His hands hovered over the keys for a moment, then began a melody Clara failed to recognise. It was both beautiful and terrible, like watching something break in slow motion.
"What is that?" she asked.
"Something I wrote."
"You compose?"
"I arrange my nightmares into musical form. It's very therapeutic. Also completely useless."
"It's beautiful."
"It's noise."
"Beautiful noise."
“That is a most contradictory notion.”
“And you are a very walking contradiction.”
"That doesn't even make sense."
"You don't make sense. A duke who dismisses his staff. A soldier who hides from the world. A musician who calls his compositions noise."
"A beast who pretends to be a man."
Clara turned to look at him properly. "You're not a beast."
"The mirror suggests otherwise."
"Mirrors lie."
"Mirrors reflect."
He stopped playing. "You should go back to bed."
"So should you."
"I don't sleep."
"Ever?"
"Not well. Not for long. Not without..." He trailed off.
"Nightmares?"
"Memories. Which are worse than nightmares because they actually happened."
Clara wanted to touch him, to offer comfort, but their rules stood between them like a wall. "Tell me about them."
"Why?"
"Because sometimes speaking terrors aloud makes them smaller."
"These won't get smaller."
"Try anyway."
Gabriel was quiet for so long she thought he wouldn't answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was carefully neutral, as if he was reading from a report.
