Me voici! Is Méphistophélès' opening lyric in Faust. In a round about way, I really think Christine and Erik have more of a Faust-Méphistophélès dynamic between them than Marguerite-Faust. …Does that make Raoul the Marguerite?

Paris, 1880

It was hard for Erik to believe that he had already been in his twenties when he had first attended an opera.

Attended was perhaps the wrong word. He had snuck into the theater in Saint Petersburg and concealed himself in the rafters above the stage. It was the world premier of Dargomyszhsky's Rusalka, and Erik had nearly fallen to his death in astonishment. The primal power of folk music he had know, the weirding force of Koranic recitations. Snatches of European parlor music—Handel stuck in his mind from his earliest memories.

And then too, there was the music that lived in his blood, his heart beating an eternal measure.

Yet, for those few hours, it had all vanished like a crone's cursing lullaby, and he was obliged to believe in heaven—for where else could something like this come from?

Of course, it had not taken Erik long to discover that there were better operas than Rusalka. He now held it in the same indulgent contempt one held for any old childhood pastime.

But that did not stop him from yearning for the return of that feeling Rusalka had dragged from him. Surely there was some piece, surely there was some voice in the world that could live at such heights. Not for an evening, but in perpetuity.

It was not his compositions, he had found. Those burned brightly and left their scars, to be sure, but he doubted that they could ever conjure up such a wash of peace and joy.

And it was not his voice, he had discovered, wondrous though it was. He could not help but think that it must be a woman's voice, a woman's song, that would finally fit the bill.

And was it so unreasonable to assume that such a special individual might be found in the Palais Garnier? The company had made a reputation for itself, after all. Excellence was the order of the day—was it not possible that something more might be found?

To that end, he listened, and watched, and critiqued every voice that came into his opera house.

Somehow, he had nearly missed her.

The newest graduates of the Conservatory were flooding the Garnier, and Erik was starting to find their auditions tedious. So, apparently, were the director and the stage manager. Their ennui was a tremendous stroke of good fortune. (Was fate finally smiling on him?) They decided to delay her group for a day, and by then Erik had rallied himself again, harping on his self-mandated duties as the guardian of the Garnier's artistic purity. He settled in to take notes and ultimately make recommendations.

It had not been promising at first.

What was she trying for?

Chorus. Soprano.

Who was she?

Christine Daaé.

German?

No, Swedish.

How old?

Eighteen.

How long at the Conservatoire?

Two years, since her father's death.

Did she have any letters of recommendation?

Yes, from the Widow Valerius and her first instructor from the Conservatory.

(No one thought to ask if Erik was bored out of his skull, which he was.)

What would she sing?

Voi che sapete.

Didn't she say she was a soprano?

She had been demure before, but was now positively sheepish.

She was out of voice today.

And on that inauspicious note, Christine Daaé began her audition.

It was wholly unspectacular. There was nothing of the proper emotions in her voice, nothing of character, nothing of strength.

So why did it stay with Erik so long after she had been dismissed.

Pitch, he realized later that night. Perfect relative pitch. A real sense of the music, and a visible desire to be led by it.

And, she had managed to sing decently whilst using the shoddiest technique. No one should have been able to sing half so well while standing half so badly. It was as if she was completely raw, even after so many years of formal instruction.

…And then there were her eyes; huge, clear blue eyes that held a shadow of the passion her voice should have had. It was there, he was convinced. Some magnificent was trapped in her voice, trapped in her soul, and Erik wanted to pry it out of her.

He found his way to the hiring manager's office and searched out his candidate list. Next to Christine Daaé's name, Erik crossed out the manager's prim 'no' and in his scarlet scrawl wrote down 'yes.'

Yes, and he would see how things developed from there.

She improved precious little in the following weeks and months. Always this bashful weeping angel, as miserable as a sunflower planted in a gloom.

Oh, how it tormented Erik, to half-hear genius. It was there, it was there, it was there, just a shade paler than reality.

"I used to sing better," Erik overheard Christine confide to one of the accompanists, "But that was before my father died."

"You could take private lessons," had been the suggestion.

Christine shrugged at that. "Why? Music no longer speaks to me. What good would lessons do?"

What good, indeed, Erik had to wonder. She would need to be taught, not only proper technique, but something more, something much harder to learn and nearly impossible to impart.

She had to be taught how to cherish music down into her very soul—and that, Erik was sure, was something that could be taught by example.

And who was qualified to do that for this broken little songbird?

The answer was so obvious that it took Erik a full fortnight to come up with it. Who was better equipped to mold this girl into the diva of Erik's dreams than Erik himself?

A man with a whole face, he thought caustically, preferably one that would not scare a young girl senseless. But some things could not be helped. There had to be a way—if one existed, Erik would find it. And if need be, create one.

She fell asleep one day after rehearsals, in one of the spare dressing rooms. It was the one that the Communards had built a passage through, and Erik was suddenly glad for their meddling. He watched her sleep, for just a moment, and then threw his voice to hover softly above her ear.

"You could conquer the stage, Christine, and through it, the world." He paused, awkward. "In you, I could conjure a queen to rule the world. All you need do is want it. Please, want it."

He withdrew then, but not before he heard her mutter in her sleep a word that might have been angel.

From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:

they sparkle still the right Promethean fire;

they are the books, the arts, the academes,

that show, contain, and nourish, all the world