Seeing that expression she knew all too well, Ariadne felt a sinking sensation in her chest. Something was wrong.
“You know, Arabella.”
Isabella pulled her younger sister into an suffocatingly affectionate embrace. Then, she gestured with her chin toward Ariadne, signaling for her to leave.
When Ariadne hesitated, reluctant to retreat, Isabella whispered to Arabella, her voice dripping with feigned sweetness.
“We have something to discuss between sisters.”
Isabella, who had been spewing hypocrisy in front of Cardinal Del Mare about “calling me sister now,” had abandoned that pretense with effortless ease. Arabella glanced at Ariadne, a flicker of guilt crossing her face.
Isabella pressed her.
“Go on.”
Prompted by her elder sister, Arabella turned to Ariadne, her voice small.
“Um…… could you leave for a moment?”
For some reason, the word “sister” rose to her throat, but she found it impossible to address Ariadne that way while Isabella was watching.
Dismissed by Arabella, Ariadne had no excuse to remain. She stood, offered a polite bow, and withdrew from the drawing room.
Once the door clicked shut, Isabella turned to Arabella with her signature smirk, her eyes narrowing into dangerous slits.
“A family’s nobility is defined by its most outstanding individual. You know that, don’t you?”
Arabella found herself nodding instinctively. Perhaps she was overwhelmed by Isabella’s beauty, or perhaps by the sheer, crushing weight of her elder sister’s presence.
“Are you really going to hand that position over to a stone that rolled in from the outside?”
Isabella cupped Arabella’s cheeks in her palms, forcing her to make eye contact.
“I am your only real sister.”
Looking straight into the young girl’s eyes with her bewitchingly beautiful, amethyst gaze, Isabella coaxed her with the practiced grace of a bird-catcher.
“The consecration mass is approaching, and the King, the Queen, and the Prince will all be in attendance. There was an announcement that young nobles could apply to offer their talents.”
Isabella released Arabella’s face and began to twirl a lock of her own amber hair, her fingers languid.
“You’re still too young to qualify anyway. Give the composition to me, and I’ll submit it in your stead. Besides, you’ll need a pipe organ to practice, won’t you? I’ll ask Mother to procure one for you.”
Arabella wore a look of confusion. At only ten years old, she lacked the resolve to challenge her sister’s honeyed, affectionate demands.
Something felt fundamentally wrong, but she couldn’t quite name the stain on the situation.
“But, Isabella… do you play the pipe organ well?”
“No. I’m not particularly fond of keyboard instruments.”
“Then how will you offer it to the Great Basilica? This piece is meant to be adapted for the organ. You aren’t skilled with string instruments either, are you?”
Isabella stared at Arabella as if she had just uttered something remarkably stupid.
“Obviously, I’ll claim to have composed the sheet music. Someone else will perform it.”
Arabella looked at Isabella with a complex expression. At her sister’s lukewarm reaction, a flash of irritation crossed Isabella’s face.
“Look, Arabella. To be honest, I don’t even need a pipe organ to submit this piece. But I am going out of my way to ask Mother and Father to buy one purely for you. I’m doing all this for your sake, and yet you’re being this difficult?”
Isabella flicked her hair back over her shoulder and rose from the sofa.
“Fine. If you don’t want to, then don’t.”
*She’s my brilliant sister; surely she wouldn’t do anything to hurt me, right?*
“Sister, wait.”
“Wait for what? Decide right now. Don’t drag this out—it’s annoying.”
Under the pressure of Isabella’s gaze, Arabella finally folded.
“No, sister. I’m sorry. You can have the piece.”
Isabella’s pretty face shone with victory. She reverted to her sweet, melodic tone and stroked her younger sister’s hair.
“You’ve made a wise decision.”
***
Isabella was a cunning conspirator, but she was a reliable party to a deal; she fulfilled her end of the bargain to the letter. She approached Lucrezia and Cardinal De Mare, exerting all her charm to insist she required a pipe organ. Her efforts succeeded, and a small instrument was eventually commissioned for the residence.
Because a pipe organ is a massive structure—composed of tin and lead alloys, requiring extensive pre-assembly in a workshop and final installation on-site—it was not something that could simply be delivered overnight. It took a good three to four years to complete. However, when Isabella pleaded her case, Cardinal De Mare readily paid out hundreds of ducats, and Lucrezia gladly surrendered the high-ceilinged prayer room in the east annex to house it.
A major construction project began, and until the organ was finished, a small parlor instrument was provided for Isabella’s temporary use.
Arabella watched the installation with mixed feelings. She knew well that installing a pipe organ in a private residence, simply because a cardinal’s daughter took a whim to play it, was an absurdly expensive indulgence.
*But why is it that it’s acceptable for Isabella, but not for me?*
As Arabella peered down at the construction site from the east annex’s second-floor balcony, Ariadne approached her quietly.
“You finally secured it. The pipe organ.”
Arabella looked up at Ariadne and nodded.
