They paused by the door, a small moment of quiet before the city swallowed them up. Alex hesitated, then asked gently, "Were you close with Irisia? What made you take on this…task for her?"
Elara tucked a stray curl behind her ear and answered simply,
"We were neighbors, we'd stop by each other's doors, share coffee and small stories. I never told her I was planning to leave Erynth Hospital, she didn't know I was resigning, but she had a way of seeing when someone needed to be nudged back into life. When she handed me that letter, I felt like she was giving me a path to follow."
Alex listened, something quiet and taut easing in his face, then nodded.
"If she trusted you with this, then I trust you too," he said, folding his hands around his coat.
"I grew up with Irisia's music in my ears, she changed the way I taught, and I owe her that. Let me help you find these people, Elara, we'll do it together."
Elara did not expect company when she returned to Irisia's apartment, but when Alexander followed her through the doorway he dropped the formalities like a costume. "Call me Alex," he said, offering a small, embarrassed smile that seemed to surprise even him. "Mr. Ryance is a house of papers and stiff bow ties. Alex will do."
Elara laughed, a little tired, a little relieved. His invitation to help felt steadier than she had expected. "I could use the help," she said, and meant it.
They stood in the middle of the living room among the seventy eight parcels, the light through the window soft on ribbons and paper. Alex moved naturally through the space, as if he had been here before, though he admitted he never had. "It feels like her," he said quietly, looking around. "This would have been Irisia's kind of place." For a moment the room seemed to tilt toward memory, warm and painful at once. Alex shut his eyes, as if imagining her at a piano or tying a ribbon, and then he nodded, as if deciding the memory would be enough to keep him walking forward.
Elara watched him study the boxes. "Do you know any of these people?" she asked, feeling hopeful.
"You were an old friend of hers. Maybe some names ring a bell."
He crouched and started to open envelopes, examining tags and photos with a gentle curiosity. He moved slowly, and was so careful not to damage anything because each ribbon and scrap of handwriting felt like something sacred. When his fingers paused over a large box with a broad bow, he frowned in thought. The little envelope taped to the top had a single line.
"The one who sees beyond sight," he read aloud, then lifted a photograph and held it up. The picture showed a girl in her teens, paint on her fingers, the angle catching her mid stroke, a landscape in front of her that did not match what she was painting. Her hair was dark, her eyes a light clear blue, her eyes focused on the canvas. The tag carried initials, D. W.
Alex's face loosened with recognition and a shadow of old affection. "Diana Wright," he said. "I remember her. Her parents wanted her at Harmony more than anyone asked for water on a hot day. They were famous in their circles, touring musicians. Irisia used to say Diana could paint the music, even when she could not feel the rhythm."
Elara leaned forward. "Do you know what happened to her?"
Alex exhaled, the memory turning painful. "Diana did not meet their expectations. She struggled with music, she failed tests because her hands wanted color, not keys. Irisia saw it and she told the parents, gently, that if Diana could not listen with her ears, she could listen with her eyes. That was her alright, always looking for another door for everyone. Diana chose art, and her parents were furious. They pulled her away, put her on tours, kept her moving so she could not practice anything but compliance. I lost touch with them after that. They moved quite a lot because of shows."
Elara felt a sad but hopeful after hearing the story. "Her parents were well known, you said. Do you remember their names?"
Alex nodded. He reached for his phone, fingers already moving. "I do. We worked together once. I'll try calling an old colleague of mine. He might know where the family is now."
He made the call in the hallway, stepping out and letting the rain smelled air gather around him. Elara packed the box back in its place and hovered, the apartment feeling both endless and intimate, like a house full of echoes she had somehow been given permission to enter.
On the line, Alex's voice warmed with a namesake of old camaraderie. His friend answered after a few rings, surprised and then ecstatic at the sound of his voice. "Alex? Is that really you?" the man said, fondness and disbelief bundled into the greeting. "I thought you'd disappeared."
Alex laughed, and something in his posture eased. They spoke like musicians trading bar lines, they fell into an easy tempo. Alex told him about Irisia, about the gifts, about the plan to reopen the academy. His friend listened, then offered the kind of kindness people give when they have weathered their own long miles. "We have kids now," he said, with a laugh that held the weight of years, "I can't leave my post now old friend, this place can't run without me. But I will come by and help with the academy if I can. I will tell my daughter about Harmony one day, and if you reopen, maybe she will sit at a little piano and learn what it means to listen."
He gained aot of valuable information throughout that phone call. Irisia once again rekindled buried flames. Alex came back into the room smiling, his hands carrying a glint of softness Elara had not expected.
"He knows where the Wrights are," he said. "They are still on the circuit from time to time, but I have a lead on a city they played in last year. Diana would be about nineteen or twenty now.Hopefully, she's old nough to choose her own road now.Free from the shackls that she was once in."
Elara felt the ground shift in a good way under her feet, small and decisive, like the first secure step after a stumble. "We should make haste," she said. "If her parents made her leave, she might not want to be found, or she might be furious. Irisia helped because Irisia could see. We have to do the same, respect whatever Diana wants."
Alex nodded. "We will. I will call one more person and see if I can trace that last tour. We might be able to find the city where they played recently." He tucked his phone away and turned to look at the photograph again, as if the girl in the picture might look back. "Irisia always saw the heart of things. Even now it seems she is tiding up the world, one lost piece at a time."
They made a plan togetheras they embark another journey. Alex utilized his old contacts to find the Wrights, and Elara gathered what Irisia had left that might belong to Diana, anything that looked like it might coax a memory or give an opening for conversation. They were planning an that would appeal and won't frighten the poor girl.
As they worked, the apartment felt less like a shrine and more like a workshop. The ribbon colors seemed brighter, the photographs less like relics and more like maps. Elara found a courage she had not known she possessed, and Alex found that the compass had not only pointed him back toward children and keys, but toward community and reconnections. Together they would try to do what Irisia had started.
They left Irisia's apartment with their plans folded into their pockets, and a sense that Irisia's handiwork, like good music, had set them moving to the next chord.