Neither of us spoke voluntarily, preferring instead to act like insolent children. Phelan sat rigid, his jaw twitching and eyes pinned on the door. The fingers of his left hand grazed the handle of his suitcase and I thought for certain he would abruptly stand and march from the room rather than answer.

"What has transpired between the two of you?" Madeline asked, her tone far more diplomatic than it had been the first time she asked for us to answer. She nodded toward my brother. "You arrived yesterday morning concerned for Erik's well-being and this morning you left without saying a word. Why?"

Phelan took his time answering. He opened his pocket watch, briefly looked at the time, and snapped the brass timepiece shut.

"Insufficient funds," he said.

"Your argument is about money?" Madeline asked, sounding quite surprised.

"No, Madame, the currency is not francs, but suffering."

Madeline's expression darkened. "Suffering?" she questioned. "What does that mean?"

"He wanted to know about Persia," I answered.

Madeline's already fair complexion drained of color. "Persia?" she echoed, taking a seat between us. Gaze lowered, she smoothed her skirts. "So that's what this is about?"

"You are aware Erik spent time there, working in some fashion for the shah of shahs?" Phelan asked.

Madeline hesitated. She looked to me first and frowned when I gave a single nod. "I am aware. He left quite unexpectedly," she said. "And for a considerable length of time."

"Unexpectedly?" Phelan asked, arching a brow.

"I left without telling her," I said before Madeline could answer in a more delicate fashion. "And I returned to the Opera House five weeks after I was flogged a second time."

Phelan shifted uncomfortably in his seat while Madeline stared at me, her expression strained and eyes glassy.

"Twice?" my brother questioned.

"The first time was several weeks after I arrived at the palace. The second and final time was six days before I was scheduled to be executed by the shah's daughter."

"Executed for what?" Phelan asked.

"My refusal to comply with the order to kill a woman and a dozen children within an artificial jungle. The children were the offspring of thieves."

"And the woman?"

"She was married to Dr. Khan's twin brother. The children I am assuming met their fates at the hands of someone else, but Shazeen Khan was miraculously spared."

Phelan turned his head to the side. "Debts paid," he said under his breath. "That is what Dr. Khan meant by his statement, I gather?"

"Paid with fifteen lashes and a death sentence."

"This woman was a prisoner as well?"

"More so than I ever was," I answered. "She was addicted to morphine and used to entertain prisoners."

Madeline covered her mouth with her hand and Phelan looked away, his jaw twitching and breaths more labored. The air within the parlor felt heavier and more confining, the combined silence between them suffocating in its weight.

"Why?" Madeline asked at last. She started to reach for me, but stopped and instead bunched her skirts in her fists.

"You will need to be more specific in your questioning," I replied.

"Why didn't you tell me you were leaving?" she asked.

The heaviness of regret turned unbearable. I swallowed and collected my scattered thoughts, finding that despite the many long years that had passed there was no reason that would suffice.

"Because I doubted you would notice," I answered as truthfully as I could.

Madeline's lips parted. She looked every part the girl she had been when we'd first met, her eyes filled with sadness for the horrors she'd witnessed at the traveling fair. "Why would you think that?" she asked. "Of course I would notice."

"We were not speaking often before I left," I answered.

"Yes we were," she argued.

"No, we were not. You came to visit me twice the year Meg was born. The following year we saw each other briefly in passing and always with Meg fussing terribly on your hip. We went from seeing each other daily to barely a word exchanged between us for months on end."

Madeline glanced at my brother before she whispered in English, "You knew where my apartments were within the Opera House. I invited you many times and you declined each one."

"Gaetan would not have approved of the Opera Ghost visiting you," I answered.

I had both admired and hated Gaetan Giry, the formal Naval officer that had left Anne Madeline Edwards smitten with his broad shoulders, trim waist, and domineering personality. The man rarely smiled aside from when Madeline waved to him from across the room or greeted him in a tight embrace.

Gaetan had been protective of Madeline during their courtship and downright suffocating from the day they were married, which greatly impacted the friendship Madeline and I forged for several years prior to their relationship.

