A/N: This marks the THIRD time I've gone back and revised the early chapters. My writing style has changed and matured a lot since I first began work on this story, and I've learned some valuable lessons in the 4+ years since its birth (for example, never randomly switch back and forth between POV without a line break, because it gets confusing; never get too distractingly verbose or florid with your word choices, etc.). Also, the later chapters in this story started to tend to be very long, so the second time around I thought it would be a good idea to go back and lengthen a lot of the earlier chapters to make it more consistent. This time around, I'm planning to do that again.

I still owe many thanks to Jordie (MasqueradingThroughLife) for encouraging me in the very early stages and beyond, back when writing on FFN (and this story in particular) was nothing more than an enjoyable experiment for me. If it hadn't been for her, I probably would have trashed this when I reached the second chapter.

-3/18/10

It was late. The halls were silent, almost unnaturally still. The chatter of girls and workers had long since died, and nearly all were abed, or at least in their respective sleeping-places. Lights had been put out, and there was a kind of eerie calm, almost jelly-like, clotting. Not one thing appeared to move in the dark halls but the shade in the felt hat, and he was preoccupied with other matters.

Had anyone made their way through a certain hall at that particular moment, they might have caught a glimpse of a white glimmer appearing in the near-blackness, the ballet costume of the slim dancer who had gone wandering for a thrill. Had they been able to ascertain her thoughts, they might have discovered that she was, at the moment, following a shadow which had passed swiftly by the dormitories only minutes ago, a shadow which had oddly impressed her with its height and movement—and caused a suspicion to erupt within her which she felt compelled to explore.

It was not the shade in the felt hat that she felt such keen interest in—in fact, she fervently hoped the aforementioned would not catch her, for she'd heard rather delightfully terrible stories about what happened to young women caught wandering. The shadow the girl had been following—the one she'd seen a moment before—was of a different caliber, a far more mysterious and inexplicable one. It was almost gone. She sprinted after it. "Wait!" she called—softly, however, so as not to rouse anybody. "Wait!"

But the shadow had already disappeared into the darkness, and the girl barely kept herself from uttering a curse. Her head turned, frantically, suspicions and superstitions whirling in her head until she felt as though she were spinning. "Is it you?" she whispered blindly, shivering, thinking herself mad for talking to what was likely nothing. "Are you the one they talk of all the time in whispers…and in girlish shrieks? Are you the one? Are you?"

There was a long silence, in which she thought she might drown, and then, all at once, it seemed she heard a rattling breath some distance away. As she moved toward the sound, a voice echoed just beside her, making her recoil with fright. "Who do you think I am?" the voice whispered, surprising her with its soft, sensual velvet. It was so sleek that she felt her back arch.

"Oh," she breathed, not even thinking of her sudden alarm, "You're the Opera Ghost, aren't you?" But no, that was ridiculous. No ghost would have a voice like that. Would it?

She shivered with excitement and a little bit of terror, feeling a cold sweat upon her back, sticking to her dress. The voice took a long time to answer—so long that the girl thought he had gone away, until she heard a deep, long sigh. The strangely dulcet voice—male, she realized—came now from a place to her left. "It is better," the voice said, "not to know me."

She recovered almost at once, her eyes widening. "But I want to! I do! I—" She reached toward the voice, but found nothing. There was a dry sound, almost like a chuckle.

"So," it hissed, "you want to know me?" The voice was behind her. She stumbled toward it, grasping.

"I have dreamed of—" She tripped over a fallen beam, and looked around, confused. "Where are you?" she cried, then clapped her hands over her mouth for fear of the shade in the felt hat.

"Over here, child..." The voice came from very far away. She followed, breathlessly.

"Take me to secret places," she whispered, beginning to be utterly convinced that she had fallen into some sort of spectral, living dream. Meg Giry would turn purple with jealousy if she found out! the girl thought.

"Child." The male voice made that dry sound again, the chuckle, and she shuddered momentarily, for it was not a pleasant sound. "I will show you the most secret place of all. STOP!"

She stumbled, looking about frantically. Where was he—it—whatever or whoever this was? Could it be possible that someone was playing a trick, a joke? She'd be boiling mad if—

"I am going to come to you now," the voice breathed suddenly. "If you scream, I shall render you unconscious and carry you back to the dormitories. Is that clear?"

She breathed heavily, contemplating this. Were it not for her insatiable curiosity, she would have run back to the dormitories long ago. "Ye…yes."

