There are snatches of him everywhere, murmurs of a masked architect, magician, assassin, with glowing golden eyes. It does not take a genius to realise that these snatches all point to the same man.

From Persia, Rahim and Darius journey to Russia, where it all began all of those years ago. Six months of sleeping huddled against each other for warmth, of stopping in every wayfarers' inn leads to the Ottoman Empire, to the story of a masked man in the Sultan's court with a decided talent for invention and murder, and flawless French. Rahim cannot visit the court, not in his position, not directly, but enough whispers, enough murmurs, spill forth a story of intrigue familiar in some points and with another escape at the end, and that draws them on to Romania.

The Romanian forests are mist-filled and dark and filled with the spectres of centuries, and the sombre air trails shivering fingertips over Rahim's arms, casts Darius' face in taut lines. They do not linger long in any once place, the weight of history and whispered myths bearing down on them, and everywhere is too small, too cold, their language marking them out, spurring them on, and it is the first time that Rahim is grateful, truly grateful, for the French Erik taught to him in quiet evenings by the fire, but it will not be last.

There is always someone, somewhere, who speaks French, or Persian, or Russian, and that is enough to guide them.

Finally, after almost a year of traipsing through Romania, a lead caught in a Transylvanian tavern leads them to Austro-Hungary. They are not the only ones to drop Persian phrases in the last years through these places, and some nights, as Darius snores rolled in blankets beside him, Rahim thinks that Erik left a trail for him, sprinklings of Persian and French to lead him on. It would be just like Erik, and he cannot say that he would be surprised, far-fetched though it sounds, and the very thought is a balm that soothes the aching in his heart.

He tells himself he is searching for Erik to keep him safe from the demons that haunted his sleep in Persia. He tells himself he is seeking Erik to act as his conscience, to keep him from slipping into the old habits of the assassin. He tells himself he wants to find Erik because the man stole his pocket watch and he wants to reclaim it. He does not tell himself that he is seeking Erik because he misses him, because he craves to be closer to him, craves to salvage what friendship they had before. He does not tell himself but he knows, oh, how he knows.

(Darius knows, too; he sees it in his eyes. But they do not speak of these things.)

Austro-Hungary leads to Prussia, leads eventually, after two years, to Belgium. And here the trail is of a masked building contractor, an architect signing his plans simply with Erik, as if Rahim could not otherwise have guessed his identity. The upper-classes speak of him in hushed tones, of his genius and mystery and the fact that none of them met him in person though they caught glimpses, of how he simply disappeared one morning in 1861 after the news that Garnier was seeking contractors for his Opéra House.

1861. Four years ago. Four years. All of that travelling and searching and all Rahim can think is that they are still four years behind, until Darius points out, quite rightfully, that Erik has, being Erik and having an appreciation for both architecture and music, evidently proceeded on to Paris. And like that it is decided that they are Paris-bound, too.

They journey on, detouring only once, towards Rouen on a whim no stronger than the fact that Erik mentioned having been born there, finally arriving in Paris in the spring of 1866. And something tells Rahim, some prescient sixth sense, that he will not move on from Paris, will never leave it, so he buys a flat on the Rue de Rivoli and arranges, in a flurry of pointed letters remarking on his ancestry and his former position, for his pension to be forwarded to him from the Persian government. And it is done.

It is not so easy to find Erik. There are vague whispers about one of Garnier's contractors, but all avenues lead nowhere and even asking Garnier himself does not yield any results. It is not in Rahim's nature to give up, so he bides his time, and waits, and visits the Opéra House in construction, and waits.

And waits.

And waits.

Four long years he waits, and then the war comes and for the sake of survival itself he and Darius lay low and avoid asking any questions of anyone at all. It is safer that way. Construction ceases and still Erik is nowhere to be found. Rahim does not doubt whether he is right to even think him in Paris (he must be, he must be), and when such doubts arise he quashes them, condemns them, and tells himself that, like he and Darius, Erik is simply playing it safe during the siege.

