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Lady Van Guardant stroked her monkey's fur while the Count talked, humming discordantly under her breath, and I fought the urge to shake her. Didn't she want to hear what he had to say? (And her attempt to make music was getting on my nerves, as she seemed to be tone-deaf.)

"…and, finally, I'd like to discuss the manner of the Opera Ghost," Francis said, reaching for a folded paper on the corner of his desk. The patroness sat up straight in her chair. "Ah, here it is," he said. "The list of funds."

Lady Van Guardant watched him expectantly, her eyes alert, and the monkey on her lap made a soft noise of pain. "Oh, sorry, dear," she said, relaxing her fingers. The beast scampered onto her shoulder, away from her pinching hands.

The Count unfolded the paper, skimmed it, set it down, and turned his gaze to the patroness. "I seem to recall you want me to pay the Opera Ghost."

"Yes," Lady Van Guardant said. "Yes, this is a matter of some import to me."

"May I ask why?" I inquired.

The patroness turned her startled blue eyes to me. "Why, because we cannot put his soul to rest until we calm his bewildered spirit!"

A strange image came to me: Erik, floating several feet above the ground, draped in a filmy white gown, an angelic look plastered incongruously on his swarthy face, his mouth forming a prim O of astonishment…

I snickered. The patroness's eyes grew wide with shock at my rude response.

The Count coughed loudly. "Yes, well. I'm afraid we cannot pay O.G.; it's much too expensive. Unless, of course, you'd like to pay him out of your own pocket, Lady Van Guardant."

The patroness sat up even straighter in her chair and lifted her chin. "I cannot. I am already directing my money to the funding of the Opera House, Count. Surely you can use the excess funds you have from my patronage to pay the Ghost."

"That is out of the question," I said. "We are stretched tight enough as it is. However, we have come up with a better idea, if you are willing to hear it."

"Well, what is it?"

This was the crucial moment; I had to swallow before speaking. "We hold a séance – under your direction, of course – and free the Ghost once and for all."

The patroness was stunned into silence; I watched her for a reaction, but she said nothing.

Francis glanced at me. I could tell he was trying not to panic.

Then Lady Van Guardant took her monkey off her shoulder, rose to her feet, and stared down at the Count and I. Her face was as pale as the white walls behind her.

"I'm afraid I cannot accept your offer, Mme. Laurent, Count, but…" She hesitated, and her colorless lips trembled. "I feel you are mocking me, and I cannot bear it. Good day."

Francis leapt to his feet, hurrying around the desk to block her path to the door. "No, no, not at all, Lady Van Guardant! No, we are not. Please, stay and listen to us."

"Really, Lady Van Guardant," I said, also rising, "We were not mocking you. Please do as the Count says; stay and listen to what we have to say."

She turned to face me, her voice shaking with indignation. "I am not a liar! You think I am a fraud, but my powers are true! They were cruelly thrust upon me, and their weight is heavy for one such as I."

I pressed my lips together, trying to figure out what she was playing at. Did she really think anyone would believe her idiotic claims? And why was she so insistent on the matter, anyway?

From behind her, I saw the Count's face contort in sympathy, and my heart sank. Of course.

"Please, Lady Van Guardant," he said, the name rolling easily, smoothly off his tongue, "please sit down and listen to me. We will do whatever you ask."

After I left the office, I decided that the Count's kindness was something of a flaw in his otherwise unmarred character. Not only had he agreed to begin 'paying' the Phantom again, but he had arranged for the patroness to have my box. Box Five, the main 'haunt' of the 'Ghost.' My box.

Lady Van Guardant sailed out of the room after me, clutching the Count's arm and chattering gaily about tomorrow night. She had also persuaded Francis to host a ball in her welcome.

"We shall have to have streamers," she said decisively, "and masks. I adore masks. But it shouldn't be a costumed ball, oh no. It will be a ball gown ball, one with tuxedos and all."

I pressed my lips together and went out of the corridor, fuming silently. The whole plan had backfired; nothing was going as it should. And where was Erik? How was I supposed to talk to him about my awful failure of a morning if he wasn't around?

Madame Giry caught me before I could make my way to my room and its hidden passageway.

"Katelienne, where are you going in such a mad hurry?" she demanded, taking hold of my arm and steering me in the opposite direction. "Have you completely forgotten about our shopping trip?"

I unsuccessfully tried to pry her fingers off my forearm. "No, I haven't. But my morning has been truly horrific – I wanted to go tell Erik about it."

"Well, even if you had managed to get down to the lake," Madame Giry replied, lowering her voice, "you wouldn't have found him. He's up on the rafters, spying on the new opera and dropping buckets of paint."

