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He stopped immediately, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Forgive me. I do not wish to frighten you. But, surely, you understand how strange this is? You hide yourself, you maintain this distance, yet you play music you must know I can hear. You speak with me, but will not let me near enough to truly see you. I am trying to understand, Isolde, but you must give me something to work with.”

A long silence stretched between them, broken only by the eternal whisper of wind through the grates. Angelo waited, his heart hammering, afraid he had pushed too hard and would drive her away entirely.

Finally, Angelo asked, his voice gentle, “Do you not like people? Is that why you hide?”

“I like people,” Isolde replied, and the deepening melancholy in her voice made Angelo’s heart squeeze with sympathy. “But they do not like me.”

The words were spoken with such deep pain, such absolute conviction, that Angelo felt something crack in his chest. It was agonizing to think that such a beautiful young woman with such a sensitive soul should be so rejected that she hid from society entirely.

“That cannot be true,” he said firmly. “Anyone who heard you play, who saw your garden, who spoke with you for even five minutes would⁠—”

“You have not seen me.” Isolde’s interruption was gentle, but final. “Not truly. And when you do …” She trailed off, but Angelo heard the unspoken completion … you will understand why they do not like me.

“Then let me see you,” Angelo urged, taking another careful step forward. “Allow me to assess with my own eyes rather than accepting your assessment. I am not a cruel man, Isolde. Whatever you think I will see, whatever reaction you fear⁠—”

“No!” She rose from the organ bench in a whirl of ivory skirts and black cape, her movement so sudden that Angelo froze mid-step. “I cannot. Not yet. Not …” Her voice broke on what might have been a sob. “Please do not ask this of me. Not tonight. Not this one perfect night before you⁠—”

And then she was moving, fleeing away from the organ bench with that same impossible grace she had shown in the garden. By the time Angelo’s paralyzed limbs obeyed his commands and carried him forward, she had vanished.

He ran the thirty feet of the hall to the organ, his slippers slapping against stone, his breath coming hard. But when he reached the console, Isolde was simply … gone.

Angelo stood panting, staring at the empty bench, the keys still faintly warm from her touch. How? How did she disappear so completely, so quickly?

There.

Behind the organ, barely visible in the shadows, a narrow alcove. Angelo squeezed into it, finding himself squeezed between the organ’s wooden casing and the stone wall. The space was tight, barely wide enough for his shoulders, and it opened into a small area behind the organ’s pipes.

He could stand here, hidden from view, and observe the entire hall. Could watch anyone who entered without being seen through hidden gaps in the pipes. It was a perfect vantage point for someone who wished to remain unseen.

But where had Isolde gone?

Angelo examined the wall carefully with his fingertips, searching for any seam or mechanism that might indicate a hidden door. The stone was cold beneath his touch, with the impression of dampness from the sea air that permeated everything in this coastal hall. He traced the mortar lines between stones, testing individual blocks, searching for anything that might give way or shift.

Nothing. The wall appeared solid, unbroken.

He retrieved the candlestick she had left on the console and brought it into the alcove, holding it high to illuminate every inch of stone. The flickering light cast dancing shadows across the rough surface, making it difficult to see clearly.

Still nothing. No cracks, no suspicious marks, no sign of any opening. Even knowing there must be something did not help him find it.

And yet Isolde had disappeared through it as if the stone were merely illusion.

Angelo pushed against the wall in frustration, running his hands over the surface with increasing desperation, applying pressure to various points in hopes of triggering some hidden mechanism. But the stone remained stubbornly solid beneath his palms, revealing nothing.

He cursed Matteo di Bianchi in Italian. A long, creative string of invective that would have made his Florentine uncles proud. Lorenzo’s ancestor was an extraordinary engineering genius, yes, but right now Angelo wanted nothing more than to find Matteo di Bianchi’s three-hundred-year-old bones and shake them until the truth fell out.

Because somewhere beyond this wall, Isolde moved through hidden passages that Angelo could not find, could not follow. She remained as untouchable as smoke, as ephemeral as moonlight on water.

Angelo leaned his forehead against the cool stone, fighting the urge to shout her name into the darkness. She would not answer. Could not answer, perhaps, without revealing the mechanism she had used to escape. He would merely frighten her away with such a display, and that was too terrible to consider. The notion of never seeing her again tore at his soul as he tried to make sense of these frenzied sentiments.

Is this what it was like for my brother, Marco? When he met Molly? This … this inability to think of anything else? This constant pull toward someone you barely know but cannot seem to resist?

His brother had been transformed by love, had gone from devoted Florentine scholar to besotted husband in the space of weeks. Angelo had witnessed the change with bemusement and perhaps a touch of envy, wondering if he would ever experience such feeling himself.

Now, standing in a hidden chamber in a mysterious hall, obsessing over a woman who refused to reveal her countenance, Angelo thought he might finally understand.

This was madness. Beautiful, compelling, utterly irrational madness.

And he was helpless against it. The artiste in him had to know, had to understand the perfection of this exalted presence.