Rachel Caine: Prince of Shadows

The mask might as well have been made of air. I felt utterly at a loss now. . . . What was there to do? Beat her? Threaten her? Already, I knew that Rosaline was not a woman to be intimidated, though she was no older than I was. Killing her was out of the question. I’d not kill a woman in any case, but it was a moot point; she held the dagger. Competently.

“As a formal introduction, I suppose it must serve,” I finally said, and bowed again. “Lady Rosaline.”

“Forgive me if I don’t offer my hand to be kissed,” she said. “Poetry? That awful drivel that Romeo has been sending me, I assume. I was hoping someone would have the sense to stop him.”

“As bad as that?”

“Your cousin reads by rote and cannot spell,” she said. “But his enthusiasm, at least, seems genuine.”

“Then there is no cause to keep it,” I said. “Give me the papers and I’ll be on my way.”

“I burned them,” she said, and tossed her loose dark hair over her shoulders as I frowned. “Do you think me a blockhead? Had anyone discovered I had made such nonsense a home, I’d have been punished, and poor love-struck Romeo hunted down and cut to pieces by my brother. He doesn’t deserve that. He’s just a foolish boy.”

I wasn’t used to women like this—unsentimental, brisk, brilliantly foresighted. I’d thought that a bookish aging virgin would have hoarded love poems to greedily warm her in the cold, but Rosaline clearly held her own source of heat. She radiated it like a bonfire, and beside it I felt very, very cold.

I cleared my throat, because I realized that I was staring like a boy in a brothel. “Your word on it?”

She smiled, just a little. “I am a Capulet, sir. Why would you believe my word?”

“Why indeed, but I think I would. If you gave it.”

“Then you have it.”

“Thank you,” I said. My voice was not quite steady, but her hand on the dagger was. “I believe our business is done, lady.”

“As done as may be,” she agreed. “Can you exit the grounds in safety?”

“I’m the Prince of Shadows,” I said, and smiled. “I can exit hell itself without a twitch of the devil’s tail.”

“You’re very close to meeting him.” She was not smiling, not even a hint of it now. Her eyes held shadows. “There is a racket of singing out in the street on the other side of the house. Take advantage of your distraction while you still may. The guards will be back patrolling in force soon enough, and I cannot risk myself to save you. You understand this.”

I nodded thanks to her, and slowly backed away toward the balcony window. Next to my left hand was the bookcase, and at the last instant, I pulled a book from it—the slender volume she had been reading when first I’d seen her. Rosaline gave a surprised gasp and lunged forward, but she was too late.

“Something to remember you by,” I said, and held it up as I backed onto the balcony. She might scream now, betray me to my death; I couldn’t tell her intentions, and I didn’t care to guess. I jammed the small volume into my doublet and swung out onto the trellis, climbing down with as much silence and speed as might be into the shadows cast by the balcony, then paused to take stock of the garden below.

Rosaline ventured onto the balcony in pursuit, and she leaned over, looking directly down at me. She said nothing, and neither did I, but there was . . . something exchanged, after all.

On a sudden and probably stupid impulse, I reached up and pulled up the mask. I needed her to see my face.

And she smiled fully this time. It was wary and cool, but I felt an odd, heated jump in my veins even so.

“A fair exchange,” she whispered. “Now you should go. Quickly.”

I could hear Mercutio and Romeo shouting drunkenly out in the street; they’d have drawn all the attention of the guards, but it wouldn’t last long. I kicked away from the wall, mindful of the flower bed below, and dropped the last ten feet into the soft garden grass. Gaining my feet, I sprinted for the door through which I’d entered.

At the last moment, I spotted the guard there, examining the locks, and veered sharply away behind a bush’s thorny protection. Upon her balcony, Rosaline was watching with tense interest, hands gripping the stone hard. I could almost believe she was afraid for me.

Almost.

Only one way out, then: up. I had seconds, at most, before the guard left the door and began a more aggressive search of the grounds, so I launched myself onto the wall and climbed fast. I fought for handholds as I swarmed up the wall, and achieved the sticky ivy-covered top.

Knives. I remembered at the last possible second as I reached out, and snatched my fingers back from the sharp edges. I was pinned on the wall, unable to go forward.

No, there was a way after all. The craftsmen who had embedded these deadly traps in the top of the wall had cheated the Capulets, just a little—they had left off where the ivy flourished near the corner. It was impossible to spot from the ground, but here at eye level I clearly saw the opening.

I rolled into it, gasping for breath, and balanced there as I looked back.

Rosaline was still there, watching me. I raised my hand to her, and she nodded.

And then a shadow grabbed her and dragged her back, off balance, into her room. A tall, male shadow. I saw the flash of an upraised fist, heard the smack of its landing, and her surprised cry, and then Tybalt Capulet came out to lean over the balcony’s railing. He gripped the balustrade with both hands, and gazed down tensely into the garden. “Guards!” he snapped. “Idiots, pay attention; someone’s been here! I heard my sister talking to him, and I want him found! Immediately!” He spun, slapping the curtains aside with such force they caught on an edge of the doorway, leaving me a clear view into the room.

A clear view of Tybalt advancing on Rosaline, grabbing her arm and twisting it until she cried out. “Was it him?” he shouted, and raised his fist. “Was it that damned thief?” She said nothing, which earned her an openhanded slap hard enough to leave a bloodred imprint on her fair skin. “I found his boot prints below your balcony last time, you jade. You helped him stain the Capulet name. What’s he here to steal this time, your maidenhead? Are you fallen so low?”

She had been implicated in my last robbery. I felt stunned and stupid for not realizing she would be, when I’d left such obvious trace beneath her balcony, and I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter, that she was a Capulet by birth, and the sworn enemy of my house. The blood that ran through her veins was the same as in Tybalt’s. Her father had killed mine, long ago.

It didn’t sound as convincing as it should have done.

I saw her looking over Tybalt’s shoulder, and her eyes grew wider as she realized I was foolishly lingering atop the wall. I could almost read the angry message in them. Go, fool. And she was right.

I sucked in a deep breath, tucked the book tighter into my doublet, and rolled off the edge, into the shadows.

I landed on my feet, knees flexed, and hardly paused to wince at the impact before I was running fast and light to the street that curved around the palace. I caught sight of Mercutio and Romeo running toward me, chased by a group of Capulet bravos no longer entertained by their antics, and darted the other way, slowing to allow them to catch up. Romeo, no great lover of exertion, was already out of breath, but laughing all the same in hitching gasps. “Did you . . . get the—”

“They are destroyed,” I said tersely, saving my breath for the run. My mind was not, as I’d expected, full of triumph and elation; it was replaying the determined, grim expression on Rosaline’s face. That was the look of a woman who knew pain was coming, or worse. “I swear if you write more I will break your arm.”