Page 12 of Angel's Flight

“You’re probably right.When I left Persia, I checked for spies and eavesdroppers everywhere I went for months, even though I knew none had followed me.”

“Yes.Exactly.”Armand gave a weak grin that brightened when the waiter arrived.“Ah, yes!We’ll start with the Côtes-du-Rhône...”

Shaya didn’t listen to the complicated order: he was too lost in thought.There was no way in hell that Erik could have returned to Paris and the Opéra without Shaya’s notice – or without letting someone know the reason.Such a move would need to have a reason.Erik wasn’t technically a wanted man in Paris, but he would be hunted if he came back to the city.Especially if the Comte de Chagny had even the slightest hint that the man he blamed for ruining his life and killing his family was alive.To return would be suicide.

Florence

The hole in the wallon theVia Spoletocould barely be called a restaurant.That made it all the more charming to Christine.Erik didn’t seem to mind either.He seemed far more relaxed after theirriposo, as the Italians called it.Though Christine didn’t believe that most who enjoyed the afternoon nap did so after tying up their lovers and riding them to climax.

In the candle-lit shadows of the restaurant sitting in the back with Jack, Christine blushed at the thought.She really should have been paying attention to the debate Erik and Jack were having about the merits of Bellini in comparison to Rosini, but Jack had become so passionate about the subject he had switched (perhaps unknowingly) into Italian, and Erik had followed him right over.For her part, Christine was full of incredible food and comfortable in the shadowy cellar, so her mind was relaxed.All she could do was listen and try to catch a few words out of context while admiring the skill of her husband’s tongue.

She blushed again, thinking back to a different skill and how she had demanded it of him.Claimed it.She didn’t know what had come over her.She had done such things before, but not since Paris.Controlling and containing her dangerous lover had been both a heady drug and a vital need, but their lives were different now.She didn’t need to keep him in check, so why had she felt such a deep urge to do it again?Why had it increased her pleasure and desire to such a shocking extent?

Erik’s hand covered hers on the table, bringing Christine back to the moment.

“You should hear her sing Casta Diva,” Erik was saying, in French now, with immense pride.“No one has sung it better.”

“You’re a flatterer,” Christine muttered and looked up to see Jack beaming at her in interest.

“I would like to be the judge of that myself, Signora Christine,” the young musician declared.

Jack, she had learned, was an aspiring composer who claimed he was good at all the minutiae of being a musician – finding work and patrons and crafting orchestrations – but had, as of yet, failed to find his compositional muse.He was a great admirer, like Erik, of the legato of thebel cantocomposers, the innovation of Wagner, and, of course, as an Italian, would give his life in the name of Verdi, but he wanted something new.

“Indeed, all this talk of opera and your skills makes me wish I could hear either of you sing anything,” Jack went on.

“We don’t perform.Or I don’t.Anymore,” Christine demurred.

“But you haven’t said why!”Jack pushed.“Nor even said where you were a diva.”

He meant it well, Christine knew, but it still made her stomach churn to think of her brief and tragic career as a prima donna.It reminded her of the pain one felt for a lost friend.Something she had longed for and nurtured – that had been part of her for so long – was gone.Her life went on, and she survived now because she had given it up, but there was still a hole in her heart where it had been.It was taking much longer to heal than she had anticipated.

“We– she sang in Paris.Nowhere you would have heard of,” Erik half-lied.

“You’d be surprised how much I hear about Paris.Though they care more for ballet than opera there, do they not?I heard about the controversy with their mounting of Don Carlo.No offence intended,” Jack said.

“None taken,” Christine sighed.

“The Opéra in Paris had the potential for greatness, but—” It was Erik’s turn to fumble for words.He had tried, in his way, to advance a musical cause, and now even that power and connection were gone for him.

“But you have come at last to the home of real opera and know better now,” Jack finished for him jovially.“Let us not linger on useless comparisons that will embarrass France.I assume you two met in some musical fashion.Tell me the story of your love.How many years have you been together?”

Christine tensed.It wasn’t that the answer itself was incriminating, but it did give her a jolt to recall that she had not known Erik for more than a year.God, this time last year, she was still fighting to keep her place at the conservatoire.The speed with which her life had changed and changed again made her dizzy.

“Erik was my teacher,” Christine began unsteadily.“It’s not a complex tale.I...fell in love with his brilliance.”

“Despite his wounds from some terrible war?”Jack replied with a sigh.Erik stiffened.“Oh, I’m sorry, my friend.I didn’t think it would be untoward to mention it.”The young man gestured towards Erik’s face.Or more accurately, his mask.

“I hoped you hadn’t noticed,” Erik muttered.

Christine grasped his hand.She could feel his panic and tension.He had been hurt so many times by so many strangers and people who were supposed to be friends.All because of his face.

“I had an uncle.Well, we called him Uncle.My town is small, and everyone is a relative of some sort.He served in the wars of independence in the sixties against the Prussians.Those brutes with their bombs and shells.One took off half his nose and all of his left eye.He wore a porcelain mask to conceal the wounds.You are French and you remarked on the Germans earlier.Was it the Prussians who wounded you too?”

Erik stared at the man, and Christine’s mind raced.They had made excuses before about the mask, along similar lines, but never with such detail.

“Yes, I was in the siege of Paris,” Erik replied quietly.Once again, not entirely a lie.“It was brutal.I don’t like to talk about it or...”He gestured weakly towards his face.“Or this.”

“Then we shan’t!”Jack said cheerfully.“Let me tell you about my home.Lucca is a wonderful city.Though I guess ‘city’ is a relative term compared to Firenze or Paris.It’s small by comparison.My forefathers have served asMaestro di Capellaand organists at the cathedral of San Marino for over two hundred years!I would have taken the position when my father died, but I was only six.”

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