{SASHA}
I wander around the crowd's side, keeping Tyler and the Irish agent in view. The agent hasn't picked up Tyler again, judging by his pushing past people. He's chasing down plague doctors, but there are a lot of them.
I head for the staircase to the east. Once I get up to the mezzanine, I plan to walk right around it to the western side, and Magda's room, to speak to her guards. But my passage is abruptly barred by a very large man in a well-cut frock coat. "Excuse me, sir," he says in very polite Italian, "I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
He puts a hand on my shoulder.
I smile and respond in his language. "If you want to keep your fingers, you should remove them from my person."
The hand withdraws, although the man does not. I recognize him as one of Magda's bodyguards. His white porcelain half-mask leaves his mouth visible, and I watch it pull into a sneer. "Get out of here."
