Page 29 of Angel's Mask

“I’ll take her,” Julianne said instantly.

“What about your rats?” Louise asked. She was suspicious again.

“Give them to Annette,” Julianne snapped. “Christine can take what’s her name – Valerius’ bitch understudy in thirteen.”

“Giving her the haunted room now too?” Louise scoffed. “Fine. Go.”

Julianne grabbed Carlotta’s costume from the rack and Louise helpfully shoved another into Christine’s hands. Without another word, Julianne rushed off and Louise sighed. “Is everything alright with her? She certainly wasn’t herself.”

“I think she’ll be fine,” Christine said, hoping it was true.

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Erik had stayed close, he told himself, to make sure Christine was alright. But now he took to his secret passages, rushing ahead to meet her. It was foolish, perhaps, but he too needed an assurance that his student was alright after Buquet and whatever she’d seen of Jammes and her lover.

As if the week hadn’t already left him in a crisis. Now this. There was one thing he had been sure he could do for Christine in the Opera: keep her safe. And he’d nearly failed. (Of course, there was always the pernicious voice in his head reminding him that she was far from safe when it came to the most dangerous person in the Opera: him).

Arriving behind the mirror of dressing room thirteen reminded him of his own sins all over again. He’d been a wreck of lust since their strange dalliance in Carlotta’s room. He had tried to remain cold and stern in lessons to compensate for his desires, but it didn’t help. Each evening he found himself near her bed, each night his songs to her were full of longing and he knew she heard it. He’d retreat just in time, exiling himself back into the darkness to eke out a shameful climax as his thoughts swam withher.

It was easy to assure that the door to dressing room thirteen was unlocked before taking a place behind the glass. The singer currently assigned this chamber was Nicole Duval, who Erik knew hated the room, as most singers over the years had. Not only was the dressing room far removed from the elite corridors near the stage, but the great mirror that filled nearly half the wall to the left of the door tended to unsettle people. It was as if they heard voices come from it.

Christine did not seem troubled at all when she entered with Duval’s costume. She turned up the low-burning gaslights and surveyed the mirror, a smile playing on her lips. The fact she always knew he was there remained one of the few things that kept Erik in check, and he was both grateful for and hated that her strange power kept him from seeing her, all of her, again...

“I wonder why Carlotta doesn’t take this room,” Christine mused aloud. “Surely she’d love such a grand mirror to see herself in.”

“Well, it’s quite haunted you see,” Erik replied easily, and Christine’s smile spread into a grin. “Truly, are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Christine replied, not entirely convincing, but he didn’t pry. “I’m worried about Julianne though. She’s still upset.”

“People knowing about her and the dancer is dangerous,” Erik said. “I’m sure they’re worried.”

Christine’s brows drew high in interest. “Did you know? About them?”

“I suspected,” he answered, honest for once. He liked to know most of what was going on in his opera, but he could never know everything. And some things he didn’t need to know. On the other side of the mirror, Christine frowned, a flurry of different emotions flashing over her face. “What’s wrong?”

“I – I know I can’t ask questions – big questions – of you, or at least I shouldn’t ask about heaven or God or secrets I can’t know,” she burst out, much to Erik’s surprise. “But Julianne and Jammes – what they did or are – are they damned? I know the Bible says—”

“The Bible is nothing but another book written by dead men,” Erik cut her off and her face fell in shock. “And most of it is a tool to keep people afraid and obedient. There’s very little in it that’s correct when it comes to, well, anything.”

“If you were anyone else, one might call that blasphemy,” Christine said quietly. Panic seized Erik; the fear that she’d know from his sacrilegious words that he was the farthest thing from an angel. But she just smiled, subtly, the faith in her eyes still shining. “So, what they did is not a sin?”

“Love is never a sin,” Erik told her, thinking back to similar words he had heard in another life. He’d laughed at them then, as any monster such as he would laugh at talk of love. Now, though, he understood better.

“Thank you,” Christine said, her eyes still on the mirror but not on her own reflection. “For saying that. And for stepping in when you did.”

“Buquet is a brute,” Erik said, cringing at the thought of what the chief of the flies might have done to her. It made his blood boil. “He deserved far worse.”

“Is he that bad?”

Erik had no chance to answer, as the dressing room door flew open. Nicole Duval strode in, her angular face irate.

“Who are you? How the hell did you get in here?” Duval demanded, looking suspiciously around the room then at Christine.

“I’m your dresser for tonight,” Christine stammered. “I’m sorry, the door was unlocked. I just came in to get things ready.”

“Dressers waitoutside,” Duval snapped, making Christine flinch. Again, rage rose within him.

“I’m sorry, Mademoiselle,” Christine replied, placating.

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