By now, Katrina had seen and played more professional-level violins than a musician of her experience had any right to. She had seen powerful violins and delicate ones. She had played violins that sounded as if on fire, and others with voices as vast and cool as the sea.

But the violin in front of her now?

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Katrina finally managed to say.

“Of course you haven’t. Now, Katrina, your bow strokes are off because most of these videos don’t show the musicians. Your fingering is off for the same reason, and your timbre wanders because these rather excessive orchestrations make it difficult to focus. Plus these soundtracks contain obscene amounts of sound processing, which I despise because it just breeds sloppiness.”

“Yes, Miss Satomi.”

“But I don’t want you to pay attention to any of that.”

“What?”

Shizuka retrieved the original soundtrack, then positioned her laptop behind her.

“Let me focus on the video. I want you to focus on me. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Miss Satomi.”

Shizuka Satomi had just noticed a very peculiar truth about Katrina Nguyen.

The girl was playing to follow.

When Schradieck stressed timing and technique, she followed. When she heard waves of game music, she followed.

On the surface, this seemed peculiar, even absurd. Great musicians wanted to be free. Her first student, Morihei Sanada, destroyed himself because he felt trapped by the limits of his Japanese heritage. Claire and Kiana hated whenever Shizuka took out her violin, or even shared a recording. They wanted her suggestions, but they constantly worried about losing their sounds.

Every one of Shizuka’s prior students—every one—clawed for their musical freedom in their own way. Shizuka had been trying to teach Katrina with the same assumptions.

But Katrina had always been free. She had been free of acceptance, free of love, free of trust. So now she clung to anyone who would tell her which way to go, which way was safe, to anyone who would give her a star.

There was no chance of becoming great solely through following. But for now, this was how they would connect.

This was how they would begin.

Had she been daydreaming?

No … This was the soundtrack to Axxiom. Yes, Katrina was surrounded by the unmistakable harmonies of physics, chemistry, biology … quarks becoming atoms, atoms becoming molecules, molecules becoming life.

And yes, her fingers were moving; there was sound coming from her instrument. Yet how could music sound like this?

“When the music is heartfelt, it is even more important to play precisely,” Miss Satomi said. “Yes, eventually you can slide into the note. But the slide must enhance the note, not diminish it. For now, play the notes distinctly.”

Miss Satomi’s lead was articulate, precise, surgical. And yet the beauty made Katrina want to cry. But she couldn’t do that—she had to keep following, grasp this possibility with her fingers, with her heart.