Such Sweet Sorrow **Advanced Reader's Copy only. Not for resale or distribution**

by Jenny Trout

  “That’s a comfort, isn’t it?” he muttered to himself, then called again, “Hamlet?”

  The voice replied again, just Romeo’s name, and he held his sword at the ready as he navigated down the row of burned trees. He thought he saw a flash of red in the gaps of the trees, but when he turned his head to track it, the color was gone. Again, the mysterious voice called his name.

  “Show yourself, demon!” he shouted. “I have seen too much already to fear mine own name!”

  “Romeo.”

  The voice came from behind him this time, and he whirled to face his tormentor. What he saw made his blood run cold as ice, cold as the saltwater wind that had blown about the sirens.

  Tybalt stood before him, hale and healthy as the day he’d died. His doublet and breeches were red, like the blood that had spilled from him when Romeo had avenged Mercutio’s death.

  “You’re dead,” Romeo said. The fear that gripped his throat almost cut off his denial. “I killed you myself.”

  “I remember.” Tybalt’s dark eyes were frozen with hate. Romeo saw the reflection of purple lightning in them.

  “You’re not real.” Though Romeo believed it to his bones, he still took a step back as Tybalt came forward. So many things in this place had been unreal, he could not accept that this was truly Tybalt. But the man had a sword strapped to his belt, a glittering gold version of the simple, efficient weapon he’d used to dispatch Mercutio and so many other friends Romeo had lost. Too many, for his young years.

  “You killed me, Romeo,” Tybalt said, pushing back the hood of the short cloak he wore. “You took me from my family, my sweet cousin. You harmed her with my death. No wonder she cannot love you.”

  “I gave up my life for her.” Romeo couldn’t stop himself arguing with the phantom before him.

  “You tried, and you failed. You could no sooner end yourself than you could protect Mercutio.” Tybalt drew his blade and slashed at the air.

  Romeo hated that he flinched. If any of his fellows in Verona had accused him of fearing this Capulet scum, he would have demanded satisfaction. The Prince of Cats was nothing but a kitten, he would scoff to them, but he’d often feared that tensions between their families would eventually force a serious confrontation. Romeo had seen Tybalt duel before, knew he was skilled and brutal. The night Romeo had slain him, it hadn’t been luck or skill that had allowed Romeo to gain the upper hand, but rage. Pure rage at the death of his best friend.

  He had rage in him again.

  “I don’t know who you are,” Romeo began, dropping his hand from his blade. “But you have made a grievous error.”

  Tybalt stopped in his slow, stalking pursuit.

  “You took the one thing from me that made me want to go on living.” Romeo held up his hands. “There is nothing else for me to lose. I don’t care if you slay me.”

  Tybalt threw his head back and laughed. “I never took her from you. You ruined everything on your own. You killed your wife’s kinsman. You left the city without her. She drank the potion because you abandoned her.”

  “I am not solely responsible for the foul deeds that took place in Verona,” Romeo said calmly. “There was more at work than simple murder.”

  “If your conscience is so clear, you will kill me again.” Tybalt took another step, his blade at the ready.

  “I won’t. You aren’t Tybalt. You’re some shade sent to torment me, to test me for your own sick amusement. I won’t be tested. I refuse. The game is over. You have won, now take your revenge if you must. For if I cannot be with Juliet, if I am condemned to walk this bleak and horrible place alone for eternity, I would rather you slay me and send me to Sheol, where I can sleep without dreaming or remembering her face.”

  Tybalt roared, raised his sword, and rushed at Romeo.

  He didn’t know what would happen to him if the false Tybalt killed him. He would likely die, and find himself in some other hellish part of the Afterjord. But he held out hope, slim though it was, that it could be different. That he might wake in a true paradise, free from the pain and fatigue of his long journey on earth and the long journey that followed.

  The blow never came. As the point of Tybalt’s sword touched Romeo’s doublet, the vision crumbled. In the space the false Tybalt had stood in, three wrinkled and weathered faces peered at Romeo.

