Despite all of her detective work, Clara would never have guessed that Erik's home was underground. The absurdity of it, combined with the darkness of the passageway and the lingering feel of his fingers against her throat, made her question what she had been about to do: follow a potentially dangerous man into his home. Alone.

Was she insane?

She looked at Erik. He was now leaning slightly against the stone wall, the second-most relaxed she had ever seen him, as though his self-assurance increased the closer he got to his domain. When their eyes met, he languidly crossed his arms against his chest. "Lost our nerve, have we?"

Still weighing her options, she could not form a reply. He took advantage of the opening and stepped forward, now stretching to his full height to tower over her. "Go home, little fawn," he said, his voice rough around the edges. "Return to your safe complacency, and forget about this. Forget about Erik!"

She studied him then, considering what might drive a man to live underground, to come out only at night, to drive others away. To want his own life to end.

Left to his own devices, he would be the genius that time forgot. The creator that Paris never knew. Only Nadir stood between Erik and obscurity, she surmised, and that was an awfully large burden for a single, aging daroga to bear.

Without a word, she stepped forward and squeezed through the opening. The hard limestone on either side crushed her skirts and bustle against her. With the lantern-light she could make out a dank stone passageway that curved and disappeared as quickly as it began, leaving her with no preview of the trek to come.

Erik slid in after her, and the scraping sound returned as the stone panel shifted back into place, shutting them in. The space was narrow, and when he turned to face her, she found herself staring into his chest. She remembered the feel of his protruding ribs beneath her fingertips, but his clothes hid them well.

"How you surprise me with these strange little bouts of courage," he murmured.

Feeling bold, she replied, "Not so fawn-like after all?"

The corner of his mouth twitched. "I would not go that far." He reached up and gave the slightest tug on a lock of tawny hair that had escaped her chignon. Before she could even react, he had snatched the lantern from her hand and was headed down the passageway. "Follow me," he instructed, "and watch your step."

The passage remained cramped and dark, and it was confusingly serpentine in its layout. And then they were suddenly on spiral stairs that seemed endless in their descent, so much that she began to feel dizzy. The flights of stairs were occasionally punctuated by a brief walk through additional corridors, and then the two of them would begin winding downward yet again. Had there not been a dank chill in the air, she might have expected to stumble upon the pits of Hell.

She had never been claustrophobic or afraid of the dark before, but now she considered that perhaps she ought to be. How far would she have made it had Erik not been present to guide her?

In one passageway, something fist-sized scuttled across the ground. Clara let out a small shriek of panic and grasped the first thing she found: Erik's cloak. He paused for a fleeting moment. Despite her embarrassment, she held fast. And then he was on his way again, evidently willing to overlook her cowardice for the time being.

Finally they kept to a straight course, Clara's fingers still gripping the edge of the cloak in front of her. The moisture in the air grew heavier, but the darkness seemed to be shifting, dissipating, replaced by a faint blue luminescence. Erik halted, and she nearly ran into him.

Now she did release his cloak, and as she stepped up to his side she emitted a small gasp. Before them lay an underground lake, its waters stretching back into shadow until she could see no more. On the shore nearby was small boat moored to an iron ring, and this was where Erik headed next. She followed obediently. Once again she felt as though she had stepped into a dark fairytale—something reminiscent of Beowulf this time, perhaps.

Once Erik had helped her into the vessel's narrow bow, he maneuvered himself closer to the stern and took up the fixed oars. The boat and its occupants were propelled across the lake and through the blueish light, his strokes swift and sure. The only sound was the tranquil splash of oar cutting through water.

They faced each other but did not speak. It was not that she did not wish to know more about her surroundings—quite the contrary—but she knew that Erik was a man of few words, and she felt at ease in her faith that more would be revealed to her in time. Meanwhile, his amber eyes smoldered in the faint light, their gaze flicking between her and the path ahead, but without any of their previous hostility.

At last the boat scraped onto the opposing shore, and he once more steadied her with sinuous fingers as she transitioned from water to land. She was so preoccupied with not stumbling over her own two feet that she did not realize what lay ahead of her until she was at its threshold: a real, honest-to-goodness house. Here, in the bowels of the earth.

They had entered a drawing-room of sorts, laden with furniture and wall-hangings and candles and carpet, as well as a solitary piano. It looked like any other drawing-room in Paris might...except for the flowers.

They were everywhere. In myriad vases and baskets, on every surface except those meant to be sat upon. And they were dead.

Each bouquet was withered and brown, looking as though it would disintegrate under her touch. It was a veritable floral graveyard. And among the flower-skeletons, a ghost of a man.

He was watching her, perhaps waiting for her reaction, and it occurred to her that she must look, to him, as out of place as she felt: pink-skinned and wide-eyed, brimming with fresh-faced youth, her breath still weighted with exertion and exhilaration. Life among death.