"You're joking," I said, letting her pull me down the stairs. "Please tell me you're joking."

"Go ask Jeanette," she said. "She's now the Green Lady."

I could tell this amused her, but I had no idea why. I snapped, "Jeanette's my friend. Why is he throwing things at the performers? They're working!"

Madame Giry pulled me into a room off the corridor, away from the rapidly-increasing stream of performers from the auditorium.

"Oh, Katelienne, Jeanette was practically begging for an excuse to leave the stage. She wants to go see the Count. To make sure the new patroness is not out of line. This was a lovely opportunity for her."

I finally managed to detach her grip. "Madame Giry…"

"Erik's a little tired of not messing things up, Katelienne," she told me. "He decided to have some fun today. Besides, he was bored without you."

"That doesn't give him leave to destroy rehearsals," I retorted. "I should really go talk to him. He's acting like a little boy."

"Oh, am I?" said a different voice.

I threw my hands into the air. "Lovely. I've just been looking for you everywhere, and Madame Giry tells me you've been throwing paint at performers and generally wreaking havoc on rehearsals."

Erik raised one eyebrow and looked at Madame Giry. "It was only a few drops."

"More like twenty," Madame Giry said, shaking her head. "Jeanette's arms look like they belong to a jade figurine."

"Enough," I said. "Erik, I'll deal with you after I go shopping. It turns out I really need a new dress, seeing as the patroness has finagled the Count into throwing a ball tomorrow night, so goodbye."

Madame Giry had stepped towards the door, but at my words she turned back. "What? A ball? Then we had better get going, hadn't we?"

I made to move towards her, but Erik took a long stride in my direction, caught hold of my shoulders, and kissed me.

It was intense; immediate; and it pulled me out of the real world into a haze of gold and red and purple; violent fireworks exploded under my eyelids.

When Erik broke away, I was out of breath. I could only stare at him, speechless.

He stepped back, a grin curling his lips upwards. "I've been wanting to do that all day."

I looked at Madame Giry: she smiled and shrugged. "True love; what can you say? Come along, Katelienne, it's time to go."

As I left Erik standing there, looking after me, I felt something warm and fierce burning in my chest, warming me from the inside out. The wings of love beat strongly, comfortingly, behind my ribs. I was not unhappy anymore.

Madame Giry and I walked down the sidewalk, each of us carrying bags of clothing, our breath casting pale clouds into the chilly air.

"And so…" she concluded, "that was how Hugh and I met. Love at first sight. Now you should tell me about the first time you met Erik!"

Her enthusiasm was palpable; I glanced, surprised, at her. "I didn't see him the first time we met; he was hiding in that passageway behind my room, I surmise. All I heard was his voice. Rather ominous, right?"

Madame Giry waved down a carriage, her cloak flapping in the wind. "Alright, then, when did you really meet him?"

I gazed off dreamily at the snow-covered shops, watching the cold sunlight sparkle off the icy roofs. "Oh, I saw him on the roof the next day. I asked him to do an interview, you see."

A carriage pulled up next to us, and we climbed in. "It was a rather odd day."

Madame Giry laughed. "With Erik, it always is. Driver! Take us to the Opera House." She shut the window and settled back into her seat, putting her package down next to her. "But what did you think of him?"

"I thought he was…" I paused, trying to remember my feelings on the rooftop that day. "I was scared of him, to tell the truth. He was nearly too much for me; too strange, too dangerous, too mysterious… I thought he might lose his temper and kill me for asking what I did."

Madame Giry leaned forward, her arms around her knees, rapt. "But why did you interview him in the first place?"

I took a deep breath. "He told me Luke was a murderer, and that was all I needed to hear. No one else knew about Claire, except for him... And Erik trusted me, for some reason. He thought I knew nothing about Luke's past, that I was an oblivious, obsessed writer. He told me… he told me later that I seemed so truthful, so innocent, that he suspected nothing. Until he read Claire's last letter."

Madame Giry sank back into the cushions, her eyes sad. "I wish he hadn't gone through your things, but that's Erik for you. He must have thought you were hiding something from him."

"Erik doesn't trust people, I know," I said. "And I had all this information about him; he had nothing about me. I understand why he went through my things. And now I'm glad he did (though I still don't approve), but if he hadn't, I might have confided in him anyway."

"Perhaps," Madame Giry said. "Perhaps not. I remember how closed-off you were at the Opera. Even when I first met you at my interview, I suspected something was deeply wrong."

"You're very astute at reading people," I said, nodding. "I'm not. If I hadn't known what Luke was – I would never had thought anyone could have been that evil. That's why I told the Inspector about him; why I was so gullible."

