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Tonight is entirely different.

Tonight, I am completely calm.

It isn’t surface-level composure—the shield the ‘Golden Girl’ of Belrose used to have. This quiet comes from somewhere much deeper.

I feel free, and beneath that calm, there is something else entirely pulsing in my blood. It’s something hot and thrilling that feels suspiciously like rebellion.

The grand hall at Belrose is packed to maximum capacity. Every single seat is taken, and dead center in the very front row sits Mathias. Looking down at him now, I could almost run over and kiss him on the cheek. Just a quick one. Because if he hadn’t forced us into this high-stakes duet, I would never have discovered the real Julian Thorne.

I have stood on professional stages my entire life, but I have never stood on one feeling like this.

The audience is leaning forward in their seats. I can see it from here, eagerly waiting for the catastrophe to unfold. The whispered rumors of the two bitter rivals forced to share a stage on the most important night of their young careers so far. They’ve heard the dramatic, exaggerated stories of our rehearsals, and they are here for the chaos.

They think they know what is about to happen. The realisation makes a slow, private smirk pull at my lips.

They have absolutely no idea.

They don’t know that the war between us ended weeks ago. They don’t know that the fierce ‘Golden Girl’ they’ve watched and analysed has been spending every night tangled in Julian’s sheets. They don’t know what the Nocturne sounds like when the two people playing it finally stopped fighting each other, and started playing for something else entirely outside the score.

They are about to find out.

I think about what the last few months have actually done to me—how it has altered far more than just how I play the violin. Julian didn’t teach me technical precision. I knew that already. He taught me how to feel the music. He pushed me past the safety of the notes on the page and forced me to find the truth underneath them.

I can only hope I have given him something equal in return. I have seen the ‘bad boy’ façade crumble piece by piece. I’ve stood in dark corridors, listening to the agonising notes he plays in empty rooms when he thinks nobody is watching him.

I know the difference between the performance of him and the real person underneath.

He is already seated at the ebony grand piano when I take my position on the stage.

Of course he is.

The very same Julian Thorne who has been notoriously late to every lecture and non-essential commitment for the entirety of his time at Belrose Academy, is never late to play alongside me.

Julian Thorne isn’t late for the things that actually matter.

Under the beaming stage lights, his intricate tattoos are visible, his shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows. He is dressed entirely in black, a detail that by now I have come to take as normal. His collar is open, the top three buttons undone to expose his chest. His inner rebel is always present, never quite contained by the stiff formality of the auditorium and Belrose.

He looks up and grins at me in the specific, devastating way that belongs exclusively to me. It’s private, wicked, and dripping with unspoken promise. As his eyes move slowly down the length of my body, a traitorous flush makes its appearance in front of four hundred people.

I decided to wear blue tonight. It isn’t quite the dramatic showstopper that I wore to the Thorne gala. It’s more structured, a deep, heavy cobalt silk cut into a classic A-line, and my bow is firmly tucked in my hair, of course, the exact same shade of cobalt blue as my dress.

I look at Julian across the stage, and an overwhelming surge of pride comes over me.

We are about to perform something that we spent months perfecting together. Something that served as the catalyst for turning our mutual fury into something that neither of us was prepared for.

The entire hall goes silent.

Four hundred pairs of eyes are locked onto us, waiting.

Julian lifts his hands, his long fingers hovering above the keys with a commanding pause before the first note that tells the room to hold its breath. I’ve watched him do this more times than I can count, and this exact movement does something to me every single time.

I lift my violin to my chin and where I would normally feel anxiety, tonight I only feel an intoxicating rush of adrenaline. The faces in the audience blur into a meaningless sea of shadow. The only thing that remains sharp and entirely real is Julian.

Just Julian.

He catches my eye and gives me a subtle nod to begin.

The opening of the Nocturne fills the great hall, the piano notes played effortlessly. I close my eyes for a fraction of a second, letting the sound land in my chest.