The servant had a good voice for speaking, deep and authoritative, and he told those of us still lingering that the filthy sodomite who’d been justly hanged had waylaid the heir of Ordelaffi, but that Mercutio had resisted him and vengeance had been exacted for the crime, and everyone must attest that justice had been done.

It was a thin enough fiction, but it would be accepted. Blood had been spilled, and all Christians knew that blood washed away sin. Mercutio’s reputation would be forever tarnished, and I knew that they’d marry him off quickly to his unwanted bride, to still any rumors.

But they’d have to wait until he was healed enough to stand on his own.

It took three of the servants to haul Mercutio up and force him on his way, but not because of resistance; all the fight was out of him, and only heavy despair remained. There were too many between us and him, and there was nothing we could do for him now. But it was a sickening, bitter horror to watch him dragged away, knowing how alone he would be.

The Ordelaffi made it clear that all should leave, and left Tomasso’s body to swing and twist in the morning breeze. I drew Romeo with me uphill to the gates, and took him to the side until the last of the family’s retainers were gone.

“We should cut him down,” Romeo said, wiping the tears from his face. “Mercutio wouldn’t leave him.”

“Mercutio has no say in it,” I said, “and they’ll be watching to see who dares come next. If we go ourselves, it’ll be the end of us. Go get Friar Lawrence. They can’t argue with the Church claiming the dead.”

He left, then, glad of something physical to do with his anger and grief. I sank down to a crouching position against the wall and breathed, just breathed, until some of my sick fury began to subside into something more manageable.

I thought I’d known the depths of cruelty men hid, but this . . . this was another thing entire. I’d known all our lives that we were fragile, easily punctured flesh, but seeing the boy choke on that noose, seeing the laughter and jeers from those who’d killed him . . . hearing the thumps as rocks pelted his dying body . . . that had shattered something within me, something I did not know was so precious.

I hadn’t known I had innocence left in me until I’d felt it die.

I ached, suddenly and wearily, to see Rosaline, to take comfort in her warm smile, her dark eyes. But I knew that she would ask me the hardest question of all: Why did you not help?

I hated myself, as much as I hated any of the men on that rope.

Because I was just as much to blame.