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He had been awake for hours, his mind refusing to surrender to sleep despite his body’s exhaustion. The household had been quiet for some time now, the servants long abed, his fellow guests settled into their chambers. But Angelo’s thoughts churned aimlessly, circling back again and again to the same images, the same moments.

Isolde in the moonlight, her face somehow turned carefully away. The melodic sound of her voice, educated and refined despite her informal dress. The way she had held up her hand to keep him at a distance. That gesture both commanding and desperate.

“I cannot,” she had said. Not would not, but could not.

What could prevent someone from allowing simple proximity? What fear or circumstances could drive a person to such isolation?

Angelo shifted restlessly, the bedclothes tangling around his legs. He had replayed their conversation a dozen times, analyzing every word, every gesture, searching for clues to the mystery she represented. And with each replay, he grew more certain of one thing.

Isolde was lonely.

When he had asked if they might speak again, she had responded with what seemed like hope. As if she wanted his company but did not dare believe he would truly return.

Angelo smiled into the darkness despite his restlessness. He would return, of course. Would seek her out every night if that was what it took to understand her, to coax her from whatever shadows she hid in.

The wind rose outside his window, and the cliff-song swelled with it. Multiple tones braided together in that eerie harmony that seemed to come from the very bones of the earth. Angelo had grown accustomed to the sound over the past day and night, but tonight it seemed different somehow. Richer. More complex.

He held his breath, listening more intently.

There.

Beneath the whistling wind, woven through it so subtly he had almost missed it, music.

Not the wind’s song, but actual music. Organ music. Melancholy and haunting, harmonized with the cliff’s eternal chorus as if they were meant to blend together.

Angelo’s heart began to race. The Hall of Reflections? It had to be. And the musician could only be Isolde.

He remained frozen, not daring to move a muscle lest he lose the thread of those distant notes. They were barely audible even in the perfect stillness of his chamber, filtering through the ornate grates set into his walls. If he shifted, if he breathed too loudly, he might miss them entirely.

So he lay perfectly still and listened.

The melody was unlike anything he had heard before. Not a piece meant for performance or worship, but something more personal. A conversation between musician and instrument, both responding to the wind’s song and creating something new from that response. There was sorrow in it, yes, but also beauty. A yearning quality that made Angelo’s chest ache with forlorn emotions.

The music wove through minor keys, building and retreating like waves against the cliffs below. Isolde’s technique was flawless. He could hear that even from this distance, even through walls and grates. But more than technique, there was genuine artistry in every phrase. The kind of playing that came from pouring one’s soul into an instrument, using it as a voice when perhaps no other voice was available.

Angelo found himself cataloging the piece as he might catalog a plant specimen. The structure was unconventional, following emotional logic rather than formal composition. The harmonies were complex, sometimes almost dissonant, but always resolving in ways that felt inevitable once heard. And the way she used the organ’s stops, shifting between full voice and whispered intimacy, spoke to someone who knew the instrument as well as she knew her own hands.

Isolde. His mysterious silver angel, alone in the Hall of Reflections in the depths of night, pouring her heart into music that no one was meant to hear.

Except she had to know the sound would carry through the grates. Had to know that anyone awake might hear it, faint though it was.

Angelo’s smile widened as realization struck. She would not be playing like this, would not be leaving so many clues to her presence, unless part of her wanted to be found. Wanted to be heard.

Isolde was just as entranced as he was. Yearning for company, even as she maintained her careful distance.

The thought filled Angelo with warmth and determination in equal measure. If she wanted to be found, then he would find her. Would meet her on whatever terms she could accept, stand in whatever shadows she required, until she trusted him enough to step into the light.

He rose from bed quietly, not bothering with a candle yet. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and he knew the layout of his chamber well enough now to navigate without light. He pulled on loose draw-tie pants and a linen shirt, then added his thick dressing robe to fight the winter chill that permeated even the inner rooms. His feet he pushed into the soft leather slippers that would make no sound on the stone floors.

The fabric of the robe was heavy wool, lined with quilted silk, a gift from his mother before he left Florence. She had worried about the English cold, had insisted he take warm things despite his protests that he was perfectly capable of enduring a bit of chill. Now, he was grateful for her fussing. The robe’s weight was comforting, and its warmth would be essential if he planned to spend any length of time in the stone chambers below.

Angelo paused at his door, listening. The corridor beyond was silent except for the whistling cliffs and the almost inaudible music threading through it. His fellow bachelors were abed. Nicholas and Lorenzo were both deep sleepers when they finally surrendered to rest, and their rooms were saturated in the sound of the wind playing over the cliffs. And Henri and Gabriel were housed in a different wing of the hall entirely, their chambers far enough away that perhaps they could hear nothing.

He was alone with the night and the music.

Angelo slipped out into the corridor, pulling his door closed with infinite care to avoid any telltale click. The darkness was nearly absolute here, broken only by a single lamp burning at the far end of the hallway. But he did not need light. The music would guide him.

He descended to the ground floor, one hand trailing along the wall for balance, his slippered feet soundless on the worn stone steps. The main hall stretched before him, vast and shadowed, the portraits on the walls reduced to darker shapes against dark walls. But Angelo navigated it without hesitation, drawn forward by those distant notes that seemed to pull at something deep in his chest.