Jean-Luc sheepishly looked up at Moreau and I. "Do you promise not to tell my father?" he said.

His friends looked away, pretending not to be involved. They were the same ones I'd seen at Jean-Luc's school earlier that day: one of them was a small boy with a dark complexion, while the other was a huge, hulking figure, somehow taller than both Moreau and I at the age of thirteen.

"I promise," I said, against my better judgment.

Jean-Luc looked toward his friends and then looked back at me. "Our mathematics professor's house is just across the street," he explained. "We put a hat outside, but it has a brick in it, so when he kicks it..."

"How do you know that your teacher's actually going to do that?" I asked.

"Doesn't everyone kick a hat when they see one on the street?"

"He might not be the first person to find the hat. That street's pretty crowded during the day," I said. "Besides, the old brick-in-a-hat prank has been done to death. Can't you come up with something a little more creative?"

Jean-Luc paused for a moment before deciding to turn this back on me. "What are you doing out so late, Miss Brackenborough?" he said.

"I bet she was having a secret rendez-vous with her little boyfriend over there," the smallest of the three boys said.

Jean-Luc high-fived him. "Nice one, Antoine," he said.

"No...no, it's not like that at all," I said.

"Miss Brackenborough is right," Moreau said. "We're just good friends."

Jean-Luc and his friends didn't look like they believed us. "Listen Jean-Luc, I don't care if you were pulling some prank on your teacher," I said. "Just make sure that you're home at a reasonable hour."

"Fine," Jean-Luc said. "Come on, Antoine. Come on, Romain. Let's go."

The three boys ran away, while Moreau and I walked back toward the boarding house. "I nearly forgot how annoying thirteen-year-old boys are," Moreau said.

"Well, you were one once, weren't you?" I said.

Moreau laughed and said, "I like to think that I wasn't that bad." He then added, "I can't imagine having to put up with that kid every day."

"I don't know how Sylvestre does it," I said.

"Me neither," Moreau said. "Apparently things have been difficult for him ever since his wife died."

"Do you know how she died?" I asked out of sheer curiosity.

"I'm not sure," Moreau said. "I thought it was consumption, but consumption won't kill you that quickly." He paused and then said, "Regardless, it must be difficult for him, raising two children on his own."

"I'm sure," I said.

"Maybe Jean-Luc was so annoying that he snapped and murdered Bergmann."

I shuddered and said, "I hope that's not true."

"Me too, but who else could have done it?"

Moreau was right. I couldn't think of anyone else who despised Bergmann like Sylvestre did. There weren't any other obvious suspects, but that didn't necessarily mean that Sylvestre killed him.

Eventually, the two of us made it to the boarding house, and we said our goodbyes as we retired to our separate rooms. However, I couldn't stop thinking about the Order of the Nightingales, replaying the whole day over in my mind, wondering whether it was true, whether Bertrand Sylvestre had really done it.

A few days went by, but they all blended together. Each day, I rose with the sun, walked to Bertrand Sylvestre's house, dropped the children off at school, picked up Sophie, and made an attempt to teach her something useful after school. She had little patience for music, but she was fascinated by languages, both ancient and modern, and I was more than happy to help her learn. After Sylvestre returned home, I usually left, and I spent the evenings reading, composing, writing letters to my sisters, and listening to Moreau practice his violin.

One day, after he returned home from the conservatory, Sylvestre said to me, "I don't have any assignments to grade tonight. How would you like to have your first composition lesson?"

This was what I had come to Paris for. Finally, my dreams were coming true.

"Yes, that would be great," I said. Sylvestre and I headed into his study, and I brought my book of compositions with me. When we got there, I immediately opened the book and flipped to my newest compositions. "I started writing a string quartet, and I thought you might like to see it - it's meant to echo the sounds of birds singing..."

"Forget about all of that," Sylvestre said as he closed the composition book. "You need to brush up on your music theory before you can write something that complex."

He pulled a large textbook off the shelf, while I looked at him in disappointment. "I've bookmarked a few exercises you might want to try," Sylvestre said. "There are all kinds of things in there: scales, triads, modes, diatonic harmony, first species counterpoint..."

"But that's not composing," I said.

"You're right. It's not."

"What's the point then?"

"You need both talent and technique to be a composer," Sylvestre said. "You have talent already - that much was obvious from looking through your compositions. You have grand ideas, even a few sparks of genius here and there. Listen Miss Brackenborough, I wouldn't be teaching you if you didn't already have talent. Talent is something that can never be taught, but alone, it is never enough. You'll never get anywhere if you don't also have good technique." Sylvestre sighed. "Go work on those exercises, Miss Brackenborough. Maybe they'll get through that thick skull of yours." Sylvestre started to walk away as I opened up the textbook. "I'll come back in a few minutes to check your work."

I slogged through the exercises that Sylvestre had assigned, aggravated that I was wasting my time like this. There was no creativity, no freedom in identifying a G major chord or searching through the textbook for the basic principles of counterpoint. I managed to answer most of the questions, but all I felt when I finished was relief.

At least Sylvestre thought I had talent. That was something.

When Sylvestre returned, he corrected my answers and then assigned me a new batch of exercises. He was about to leave again, but there was something I wanted to ask him. "Mr. Sylvestre?" I said.

"Yes?" he said.

"Why don't you like Johann Bergmann?"

"That question should be 'why didn't you like Johann Bergmann?'" Sylvestre said. "He's dead now."

"Well, then why didn't you like Johann Bergmann?" I said indignantly.

"I've already explained this to you, Miss Brackenborough. I don't think it requires any further explanation."

"There has to be more to it than that."

"There isn't, and even if there was, it's none of your business."

Sylvestre left the room, and I returned to my studies. As I went through another round of orchestration exercises, I worried that I might be learning from a murderer. Perhaps Moreau and Lajoie were right. After all, Sylvestre despised Bergmann, and he'd never given a proper reason why, beyond simply disliking his music. It was flimsy evidence, but who else would have the motive and the means to kill him?

After I finished the exercises, I looked back at my latest composition, and I noticed a chord that I now realized wouldn't sound quite right. I erased some of the notes and fixed them, but the piece was riddled with elementary errors. I would need to rewrite the whole composition to fix them all.

Maybe Sylvestre had a point. I needed to learn to walk before I could run. I needed to learn the rules of composition before I could break them.

The days passed by, and at the end of each day, Sylvestre gave me another assignment, whether it was a section to read from the textbook, a score to study, or another dreaded counterpoint exercise. At night, I worked on my own compositions, trying to apply what I'd learned, but I wasn't convinced that my pieces were getting any better. Sometimes, I managed to write something grand, but other days, my compositions were flat, devoid of any character or individuality. Sometimes, I couldn't get any notes onto the page at all. Sometimes, I was haunted by the memory of what had happened at the Palais Garnier. Sometimes, I couldn't stop wondering if Sylvestre was the one who had done it.

Then, one day, I met someone who changed everything.