A/N: Pinkybird09- Thank you for your lovely reviews! They were very sweet! I'm glad you're liking the way that I portray Christine. :)

Chapter Seven

When Christine was a child, there'd always been light.

Whether it was through the stoop of a candle's flame, the crumbling heat of a fire, or the glinting stars across the sky, there'd been light. She'd never questioned its source. Light is something one never questions, for it's almost always there when it's needed most: the flick of a lantern, the hissing dimness of a gaslamp, the simplicity of striking a match. Light had become an afterthought. She'd grown so accustomed to it before her days at the Opera, in fact, that when she'd spend nights in the dormitory huddled in the pulse-spiking darkness, breath hitching over the shadows and practically choking upon the blackness, she'd retreat into such a petrification that not even Meg could shake Christine from it.

But light isn't always something one can see.

It can be heard. It can be felt.

It can come in the form of another.

For Christine, that new light was her Angel. He was hope. He was joy. He was tranquility. Like a beacon in a tunnel of pitch, he'd come like a saving grace, descending upon her thoughts, her dreams, her being, in a wash of warm comfort and song. He was the Angel of Music: friend, guide, guardian. Throughout the glee and the adversity, the smiles and the tears, he'd be ever-pulsing in the back of her mind. Never again was she swept into the dark shroud of loneliness. Never again would she feel alone in her thoughts, even without her dear departed father at her side. And though her angel had told her, warned her, time and again that her spirit was perhaps composed of patchwork shadows rather than a blazing light, perchance seeming more mortal than saint, she'd always ignored it..

Yet now, as she looked upon his domain through the tiniest of slats, she felt the tight, chilling coil of remorse.

She felt a shiver course the length of her spine as the long-forgotten loneliness again draped across her bones. He hadn't made himself known, physically nor mentally, for some time, and this had drawn her back into a state of panic.

Firmly rooted behind a stony alcove, Christine listened to the faint drippings of water across the granite floor. The drops collected, formed a melody. Then, all together, they stopped and began anew with an arrhythmic song. She was shrouded in complete darkness—a fact that caused her heart to swell and bleed in fear. The night before, she'd felt her soul hammer at the possibility of excitement, of night. But there'd been candles. There'd been flame. There'd been him. By herself, it was utterly different. And all of a sudden, she couldn't face the night alone.

Christine felt her eyes shudder close. Her feet were colder than they'd ever been: more frigid, it felt, than the brightest, starkest snow on the Kebnekaise mountain in Sweden. At the memory of her homeland, she felt her heart throb all the more. A heavy blade of nostalgia cut across her soul. Christine swallowed roughly, fending off tears. She drew her fingers across her chapped lips and a bout of dizziness deluged her as the darkness pressed and squirmed against her slight body. Trembling, she clamped those lips round a scream, round the churning fear that imposed in her shriveling gut. Then with a shuddering gasp, she pressed her left hand down across the wet cold of the stone near her temple, drawing a blood she could not see but felt all the same.

There came the acute raport of shoes across carpet, then rock. With a snap, Christine opened her eyes to glimpse the tall figure of a man dart across in a blur of shadow.

Shadow.

He'd once described himself as a shadow…

Drawing herself to her knees, Christine watched from the meager slither of an opening in her crevice. He'd disappeared once more. Sighing sharply, she flattened herself against the very back of her alcove and bowed her head to her knees. A sharp, unabating tear pricked at her eye till it slithered down to meet the floor, till it was nothing more than a watery note from the distant tune among the lake.

"I'm not fond of your games, Christine."

She yelped, slapping her bloodied hand against the wall at the deep, jolting timbre of his voice. A black shadow covered the lip of her little cave. Her gaze darted to the entrance, where she honed upon him: a pair of glinting, ravenous eyes glaring back at her in the gloom, and the pale outline of a mask.

He reached a hand within, blending with the darkness. He hauled her out and to her feet with the hissing fury of a feral cat. He looked upon her through a mask of contempt. "Hide-and-seek. Wouldn't you say that you're a tad too old to be engaging in a pastime meant for children?" He spat. His eyes raked along her frame, wherein he smirked. "Or perhaps I've misjudged your maturity."

Christine wrenched from his grip, stumbling back as she caught upon the train of her gown. She couldn't help but fold her arms across her frame. "I'm not a child!" she sputtered.