I never understood what Madeline saw in Gaetan as I had always considered her outspoken, particularly in the theater, but she seemed to appreciate his dominant personality.

"You were my friend, not a ghost. He would have accepted you as such. If you had introduced yourself–"

"Gaetan had no tolerance for other men looking at you, men who were accepted by society without so much as a second glance. Do you truly believe he would have allowed a man as grotesque as me to have supper at his table?"

Madeline's lips quivered. "It would not have been his choice."

"It was mine," I said.

"And your decision was to stay away?"

I looked away from her. "It was."

"All of these years I wanted to tell you how upset I was–how upset I still am that you left without saying where you intended to go or how long you would be gone for. I prayed that nothing terrible had happened, that you weren't injured or suffering. The day you appeared filthy and half-naked on the floor of my apartment I wasn't sure if my prayers had been denied or answered. I will never forget that moment you returned, not for as long as I live."

I looked away from her and found Phelan silently studying me, his expression unreadable.

"If you didn't want to see Gaetan, I could understand, but I was the one left wondering what became of you, not him." Madeline paused and inhaled sharply. "After all of the notes you left for the managers requesting your salary, all of the orders to the maestro and the performers and you didn't have the decency to tell me you were leaving."

Her voice cracked at the end and I averted my eyes, preferring to stare at the back of my hand resting atop my knee than her strained expression.

"I don't know what to say," I murmured.

Madeline shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to keep her tears at bay. "Yes, you do."

"Pardon my interruption, but I assume Gaetan is your husband?" Phelan asked in English when I failed to give Madeline the reply she deserved.

Madeline's eyes popped open. She looked more than a little surprised by my brother asking a question in her native language. "He was," she said. "He passed away unexpectedly when my daughter was only two years old. Unfortunately she has no recollection of him."

Phelan sat back and crossed his arms. He tapped the fingers of his right hand along his left tricep. "I am sorry for your loss."

Madeline exhaled. "Thank you. Gaetan has been gone for a very long time now, far longer than we were married. It seems like a lifetime ago that I mourned the disappearance of a dear friend whom I considered a part of my family, then the loss of my husband who was bedstricken and passed away before I had time to process his illness and accept that I was a widow."

"All while raising a child and presumably still involved with the theater," Phelan commented.

Madeline nodded. "I never left the theater. My daughter and dancing were the only things that helped me survive such a difficult season."

"You are quite resilient, Madame."

Madeline looked him over. "As are you, Monsieur."

Phelan grunted.

"You disagree?" Madeline asked.

My brother appeared quite uncomfortable. He shifted in his seat and ran his fingers over the back of his left forearm where the flesh was puckered with scar tissue.

"I do," he said. "Now, if you would prefer, I will return to the train station at once and allow the two of you to settle this matter in private," Phelan offered.

Madeline shook her head. "That was rude of me to exclude you from our conversation," she replied. "I apologize. It will not happen again."

Phelan shrugged. "It's hardly the most insulting conversation I've had in the last twenty-four hours." His slate eyes cut to me.

Madeline followed my brother's gaze. "Perhaps I should leave the two of you alone."

"That is not necessary," he assured her. "I will be on my way."

Madeline studied him a moment longer. "May I ask what was said that has created such a terrible rift between the two of you?"

Phelan rolled his tongue along the inside of his cheek. "The truth, Madame."

"It was not the truth. I spoke in anger," I argued. "And I have apologized–"

Madeline held up her hand to silence me, which I found utterly infuriating. I released a heavy sigh and sat back, crossing my arms. "What more can I do?" I asked under my breath.

"Nothing," Phelan said through his teeth. "You've already done more than enough."

"Then what? You will never speak to me again?"

"I am speaking to you at this exact moment, am I not?"

"That isn't what I mean," I retorted.

"You certainly have a way of saying quite a bit and not meaning any of it."

"Gentlemen," Madeline warned. "Enough of this. Do not spend what little time you have together embroiled in an argument."

Phelan sniffed. "I'm not arguing."

Madeline made no attempt to correct him. "You cannot put whatever was said behind you?" she asked.

"No," my brother flatly answered. He ran his thumb up the middle of his forearm, abscently feeling along the uneven flesh from where our father had burned him at a young age. "I cannot."

