Author's Notes: I'm so sorry this took so long, I've been really busy lately, and it's only going to get worse. I'm in my junior year at high school, and I've got SATs and APs and who knows what other acronym tests coming up. So I'll try as hard as I can to keep to an update at least once a week, but if I'm late don't kill me. Enjoy!
Chapter 14 – In This Labyrinth
Francois Nereaux sighed as the feeling of the train's movement softly rattled the window panes and the compartment door. He sat with his arms crossed over his chest, across from Danielle and Erik. The two were asleep, Erik's head pillowed on Danielle's shoulder with his arm resting on her knee. A scarf from Danielle's suitcase was tied around his neck as a sling after Francois had popped the joint back into place. He had grudgingly admitted that he couldn't do it himself, and Danielle couldn't in her state, either, so Francois had silently grabbed his arm and forced his shoulder back.
They looked so peaceful. He just couldn't understand it. Mlle Danielle was like a beautiful rose in full blossom that had begun to support a creeping vine, unaware as it slowly imprisoned her and pulled her sweet life away. It curdled his blood to think that such a beautiful woman could be tricked by such a twisted monster as that man. At least, that's what he had thought.
She had stood like an angry wolf over her fallen mate when Mariana and her thugs had jumped them. And her look of fierce hatred when the Gypsy had called Erik an animal. He wondered if she would have looked at him the same way if he had failed in stopping himself from doing the same.
He finally noticed her dark eyes watching him. Francois shifted and sat up a little straighter. She blinked, one hand playing with the brim of Erik's hat. "What did we do to you," she asked quietly, watching him carefully, "to deserve any of this?"
He blinked in confusion. "Mademoiselle?"
"We never did anything to you," she went on simply. "In fact, you were the one who attacked us. So what did we do?"
"Mademoiselle, I don't think you realize the gravity of the situation you were in." He paused a moment. "We?"
"Yes, we." Her eyes flashed, but it disappeared quickly. She sighed and looked away for a moment before looking back at him, waiting. "I love him."
"Danielle, please," he murmured. "You must realize what has happened. He captured you with his voice, and you fell for him. It happens. But he lied. He…seduced you. You must overcome whatever you feel and see the truth of this." His gaze fixed on hers, which was surprisingly cool and collected.
"That is the most foolish thing I have ever heard," she said simply, softly.
"You said that you loved him."
"What's foolish is that you ever thought I was his captive." Francois blinked. Danielle sighed and leaned her head back against the seat. He frowned, turning to stare out the window. Had he been wrong? Silence fell over them for a time until she quietly raised her voice again. "Do you know who that woman was?"
He turned back to her. "No," he admitted simply.
"Yet you agreed to take Erik back to her?"
He sighed, rubbing his eyes. "Yes, mademoiselle. But what I told you was true. I knew that I couldn't hand him over to her even if I had promised. I planned to take him back to Paris."
"Do you know what she was going to do with him?" He blinked. Danielle's hand had stilled on the hat's brim, and she waited for him patiently, her expression indiscernible.
"No."
She sat up, keeping Erik's shoulder carefully in place. She fixed him with such an unveiled glare now that Francois felt his mouth go dry. "She was going to put him in a cage," she said, her voice thick. "Put him back in a cage. Like a beast. Just like what you think he deserves." She paused, swallowing and blinking away the wet gleam in her eyes. "It's because of people like you that Erik has to wear his mask at all."
"Ma-" Francois stopped, biting down on his tongue. A cage? That's what the Gypsy wanted with him? Reluctantly, Francois glanced at the man sleeping on her shoulder, resting with such sincere exhaustion on the woman that he loved. That loved him back. With the brim of the hat pulled down so low to hide his face, Erik looked like any other man. The gendarme licked his lips uncertainly as Danielle shut her eyes, sighing wearily, and sat back against the seat distractedly. "He never seduced you, did he?" he asked. Her eyes slid open again, but he wasn't looking at her now. He remembered the opera, remembered how they had sung to each other, and the dagger at the end. Even from the very back of the house, he had appreciated how well acted the whole scene was, Don Juan's defeated submission, and Aminta's gentle compassion. But now he realized… "Neither of you were acting in the opera."
She shook her head, slowly dropping her hand from the hat brim. "No."
"I only did what I thought had to be done," he said weakly, and as he looked out the window Danielle thought he looked like a horrified older brother who has failed to look after his sibling. "I thought you needed protecting."
"You followed me all this way because you thought you had to repay me, didn't you?" she asked, and Francois looked back at her. An expression of understanding came over Danielle's face. "You thought you had to repay me for hurting me before, after the masquerade. For shooting me." The young gendarme nodded and hung his head ashamedly. She smiled faintly. "I never claimed any debt over you for that."
