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Chapter 46

Erik

Christine pulled back the napkin of the picnic basket to reveal various cheeses and fruits. She and I were seated on a red blanket in the middle of the roof, high and center enough that I doubted anyone could easily spot us - not unless they were looking. And in the purple evening atmosphere, it was unlikely we would be identified easily.

"This looks absolutely delicious." She plucked a grape and popped it into her mouth. She chewed and swallowed. "And a good thing. I'm quite famished."

"You insisted we stay and eavesdrop on the stagehands rather than go back down for lunch." I raised a brow at her, but I knew my mouth was crooked in a smile.

She sighed. "And we've learned nothing of actual use. Why is the detective so slow in convicting him? Doesn't he have enough proof?"

"Perhaps not," I said, and looked out at the city. "Unfortunately."

A long silence, as I leaned back on my hands watched the sky darken. Peaceful. Content. I hadn't been content - this content - in...ever, think. I sighed. Despite the murder plot afoot, I was happy. Actually happy.

"Erik?"

I looked at her. She'd already eaten half the grapes, and was peeling one in her nimble fingers, mind faraway. She was staring down.

"Yes?"

"May I...ask a question?"

I sat up straight. "I suppose, yes."

Her eyes finally came up to mine, and her hands, still gripping the peeled grape, went to her lap. "You said that you were called The Living Corpse as a child."

A flash of that painful memory went to my mind's forefront. "Yes."

"Does that mean you look...dead?" She held my gaze. "Is that why?"

I didn't say anything for several seconds. I was sure that my silence was telling enough, so I nodded, head just barely moving up and down.

Her eyes didn't move from mine. "May...I see?"

I looked away, all feelings of happiness turning to dust. She'd accepted the coffin, but this-

"Why not?"

"You will hate me."

"No."

I looked at her again. "You will not know that until you see it. Trust me. You will hate me. No one has ever looked at it and cared for me. My mother hated me. The man who taught me architecture after I ran from the carnival did care for me, but I never showed my face to him."

Giovanni. My surrogate father. The man who'd taken me in - he'd never asked to see it, and I never showed it to him. Just before he died, he gave my name to Charles Garnier, who took me on to help build the Opera House. He hadn't asked either. Neither had Jules. I'd become too comfortable, thinking Christine would leave that topic alone.

She looked as though she wanted to push back, argue with me. I could see it in the whiteness of her lower lip as her teeth bit into it. But she sighed and looked away. "All right. That's fine. I won't press it."

"Thank you."

We continued eating in moderately uncomfortable silence, though I was grateful she truly had dropped it. When we finished our meal, we made our way through the hidden passageways, toward my home.

But a bit of conversation caught our ears, made us stare in shock at one another.

Emma Rougeaux had been found dead in the river, in a very similar fashion to how Isabelle had turned up.

We waited over the next twenty-four hours for news of Buquet's arrest to come up. But it never did.

Christine declared her frustration emphatically - saying that the longer Buquet remained free, the more likely it was for another girl to go missing. To die.

As I watched the tears spring to her eyes, her anger and fear, I thought back to her offer of going to the masquerade ball.

And decided it was high time we took matters into our own hands.