He caught her again, this time righting her as easy as one would a wobbling bauble upon a display shelf. He drew her close, his warm breath searing the coolness of her collarbone. "Now, would you kindly do me the favor of explaining why you abandoned the bedchamber and hid yourself betwixt two slabs of rock and dark?"

She gazed at his lips, watching as they formed words that slowly trickled into oblivion. With a flash of shock that startled and enthralled, she imagined that very mouth upon her throat, her collarbone, lower and lower still...

Snapping from her reverie, she flushed. She forced herself to meet his eyes as her tongue slipped across her full lower lip. "After you told me to return to the chamber, I awoke again later…a-and went out to the lake. You weren't there, so I ran!" Christine admitted. In truth, she had been frightened by the prospect of his absence, had felt betrayed by the idea that he'd perhaps abandoned her below the earth. Below the light. In the dark. She'd stumbled upon the narrow alcove across the lair, which had been just wide enough for her to slip through sideways.

He stepped back swiftly; a chilled whoosh of air flooded the void between them, inspiring her flesh to prickle madly. She watched his bright eyes narrow in a smoldering blend of suspicion and anger. "So you ran from me? You were terrified of my world?" He spread his arms wide, gesturing to the space around them. His words rang and echoed with a venomous ire, causing Christine to tremble. God, his voice…it was invigorating.

When she didn't respond, taking her silence for fear, he gave a self-assured smirk. Lacing his arms across his chest, he raised his chin so that the white of his mask caught a beam of light refracting off the still, green lake behind him. "I always manage to impress fear."

"I don't think you quite understand," Christine insisted. "I didn't run from you. I ran from—"

Her angel rose a hand, silencing her. "That's quite enough. I've had my fill of your lies for one evening, mademoiselle."

Christine stomped her foot petulantly. "But they aren't lies!" When she was met with rigid silence, she drew the back of her left hand up to her cheeks, wiping away the stale tears that had stained her skin with childish vexation.

Quicker than a flash of lightning, his hand snared around her wrist. He hauled her closer and eyed her palm with the attentiveness of a surgeon. "Where did you get this?" he rumbled, his gloved fingers ghosting above the furious abrasion on her white skin.

Christine's pulse quickened at his touch. She felt something hot and liquid gather in the core of her belly, traveling down the span of her thigh. She scarcely managed to croak out, "...in the alcove….it was so dark, I couldn't see that I'd scraped my hand along the wall…it drew blood..." Her wound throbbed, keeping tempo with her heart. She watched him as he watched her hand. He turned it this way and that, his eyes narrowing and unblinking.

Something akin to guilt flashed across his eyes, making them glint. Then, just as quickly, the emotion passed and she was left wondering if it had even appeared at all. Gently and slowly. he led her back to the bedchamber.

He sat her down upon the rim of the sheets and strode toward a basin of water that she hadn't noticed before, a basin that rested upon a table by the bed. The little nightstand was arcing and elegant, bedecked in a bronze lacquer that seemed edged with a golden glow, and she took a breath of a minute to admire its craft.

Her host rifled through the drawer of the table for a moment, cursing beneath his breath. His hand darted like a snake to the back of the drawer, and his eyes adopted a victorious gleam as she was certain he'd found what he'd been searching for. He turned, his back to her. Christine heard the rasping of fabric and the low slap of water against ceramic. He whirled back round again, stoic and silent, and kneeled before her.

First, he cleansed the wound, taking measured and slothful strokes. She winced as the water met her raw skin; he seemed to feel that shudder within himself. He muttered an apology as he cleared away whatever crimson had welled to the surface of her skin. For a moment or two, he pressed firmly upon her palm, cradling the back of her hand beneath his till he was satisfied with the pull and push of time. He wrapped the fabric in snug, chafing loops about her battered hand.

"I apologize for the shoddy provisions," he said, quiet. He kept his stare averted. "I'm no doctor, and it's not customary for me to tend to anyone's needs but my own…"

Christine dipped her head in acknowledgment and thanks. "I understand. Thank you."

Giving a terse nod, he rose fluidly. "Ensure that you do not disobey me again, Christine, or I promise that your punishment will be far worse than a scrape upon the hand..." With that, he fled from the room, leaving her just as dazed as she felt before.

A/N: Reviews are appreciated!