Faith's hands are shaking.

She smooths her dress, tugs off her gloves, strokes the barely-concealed handle of the knife in her hair. Her hands shake so much she can barely put the gloves back on.

She's not sure why. She's never seemed to have a problem with stabbing anyone before.

Faith fiddles with her earrings and tries to think in proper British. Pronounce everything. Leave no consonant unenunciated, especially the Ts. No slang. Don't say five-by-five.

There is one strand of hair on either side of her face with the rest of it tied back and held in place with the knife. The blade is warm from her own body heat. She wears less makeup than she would normally and an elegant dress, but she feels more exposed than she does naked.

She can't stop her hands shaking. If she's this much of a mess just in the car, there's no way she can do this job. Faith remembers the icy calm in Buffy's eyes on the edge of that building, the rush she got from stabbing that vulcanologist, and the horror she felt at stabbing Giles with a simple fork. She wonders what Lady Genevieve will see before she dies.

If she dies.

This girl is dead. She's not losing her life, then coming back to find everything moved on. She gets to die tonight.

Faith pushes her gloves up her arms as the car stops. There's one thing she knows, and it's that this girl is going to bleed out on her own ballroom floor.