I looked at the two of them. Meg waved for me to move closer, while the other leaned against the side of the roof and studied me. Her hair was still up from ballet practice. They were both bundled in heavy coats to ward off the chill- I quite quickly envied them, as the wind seemed to blow right through me.

"So. Um. Thank you for meeting me here, um...?"

"Sorelli. I'm the principal dancer? We haven't talked." She said.

"She's seen some things I think might be useful to take into consideration in our conversation. Also, I'd rather say we were coincidentally here when you came up, if you don't mind. And we simply said hello, nothing chaperonable." Meg interjected.

"O-oh, right. Nice to meet you, Mademoiselle."

"Likewise." La Sorelli said.

Chaperones! I hadn't even thought of that! Shit, I needed to be careful. It would be stupid to get fired or lose any chance of doing anything because I had stepped over some line of propriety I didn't even know existed.

"Right, so let's get down to business. When you asked to talk, you said you thought Christine Daae's tutor had changed the performance schedule so you wouldn't be able to see her."

"That's... right?" Not exactly the way I would have phrased it, but alright.

"What Meg here means to say is that Christine Daaé is not looking for suitors at this time. And that, if you try get past her, you will have to contend with Christine's guardian, and, it seems, this singing tutor of hers as well." She shrugged. "Now, if you get past them you will have to contend with Meg again except this time she will-"

"What?! No! What? I didn't- I wouldn't-"

"That was not what I meant to say!" Meg turned on her friend. "My version involved subtlety! Politeness! No threats at all."

"I'd never- how would- did someone even-" I felt like a scratched record. Huh? What? Eh? Finally they turned back to me.

"Alright, wait, can I just say that the thought of courting Christine Daaé has never crossed my mind? Not for an instant? Not in the slightest? No offense?"

Meg's eyes pierced into me for a long moment.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!"

She sighed.

"I'm really sorry about all this, then- I thought I had to be certain this wasn't about something else before we went any further."

"Any further with what?"

"Two weeks ago, before the whole thing with Carlotta, I was walking past the practice rooms when I heard her singing." Sorelli said, finally moving to stand beside us. "Christine Daaé, I mean.

I'd heard some from Meg about her voice lessons, and had some time on my hands, so I decided to wait around for her to finish so I could see this teacher of hers. Well, the lesson finished alright." She paused, drawing out suspense. "And when I came into the room, there was nobody there at all!"

"Not even Christine?"

"Well, she was obviously there. But nobody else! And no other door- or window!"

"I don't put much stock in it, but if I'm trying to lay out the entire story, I can't leave things out." Meg added, embarrassment colouring her voice. "My story is less interesting. But for the last few months, Christine's been acting strange." She took a steadying breath. "I don't mean to air out dirty laundry, I swear- But it concerned me. At times, it's as if she's sleepwalking while awake… When singing, it's like she's entranced…

And she won't say a word about her singing teacher, not even to me, which I find concerning. This man could be anyone, have any sorts of designs on her, you understand."

I nodded.

"You mentioned her guardian- do they know anything?"

"Oh, no. She claims he is a good man- an angel is how she put it, but says nothing else. She's also quite old- all to say- I don't trust her judgement."

An angel indeed…

"Now, if you would, what have you seen?" Meg motioned to me.

"Yes. Right. What I wanted to say-" My throat closed up. Wait. What the hell was I doing? I had no idea how this might affect anyone's actions- it might make things worse, even! And La Sorelli being here was a total wildcard, what had she even done in the book?

"Monsieur?"

"Right. Yes." I took a deep breath. "A few things. Firstly, somebody has been annotating the sheet music I leave in a locked practice room, one that only I use. That same handwriting appeared on the note received by the managers today. This note- asking to remove Mlle. Daaé from my practice schedule- was sent after my first encounter with her, during which I saw somebody in the mirror-"

"That… is how mirrors work, yes."

"Not like that! It was a mask, a mask on the face of somebody who quite certainly wasn't in the room at the time! The conclusion- it was a two-way mirror. You've seen the phenomenon where windows into dark places become reflective more than they show the other side, right?"

They both nodded.

"Assume, then, that behind a mirror in a well-lit practice room is not a wall, but the dark space behind it. Between walls. A man who had access to those, as I believe he has, would be able to travel through the Opera at will, as well as disappear in the way Mademoiselle Sorelli described."

"Secret passages?" Meg asked, interest and excitement barely hidden behind skepticism. "Truly?"

"Yes! So, I have a mechanism through which this music teacher could travel into my practice room and annotate my music, deliver the note to the managers, and tutor Christine without being seen."
"The way you're describing this man makes him sound more like the Opera Ghost." Said La Sorelli. "Surely you don't mean-"
"I mean exactly that!" Despite the situation, the thrill of describing my 'theory' instilled in me a certain theatrical flourish. "The Opera Ghost is a man, living in the Opera Garnier and travelling through secret passages within its structure. And tutoring Mlle. Daaé in singing."