Madeline remained silent. If there was one area in which she truly excelled, it was in her ability to listen intently without offering commentary or judgment.

Oftentimes, when I relentlessly sulked or grumbled under my breath for her to return to her apartment at the Opera House or suggested she see herself out of my bedroom in the home we had shared for nearly a decade, she merely sat and waited, regardless of whether it took me ten minutes or an hour to voice what irritated me. She listened without judgment, offering her thoughts or advice on occasion–neither of which I had heeded.

Phelan shifted in his chair. "My own brother accused me of bartering a very intimate tragedy of mine for one of his, as if I would be so petty," Phelan grumbled. "Therefore my funds are truly insufficient as I have not suffered nearly to the extent he has."

Madeline turned her head to the side while Phelan continued to run his fingers along his left forearm. Her features softened while his visage became more tense.

"That was unfair of your brother to say."

Phelan grunted. "Quite frankly, Madame, I was certain you would side with Erik given that you refer to him affectionately as your son."

"There are no sides to take in this situation."

"No?" Phelan challenged.

Madeline shook her head. "There is nothing to be gained in this situation, only a great loss for two prideful, stubborn men."

Before either of us could argue that we were in fact not prideful or stubborn, Lisette skipped past the parlor window, followed a moment later by Julia with her arms full of fabric and Meg, who was pushing a baby carriage, her eyes cast lovingly down at her twins.

"I'll have Alex bring the fabric over before supper," Julia said to Meg. "Lissy, please don't drag that doll down the street. It's going to be filthy."

"I'm not," Lisette said with an exasperated sigh.

"And be careful with those teacups."

"Mother!" Lisette groaned. "I'm not a baby."

"In my eyes you are. You're my sweet little baby girl whom I love dearly," Julia cooed.

That earned Julia a sigh of disgust.

"Lisette, behave yourself or I'll tell your father," Julia warned as she unlocked the front door.

"Is that an effective threat?" Meg asked.

"Unfortunately no," Julia replied. "You know how he is."

Ignoring her mother, Lisette bounded down the hall and burst through the parlor door with a doll in hand.

"Oh," she said when she saw the three of us. A smile crept onto her face when she met my eye. "Am I interrupting?"

"Not in the slightest," Phelan said as he stood. "I was returning to the train station."

"Already?"

"Already?" Phelan half-heartedly groused. "I have been attempting to return home for the last…" he turned and looked at the clock. "Seven hours. Already indeed, dearest niece."

Lisette hugged the doll to her chest and twisted back and forth, the embroidered hem of her blue dress swirling around her knees. She furrowed her brow and examined her uncle for a long moment, then turned to me and did the same thing.

"You both look…" she pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. In silence I dreaded what she would say with the unbridled truth that could only be spoken by a child. "You both look very sad."

"Sad?" Phelan and I questioned in unison. We briefly eyed one another, but neither of us engaged in conversation.

Lisette gave a single bob of her head. "Uncle Phelan, I think you are sad because you must return home to teach your students and I think Papa is sad because you are leaving and he won't see you for several weeks."

Phelan crossed his arms. "Is that so?"

Lisette jutted out her bottom lip and dramatically dropped her shoulders, appearing as boneless as the doll still clutched in her hand. "This is what Papa looks like when you leave," she said as she shuffled around in a circle with her back hunched and head down.

"My posture is impeccable," I said. "I've never walked like that in my life."

Lisette lifted her head and mischievously grinned at me.

"Do it again," Phelan encouraged. "Your impression is truly uncanny."

Lisette straightened her spine. "No, that would be teasing," she said. "And it isn't very nice to tease others, especially when they are sad."

"How do you know he is sad?" my brother asked. "Perhaps your father simply enjoys walking around like an old man."

"Because sometimes he sits hunched over in the dining room late at night all by himself. That is why when I wake up, I check to make sure he isn't too sad by bringing him a bite to eat. Sweets make him happier. Don't they, Papa?"

"True as that may be, I've had a bad habit of staying up late for years,' I said. "You should stay sleeping, Lisette. You need your rest."

