The aria—whatever it was—couldn’t have been much longer than three minutes, and she didn’t have a clue what was being sung about, only that it felt as though someone was delicately stripping the skin from her bones with a silver blade. There were no vocal tricks, no embellishments or flourishes: just the performer’s voice merciless in its power and perfection like nothing Peggy had ever heard before. It was beautiful, but it was beautiful in the way that the night was beautiful in winter, when it was at its blackest and coldest, and you felt as infinitesimal as the distant stars. It was
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