The mirror-man is thin and young. His eyes are solemnly large, the grey of a sky exhausted by rain. His cheekbones are sharp, his nose haughty and noble, at odds with the softness of his lips and his ingenuous eyes. His hair is pale blue, tentatively sweeping his white shoulders. In his own eldritch way, like a pure note somehow caught in the wrong harmony, he is eerily lovely.

His twin catches sight of the mirror-man from across the room. To comfort the sad mirror-man, the man who is his twin walks to him and extends his hand. The mirror-man reaches out and touches fingertips with his twin.

His twin smiles to have his hand so well met, and the mirror-man's answering smile is bright like a slice of the sun.

A page arrives to clean his rooms. When the twin asks his name, the page's brown eyes fill with pain, but he answers. He names him.

Saher.

It sounds rather nice to him, and he repeats it under his breath. Saher, like a desert wind blowing through sun-blasted sand. Eagerly he tells it to the mirror-man. The mirror-man's lips move, and Saher pauses to give the mirror-man a chance to speak. Shyly the mirror-man falls silent.

A man enters Saher's room, interrupting the conversation. Saher is excited at first -- a new friend, maybe? -- but he is soon disabused of any hope. The man is not kind to him.

He is more than unkind.

Cruelty is new to Saher. So is pain.

The man doesn't care about Saher's name, about the discovery of dust motes in the light, about the mirror-man. He wrenches Saher's head back. His knee presses Saher against the wall.

The man has a name. His name is Master.

Master is bewildering until Saher realizes what he wants. After that, things are simple.

Saher can vaguely see the mirror-man, his hands tied tightly above his head. The mirror-man's lips are parted as he pants for breath, his left side covered with dark blood. The blood wines its way down his hip, down his pale naked leg, like a tattoo come alive. There is fear in his eyes, betrayal written on his face.

Pity overwhelms Saher's heart for him.

Master leaves, promising with a cutting smile to return. Saher nods slowly as Master closes the door and continues to nod as he slides down the wall, as tears gather in his eyes.

He mustn't dwell, he tells himself. He mustn't dwell.

If he feels this bad, he can't even imagine how bad the mirror-man, nameless with fear in his eyes, must feel.

The moon floats through the sea of night. Saher strokes the mirror- man's tear-streaked cheeks, but the tears don't disappear.

It will be all right. He sings softly to the mirror-man, a song with no words. The mirror-man's lips move, his eyes eloquent with their sadness. His song reaches Saher, plucks a string in his heart, and when tears well in Saher's eyes again, the mirror-man begins to cry, Saher's tears echoed in his own.

Saher falls asleep kneeling, his fingertips touching the mirror-man's for comfort.