Thank you everyone for reading! I appreciate all of the reviews!

Note: I had a reviewer ask if "The Boy in the Window" was taken down. Unfortunately, it was. There is an explanation in my bio for why. Sorry everyone that was looking forward to that one.

Enjoy!

Chapter 42

Erik

"My dear?"

Christine looked up from her novel. She was sitting on one of the couches in the parlor, a half-emptied cup of coffee on the table in front of her. She smiled at me - a genuine, adoring smile. A thing I'd never received before, from anyone. I was still in shock from last night, when she'd held me in her arms. I still wondered if it was a dream...but then she would smile at me like that and it would remind me:

She thought I was an angel.

Not like Madame Giry thought it. No. Madame believed it in the literal sense. Christine thought I was a man sent by the angels, by God, by her father.

Somehow that touched me on a deeper level. Somehow it made me want to sink to my knees in overwhelming joy. All my life, I'd been considered a monster. Only when I was thought ethereal did people assume anything different. Those who met me in the flesh felt I was a messenger from Hell.

She knew me to be flesh and blood. And she still thought I was a blessing.

"Yes?" she answered, half-closing her book. She kept a thumb between the pages and set it on her lap. I had her full attention.

"You expressed that you wished to go outside," I said from where I stood in the archway. "Do you remember? A few mornings ago."

She tilted her head.

"You had gone to the dock on the lake," I clarified. "To look at the water." I smirked. "It was the morning you decided you were the Ballet Wraith."

"Oh." She grinned. "Yes. I remember."

"Do you still wish that? To be outside?"

"Well..." She looked to my right, not at anything in particular. "Yes. I suppose, yes. But it's not...wise, is it? For me to be out and about in Paris. Out in the street. Even if I'm with you-"

"Who says we are going out into the street?"

Christine stared at me again. "Then where are we going?"

I took a step closer. "Would you like to see Apollo's lyre up close?"

Her grip on my hand remained just as tight, but now there was less of a formality to it. It seemed, now, as though she wanted to hold onto my fingers, not so much because she was frightened of the dark hallway, but more because she genuinely wanted to have her hand in mine.

And I was helpless against it - I was falling harder for her by the minute.

Her.

Because it wasn't just the company I liked - it was her laugh. Quick wit. Graceful but guarded mannerisms. Each word and movement from her made me feel the most intense sort of happiness. I could have watched her do nothing for hours and been completely content.

We turned a corner, and I stopped short. She gasped. Up ahead, at the end of this hallway, was another light.

I held up my lantern, attempting to get a better look. "Jules?" I called.

A pause. "Yes, sir."

I released a breath. Christine did as well.

"It's rather late, M. Bernard," I said, and continued walking forward.

"Yes, sir." He stayed put. "But something's happened. The police..." He trailed off.

I picked up the pace, pulling Christine along with me. "What about the police?"

"They came to ask me questions," he said. Now that I was closer, I could see his expression: wide eyes, tight lips. Paler than usual. "They came to ask my entire family questions. About Christine's whereabouts. Apparently they got word that I was harboring her."

I blinked at him. We were several feet, now, from one another. "Who on Earth would have told them that?"

"I've no idea, sir, and they wouldn't say. It was said to them anonymously."

"Meg," Christine whispered. Jules and I both turned to look at her. She nodded her head, hope in her eyes. "It has to be Meg. No one else would know that." She stared at Jules. "What did you tell them?"

He regarded her coolly. "I said the truth. That you were in my home for a night because Madame Giry and Meg were not home, and then you were sent back to your...guardian." His eyes were on me for only a moment. "None of that is a lie. None of it." He wiped his hand on his pants. "But they didn't love that story, did they? No. Now I am a suspect in your disappearance!"

"Jules," I said lowly. A warning. I knew he was frightened, frustrated - but none of this was Christine's fault.

M. Bernard made his face go slack, losing the rising anger in his eyes, and looked away. "Sir."

"Would you like to be escorted to the surface?"

"I can find my own way, sir, thank you."

"We are travelling that way anyway."

He sighed through his nose. "Then that will do, sir."

"And," I added, as he turned and we all walked toward the world above, "would a doubling of your salary help with any of the trouble?"

He nearly tripped over his own feet. He had to lay a hand on the wall to get his bearings, and then turned to stare at me with his mouth agape.

"Will that be a yes, then?" I raised a brow.

He swallowed. He glanced shortly at Christine, then back at me. "I- That's too generous, sir."

"I'm in a good mood lately." I shrugged. "Good company."

Christine shifted beside me, squeezing my fingers once. I returned the gesture.

"It's...still...too-"

"Oh come now, man; you have a family to feed, don't you? Take the money or donate it to a charity of your choice - it matters little to me. But it will be in your salary all the same. Good?"

He nodded, slowly.

"Good."

The sky was clear and full of stars. Black, endless. But my soul was full, with Christine here on the roof with me.

I came here often when the loneliness and claustrophobia of my enclosed underground home became too much. I would sit here, high above the Parisian streets. High above the rest of society. Always above them. Always below them. Never level with them. Never had been - never would be.

"This is beautiful," she breathed.

I smiled. I thought so too. I also thought she was lovelier - but refrained from saying so.

We were still holding one another's hands, both admiring the sky above. I felt I could stay here forever. I knew, eventually, we'd need to go back down. But to watch the stars with her, never ending - that would be more of a Heaven than whatever lay beyond the moon and stars and sky.

My uneasiness with her, my hurt, had disappeared. The moment she'd held me, it had ceased to exist. Replaced by my previous unfaltering infatuation.

"Apollo's lyre is so much bigger than I thought it was," came her soft voice beside me.

I nodded. "Perspective changes things. It always does. Looking at things in a closer way naturally makes them clearer to the senses."

She nodded, eyes adrift, genuinely mulling over my words. I wondered what, exactly, they meant to her.

"You know," I said then, "they say that when Paris falls asleep, and the city is silent, Apollo comes alive and plays his lyre. It's on those nights that Parisian children have the sweetest dreams."

I half-expected her to scoff or scowl or roll her eyes. Tell me that the story was ridiculous, as she had with the myth of the mermaids.

But she smiled and looked at me, watching me with her blue eyes that sparkled in the moon-and-starlight. She said, "That's a lovely story." Her gaze moved back to take in the night sky. "Tell me more."