Page 112 of Angel's Fall

“I will see you tomorrow then?” Raoul asked before smiling. “My future wife.”

“Tomorrow, yes,” Christine echoed. The dangerous man Raoul had become melted away, and the boy she had loved by the seashore so long ago returned. She did not pull back when he bestowed a chaste kiss on her lips before taking her hand to lead her from the study and towards the waiting crowd. “Raoul?”

He turned back to her and she let go of him. “Yes?”

“I know this will be hard to do alone, but you will survive and be stronger for it,” Christine said. “Goodbye.”

Raoul merely smiled and turned away, leaving her alone by the door as he went to attend to his guests. Christine found herself shaking as she contemplated what lay ahead.

Sabine was in the large drawing room, looking up at a portrait above the fire of a woman who looked strikingly like her. Her late mother, perhaps. Sabine had buried both parents as well, Christine realized, and now her brother too.

“I haven’t had a chance to tell you how sorry I am, Sabine.” Christine summoned her strength. “Philippe was a good man—”

“Don’t you speak to me of my brother,” Sabine hissed as she rounded on Christine, her eyes stony and furious. It reminded Christine of the madness she had seen so often of late in Raoul, and it broke her heart.

“I am sorry. I still have to say it.”

“What you have to do is get out of my house,” Sabine snapped. “Why are you even here?”

“To confirm my plans with Raoul for our elopement. Tomorrow.” Christine waited for the woman to slap her or scream or even laugh. She only stared in disappointment. “We mean to travel to Brussels and—”

“You have taken one brother from me, my fiancée is still missing, and now, you wish to take the only good man I have left in my life?” Sabine said. “No. I won’t allow it.”

“Raoul is set on it. I must,” Christine stammered. “I made a promise.”

“Promises are to catch gulls with,” Sabine sneered, and Christine flinched. “Break it.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you will destroy him.” Sabine’s face was not only angry; it was twisted with grief new and old. “You don’t love my brother, not the way he deserves. You are doing this because you think you must fulfill some vow to a murderer. But you willruin Raouleven more than you already have. If you just leave now, our family name has some hope, but if you marry him, it will be gone. There will be no legacy to pass on to your children.”

“I can’t have children,” Christine blurted out, and Sabine was stunned into silence. “I would know, by now, if I could, and I can’t.”

“So you will ruin our family’s name and end our bloodline, and all for what?”

“What do you suggest?”

“You have some secret errand at the Opera tonight, don’t you? I heard you blubbering about it. You have to bury the man who killed half our family.”

Christine winced at the words but nodded.

“It’s going to overwhelm you,” Sabine went on. “It will fill you with such grief that you will be moved to end the engagement. It was under false pretenses, anyway, given that you are barren. You will write all this in a letter that I will deliver to my brother while he waits for you, and you will – I don’t know. Go off to a convent.”

“A convent? Really?”

“I don’t care where you actually go, only that you leave and never return to this city or our lives,” Sabine growled. “Do this, and you are forgiven, and I won’t have to spend the rest of my life making yours a living hell in return for what you’ve done.”

“I will... consider it.” Some tether had been cut, and Christine was suddenly caught in a new current as she floated free. “I will send word later tonight.”

“I trust you will make the right choice. It will be a novelty for you,” Sabine sneered.

Christine sighed. There was one more thing she could tell Sabine de Chagny, regarding the fate of her own fiancée; the man whose body now rested under the Opera. But maybe that was too cruel. Sabine would realize soon enough that Antoine was never coming home, and she too would be free.

Christine slipped from the house, not looking behind her as she began the long trip towards the Opera, for the last time. Her feet were tired, as was her body. She had slept poorly last night in her empty bed, tormented by nightmares of all that awaited her today. But she had to keep going. She had always been good at that.

Months ago, as autumn had just taken Paris into her deathly embrace, Christine had walked a similar path. She had managed to get lost a few times, back then, but she had found her way to the place she was meant to be. To the Opera. Now, she went again, to fulfill a different promise to a different ghost she loved just as deeply.

It was almost spring. She stopped along the Seine, among the trees growing by the river, just to appreciate the flowers daring to bloom first as the sun returned. She gathered a few: snowdrops, crocuses, and narcissus. She would need them.

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