When he entered the audition room, the piano was colder than the one at home and the bench a fraction too high. Nia watched through the narrow window in the door. Caleb began with the polished published theme. It sounded magnificent and impersonal. Then he paused, lifted his hands, and began Lena's version, where the melody moved through smaller, less predictable intervals and left a space for the absent fourth voice.
He played the rest without rushing. One judge looked up. Another wrote something in the margin. A third, a violinist with a streak of gray hair, closed her eyes. When Caleb finished, no one applauded. The silence felt honest rather than hostile.
Outside, Gideon Sloane stood beneath a portrait of his father. He was speaking quietly to Helena March, his foundation's attorney. Nia had seen Helena on television defending orchestra endowments. Her suit was gray, her expression unreadable.
Gideon noticed Nia and changed direction. "The Mercers certainly know how to attract attention."
"Caleb came to play," Nia said.
"And you came to protest?"
"I came to support my brother."
Helena introduced herself and handed Nia a formal letter. It requested that she refrain from public assertions about the authorship of *City of Lanterns* pending review. It also advised preservation of all related materials. The paper was courteous, almost friendly, until the closing paragraph described potential civil claims.
"Does this mean you're willing to examine the notebook?" Nia asked.
"If authenticated," Helena said. "We'd like a neutral process."
Gideon looked displeased. "Our archival records are conclusive."
"Then a neutral examination should help everyone," Nia answered.
The attorney watched her closely. "It might. But don't mistake a promising memory for proof."
Nia tucked the letter into her bag. "I haven't."
After the audition, Caleb came out carrying the music as if it might break. He had not been told how he performed. A volunteer offered him a paper cup of water. Around them, parents asked about callbacks, judging criteria, and whether the donor would attend the awards ceremony. The building seemed entirely designed to make young musicians wait.
Caleb finally laughed. "I played the rest. I actually waited the whole time."
"Lena would have been impossible to live with if she heard that," Nia said. "She'd say you were finally learning patience."
He admitted that during the first version he had been playing to impress Gideon. During the second, he had been thinking of a child singing in a basement, not knowing whether anyone would remember her. That was the version he wanted to keep, prize or no prize.
As they left, a woman in a long red coat caught Nia's sleeve. She introduced herself as **Celia Sloane**, Gideon's younger sister. Their father, she said, had loved the Harbor House musicians more than the family biography admitted. Before Arthur died, he had asked Celia to preserve a box of rehearsal materials. She had done so and told no one, believing they were private sketches.
"Why tell me now?" Nia asked.
Celia looked toward the portrait. "Because my brother has begun calling the past simple. And it wasn't."
CHAPTER 08
Celia's Locked Drawer
Celia Sloane lived in a townhouse with enough books to make its rooms look smaller. There were photographs of gardens rather than society portraits, a half-built birdhouse on the dining table, and a cat who resented the intrusion of visitors. She made coffee herself and seemed relieved when Nia asked for water instead.
"Gideon thinks I'm sentimental," she said. "He's right. But sentiment isn't the same as dishonesty."
In a locked drawer upstairs she kept letters, program drafts, and audio logs Arthur had given her before his death. None were marked confidential. Most were ordinary: invoices for rehearsal transport, polite thank-you notes, schedules for musicians. Then Nia found a draft credit line for *City of Lanterns* that read: **Melodic material by Lin Yue and the Harbor House Ensemble; orchestration by Arthur Sloane.**
Celia watched Nia read it. "He wrote that himself."
"Why wasn't it printed?"
"I don't know. He became ill before the premiere. Other people handled publication. Maybe the contracts changed. Maybe he changed his mind. Gideon says the final program reflects the final agreement."
Nia photographed the paper with Celia's permission. She did not call it victory. A draft proved intention, not necessarily a binding promise or even the exact authorship of every note. It did prove Arthur had considered a different version of the story than the one carved onto the hotel's banquet plaques.