The air in the wings of the Wiener Musikverein was thick with a century of ghosts. It smelled of aged wood, rosin, and the faint, electric tang of collective anxiety. I stood in the shadows, a specter in a gown of blood-red silk, clutching the cool, smooth neck of the 1715 ‘Titian’ Stradivarius. It felt less like an instrument and more like a scepter. Or a weapon.
My bandaged hand throbbed in time with my heart, a dull, aching metronome counting down the seconds to my vindication or my annihilation. Through the narrow gap in the heavy velvet curtain, I could see the Golden Hall in all its gilded, mythological splendor. It was a crucible, a place where legends were forged or broken.
And in the concertmaster’s chair, radiating an infuriatingly serene confidence, sat Julian.
He looked ever
