She dances in blue silk and silver starlight. She drapes a black satin mask over her face, and her eyes and her smile are luminous as the moon.

Her name is Madame Roussard, and she belongs to the Magician, but it is equally possible that the Magician belongs to her.

Their salon is in Brussels this year. The wealthy flock there to mingle and to gossip and to squander their jewels in the Magician's gambling games. They come to gaze at Madame Roussard, at her luminous silence. There are stories say hers is the voice of an angel; there are stories say he is a demon.

They are gypsies; they are fey; they have run from the law in a dozen different countries, in a dozen different names.

Her smile is her song. Theirs is a private music, now. Her voice together with her face – his music, his mask – draw forth the memories. People still remember the Opera House and the Opera Ghost. Rumours still follow them, but mystery is better for business. Put them on the proper stage in a setting near enough to Paris and people no longer wonder; they know.

They travel to Russia when the lure of the stage is too strong. With Christine as his instrument, Erik has crafted performances more worthy than the Tsar. Sometimes, even in cities where the memories linger, they put aside their rich clothes and their perfumes, and Christine sings arias to the slums. He watches from the shadows, and the beggars do not mind his mask.

He has been a murderer. Even now, when he believes she is in danger, he does not think before he acts. Christine has learned to mourn his victims without sorrowing too much. They have travelled far beyond the theatre; she has seen more causeless death than the downfalls of his temper.

And he is learning. He is learning to believe that this love is his, that this love will not go away, while she is learning to forget the life she could have had. Security. Complacency. What she would not trade her love for. What she had traded, once, for her love.

She does not mourn her leaving of Raoul. She mourns the sorrow that she caused him, but she knows that she has spared him more. She wonders if he has found another to love, a girl as bright and guileless as he to take as wife.

She knows that she was never meant for anything but this love, this life.

He is her Angel of Music.

He is her Erik.

She is his Instrument, his Muse.

She is his Christine.