“Are you happy to have it?”
At Ariadne’s question, Arabella shook her head.
“I don’t know. Why did Isabella say she would only listen to my request if I let her submit my composition under her name? Isn’t that… wrong?”
“Not everyone in this world acts with integrity, Arabella.”
After a brief pause, Ariadne lowered her voice.
“Are you truly going to give her that Missa Brevis, Arabella?”
Arabella furrowed her brow.
“Is there even a way to back out now?”
“The pipe organ is already here. What could she possibly do if you refuse to hand over the sheet music? Is she going to demand they tear the instrument back out?”
Arabella’s dark green eyes sparked with sudden delight. The mere image of Isabella securing the organ only to be cheated out of the sheet music seemed to thrill her.
“Hee hee, you’re a genius, Ariadne!”
Excited, Arabella rubbed her head against Ariadne like a puppy. Yet, the joy was short-lived; she seemed unable to bear the weight of the potential aftermath.
“But she won’t leave me alone. If I fight with her, Mother will scold me, too.”
“You must fight back against injustice. Nothing changes unless you raise your voice.”
To some extent, it was a sermon Ariadne was preaching to her own past self. She continued, reaffirming her resolve.
“Those people are cruel; they are trying to pick you clean. No matter how hard you try to be loved, you will receive nothing in return. Lucrezia… your mother only loves Isabella. Isabella is rotten to the core.”
Arabella looked at Ariadne with a pained, confused expression.
“But Isabella is my own sister. Mother is my mother. Even if they treat you poorly, surely they wouldn’t… surely they wouldn’t treat me that way.”
Ariadne countered sharply.
“Then why did the pipe organ, which was denied when you said you needed it, suddenly appear the moment Isabella said she wanted it? Both the Cardinal and your mother know that Isabella has no interest in playing instruments, let alone anything else, right? Do you truly believe they are your parents?”
Arabella’s grip tightened.
“Even your tutors are like that. To match your pace, your music teacher, Ms. Mancini, should have been replaced with someone more renowned. But because they’re forcing her to match Isabella’s pace, Ms. Mancini keeps coming! And your etiquette teacher was changed to accommodate Isabella’s schedule, wasn’t it? Why does it never happen the other way around? Why must everything always be for Isabella’s benefit?”
Ariadne did not relent, pressing the advantage.
“If you just keep your mouth shut and accept it, no one will ever know it’s wrong. Unless the person benefiting has a conscience and tries to stop it—but is Isabella that kind of person? Isabella has no excuse when it comes to the sheet music. She simply stole it.”
“Stop!”
Arabella pulled away, breaking the close distance between them, and scrambled to her feet.
“The sheet music… Yes. I have no use for it anyway, so she must have taken it to put it to good use. My own sister wouldn’t have meant to treat me badly. And the pipe organ—it was too expensive, too much of a burden for me to handle alone. His Eminence the Cardinal and Mother must have bought it thinking it would be better for my sister and me to share. It’s not that they ignored me and bought it only for her. As for the teacher… it’s just because I’m still young.”
Tears welled up in the corners of Arabella’s eyes.
“It’s because I’ve been hanging out with you too much lately. That must be it. If I give Isabella the *Missa Brevis* and stop seeing you, she will treat me well, just like she used to. Then Mother will, too.”
Arabella pointed a trembling finger at Ariadne.
“You! Don’t tell me such strange things. Don’t badmouth my sister just because you’re doing a little better lately. My mother loves me! I am a true De Mare. You are not!”
After shouting her vitriol, Arabella wiped the tears leaking from her eyes and bolted away.
Ariadne stood alone by the second-floor railing of the east annex, watching the staircase where Arabella had disappeared. Her heart felt heavy and complex. Despite the harsh words, she didn’t feel truly offended. It was obvious that Arabella had spat them out only to comfort her own fraying nerves.
‘Did I say something useless?’
* * *
On the day the reed pipes—the heart of the pipe organ—arrived at the construction site in the east annex, Isabella, emboldened by her parents’ doting, triumphantly snatched the sheet music from Arabella.
Arabella’s small back looked exceptionally cowed as she surrendered the pages to Isabella, who stood before her in a summer indoor dress of shimmering satin. Even as she handed over her work, Arabella gave detailed instructions, sounding like a mother entrusting her child to a nanny.
“Because it’s a *Missa Brevis*, I reduced the harmony and kept it short. It’s an ensemble piece, so I wrote it as a full score.”
Isabella took the music carelessly, scanning it with a distracted gaze.
“So, this is the music, then? And it’s called *Missa Brevis*?”
“Ye, yes.”
“Got it. Give it here and go.”
Without bothering to examine the contents, Isabella tossed the sheets onto the drawing room table and ordered her maid to carry them to her room.
And so, no one noticed that tucked among the thick, elegant parchment where the notes were written with such care, there lay a single, thinner, cheaper scrap of parchment—a practice sheet, covered in hasty, frantic scribbles.