Happy New Year, everyone!

Christine Daae had not been seen in three days. Some said she'd been kidnapped by the Opera Ghost, who was rumoured to have been her voice tutor. Others insisted she'd taken leave and was staying with Monsieur le Vicomte de Changy and his older brother, a story with equal scandal.

I kept my mouth shut for a while, hoping the stories would die down with time. But as the days went past and the fair maiden was still nowhere to be seen, they only grew.

By the third day, even Beatrice had involved herself in the Opera Ghost story. Dares of going to seek him out were being thrown all over the place. Jeremy and I had scoffed at them over breakfast yesterday, yet I felt as if we both knew the same thing, a silent, shared knowledge of how dangerous the Opera House was becoming. We both knew what would happen if someone went Down Below for a dare, but never shared a word of the consequences.

Now, as I swept some dust from the bannister of the Grand Escalier, the feeling of dread that had haunted me for the past three days only grew with every whisper of the Ghost and Christine Daae.

"Well, well, well. Bonjour, Mam'zelle."

I looked up at Guillaume and the troop of stagehands flocked behind him at the bottom in the foyer. He rocked uneasily on his feet, his eyes deeply bloodshot. Swallowing, I gathered my equipment and hurried down, trying to push my way through the posse, eyes fixed on the exit.

I'd dealt with people like this before, but if I pulled my usual tricks, Jeremy would never talk to me again. There would be no murder if I could help it; I had too much to lose.

Guillaume caught my arm with a leering smile. I stumbled and dropped the bucket. The other stagehands exchanged devious snickers, nudging each other in anticipation. I glared at him and fought my way free from his grip. Someone else caught me, and I shrieked as a hand went where it shouldn't have. The man earned a slap and reeled back.

"Now, now," a third coaxed, his voice like honey laced with poison.

"Cat's got claws," another laughed.

"A little more than you think," the second muttered, taking his hand away from a bloody scratch on his face. I bit down a surge of triumph and glared at all the others.

"I beg your pardons, Messieurs, but I have other work to attend to. Good—"

Guillaume caught my shoulder and pulled me back as I tried to flounce off. I slapped him like the second stagehand, but he wasn't fazed and only smirked further.

That was when I began to panic and wrestled with every bit of strength I had. My hand reached for the knife I kept in my dress, but it grabbed about in vain.

I left it in my bedside cupboard last Monday.

Guillaume let out a bark of laughter. My lungs filled with the stench of alcohol. I coughed, distracted for just a moment. It was a moment he used to pass me to one of the others. Before I knew it, I was the ball in a sick sport they'd invented. I screamed and Guillaume caught me again. My world spun before my eyes in every direction.

"Let's see Kitty Cat's face then," he grinned, and his hand slipped beneath my mask.

I swore a filthy curse and twisted about, trying to shake him off as his fingers worked the porcelain up. I threw my head back, trying to bash his nose, but he dodged, earning whoops of laughter from the stagehands as if I were a mustang in need of breaking in. My heart thudded in my ears like a drum. I screwed my eyes closed and tried to prise his hand away from my face.

The untidy knot beneath my curls of hair came loose. The mask slipped over and off my head entirely. Cold air hit my face like a cricket bat. I opened my eyes again in panic, slapping a hand over my skin, a fraction of a second too late. Between my fingers, I dared to watch their reactions.

Guillaume paled. His eyes widened. He screamed, higher than Carlotta ever could, and shoved me away, dropping my mask to the floor.

A loud smash echoed through my ears and for one, painful moment, my heart stopped, and everything was quiet.

The man who'd been unfortunate enough to catch me stumbled away, paler than snow. He tossed me to another, who prised my hands away, took one look and screeched, throwing me to the floor.

I looked across at the mess of porcelain in horror.

No... NO!

I reached for the pieces. The remaining stagehands backed away, tripping over their feet and clasping each other. One was violently sick all over the marble floor. Another rushed up the stairs, running for his life. He tripped halfway and lay like a dead crab sprawled across the steps, unmoving, the alcohol making it all worse. The one I'd slapped and cut the cheek of fainted dead away.

Tears pricked my eyes, stinging my nose and trickling down my ruined cheeks. With one hand I undid my bun and wrapped my messy hair around my face, covering as much as I could and letting it soak up my tears as they turned to sobs. With the other, I cradled the shattered pieces of my mask to my chest, unable to do anything but scream and sob as memories I'd tucked safely away assaulted my mind's eye once more.

Somewhere, a gunshot rang. The echoes turned into shouts, either my own or—

"What is going on here?" someone else cried. A hand pushed Guillaume away and the rest of the figure ducked down beside me. "Nikki! Nikki, are you alright?"

His hand rested on my shoulder. I pushed it away, abandoning the broken mask to crawl along the floor, my hair still pressed tight against my face.

"Guillaume! For God's sakes, what have you done?"

I just about dared to look up at Jeremy. Some hair slipped from my fingers. I fought to press it back, leaving just one eye uncovered. In my haste, other parts exposed themselves. Jeremy froze. I turned away again, fresh sobs racking my body.

"Come," he said, yanking his cloak off and draping it over my shoulders. The shattered fragments fell back to the floor as I tugged the hood over my face, doing my best to stand when he pulled me up and led me into the halls by the arm at a fast walk.

"My mask..." I cried, ducking my face into the shadows as a torrent of tears washed down my cheeks. Jeremy pulled me closer to his side and hurried on towards my bedroom. Other servants shouted and swore at us when we nearly slammed into them, but their words merely brushed over my ears in a tangled mess of heartbeats and memories. Occasionally I would slip back into the prison of my mind, unsure of what was past and what was present. I'd try to stop running and hide in the shadows from the flocks of gendarmes, but then Jeremy would tug me on and I'd be back in 1881.

