Page 113 of Angel's Fall

It always amazed her: the sight of the Palais Garnier as she turned down theAvenue de L’Opéra. Even though she knew her so well, the great empress of art astonished Christine with her size and grandeur. She held so many dreams, this palace of excess and splendor, and just as many nightmares and ghost stories. Christine would miss her: the golden angels and grimacing masks, the nymphs holding their lanterns, and the great copper dome beneath Apollo’s lyre.

Christine would remember it always though, holding it in her heart wherever the road led her. She did not know, even now, where that would be. She had come here sure of one thing, one destination, and a ghost had helped her find it. Just like the first time.

Shaya was waiting for her right where he had promised to be, near the ramps towards the subscriber’s pavilion. There was another man beside him, also Persian.

“It’s all prepared,” Shaya said. “This is Darius, Mademoiselle Daaé. The only person in the world kind enough to tolerate me for decades.”

“It is nice to finally meet you, Darius. I have heard about you,” Christine smiled. “Thank you both for coming and for your help.”

“Do not thank us yet – there is still work to be done,” Darius replied. Christine nodded and steeled herself. For the last time, she walked along the Opera’s edge, to the place that had been her secret door towards home. The place where she had taken refuge months ago, and had, by some divine intervention, been found by an angel.

And a chief groom. Christine smiled to see Jean-Paul busy at work in César’s stall, whistling to himself as he shoveled hay. He looked slightly worse for wear, from whatever Antoine had done to him, but he was healing.

“César likes Delibes the best, I think,” Christine called, and laughed when Jean-Paul jumped and then jumped again to see the infamous Persian behind her.

“Mademoiselle! I had heard you were taken! Now you’re consorting with this character?” Jean-Paul cried. “And looking like you’re going to a funeral, the lot of you! What’s going on?”

Christine held her breath, unable to answer for fear. Her hand shook as she felt for the ring on her finger and pulled it off. She would need to give it to Erik so soon. So very soon...

“You’re right, old friend. They do look rather dour.”

Christine’s heart jumped higher than Jean-Paul at the sound of the voice from the shadows. He stepped forward into the fading twilight, mask affixed and not a hair out of place in his immaculate regalia. She ran to him, not caring that Jean-Paul looked as if he would faint away on the spot. Nothing else mattered, except that her angel had found her again.

“I’ll change there,” Christine whispered as Erik embraced her.

“Change where?” Jean-Paul asked as Christine pulled away to look between Erik and Shaya. She didn’t even know where they were bound.

“The Madeleine, of course,” Erik replied, golden eyes filled with love and wonder. “You were promised a marriage at the Madeleine, my love, and I did not wish to disappoint you.”

15. Promise

Shaya, at last, hadfound himself inside the great edifice of the Madeleine; a Roman temple built to worship a different God with a grand statue of a woman above its altar. It was a magnificent place, even as the evening fell and what few parishioners were left filtered out. Darius smiled at the gilded ceilings and inscribed mottos above the pews, and so did Shaya. Despite their faith’s prohibition on graven images, he was not immune to the beauty here.

“I’ll be right back.” Shaya noted as he walked from their seat that the other guests had arrived. Armand Moncharmin looked more relaxed and revived than he had seen him in weeks. Strange indeed, for a man who now had to steer the National Academy of Music alone, but maybe it was better that way. Maybe it was because Robert Rameau was beside him.

Shaya, for his part, did not know if he would ever not be tired again. Despite hours of rest, it did not feel like the whirlwind had stopped at all. There had been the hours with the police and the hours of planning and arguing with Erik, a chore in itself. Along with that had been tasks grim and pedestrian.

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