Veronica still lived, by some evil miracle; my mother’s trembling hands touched the hilt of the dagger in her breast, then drew back, then touched again. Around us, voices cried for surgeons, but no surgeon could physick her back to life. She was dead, yet still suffering.

“Benvolio,” she said, and her voice was weak and small and lost. “Benvolio, my dress, my dress is stained—”

I took her hand in mine and knelt beside her. “Hush now; it will be cleaned. ’Tis not so bad as that.” I put gentle fingers on her cheek. She wept, though I am not sure she knew of it. It made her look so much like a frightened child. “Rest awhile now. The surgeon is coming.”

“That boy,” she said, and squeezed my hand tightly for a moment. “Wretched Capulet boy, did you see him? I only meant to frighten him away; I never thought he’d strike me. He was pretty. So pretty. I thought— Do you hate me so much, Benvolio?”

“No,” I said softly. My hate was dying with her. “You are my sister, Veronica.”

“I should not have betrayed your friend,” she whispered, and more tears rolled from the far corners of her eyes, wetting the hair above her ears and the fabric of her headdress, with all its precious pearls. “I did it for no reason, except to show I could, that I had power over another. . . . It was cruel of me. . . .”

“Hush. Mercutio is gone. He aches no longer.”

“Then I will meet him soon, and he will accuse me in the eyes of God,” she said, and gripped my hand so fiercely I thought bones would break. “It feels like a curse on us; don’t you think? For what I did. I should have been better, Ben, I should have— Please say you love me, for pity’s sake, say—”

“I love you,” I said, but it was too late; her last breath fled, and her face relaxed its tension. Her eyes looked toward heaven, but not with anticipation—rather with dread. Young as she’d been, my sister well knew her sins, and how grievous they were.

Friar Lawrence came with the surgeons, and my sister received last rites dead on the bloody cobbles, twenty steps from the door of the church where her withered old bridegroom waited in vain for his vows and his bridal rights. I could hear his querulous voice raised in protest, demanding satisfaction of my uncle. And my uncle, ever practical, demanding return of the dowry.

I hated Capulets and Montagues alike in that weary moment, and all I could think of was the fevered peace I’d felt in Rosaline’s arms, and on her lips.

But if that had been foolish yesterday, today it was impossible.

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