"But now I've made things worse, for trying to right a wrong that you never even condemned in the first place." Her face fell. Danielle opened her mouth to try and say something, but suddenly any power over her words vanished, her brow furrowing as she realized it. Francois looked back out the window in defeated frustration, unaware of her suddenly stiff silence. Danielle looked down at Erik, still leaning on her shoulder.
"Francois," she said softly, her voice breaking so that she forcefully cleared her throat. The gendarme looked back at her. Danielle was still gazing at Erik when she spoke. "Francois, if you still want to repay me, I know what you can do."
"What?" he asked warily. She blinked and looked up at him.
"Let Erik go."
"What?" he repeated, louder this time. The man in question shifted on Danielle's shoulder, and she was careful not to move his arm, grateful for an excuse to look away from Francois. The gendarme shifted and frowned, lowering his voice. "You know that I can't do that, Mademoiselle. He's in my custody."
"No he's not," she broke in. "You never said he was under arrest. I don't know what you've been waiting for, but you never said it."
"He's killed at least three people, Danielle!"
"Then you might as well arrest me, too." He blinked, hesitating. "I killed Mariana. So if you arrest him, you should arrest me as well."
"That was in self defense."
"Erik killed those men in self defense. Even you did."
"What about Buquet? The chandelier? None of that was self defense."
Danielle sighed, biting her lip for a moment. "That was a long time ago. He's already paid for it, time and time again." Francois waited, but she said no more. He sighed, running a hand over his eyes.
"Where could I let him go where I know he would do no harm?"
"Let him go back to Germany, to the fair. He never did anything to anyone there."
"Leave who in Germany?" Francois and Danielle both started as Erik spoke. He lifted his head off of Danielle's shoulder, holding his arm close in its splint, and stared at both of them. He looked down at Danielle, his pale eyes intent on her hazel. "Danielle, leave who?"
"Erik," she said softly, her voice quavering again. He paused, his eyes peering into her soul. His hand lifted up to catch a stray tendril of her hair, winding it through his fingers before setting it loose behind her ear again. Her hand caught his, and he let her hold it in her lap.
"This is how it has to be. We don't have a choice now." She swallowed and began to speak, but he hushed her with a squeeze of her hand. "You won't tell me to go away again, because I know you don't want to." Danielle fell silent, and Erik smiled at her faintly. She had been so strong all this time, never giving into her fears or her sorrows. Now it was his turn to be strong for her. She smiled back weakly as he ran his thumb over her palm. He leaned forward, his lips brushing her ear. "I promised that this won't be forever."
Francois, watching the two of them uneasily, raised his voice. "I don't want to know when you're gone," he said reluctantly. "If I don't know then there's no way for me to ever come looking for you, no weight on my conscience."
---
The train huffed patiently in the dark, complacently oblivious to the few snowflakes falling from the heavy clouds over the small town in Germany. They dotted Erik's cloak as he stood on the small balcony of the last car, Athena's reins looped over the railing of the quietly murmuring beast of the train. He didn't protest when Danielle pulled him beside her, wrapping his arm around her. Their embrace was like the final breath before the plunge, silently drawing strength from each other.
Danielle sighed with her face buried in the soft fabric of his cravat. "What is it?" he asked, his gloved hand brushing her ear. She leaned back to look at him, meeting his eyes beneath the brim of his fedora.
"I fell deaf without you heartbeat in my ears," she said softly, smiling at her own triteness. Erik laughed quietly, holding her against him to remember how she breathed, lest he forget again. Just as Danielle was drinking in that wonderful sound, the train's whistle sliced through the night, making Athena whicker anxiously. Erik slipped something into the pocket of her heavy cloak before turning. The wheels jerked as Erik jumped into Athena's saddle, pulling the reins free of the bars when Danielle hurriedly caught his sleeve. "When will we see each other again?"
"I don't know," he admitted, placing his hand on her cheek as she did the same, leaning over the rail. "I don't know, But we will find each other, find a way. The entire French army could not keep us apart." The train gave a lurch, and the two had to grab each others arms. Erik nudged Athena to a walk behind the train, loosely holding the reins in his weak arm, both trying to fight off the moment when they would finally be pulled apart.
"You will have to sing for me, when I'm gone."
"Until we are together, Danielle, I will never stop. I will always be there with you. When you look in the mirror, I will be there beside you. When the wind howls through the trees, it is my voice calling to you."
"Their hands slipped down to hold wrists as the train inexorably sped up.
