Such Sweet Sorrow by Jenny Trout Page B

with gold. “Don’t be stupid, of course I know! I’ve walked the same way every day with my nurse, since I was a child. Down the Via Palermo, across the bridge, unless it’s market day, then we take the via Francessa…”
    As she spoke, a troubled veil fell over her features. “But no…that seems so wrong.”
    He’d thought that facing her and admitting to his part in her cousin’s death would be the most difficult conversation of their lives. He could never have imagined this one.
    “My love. My heart,” he began, taking one of her hands in his and squeezing it tightly between them. “Do you remember Tybalt?”
    “My cousin?” the smile returned, slightly dimmed, no less brilliant in Romeo’s eyes. Then it froze, all the beauty turning to sadness. “But he’s dead. Isn’t he dead?”
    “Yes. He is dead. For that I am so terribly, terribly sorry.” He waited for some indication that she remembered the circumstances of her beloved cousin’s demise, but she only looked more confused. He had to continue. “You remember how it happened?”
    “You killed him.”
    He had hoped to never again see the horror in her expression that he had seen that awful night. He’d thought nothing could ever hurt him so.
    “Is that why you’re in hell with me?”
    He’d been so wrong.
    “Walk with me, Juliet,” he said, his throat parched and dry. “We have much to discuss.”

Chapter Eight
    “So this place is not hell, then?” Juliet’s voice held a plaintive mixture of terror and disbelief that she didn’t like the sound of. But everything he’d told her as they’d walked through the darkness had muddled her head. Valkyrie? Corpseways? A Danish prince? It had sounded like the ravings of a maniac. “It’s as though I’ve awoken from a dream into a nightmare.”
    No, more than that, she felt as though she’d woken from death, into hell, no matter what Romeo might have called it.
    His hand found her sleeve, then her fingers, and he squeezed them to reassure her. At least, she thought it must be Romeo. He looked so different than she remembered. He looked older, gaunt. His hair was shorn close to his scalp, and silver threads jabbed up here and there, like short needles. Had the world beyond the grave done this to him? He’d been all of seventeen years old when they’d met, two years older than she…how long had passed since then?
    “I still can’t believe you’re real,” she admitted, reaching out one had to touch his pale, drawn face.
    He flinched from her touch, her fingertips managing only to graze his cheek. “Come on. Our work is not half yet done.”
    “Who is this that we’re looking for?” she asked, trailing along in the darkness. She supposed it was rather silly to object to finding this friend of his. After all, she was dead; there was precious little for her to spend her time on. But some of her happiest times had been alone with Romeo, and now they were alone together, possibly for eternity. Did he not see it for the paradise it was? Why would he wish to fetch someone to share it with them?
    “Hamlet. He’s the prince of Denmark, actually.” A flush rose to Romeo’s cheeks, and for a moment he reminded her of the youth he’d been when they’d first met. “He came with me. He didn’t want to. If there is any chance he might still be alive, we must find him. Otherwise, we may never get back.”
    “Get back?” To the racks, and the cold, howling chasm she’d been captive in?
    “To Midgard. The real world.” He paused, looking this way and that in the darkness, but there was as much nothing on either side of them as there was ahead and behind. “Home.”
    Return to the real world? The thought made Juliet doubtful and sick. Every moment she remained in the afterlife, she felt more a part of it. Being dead had only just begun to feel right. Ridiculous as she knew it would seem to him, death seemed comfortable and safe in comparison to the haphazard order of living.
    “I don’t