"Have you come to finish what you started?"

She struggled to control the slight tremor in her voice, wishing fleetingly for the dagger residing in the pocket of her skirt, which now hung on a peg behind her dressing screen. She was trapped in this room with Estelle and helpless against Erik's wiry strength and insanity. Looking down at the terrified young dancer, she realized just how foolish she had been. Her suspicions should never have been discounted because of a long standing friendship.

She eyed him warily as he stood in the doorway, hands fisted at his sides.

He took two steps toward her, and Louise struggled to remove the clutching arms of Estelle. Frightened of him, she nevertheless felt rage beginning to percolate through her veins. "I'm not going to just sit and wait for you," she spat, as both women watched his advance into the room. Her fear and sorrow at this turn of events was nearly paralyzing her, but she refused to make it any easier for him. The younger woman continued to grip her with panicky strength, and impatiently Louise shook her off. "I should have informed the commissaire as soon as I realized what you were doing. You certainly had me fooled when I first returned to Paris. I even-"

"Sorelli! No...you don't understand. He- "

"All these years I was so very wrong about you! You really are a monster, aren't you?" She stood swaying on her feet waiting for the first blow to land, or the killing embrace of the Punjab to encircle her neck. But her fear was curiously off-set by her own role in what her friend really was and what it made her- an enabling fool allowing his rampage, and now she was being led to the slaughter. "You'll hang for this, Erik, or have a moment with...with Madame Guillotine-"

"Yes, and applauding, I dare say," he uttered in his sublime, dead voice.

"Please. I beg you for the friendship I once held dear! Just listen to-"

"I do not wish to hear it."

He had progressed into the room, his fearsome eyes heated with a fury beyond anything she had ever seen in her erstwhile friend. He came to a stop just before reaching them, his breath coming hard and fast as if he had been running, and no doubt he had- chasing his quarry to ground in this very room. She finally stopped to hear Estelle's ever increasing volume, and what she was saying shocked Louise to her very core.

"Sorelli, mon Dieu! He sent me to you...he is not the one! He saved me. This one saved me!" Estelle put out a hand to Erik, but snatched it back hurriedly as though being approached by a snarling dog.

He ignored her, his eyes never leaving Sorelli's face. He burned with a rage that he fought to restrain, his long fingers curled hard around each other to control their shaking; flinging the epithet of monster at him had cut to the bone. Louise stared back at him, as the full consequence of what she had done, smote her with an awful feeling of doom. Her mouth moved soundlessly as the implications of all she had said to him attacked her with a vengeance. "Erik. I didn't know... Please...I-"

"Be quiet." This was said in a tone that brooked no disobedience and she heeded that clipped command, knowing to do anything else would be infinitely stupid. His frightening eyes rooted her to the floor for far too long before he turned them on Estelle. The young woman hung onto Sorelli as the figure in black spoke in that beautifully modulated voice, and she found herself listening closely to it.

"Mademoiselle, I would be forever in your debt if you would not mention this to anyone. He will never again harm you- or any woman, for that matter, but I do not want my part in this to be known. Aside from my wish to remain anonymous, it is in your best interests to do so," and both women easily heard the implied threat, couched as it was in velvet.

The young ballerina stuttered in her haste, "No! Never! I w-will never breathe a word of this. He is well and truly gone, monsieur?"

"Yes."

Estelle turned and buried her face against Sorelli. As Louise held the girl, she darted another look at Erik, but he had already walked to the door. One furtive glance into the hallway, and he was gone. She had said nothing more to him, only stared at his rigid back, her heart aching. But she had a feeling he wasn't through with her just yet.

"You have something of mine, I believe."

The cold voice spoke to her from a corner of the library drenched in shadow. Louise had remained in the Garnier after Estelle was visited by the House doctor and treated for her injuries. The young dancer blamed a fall backstage for her bruised face and torn skirt, but because no one could prove otherwise, it was generally accepted. The physician had his doubts as to the veracity of the girl's story; it was no fall that left an ugly contusion encircling her neck, but he said nothing more, except to advise the young woman to find herself a new gentleman friend.

"Can you believe him, Louise? He thinks my lover tried to strangle me." Estelle was ensconced on the sofa in Sorelli's dressing room, a large afghan throw covering her while she drank a cup of chamomile tea. She winced from the pain of her sore throat, "What lover?" she croaked, looking tiredly at the other woman. "I'll never go off by myself again. If not for...for-" She looked at her in puzzlement. "You know him. You called him by name- Erik. Why does he cover his face?" She took another sip of tea and leaned her head back. She had heard that name before. "Who-?" Understanding dawned as Taillier thought back to Giselle's debut. "Erik... He is Erik of the red roses?"