"When the night wraps around you, it is my arms holding you."
Danielle's fingers rested just in his like that, first hesitant touch so long ago in reverse. "It's a love song," she whispered through her forlorn smile. "We should write an opera of it."
"We already have." The wind pulled at his cloak and gave Danielle one last fleeting touch against her outstretched hand, brushing against her fingertips. "C'est une chanson d'amour, mon Ange, ce tout le monde chante pour nous." The night swallowed him up all to quickly, forming a great sea of silence space between them. Danielle stood frozen with her arm still outstretched, the wind pulling her cloak against her lithe form.
The cold wind wouldn't stop blowing between them, the cold wheels wouldn't stop turning, and her blood wouldn't stop singing its suddenly lonely aria…
The thing Erik had slipping into her pocket suddenly pressed against her hip as the wind tugged her cloak around her, and she lowered her hand to pull it out. A faint smile, a wistful shadow of one, crossed her lips, and she turned and opened the door back into the train.
"It's alright, Francois," she said as he began to rise when she returned to the compartment. She shut the door behind her and went to the window, sitting down beside it. Francois hesitated and slowly eased back to his seat, watching her stare out the window. He could see the phantom of the look, the posture, the gleam in her eye as when she had first asked what he would do with Erik, but there was a sense of peace overlaying it. She glanced down at her hands in her lap, her sandy hair falling over her shoulder. Something metallic glimmered faintly between her fingers, and when she laid her hands open, an ornate music wheel rested in her palms. The bronze device was set in an intricately carved and pierce little ox, just big enough to hold the wheel. Danielle's finger lingered on the music box's key as she took a slow, steady breath.
"Thank you, Francois," she said softly, her slender fingers tracing the lines of the black wood. They closed over the box, trembling faintly, and she shut her eyes. "Thank you."
Almost impulsively, he pushed himself off the seat and knelt down before her, resting his hands over hers in her lap. Danielle started, her fingers tightening on the music box as her eyes flew open, but Francois bowed his head. "Forgive me, Danielle, if I have failed you. I only did what I thought was right."
Very slowly, Danielle relaxed, staring down at him. This man didn't belong in the uniform of a gendarme; he belonged in a knight's armor, chasing after dragons to free some maiden from a dark tower. He was a man who belonged in legend, in a time long forgotten.
"Francois," she said, and he looked up at her. "Do you know what makes a person noble?"
"Excuse me, mademoiselle?" he asked, frowning slightly in confusion.
"Do you know what makes a person noble? You've been trying to look after me because you think I'm noble, an aristocrat. But do you know what really makes a person so?" She paused, her hands slowly relaxing on the music box in her lap. "What truly makes a person noble is when they follow their own path, what they know to be true, no matter who stands in their way. When they refuse to let the world tell them what is right. And then when they search for it themselves." Francois shifted as she lifted her hand and placed it on his shoulder, smiling sadly at him. "That, Francois Nereaux, is what makes a person noble. Not money, or rank." And she fell silent, her hand slipping from his shoulder to fall back in her lap. Distractedly, he eased back to his seat, watching her without seeing as he thought. The soft sound of gears turning barely reached his ears as Danielle wound the key, and the first crystalline notes of the music box rang forth. It was a lullaby, a liltingly sweet sound that seemed written for the look in her eyes. Danielle turned, staring out the window as night fell, the country flying by as Paris drew nearer.
The music whispered in her ear, almost as if Erik were there playing it beside her. She could hear the strains of a violin instead of the crisp chime of the music wheel, the lilting melody wrapping around her as her eyelids drooped. Her mind began to swim, the view outside the window growing distorted and vague as her eyes lost their focus. Her hand crept unconsciously to her stomach, where she could still almost feel the man's fist landing hours before, and she shivered faintly as a wave of nausea broke through her at the touch. Her eyes slid shut, her breath fogging the window, as she felt the terrifying sensation of falling a very long way come over her.
Erik suddenly caught her, like he had said he always would, one hand on the small of her back and the other between her shoulder blades, gently easing her onto the bed. She sank into the luxurious, velvety pillows, resting her head back as she opened her eyes.
"Rest, Angel," he soothed, brushing her hair out of her face. Danielle blinked up at him, running her hand up through his hair as if she doubted its reality.
Francois started, leaping off his seat to catch Danielle as she suddenly swooned, falling back against the seat. She was cold when he brushed a hand over her brow, her eyes flickering behind pale lids. He laid her on the seat, stretching her out as best he could.
"Erik?" she started, but he rested a gentle finger against her lips.
