On the fifth night of the game, Sabine sees her marked woman walking with a greedy, inattentive man and briefly considers the need to manage him. On the sixth night the woman is alone. Sabine follows her from her door to San Marco, observes her fascination with living statue performers, and engineers an encounter at a jester’s act. Sabine pretends recognition, draws the woman in with light banter, and lets herself be led to more performers.

On the seventh night, Sabine learns the woman’s name: Bianca. Bianca is twenty-two, recently engaged to the boorish man, and new to Venice from Modena. Left to her own devices while her fiancé gambles, Bianca is charmed by Sabine’s company and believes she has found a friend. Sabine frames the impending kill as mercy, convincing herself she will spare Bianca from marriage’s burdens.

By the eighth night Sabine’s hunger is acute but unusually clear, sharpening her senses and focus. On the ninth night, Sabine and Bianca sit on the Ducale’s upper colonnade inventing stories about masked dancers, with Bianca’s love of novels fueling the tales and Sabine drawing on memory. Bianca urges Sabine to join her the next day to see a menagerie in the square, and Sabine surprisingly agrees.

In daylight, Sabine suffers from the sun despite a parasol gifted by Alessandro, while Bianca revels in spring’s arrival. They view caged animals—bears, monkeys, and birds—but it is the big cats that captivate Sabine, who approaches a lion that retreats from her predatory presence. When a tiger startles Bianca, she clings to Sabine, unwittingly seeking comfort from the greater predator.

As Carnevale ends, fireworks blaze over Venice on the tenth and final night. After the festivities, Sabine walks the wine-flushed, unmasked Bianca home. Near her lodging, Sabine guides Bianca into a narrow alley and removes her own mask; Bianca touches Sabine’s hair with trusting curiosity. Sabine prepares to strike but is briefly interrupted when the fiancé stumbles past without noticing them.

Once he is gone, Sabine presses Bianca gently against the wall, bows her head to Bianca’s throat, and bites. The feeding is ecstatic; each heartbeat seems to reward the ten days of restraint and hunger. Sabine drinks until Bianca collapses, empty, then carries the stolen, temporary heartbeat within her all the way home.