Louise sighed and met her somber gaze steadily. "Never mind that. Just remember what he said. Do not mention him or what happened to anyone! Do you understand, Estelle?"

The girl stared at Louise's grim face and nodded. "He is dangerous, isn't he?"

"Very."

"Shouldn't the commissaire at least know that the killer has been caught?"

"For what reason, Taillier? How would you explain all those little details he would no doubt ask? The man is d...can no longer prey on women. It serves no purpose now. He saved your life, now do him the same courtesy."

"It is our secret then," Estelle whispered and closed her eyes.

Jammes and Meg Giry insisted on a quick visit with their friend, and listened with increasing amusement as Estelle told them how she fell down the backstage stairs. Little Jammes stifled a giggle at this, and Estelle stared at her with venom. Ignoring her, Cecile asked with a naughty grin, "Did you break your wine bottle when you fell?"

Before an argument could erupt in her dressing room, Sorelli shooed the two girls out. Still excited over her close brush with death, Estelle told Louise everything- the killer finding her in the third cellar near the set pieces, his terrifying attack, and the fortuitous arrival of the two men. "He was nice, Sorelli. He inquired of my health. I've never seen him before in the theatre."

"I told you not to-"

"Not him.The tall man that was with Er... ah... him. I don't even know his name," and Estelle looked slightly put out by her lack of that knowledge.

In spite of the bruising on her face and throat, she had recovered much of her equilibrium, but the amount of adrenaline which had flooded her system, plus the dose of laudanum the doctor had given her, left her drowsy, and before long she was asleep. Sorelli left her to rest for a while before sending her home. Rehearsal over for the day, she walked to the library for something to help pass the time.

Reflecting on everything that happened did her no good, but she was more than aware of the hollow ache in the vicinity of her heart. She had accused Erik of deeds so heinous, she wondered at her reasoning now, and what madness had taken hold of her. It would seem that she was no different than anyone else- thinking him no better than his sinister appearance would warrant. After all of these years, she had aligned herself with everyone who had ever hurled the epithet of monster at him. She couldn't begin to imagine the hurt and anger he was feeling right now- because of her.

The flames in the sconces flickered restlessly, and shadows grew long across the walls as she ran a finger down the leather spines of the books. When his voice literally fell into the silent space, she jumped, not expecting it, and turned around to face the room. "Erik? Erik...I am so very, very sorry."

There was silence for a time, but Sorelli could still feel his presence, the very walls seeming to breathe in and out, waiting with a sentient deference, the true master of the House. And so she waited too.

After a handful of minutes had crawled by, he spoke again, "The key. I want it back."

The words were uttered in that same chill, dead voice, and she knew she was not forgiven. They were past that now. Raising her chin, she nodded once. "You shall have it. I only want to say that I am-"

"Leave it inside the rue Scribe door, but come no further than that. You are no longer welcome in my home. Or for that matter, my opera house, although I may yet allow you to stay- there is room enough for the both of us, I suppose, as long as you behave yourself. We shall see. But you must tell no one about me," he warned.

The finality of his words left a yawning emptiness in her which she knew could never be filled, but contrarily she wished to hear emotion in his voice; the need to incite him into anything but this apathy, even anger or the same raw grief she was feeling at the termination of their friendship. But hadn't she been the one to kill it?

"You despise me and I know I deserve it. I won't tell anyone of your existence; I haven't ever and I'll not start now- you have m-my word on that. Estelle can be trusted as well. She owes you her life," the words slipping from her mouth before she could stop them, "but you can't really force me out of here if I choose not to go!"

"Ah, but that would be incorrect, I fear. I brought you here, I can send you away."

His frozen manner frightened her more than anything, and a fine trembling overtook her. "What do you mean?"

"You never wondered how Debienne found his way to Naples? Hardly the traveling kind is our Arthur."

"Why won't you show yourself, Erik?"

"For what reason, Louise?"

"Because that's how adults interact."

"Adults? Hmm. That's what you consider me now? I have climbed from the pit of iniquity that you cast me into, and now have the wherewithal to converse like...oh, le Comte de Chagny?"

"Come out where I can see you," she implored him.

"I have always considered your inexhaustible use of the word friend to be sadly misplaced, and my suspicions were borne out quite nicely." He moved out from the corner of the large room, a corner that she had thought empty, and stopped. "For what true comrade deserts a friend in need? A dear, dear friend, searching for a little of that vaunted faith and loyalty that tripped so easily from your forked tongue?" His eyes drilled into her as though searching for a soul he didn't believe to exist. "The answer, Sorelli?"

