There is a repertoire of phrases that people are expected to utter when someone tells them their life story, and the story turns out to be a tragedy. None of them seemed appropriate. Expressing understanding was impossible and offering sympathy seemed trite. Besides, I didn't think that either would have been greeted with appreciation or affection. I wanted to apologize, but I wasn't really sure what I was sorry for- or maybe I was just sorry in general. I was sorry that Erik had ruined so many lives, and I was sorry for the display during Don Juan Triumphant and, more than anything, I was sorry that our adventure would be over when we found the manuscript.

Having no words worth saying, I contented myself by saying nothing. The Shade was striding along several paces ahead of me, with all the weight of the world hunched into his shoulders. I couldn't see his face clearly, but I didn't need to. I already knew the expression, the knitted brows and the tightened lips. I'd seen it on stage while Erik was crowing over his supposed victory, although it was hardly much of a victory given that he had already won the fight when the Shade had been forced as deep underground as Erik was himself. However, I didn't actually have to make any effort to keep up, and if the Shade had really wanted to be alone with his thoughts, I had no doubts that he could have stormed ahead, leaving me to trot behind like a desperate lap dog.

I took a couple of longer steps, and caught the Shade's hand. I wasn't sure exactly what to expect, but at worse he would ask me what the hell I thought I was doing, and as a female in presumed distress, I could claim that I was scared. Technically, I was somewhat scared, although it wasn't really the dominant feeling at the time. Instead, the Shade sort of pulled me around and we were embracing before I had time to think any more about it.

"So what happens now?" said the Shade, gazing down at me.

I thought about it for a moment before answering, "We get the manuscript back from the nice sociopath in the cellars while the hero is busy fighting with an army of teenaged nymphomaniacs and then everything goes back to normal, presumably."

"Leaving us?"

"Miserable," I said with confidence, "Luckily, you're already used to it and I can blame it all on the co-ack incident."

The Shade's eyes crinkled at the corners, and he laughed, which had been my intention. Then he cupped my face in his hands and looked straight into my eyes and I had that same out of control sense of falling that I felt on the stage with Erik, only this time I didn't feel sick with it. I could feel time stopping, like the moment was stretching out to infinity as the Shade leaned ever so slowly to kiss me. I had kissed him before, truth be told, I had peeled myself away from him, but this was different. This was somehow deeper and more passionate, and rather than feeling like I was going to die, I felt like I wanted to live, right here and right now, in this moment forever.

I have not been blessed with the mind of a romantic. In the middle of a dark, cold, stone corridor several stories beneath an opera house, I cannot turn off the part of my mind that wonders just how hard to floor is and how dirty and whether or not someone is going to end up with a rather erotic concussion. On the other hand, the possibility of imminent destruction does make one somewhat unwilling to wait for more convenient circumstances to present themselves, and the human mind can be extremely inventive when there is something that it wants very badly. Nor am I inclined to explain precisely what form that invention might have taken or just how useful a heavy, black robe can be in trying times.

My poor silk dress was beyond hope of salvaging, and I had little chance of lacing myself back into it in the dark and without the help of a mirror or a small army of maids. Since it wasn't meant to be my dress in the first place, I didn't feel sorry to leave it behind. If I'd have my choice, I'd have taken a page from MegSue's book and dressed myself in boy's clothes. Since nothing of the kind was available, I had to content myself with the least fluffy of my several petticoats and the inescapable corset. The Shade kindly loaned me his jacket, which didn't match the pink trim on my clothes at all, but I was in no position to be fussy.

We moved quickly through the dark, stone corridors, ever downwards and deeper into Erik's domain, hand in hand like Hansel and Gretel all grown up- however, there was no need to leave a trail of breadcrumbs to find our way back. We weren't ever coming back. The idea had bothered before, but that bother was a single drop of water compared to the ocean of misgivings I had now. The Shade wasn't talking, but I was almost certain that he was thinking something along the same lines. If we started talking, the conversation would have begun with "I don't want to" and it would have ended with the two of turning right around and making a run for it, out of the opera house and into a future, albeit a future where Erik was a megalomaniac with magic powers.

