults). I know not what possessed the good friar to rush here to witness my shame, save that it must have been done at the urging of Benvolio.
    I recognized him even before I spied out those cool green eyes within the hood’s shadow. I think now that I might well recognize him in any disguise he could attempt. And once again, I saw the dark, dangerous impulse in him to help me—an impulse that here in the heart of my violent and blood-soaked family could lead only to his painful death. Thank God and the Virgin that he left meekly, looking at least a little as a penitent young man should, though what might have passed between him and Tybalt, had things gone otherwise, does not bear thinking.
    I write this by the well-banked light of a single candle, in haste, and the paper is smeared with my blood, for the cut in my forehead continues to seep despite the bandage provided by Juliet’s old nurse; I thank the saints that Juliet did not wake to see this.
    I write the words because I know I can never speak them, for my own sake and for that of the Prince of Shadows.
    But I feel no good can come of any of this, however delicious it may seem to keep such a secret.
    And now I burn this paper, and hope—in pagan belief, perhaps—that somehow he will know.

QUARTO
2

R omeo and Mercutio were waiting for me in my room when I regained the safety of the Montague palace. Like Mercutio, I scaled the wall, which was a good deal easier for me than it had been for him, but I had practiced more, and with less wine in my belly. Still, it had been a long and exhausting evening, and I was well weary by the time I climbed over the sill and landed lightly on the carpets, not more than an arm’s length from where Mercutio had sprawled himself loosely in a chair, cradling a goblet that I suspected had been filled more than once. From the angle of it now, it was well emptied.
    It took him at least two breaths to recognize that I was standing at his side. Once he did, he jerked himself upright, cup falling in haste, and threw his arms around me. “Fool!” he said, and roughly pushed me back to stare at my face. “Tybalt did not manage to puncture that wind-bladder you call a stomach, but I may. What manner of devil has gone into you, to do such things for a woman—worse, a
Capulet
?”
    I looked past him to Romeo, who had also gotten to his feet, but somewhat more shyly. There was an uncomfortable light of hero worship in his face. “You survived it,” he said. “
Twice
you entered that cursed