Page 27 of Angel's Flight

“No, my love, I have to go alone.It will be faster, and I need you here to make arrangements.”

“Arrangements?For what?”

“For passage to America,” Erik countered calmly.“Jack can help, and I just—”

“Want to keep me safe because someone could be lurking there that could hurt you,” Christine finished for him, annoyed at his coddling.“I can protect myself.I’m not an idiot.”

“I know you’re not,” Erik argued.“But I also don’t want to worry about you the whole time, and if anything were to happen...”

Christine frowned at his tone and expression.She, by her very presence, could endanger him because he would think only of her and not himself.She’d already been taken once and used against him; who knew if these new pursuers had similar ideas?“I hate this.”

“I know.I do too,” Erik sighed.“But if I can move our funds and discern what has happened with Tissot, it will make the next part so much easier.”

“The part where we truly start a new life,” Christine asked, that old hope kindling in her again.She wanted to believe that it would be different this time.It had to be.

“Don’t be long,” Christine sighed.

"Three days.That’s all I need.”

4.The Cost of Living

Paris

Shaya never plannedto find himself in theFaubourg Saint-Germainagain so soon.He had not intended his feet to take him to the place of his great failings: when he had fallen in with the Vicomte, now Comte, who had determined to destroy Erik.Shaya had helped Raoul de Chagny and Antoine de Martiniac do terrible things, and they still weighed on him daily.Adèle Valerius had suffered the worst because of him, and the fact that Shaya had killed her abuser didn’t alleviate his conscience.

The neighborhood was lovely in late summer, trees heavy with green only now showing a tinge of yellow on their leaves.The last time he had dared show his face here, they had just begun blooming.It gave him comfort to see how reliably the seasons changed here, though the thought of the deep cold that awaited in winter made a pang of homesickness for Persian heat prick his heart.

The fashionable crowds were up and about for their morning walks and visits.Shaya strolled at the same pace, watching from the corner of his eye and catching fragments of conversation.Were any of them talking about the attacks on men of their number at the Opéra?Did they know?It had not been in the papers, and Shaya would know.

He read the society papers every week, scanning them for mention of Raoul or his sister, Sabine.The de Chagny siblings were all alone with their fortune now, and they had retreated from the fashionable scene.Raoul had withdrawn the family’s patronage of the National Academy of Music, understandably, and given up the family box.There was no way he would know what was going on in the Opéra now, and Shaya certainly wasn’t going to tell him.

He slowed his pace as he approached the entrance of the Chagny manor.It was much as he remembered it, but somehow more austere.Any light and joy that had been in the place were gone, and the curtains were drawn in the windows, keeping out the sun.All the windows but one.

Shaya didn’t falter when he saw the figure looking out onto the street from the second story of the house.He was proud of that, because what he had glimpsed might have made a less experienced detective trip or pause.But he didn’t.He simply kept walking, noting to himself that there was a potential new complication in the story.

Geneva

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