Unwilling to look upon Zwerger’s loathsome face, Nina fixed her attention on the tabletop that separated them. She would not respond. She would not give in.

“Very well. I doubt you will be surprised to learn that not a single church in Venice has a record of his marriage to Nina Marzoli—that is the name you gave me, is it not? Nor is there a Nina Marzoli registered at the nursing school attached to the ospedale. Nor has the director of St. Anthony’s orphanage in Padua ever heard of a girl named Nina Marzoli.

“You can see where this has led me, of course. To you. To the whore who wormed her way into Niccolò’s confidence, his bed, and his heart. And it does make me curious. How were you able to turn him away from his vocation? Away from God?” He waited, his fingers tapping an arrhythmic beat against the tabletop. “You truly have nothing to say?”

“What would a man like you know of God? You were jealous, and so you sought to destroy what you could not have—what you had no hope of ever becoming. A good man. An honorable man. A man who was loved.”

“Silence!”

“Nico told me about you. About the reason you were sent away from the seminary. It had nothing to do with your wanting to return to Austria, did it? You were asked to leave because you’d been bullying the other boys. Stealing from them, hurting them, making their lives a misery. Nico stood up to you, and he went to Father Superior and told him everything, and that was it for you and your dreams of becoming a priest.”

“Shut your filthy mouth!”

It was reckless to goad him so, but she could not bring herself to stop. “When you are on your knees and alone with God, what do you pray for? It can’t be forgiveness, for you are blind to your sins. What do you pray for when you are alone in the dark?”

“Victory,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “Victory over you and your kind.”

“You will never have it. Don’t you know the war is all but lost?”

She waited for him to strike her, to scream in her face, to kill her with the same pistol he’d already used to terrorize her family. Instead he began to laugh.

“You stupid, stupid woman. Do you know nothing of what is taking place at this very moment? I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and I know what awaits you. Go on—sneer away. I have all the proof I need. And all it took was this little card.”

Her identity card. Zwerger now tore it in two, then tore it again, and again, until the pieces lay like confetti on the table.