A hand took hers. She jumped, but stifled a cry of alarm, remembering his admonition, willing herself to be silent for the moment. The hand was sheathed in a leather glove. She felt it, felt the bones in his hand and the wrist and the forearm—how unnaturally slender they were!—and his bony, protruding shoulder. "You're real," she breathed. "Oh!—you're real—but—you're—like—a—corpse."

The voice, so close now she could feel its breath upon her face from a foot away, sighed, chuckled a bit, but the sound seemed strained. "That was what they used to call me, sweet child—how prophetic you are!—" the voice hissed, a hint of sarcasm in its timbre—"The Living Corpse!"

She jumped a little, completely unnerved. The hand guided her around the set pieces, pulling, always pulling, and then the darkness became even blacker.

She shook, fingers slipping, but the arm steadied her.

After what seemed like hours of walking—during which she felt increasingly as though she were in some sort of fantastic dream—they embarked on a boat, gliding on a dark, remote underground lake. There were no lights, other than the faint blue haze, nothing to guide them. It appeared her gaunt host could see in the dark, which furthered her amazement—but perhaps, she thought, it was merely long experience that taught him to instinctively know whence he went. She felt tremors, shudders, passing through her body, almost uncontrollably. It was cold in these caverns, but it was not merely temperature which rendered her thus. Her nervous anticipation of what awaited beyond the lake made her shiver far more.

"Do you have a name, ghost?" she asked suddenly, feeling a surge of boldness for no particular reason other than the fact that they had bumped against land—or stone, as it happened.

"Yes." He was so silent, apart from that curt reply. She tried to ignore her fear, stood up unsteadily in the rocking boat, and grasped his arm. "What is it?" she inquired.

The shadow started, as if shocked by the voluntary human contact, and said, in a slightly halting, unnerved tone, "Erik."

There. At least there was some sort of appellation to put to her shadow now. "Do you know my name?" she asked curiously, sure he would not.

To her bemusement, he replied, "I know the names of most of the people who work and live and train here at the Opera House."

"But, gh…Erik, I mean…do you…do you know my name?" she pressed as they walked through a dark opening, feeling a bit embarrassed at nearly calling him Ghost again. Suddenly feeling a dreadful, cold fear, she stopped, but he pulled her on for a few more feet before something shut ponderously behind them.

Her breath came in little spurts. Was she to be walled up alive in a tomb? No—there was something here—there was a dimly burning torch to her left, which gave the place a kind of eerie, glowing cast. The "ghost"—Erik—touched a space on the wall, and the entire place burst into blooming candlelit splendor as if by magic.

She was now able to see her host clearly for the first time. His face was completely covered by an expressionless and hollow white mask. The eye-holes were black and empty, and he seemed gaunter and more corpse-like than ever as he turned toward her.

"Yes." he said, finally answering her query. "I know your name, inquisitive child." She stared at him, trying not to show how unnerved she was at his spectral appearance.

"Wh—what is it, then?" she stammered, her voice barely a whisper. He sighed quietly, as if to say I'm-tired-of-your-stupid-questions. "Silly little Margot," he said. "You see? Of course I know your name." She smiled, then, a secret, triumphant smile.

"Your real name," he continued lazily, "is Tora, but it's not at all French, so you changed it and only your closest friends now know you by your Christian name. Is that right, little 'Margot?'"

She gasped, and saw the mask move at the corners, which meant—she thought—that he was smiling. She was not at all sure she liked his smile. It smacked of something dreadful and crass.

Tora shrugged, closing her eyes and opening them again, squinting in the unaccustomed light.

"Do you like my domain?" he asked, sweeping his hand in an arc.

"I suppose," she said. "What's wrong with your face, monsieur?" The question was asked flippantly, a bit more rudely than she meant, for she was sure that it was only to disguise his identity—perhaps, she thought with a shiver, he was wanted by the police.

She knew immediately, however, that she had asked the wrong question. He clenched his fist as if he were contemplating striking her. "I wear this mask," he said softly, dangerously, "to hide a rather unfortunate disfigurement—from birth."

"I—I didn't know," she said lamely, feeling horribly embarrassed. She wanted to ask How could I have known? but it seemed too forward, too defensive.

"Joking, were you?" he asked. The sarcasm built to hide the anger in his voice was frightening.