He was playing with her now in that hateful way he had when he was angry and disillusioned. She shook her head in the negative, not wanting this to escalate out of control as things between them so often had in the past.

"Well? Nothing to say? You said quite a bit to me only a few hours ago. Come, come, La Sorelli. An answer, if you please!"

"I don't know," she managed to whisper.

"Yes, I thought as much." His gaze raked her from head to toe, and she quailed, finding the emotion she craved in the fire of those yellow eyes. "A false one, Louise. Loyalty is a word easily spoken, but so rarely given; sacrifices are sometimes required in the name of friendship- very few have the actual courage to stand fast when faced with adversity. Much easier to align oneself with those throwing the stones. There is your answer," he said, just as softly, and turned to leave.

"I know you must detest me now, but I didn't give you away to anyone. Surely that must count for something?"

"Perhaps it was because of your own culpability. Some might consider your coming forward after two murders a little slow in your concern for justice."

"That's not true and you know it!" He ignored this, and continued on his way. "Erik!" He paused, not bothering to turn around, and Sorelli feeling numb at the destruction of her friendship with this complicated and wounded man, heard herself as the words rushed out in a bleak attempt to keep him from leaving. "What did you mean when you said you brought me here?"

He sighed with weariness and a cold desolation. "I kept up with your progress over the years at the San Carlo, and knew when you could no longer advance. You were never a whore, Sorelli or you wouldn't have halted your... bid, shall we say?- for primacy. I wrote Poligny and Debienne about your qualifications, and persuaded them to go and see for themselves. They did, and the rest you already know."

"You knew about...about-"

"Your ill-conceived climb to the top beginning on your back?" and she flinched at his nasty smile and even nastier words, driving all color from her face. "Yes."

"But that would mean you were there and...and-"

"Yes."

"When?"

"Your illustrious and enchanting debut. I was in the theatre and privy to the backstage gossip concerning you and your ballet master- or should I say, your lover? It was quite enlightening."

She recalled that night well, and remembered how she felt Erik to be close by. It would seem her senses were correct after all. "Why were you there?"

He ignored her. "After ascertaining the truth of your fight for the top position through the boudoir, as it were, I thought it best to remove myself from the scene- which I did. Thus, you had no idea I was there. Although I must wonder at your choice for advancement, I could have taken you to the pinnacle of your profession much faster for the same arrangement. But at the time, you seemed to be doing very well on your own. Subsequently, I discovered your progress had stalled, for wont of a better word, and decided you would do much better in Paris."

She was stunned. "You never asked for anything in return from me. Why?"

"You can be very obtuse. Willfully or innocently I have never been able to decide. Maybe I wanted your affection more than," once again his eyes raked her from head to toe, "your other very obvious charms. I had hoped we might...that you could possibly-"

"Hoped I might what?" Louise asked softly.

"Never mind."

"I'm sorry for doubting you," she whispered.

"It doesn't matter now, does it?" he said with finality and gestured to the door. "Time to go, Sorelli."

"You owe me an explanation yet. Who was he?" As bitter as it was, she didn't want to end their conversation, for once it was finished, so were they.

"I owe you nothing." he spat. "You cannot have it both ways, Louise. You disparage Erik for what you believe he has done, and in the next breath demand answers which he needn't give." He sighed heavily, thrusting hands into his pockets and leaned negligently against the book shelves. He regarded her silently until she became restive, gaining some small satisfaction from her turmoil. Finally, "He was a guard here ten years ago. Apparently his memories of those days were quite different from ours, and he wished to return to them. He was maimed in a fire and shunted aside for being hideous. He had nowhere to go, and decided to make the Garnier his new home. He was using the theatre to hide away in during the day, and preyed on women at night. There is your monster, Sorelli. Deformed as I, but clearly much more insane."

She cringed just as he meant for her to do, but her eyes never dropped from his. "Why didn't you discover his presence sooner? Your alarms would have gone off." She was delaying the inevitable- afraid for the time coming ever closer when they would no longer be confidantes.

"I told you once that they did go off, but he got away. He knew the cellars almost as well as I do. It's over now, and life can go on as always."

He turned to go, then halted, not looking at her. "I nearly killed him for taking your innocence. But then, you gave it away, didn't you?"

It was mine to give- never yours, even though you once tried to claim it for yourself. She closed her eyes briefly then opened them, surprised to see that he had become a watery blur. "I only wish I had known you were in Naples then. I really do." His tone had left a dreary desolation in its wake, and she tried desperately to come up with a way of fixing what had been shattered. In a small voice, "Will you ever forgive me?"

