The mornings at Saint Brigitte's Orphanage always began with the same sound: bells.
Soft at first, then swelling, they filled every corner of the old church grounds like a gentle reminder that even forgotten children could be awakened by something holy.
To the others, the bells were a call to duty to cold floors and thin porridge. To me, they were the heartbeat of a cage I had lived in for as long as my memory reached.
I woke before the first bell. I always did. My internal clock was set to the silence that precedes a storm.
The dormitory was still dim, lit only by pale dawn light leaking through a cracked stained-glass window that depicted a faceless saint.
Across the room, little Lucien snored softly, his tiny hand clutching the wooden toy horse I'd carved for him from a fallen oak branch months ago.
The others were still tangled in gray blankets, dreaming the kinds of dreams orphans weren't supposed to have, big ones, wild ones, ones untouched by the suffocating weight of a missing past.
I slipped from my narrow bed. The wooden floor creaked beneath my feet, this building was too old to harbor secrets, but the sound was a familiar, rhythmic comfort.
I moved to the small, cracked mirror at the end of the hall and tied my hair back. The long red strands glimmered even in the weak morning light, a fiery contrast to the limestone walls.
The nuns called my hair a "gift from God." The other children said I looked like the ancient paintings in the cathedral, those weeping martyrs with halos of crimson.
But to me, it was just a target. A neon sign that said I don't belong. Who am I? The question was a dull ache that never quite went away.
Sister Marianne told me I had arrived at the orphanage when I was barely three. I had been wrapped in a silk blanket so fine the nuns had tried to sell it to pay for the roof repairs, and I'd been wearing a gold bracelet far too large for a toddler's wrist.
But everything else, the person who left me at the heavy oak doors, the reason they never looked back was a blank page in a book that had been burned.
"Some pasts are meant to stay in God's hands, Isabelle," Sister Marianne would sigh, her eyes drifting to the scars on my palm that I couldn't explain.
But today, God's hands felt heavy. There was a strange electricity in the air, a pressure in my chest like a string being wound too tight.
The world was holding its breath, and I was the only one who could hear it.
The morning was a blur of stone-cold water and labor. I swept the courtyard until my shoulders burned, folded laundry until my fingers were raw, and helped the younger ones scrub the soot from their faces.
By noon, I managed to slip away to the overgrown garden at the back of the grounds. The autumn air was crisp, smelling of damp earth and woodsmoke.
Leaves lay scattered like pieces of tarnished gold on the stone path, shattering under my boots.
"Isabelle! Play for us!" Lucien's voice chirped from behind a rosebush. He was trailing several of the younger girls, their eyes wide and expectant.
The violin was the only thing in this world that felt like it belonged to me. It had been donated anonymously years ago, a beautiful, dark-wood instrument that looked far too expensive for a charity bin.
The moment I had first tucked it under my chin, I didn't feel like I was learning a skill. I felt like I was recovering from a lost limb.
I led them into the church hall. It was a cavernous space that smelled of ancient books, cold incense, and dust.
I lifted the violin from its velvet-lined case, feeling the familiar weight settle into the crook of my neck.
I didn't need sheet music. I didn't need a conductor. I closed my eyes and let the bow touch the strings.
The first note was a ghost, low, vibrating, and filled with a sorrow I didn't have words for. Then the melody shifted, turning sharp and defiant.
I played as if my life depended on it, my fingers moving with a technical precision that should have been impossible for a self-taught orphan.
The music filled the hall, bouncing off the high rafters and vibrating in the marrow of my bones.
It wasn't just sound; it was a memory I couldn't quite see, a flash of a ballroom, the scent of expensive perfume, and the feeling of being watched.
I was so lost in the "Symphony of the Forgotten" that I didn't hear the heavy wooden doors at the back of the hall groan open. I didn't see the children go silent.
I only realized I wasn't alone when I drew the final, haunting note across the string and heard the sound of a single person catching their breath.
I opened my eyes. Sister Marianne stood by the entrance, looking smaller than usual. Beside her stood a woman who looked like she had stepped out of a different century.
She was a vision of ivory wool and shimmering pearls, her blonde hair twisted into a perfect, commanding chignon.
Her presence was like a sudden burst of heat in the cold hall. She didn't look at the architecture or the altar. Her eyes, a piercing, intelligent blue, were locked onto mine.
"My goodness," the woman whispered. Her voice was like velvet over steel. "That was... breathtaking. No, it was more than that. It was a revelation."
"Isabelle, put the instrument away," Sister Marianne said, her voice tight with a nervousness I had never heard before. "This is Madame Beaumont. Her family... they are very important patrons of the arts."
"And primary shareholders at St. Aurelia's Academy," Madame Beaumont added, stepping forward. Her heels clicked against the stone floor with the precision of a ticking clock.
St. Aurelia's. The name sent a shiver of ice down my spine. It was the place the papers wrote about the academy for the elite, the heirs to oil fortunes and medical empires. It was a world of gold and blood, miles away from the gray walls of St. Brigitte's.
Madame Beaumont stopped inches from me. She didn't just look at me; she studied me. She looked at the shape of my jaw, the silver-grey hue of my eyes, and finally, the vivid, unnatural red of my hair.
Her pupils dilated, and for a second, I saw a flicker of something that looked like terror in her eyes. Or was it triumph?
"Your grace... your technique... it is remarkable," she said, her voice trembling slightly. "Child, who taught you to play like that?"
"No one, Madame," I said, my voice sounding small in the vast hall. "I just... I hear the music in my head."
Madame Beaumont exhaled a shaky breath. She turned to Sister Marianne, speaking in a low, urgent tone. "Marianne... look at her.
The way she holds herself. The silver in her eyes. It's been twelve years since the disappearance, but the resemblance is... it's haunting. It's impossible."
Sister Marianne paled, her hand reaching out to steady herself against a wooden pew. "She is a gift, Madame. A foundling with a talent we cannot explain."
"She is a miracle," Madame Beaumont corrected. She turned back to me, her expression softening into something that almost looked like pity.
"Isabelle, we are hosting a grand charity gala next week at the Beaumont Estate. The most influential families in the country will be in attendance. I want you to be our featured performer."
My heart began to race, a frantic thumping against my ribs. "Me? Madame, I don't have a dress. I don't have a name. I'm just an orphan from Saint Brigitte's."
"You are not 'just' anything," she said firmly. She reached into a designer bag and pulled out a heavy, cream-colored envelope sealed with a thick stamp of gold wax. "This is your invitation."
Everything you need, the dress, transport, security will be provided. Consider this your debut into a world you were always meant to inhabit."
She reached out, her gloved hand hovering near my cheek before she pulled it back as if she were afraid I might burn her.
"The Volkovs will be there," she whispered, almost to herself. "And if they see what I see... God help us all.
I watched them leave, my fingers white-knuckled around the neck of my violin. Through the open door, I caught the tail end of their conversation as they walked toward the waiting black car.
"We must run the DNA through the private database," Madame Beaumont was saying. "If she is the lost heiress... if she is Elena... the power balance of the elite will be decimated. Viktor will never let go."
The name Viktor felt like a cold shadow falling over my heart. I didn't know who he was. I didn't know what a Volkov was.
But as I looked down at the gold seal on the envelope, I realized the "strange energy" I had felt this morning wasn't a blessing at all.
I was a ghost that had just been summoned back to life.
The hunter was coming, and I had just played the first note of my own requiem.