"I apologize for the state of the room," he said, shattering the tense silence. "I have not had a visitor in...some time."

"Not even Nadir?"

"Not even the daroga."

Clara pulled off her satchel and set it on the floor near the entrance. "How long has it been?"

"Just over a year."

Erik helped her out of her cloak, hanging it up with his own cloak and hat, and then he gestured to the piano across the room. "Shall we?"

Oh. Oh! Did he intend to give her a piano lesson, then? Her stomach flipped. She had learned the instrument only out of obligation, not passion, and her skills had never been a particular source of pride. In fact, she avoided playing outside her home at all costs. "I am afraid that I will disappoint you with my proficiency, monsieur," she admitted, now regretting having brought up the subject at all.

"I will be the judge of that," he replied, and he stood in wait.

With reluctant obedience, she crossed to the piano and sat on its glossy wooden bench, folding her hands into her lap. "What shall I play, then?"

He had moved to stand next to the instrument, to her right. "Whatever suits you," he said.

She blinked. "What, from memory?"

"Of course. Every pianist ought to have a repertoire of pieces committed to memory."

"Oh." She could feel herself simultaneously shrinking and unraveling as she combed through her mental repertoire. Most of what she could easily recall were simple folk songs, or silly melodies and duets she'd played with Margot. Everything else was suspect, her memory likely to fail her midway through even the most familiar of pieces.

She finally settled on Beethoven's "Six Ecossaises," praying that Erik would not have her play past the first because it was the only one that she had memorized of the six. Her heart thumped as she laid her hands on the keys.

She had not played so much as one note before he snatched up her right hand, pulling it closer for inspection. "Your nails are too long," he said. "You must trim them so that there is no white showing."

He released her, and she curled her fingers inward to study them. Each nail was evenly filed, just barely reaching the end of the fingertip. She would not have considered them long under any other circumstance. "Yes, monsieur," she murmured. She flexed her fingers, found her place on the keys, and began to play.

She got through eight bars before Erik raised a hand to cut her off. "Enough for now," he said. His expression was inscrutable. "Who taught you to play?"

"Monsieur Bechard," she replied. "Why? Do you know him?"

"No," Erik replied, "but he ought be dragged out into the street and summarily shot."

She flinched. "Was it truly that bad?"

There was a pause, and then he emitted a long exhalation through his nose. "You can read music, at least. And though your flexibility suffers from underuse, there is potential there. Your form, however, is disgraceful."

Clara's cheeks burned. "I cannot say that I ever took to the instrument well. Margot was always the more gifted musician."

"That makes little difference if she, too, was instructed by a baboon. Any instructor worth his salt would have stressed proper technique from the beginning." When she balked at the insult, he gave her a terse nod and added, "You're right; it's too unkind a comparison. Baboons are actually quite clever. Wait here a moment."

He walked over to an upholstered loveseat and plucked, from one of its cushions, a beautiful violin and its bow. The violin he set atop the piano, but the bow he kept in his hand. "Play again," he said. "We must first address those lazy wrists of yours. I do not want to see them dip below the keys, let alone touch the keyslip as yours seem wont to do."

Clara bit her lip. "Yes, monsieur."

She played. Once again, she managed to get through only eight bars, this time halted when Erik swiftly raised the violin bow to strike the undersides of her wrists. He was gentle, and it did not hurt, but she flinched all the same, the heat in her cheeks rising even more.

"Keep going," he said, but she had forgotten her place and had to start over. Ten bars this time, and then the slap of the bow again. She corrected her wrists. Twelve bars: another slap. And then, near the end: "You are overcompensating now. Keep your wrists supple, not stiff."

She fought back tears of frustration now, wondering whether her humiliation would know no bounds. When she went to pick up where she'd left off, she once again found that she could not recall her place in the piece.

"Is there a problem, mademoiselle?" he asked, his tone almost derisive.

She swallowed the sob that had been threatening to break loose. "I apologize, monsieur. I must admit that I am quite nervous."

"Whatever for?"

"I do not fare well with performances." Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat with palpable awkwardness. "Or critique."

He stared at her as though she had just confessed to having a second head, and suddenly it was all too much. "Please," she implored, "if I could just have some music to rely on, I would be more able to focus on my playing."

He frowned. "Fine. I will return shortly." He disappeared into a hallway, and when he came back a few minutes later it was with several pages of yellowed sheet music that he set before her. "You are lucky I found this," he said, and she saw that it was, in fact, "Six Ecossaises."

This time she was able to get through the entire first ecossaise without interruption or abuse. She might have felt relief at the end had she not looked up at Erik, who appeared to be debating which critique to deliver first.