She swallowed. "Y…yes," she whispered. "I really didn't think…"

He relaxed slightly, the pent-up anger seeming to fade. "Women never think," he said coldly, although she thought perhaps he didn't quite mean it. She pursed her lips, paused, and put out her hand.

Her fingers touched his mask, lightly as feathers. He stiffened, a board, a tree, and she felt some long, strange shiver beneath her hand.

She moved her fingers over it, gently. Smooth whiteness...it almost felt like porcelain, but it was too thin and flexible for that. She could feel his bones beneath it.

He tentatively grabbed her hand.

"Friends, Erik?" she whispered, although she shivered from the coldness of his own fingers, and the uncertainty of just who or what this strange persona could possibly be.

He looked away. "If you knew—if you knew—what I looked like—" he muttered fiercely. Tora took her hand away.

Erik backed away a little. "Tell me," he said, "why—and how—you came. To the Opera."

Tora's eyes darted. "I was so small, you know…I don't…"

"You remember," he said. "Your eyes are blinking too much to be telling a truth." Tora shrunk back a bit. "Oh," she said in a small voice. The gaunt spectre sat upon a nearby divan, crossed his leg upon his knee, and folded his hands, waiting. His gaze, peering through the holes which afforded him sight, unnerved her even more than his odd appearance.

Her tongue felt loose, suddenly, and her lips began to move as if not by their own will. "I was small when they brought me here," she murmured. "I was a child, I couldn't have been more than...five? I wandered onto a French boat from America. I'd always loved her colors. I stole food from the galley when the cook wasn't looking, and it was a long time before anyone found me. When they did—" she broke off.

"Continue," said Erik smoothly, one finger twitching slightly.

"The captain was tall—his beard was red, if I remember it. He kept me in his cabin, was very kind to me. I reminded him of his small girl at home, I think—he often spoke of her, and said her name was Anne. He told me that he'd take me back home as soon as we got to France and unloaded the cargo. But I didn't want to go home, though I made up lies to tell him about my parents, who must be worried. I had no father, actually, none that I knew, at any rate, and my m..." She stopped, shivered.

He was watching her intently.

"I...wandered off the boat when nobody was looking. They were too busy unloading, trading. Found my way here, a child beggar. Mother Giry, I remember—did she have more teeth then? She took such pity upon me. She pulled some strings. The manager at the time was a friend of her husband, or so she's told me, and she managed to persuade him to find work for me. At first I scrubbed floors, but then one day I saw the dancers, and I began to dance, still holding my mop."

Erik sighed.

Tora looked at him. He had not moved since the time she began. "And then the ballet mistress saw me. I remember the little wrinkles around her eyes pinching as she grabbed my arms and studied me, and told me to spin, and to stand upon one foot and all sort of nonsense. I suppose I impressed her. She said I had potential. I didn't even know what the word meant."

He still had not moved, but the corners of his mask had gone up again. His chin was an odd color. It was whiter than the mask concealing the rest of his visage, but there was a strange yellow tint to the skin.

She continued, slowly. "I grew up here. I live in the dormitories, as you probably know, and as long as I dance well, I've been promised room and board." She paused, mouth pinching. "It could also have something to do with that disgusting rich woman that Mother Giry convinced to pay a small yearly donation on my behalf as a sort of charity."

Erik's leg shifted, but otherwise he still did not move.

"And as to why I followed you...I...I always had a—a bit of a fixation for the supernatural, you know…"

He chuckled. She shivered. "And do you find me…" he grinned behind his mask, or seemed to, "…supernatural…?"

She shivered again. "Well," she managed. "You'd be more real if you'd remove the—"

"No."

Tora flinched. "I assure you, I wouldn't scream."

He moved a little closer. His breath wafted out from the mask, and it stank. "You want to see Erik's face?"

She moved back, courage failing her. "I'm…not sure."

He lifted it a little, grinned. She shivered violently. He didn't have any lips—or rather, not much to speak of.

"See this mouth?" he whispered bitterly. "It is a dead mouth, but from it comes the most exquisite and passionate song! See?"

And then he sang, and she thought that she would die. Surely heaven was something akin to this. This tumultuous, beautiful tempest, majesty, wonder...

But then she looked at him, and she shuddered, for he had gone silent; with that silence, reality had come crashing back in all its dark glory. Perhaps it was a sort of purgatory. Not quite hell, but surely not heaven.

He did not grin. He stared at her.

