But. Would he be wearing a mask if it was?

“Before, in the basement,” I said, withdrawing my hand from his form once I was sure I’d stayed him. “You told me you hadn’t been able to play. But now you can. Does that count for the piano, too?”

For a moment, he didn’t move, only glanced between me and the enormous instrument.

Just when I thought he would refuse, revert to his colder self, and whisk out of the room, he took a seat on the piano bench, placing his hands to the keys. As he did, my eyes went from his gloved fingers . . . to the place where he’d set the silver skull ring.

Its ruby gaze stared into me—rooting me to the spot.

Then he began to play, the first and all-too-familiar notes of “Für Elise” wandering out of his fingers and into the space between us.

I shut my eyes, fighting off the pain that came with the beauty.

Perfection poured from the piano, the mellow, meandering notes collecting themselves gradually and with tentative steps into a surer shape. Then the melody shifted into certainty, trilling and tripping along, light as the rain that pattered on the window. Then the song fell again, settling into its original pace.

Opening my eyes, I found myself moving toward the music, floating nearer to him. I came closer. And though I expected my nearness to disrupt him, it didn’t.

He went on and so did I. And when I arrived at his side, I did the impossible. I lowered myself onto the bench beside him so that we were sitting just as we had in the dream, when all the walls had still existed between us and not just a single remaining mask.

Directly in front of me, his skull ring glinted—its crimson eyes unblinking, as dead as they were serious.

Suddenly, the song changed, darkening the way the sky does when storm clouds move in, his left hand repeating a low A while his right shifted between the accompanying chords.

With my shoulder barely brushing his, I found myself leaning into him. Together, we weathered the dark until his right hand climbed toward me, taking us out of the danger before falling away in a quick descent to rediscover the main theme that had started everything.

And then he killed me with the final fading, those dying notes that caused my heart to ache, though I couldn’t be sure if the pain was all mine. And when at last he did stop, the silence swam in to swallow us both, as cold and shocking to the system as the frozen lake had been.

Seconds elapsed. All of them counted and chronicled—stolen—by the clock.

Catching the faintest hint of lavender, I shifted toward him on the bench.

He turned his head to me, but not all the way, almost as if he’d known what I was about to do—even before I did.

I did it anyway, my hand rising between us, moving on a slow collision course for his mask.