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She doesn’t hold back. She sings at full strength, loud enough to reach the back row of a full house. Her eyes stay on the grille of my mask, on my mouth moving under the thin ribs. She can’t see much of it, and that thought allows me to be myself around her.

I hear both of us. I hear the two parts separate and return to the same note, I hear how her rough edge sounds next to the smoothness of mine. She makes my song sound better than it does alone.

I’ve never allowed myself a duet like this. Two Cantors who sing together lose control of what their voices do. Their songs don’t blend so much as multiply, and there’s no telling what they’ll become and what damage they’ll cause. So, I’ve sung alone in every place I’ve ever lived. I built this room so I could go on singing alone without affecting anyone. I never imagined a voice I could sing beside safely. I certainly never imagined that it would belong to a woman who can’t hear me, a woman who stands a step away from me with her face turned up and every part of her being still belonging to her.

That’s what moves me most. She isn’t enthralled. There’s no glaze over her eyes and no slackness in her mouth. Her pleasure in the song is plain and belongs to her alone. I’ve never seen anyone this happy within the range of my voice without my voice being the cause of it. She’s happy because she’s singing. I’m standing close enough to see it, and I want it not to end so badly that the wanting frightens me.

Her voice fades on a held note, and she lets it go. I stop right after her.

Neither of us moves. I can hear the silence. The padding absorbs every echo, and the only sounds left in the room are her breathing and mine. She lowers her hand from her throat and looks at me. She doesn’t ask anything. I don’t offer anything. I know what I would say if I could, and I don’t.

I know something else, standing here, getting lost in her bright eyes. Whatever plan I’ve been making about the way up and the road beyond Nivallia, it has just become harder to carry out now that she’s sung for me. With me.

I lift my hand and gesture for her to follow me.

I push the padded door open and hold the tapestry aside for her. In the music room, the lamps glow eerily. She walks past the piano and the half-built violins without looking at them. I lead her along the corridor to the library.

The music scores are kept under glass in the case near my desk. I lift the lid and take out the scores from the bottom shelf, half a dozen of them, and carry them to the table under the lamp. They’re fair copies. I wrote them out in my own hand with no crossings, no smudges, and no wasted ink, because I had nothing but patience and no one to hurry me. Each has a title across the top. I set them down in front of her and take a step back.

She looks at the top page, then at me.

I sign to her.

“I wrote these.”

“You compose,” she says, and it’s not a question.

“Yes. These are for two voices. One is mine. The other is a woman’s.” I make the signs slowly, though she doesn’t need me to, but I don’t trust myself to speed up without making mistakes. “I wrote them hoping I could sing them with someone one day.”

Prima, I think. Thought she isn’t real.

Aveline reads the title on the first score aloud.

“Litany Beneath Black Water.” She turns to the next one. “Nocturne for the Unlit Stage.” She looks up at me. “Are these all yours?”

“All of them. Those two are my favorites. Would you like to learn them? And sing them with me?”

She doesn’t answer right away. She pulls the first score toward her, bends over it, and reads along the upper line. Her lips move over a phrase without sound. Then she hums, a low steady note, and puts her hand against her throat to feel the pitch. She checks it against the page and hums the next. I can hear that she’s a little under the pitch on the second one. She can’t, but her fingers press harder into her neck, and she adjusts anyway.

“The line is high here,” she says, and touches the page. “You wrote it for a soprano.”

“Yes.”

“Your part is under it the whole way.” She traces the lower line with one finger. “You never let it cross above hers.”

“No.”

She keeps reading. Eventually, she straightens and looks at me.

“Yes. I’d like to try. It’s going to be hard for me. I’ll have to learn it through my hands and my breath, and I won’t know if I have it right unless you tell me. But I’ll try.” She taps the upper line with two fingers. “You’ll have to stop me when I’m off the note. Don’t let me go on because you don’t want to hurt my feelings.”

“I won’t be kind about it,” I say with a smile.

“Good. I’d rather know.” She glances down at the score again, and she speaks more quietly. “I’m sad that I can’t hear you sing.”

I keep my hands still and let her go on.

“I think you have a beautiful voice,” she says. “I know I’ve never heard it, but I felt it in there. I felt it through the floor and in my chest. And I can see it here.” She touches the paper. “No one who doesn’t have a voice worth writing for writes like this.”