"Hush, Danielle, you've been a long way. You deserve a rest." He smiled and spread a blanket over her, resting his hand on her middle as she suddenly pulled him into a kiss.
"I didn't want you to go," she murmured against his lips, and he put a hand behind her head.
"I know." He pushed her back against the rich pillows caringly, sitting at the head of the bed so that she could place her head on his shoulder. "I know, but now you must rest. I'll sing you to sleep, if you like." Danielle's hand crept up to his neck as she looked up at him, still on one elbow leaning over her.
"But you won't be here when I wake up," she whispered. "Whenever I fall asleep beside you, you're always gone by morning. I never want to get up, I'm afraid that you'll be gone again."
"But you won't be here," she murmured faintly, tossing her head. Francois leaned over her worriedly, placing his hand over hers still clasped to her middle.
Erik smiled sadly. "I know, Angel. I'm sorry." He kissed her brow, whispering in her ear. "I won't be here when you wake, but I promise that I will be there before you sleep again."
"You promise?"
"I promise," he said. He leaned back against the pillows, her head now resting comfortingly against his shoulder, and softly began to sing her the lullaby.
The music box fell from Danielle's shivering hand, landing on the floor with a softly sad chime, as if it, too, were worried for its mistress.
---
Erik stood before the steps of the great mausoleum, staring up at the woman standing imperiously at their head. The single torch behind the doors was dead and cold, now, no snow falling, but a cold stillness lay over all gathered. Bound about his wrists was the Punjab lasso, the mask stolen away. Lady Justice stared down at him from the top step, and though he could not see her eyes behind her sacred blindfold, he could feel them, fixed on his soul like a hawk on its prey. She pulled her sword free of its scabbard, placing the sheath in the hands of one of her maidens in waiting, and handed her infallible scales to another. With a snap of her fingers, the lasso had fallen from his wrists and was placed in her hand. She draped the coiled viper on one of the scales, and Erik could see it hiss and try to bite at her pale fingers.
Erik shut his eyes, unable to watch that dreaded snake tip the scale so low it should have brushed the ground. When he dared to open them, it flicked its forked tongue at him, hissing and grinning evilly.
Lady Justice, expressionless, turned to him, and Erik felt his mouth go dry. No one, no one, had ever made him feel like that, like a pathetic, minuscule ant beneath a magnifying glass. He didn't like the feeling. She reached her hand out, and Erik froze. The slightest twitch of her finger beckoned him forward. He yearned with every fiber of his being that he could disobey her, but his feet dragged against his will up the steps. Her outstretched hand, like a piece of flawless marble, brushed the collar of his shirt as he drew to an uneasy halt before her, one step below. Without a flicker of her perfect lips, she grabbed the chain around his neck and pulled the little ring free of his shirt. Behind her blindfold, he could imagine her scrutinizing it, and when she tore the chain from his neck he cried out. He swore that wasn't the chain she had torn from him. Erik expected her fingers to be stained with blood, his nearly broken heart clasped in her fist, but just the ring dangled from her hand.
It rang as she dropped the chain opposite the snake; the viper hissed at it, coiling around itself as the scales swung. He gritted his teeth as he put a hand against his chest, wincing faintly as he dropped to a knee. He froze as Lady Justice moved again, lifting the blade in her hand as she watched the scales intently. Erik felt the cold tip touch his chin as he shut his eyes, bracing himself against the last thrust…
Waiting…
…waiting
Erik finally opened one eye, anxiously searching for the scales. The mausoleum still stood, lithe weeping willow trees hanging still and graceful in the silent world around it. The scales and sword hung in the branches, the bronze dishes conspicuously empty. He stared at them for a moment in bewilderment, unable to decide if their emptiness was a good sign or a bad one.
The soft rustle of fabric made him turn his head, and he caught his breath. She stood all in white, her hair cascading over her shoulders as she slowly pulled off the blindfold. Her cape shrugged aside as the purest white wings unfurled from her back, whispering in the still air. Erik gaped up at her in wonder, her white gowns now more magnificent than the snow surrounding them, and she bent down to kneel at a level with him.
"Erik," she said, smiling wistfully. Her slender hand tenderly touched his bared cheek as her skirts pooled around her. "Dear Erik. You should hold onto this." He slowly lowered his eyes from her beautiful face, wondering why she would ever hide those magnificent hazel eyes behind a blindfold, and looked down at her other hand. She held it up for him, the chain hanging like mercury from her slender hand and the ring gleaming like the sun. Her smile widened as she placed it in his bewildered hand, closing the numb fingers gently over it. He stared down at it, amazed. "Don't lose it again, Erik."