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So, I know now what he hoped to buy. He wants me to sing, and she’s supposed to be payment. I understand that much, but I can’t understand the rest, how a man takes a frightened woman, fastens her in a cage, lowers her into the dark, and writes the word gift. I told her I didn’t know why they sent her. It was true when I said it. I fold the note and put it away with the others.

Aveline asks more questions now that she doesn’t have to wait for me to write the answers. When we row to the platform, she points at the stack of cards and asks what they are.

I sign: “Letters. For me.”

She nods and looks away.

I’m hiding things from her. The cards and the notes, how my song could heal everything broken in her body, what the people want from me. She doesn’t press when an answer stops short, and I’ve begun to depend on that.

During the day, Aveline keeps her door open. From my chair, I can see the mirror on her wall. She never stands in front of it. The drawers of jewels, combs, and cosmetics stay shut, and she wears her hair brushed and loose with nothing in it. The wardrobe is full, but she chooses the gray, brown, and dark blue gowns, with sleeves to the wrist, collars to the chin, and skirts that cover her shoes. Whenever she sits next to me, she turns her right side away from me. I thought, at the start, that it was out of fear.

One evening, after our lesson, I don’t have the signs for what I want to ask, so I reach for pen and paper.

Why do you wear only those? Everything in your room is yours. Any dress or ornament you like. Choose what you want.

She reads it.

“These are comfortable,” she says. “I don’t want to spoil the fine ones.”

I put the pen down and wait.

She looks at the fire and sighs.

“I’m ashamed of the burns.” She touches the collar of the gown where it closes over the side of her neck. “They’re ugly. I know you’ve seen them. I’m sorry you have to look at them.”

On instinct, my hand goes to the back of my head to check the clasps of my mask. It’s tight over my face, no chance of it slipping. I force my hands down. It’s become a nervous tic by now, to always check, especially in her presence.

Her burns have never been ugly to me. I didn’t know until now that they bother her. The fact that she’s apologizing for them takes me aback. I don’t understand it. Why would someone as beautiful and kind as Aveline apologize for the way she looks, for her existence in my space?

I must be doing something wrong. This is my fault.

When I sang to heal her wrists, I felt the marred skin through the song. I could’ve mended it then. I left it, partly because it needed no mending in my eyes, and partly because if I mended damage that deep, she’d wonder what else I could restore. And I didn’t want her to wonder. I’ve told myself since that leaving her as she is does her no harm. I can’t tell myself that anymore.

I pick up the pen and write.

I can heal your burns.

I turn the paper toward her and hold it in the lamplight where she can read it.

Chapter Ten

Aveline

I read what he wrote twice, because the first time, my eyes go over the words without taking them in. Mordred holds the paper steady in front of me. I’ve had the scars for six months, and in that time, they’ve stopped being something on my face and become my face.

“You can heal them,” I whisper.

“Yes,” he signs.

“All of them? The ones on my body too?”

He hasn’t seen those, so he’s surely not aware of the extent of the damage.

“All of them,” he signs.

I look at his hands, then at the mask, but there’s nothing for me to read, the same as always. I want to ask him whether he’s certain. I want to ask him whether he’s looked at all of me without my knowledge, because I’ve kept the gowns buttoned to my throat and the sleeves to my wrists since I’ve come here, and there’s no way he could know how far the scars go.

“Why didn’t you do it before?” I ask. “When you healed my wrists?”