"Mamma?" Isabella whispered, her voice barely audible over the soft classical music drifting from the ballroom.
The woman's lipstick clattered to the marble counter. Her hands trembled as she gripped the sink's edge, knuckles white beneath her elegant gloves.
"Isabella," she breathed, the name escaping like a prayer. "My beautiful girl."
Isabella's heart hammered against her ribs. The locket Mrs. Russo had given her seemed to burn against her chest beneath the silk dress. She'd memorized every detail of the photographs inside this face, these eyes, the gentle curve of this mouth.
"You're alive." Isabella's mask felt suffocating now. "All these years, you've been alive."
Antonia reached up with shaking fingers and slowly removed her feathered mask. Without it, she looked older lines around her eyes, silver threading through her dark hair. But her face was unmistakably the one from the locket and the face she had seen at the wars house.
