A/N: A bit late with this update, sorry. I didn't realize it was Tuesday until about an hour ago. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 17

When Émilie was safely above ground, Nadir returned directly to the house by the lake and went to bang on Erik's door.

"Come out here, Erik!" he called. "Allah help me, I will break this door down."

Immediately the door opened. Erik stood before him, fully dressed and hair slicked back. A mask was firmly in place, though it did little to hide the glare. "Quiet!" Erik hissed. "Christine is resting."

Nadir pushed Erik back into the room and followed, furious enough not to care that Erik was liable to strangle him for this violation. However, the masked man retreated further into the room like a caged animal before a terrifying master. As Erik's sunken eyes grew wide at whatever fearsome ghost he saw in Nadir's advance, the Persian was nearly tempted to stop. But he could still picture the flowering bruise on Émilie's arm.

"I regret helping you escape Persia!" Nadir said with quiet danger. "Do you hear that? I wish you had died in Persia! Everything you've done since then is on my head. Every murder, every life you ruin is my fault. I could not stop you with Christine. I tried but, Allah forgive me, I let it happen. I hoped she would help you. But Christine is dead now-"

Erik made a noise of protest.

"Christine is dead now," Nadir continued loudly, "and I will not let you harm her daughter. I will not have Émilie on my conscience. If it is dangerous for her to stay here with you, I will not let her stay."

"Where would you take her that Erik could not find her? Nowhere, you fool!"

"Your hurt her!"

"She slipped and fell against the table. I would not hurt her. I am a good father."

"You are a selfish child," Nadir spat. "Not everything is about you and your face! Yes, you're hideous. You are the most horrible creature I've ever seen, and certainly the most horrible thing Émilie will ever see. Does that satisfy you? No one's leaving you, though I've never understood why I can't. No, Christine and I chose to be here with you and Émilie thinks this is normal. She likes being with you. How often do you tell me humanity cannot understand you! Try some empathy for once. Your daughter does not understand what beauty and ugliness are, not until you teach it to her. All she knows is that you love her and to her, that makes you beautiful. Expect the worst of her and you will find it. Rage at her and you'll see she loses her innocence and thinks you hideous as you believe yourself to be. But not because of your face. She does not see your face. You must understand that, Erik, damn you."

Erik was on the ground, clutching his mask against his skin and muttering as if to drown out the Persian's words. On the final curse, however, he went silent.

"I don't," he panted. "I have never…I don't know how…She asked…she asked to wear a mask too."

"Then give her a mask," said Nadir impatiently, though his anger was fading in the face of the pitiful creature on the floor before him. "She wants to be like you. Something about you impresses children."

"Then someone ought to teach them better before they must face the cruelty of men." Erik dragged himself up and straightened his hair, then simply stared at Nadir. The eyes hardened slowly, different from his usual instant changes, but suddenly he was all graceful composure. "You meddle where you should not, Daroga. I won't let you take her or tell her more lies."

"Where is Émilie now?"

"Why, she is with Christine."

"Christine is dead."

"Stop saying that. Follow Erik, he will show you." Erik passed Nadir and stepped out of the room. Nadir did not follow. He heard Erik distantly call out, "My angel, our tiresome Persian friend would like to speak with you. Christine, my dear?"

It was a cruel trick and Nadir already felt guilty over it. But this could not go on. Nadir had not stopped the creation of this unfortunate family yet he would not let it fall apart. Three days of Erik locked in his room had only helped the madness.

A ghost lived below the opera house, kept alive by a desperate man who could not forget.

Christine's name echoed louder and louder, the music of pure despair, begging, pleading for relief. Nadir covered his ears – a primal instinct to a primal sound – but it did not block out Émilie's name when it was added to the eternal wail. At that, Nadir stepped into the doorway. He could not let this continue.

The terrible sound of metal and wood wrenching apart froze him where he stood and he screwed his eyes shut. In the blackness behind his eyelids, he saw Erik stepping over the remnants of the door into his old bedroom. Nadir doubted it had been touched since Christine's body had been borne from it. Erik would see now the magnificent organ covered in dust, the scattered sheets of music, all written for Christine, because of Christine. The empty dais in the center of the room where the coffin had once rested. Where Erik had once slept, a lonely specter, before he had Christine to sleep beside him.

The dreadful cries stopped.

Still Nadir was imprisoned on the threshold of the bedroom, unable to move and see what he had wrought. Minutes might have passed, hours. He did not know.

Only when the silence became too great did he take a step forward and then another. Erik was in the kitchen, on his knees on the cold floor amidst the shattered vase. Blood had been smeared on the flagstones where jagged glass had cut his nimble hands. He was fingering the dead rose petals, blood turning them slowly red again, as if he was bringing them back to life like the magician he was. He didn't look up when Nadir stood over him, but his mutterings became cleaner.

"These were alive…three days ago…These roses…She brought them down…always…always bringing flowers…Says her Erik's home is too dark but she is wrong. It is almost too bright to see…" He crushed a rose in his hand as he began to tremble violently. "Oh Christine, I should have known you were gone. Everything looked so dark and there was no music. She left me! Or…did she die? Yes, she promised never to leave. I remember it. She died. Oh god. What is happening? I don't know what is real. Nadir, it was happiness as I have never known. Could never have imagined. Like a normal man. I had a wife who loved me, and welcomed me into her bed. And a daughter – a beautiful daughter." Suddenly he tore the mask from his face, hurling it across the room. The skin beneath was red and raw and glistening with tear tracks. "We walked in the park on Sundays," he moaned. "Erik and his little family. What a beautiful dream-"

"Not a dream, Erik!" Nadir finally interrupted, no longer considering the possibility of hiding the child away. "Émilie is not a dream. She is real. She is at her ballet class, but she is alive and happy."

"You enjoy playing with poor Erik's dreams, Daroga. Is his pain not enough already?"

"I know you remember, Erik. Émilie is real." Nadir left for a moment to find the girl's sketches in the parlor. "Do you see, my friend?" he demanded, thrusting them beneath Erik's downturned face. Tears dripped from his chin onto the paper. "Do you see? She drew this only this morning, before I took her to dance. She was wearing that pink tutu you bought for her."

Erik seized the Persian's forearm to drag it unpleasantly close to his face so he could better see the drawing.

"Yes," he breathed, the papers fluttering before his mouth. "I remember that. That is real. I see it now – what is real and what is not. She is real. My Émilie…Nadir, you must bring her here at once. I need to hold her. Please, Nadir, I beg you. Find her…"

Émilie did not understand why her father swept her up upon her return. But after three days of being ignored it was a welcome change and she hugged back tightly. Nadir, too, was glad that the delusions had passed and hoped it would be the end of all madness in the small family.

The hope proved false.