"Far more than your father needs sweets," Madeline added.

"Perhaps you have misinterpreted his frustration with music for sadness," Phelan suggested.

Lisette quickly shook her head. "Papa crumples up the papers and says very bad words when he's not happy with his music."

Phelan dramatically gasped and put his hand over his heart, mirroring Madeline's equally dramatic but more sincere reaction to my daughter's confession of overhearing me grumble to myself.

Phelan gaped at me, his eyes bulging as if he could scarcely believe that what Lisette was true. "Shame on you," he said. "Bad words indeed."

Madeline shook her head in dismay. "If you went to bed at a decent hour this wouldn't be an issue."

Phelan crossed his arms. "Now that we have thoroughly covered your father's bad habits, I must ask what, dearest niece, do I look like to you? I am quite curious to see your imitation of me."

Lisette took a deep breath and pursed her lips. She proceeded to narrow her eyes and set her jaw, with her posture held rigid and mouth curved down in a deep frown.

Phelan raised a brow and chuckled to himself. "I don't look sad at all. In fact I look very menacing, which I find quite flattering. This explains why my students fall silent when they enter my studio."

"No, Uncle Phelan. You don't understand. You look that way because you don't want other people to know that you are sad, so you look angry," Lisette explained.

Phelan chuckled to himself again, but the reaction lacked sincerity. "Quite interesting, however, I prefer the imitation of your father better. That was spot-on."

Lisette gave a sigh of frustration and marched toward my brother, then motioned for him to bend forward. "You're doing it again," she whispered.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You're trying to look angry so that other people don't know that you are sad." She gave him a sympathetic, knowing nod. "But you don't have to look angry here."

Phelan straightened his spine. "I have no idea what you are talking about, Lisette. This is simply how I look."

Lisette gazed very sternly at my brother. "You didn't look that way at the beach," she pointed out. "Or when you arrived yesterday morning and we had tea and cookies. It was because you weren't sad then, wasn't it?"

"You are very observant. Like that detective fellow in those Doyle books."

Lisette grinned back at him, clearly pleased with the comparison to a fictional detective. "You must stay until you are no longer sad." She looked over her shoulder at me. "Isn't that right, Papa?"

"I have already asked your uncle to stay until supper," I said. "He has declined."

Lisette turned back to my brother and blinked at him. She gazed up with her large, sorrowful eyes and pitiful expression as if the thought of my brother returning home truly shattered her fragile heart.

Phelan narrowed his eyes and lifted his chin. "Ah, dearest niece, if you think you have me pegged as melancholy over my pending departure, you are mistaken. And also I should warn you that this tactic you have deployed has no effect on me."

"What tactic?" Lisette innocently asked.

"You know precisely what I mean, Lisette Holmes," he teased. "Elizabeth made valiant attempts for years to soften my heart with this same look whenever she wanted a new doll and I refused to give in. I am absolutely impervious to your angelic demeanor."

"Uncle Phelan, I don't want a doll," Lisette said, her voice light and sweet. She reached for my brother's hand, which she had never done before. Phelan's lips quirked into an undeniable smile. "I would be very sad if you returned home so soon. Won't you stay a little longer?"

She was truly mesmerizing in her request, and as I watched her peer up at my brother, I realized I was completely defenseless when it came to the pleas of a little doe-eyed girl.

Phelan's expression softened. He reached into his overcoat breast pocket and pulled out a train schedule, which he slowly unfolded and perused in silence for a long moment. Lisette stood on the tips of her toes, craning her neck for a look while she laced her fingers together.

"What does it say?" she impatiently asked, her voice so low it was difficult to hear her speak.

Phelan slowly folded the schedule and returned it to his pocket, then reached for his suitcase. "The next train departs in a half hour."

Lisette remained undeterred. "And after after that?"

Phelan sighed. "This is utterly ridiculous," he muttered to himself. "But if you must know, there is a train departing at nine. It is the last train of the day and I would return to my own home after midnight."

Lisette lightly clapped her hands and bounced up and down. "Late train!"

My brother grunted, but didn't argue. He placed his suitcase back on the floor and took a deep breath. "Late train," he agreed.