“Yes. But I also remembered something else.”
“I’m not shooting an unarmed woman.”
She reaches into her gown and pulls out a small derringer. She doesn’t point it at him. She points it at her own temple.
“What did you remember?”
A woman in a black velvet domino mask and a gown the color of dried blood approaches. . She carries a single white rose.
Dripping water, distant music muffled by stone, the creak of a gondola.
“Then breathe shallowly. Call me... Serafina. I am the Count’s... entertainment.”