Page 50 of Angel's Fall

“Lamenting would be a good word for it. You’re a bad influence,” Raoul countered. “I hope my sister will reform you.”

“I don’t want such talk at my party,” Sabine said firmly. “I think it’s time for supper. Good night, Mademoiselle. I’m sorry you won’t be able to hear Madame Cruvelli. She’ll be singing after dinner. You may go meet her, if you like, she’s somewhere about... Maybe in the kitchens with the other hired help.”

On cue, a bell rang, and all the well-dressed guests began moving, circulating around Christine like a river around a stone. She was too insulted, confused, and exhausted to move.

“I’ll see you soon,” Raoul stammered, bringing Christin back as his family pulled away. “I’ll send my man with the carriage!”

Christine only nodded in reply and walked out alone into the cold night as servants and guests stared. She wanted to crawl back into the warm bed she had shared this morning before she had spoken and ruined everything. She wanted to burrow away from the sins of the past and the damnation of the future and forget. That was impossible now.

The rumble of the fine de Chagny carriage coming to a halt in front of her shocked her from her thoughts. The footman who had followed her outside rushed to open the door and help her in, and Christine had no choice but to go. Now she was leaving Erik alone to spy on these vipers and make who knows what kind of idiotic decisions on impulse.

“Please come back to me,” she found herself whispering as she rolled away from the grand old manor and into the night, towards the flat that was no longer home. “Please be safe.”

––––––––

Erik was accustomedto spying on people from hidden passages and behind the curtains of his theater, not through windows while he perched on ledges and narrow gutters in the cold night. This was much more difficult, especially considering that he had nearly been discovered already when he had made the mistake of looking in the wrong room to see the boy.

The boy... who had an impressive collection of evidence regarding the Phantomandhad caught Erik snooping. Erik had ducked away and into the garden (glad the fool had been slow with his trigger finger) and tried in vain to find someplace unexposed to look in on the party.

It was harder than he had anticipated, with a few people taking the night air and more lingering close to the windows. That hadn’t mattered when Erik’s quarry had joined them on the terrace overlooking the garden. From the bushes, Erik had glimpsed him, peering out into the night.

It had been (ironically) like seeing a ghost, Erik thought as he carefully made his way along the edge of the roof in the dark, trying to embody the cat he had been named for. It was hard when the sight of the new Baron de Martiniac had left him so shaken. To see a younger, slightly changed version of his father’s face... Erik had needed to compose himself, and in that time, everyone had gone in. So now he was doing his best to peer into the dining room to catch a glimpse of his brother, or Christine.

There was no sign of her, which was troubling. Had she been turned away at the door? Was she on the way back to the Opera without him? This had all been a terrible idea.

His thoughts froze as his eyes settled upon the face of Antoine de Martiniac once again. He was seated next to the woman Erik recognized as Sabine de Chagny. He had no interest in her, just in her fiancé. The man was charming. He laughed and smiled at the guests, but it was all so clearly a façade. He had the same ruthlessness in his eyes that Erik remembered from his father, and none of the joviality. It was as if any soft edge the man had ever possessed had been honed to razor sharpness.

There was no reason to keep watching other than to torture himself, and yet, Erik could not look away. What did it mean that this man existed? What did it change? Was it some joke of fate that this man was entangled with Erik’s greatest enemy?

There was, apparently, a pause between courses, and the well-heeled guests rose from the table. De Martiniac wafted towards the door to the terrace, and Erik leapt silently from his perch and into the garden once again, this time close enough to hear his brother speak.

“Where is that useless man with the cigars, Philippe?” Erik knew it was Antoine’s voice without looking. He had their father’s tone.

“He’s probably the one Raoul sent off with Daaé to whatever hovel she calls home.” That was Philippe. Erik was immensely thankful for the information.

“I still can’t believe that woman dared to show her face here,” a third male voice chimed in, one Erik did not know.

“Oh, Louis, haven’t you heard? My idiot brother still thinks he’s going to marry the baggage, as if that’s what opera wenches are for,” Philippe laughed. Erik clenched his fists.

“My goodness, that would be a scandal. But I thought Raoul was going back abroad?” the other man asked. A pause.

“He’s reconsidering,” de Martiniac answered, and Erik’s heart seized again. “Sabine made him promise to stay for the wedding.”

Philippe sighed. “That boy will be the death of me.”

“You used to say that about me,” Antoine laughed back. There were clicks, and in seconds, the air was full of cigar smoke, heavy and sweet.

“How did you convince an angel like Sabine to marry you, you rogue?” the stranger asked, coughing.

“Antoine’s been family for years. We’re just formalizing it,” Philippe replied. “When men have a bond like ours, it’s important to build on it.”

“What are you talking about, old man?” the stranger asked.

“Philippe is being poetic. He means to say he adopted me after our fathers died together.”

“And after you frittered away your inheritance, don’t forget that...” Erik did not hear the rest, the blood rushing to his head was too loud.

Diedtogether? That couldn’t be. Could it? There had been other men at that party, other guests who had perished in the fire when Erik left Alfred de Martiniac to burn... Had Raoul and Philippe de Chagny’s father been one of them?

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