Sabine arrives at Matteo's palazzo shortly before Matteo, who appears briefly drenched in blood before composing himself and returning immaculate, underscoring his control over his image. He confirms she did not starve during their Carnevale game and asks if she enjoyed the hunt; she claims her reward, demanding he teach her to claim space.

In the salon, Matteo demonstrates that territory is held by intent. With a subtle nod, he expels Sabine with an unseen force, pinning her to the wall. He refuses to rescind the pressure, making her wrest the room back by sheer will. Sabine narrows her focus to a tiny patch of floor and repeats "mine" in thought and word, advancing inch by inch across the room.

When Sabine finally reaches Matteo, she focuses on the ground beneath his feet and briefly forces him to give ground. Matteo releases the pressure and, when asked how he claimed Venice, answers that he did it step by step, stone by stone. The lesson ends with Sabine having learned to assert a narrow but growing domain through concentrated will.

Expecting to be done, Sabine is drawn back the following night when Matteo proposes another game. With Carnevale over and Lent begun, he introduces her publicly as his widowed niece and ward, teaching her to hunt within society under strict rules: avoid prominent heirs and public figures whose deaths would cause scandal.

At dinners and gatherings in the palazzo courtyard, Sabine observes Matteo’s effortless social blending: feigning consumption, making food vanish, and being well liked. He extends the delay between hunt and kill from two weeks to three and beyond, testing her tolerance. Each time Sabine expects a limit, she finds none, and learns she is stronger than she imagined.

These hunts become elaborate courtships, with Sabine taking real pleasure in prolonged pursuit and the eventual kill. Alessandro, frustrated at imposed celibacy when Matteo plays alongside them, protests; afterward Matteo does not always join, but he continues to reward Sabine for her successes.

Through repeated games, Sabine learns to sate hunger with the hunt itself and to manipulate minds: bending human will along its natural course and against it, closing her own mind and prying open others. She accumulates tokens around her neck, each marking not a momentary kill but a month-long seduction into trust. When Matteo asks if knowing her marks makes her hesitate, Sabine smiles; intimacy does not deter her—if anything, it makes the killing sweeter.