Page 49 of Angel's Flight

“Pasteur is doing amazing things,” Erik squawked.“As I was saying—”

“You’re not helping your case, you know.”

Erik gave her another scowl.In his face, to anyone else, the expression might have been terrifying or horribly ugly.It only made Christine laugh, because he was as harmless as a lamb right now, her terrible phantom.He was hers to tease and adore and needle, and she loved him.It brought her joy, even as they rolled along the sea to destinations unknown, just to love him.To hold him close as long as she could before he strayed again.

Paris

Shaya had made surethat he wasn’t followed today.It had not been easy.He’d had to go all the way to the Marais and waste his entire morning reading the paper at the Place des Vosges, driving his shadow to boredom before disappearing into a library.After that, the detective had slunk off and Shaya had finally made his way to the Opéra.

Shaya had begun to piece together a story about the man assigned to follow him.He was young and impatient.He thought himself an expert at tracking his prey.Perhaps he’d been a hunter in his youth, then become a soldier because he wanted to keep playing with weapons.That didn’t pay well, so now he had found work for a firm of private detectives.He was new at the job though and had been assigned the tedious job of following a foreigner throughout Paris day in and day out.

Of course, Shaya didn’t know how long this man had been watching him.Maybe he was so accustomed to Shaya’s comings and goings that he didn’t feel the need to put in the extra hours.Maybe he had already seen something.

There was an increase in the sound of movement, signaling an exodus of dancers and singers from the stage and the end of rehearsal.Shaya stood from his seat beside the window and turned to survey the crowd.He was unobtrusive, but little Giry’s reaction to Shaya almost gave away the entire game.

Her eyes – which were already permanently wide – somehow grew larger and her face fell into an almost comical look of dread when she made eye contact with Shaya.He stifled a chuckle and nodded before turning and walking out of the building.He trusted the young dancer to follow, which she did.At least her footsteps were quiet: that was promising.

He walked a little way down theRue Auberbefore stopping at a café and looking at the young woman who stopped beside him.“Are you hungry, Mademoiselle Giry?”

“Always,” Meg replied, looking suspicious and annoyed.

“Excellent.I find it’s a bad idea to discuss important matters on an empty stomach.”Shaya entered the café, and Meg rushed after him, sitting quickly when he found a table.

“Do we have to eat before we talk?”Meg leaned in close.“I need to know if you really meant if he is...Or was...”

“You can say it aloud, Mademoiselle.No one is listening here.”

“How do you know?”Meg asked in a furious whisper as a waiter appeared.She looked at him like he might have been a gendarme – while he looked at Shaya and Meg the way all waiters in Paris looked at customers – like utter nuisances.

“Two hot chocolates, please,” Shaya said to placate the man.Meg continued to stare at him.“I know we are safe because it’s my job to know and the man who has been following me of late is not here.He wouldn’t come this close.”

Meg gasped.“Someone has been following you?”

“We’ll get to that later,” Shaya smirked.“Tell me: what have you discovered about the ghost?”

“I haven’t discovered anything,” Meg snapped back, then frowned.“I finally saw the truth.I think.There is no ghost.There’s always just been a man.”

“You sound disappointed.”Indeed, the young woman’s face was somber, as if she was speaking of some sort of heartbreak.

“It’s one thing to have a ghost in your theater – all proper theaters do have one, I’ve been reliably told – but the Opéra’s was the most interesting.It was all rather magical.To think it’s all been a man is so disappointing.And frightening.”Meg shuddered, and Shaya wondered if she was remembering Joseph Buquet.

“It was all quite the tragedy, that’s true,” Shaya sighed.“I regret my part in making it worse.”

“Your part?”Meg’s eyes went wide again, not leaving Shaya’s for a moment as the waiter deposited theirchocolats chauds.“Do you know him?Is that why you came here from Persia?”

“I knew him, yes,” Shaya corrected.

“You speak as if he’s dead, but you just told me he’s not a ghost.”

Shaya had to consider his next word carefully.There was a fine line between revealing that the ghost was a fiction created by Erik and revealing Erik himself.“He is.The man who became the Opera Ghost died soon after the chandelier fell.”

“I don’t understand,” Meg whispered.“So is the Opéra truly haunted now?No.It’s too different.Something has changed.”

“Follow that line of thought, Mademoiselle,” Shaya said as he watched Meg’s mind work.

“It’s someone else?But who?”Meg asked in awe of the revelation.

“I do not know, but I mean to find out.More importantly, I mean to discover why.”

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