Tora leaned forward, wondering, despite her fear, what was hidden underneath. "Are we friends, now, Erik?" she whispered.

He sat, unmoving, but when her fingers went toward the mask, he twitched backward violently. "I warn you," he said quietly, "if you see my face, it will be all over. And we will not be friends. You will hate and fear me—"

"No," she said.

"You will hate and fear me," he said as if he had not heard, "and you will not want to see your Opera Ghost anymore, will you? You will tell the others what you've seen, and then they will pay a visit to Erik! And then they will not see anyone anymore! Tell me, sweet child, have you ever been responsible for sending anyone to their death?"

The stricken girl blanched. "No…"

He leered at her. "Keep your prying fingers away, then. Or you surely will be."

She shivered. "Why did you bring me here?"

He stared at her. "You know, I've been wondering that myself. I have these whims. They come and go. And you looked so vulnerable and lost and yearning, standing there, that I could find no trace of betrayal in you, and I thought," he continued in a whisper, " 'Perhaps it is time to let this one into my confidence…after all, what harm? What harm, indeed, a curious girl-child?'

I did not think," he thundered suddenly, "of the consequences that might befall both you and me if I were to bring you here and you were frightened by all that you had seen! I am mad! I must be, to bring you here, when I don't even know you so very well! We have never had a conversation before this night! You have never seen me in my glory before this! We have had glimpses and shadows of each other, and I tell you, it was madness to bring you here!"

He was shouting, his voice reverberating around the massive stone walls. The poor girl screamed and covered her ears. His voice was like a god of thunder! Of lightning! Oh, terrible and amazing sound!

He gazed at her collapsed form, her hands clenched tightly upon her ears, and when she unscrewed her eyes from their tightly closed condition, she saw that his stiff form had sagged a little.

"Now look—" he said more softly, although sounding a tad impatient and frustrated with both himself and his feminine guest, "I have gone and hurt you, haven't I? Mad Erik! First to bring you to this my most secret and sacred of all places, and then to go and burst your eardrums! I am sorry, chérie," he said quickly, helping her up, "I didn't mean…"

"Forget the matter, Erik," she said quietly. "I am all right now."

"Ah," he said, "I keep forgetting how resilient these chorus-girls are! Give them a fright, and they recover almost at once! Take little Sophie, for instance…she saw me once, when I was careless…and she went about the House screaming, 'The Opera Ghost! The Opera Ghost!' but it was not so very long before her nerves were calmed. Why, she thought the whole thing a great joke! She was influenced by her peers that she had seen nothing more than a shadow, or that idiot Buquet playing a trick, which of course he would never admit to even if he had, so that was the convenient alibi, you see? I am getting chatty…you must be bored to tears, child. Why are you looking at me like that? You are curious! Curious, after my outburst! Upon my word, do you little Opera wenches never learn a thing? Curious still!" He left off speaking for a moment.

Tora watched him, struck by sudden impulse. "Please…" she said, "if we're friends now, Erik, I ought to be able to have a right to see—"

His penitent mood quickly vanished.

"You have no right at all! Right!" he moaned, "oh, you mad thing! I've half a mind to drown you, but that would serve no purpose at all! Right! You probing little creature! A common whore has less bold nerve than you! Right, indeed! You little slattern!"

Tora was quite shocked by the turn this conversation was taking, and the effect her continued inquisitiveness was having upon her frightening host.

She had a sudden flash of ill humor, and with it came a wicked desire to both tease and offend. "You've had experience with whores, then?" she said demonically.

She felt rather than saw the blow to the side of her head which left her nearly unconscious. She screamed again, partly from terror of and partly from hoping it would bring him back to his senses before he dealt her another, perhaps killing, blow.

He brought his foot back as if to kick her.

"Erik," she gasped, "I'm sorry! I shan't say anything to upset you again! Please, Erik, forgive me! I shan't ever say anything like it again!"

He paused, trembling. "Oh, you dare…" he breathed. "You dared…"

"Yes," she said dizzily, through heavy breathing, while managing to be matter-of-fact, "I did." Her head spun, and her words sounded drunk. "Now will you please be a gentleman and help me up?"

He quivered. Then he gave her a hand and burst out laughing. He fairly roared with laughter for a moment, and then began to be a little calmer. "Oh, you awful little fool!" he chuckled. Again, it was not a pleasant sound.