"The next time you play," he said, "I would like you to drop your fingers rigidly, separate from the rest of your hand." He reached out to play the same melody, an octave higher, as a demonstration. "Think of each descent as an apple falling from a tree: the apple drops, but it does not take the whole branch with it." He ran through the notes once more, exaggerating the movement of his fingers as they struck the keys, and then he pulled his hand away to gesture toward the edge of the bench. "May I?"

"Of course," she said, a breath too fast. She moved over.

He sat to her right, their sides brushing against each other. "Let me see your arm," he demanded, but his voice had softened. Hesitantly, she held out her right limb, and he gripped the underside of her forearm with bony fingers. His other hand came to rest on top of her forearm, its fingers poised to play as though she was the instrument.

"With opera," he said, "we are used to principal roles, those whose melodies soar above all others on stage." He began to "play" the Beethoven melody on her arm, at approximately half its tempo; her heartbeat doubled in speed by contrast. "But with the piano," he continued, "we do not give preferential treatment; every note or chord must have its moment in the limelight. Do you feel how distinct each one is?"

"Yes," she whispered, fixated on the dexterous movements of his fingers. And she did feel it; each strike of a finger against her arm was solid and deliberate, demanding attention only as long as needed before deferring to the next note.

When he finally stopped, Clara looked up at him for further guidance. His eyes regarded her with sober patience, and she realized what a gift this was, to have the undivided attention and mentoring of someone so talented. In fact, it hardly seemed fair that he should waste his time on her when there were surely more deserving musicians. She resolved then and there to work at being more thick-skinned, to be able to reap the benefits of this time with him. Any critique that he had leveled at her had not been personal; he was looking past her, seeing nothing but her hands and hearing nothing but her playing.

He was still gripping her right forearm with one hand, she realized, and now he guided it back to the ivory keys. Then he reached over with his own right hand to place his fingers directly on top of hers, curving them to better match her size.

"You are letting some of the notes get lost among the crowd," he said, pushing down on her fingers to again demonstrate the rigid drop that he expected of each one. "That will not do. But if you focus on your form, then each one will sing."

She felt a bit lightheaded, perhaps because she had stopped breathing for a moment. She understood that this was merely an exercise meant to help her play better, but it was still the most intimately that she had ever been touched by a man, and it spurred a range of conflicting emotions within her.

"Are you ready to try the Beethoven again?" he asked, his lips so very close to her ear.

"Yes, monsieur." Her voice was solid now; she was ready. She wanted to come at the piece with everything she had, everything he had taught her in such a short span of time.

"Good." He retracted his arm, his fingers grazing the back of her hand as he pulled away, and then he stood and retreated to the side of the piano once more.

She devoted herself fully to this next run-through, careful to heed all notations and give each note purpose. Erik stopped her only once, to address how she played staccato: "Your fingers ought to spring back from the keys, like a rubber ball." He went so far as to grab a pencil in order to lob one end at the piano keys repeatedly, catching it as it bounced back into his waiting hand. "You see?"

She nodded and continued, imagining rubber apples that rained down from tree limbs, thumping against the ground only to bounce back up into the air.

Though Erik continued to call out reminders—"Supple wrists!"—there were no further interruptions, and by the end of the ecossaise, he was nodding. "Better," he said. "Now, how often do you practice?"

She shrugged. "Lately, not at all. At my best, maybe half an hour a day."

"I expect an hour a day now: five minutes of scales and arpeggios, forty-five minutes of your assigned piece, ten of whatever else you choose. Any more than that would likely be unproductive. But when you do practice, be mindful. Pay attention to every note, every crescendo, every articulation. Play deliberately."

She prayed that the desperate hope she felt was not so evident in her voice when she asked, "You will give me another lesson, then?"

For perhaps the first time ever, he did not seem able to meet her gaze. "Is that what you want?"

"Very much."

And then he was extending a hand to pull her up from the bench, every inch of him emanating that characteristic self-assurance of his. "We shall convene again next Tuesday night, then. I will meet you at your coach house at twelve-thirty; you should not be riding unaccompanied." As he guided her through the drawing-room and out to the boat, stopping to let her pick up her satchel, he added, "The flowers will not be here when you return."

"Perhaps you ought to consider fresh ones," she suggested teasingly.

He nodded in consideration as he helped her back into the dinghy. "It has stuck with me, the tale of your sister's irritation at her suitors refusing to learn her favorite flower." He pushed the boat off the shore and hopped in, all bony limbs and knees and elbows at the oars. "You never did say yours."

She smiled lightly. "Perhaps it is my turn to withhold information, monsieur. If you correctly guess my favorite flower, I just might let you bait me with another ridiculous riddle."

Erik leaned back to deliver a powerful stroke of the oars, and when he moved forward again, his eyes flickered with delight. "I accept your challenge," he said.

Clara settled back in the boat and tried hard to hide the satisfaction she felt in that moment. She traveled across the lake content with the knowledge that even though she would emerge from the secret passage to find the world just as she had left it, everything would be different.