Page 77 of Angel's Flight

“I beg your pardon, sir,” Erik said stiffly.Christine felt as if she had missed something, but Erik was alert and tense.

“You took something from a friend of mine.Give it back,” the man said, much to Christine’s confusion.He was a rough spun sort of character, with sallow skin and eyes that didn’t fit in his face.Christine didn’t like the way he licked his gums as he looked over both of them and he focused on Erik’s mask.“Give it back and I won’t tell no one about the mask.”

Christine gripped Erik’s hand, heart pounding.They had known someone commenting on the mask was a risk when they came out, but she didn’t want this to sour Erik from nights like these.

“Why would I care about what you say about my choice of attire?”Erik asked slowly.

“Please, leave us be,” Christine added in her best English, and the man, strangely, grinned.

“Oh, that’s right.They said you was French,” the man replied with a hiccup.“Pardonnez-moi, mam’selle.”

“What are you talking about?”Erik demanded, rising, though Christine tried to pull him back.Christine noted that their friends had grown quiet where they stood a few feet away, watching the confrontation.Howard was holding Letitia’s arm and Adèle looked ready to strike.

“You’re famous on the streets since yesterday, masked man,” the man slurred.“There’s a reward.Five pounds for word of a man in a mask, maybe with a pretty lady.French.Burt was after it too, but you had to brain him and steal his knife.”

Christine’s blood froze, instinct born of meeting too many men like this and finding herself at their mercy electrifying her with fear and the need to run.He knew them and he was here on purpose.They had been found.

“I’m sure you’re mistaken,” Erik said slowly, even as Christine felt like she was falling.

“No, mate,” the man said.“Now you give me back Burt’s knife, and whatever coin you have to cover the reward I won’t get, and I won’t say a word to good Mister Bidaut.”

Time slowed as panic seized Christine.Echoes of all the times before when they had been forced to fly to safety only to have it disappear.All the exhaustion and loss and uncertainty that she couldn’t evade fell back upon her like chains of iron.All the consequences and scars she couldn’t avoid burned in her and filled her ears with their awful sounds.Gunshots and screams and tearing flesh.All of it flooded her in a single moment, tearing her away from the hope and joy she had felt just a second before.

Somehow, they had been found again.Everything was about to be torn away from them again.Christine looked to her friends and the husband she loved, who had given everything for her.The man who she had made to kneel and beg before her, who had trusted her with his soul.

He was worthy of more than her panic and so was the life they wanted.

“No,” Christine whispered, gripping Erik tight as she straightened her spine and pushed her panic away like a cocoon; a prison that had held her for too long.“No,” she repeated, because she had found happiness and hope tonight and she was ready to fight for it.

Paris

The office of the managers– well, manager – was a surprisingly restrained space, given the ostentatiousness of the rest of the Opéra.Shaya had seldom been there before now, so he took his time to take in the details.He noted the mahogany desks (still two, though one was being used as a receptacle for piles of scores and ledgers), the plastered walls made gold by the gaslight, and the red carpet matching that of the boxes.Shaya craned his head, wondering if he would be able to make out the outline of the trap door Erik had used to torment the managers for so many years.

“I’d offer you a drink, but I know it would be in vain,” Armand remarked as he stepped inside after Shaya.“I hope you don’t mind if I partake.I need to fortify myself before I head back into the fray.”

“I didn’t think you disliked mingling with the patrons so much,” Shaya clucked as Armand poured himself a generous glass of brandy.

“Sometimes I feel as if begging for their money is my entire job and they’ve been understandably antsy these past few weeks, so they need more flattering and fawning than usual,” Armand replied with the weariness of a man who had not slept for a month.“At least Robert promised to meet me after, so that’s something to look forward to.Did you enjoy the performance?”

“I couldn’t concentrate on it much,” Shaya confessed.

“Too busy keeping an eye out for ghosts and robbers?”Armand said, flopping down in his chair.“I can’t blame you.Meyerbeer is a bore, but he brings in the audiences.”

Shaya shrugged.“I did like the horses.”

“At least this ghost hasn’t been borrowing them,” Armand sighed and took a swig.“That was him, wasn’t it?I can never keep track of what was rumor and what was real.”

“It was real.He liked them,” Shaya murmured.

The manager gave a weak smile.“Please tell me you have hopeful news on that front?”

It was Shaya’s turn to heave a sigh.“I have news, but none of it is hopeful, and I have a suspect that doesn’t quite make sense.That’s why I wanted to talk with you.”

“I don’t like the sound of that at all,” Armand said, face falling.“Well, out with it.”

“Have you heard from your former counterpart at all?”

“Richard?No.I don’t even know if he’s in Paris,” Armand replied with clear alarm.“Whatever does he have to do with this?”

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