Page 41 of Angel's Fall

6. Seen

Friday, the day ofprayer, was when Shaya felt the most alien in Paris. Usually, he and Darius made do with their prayers at home, but sometimes, he needed the consolation of knowing he was not the only follower of the Prophet in the city filled with churches and idols. So once in a while, they would go to thePère Lachaisecemetery, where the Ottoman consulate had built a small mosque so that fellow Muslims could pray for their dead. The building was crumbling, but Shaya was just a bit closer to Allah within its walls, listening to the chants and prayers.

He bent his head to the prayer mat, the woven texture so familiar, just like the prayers.Allah give me strength to bring justice.Allah let my brother be avenged. I am so close.“Please,” Shaya said aloud and saw Darius glance at him from the corner of his eye.

“So, no luck yet?” Darius asked when they were out, looking for a cab home from the eleventharrondissement. “I assume you would tell me if you had made any progress, even though you know I’ll reprimand you.”

“I thought I had some hope in working with the Vicomte, but it’s been a series of dead ends,” Shaya sighed. “He’s been hounding Christine Daaé for over a week. He thinks he can get her to turn on Erik, but he won’t take any advice on how to do that.” Shaya thought back to his few brief conversations with Raoul over the past week. He had sought the boy out carefully, slipping him a note through Jammes the ballerina and meeting him in the café across theRue Auber.

“I admire your persistence in trying to reason with a young man who is certain of what he believes and knows,” Darius laughed. “Do you remember how stubborn you were at twenty-three?”

“I wish I could forget.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll never let you,” Darius replied. “Your father warned me how hard it would be to keep you in check. Sounds like now you have to deal with yet another young man with no interest in logic or truth or, heaven forbid, the knowledge and expertise of another.”

“I wasn’t that bad.”

“Oh, you were, but you had redeeming qualities. You had a sense of justice. You loved your country and your family.”

“And they’re all gone,” Shaya whispered. “All but the justice.”

“Not all of them,” Darius said softly as they both shivered when the wind rose.

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Erik had gone fromnot caring at all what day it was to counting them fastidiously, or at least counting down the days until the boy left for the north. From his place in the walls, he watched Christine in the Opera’s halls and told himself that there would only be a few more days before the little inconvenience was gone. Indeed, it was the very topic of the conversation Erik was currently observing.

“Do you know how long the voyage will be?” Christine asked as she and the boy passed where Erik was hidden.

“I’m not sure, it will depend on the weather. Signs point to a mild spring, so we’re hopeful.” The boy sounded bored.

“I’m looking forward to spring. I’ve had enough of the clouds and gray,” Christine replied, and it made Erik wince. He wouldn’t know what the weather was, would he? It had been so long since he’d been outside in the day.

“Sabine wants a May wedding,” the boy went on. “I’ve told her that’s far too soon, but she’s insistent. I guess she’s waited long enough.”

“I’m sure,” Christine’s voice grew distant as she and the boy continued on their way. “Have she and—”

Erik turned away in his secret passage before he had to hear more about the little vicomtesse’s marriage. Christine was a master at small talk, Erik had discovered in the long days of checking in on her (just checking, not watching... constantly) and that boy. He slipped back through the shadows, considering what to do with the long empty hours that lay before him without her.

It never used to be this way. He had always been able to distract himself with some new contraption or composition. But he was unable to regain his mind now that there was love in his life. She had changed everything, and now all the pursuits he had once turned to in order to fill his lonely days were empty, even haunting the halls.

He drifted towards the manager’s office, curious as to if he’d catch another fight about the upcoming productions, or even about himself. It was time for his salary to be paid again, and Richard had been adamant that no more thousand-franc notes were to go missing under his watch. Thwarting the ass could be a bit of fun.

Erik smiled to himself, feeling the movement of his cheek against his mask. He noticed it more often nowadays, when he took it off at home with Christine. He had done as she asked, in one of his many attempts at distraction, and begun to make a new one that looked like a normal, bearded face. It was an interesting endeavor, to be sure, made easier by the copious amounts of supplies available to him in the Opera. He had something quite passable as a face now, with the suggested beard and glasses. It might make him appear like a regular man if he paired it with a hat and no one looked at him too closely.

It was a strange thing to consider – going out and about in the living world – as he slunk under the boards of the manager’s office to haunt them.

“You can’t be serious,” Moncharmin was lamenting as Erik arrived. “She’ll never do it.”

“She will if I pay her enough. And luckily, you already provided the cash,” Richard snapped. “You’d be amazed to learn what people will look past when money is involved, Armand.”

“That money is to placate him, not to provoke him!” Moncharmin screeched. Erik wondered who Richard could possibly mean to pay off with the Opera Ghost’s salary.

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