At that, he laughs, imagining there are many situations in which a talent like that would be useful. He still thinks it's the type of thing that might drive him mad in his need for silence and time alone, but there are certainly people who could use it to their advantage.

"Maybe I would be good at turning it off," he says thoughtfully. "My brother used to talk a lot. All the time. Even if there was nothing to talk about. I got very good at tuning him out when I didn't want to listen to him anymore." He says this with a smile, but there's a hint of sadness as well, the knowledge that he purposely stopped listening to Henrich sometimes because his brother annoyed him. But he's dead now. Buried in a small grave in the island cemetery, the headstone clumsily made, blood from Mathias's hands staining it in places. And now he can't go back and undo the conversations he ignored.