The words stung as they left my lips; I knew that if I hadn't told the Inspector about Luke, none of the later, dangerous events would have happened. The Inspector would have been helpless to do anything except –

"He would have accused you, publicly, of murder," Madame Giry said, breaking into my thoughts. "And before that, he would have taken his 'policemen', and searched the Opera. Even after his kidnapping attempt, he still came back to the Opera and demanded you. I doubt lying to him would have stopped him."

"What I can't understand is why he protected Luke. He doesn't seem the type to help people."

"Maybe he was in Luke's debt. Very deep in Luke's debt." She looked out the window as she said the last word, and smiled. "We're home."

"Madame Giry."

She had opened the door and gotten onto the step before I spoke. She turned to look up at me, her dark hair almost black against the white of the snow-covered sidewalk.

"Something wrong, dear?"

"I'd like to ask you something personal. Before we get back to the Opera."

She held out her hand. "Then let's go to the front garden, shall we? You can ask me there."

It was clear she had deduced I wanted to speak to her without Erik overhearing; it was touching that she trusted me enough to not ask why, especially when I thought about how much she cared for him.

We crossed the snowy ground into the garden, found a bench under the trees that wasn't too damp, and sat down. I arranged my package on my lap, pushed the hood of my cloak back, and gathered my thoughts, trying to force them into some sort of order.

Madame Giry waited patiently, unspeaking, unmoving, gazing at the white-lined branches of the trees that lined the outer edge of the garden.

"Alright, this is going to sound odd, but here goes. Tell me truthfully: do you think Erik is unable to leave the Opera? That he won't ever do so?"

She said nothing, only stared at the trees, and I bit my lip. Had I been too blunt? Had I offended her?

Then she turned, and her dark eyes found mine. "Katelienne, Erik is not like us. He's had a… different sort of life. If he feels he cannot leave the Opera, then you must give him time."

"We are running out of time," I said, numbly. "The Inspector could be on a different continent by now, for all we know. We have to do something about him."

Madame Giry lifted her chin. "Why?"

"You know why. We need to put him in jail. He tried to kidnap me, remember?"

She looked away again, twisting her hands together in her lap. "Even if you and Erik did leave, I doubt you'd be able to find him. Besides, as long as he's not hurting us, we do not need to do anything. He's better left alone, in my opinion."

I rose to my feet, gripping my bag tightly. "I see. I thought you'd agree with Erik."

"Katelienne," she said, getting to her feet, "don't be angry with me. And I'm not saying this because of Erik; I'm saying it because of you. I don't want you to be hurt. The Inspector is dangerous."

"I've handled dangerous people before," I said, angry. "If Erik would only come with me-"

"- but he won't, and you know that. You have to give him time." She hesitated before speaking again. "How much did he tell you about his past?"

"All of it," I said, starting across the snow towards the Opera. "I know all of it; the only thing I don't know is why he won't leave the Opera now. But you're right – I should give him time, and I do have work to do here. The Count would be disappointed, too."

Madame Giry followed me, her shoes crunching in the snow. "Quite true. But Katelienne…"

We had reached the Opera House doors; I turned. "What?"

As the doorman opened the door and reached for my coat, Madame Giry shook her head. "Nothing. I'll speak to you about it later."

She went after me through the doors, into the warm lobby, and headed through the crowd of people towards the auditorium. I stared after her, wondering what she had been about to say.

"Are you Katelienne Laurent?" asked a male voice from behind me.

I turned. "Yes, I am. Who are you?"

The reporter – for so he was – produced a pad of paper and a pencil from his pocket and began to scribble madly. "You were Luke Garmin's fiancée, correct?"

For a moment, I simply stared at him, confused. "I don't have to answer your questions," I said, backing up. "If you'll excuse me, I have things to do."

"I'm sorry, but you see, you do," he said, continuing to scribble. "I'm a reporter for the Soliel Courier, and we're very well known. If you don't answer my questions, I'll be sure to defame you in my article."

I glared at him. I could feel the blood rushing to my face. "Right. You think that is going to work, do you? Well, it's not. I bid you good day."

The reporter caught my arm as I turned on my heel; his fingers dug painfully into my flesh. I thought I could feel his pencil jabbing its point into my arm.

"Unhand me at once," I said, shoving my elbow hard into his stomach.

The reporter dropped his hand, his face contorting with anguish, and reeled backwards a step or two. I took this chance to escape, whirling around, heading for the stairs.

As I hurried through the lobby, his voice rose above the mutters of onlookers, clear and cold.

"You'll regret this, Mademoiselle Laurent! I promise you!"