She nodded to me, and then left, proud and unbowed by all that fate had heaped upon her. There was something to admire in my mother, something more than her carefully lived life. She knew tragedy with an intimacy that was almost obscene, and yet it had left her unbroken.

I stood up and threw off the sheet. Balthasar caught it deftly and folded it, and said, “No house colors, then, sir?”

“No house colors,” I agreed. “It’s time to keep to the shadows.”

•   •   •

I scouted the night as the Prince of Shadows, all in gray, blending with the stones and shades.

I thought to find evidence of Romeo’s departure, but instead, and disquietingly, I heard tavern tales of my cousin being seen in the streets of Verona after his hour had passed—not riding hard for the city gates, either, nor buying supplies for his departure. He’d been seen moving with stealth in streets that I knew bordered the Capulet house—a way I knew well, as I’d watched him run it not so long ago, in darkness.

It came to me then, with a cold slap, that he was not intending to leave Verona at all. He meant to finish his marriage vows, tonight, with Juliet Capulet.

In her bed. Within Capulet’s walls.

That made cold sense; she was a prisoner there, rarely seen without the palazzo, and it had been a miracle she’d been allowed out to make her confession to Friar Lawrence today—even if it had been no confession at all, but a marriage. Romeo must go to her, if he wished to have his marriage rights.

But to do such a thing tonight, with his head in the noose—it defied all belief. Was this love, to betray one’s family, and to defy certain death? To risk the life of the one you adored? It seemed less love to me than a fever, a sickness burning away caution and good sense.

But perhaps I’d never really loved at all.

The heat had finally broken with a sharp snap, and clouds boiled the skies overhead. Winds stirred the torrents of darkness, and lightning seared and thunder rumbled. It covered any sound of my light-footed passage over roof tiles as I took to the heights, but the risk for me was worse. I felt the sizzling fury in the air, and any fool knew that lightning struck down those who stood tallest in its way. That was dangerous enough, but with the wind came the fat, still-hot drops of rain . . . a patter first, and then a torrent, making slick the tiles and bidding fair to send me tumbling. I lost my balance twice, and caught onto the leaded roof peaks in time to stop my slide. Once, as I neared the Capulets’ quarter, a white-hot bolt of God’s purest fury hit the top of the Lamberti Tower, and rattled the tiles under my feet. I heard the muffled cries and prayers of those in the house on whose roof I stood; someone clapped shut a window’s wooden doors.