  It took him a moment to discern that they were three different old women standing close together, and not one terrifying shapeless blob with three heads. That he had guessed the latter first seemed only natural, after all he had seen.

  “You wouldn’t fight,” the crone in the middle snapped, her sour expression folding her toothless mouth comically inward.

  “I knew it wasn’t Tybalt.” Romeo could not help but imagine their faces as rotting fruit. On the left, a long, unfortunate grape withered by the sun. To the right, a mushy plum. In the center, a decaying apple with wormholes for eyes and speckles from orchard parasites.

  It was that one who raised her hand and pointed accusingly at him now. “Would happier not it make Romeo to see cruel Tybalt again laid low?”

  “It would have made me dead. I am not the man who killed Tybalt. Not anymore.” He looked them over calmly. “Your manner of speaking is strange.”

  “Stranger than thy manner and dress?” the one resembling a raisin snapped.

  “Respect the sisters of the Wyrd, thou foolish mortal,” plum face added. “For thou knowest us beyond thy recognition of our countenance.”

  “If I had met three terrifying crones before, I would surely have remembered, regardless of what disguises you might have worn.” He cocked his head. “How do I know you’re not just a vision, like Tybalt was, sent here to terrify me?”

  “The fearsome power spun into our thread sews together souls both living and dead.” the middle one warned. “From no vision born of earthly doubt could spring so true a hold upon man’s mortality.”

  One of them held up a skein of rather plain looking thread, and turned it this way and that before her.

  “What are you going to do, sew me to death?” He shook his head. “I have seen far too much in the last few hours to fear a spool of thread.”

  “I told you he’d be too ignorant to think in verse. Don’t waste them on him,” plum-face harrumphed.

  “This is the thread of mortal life, the thread of the universe. All that is and ever will be,” the raisin said, in a voice dry as old bones on the floor of a tomb.

  “You’re the Fortunes, then?” That piqued Romeo’s interest. “You can see what will happen? Undo what has already taken place?”

  “No one can change the past,” the one the in the center said. “My sisters and I are in charge of maintaining the balance of the universe. Not destroying it.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Veroandi,” snapped raisin face.

  “Skuld,” replied the plum.

  In the center, the middle one drew herself up. Her saggy face was full of mean pride. “Wyrd. We are the Norns, boy. We hold your fate in our hands. So you’d better start treating us with some respect.”

  …

  Juliet woke beneath a black sky.

  No, not a sky. A ceiling.

  She sat up, wincing at a pain in her head. Pain. She half-laughed, reaching cautiously to touch. She hadn’t felt pain in such a long time, she’d almost missed it.

  Beneath her fingers, her hair was brushed and bound up, sleek against her skull. Ringlets cascaded down her back. She looked at her gown, and her arm dropped to her lap. Her eyes followed the long sleeve of black velvet, from its wide, pointed wrist to where it narrowed into a sheath of fabric tight around her elbow.

  Raising her gaze, she saw her reflection, a beautiful, young woman sitting in a pool of black velvet. She got to her feet, took a few staggering steps. The dress was accented with white, and she matched the chessboard floor beneath the slippers on her feet.

  The walls all around were mirrored. Juliet turned in a slow circle, taking in the room a
round her. When she caught a glimpse of blond hair in one of the mirrors, she gasped. Dressed in black and white as well, Hamlet blended into the floor. She was grateful she hadn’t trod upon him.

  Careful of the slippery marble beneath her delicate heels, she went quickly to his side. She sank down beside him in a rustle of velvet, leaned over and slapped his cheek. “Wake up. Wake up, your highness!”

  She wondered if slapping him would rouse him. Probably not, so it wasn’t worth the attempt. Romeo might have taken some pleasure out of it, though.

  The prince’s eyes slowly opened—thank goodness!—and he blinked as he took in his surroundings.

  “Where are we?” He raised an arm to examine the white and black doublet he inexplicably wore. “Who changed our clothes?”

  “The last thing I remember, I was rolling down a hill, hoping you hadn’t been killed in the fall.” She shook her head. “What was wrong with you? We needed to find Romeo. But I couldn’t stop you from volunteering to get eaten!”