Tora shuddered again, but managed a twisted smile. "Will you apologize for hurting me?" she asked demandingly, putting a hand to her head and closing her eyes against the bursts of pain.

He stared at her. "You bold little thing! You never learn by experience, but rather, fright makes you even bolder! You're a sight to be seen!"

She shivered. "I do wish you'd apologize."

"Then, mademoiselle," he said, bowing with an air of biting sarcasm, "I most certainly do."

Tora looked at him, expressionlessly, not sure what to think. "Tell me about yourself," she said quietly. "I've told you quite a lot about me."

He kept staring. "All my life I've never heard nor seen such a strange little inquisitive bird as the one that's flown upon my doorstep. She does not flee from snakes or hawks, this bird, but rather, seems to welcome them! Find me! she cries, and they find her, and they wound her and frighten her. And then she licks her wounds and invites them to come again! Oh, mad little bird!...When will she learn? When will she see? It is a monster that stands in front of her, and she wants to know more about him! The bird would do better to flee!"

Tora flinched, though, to her credit, not much. "The bird is intrigued, monsieur," she said coolly, "and senses danger, but not imminently so, from the thin masked hawk who calls himself monster! Let me be the judge, Erik, will you?"

He sighed. It was a long, weary sigh. "Oh, child," he whispered, "If only you knew…knew…the monster standing in front of you…"

"It is no monster I see," she said, touching his mask. There was another electric shiver up his spine. She felt it through her fingers. It made her feel hot and cold at the same time. They didn't move for a long time.

"What do you see?" he whispered. She thought she heard him pant a little.

Tora held her breath, her hand quivering. "I'm not quite sure, in truth. I don't know enough about you yet, really nothing at all."

He waited.

"But what I see…" she stammered, her voice going faster than it should have, "what I behold with my eyes now is not a ghost at all, but a recluse hiding in corners and scaring the Opera girls—which does not make him monster, but I feel compelled to ask myself, 'Why does a man hide down here, in the bowels of the Opera House, and why…why has he revealed himself to me?'"

There was silence for a moment or two. "Tora," he said, very softly. "I am...horribly lonely. It has been a long time since I heard a human voice—one addressed to me, that is. I am glad of your company, though it sticks in my throat to admit that I, of all people, crave human company! I, no more living human than the bloated corpses dragged from the River Seine when it has flooded the crowded streets."

Tora shivered. "But you are a man!" she whispered violently. "How can you so callously deny your humanity! You desire the same as any other man! I felt it when I touched your face!" She shivered, open-mouthed, at the bold statement.

He sat there, unmoving. There was only the barest perceptible stiffening of his shoulders, which made her think that she had gone too far. Would this put ideas in his head? Worse still, would he think her some common whore?

As if reading her thoughts, he said, very quietly, "Don't flush so, Tora. You are an impulsive child—my God, how impulsive you are! Not that I believe in God," he added dryly, "but all the same, you are ridiculously bold. Yes, I desire! I have never felt a woman's embrace, no, never! And why, why? Because of this horrid face, this monstrosity which you still have not seen! Oh, if you saw me, in all my awful splendor, how you would weep! How you would scream! How you would recoil! I—"

"Never," she said.

"Have it your way," he said, with forced patience. "Well, child? Did my bold assertions make you quiver with discomfort? Do you think that I have dragged you here to satisfy my own monstrous appetites, which have gone unsated my entire, weary life? Oh, how tired I am! I wish that I could go to sleep and never wake up, never! I am so very…" He broke off. Tora thought with a kind of horror that he might start weeping. He seemed quite close.

"Look here…" she said, trying to be kind, sounding like a mother with a child she has just spanked, "I didn't mean…How odd you are! What I mean to say is," she added hurriedly, seeing him raise his head ominously, "You misinterpret things. You don't understand people, do you? You…" she trailed off, sounding more like the child who had been spanked than the penitent mother.

He sighed. "I don't. It's true."

She sat next to him on the battered but beautiful divan. "Erik," she said slowly, "You frighten me a little. I won't deny it. But you intrigue me, too. I'm dreadfully curious about you."

"Perhaps to your detriment," he said darkly.

"Oh, don't talk that way," she said, shivering. "What's it called when one metal is drawn to another?"

"Magnetism," he said.

"Yes, that's it," she said a little breathlessly, embarrassed at her childish inability to remember such terms. "It's as though you're a kind of magnet. You draw curiosity and terror wherever you go, but you don't terrify me. You merely give me a little pause."