He has never known to Erik to play it safe, but he does know that anyone with even the faintest glimmer of suspicion hanging over them is being rounded up and executed. And who has more suspicion around him than a masked man with a talent for the Punjab lasso?

These thoughts, too, he pushes away. Erik is alive, he tells himself. Erik is alive because if Erik were not alive he would know it, would sense it somehow. And there is no use in letting his mind run away with him.

Still, the war ends, and there is still no trace of Erik, and Rahim does not recommence his search. He resigns himself to thinking that perhaps Erik does not wish himself to be found, and though it is a relief to think him alive, in an odd way he feels himself betrayed, abandoned. Erik does not owe him anything, but it would be a comfort to hear something from him, even once.

Thirteen years. It has been thirteen years since the night he helped Erik escape the Shah's court. Surely, if he wanted Rahim to find him, he could have arranged some sign. After thirteen years, is it not likely he's forgotten that chapter of his life, and Rahim with it? It would be foolish to look for a man to whom he probably means nothing now.

These are the things he tells himself, to settle the burning in his heart that begs him to keep looking. Erik would, probably, not want anything at all to do with him now. To continue a futile search will hurt himself more.

Still, Rahim has no desire to move on from Paris. No desire to do much of anything except read his books, and sketch sometimes, and monitor the progress of the Opéra House. It is his only pleasure, now, to monitor the Opéra House's, the debates over whether it ought to be completed, and the progress of its completion. His only pleasure, his only fascination, and when, in 1874, the inauguration gala is announced for January 1875, Rahim arranges to be there. He cannot explain the desire, just that it burns deep down in his chest, and decides that perhaps some things are best left unexplained.

It will at least provide an old man with an evening's entertainment. Darius would tell him he is not old, but there is that tiredness in his bones that insists that he is.


It is at the reception after the gala that Rahim catches his first glimpse of Erik.

It is nothing more substantial than the swirl of a cloak around a corner, but he has seen a cloak swirl in that exact same way before, and there is only one man who walks with the level of all-knowing arrogance to achieve it. His throat is dry, and his heart pounds as hard as it once pounded at a fair in Russia more years ago than he cares to remember, but he is following the cloak before he has time to think, the tiredness dispelled from his bones at the sight of it, around a corner and down a stairs and around several more twists that leave his head in a spin before he's down another flight of stairs and around a corner and out of breath but if he goes just a little further then surely, surely—

"Daroga."

The title crashes him to a stop, the cadence of the syllables echoing around him, bringing a hundred memories crashing back of golden eyes and pale fingers and a noseless face and thin lips curling in a faint smile and he whips around and there he is, a ghost, a man he has not laid eyes on in more than sixteen years.

And before he has time to take him in, the way he hangs back to the shadows and how he stands both frail and powerful at once, the name slips from his lips, "Erik."

"Daroga." Erik's voice is breathless, as if he has been winded. "Rahim. Truly?"

Rahim does not know what is going through Erik's mind, only that his own his buzzing with light-headed delight, and he nods, fighting the urge to smile. "Yes."

Erik steps out of the shadows, his form coalescing the way it once seemed to and the familiarity of it tears at Rahim's heart, and is Rahim dreaming or are his gold-hazel eyes filled with tears? Or is it only that Rahim thinks they are because his own eyes definitely are?

"Erik cannot—How did you—Daroga, why?"

Rahim feels the urge to smile die away at the shock blatant in Erik's voice. So he was not wanted, after all. He swallows. "Because." I missed you. I needed you. I cared for you. "Someone needs to keep you out of trouble."

In the faint light Rahim can see those thin lips twist. "Erik is not the man he was."

"I did not expect you to be." There is a hard edge to his voice that he does not intend, but he cannot keep it away, and in front of him Erik shudders.

"Then why?"

"Because."

"That is not an answer."