  “You’re welcome.” When she only stared at him in disbelief, his eyes widened. “What? You’re never going to get the chance to push royalty down a hill again. You’re just some noblewoman. Do you people even have princes in Italy?”

  “We do. The prince of Verona banished Romeo, and that’s how we got into this mess.” She got to her feet, suddenly not feeling very nurturing. “You knew the sirens would use their influence on you. You warned me. So why couldn’t you resist, just for a moment?”

  “I tried,” he argued. “I wanted to help you look for Romeo, but the draw of the sirens’ power was too great. You can resist it, you’re not mortal. Perhaps if you’d drunk from their cup, you would have been just as powerless as I was. But you were smarter than that. Smarter than Romeo, clearly.”

  Juliet shook her head, hating the tears that rose to her eyes. She’d spent the last days of her mortal life weeping and powerless, and she did not wish to be in such a state ever again.

  “We’ll find him,” Hamlet said quietly, looking up at her from his place on the floor. The effect of the alternating tiles behind his form made her dizzy, and she swayed on her feet.

  She wouldn’t let him see her weak. She was through with weakness. “I know I will. Death couldn’t keep us apart. I doubt this place can.”

  “Wherever this place might be.” Hamlet rose and took a few cautious steps. Juliet noticed a distinct pattern to where his feet landed; at first, only on the white blocks, then, timidly, on the black.

  “What are you doing?” She raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Checking for traps.” He shrugged. “The Afterjord hasn’t been particularly friendly so far, has it? Even the most benign settings have proved to be full of monsters. It’s only fair to assume the same is true of this place, even if it is entirely empty.”

  “I’ve walked on the floor. It’s fine.” She did consider his reasoning though. By all accounts, it really could be a terrible place waiting to trap them. They seemed fairly trapped as it was, since there weren’t any doors. But the hall stretched on, out of sight, with seemingly no sign of changing or ending. “What if we go that way?”

  Hamlet looked in the direction she pointed. “Why that way?”

  “Because it’s as good as the other.” She folded her arms over her chest. “Look at us. The Afterjord took great pains to fit us in here. We’ve been transported, costumed, and deposited. I doubt whatever force did this to us did it because we were meant to sit quietly and wait for something else to happen.”

  Grim admiration showed in Hamlet’s expression, though he quickly dismissed it. “Fine. I would suggest one of us travel in one direction, et cetera, but I think it would be unwise to separate our group further.”

  As they walked, Juliet scanned the walls, looking for some means of egress. The mirrors reflected them on both sides, copies of Juliet and Hamlet going on and on, into eternity, until she grew dizzier with every step. “I’ll go mad in here.”

  “Why?” Hamlet examined the ceiling as they went along.

  “The mirrors. I’ve never liked them; they make me nervous.” As a child, she’d been so frightened of the polished silver mirror in her room that she’d begged her nurse to cover it with a cloth at night. These were worse, their reflections supernaturally flawless compared with the murky images in the silver one at home. She felt as though Juliet in the mirror could reach out and grab her.

  “Someone who looks like you should have no fear of mirrors,” Hamlet said, but it wasn’t a compliment. It was a simple statement of fact, and Juliet wasn’t sure if she should take pride or offense at that. “Besides, I’ve always found mirrors a comfort. Father had a terribly expensive one in his chambers, angled so he could see the door from anywhere in the room. ‘If you can’t have eyes in the back of your head, a mirror is the next best thing,’ he’d always tell me.”

  “And you found this a comfort?” She couldn’t imagine a life of constantly looking over her shoulder, waiting for someone to kill her. As a child, she’d so envied the daughter of Verona’s prince, the fine gowns she wore and the servants trailing after her. She’d attended mass in a sedan chair carried by four young men, and she’d knelt on a satin cushion while everyone else suffered on the stone floor.

  But if, in trade, one had to constantly guard against assassins, perhaps it was better to be the daughter of a decidedly minor noble. No one had ever tried to murder her but her.

