The events of the past extraordinary fifteen minutes—which might have been fifteen hours, even days, so long had they seemed—ran through Ezio’s head once more as he stumbled, his brain reeling, from the Vault beneath the Sistine Chapel. He remembered, though it seemed like a dream, that in the depths of the Vault he had seen a vast sarcophagus made of what looked like granite. As he’d approached it, it had begun to glow, but with a light that was welcoming. He touched its lid, and it had opened as if it were light as a feather. From it a warm yellow light glowed, and from within that glow arose a figure whose features Ezio could not make out, although he knew he was looking at a woman. A woman of unnatural stature, who wore a helmet, and on whose right shoulder sat a tawny owl.