Years passed in Venice as Sabine, Matteo, and Alessandro formed a domestic life in the palazzo. Sabine occasionally traveled to Tuscany and Rome for freedom but discovered she now preferred the prolonged tension of hunts learned under Matteo. Inside the palazzo, time was marked by accumulating paintings and Alessandro’s gradual aging, while Matteo and Sabine remained unchanged.

As Alessandro’s health failed—first chest pain, then rattling lungs—Matteo begged him to accept the turning, but Alessandro insisted life must end and refused immortality. Sabine, angered by the looming loss and by Matteo’s “folly,” considered forcing the change but did not. She was away the night Alessandro died; she returned to a house saturated with Matteo’s grief and could not bring herself to view the body. After two days, a physician removed Alessandro’s corpse, and he was buried in his family plot.

In the weeks that followed, Matteo became a withdrawn specter, abandoning bedrooms for the salon, shuttering the house, and refusing food and diversions. Carnevale passed without games as Sabine, frustrated, tried to provoke him, finally unleashing cruel truths about his choice to love a mortal and calling him by his old name, Mateusz. Shaken by the depth of his pain, Sabine left for the winter in Verona.

Returning in February, Sabine found the palazzo restored to order and followed sounds into Alessandro’s former studio, where she was shocked to see a young man resembling Alessandro in youth. The illusion broke as she recognized him as a stranger—Giovanni—newly turned, exuberant, and hungry. Matteo appeared composed and elegant again, his mind closed to Sabine, and introduced Giovanni.

Giovanni invited Sabine out to celebrate, presuming her presence would end Matteo’s sulking. Matteo fussed over Giovanni’s appearance, dressing him for the cold to avoid drawing notice, an act that echoed his tenderness with Alessandro yet felt hollow and performative. Giovanni bristled at Matteo’s rules and complained of constant hunger, revealing his inexperience.

Outside in the courtyard, Giovanni—insisting on Gio—linked arms with Sabine, calling the rules boring and hoping Sabine would be more entertaining. Sabine and Matteo exchanged an almost-amused look, signaling a fragile, shifting balance among the three as a new chapter in their household began.