The cobblestoned street was covered in three inches of solid white when Rachel stepped out of her highly sophisticated and expensive carriage after her escort for the evening, the delectable Christophe Daee. She twined her satin-covered arm around his elegantly suited upper arm and steered him towards the warm lights emanating from the opera house. He allowed himself to be steered by his patron of almost three months and walked through the gilded entryway and into the most lavish party of the social season. The Opera Popular's private New Year's Ball was an invitation no one who understood high society would dream of declining.

The high collar of his knight's costume chafed at Christophe's neck, a gift from his patroness. Funny. Hers was also the leash which he had chafed at ever since he had accepted her patronage. He hated her more by the day, and would tell her as soon as the next opera was over. This was the piece that would make him famous and free him from all such constraints once and for all. He just had to plaster on a smile this one last night and he could return to his life with Erika. But he had to get through it first.

Erika. He hadn't seen her since the night of the death in the opera house. He suspected Rachel had more to do with his loss of disposable time than rehearsals did. At least he'd managed to keep his nights to himself. But how was his wife coping? Did she understand? Did she miss him?

And then the music was starting and Rachel was yanking him onto the dance floor. They danced past Carl, now a slightly less popular star often cast in supporting roles as he whisked the leading second soprano of the company across the dance floor. The managers were parading their own town tarts around the ballroom like trophies. How disgusting. Christophe promised himself right there that he would never do anything like that to his beloved angel.

Halfway through the party, Rachel pulled him much closer than necessary for the dance and whispered in his ear, "This is such a boring party. Perhaps we should return home for a different kind of fun."

If he hadn't been used to such risqué comments by now, the tenor would have blushed to the ears. Instead, he firmly replied, "Wouldn't it be rude to leave so soon? We've barely been here three hours." It wasn't true, they'd danced for nearly five, but anything to keep him faithful in at least that respect to his beloved.

The Countess pouted for a moment and was about to complain when the cheerful music suddenly took a darker turn and heads snapped towards the staircase where a menacing figure glared at all of them. Dressed in skintight black that glittered with polished obsidian and trailing long black feathers that appeared also at the collar in the form of a massive fan, Erika looked nothing like the sweet girl he'd married and every inch the malevolent Phantomess. It was featureless, save for the black satin belt sporting a sheathed sword, with a mask of the same fabric covering her face all the way from her hairline to the bottom of her cheeks. The entirety of the party guests quaked under the cruelty of her gaze and the steel of her as yet hidden blade..

She began to slowly, menacingly, walk down the stairs. "Why so silent, good monsieurs? Did you think that I had left you for good?"

There was ice in her voice, but not the kind you carved into beautiful sculptures. This ice blinded and blizzarded and froze. "Have you missed me, good Monsieurs? I have written you an opera." She pulled from somewhere a portfolio encased in black satin, bedecked with mirror shards. "Here I bring the finished score, Erika Triumphant."

At those words she drew the slip rapier and began to brandish it with the same grace a duchess might use to handle a fan. Most thought it was just a gesture, but Christophe saw the target of that point. It still had its arms around his waist.

She whipped the blade back and caressed the blade with her other gloved hand. "Fondest greetings to you all. A few instructions just before rehearsals start." She continued walking down the staircase until she was right in front of the older tenor. "Carl must be taught to act, not his normal trick of strutting around the stage." With the last comment, she whipped the blade up until it was less than an inch from the man's prodigious nose. She turned her wrist and poked the tip gently into the highly ornamented bosom of the man's chosen partner. "Our current lead must lose some weight. It's not comely in a woman of the stage."

She whipped around, making the feathers dance like black fire around her now even fiercer visage. The hand encasing the sword's hilt relaxed for a moment, only to tense again when she brandished it so the managers went cross-eyed trying to keep the tip in view. "And my managers must learn that their place is in an office, not the arts." She turned from them and slowly sheathed the blade again. "As for our star, Mr. Christophe Dae…"

She turned expecting to see him smiling at her, which he was, but at that moment, all she saw was the arm twined around him. An arm that wasn't hers.

Shock registered on her face. She walked slowly towards him, much of the menance gone from her now. Erika could not believe what she was seeing. She'd spent months preparing the perfect opera for Christophe, the cornerstone of his career. Now, on the fateful evening when she would deliver her work and pull off the performance of a lifetime to him and everyone else in the room, she found him in the arms of another woman. And not just any woman.

The woman who had tried to kill her.

Erika removed her ring and threw it to the floor.

Then she triggered the floor panel and dropped down into one of the tunnels.

This story will face death by hiastus very soon. To keep it from the chopping block...

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