“I’m not sure. Why did sister Isabella say she would only listen to my request if I released my song in her name? Isn’t that wrong?”

“Not everyone is good, Arabella.”

After a brief pause, Ariadne asked Arabella.

“You, are you really going to give that Missa Brevis to sister Isabella?”

Arabella frowned and asked back.

“Can I not give it now?”

“The pipe organ has already come in. If you don’t give the score, what can she do now? Ask to tear down the installed thing?”

Arabella’s green eyes sparkled with joy. It seemed fun just to imagine eating the pipe organ and stealing the score.

“Hehehe, you’re a genius, Ariadne!”

Arabella, in high spirits, playfully nudged Ariadne’s head like a puppy.

But the joy was shortlived, as she had to consider the aftermath.

“But sister won’t let me off. If I fight with sister Isabella, mom will scold me.”

“You have to fight against unfair treatment. Nothing changes without making a noise.”

It was a story to some extent about her past self. Ariadne said as if reaffirming herself.

“Those people, they’re bad people trying to exploit you. There’s nothing in return for trying to be loved. Lucrezia… mother only loves Isabella. Isabella is spoiled to the core.”

Arabella looked at Ariadne with a confused face.

“But sister Isabella is my own sister, right? It’s the same with mom. They can be mean to you, but to me… there’s no way they would be.”

Ariadne countered.

“Why did the pipe organ, which was said to be impossible when you said you needed it, suddenly appear when Isabella said she wanted it? Both the Cardinal and mother know that Isabella has no interest in string instrument performance, don’t they? Aren’t they your parents?”

Arabella’s hands clenched tightly.

“The tutors too. To match your progress, the music teacher Mancini should actually be replaced with a more reputable teacher. But because they’re trying to match Isabella’s progress, Mancini keeps coming! But they changed the teacher for court etiquette to match Isabella’s progress, didn’t they? Why don’t they match your progress and do everything based on Isabella?”

Ariadne did not stop and pushed Arabella.

“No one will know something’s wrong if you just keep your mouth shut and accept it meekly. If the person gaining had some conscience to dissuade, it would be different, but would Isabella do that? Isabella has no words for the score. She just stole it!”

“Enough!”

Arabella pulled herself away from Ariadne, and suddenly stood up from her seat.

“The sheet music… Right. I won’t have any use for it anyway, so you must be planning to use it well. There’s no way that my older sister would be mean to me. It’s probably because the pipe organ was too expensive, and it was burdensome for me to use it alone, so the Cardinal and mother must have bought it for us to use together. It’s definitely not that they bought it only for my sister and not me. The teacher… it’s because I’m still young.”

Tears had welled up in Arabella’s eyes.

“It must be because I’ve been too close to you lately. That must be it. If I give the Missa brevis to Isabella and I don’t get too close to you, then Isabella will treat me well like she used to. Then, mother will also treat me well.”

Arabella wagged her little finger at Ariadne.

“You! Don’t talk nonsense to me. Don’t speak ill of our sister just because things are going a little well. Our mother loves me! I’m the real de Mare. You are not!”

After shouting and crying, Arabella quickly ran away, wiping away the tears streaming down her face.

Ariadne stood alone on the balcony of the second floor of the east wing, looking at the stairs where Arabella had left with a complex heart.

Despite hearing harsh words, she didn’t feel too upset. Because it was all too clear that Arabella had spat out those words to somehow console herself.

‘Did I say something unnecessary?’

On the day the lead pipe that would form the body of the pipe organ was brought into the construction site of the east wing, Isabella arrogantly took the sheet music from Arabella with their parents’ affection on her back.

Dressed in a satin indoor dress for summer, Arabella looked particularly despondent as Isabella, holding the parchment sheet music, snatched it away from her.

As Arabella handed over the sheet music, she explained precautions to Isabella as if a mother was handing over her biological child to a stepmother.

“I reduced the tonality and length for Missa brevis. I drew it as a score sheet because it’s a piece for an ensemble.”

(A score sheet: Sheet music that contains all the parts to be played by several instruments on one sheet. It is usually the sheet music that the conductor sees in an orchestra.)

Isabella received the sheet music indifferently and glanced over it.

“So, this is the sheet music, right? And this is called ‘Missa brevis’?”

“Th, That’s right.”

“I got it. Leave it here and go.”

Isabella, without properly flipping through the contents, placed the sheet music on the table of the reception room for a moment, and ordered her maid to put it on her desk in her room.

As a result, no one noticed the fact that a thin piece of parchment, crudely scribbled with musical notes for practice and relatively less expensive, was mistakenly tucked in between the thick pieces of parchment, where the music was neatly and precisely drawn.