Page 62 of Angel's Fall

“Iamsorry,” he murmured. “Not that it matters. We had no idea that—”

“We?” Julianne scoffed. “You don’t get to use that word. Not anymore.”

“I know, I—” Erik protested as Julianne stepped so as to block Adèle from view.

“Like I told you, Christine is gone,” Julianne went on.

“No, you said she wasn’t here – have you seen her?” Erik asked, hope and fear surging at once.

“She came to apologize too,” Adèle confessed while Julianne scowled. “She cried and begged forgiveness but didn’t stay to take it.”

“Where did she go?” Erik’s pulse was racing.

“As if you could follow,” Julianne snapped, and Erik cringed. “She’s left the city.”

“To go where?” Erik watched Julianne’s eyes harden in deeper defiance. “Please. I just need to know.”

“She didn’t say exactly,” Adèle answered. “Just that she was going home. I didn’t think she had one.”

“Thank you,” Erik whispered, mind racing.

The door slammed in Erik’s face before he could reply, and he was left in shock in the lonely hall, feeling like a fool again. A killer and a fool who no one believed was brave enough to follow his love. Were they right?

9. Lazarus

The Inn of the SettingSun was as warm and welcoming as Christine had always dreamed. She’d been inside many times, of course, to the pub on the first floor where the people of Perros-Guirec gathered to drink and socialize with the scant travelers and merchants that came through the little town at the edge of the world. Until now, Christine had never been inside a room.

Under different circumstances, she would find the little chamber charming, with its cozy fireplace and bed covered in a warm quilt. Like most of the rooms, hers had windows looking west out to the sea at the sunset which gave the inn its name. She had spent most of the hours since she had awoken looking away from it, her eyes instead on the crackling fire.

Christine had traveled through the night on the last train from Paris, staring out the window while trying to sort out her thoughts and not weep when the memories came unbidden. She remembered the final summer in Perros with Raoul, when they had celebrated her seventeenth birthday together and sworn that by the next summer, they would be married and make their way in the world.

Then Raoul had left with no word. Only months later had Christine learned that the old Count had died and the Chagny chateau was to be sold. Would it have ended differently for them had Erik not set the fire that killed his own father and Raoul’s?

Christine’s father had been relieved, almost happy, that the boy who wanted to take his daughter from him was gone. They had traveled all over that fall, the last year they had done so, but it had been slow as it became clear that Papa was getting ill. In the spring, they had returned to Perros and then never left. Papa had continued her training and practice, letting Christine educate herself with books, but always kept her close.

It had not been until the fall of 1877, once Christine was twenty, that Papa had sent her off to audition for the Conservatoire in Rouen. Papa had called in a favor with an old acquaintance from his time in the opera orchestra in Nice. Christine had been so happy and hopeful when the audition had gone well, but then her chaperone, Doctor Mainville, had said it: that her father would rest easy knowing she had a future at the conservatoire. She had understood then that her father had finally let her audition because he was going to die soon.

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