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“Sit.”

Gabriel added his voice to Nicholas’s. “The room has waited three hundred years, Lorenzo. It can wait another quarter hour.”

Lorenzo subsided into his chair, his leg bouncing with barely contained impatience throughout the rest of the meal. Angelo hid a smile behind his teacup. Some things, it seemed, never changed.

At last, the breakfast plates were cleared, and the party made their way to the library. Isolde led them to the carved bookshelf, pressed the hidden sword motif, and the secret door swung open to reveal the Hall of Reflections.

Angelo lit several lanterns and passed them around. The flames caught in the mirrored walls, multiplying into infinity, creating the illusion of an endless corridor stretching away in all directions. Even knowing what to expect, Angelo found the effect breathtaking, watching Isolde in the endless reflections.

They filed into the chamber, their footsteps echoing strangely in the elongated space. At the far end, the magnificent pipe organ gleamed in the lamplight, its ebony wood polished to a high sheen, its copper pipes worked into the very walls.

Isolde made her way to the instrument and took a seat on the bench. She glanced back at them, and Angelo saw a spark of mischief in her eyes that made his heart lift.

“Before I open the door,” she said, “I should like to play something. If you will indulge me.”

She did not wait for permission. Her fingers found the keys, and music filled the chamber.

It was a piece Angelo did not recognize, something complex and haunting, full of minor chords and unexpected harmonies. The notes seemed to hang in the air, reverberating off the mirrored walls, building and layering until the very stones seemed to thrum with sound.

The party stood transfixed. Even Lorenzo, consumed as he was with his quest for Matteo’s secrets, fell silent, his head cocked to listen, his expression one of rapt attention.

Angelo understood then what his beloved was doing. She was showing them her gift. The skill she had honed through years of solitary practice, the artistry she had hidden from the world along with her face. She was claiming her place among them, not as an oddity to be pitied, but as a musician to be admired.

And she was magnificent.

When the final notes faded into silence, Henri was the first to speak. “That was …” She shook her head, words failing her. “Miss Fairfax, that was extraordinary.”

“You have a rare gift,” Gabriel agreed. “I have heard performances at the finest concert halls in Europe, and none has moved me quite like that.”

Isolde inclined her head, accepting the praise with quiet dignity. But Angelo could see the flush of pleasure on her cheeks, the way her eyes sparkled with joy. This was what she had been missing all those years. Not just love, but recognition. Appreciation. The simple human need to be seen and valued for one’s gifts.

She caught his eye, and he smiled at her. A private smile, just for her, that let her know how proud he was of her for claiming her place.

Then she lifted her hands and played a bar of specific, discordant notes.

The sound was jarring after the beauty of her performance. A deliberate clash of tones that seemed to vibrate in the bones. Angelo realized, with a start, that it was a combination. A key.

Silence fell.

At first, nothing happened. The mirrors continued to reflect their infinite images. The copper pipes gleamed in the lamplight. The air hung heavy and still.

And then … whispers of sound. A grinding of ancient mechanisms. A click that echoed through the chamber like a gunshot.

The mirrors on the right side of the hall suddenly swung open, all of them, every single one.

“Santo cielo,” Lorenzo breathed.

Beyond the mirrored doors lay a second hall, identical in size and proportion to the first. But where the Hall of Reflections was empty save for its mirrors and its organ, this room was filled with the evidence of genius at work.

Numerous sketches covered the walls. Penciled drawings in graphite and charcoal, some bold and confident, others faded with age or half-erased in apparent frustration. A long work table dominated the center of the space, its surface cluttered with measuring instruments, compasses, and rulers. And where the organ stood in the first hall, the second boasted a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf crammed with manuscripts, parchments, journals, and books.

The party stood in awed silence, staring into the chamber that had remained hidden for three hundred years.

“I am not certain what my father intended to teach me about the Fairfax role in all this,” Isolde said quietly. “He died before he could explain the full meaning of our family’s purpose. But I have given the matter much thought, and I have come to a decision.”

She turned to Lorenzo.

“You are the true heir to Matteo’s legacy, Signor di Bianchi. His blood runs in your veins. His genius is your inheritance. The contents of this room, the Room of Science, are yours to do with as you wish.”