He turned and looked at her, his eyes bleak. "I highly doubt it."

She waited until he was truly gone before she broke down.

Life did go on for them all. Louise threw herself into the life of the stage with unremitting energy; Philippe returned from Lyon and was pleasantly surprised when she burst into tears upon their reunion. For the next few days Erik moved about the opera house, every inch the Phantom he was proclaimed to be, pretending there had never been a young ballerina who had brought heat and light into his barren world.

His existence was as solitary as it had ever been, and the hard glitter of his eyes remained long after his last meeting with Louise. Her betrayal had caused a hurt that sliced like the sharpest of knives, leaving him despondent and embittered. But he had considered their relationship to have been based on mutual respect, and it was a painful blow to find that she had none at all for him. He climbed to the rue Scribe exit the day after their last conversation, and found the key returned. He stared at it lying so innocently on his palm, and hurriedly closed his fingers around it, hopelessly seeking a touch of warmth from the hand that last held it.

He tucked himself away inside his house and worked on his opera, drinking far too much wine and eating very little, even for him. He would, after a period of wallowing in his own pity, manage to take himself in hand and sober up briefly, exchanging Burgundy for black coffee. Dressing in fresh clothes, he would sit down at the piano, trying to make sense out of his drunken scribblings, only to have his anger at her erupt once more, and he would start the whole process over again. He found himself embracing his misery, if that were possible; it was an old friend, and he was far more used to it than contentment. In this manner, his days spun out, never really certain what music he wrote, along with the conviction that it simply wasn't possible to consume all of the alcohol in Paris.

He found solace in dream Louise's arms- when he wasn't cursing the flesh and blood one. That he missed her terribly, went without saying- after ten years of roaring silence, his world had been filled with the music of a woman's voice once more, and he had reveled in the delicious sound of it. Now his house was again far too quiet, and he longed for her light laughter as she teased him into a better mood. Until he could work through his considerable anger toward her, he reasoned it was best to leave her be, but her absence left him with a nagging hunger that would not be appeased.

Finally, he staggered to his coffin and tipped himself in, sleeping like the dead for hours, the irony of it amusing him. Upon waking, he bathed and dressed in wool frock coat and trousers, forced a meal down his throat, and gathered the detritus of a fortnight's imbibing into a gunny sack, all the while moving carefully due to the remnants of a headache and queasy stomach. Never again, he thought sourly, and set off for the surface and the opera rehearsal that was taking place at that moment onstage. It was Carmen, and he stood observing it for a handful of minutes, listening with a tepid interest. He was about to leave when he spied a new face in the chorus.

A blonde haired girl in the soprano section; he listened closely with his musician's ear, managing to isolate her voice from the rest. What he heard intrigued him. Curious, and with a growing elation, he leaned forward from where he stood and closed his eyes. He tilted his head and concentrated on the girl and her timbre- light lyric at the moment, but with work, she could approach full. A higher tessitura than a soubrette- much more weight if shown the way to achieve it. His thoughts flew with this plum dropped into his lap, and his excitement leaped and pulsated with the knowledge that Carlotta would soon be an anecdote. He watched the girl- even surrounded by others, she kept herself apart. As if struck from the same quarry as the red marble surrounding him, he remained absolutely still in his supreme effort to hear the Garnier's future diva. Dufort, the chorus master stopped them mid-measure with a slash of his arm, and began berating them. Erik merely smiled. Yes, quite. Not up to snuff, are they? Stop trying to pull them along- you're simply dragging the notes out of them. They don't feel La cloche a sonne in the least. But la petite jeune fille? Worth the whole lot. Exuberantly, and with new purpose, he turned and strode away.

Christine observed the others in the chorus as they left for lunch. She had no money with which to join them, but she knew where she could get a cup of hot tea, for Sorelli very often had a pot sent from the kitchens, and so she found her steps turning for Louise's dressing room. Of all the people she had met so far in the opera house, the prima ballerina had been the kindest, and her room was always filled with chatter and noise of which Christine tried very hard to join. She was by nature reserved, and Mamma Valerius often commented on it, saying she was much too quiet for a young girl on the threshold of life. To Christine, eighteen was not so very young for a life filled with such grief. Losing her mother when she was a child of four, and her beloved papa only a year ago, she neither felt young or happy- merely there. She at times thought she was existing in a bubble that prevented her from engaging her life to the fullest, separated from the rest of humanity by sorrow and lassitude. Able to eat, sleep and function on one level, she nevertheless felt insulated from the truest sense of living- merely going through the motions of it.

