A month later, Christine sat at the organ in her lair, writing some music, when François arrived.
"What are you writing now?" he asked, peering over her shoulder and examining the piece of sheet music she was writing. "Isn't that the love song you were writing not all that long ago?"
"Yes," she replied, not bothering to look up from the page and not saying that she didn't like him looking over her shoulder. "I'm finishing it and adding it to a new opera that I'm writing."
"Ah, I see. And what is the name of this new opera?"
She halfway smiled to herself, remembering how it was that she'd come up with the name for her opera. "Genius's Mistake."
"Hmm," he murmured, nodding and sitting down on the nearby sofa. "That sounds like an interesting name. May I ask what it's about?"
For a moment, she said and did nothing in reply, but then she stopped writing, placing her pen down on the organ, and sighed, turning to look at him. "The main female character is a genius and a composer who's living in the depths of Hell. She's looking for inspiration to write some new music, so she travels up to Earth to see what she can find. There she meets an angel - like the ones in Heaven, you know. She finds inspiration in him, also falling in love with him along the way. As she later finds out, he feels the same way about her."
"I see," he murmured. "Go on."
"However, there is conflict - falling in love with him was a big mistake on her part, since angels in Heaven and demons in Hell can never be together. It's impossible. There's also a male demon, who's basically the leader of the demons in Hell and second to Satan, who lusts after the main female; he'll do anything to get her. So the love interests have to choose between eternal existences without each other or to be together by one of them sacrificing their current existence... and, of course, the demon who lusts after the main female has to be stopped somehow. It's quite complex and dark, if I say so myself."
"Why does this plot sound somewhat familiar?" he inquired somewhat jokingly. "You know, excluding the male who's lusting after the female... and the male who's in love with the female. I can't put my finger on why I seem to recognize it."
She glared at him, feeling a little hurt from what he'd said about the male not really being in love with the female in reality but not saying anything. "Keep silent, François Jannes."
He smiled, then noticed that she looked absolutely famished and exhausted. "Christine, mon ami, I don't mean to offend you when I say this, but you look awful... you look like you haven't eaten or slept in days. Have you?"
"No... not in a week, as a matter of fact."
"Oh, Christine - why?" He looked concerned. "Depriving yourself of food and sleep is one of the worst things you can do. It's basically killing yourself, which is infinitely worse than killing others"
"I have to have this opera completed by the new year's masquerade," she replied with determination, turning her attention back to her sheet music and letting out a sigh. "I'm hoping this will be the thing that wins Cameron over. I'm writing it for him, you know. And if it doesn't, I'm not sure what will..."
He looked nervous. "Well, er - Christine... I thought you'd have heard by now. Don't you know? Cameron Luc and Emilie Chastain announced their engagement a week ago."
For a moment, there was a silence as she placed her pen down once more and slowly turned to look at him. Even though he wasn't really intimidated by her, he couldn't help but shiver a little when he saw the expression in her eyes.
"What did you say?" she inquired softly, and he wished that she was shouting instead. Having her be quiet was more dangerous than having her be loud; it showed that she was really trying to control her emotions a bit too much.
He thought about denying that he'd said anything of any consequence, but he knew that if he didn't tell her now, she would find out eventually, and she would be even angrier than she was now when she did.
"Cameron is going to marry Mademoiselle Chastain," he admitted, saying it quickly and getting it over and done with. "He proposed to her over dinner, if I heard correctly, and she accepted. They're planning to marry sometime within the next six months or so."
She was silent as she processed this, and he could see what was visible of her face starting to redden - but out of anger, not out of embarrassment.
"WHAT?"
Her shout echoed through the entire lair, and he jolted slightly, his eyes widening.
He remained seated as she then rose abruptly and stormed over to where her cloak was hanging in stony silence, trying to control herself so that she wouldn't go completely overboard with her temper in front of him. She felt inside to make sure that her punjab was inside, just in case she needed it, and then pulled it off, putting it on over her shoulders. Then she stepped onto the gondola and started to row away.
"I'll be back shortly!" she shouted, her voice containing an ominous note of anger that was rising.
Silently scolding himself for having told her what had set her off, he watched helplessly as she rowed away, pitying anyone who would be unfortunate enough to cross her path while she was gone.