“Sebastian, don’t.”
But he leaned forward, elbows on the table.
“Surprise us.”
A few people chuckled.
Not loudly.
Just enough to make the boy lower his eyes.
For a moment, it looked like he might run.
Instead, he lifted the flute.
The first note was fragile.
Almost too delicate to survive the terrace.
Then the melody rose.
Clear.
Pure.
Beautiful.
The sound moved through the air like something searching for a room it had once belonged to.
The laughter died.
Forks froze mid-bite.
A glass trembled in someone’s hand.
Near the railing, an elegant older woman slowly stood. Her face changed first with confusion, then recognition, then something close to fear.
Sebastian stopped breathing.
Because he knew that tune.
No one here should have known it.
It was not famous.
It was not published.
It was not part of any performance.
It was a melody he had written twelve years earlier on the back of a restaurant receipt for a woman named Elena Marlowe.
Elena had laughed at it.
Then played it on her flute until it sounded like something worth remembering.
Sebastian had called it unfinished.
Elena had called it a promise.
The boy played with his eyes closed.
Tears slipped down his cheeks, but his fingers never faltered.
The melody filled the terrace.
Haunting.
Familiar.
Impossible.
Then it stopped.
