She was a splendid creature in white, with soft waves of glistening chestnut hair down her back. Perched on the flowered stool she played, fingers flying over the ivories. Then she stopped, lifting those porcelain hands, and turned to look at me. How ghostly her face—white and drawn, yet crowned with a celestial glow. A perfect round birthmark near her full lips curved up when she smiled her welcome. Even her imperfections made her beautiful.

I hovered in the doorway until her invitation came—a gentle pat to the empty chair beside her—then I crossed the great room, sliding close and placing my hands on the higher keys, two octaves above hers. The moment was not ruined by words—we simply sat beside one another, two pianists lost deeply in music, and enjoyed it together.

I closed my eyes and felt her prelude as she began, a dramatic lead-in that invited my higher notes in response, then we were playing together. Brahms. Chopin. Rosetti.

When the sun shed its garish light over this house, she would be gone, the pianoforte covered again, and no one else would have heard the music. That’s how it always went. Why did no one else ever hear it? Why was all this beautiful playing for my heart alone? They’d call me an odd little thing if I mentioned her and get that look in their eyes.

Yet none of it could steal from me this sacred moment, the feel of her cold, smooth arm moving gently against mine, the sound of our music mingling into one song. Not even Father, who stole most of what mattered, had a right to this small, secret part of my life.

I smiled, languid and peaceful, willing myself to remain forever, but then the tingles started. First in my fingertips, then up my arms and tightening through my chest. Flashes of awareness. Reality. The dream was ending far too soon, and I fought the wakefulness, swam back to the depths, but the more I forced it, the faster the fog lifted, drawing me back to the heaviness of Hurstwell.

I groaned, oddly sore upon the bed, but I was not in the cell, nor was I in my chamber above the rose room. I lay with leaden limbs and stared up at the curtains swept back from the pillars of a tall walnut bed. I blinked my eyes and my mind was clear. More so than it had been in a long time. Everything was still, chaos had quieted, and I was myself again. I lay on the softest cloud of sheets and pillows, enveloped in comfort.

Vienna. I was in Vienna, at Herr Strasser’s home with birds chirping outside the window and I was not mad.

It had all been a dream.

The odd old man at the party, the ward, the failed escape, the entire asylum—it had all been a wretched, soul-searing dream I never wanted to revisit again.