Dayneka opened the box she found in a hiding place in her grandmother’s attic. She saw a stack of papers—everywhere the letter “ять” appeared. It was correspondence between the artist Nikolay Berezhny and the baroness Einaudi, whose hopeless novel had tragically ended more than a hundred years ago… Barely managing her excitement, Dayneka carefully pulled a letter from the envelope. “I’m sending you the deed…” the baroness wrote. Even before unfolding the second sheet, Dayneka knew it was the original. A deed for a mansion in Venice—one with no statute of limitations… A carnival madness seized the squares, narrow streets, and quays of Venice. Two men in golden masks appeared beside Dayneka. The black ones, with fur trim, made them look like the guards of some ominous order. Dayneka still didn’t know what gift this unfamiliar Italian city with the gentle name Venice had prepared for her…