A puff of strawberry mist tinted emerald by stage lights heralded the hole which appeared in Lavender's sternum. It was unspeakably clean, as though she were hollow inside and possessed of only a thin skin of jade porcelain, and it was perfectly round, smooth-edged like a garish beauty mark, and in this the ideal summation of her existence.

A thousand lights, a million cameras, a billion eyes were on Lavender when the bullet exploded her black little heart, and every one of them saw that she was smiling when she fell.

She seemed relieved.