[It's a puzzle that Charles doesn't have all the pieces to, but he's perceptive enough to know it's there: something bitter and sad behind Kieren's plain surprise, in the stiff way he holds himself. A Halloween costume that isn't a costume. Charles knows how it must sound, and how it must look. But he still shakes his head, slow and soft.]

I'm not sure it's really real. There's no pulse, or anything. [He taps at his wrist with a crooked smile.] All my senses are dulled, except for fucking cold. Like I just got it so I'd have to keep it alive like everyone else, yeah?

[Grass is always greener, ain't it?]

And I don't- [Oh, this is the complicated part. The part he always lets Edwin explain.] I only looked like this back home 'cause I tried to. I had to try every day, for thirty years, to keep being myself. 'Cause ghosts are made of thoughts and memories and stuff, right? And if you get yourself trapped up in the bad ones, that's what you'll be. Just- a picture of the worst thing that happened to you.

[He's made much of his career on helping ghosts who that's happened to, but the threat never feels any less real.]

Gotta keep my head from getting all dark, or I won't look so normal anymore, yeah?