Page 108 of Angel's Fall

“Where is my brother?” Raoul cried, and the young man looked so stricken it made Raoul’s stomach wrench with grief. “Where is Philippe?!”

The man ran from the room as Raoul stumbled from the bed, his legs unsteady under him. Outside his window, the sky was a pale gray, giving no clue as to the position of the sun. Was it morning? How long had he slept in that drugged stupor? He would have that doctor’s head for making him insensible when there was so much to do.

“Raoul!” He looked up as Sabine rushed into the room and caught him. “Get back into bed.”

“No! I need to see Philippe,” Raoul roared, even as he collapsed into his sister’s arms. She was crying again already. How dare someone make her cry.

“Raoul, please don’t make this harder,” Sabine begged. “Don’t you remember?”

“I remember a nightmare,” Raoul protested as his own tears began to fall. “I remember you telling me – you and Christine – you told me...”

“He’s gone, Raoul,” Sabine sobbed as the two of them fell to the floor, holding one another the way they had as children. “I saw his body. They are preparing it for the funeral tomorrow. He’s gone.”

Raoul had never wept like this. His mother had died before he could know her, and his father had always been a distant, somber figure. But Philippe...

Philippe had been the sun in their family’s sky. He had been warmth and joy and laughter, and now it was all justgone? No more nights at the Opera or jokes about Raoul’s frowns or muttering over the morning paper or worrying for the family name. It was all over, and Raoul had not even had the chance to say goodbye...

Raoul cried and cried with his sister, wishing he had not been forced to sleep for so long, because now he was awake and the peace of sleep was such a distant thing. How could he sleep soundly in a world where his big brother was not there to protect him and guide him? A world where the man responsible for Philippe’s death still breathed.

He rose when there were no tears left in him, resolve solidifying in his gut. Grief could wait. Raoul had justice to pursue.

“Where did my man go? I need to dress at once,” Raoul asked, trying to sound composed. If he acted like he was in control of himself, eventually he might feel that way. Sabine gave no answer, so Raoul rang, and the same a servant who had been attending him before appeared. “Get me my clothes.”

“You need to rest.” Sabine stood and straightened her black dress. “You had an ordeal.”

“I’ve rested enough. What bloody time is it, anyway?”

“It is ten o’clock on Saturday morning. You’ve been asleep for nearly a day,” Sabine answered. Raoul could hardly make sense of such a span. They had gone to the Opera on Thursday, and it had felt like weeks that they had been in that hot, horrible, mirrored room. Now it was over.

Christinehad told him it was over, he remembered that from the delirium of his first waking. She had said...

“He let us go?” Raoul asked aloud as his valet began to dress him. It was impossible.

“You mean the fiend responsible for all of our misery freed you both?” Sabine asked back. “That is what she and that foreigner say of the matter, but they have given me no details beyond the fact that thisPhantomheld you all captive for a span, then somehow had a change of heart.”

“I don’t understand it either,” Raoul muttered as he buttoned his shirt. The last awful thing he remembered was Erik threatening themallwith death. They had found the gunpowder and learned of the scorpion and the grasshopper. Then Shaya had choked him unconscious, the bastard.

Raoul rubbed at his throat as he finished his final button, recalling the expert way the Persian had subdued him. Somehow, in the time he was asleep, Christine had been able to broker their freedom.

“Where is my fiancée?” Raoul asked.

“You cannot be serious,” Sabine scoffed. “You still mean to marry that woman after all of this?”

“If I do not marry her, it was all for nothing,” Raoul hissed in return. “Now where is she?”

“I sent her away to sleep at whatever hovel she calls home,” Sabine snapped. “But she returned today, and I’ve had her waiting in the kitchen. A place appropriate for someone of her breeding.”

“With theservants?” Raoul balked.

“You’re lucky I didn’t send her to wait in the kennel.”

“You would do well to show some respect for your future sister.”

“I would rather cut out my own tongue,” Sabine replied with more hate in her face than Raoul had ever seen. “Go grovel to her yourself – I refuse to share a room with that whore.”

Raoul scowled at his sister and left the room. He was the head of the family now, and she had a duty to obey him as much as she would her husband. At least now Raoul had the power to stop her marriage to Antoine. That was some consolation.

“Has the Baron de Martiniac visited since I’ve been indisposed?” Raoul asked the valet at his heels.

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