Sorelli gasped, covering her mouth with her hand in a gesture that would have made it seem like a mockery- but her eyes shone with intrigue. Meg, however, seemed to find it a step too far. She crossed her arms.

"I think." Meg began, "I think you're ascribing to this man all sorts of abilities that he simply doesn't have. I think you haven't seen these secret passages at all. And I think this music teacher is just a man- a secretive one, sure, but not like this."

"Why not? I have proof."

"In terms of the note and sheet music? That doesn't tie him to the secret passages. He could just have a copy of the superintendent's key."

"How can you be so dismissive? After all, putting aside the matter of the music teacher, you believe in the Opera Ghost by himself!"

It was as if all the momentum had disappeared from the conversation. They stopped, as still as statues, as still as the muses seated by Apollo up there on the crest of the roof.

A pause…

"That's different." Meg Giry said. "I can't manage to believe a single man can terrorise the whole theatre the way the Opera Ghost's been doing." La Sorelli hummed thoughtfully.

"It would have to be a terrible specter of a man, if that was the case. You know little Meg- that's opposed to big Meg here, monsieur, seeing as we have multiple Megs in the corps- she saw him and his burning eyes! And all the things that've been going on with the set…"

The roof was suddenly very cold.

"In any case." I said. "If you accept that something is going on, you accept that Mademoiselle Daaé may be in a very dangerous position indeed. This is what I wanted to tell you."

Church bells tolled one p.m. as punctuation.

Meg clutched, white-knuckled, at her coat.

"We have to go. Rehearsal."

I nodded, moving to hold the door open myself.

"Thank you for taking the time to listen to me. You're Mademoiselle Daaé's friend- friends- please do as you see fit."

Even if nothing came from this, somebody else knew. I took what solace I could from that fact.

The final pre-debut rehearsals took up my afternoon- though in tiny chunks as groups broke off the dress rehearsal onstage. Errant groups of ballerinas would be dragged in to repeat a move without bothering the rest of the cast, and so on.

Again, I began to wonder what I was doing. Getting involved was, technically, the moral thing to do- owing to the deaths of Piangi and Buquet. But how the hell could I pull that off just by meddling in Christine's life?

Now, the debut. Lacking a ticket, and having no part in the production itself, my only recourse would be to watch from the wings- and so I did.

In terms of a review…

Well, it was nice. It was a nice opera. Truth be told, I wasn't a fan of the genre- I had seen a grand total of two opera in my life, both Rossini- oh, but I did like Mozart's works.

As I idly mused, the petits rats hurried past me, just in time for their entrance. Looks like I was in the way. I turned to leave, picking my way through the hubbub into the back corridors. I rounded a corner- and walked face first into somebody.

I stumbled back.

"Ah! Sorry, sorry-"

I stood in front of a short-ish man, with dark skin and dark hair greying at the temples under his astrakhan cap.

Wait. Shit. What?

"It's no trouble, Monsieur." The Persian- the daroga- he of the non-canon name said mildly, though his eyes were fixed on a point behind me. Huh? What the hell?

"So. Um." I continued boldly. "I don't think you're supposed to be back here? The seats are that way, Monsieur. This is backstage." What the hell?! What the hell?! What the hell?!

"Oh? I see, my apologies. I was simply looking for the lavatories." Yeah, right. "I must have gotten lost." What the hell! I thought this was the musical! I really did- I mean, the mask- had I seen it correctly? It was just there for a moment, I couldn't tell the shape-
"They're just the way you came." I pointed out. "A bit back, then turn left." This changed everything! Weren't there more people who died? Who- and the timeline was completely different! But, wait, Meg was- Huh?!

He stood still for a moment, irritation encroaching at the edges of his expression.

"Right." He said. "Silly me."

"I'll leave you to find your own way back, then." I said. Wait, no! I needed to talk to him! I needed to ask for his help! Stop doing the stupid things you're doing, me!

But he had already turned away. And I doubted I could trust my mouth to make coherent, useful noises after this point.

I made a point of making extra noise as I tramped down the stairs and out of the Opera, not looking back to maintain plausible deniability. No, I didn't see anyone snooping at all. Just an opera patron that got lost.

Fuck. Fuck!

I needed to think about things.

It was a short break for the ballet corps, barely time to breathe before their next entrance. Meg slowly approached the curtain from the side.

On the stage, Christine tenderly wound the scarf around her arm, singing.

She had improved astronomically since… since. Improved, become distant, stopped confiding in her closest friend.

Despite the beauty of the song, a thread of fear crept into Meg's heart.