Besides, there was MegSue to worry about. She was still trapped somewhere down there in Erik's lair, possibly with ChristineSue to keep her company and GirySue looking after the pair of them with all the kindness of a black widow spider. However, if all of them had found a way into our novel, it stood to reason that there had to be a way out. Maybe we could slip away into some other story where there wasn't any Erik and we could spend the rest of our literary lives quietly happy. It was worth a try. MegSue hadn't seemed any more enthusiastic about returning to her old story than I was about my career as Christine Daaé's absentee rival.

We rounded a corner and emerged from the darkness into an open space with bright lighting, which appeared to be provided by torches which had been set into the walls at regular intervals. Ahead of us, a winding stone stairway led downwards into the bowels of the earth. The change from opera basement to castle keep that we were now in Erik's world, and that Erik's rules would apply from this point forward. Any fear I might have had was tempered by the fact that there was no way any of this nonsense could possibly exist under any opera house, no matter how palatial. Erik needed to lay off the gothic novels. If we couldn't get the manuscript away from him, we would surely end up permanently out of print, because what kind of person wants to read such incomprehensible schlock?

"Are you sure you want to do this?" asked the Shade, with one of those strangely intense looks of his.

"Yes," I answered, "Any fate is better than spending all eternity in a plot where chandeliers fall sideways and the opera cellars look like a rejected setting for a third-rate Robin Hood novel."

"Stay a few paces behind me, just in case something happens," said the Shade.

"What exactly do you think will happen?" I asked warily. After all, the Shade did know all of Erik's tricks and it isn't likely that Erik had grown a new imagination within the last hour or so.

"You might also want to put your hand at the level of your eyes," the Shade added.

"Does that actually help?"

"Theoretically, yes- although, in practice, no it hasn't even done anybody any good at all," the Shade answered, as he edged along the wall.

"If we'd really thought this through," I said, "We'd have had Raoul sit in the audience with a rifle. He could have shot Erik two minutes after he walked on stage and then we wouldn't be having these problems. I can't understand why no one ever comes up with anything simple like that."

"Firstly, that wouldn't make for a very interesting story," said the Shade, "And secondly—" But I never found out what secondly was, because at that moment, the stone steps underneath the Shade's feet opened up and he dropped below the floor, landing with a splash somewhere below.

I dropped to my knees, hoping that he might be close enough to reach, but he'd dropped at least eight feet into a pool of dark water below. Not only that, an iron grate covered the opening. Even if I had thrown myself down there, I could not have reached him. "Are you alright?" I called, unable to see the Shade in the shadows. I heard a sharp click, and then the groan of rusted metal, as the mechanism that controlled the grate began to work. I still couldn't figure out exactly how it had gotten there at all, but it was now sinking towards the water. "God damn you, answer me!" I screamed into the darkness below.

"Bloody hell!" The voice of the Shade, shouted back, having discovered that stoic silence was not having the desired effect, "You have to keep going!"

"I can't leave you here," I shouted, "You'll be killed! Tell me how to get you out of there."

"There's nothing you can do. Just go!!" And with that, the Shade let himself sink under the water and I heard no more from him.

I edged past the gaping hole in the floor and then took off at a run, not caring whether I fell into another trap or whether my hand was at the level of my eyes. I couldn't see anyway, because my eyes were full of tears. I wasn't sure if they were tears of grief or tears of rage or something else entirely. Some primitive part of my mind insisted that if I didn't see the Shade die, it wouldn't be real and it wouldn't have happened, but I could still hear the groan of moving metal and I knew that it was probably already too late.

I bounded down the stairs and into the next series of corridors, where the light faded into blackness. I remembered the lantern, and then remembered that the Shade had it and then remembered that I couldn't think about it. So much for a way out, it was now the manuscript or nothing.

Unfortunately, my resolve didn't resurface before the floor slipped away beneath me, and I found that I had blundered into Erik's favorite trap.