“They are dead,” I said. “Romeo and Juliet. Both dead. Count Paris, my aunt, Mercutio’s father, all dead this night. Can we not find some comfort in all this?”

“Comfort in each other’s bodies, heedless of consequence. And how will it end?” she asked me. “With poison? Daggers? A rope for you and a cellar-dug grave for me when my uncle rages at my betrayal? There is no peace in it, Ben. Not until the curse is done. It must be broken. We must break it.”

“How?” I sank down to my haunches, resting against the solid bulk of the door, and my cheek pillowed against its hard surface as I gazed within at that tiny vision of her face. I felt hot, angry, desperate, and infinitely afraid—afraid of what I might do, equally afraid of not heeding my desires. “I have no way to find the rosary—”

“What rosary?”

I realized that she had not heard the witch’s confession—nor had I told her all of it. I had supposed she knew, since she had been at the priest’s house, but she had been looking not for the rosary, but for Mercutio’s diary—a diary I had already burned.

She did not know.

“The curse,” I said. “It is in three parts. One on Mercutio’s flesh, now broken. One in his own hand, in blood, in his diary. And the third placed upon a rosary that he took from his dead lover’s grave. I thought it was with the church, but I did not find it there.”

“A rosary,” she repeated, and there was something dull and strange in her voice. “I had a gift of a rosary, sent here to me. It came to me in secret, the way Romeo once delivered his love notes. I thought it was only another of his gestures.”

“Where is it?” My heart leaped within me, but at the same time, a terrible dark urgency was rising. The curse knew its danger, and the unreasoning fever increased, demanding that I batter down the door, shatter all resistance, do whatever must be done to be with the one I loved . . . if love this was. “Rosaline! Where is it?”

“I—I gave it away,” she whispered. “Ah, God, God, I cannot bear this, Ben; my soul cries out for you and I die every minute we are apart. . . .” Her voice grew softer, because she had moved. I peered through the keyhole and saw her crawling toward the key.

She would let me in. I had only to wait. Part of me rejoiced in unholy abandon, and part of me despaired, because I would never have the strength to stop. If Rosaline fell, I would fall with her, and we would both burn.

“Rosaline,” I said. Her hand was on it now, trembling with eagerness to pluck it from the stones. “Rosaline, in God’s holy name, where is it?”