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Library.

The room is bigger than the main room. Shelves rise to the ceiling, with cabinets with glass fronts, and desks with lamps burning on them. I can tell that all of it had been carried down from the offices above. There are hundreds of books, bound journals stacked on the desks, boxes of loose pages, and sheets of music laid out under glass. It’s beautiful, and it’s also wrong, with so much writing, so many lamps, and no window anywhere.

“Did you read all of these?” I ask.

Most.

I point to the journals on the nearest desk. The handwriting on the open page I see is his. I know it now.

“Did you write those?”

Yes.

I don’t touch them. I read the spines on the shelves and the labels on the boxes, and I keep my hands folded at my waist.

He writes, Music room at the next door he leads me through, and I stop in the doorway.

There’s a piano against the far wall, and a harp next to it with all its strings. There are violins in open cases along a shelf, a cello in its stand, horns, flutes, a drum, and music stands set in rows. Some of the instruments are polished and whole. Others are half built – a violin body without a neck, a horn with a new brass section fitted into old green metal, pieces laid out on cloth beside them. Cabinets line one wall, and every shelf holds scores.

I know all of it. I know where each one belongs below a stage, and what it does when the conductor lifts his hand. I used to feel the cellos through the boards.

“You fixed these?” I ask.

Some. Others I’m still building.

“I sang with an orchestra. I could tell when one instrument was out of tune before the conductor could.”

I stop before my voice gives me away. I refuse to cry.

“They’re beautiful.”

He writes nothing to that. I don’t touch any of the instruments. It wouldn’t be polite, and I don’t know what I’d do with my hand on a string I can’t hear.

The last door is the workshop. Benches run the length of it, and there are tools hung on the walls in careful order – saws, chisels, clamps, cabinets of hardware, coils of rope, and painted boards leaning in the corner with clouds and columns on them. On one bench, there’s a chair with three legs, and on another, a lamp with its glass off. The whole room smells of oil and sawdust.

He writes, I repair furniture and instruments here. I also keep the lift working.

“The lift that brought me down?”

Yes.

I look at the clamps and the chisels, and then at his hands. Everything in this house was carried, built, or mended here, and it was done with those claws. I don’t say anything about the lift.

We go back to the main room, and I sit in the velvet chair by the hearth. He remains standing. I add up what I’ve given him and what he’s given me. I’ve told him about Rosemere, the Lyric House, the bakery, and the fire. He’s only given me his name, one word for what he is, and a handful of lines on paper.

“You know a great deal about me,” I say. “I know that you’re called Mordred, that you’re a Cantor, and that you can heal. That’s all.”

He waits with the pen and paper in his hand.

“I could teach you sign language,” I say. “Then you wouldn’t have to write everything down. It would be faster for both of us. I could ask you things without making you stop to find paper.”

He looks at my hands, then writes, Teach me.

So, I do. I motion for him to sit down, and when he does, I turn to him and give him an encouraging smile. I say “table” and make the sign. He copies it, his fingers long and the claws catching on each other. I say it again and shape my hand slowly so he can see. I move on to “chair”, “hearth”, and “house”. He watches my hands with everything he has, and by the third word, he’s not making any mistakes.

“Good,” I say. “That’s good.”

I fold my hands in my lap and look at his face, at the white porcelain and the grille over his mouth.