Author's Note: Thank you for keeping up! Again, I apologize for the delay in between updates, but the show is picking up pace and I have almost no free time to write.

This is a short chapter, but only because the next one deserves it's own short vignette, too, I think. I didn't want to just line-break it. That should be up within two days, hopefully later tomorrow, so…check back!

Since my notes were apparently giving things away ahead of time (I stink at writing teasers, it's why I could never get into broadcast journalism), I'm just going to leave it here for now. smile

Raoul

The moment I got wind of that book, I knew there was going to be trouble. Then I read that book and knew that if I ever met Monsieur Leroux face to face, there was going to be more than trouble, there was likely to be a murder investigation.

There it was, in print, a re-telling of the worst time of our lives, with our names and everything! Even that strange daroga was mentioned, and I wondered from where Mr. Leroux got his information. Doubtless the retired managers were responsible for some of it, but the rest-

I found myself reading that manuscript with dread, wondering what else would be uncovered. I, for the first time, really considered Erik's personality, and found myself curious to the novel's accuracy.

It was 1911, and Charles was away for the first time, that is, out of the country. His most recent compositions had been very well-received in Italy, and the month the book was published, was finishing up a two-month tour of the country. I had been staying with Charles William, and, had I wondered at Erik's personality, might not have needed to look much farther than my grandson.

Opinionated where Charles was easy to reason with, crabby where Charles was always pleasant, equally smart but with a slight arrogance that only seemed to increase with age and knowledge…he was everything and nothing like the son I had raised.

A son who soon would have to know the truth.

I had written him a letter and told him that I needed to speak with him when he was at home, assuring him that his son was fine. In some ways, I had hoped it would hasten his trip home, but my assurances that things were fine seemed to placate him, and he said he would be home at the end of the month, as planned.

That was his mother, through and through. She had been so trusting. I had a feeling that was why this entire thing had happened in the first place.

And what if it had not? The world would not have known Charles, or his son, of whom it was becoming clear would also take the world by storm. We had thought he would become interested in music like his father, but as the years passed, while he was supremely talented when it came to the piano, his clear interests were in architecture. He had already won some local competitions by submitting some drawings, and I knew his tutors were planning on allowing him to submit actual bids on real projects in the coming months.

He wasn't even thirteen yet!

I wondered how this news would affect him. I couldn't think about my son yet. Charles William, I reasoned, probably would not care all that much. He hadn't even known his grandmother. How I wished Christine were still alive today! She would have known how to handle this. At the same time, I was so glad she was not around to see her gentle name marred on the pages of some second-rate writing project.

I wanted to sue the bastard, to take him for all he had for maligning my family, but as far as I could tell, what he had written had been the truth. So it was either drag my family back into the spotlight even more than they would be when more read the novel, admit the truth or call the man a liar, and it wouldn't be hard to reproduce many of the facts admitted on the pages.

Clearly, he had not done all of his work, as the novel included nothing of Christine or myself after that fateful night, though it did include the newspaper notice that had disquieted me when I saw it published. "Erik is dead," but of course we had known that for some time at that point.

And then…Charles came along, unbeknownst to him carrying on two family lines at once. Mine in name only, his father's in blood, and the remarkable boy I called my son had flourished as a result of the superior talent in his blood, a wonderful personality like his mother's and a strong hand that raised him.

And now he would know I had lied to him.

He had heard some rumors, of course, but most of the people who had been present for the worst of the opera house tragedy had either died or left the country, so the worst whispers he had heard was that his mother's affections had been divided between a composer and myself, and that I had lowered myself to marry a chorus girl. I could be honest enough about that. He knew of that part…at least, he knew his mother had been a singer and we had married, cutting her career short.

He had no idea why.

And he knew I knew of the architect who had built the opera house, after our trip there when he was younger. A friend of his mother's, dead many years, I had told him.

He had no comprehension how good of a friend.

Then again, neither had I, until Charles' birth, and the ensuing years. Christine and I had never spoken of it, an elephant in the room that went mostly ignored until her death, and was almost completely forgotten after, with Charles the only thing left to remind me of Christine. Then came Charles William.

I wondered how much I should tell him, and realized I had to tell him everything I knew, because even if the previous rumors had not turned him onto something, once he read the disturbingly accurate description of le fantome's face, he would have to figure it out.

Heaven help us, the entire city would know.

Before Charles returned home, I had to find out where Monsieur Leroux was getting his information, and for that, I had to find the man.

With Charles safely occupied by his tutor, I set out through Paris.