Well, most of it. There was one single bright spot in that nightmare—the young doctor with a gentle strength of nature so pure that it could only have been imagined. Hope had radiated from him when I’d given up on humanity, lighting the darkness with which I’d begun to see the world. If only he was real.

I closed my eyes and thought of Bach’s cello suite, pictured his easy smile. The rest of his face had faded already in the way of dreams in broad daylight, but the song and the smile, the memory of him bending low to comfort a madwoman, were enough.

I breathed deeply and let it out. Of course I find someone whose melody could impact souls . . . and he’s a dream. Yet now, at least, life made sense. That reality had been far too dark, too painful, for God to have truly brought me into it. Only my own imagination could conjure up such evil, apparently.

I sat up and rubbed my face, hair tumbling over my shoulders, and looked around the lavishly appointed blue room. It seemed like I’d slept a year. There was a cushioned quiet to the mansion, a thick silence that I appreciated.

Herr Strasser always insisted on hosting me when I played in Vienna, but never before had I come in without thanking him and his wife profusely for having me. Last night, for some reason, I had. They must think me terribly uncouth.

I groaned at a rap on my door that I felt in my head. I shoved stray hair off my face and shielded my eyes that suddenly seemed terribly allergic to sunlight. What had I had to eat and drink the night before? That foolish marquis must have given me something—but what? Never had I slumbered so hard or succumbed to so vivid a nightmare.

I’d barely wrapped myself in a robe from the end of the bed when the door burst open and the indefatigable Marcel Beauchene marched in. With wild curls running rampant and a blue smoking jacket wrapped around his torso, he appeared far from ready. “Ah, at last the sun has deigned to make her appearance.”

I groaned and collapsed back onto the bed face-first, clutching a pillow over my head. I heard the swish of luxurious cloth as he slid the curtains open, felt the penetrating light from the window even through my buffer.

“I had to cancel last night, with the condition you were in. Someone must have slipped something into your drink. I do hope you’re better now.”

I sat up, flinging the pillow aside. “You canceled Die Josefstadt?”

“You know me better than that, Vivienne. No, I was forced to cancel your special appearance at the Ungers’ dinner party. They were terribly disappointed. One of them in particular.”