He pulled the key to my room from my pinny pocket — I was shaking too much to do anything but run and grip the cloak — and forced the door open. I grabbed the key and jumped over the threshold. Jeremy put a foot forwards to follow, but I slammed the door, locked it and rushed to throw myself on the bed to cry. The cloak slipped off as I fought my mind, and I cuddled it to my chest, sobbing into the material that smelled so heavily of my dear Jeremy and of fresh paint.

Oh, men are all so inquisitive! It wasn't enough just to hear me, was it? They simply had to see me too! Didn't Guillaume realise I'd killed men who'd seen me sans masque?

I'd learned to ignore the looks and comments when I wore the mask in public, learned to dodge police and stay two or three steps ahead of them in every city, but that was a Nikki who was wearing her mask in the first place. Without it, I might as well have been a naked whore on the roadside.

I glanced up, searching for anything I could use to comfort myself, a poetry book or something. Big mistake.

The mirror over the bedside reflected the sight that always caused about as much trouble as Erik did on a monthly basis. I winced and pushed my face back into the cloak, rocking back and forth on the creaky mattress. I glanced at the angel, who gazed up to Heaven, his face beautifully sculpted, without a trace of imperfection, and threw a nearby hair comb at him. A surge of guilt; was it a mortal sin to disgrace statues of holy beings?

I was going to hell anyhow.

I flopped back against the headboard to cry and sulk.

Two hours later, someone knocked on the door. I set my poetry book down and glanced in the vanity table mirror, where I was sitting, at my spare, black mask. I'd found it when I was rummaging through my cupboard for another one, finding both it and two admission tickets to the New Year's Masquerade on the bookshelf ten minutes later.

"Nikki?" a voice said. Another two knocks. "I know you're in there."

"Go away," I replied, clearing my throat when my voice cracked. "I mean it."

"You can't go forever without eating, Nikki."

I rolled my eyes and stood from the little vanity table stool, eyeing the door nervously. "Try me."

"I brought you a cream bun."

Damn it.

I opened the door, just by an inch, peering out at Jeremy. He smiled back and waved the bun in front of my eyes. My stomach growled and I reached for it.

"Ah-ah-ah!" he said, holding it up out of reach and shaking a finger at me. "Let me in first."

I glared, but stepped back and opened the door wider for him. He strolled in, not losing that smile, and I closed the door again with a rough bang, snatching the cream bun from him and biting into it.

"Madame Fournier says 'Get well soon, darling!'" he said, sinking onto the stool and stroking the leather of my poetry book.

"Why?" I frowned, accidentally spewing crumbs from my stuffed mouth. He chuckled and tossed me a handkerchief.

"I told her you were feeling unwell. She made that especially for you. Extra cream to make you feel a bit better."

I popped the final bite into my mouth, chewing happily. Jeremy scanned the room. His eyes brightened at the hair comb on the angel's pedestal.

"I have an idea: if you sit here, I can brush your hair for you!" He jumped up and went to fetch the comb, taking my arm on the return and leading me back to the stool. I smiled at his reflection in the mirror as he set the teeth to the bottom strands and brushed through several tangles with the utmost care, making sure to avoid my mask tie.

The clock on the wall ticked on. Five minutes passed, then ten. It was nearing thirteen when Jeremy spoke again.

"Nikki, why was Guillaume being such a pest?"

I shrugged. "Drunk, I suppose."

He sighed, blowing a long breath through his mouth. "I really must start rationing his whisky supply. He tends to make ridiculous bets with the others when they all drink together."

"He bet on the wrong horse," I muttered, bookmarking my page in my book and setting it down. I turned in my seat to face him and he stopped brushing. "Promise me one thing, Jeremy, and I will never ask another favour of you ever again: you must never take my mask off, whether I'm awake or sleeping, or drunk or sober. You shall never see my face. This condition is inviolable and, as long as you keep it, I will always be your friend."

He paused for a moment, finding my eyes in the shadows of my dark mask. I held his gaze.

Then, at last: "I promise, Nikki."

I breathed a long sigh, turned again, and flopped back against his abdomen, resting my head on his dirty shirt. "Thank you, Jeremy. Thank you."

"Anytime," he whispered, combing through my hair with his fingers and playing with a few tresses. As he went back to combing my hair in silence, I watched the concentration in his eyes grow by the minute.

The touches of his hands through my hair, guiding the comb, settled my heart as it had never been settled before, and, as I watched his reflection, I was suddenly aware of his every feature - the straight planes of his cheeks, the elegant curve of his lips and the stubble over them that so badly needed shaving, the way his hair set off the sparkles in his eyes and the crooked set of his nose from where he might once have broken it as a child - and the way he seemed so comfortable as he brushed it through.

Occasionally, he'd hum part of a libretto I knew, and I would continue when he stopped.

Sometimes I found myself gazing at the way his lips moved when he murmured the lyrics to those compositions, forming each word as though it were a delicate piece of glass. And when his dark curls fell over his eyes as he concentrated, my heart skipped through its own beats like the Little Giry so often did with her ribbon.

In the silence of the next half an hour, something within me turned on its head, changed so drastically I couldn't believe I hadn't seen him in such a way before. In spite of myself, of the day I'd had, of Erik's tempers and Christine's fear, I smiled. And when Jeremy met my eyes in the mirror, he smiled back.