"There is no answer."

"Stop speaking in riddles!" Erik tears his mask off in one vicious movement, and his face is as hollow, as awful as Rahim remembers, and there are definitely tears trickling down his cheeks, his eyes shining. "Have you forgotten this face?"

Rahim swallows and shakes his head. "How could I?" It is the truth. That face has haunted his every move since the night he sent Erik away. There is no lifetime in which he could forget it.

And Erik's voice is faint when he murmurs, "Then why?"

"Because you were my friend." Honest words. He always falls back on the most honest words when meeting Erik.

Erik scoffs. "Erik has no friends."

The words pierce deep, like a dagger in Rahim's chest, but he weathers the blow and swallows, and draws himself up to his full height. He has seen Erik in this state before, and it does not do to argue with him. "Well. If Erik wishes to test that for himself, perhaps he will come to number 48, Rue de Rivoli some evening, and see for himself." And with that, Rahim turns on his heel and walks away. And if there are tears burning his eyes, it is because he spent more than sixteen years missing this man, and he is even more infuriating than he remembers.


It is not easy, becoming friends with Erik again, but Rahim never let himself think it would be. It is an infinitely slow process, infinitely slow and infinitely careful.

Erik comes to the Rue de Rivoli a week after that first night, and stays only a handful of minutes, but in those handful of minutes the weight of more than a decade and a half is forgiven. "I had thought myself dreaming," he whispers, staring into the glass of wine Darius presses into his hand, and then, "I had thought you dead." He sets the wine down without drinking it, and pulls Rahim's watch from his pocket, setting it beside the glass, then leaves before Rahim can make any reply, and two nights later is back, sitting in the same armchair again, his eyes full of questions. "How did you get out?"

And Rahim tells him, every bit of it. The uprising, the exile, the travels across the continent, and at the end Erik gives the faintest smile and murmurs, "I hardly dared dream."

Rahim nods and squeezes his watch, the watch Erik returned to him, longing to close the space between he and Erik and take the trembling hand resting on Erik's knee in his own. "Neither did I." And how he wishes he could say so much more, but the words dry in his throat and all he can manage is a faint smile in answer to Erik's own.

It is slow, but it is not so very different to how it was before. They drink wine and play chess and Erik steals his pocket watch just because he can, and it is the same and familiar, but different, too, oh so different and the difference of it twists deep in Rahim's chest.

Before, it was enough to be friends. Before, friendship was all he dared think of, dared dream of. But now, now, he finds himself contemplating Erik's hands in the glow of the fire, and how his fingers wrap so carefully around the chess pieces. And how he contemplates those lips, how thin they are but how soft they look, and the crinkling of Erik's eyes when he smiles his rare, true smile. And the nights when Erik stumbles in the door, pale and haggard and exhausted and swears he cannot sleep for the nightmares that plague him, Rahim contemplates what it might be like to hold him close, and promise to keep him safe, and never let him go.

There is a word for how he feels, he knows. There is a word but he dares not let himself think it. His feelings are wrong, wrong and unwelcome, and too much and Erik would never feel that way, not about him.

He is only Rahim, who followed him across a continent and a half out of sheer desperation and some misplaced sense of duty. And there is nothing romantic in that.

So the night when, half-drunk, they lean across the chess board and press their lips together, comes as a surprise for both of them.

Afterwards, neither knows who leaned first. It is a blur. One moment Rahim has taken Erik's queen, and the next his lips are pressed to Erik's and the kiss is soft, and brief, and when they pull back Erik's eyes are shining with tears but Rahim can barely see him through his own.

"I never—" they both breathe at the same time, and Rahim whispers, "Do you truly?" And Erik answers, his voice hoarse with the tears shining in his eyes, "I do." And their lips meet again, the chess board forgotten, and Rahim can barely breathe for the tears in his throat but they do not matter, nothing matters but that Erik's lips are pressed to his, and it feels right.