She fell to her knees, and she tried to stop herself from looking again, but she had to do it. Had to know, truly and finally, that it was him.

She stared at the body of the man she loved, her eyes dry, her scream trapped in her throat, and she ignored the men who kicked her and told her to get up, get up, dumb bitch, just get up.

Only when one of them took a great fistful of her hair and dragged her to her feet did she let them pull her away from that place of death and the lonely, hanging body of her beloved. They took her along another corridor and down a flight of stairs, and then they pushed her into a room that was painted a horrible dark red, the exact color of dried blood, and locked her in.

They left her prostrate on the floor, unable to rise, her hands still bound. Her breasts became engorged, the pain startling and fierce, and before long her bodice and brassiere and the pads Romilda had given her were all soaked through with milk, its scent inescapable and heartrending.

The guard returned after a few hours, though it might have been far longer, and took her to another room, and there she was made to sit at a table, her arms still bound behind her, and the lights had been left on to stop her from falling asleep.

She sat and waited, and she wondered if she was prepared to die. If she would find the strength to face it as courageously as Nico had surely done.

Hours passed, and she rested her head on the table, hoping to sleep, but her thoughts were such a tangle, and the lights were so shockingly bright. She would never sleep again. That was one way to die, wasn’t it? To be kept awake until madness beckoned.

The door crashed open and Zwerger entered. He sat across from her, and for the next minute or two he occupied himself with opening a file folder and arranging its contents as neatly as chess pieces on a board. There were letters and forms and photographs, and a small booklet that he set to one side, and a single identity card. Her identity card.

Then he adjusted his chair, smoothed back his hair, and steepled his hands on the table that separated them.

“A little more than a year ago, Niccolò Gerardi astonished his family and neighbors by bringing a wife home with him to Mezzo Ciel. They’d always assumed he would return to his true vocation once his brothers were grown and able to take over the farm, but instead he did something very different. He brought home a girl he’d met in Venice, a complete stranger who—and here I quote one of his neighbors—‘couldn’t tell one end of a bull from the other.’ Does any of this sound familiar?”