Erik sighed. "I'm getting annoyed by all your chattering, but there's a strange comfort to it."

There was silence for a moment. "If I take you back to the surface," he said suddenly, "will you give your word to come and see me from time to time?"

Tora looked at him, nonplussed. "Of course I will, I suppose. That is, if you really want me to."

"Then," he said slowly, "you will only have to call my name when you want me. And I shall appear, or make a way for you."

Tora smiled, bemused. "You are strange," she said. She was suddenly stymied for a moment. "But I…you want me to go already?"

Erik raised his eyes as if asking for patience in the nonexistent God. "You've been gone an hour, child. They'll miss you soon…the girls will tell stories..."

Tora pursed her eyebrows. "Oh, well. That's that, I suppose…but if I don't see you before it, will you come to see me at my next performance?"

The specter smiled. "I watch every performance, little fool. You should know that. Haven't you seen how Box Five is eternally empty, except for a wretchedly adventurous idiot here and there? Have you never noticed?"

Tora was taken aback. "Oh…I suppose…I hadn't really thought about it before. It just seemed to me that no one ever wanted it, which is strange because it's one of the best seats in the house…"

"That is my Box," he said, with a rather fiendish glint in his almost invisible eyes, "and woe betide the managers if they think they can sell my Box away!"

"Mssrs. Debienne and Poligny, you mean?" she asked, surprised. "Why ever would they not want to sell the Box?"

"Because, dear child, I have a leash on them, you see. They were taught a lesson not so very long ago. But perhaps you were not around to see."

"I did hear something about strangely they acted during the whole affair," she said slowly. "But I was in the wings at the time and didn't see a thing."

"Yes," he said, "Well. Enough about that. I shall tell you all my exploits another time. We'll go to the surface now, and you can take your place among all the other chattering, giggling little girls who think they're so sophisticated."

"And do you think me a chattering little girl?" she said indignantly. "Erik, I'm almost eighteen, you know."

He laughed more pleasantly. "When you get to be my age," he said darkly, with a trace of dry mirth, "You will understand these things, perhaps. Come!"

Tora had no choice. His voice was a chain upon her being, commanding her. She wondered, vaguely, if he had somewhere learnt the powers of hypnosis. She could not think of where he would have learned such a thing, but perhaps he had traveled, in his younger days? She didn't wish to pry at that particular moment, and let it pass. To the boat they went, and across the cold, blind lake in the darkness, with the warmth of Erik's body close as she sat among the cushions and he stood, poling them along.

Walking up what he termed the Communard's Road, for what seemed an age, she wondered, really wondered at length for the first time, what sort of person she'd gotten herself involved with. A strange, haunted man, and, by the looks of it, both a flagrant and a secretive being. Arrogant one moment, tormented the next, changing—with lightning speed—to quiet pensiveness. She had never seen his like before. It was difficult to know what to expect. She was, as it happened, more or less a rather woefully inexperienced innocent who, despite her steadily advancing teenage years, was yet untried in the realm of men and all their mysteries. None had paid her much attention as yet, preferring the more bawdy female members of the corps—or, if any had paid her any heed, it was generally the wrong kind.

She was rather fed up with paunchy lechers and drunken young nobles giving her what she termed The Eye. Tora usually avoided those men and most others at all costs, if she could help it. She'd heard far too many sordid stories from the girls, and then there was Jolie, who had been forced behind a set piece by one of the stage hands, and four months later had been fired from the corps because of her swelling belly.

Regarding Erik, however, there was a strange sort of excitement in her, inexplicable and overwhelming. She felt a quiver, a warm, feverish quiver that ran the entire length of her body, ending in a rush of blood to her cheeks when she realized that, holding her arm, he had felt her tremble.

There simply must be more to him than meets the eye, she thought. She was very sorry when they reached the corridors and he disappeared almost at once—as he did so, she grabbed at his sleeve to stop him from going, but he shook his head and melted into the shadows, a specter to the last.

As she slid between her sheets that night amidst the alternatingly quiet and raucous night-chatter of the ballet rats and the chorus girls, she tried to fathom what on earth had just gone on between herself and that dark, mysterious shadow of a man, but quickly yielded to soft, enticing slumber.

When she awoke the next morning, she wondered if the entire thing had been a dark and vibrant dream.