Section 1: Prologue, Chapters 1 & 2 Summary

In the Prologue, Seraphina notes that she remembers being born, but her mother, who died in childbirth, left her a complicated inheritance. Papa hid the details from everyone, including Seraphina, resuming his legal practice and inventing a more acceptable dead wife. At church, the priest objects to the heretic when the psalter opens to St. Yirtrudis, and instead, he insists that St. Capiti will be Seraphina's saint. In Chapter 1, Prince Rufus's body lays shrouded in the cathedral. He was decapitated, and his head has not been found. Though she promised Papa that she would not play in public, Seraphina, as assistant to the court composer Viridius, has to play since both her soloist and her backup are sick. Leaving her designed anonymity, Seraphina plays to comfort the royal family, and the performance is exhausting. Noticing that Orma is waiting...