She reached Sorelli's door backstage and tapped lightly. The older woman was often in her dressing room to eat her lunch, preferring that instead of joining the others. Lately though, she seemed preoccupied and sad, with shadows beneath her eyes and an abstracted air about her. All pensive moods of which Christine was more than familiar. After a minute, she came to the conclusion that Louise wasn't in her dressing room and turned away.

Feeling a little sad herself, her steps unconsciously took her back to the tiny dressing room near the end of the corridor she shared with three other girls. Often she would have to suffer through the nasty looks flung her way from La Carlotta as she exited her room at the very end of the hallway. At those times, Christine simply dropped her head and mumbled a greeting to the diva and continued on her way. Normally she would be exploring the opera house which she did most days- it was a wondrous place, and it gave her something to do while the others in the chorus left for the streets of Paris for an hour of lunch or shopping.

She entered the dressing room and walked to the long vanity table and sat down in one of the plain wooden chairs. Listlessly, she studied her reflection in the tarnished mirror. "Papa." she whispered brokenly. "I miss you so very much. I'm not...I'm not strong. I can't push myself to care about anything anymore- " and she dropped her head in her hands, feeling abandoned and unloved. Her shoulders shook with anguished sobs, remembering her father and his love of life and music. Would that she was more like him. Life to her was merely exhausting and held no real joy.

"Why the tears, child?"

The other worldly voice was a viable force in the small room, and her head snapped up in surprise at the heavenly tones. She said nothing, but shook her head in negation, uneasy at the very thought of hearing voices that were not there. That was a sure sign of brain instability. Mamma often talked to Professor Valerius, and as far as Christine was concerned, the professor had never answered the old lady back.

"I didn't hear anything," she whispered. "I really did not."

There came a rich masculine chuckle at her words, and it came from a different part of the room. "You most certainly did, I assure you. Calm yourself, and kindly answer my question."

Christine twisted around in the chair, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. Curiously, she wasn't afraid- at least she didn't think so. She inhaled deeply, letting it out slowly as she had been taught at the Conservatoire. "I am crying for my father. I-I miss him."

Erik felt a moment's unease at what he was doing, but nevertheless continued the charade. Too much was at stake. "He is no longer...with us?"

She stared at the wall where the Voice had just issued in its angelic tones. She felt as though she were moving in a dreamscape where anything was possible. Sitting up a little straighter, she continued this bizarre conversation. "He died a year ago and left me alone, except for Mamma Valerius. S-She and her late husband were friends of my father."

"You have no other relatives?"

"No."

"What makes you so sad? Surely you have had enough time to mourn for your father? I am certain he would have wanted you to go on with your life," the Voice said gently.

She nearly started crying again at the sympathy the Voice exuded. Sympathy for her. "Yes, of course, but he wanted so much for me, and I'm afraid I have let him down. I didn't do so well at the Conservatoire with my singing, and I am lucky they gave me a chance here in the chorus, because I'm not very good. Papa said my voice was beautiful, but he must have been wrong."

"You doubt your father's love?"

"Doubt his love for me? Oh no, no. My father was Gustaf Daae, the great violinist! I never doubted his love," she retorted with a trace of arrogance. "He was also a marvelous story teller, and told tales of the Angel of Music. I heard the story many times sitting at his knee, and he said I was one of the lucky children with a gift that the angel would bequeath to me." Christine hung her head and sighed. "It has not happened." she said softly. She glanced up, her blue eyes wide, the tears still drying on her cheeks, and looked round the room, more and more curious about the disembodied voice keeping her company. She turned the questioning back on her invisible visitor. "Who are you?"

Erik was busy contemplating the Angel of Music. He wasn't all that familiar with the entity, but he had a little knowledge of Swedish tales, and at least had read a smattering of this one in particular. The angel would pay a visit to those children who were deemed worthy of its time and effort. Not considering too closely why he did it, and feeling only a little shame he replied, "Why, Papa Daae sends his love and blessings to you, my child."

As Louise had always contended, he was an adherent of the melodramatic, and paused for greater effect, for he was slipping into heavenly shoes.

"I am the Angel of Music."

Yep- doing that teaching thang through the walls- again. Just imagine class with a teacher you never saw, but who never missed what went on. Texting in his classroom? Kiss your phone goodbye. And who could you throw those paper wads at if you can't even see him? That is, if you wanted to throw anything at the scary looking dude with the crazy weird eyes ;) And don't sit there looking so innocent! Yes, I mean you, sitting there in front of your computer and smirking. I know you threw an occasional paper wad at your poor unsuspecting teacher's back. Wouldn't try that with Mr. Erik, would you now?