Rachel Caine by Prince of Shadows

Author:Prince of Shadows [Shadows, Prince of]
Language: rus
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Caine / Prince of Shadows / 192

agreed to return. They’ll send me on to their own choice of holy order soon. I only am put up

here to provide a plain ground for Juliet’s brilliance.”

She did not sound bitter, I thought, only resigned. Like Mercutio, I was holding to her

hand, but she did not try to pull free. If anything, her fingers tightened on mine, to the point of

pain.

“Can you not try again?” I said. “Slip away, find a place they will not look -- ?”

She shook her head slowly, never looking away. “The arm of my family is long, and

there is no hole into which they will not reach. Best if I do not risk others for my own selfish

purpose. Whatever comes, I will bear it.” She blinked, then, and glanced away. I followed the

look, to Mercutio, who had his head bent to listen to another young girl – a more distant relation,

but still Capulet blood. “Your friend … I know he has been sorely tried, but he seems so greatly

changed from what I remember.”

“What did he say to you?” I was aware of the dance moving behind us, of sharp glances

from some of the older guests toward us; we could not be seen to linger. “Did he – “

“Look after him,” she said, and slipped her hand free of mine. “There’s a darkness in him

that will spill out, if it has not already. Another reason I should withdraw to the peace of my

rooms, and thence to the convent. This is my cousin Juliet’s triumph, after all. I would not wish

to draw from it.”

“Rosaline – “ I said her name, and heard the gentleness in my own voice; I saw the

answering flash in her eyes, and heard the intake of her breath. I took another step to bring us

closer, but I did not touch her. Not again. “God be with you, if I cannot.”

“And with you,” she said. I saw a quick, silver shine of tears over her eyes, quickly

blinked away. “And with you.”

Caine / Prince of Shadows / 193

Then she turned and was gone, weaving her way out of the heady crowd.

I felt cold, suddenly, as if the only source of heat in the room had gone with her, and the

hair on the back of my neck prickled with sudden alarm, for I saw Mercutio had disappeared as

well … gone into the shadows with the tender young Capulet cousin. Mercutio nursed a wicked

and sincere hatred, and there was little he would not do to avenge his lost lover.

Then I saw Romeo.

Juliet Capulet ought, by all rights, to have been on the arm of her suitor Paris, but the

count had gone to greet his more powerful relative, the Prince of Verona, who had arrived with

much flourish in the hall. The disruption had broken apart the dancers, and all eyes were trained

toward the prince and his party, not toward the blushing, inconsequential girl in whose nominal

honor this feast had been devised.

And the girl, small and sweet and looking more child than woman in her gown and mask,

was staring up into my cousin’s face.

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