  “There’s a comfort in security,” Hamlet mused. “For example here. You might look about this place, with no doors or windows, and say that we are trapped. Or you might look about and think to yourself, ‘ah, there are no windows or doors. So nothing can get in, except me.’”

  It was a good theory, but for one foolish part of it. “You’re assuming that the Afterjord plays by the rules of the real world—”

  “Midgard,” he corrected her.

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re assuming that things here are as they are in Midgard. But we already know that they aren’t. We don’t know if we’re alone. There could be all sorts of things in here with us that we just haven’t seen yet. For all we know, the floor could melt and become a throng of hungry ghosts with knives for eyes.”

  “That’s horrible,” Hamlet said with a grin, finally giving her the courtesy of looking at her while he spoke to her. “You’re getting the hang of this quite well.”

  The floor did not turn to hungry ghosts, but after a while of walking in strained silence with a person she had absolutely nothing in common with and no clue what to talk about, Juliet hoped that it might. They walked for what had seemed like hours, with the prince attempting uncomfortable small talk all the while. He asked about the weather in Italy, the food, whether or not Italians bathed.

  She had just snapped, “Of course we do!” when a movement ahead broke the pattern of the floor. She gasped.

  It was Romeo.

  Ignoring Hamlet’s warning, she raced ahead. “There you are! I knew we would find you. Or you would find us.”

  His arms surrounded her in a familiar embrace, and she held onto him tight. Being separated from him seemed to hurt more now that he was back. The uncertainty was over, the answer to a much larger question decided. She did want to be with him. She was glad he’d woken her from her slumber in Sheol.

  She loved him. In his arms, she could remember her mortal life; she could remember what it was to be alive. It was where she belonged.

  “Juliet,” Hamlet said, low and cautious. “Step away from him.”

  No! This couldn’t be a trick. Not when it felt so real. It couldn’t be.

  “Juliet, please,” Hamlet urged softly. “Look around you.”

  Reluctantly, Juliet raised her head. In the mirrors around them, she did not see herself. She saw only Romeo, standing exactly as he was before her now. But the reflections turned as one and came to stand so close to the mirrors that they seemed to touch them.

  Then they did touch them, their fingertips pushing through the glass as t
hough it were quicksilver. As Juliet backed up from the Romeo before her, the other Romeos escaped their prisons.

  Surrounded on all sides, Juliet couldn’t breathe. It was all her childhood nightmares coming true, people climbing out of the mirror to attack her. But now, the nightmare creature was her only love, and he pulled a dagger from his belt.

  “Juliet, come away,” Hamlet urged her.

  She couldn’t move, and Romeo came toward her, the knife in his outstretched hand. Juliet saw the flash of the blade, remembered the bite of the steel in the tomb, and screamed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Stay back!” Hamlet put himself between Juliet and the first Romeo.

  Shame burned hot in Juliet’s cheeks. She’d wanted so badly to believe they had found Romeo, she’d ignored the danger that now seemed obvious. Of course he wasn’t what he appeared to be.

  “Enough!” She shouted, pushing past Hamlet again. “I’m tired of this place. Everything and everyone is a monster hiding behind some more pleasing countenance! I understand that now. You’ve made your point quite clear.”

  Her gaze dropped to the dagger in Romeo’s hand. Intricately carved from blackest obsidian, its thin blade looked sharp enough to kill her quickly. Not like last time.

  “You’ve had worse,” Romeo said with a twist of his lips. He held the dagger out to her handle-first. “I would never kill you. Obviously, this is a trick of the Afterjord. As is our supposed friend here.”

  Her chest loosened a bit, and she was about to take a relieved breath when another of the Romeos shouted, “It is a trick, but he’s the one playing you false! It’s me, Juliet. Don’t trust him.”

  “So, the trick is to tell which of you is my Romeo, and which of you is just an apparition pretending to be Romeo?” She hefted the knife in her palm. “Is that the game? Is this the prize?”

  “They’re both lying,” another insisted, his jaw set hard, dark eyes glittering with anger. “You know they’re false.”

  Two others began shoving each other, shouting, and soon, all around them, the Romeos battled each other, punching, shoving, denying that they were the pretenders.