And now it was gone. No, I had to be honest with myself: Now she was gone.

I heard a sudden sharp cry, and a flurry of footsteps. I heard Friar Lawrence make a frustrated, deep-throated growl, and then the door of the confessional flung open.

Framed in the light from behind, with her cloak spreading wide with her motion, she looked an angel—more an angel than I was ever like to see. She stared at me with wide eyes, and I thought she had no more idea what to say than I, in that moment. We did not need words, I think, though fantasies tumbled through my mind in blurring bursts of color—her hair unbound and heavy as silk in my hands, her lips soft against mine, her breath whispering secrets.

And then I knew, with the fatal misery of a doomed man, that I wanted her, a Capulet, in ways that I had never wanted a woman before—not a hasty, impersonal fumbling in the dark, not the duty of a cold husband with an unfamiliar wife . . . something else, for the sake of passion, and fire, and challenge.

“Go,” I said. “I pray you will be safe.” My voice came out low and gentle, and I had the gift of her smile, for just a moment.

“Go with God, Benvolio,” she said. “Be careful.”

And then Friar Lawrence stepped between us, shook a finger at me in stern remonstrance, and slammed the door on me.

I did not mind. I closed my eyes in the dark and heard her say my name, again and again: Benvolio.

I had never realized how little happiness I had in life until she had shown me distant flickers of what it might appear.

I clung to one foolishly optimistic thought. . . .

She had not said good-bye.

•   •   •

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” I said to Friar Lawrence. He cleared his throat and leaned forward on the other side of the screen. He smelled like garlic and wine, and he needed a bath, but probably found them unholy.

“I’ve told you already, I am not a priest; I may not grant you any forgiveness,” he said. “And by sitting here and pretending to holy orders, I have sins of my own to confess!”

“Be quiet and listen,” I said. “I expect no absolution. I want only a friendly ear.”

“Well, then, you may have it, and right gladly,” he said. “Is it true, then? Are you this legendary Prince of Shadows?”

“Who told you so?”

“The girl, though hardly in so many words. I think she was sad to leave, when she had been lighthearted enough before. . . . Did you take her virtue, boy?”

“What? No!”