Our Souls Under Your Spell

The first time Adrian Vale heard my music, I was trying not to cry.

I didn't know he was listening.

I didn't know that, somewhere behind the dark glass of the judges' private room, a man with burnt-honey eyes was studying every movement of my hands, every hesitation in my breathing, every trembling note I forced myself to play.

All I knew was that there were five judges seated in front of me, a grand piano beneath my fingers, and a future that seemed to depend on whether I could make strangers feel something I had spent years trying to bury.

The room smelled of polished wood and expensive perfume. Afternoon light fell through the tall windows, illuminating the dust suspended above the stage. Somewhere in the audience, a programme rustled. Someone coughed.

Then the room fell silent.

I lowered my hands towards the keys.

For a moment, I could not move.

I had played in train stations, underground corridors, and empty rooms where nobody cared whether I made a mistake. I had played for strangers who dropped coins into an open case without looking at my face. I had played through exhaustion, hunger, and nights when sleep seemed like a luxury reserved for people who had somewhere safe to return to.

But I had never played for something I wanted this desperately.

The Obsidian Conservatory was more than a prestigious institution. It was the door I had spent years trying to find, the possibility of a life that might finally belong to me.

If I failed, I would return to the underground station at Châtelet, to the cold stone beneath my shoes and the coins that never quite covered the cost of surviving.

I drew a breath.

Then I began.

The first notes were quiet, almost hesitant. A melody built around a handful of fragile chords, delicate enough to break beneath the slightest pressure. I had written it on a night when the past had returned without warning, when memories I thought I had buried rose inside me until I could barely breathe.

I had never given it a title.

Some things became too real when you named them.

As the melody unfolded, my hands began to move with greater certainty. The music carried everything I could not say aloud: the anger, the loneliness, the shame of having needed people who had never known how to love me gently.

I played the way some people confessed.

Without protection.

Without mercy.

By the time I reached the final passage, my fingers were trembling. I kept playing anyway. I refused to let the pain decide where the music ended.

The final note lingered in the room.

Then it disappeared.

Silence followed.

I lifted my hands from the piano and stared at the keys, afraid to look at the judges. Their expressions were unreadable. One wrote something on a sheet of paper. Another leaned towards the woman beside him and whispered.

I had seen that look before.

The polite disappointment of people who had already decided that talent was not enough.

I swallowed and folded my hands in my lap.

"Thank you, Miss..."

"Nora," I said. My voice sounded smaller than I intended. "Nora Ashford."

The oldest judge glanced at his notes.

"Your technique is impressive, Miss Ashford. However, your performance was unusually personal. We are evaluating musicianship, not emotional confession."

I felt the words settle beneath my ribs.

Perhaps he was right. Perhaps I had mistaken the audition room for a place where honesty mattered more than appearances.

"I understand," I replied.

But I didn't.

Not entirely.

Because if music was not meant to carry the things we could not explain, I did not know what else it was for.

Another judge cleared his throat.

"We will discuss your application and inform you of our decision."

I nodded, rose from the piano, and gathered my music sheets. My hands were cold. I could feel the familiar pressure building behind my eyes, but I refused to let the tears fall in front of them.

I had learned long ago that some people mistook visible pain for weakness.

I was almost at the door when a voice interrupted me.

"Miss Ashford."

I turned.

A man stood near the back of the room, half concealed by the shadow of a wooden pillar.

He was not one of the five judges.

He wore a black suit without a single visible crease, and his dark hair was brushed away from his forehead, revealing a faint silver streak near his temple. His expression was composed, almost severe, but his eyes were a warm, unsettling shade of amber.

Burnt honey.

I would remember that colour long after I forgot the names of everyone else in the room.

"Yes?"

He looked at the music sheets pressed against my chest.

"Who taught you to play like that?"

"No one."

His eyebrows moved slightly.

"I learned what I could."

"That isn't what I asked."

I tightened my grip on the papers.

"Then perhaps you should ask a better question."

For the first time, something resembling amusement crossed his face.

The judges had gone quiet behind him.

He took a few steps towards me, stopping at a distance that felt deliberate. There was nothing hurried about his movements. He seemed like a man accustomed to entering rooms where everyone already knew his name.

"Adrian Vale," he said.

The name struck me with immediate recognition.

Even I had heard of him.

A composer whose work had transformed independent films into international successes. A musician whose scores were praised for their haunting beauty and whose interviews were so rare that people had begun inventing explanations for his disappearance from public life.

Some called him a genius.

Others called him impossible.

I had never imagined meeting him in a room where I was still trying to convince five strangers that I deserved a chance.

"You're Adrian Vale?"

"I am told so."

I couldn't decide whether he was joking.

His gaze returned to my music sheets.

"That melody you played. Was it yours?"

"Yes."

"Why did you stop before the final phrase?"

My heart missed a beat.

I had not realised anyone had noticed.

"I didn't stop."

"You hesitated."

"I was nervous."

"No." His voice softened, though his expression remained unreadable. "You were remembering something."

The words made my skin prickle.

I had spent years learning how to hide my memories inside music. I had never considered that someone might hear them.

"You're mistaken," I said.

"Perhaps."

He did not sound convinced.

For a moment, we stood facing one another, surrounded by the silence of the audition room. I wanted to ask him what he thought he had heard. I wanted to know why he looked at me as though my melody had opened a door he had spent years trying to keep closed.

Instead, I asked the only question that seemed safe.

"Did I pass?"

His expression became impossible to read.

"That depends on what you are willing to do next."

I frowned.

"What does that mean?"

He reached into his jacket and withdrew a black card. No logo. No title. Only a name printed in silver lettering and a telephone number beneath it.

He held it out to me.

"I would like you to meet me privately tomorrow evening. There is a project I believe you could be part of."

I stared at the card but did not take it immediately.

"What kind of project?"

"One that could change your life."

"And what would it cost me?"

For the first time, his composure faltered.

Only for a second.

Then he placed the card on top of my music sheets.

"That," he said quietly, "is precisely what we need to discuss."

He walked away before I could ask anything else.

I remained by the door, staring at the silver letters until they blurred.

Adrian Vale.

A name I had known for years, belonging to a man I had met only moments ago.

A stranger who had listened to my music and somehow heard the part of me I had never intended to reveal.

I should have thrown the card away.

I should have walked out of the conservatory and never looked back.

Instead, I slipped it into my pocket.

That evening, I returned to the underground station and sat beside my cello case long after the last commuters had disappeared. I watched the trains rush through the darkness, their lights flashing across the tiled walls like distant stars.

I took the card from my pocket.

On the back, written in handwriting that seemed almost painfully familiar, were six words.

Some melodies should never be finished.

My fingers went numb.

I read the sentence again.

Then a third time.

I had written those exact words in the margin of the original manuscript for my melody, years before.

No one had ever seen that page.

No one.

And suddenly, the audition was no longer the thing that frightened me most.

Because Adrian Vale had not merely recognised my music.

He had recognised something that should have been impossible for him to know.

And tomorrow evening, I was going to discover why.