The walk home was unsteady but peaceful. It was the same sort of quiet exhaustion that he had felt after tearing a room apart, except that he would not have to clean up later. Erik was too wrung out to try to suss out what he thought about what had happened beyond surprise and a bit of giddiness. He had never previously noticed how walking could have a sexual rhythm to it, or breathing. It made him want to write.

The house was silent when he got home, so he tried not to make any sound. One advantage of stone—it did not creak. But when he sat, quill in hand, he could not bring the notes to order. He set his mask on the desk, but the paper only blurred before his tired eyes. Just when he was ready to acknowledge defeat and go to bed, he heard a soft knock, then Christine's voice telling him not to bother as he reached for his mask. He was too tired to argue, too tired for defiance. Too tired even to be embarrassed by his damned watery eye.

When she finally let him sit, he could hardly listen to what she was saying, although he was gratified by the sentiment. That habit of pulling at her fingers was horrible, and he finally had to ask her to stop. He was so exhausted—it seemed impossible that they would be having this conversation in the middle of the night. He had driven himself mad with wanting Christine and was trying to explain it, even on this night when he had finally learned exactly what he had been wanting. Ironies heaped upon ironies. He was too worn for anger but apparently not for bitterness.

"Oh, Erik."

He had not thought about it—she had never before said his name. Had he ever even told it to her? He had not previously cared what anyone called him, but in her voice, the two syllables were like a caress. Earlier she had said that she would go abroad. Would that finally set him free?

There were shadows under her eyes, and they, along with her loose hair and dark rose–colored robe, made her look fragile and young. She smiled a little.

"Isn't it strange, how I never knew your name?"

He nodded. "There is much between us that has been strange."

She smiled again, but sadly.

"Do you know? I never made the connection between you and the Opéra Ghost. I thought you really were an angel, until you drew me through the mirror." She shook her head. "I suppose I was very stupid about it."

"No," he said. "You cannot think so. I never told you otherwise."

Despite that, it was strange to think that, for all those years, she had never thought of him as a person. In the middle of the night, in his weariness and the strange peace that accompanied it, he was able to speak to her.

"I suppose I treated you much the same way. All thought of your voice, your career, my music. Thinking that you were mine to possess and control, no matter what you might have wanted." It amazed him that the words sounded so easy. Surely this meant that the darkness was still his friend.

Christine was everything lovely in the faint candlelight. She leaned toward him with luminous eyes. She had to go soon or he was in great danger of going mad all over again. Her mouth, he remembered, actually tasted of roses.

"No," she said, her hands clasped together. "No. As strange and frightening as those last months were, for years before that you were my friend, my guide, sometimes my only comfort. Erik. I have not forgotten that."

How strange, because he had.

"I am glad of that," he said softly. "I would be miserable if you hated me, no matter how much reason you have to do so."

Was it just hours ago that she had hissed at him in rage and he had felt that his heart was again torn in two? He knew that he was changed by all that had happened in between—what had changed in her? She leaned forward and briefly touched his hand.

"I have been afraid of the same thing," she whispered, to his amazement. "I felt sure you must."

"I don't think I could hate you if I tried," he said, his own voice rough with exhaustion and emotion. "I was heartbroken and angry, certainly, but I never could hate you."

He barely knew this man who spoke so calmly of his most secret feelings to her. It was a relief. How stunning, that she sat and actually listened to him. That she did not hate him. There was a miracle in itself. From here, he could go forward into this new life of atonement.

Then, without warning, he gave a great yawn, and Christine grinned.

"It is a strange conversation to be having in the middle of the night," she said.

"Indeed. But Christine, I thank you for it. It is more than I ever would have hoped, that we could speak to one another of what is in our hearts."

She nodded. "I'm glad too," she said, and they bid each other goodnight as if they were perfectly normal people.

Back in his room, he was very glad to pull off his sticky clothes and fall into bed. His brain was fuzzy with tiredness. He would have thought it all a dream, except for that stickiness and some tenderness in his palms from their being pressed against the wall. So if that was not a dream, that black-eyed woman who opened her body to him, the other must also be true. Christine did not hate him. As stunning as that was, it was not her he thought of as he dropped quickly into sleep.