A/N: So glad this still has interest – thank you for the reviews! And now….

V

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Christine woke once more with a disturbing sense of the unfamiliar, uncertain where she was – only aware of the strange, thick pall of obscure night. Alarmed, she turned her head to the left on the pillow, where the undressed window of her loft room should be and where the reassuring moonlight or starlight would stream in – only to see a well of pitch darkness.

"Papa," she cried out with a little sob.

At his delay to provide a reassuring flame and with her heart pounding painfully against her ribs, she slid off the bed with her arms held out in front of her, desperate for fingers to find the wooden planks of the north wall and slide along it so that she might reach the ladder to climb down to the common room. There, a larger window should at least emit a dim glow through the drapery. Instead, her hands met with the latch of a door.

A door?

Swiftly she pulled the handle down, opening it to a dimly lit corridor that at once became recognizable, and she remembered where she was:

In the remote villa of the cruel beast who had entrapped her.

Somberly she turned her head back to look into the windowless room she had chosen and the unlit candle by her cot, the flame of which at some point must have blown out as she slept. And she rued not accepting the guest room he had intended for her, with its two tall windows that would certainly fill the chamber with a wash of the soft light she required, be it stars or moon or, as of now, the reflection of snow.

Absolute darkness… a childhood fear she had never been able to tolerate or relinquish.

Christine frowned in self-disgust. She did so want Papa to consider her a woman now that she was of an age to be treated as one, but still she behaved as a child might, reacting with blind terror. And she could not imagine an entire year's possibility of waking to such complete and utter darkness – if the candle blew out once, it could do so again. Even the replacement of a lamp might sputter and extinguish should the oil dwindle. And she seriously reconsidered taking the upper room that her dour employer had meant to be hers.

Would he look upon her change of heart as a token of her surrender to his iron-clad will? Pride flared up, denouncing such a move, but if she did yield, Christine might begin to win his favor and he might then remove the horrid cage he had brought down around the villa's entrance. 'Unwanted invaders' he had explained his entrapment away, her papa now counted in that number. It had torn her heart to realize he would never be allowed to visit in the year she was to be kept indentured here, and she hoped at some point in time to appeal to the Master.

Even though she was here by choice, the sight of the bars made her feel uneasy and helpless and did nothing to provide a state of calm, which would be sorely needed to work for such an eccentric and demanding man.

Quickly she located a box of lucifers and struck one against the table to ignite flame to wick then tended to her morning ablutions. She donned her dress and brushed out her thick, unruly curls, tidying them away from her face with a black ribbon, to ripple down her back.

Once prepared, she slipped her finger through the ring of the candleholder and held it out in front of her as she made her way to the kitchen. The large area was dark, also without windows, and she lit the lamps on the wall to bring welcome light into the room.

Her stomach still in knots from the disaster of the previous evening and the scare of this morning, she settled for pulling a piece of bread from the round loaf she had made and brewing a kettle for hot tea. Aware that it was not enough to meet the demands of her workday, she cut off a slice of cheese from the wheel in the walk-in cupboard and took stock of what was available. Perhaps for supper, she could make a tasty meat pie with the remainder of the fowl from yesterday. He certainly had more than enough provisions, and she wondered how he had come by the cheese and milk, with no servants in existence before she arrived. What seemed to be the case with regard to the amount of dust she had tackled in the lower chambers. She certainly could not imagine the Master of Rosemont milking a cow or churning butter, and she chuckled at so absurd a thought, taking the plate she spotted of the creamy white mound to spread over her bread, as well as a jar of jam.

With supper planned in her mind, Christine took her time breaking the fast, surprised to note that her appetite had returned. As she ate, her mind relived her first unexpected and roundabout meeting with the Master of Rosemont Chateau…

His deep voice had been a shock to hear – like liquid gold, smooth, almost tender at times once they spoke alone. Even upset, it held a pleasant timbre, though at the time his authoritative words had been far from emoting pleasure. Only pain.

She found herself wondering how the possessor of such an alluring voice would appear. He had stood high beyond the dimly lit balcony above, never once stepping from the concealment of shadows, and she had only glimpsed his obscure form from afar, tall and cloaked.

She supposed curiosity would be satisfied soon enough, the thought causing her heart to trip like the little caged bird she was, and Christine gathered all items necessary for her cleaning duties. Today she would scrub the floors of as many of the lower rooms as she could manage, a task that would take much longer than the previous day's dusting. In her comparably tiny cottage it took the better part of an hour. In a manor house so immense, it would take days, perhaps even weeks!

Putting full concentration to her work did at least help the hours to do more than plod along. In each room she visited, Christine lowered herself to hands and knees to rid the grime from the mostly marble floors with a brush she first dipped in a pail of sudsy water. Eventually, however, the stark emptiness of the abandoned chambers, which echoed with any loud sounds she made, began to trouble her soul. And she found herself muttering aloud, asking questions and making comments to dispel the unnerving silence.

Had anyone been nearby to observe they might have thought her barmy. For surely they would think that Christine believed herself to be talking to ghosts; nor would she be surprised to learn of any haunting this gloomy edifice.

Certainly the Master must consider himself one. He had yet to make an appearance, and it was approaching midday, according to the pendulum clock on the mantel.

With that in mind, she decided to put the kettle on for tea and stood to her feet, bringing her arms up high then swinging them down to place her hands at the base of her spine, arching her back and moving her upper torso first to the left, then to the right, to stretch out the kinks. Meg had commended Christine for keeping up with her lessons, and she had to admit that the stretches her friend taught and steps learned since they were children did help Christine feel more limber and spry when applied daily. They would be a true benefit in doing all that was expected of her, alone, in this huge chateau, and she resolved to resume them. Once again she wondered why he had no additional staff. Unless they all quit, and with his beastly personality she reasoned that must be the case.

She left the parlor and entered the foyer with its black and white parquet floor - a room so immense, Christine could practice one of Meg's latest lessons – a quadruplet of spins – if she was so inclined, and have plenty of space to do it five times over!

She giggled at the thought of spinning twenty times in succession and making herself dizzy enough to drop onto the fine marble flooring. Four times was enough to manage that.

She did not fool herself into thinking that she would ever become a dancer, despite her friend's unwavering optimism to make her into one, but she did enjoy most of what Meg taught. Perhaps her friend would follow in the footsteps of her mother one day and become an instructor.

The heavy silence was suddenly broken by music, distant but distinct, and Christine did spin in surprise, sloshing water on the floor from the pail she clutched in one hand.

She blinked, lifting her gaze to the stairs and the second level from whence the faraway notes came. Setting down her tools in the center of the foyer where she stood, she then walked empty-handed up the wide steps, her face turned in the direction of the riveting sound the entire time. A sound she recognized well…

That of a bow sliding across the strings of a violin.

Intrigued by her discovery that the Master could play, she followed the poignant chords, their distant beauty increasing in volume and tempo the closer she drew, until her way became barred by the black iron gate that closed off one wing of the second floor. Beyond its locked barrier, the music played on...

Riveted, she stood with her hands loosely clasped around the thin bars near her waist, and drank in the sound.

His virtuosic skill was unsurpassed, no doubt of it. She felt traitorous to allow the thought, but he played better even than her father, whose talent was once widespread before the years began to age his bones and make it difficult sometimes for him to pluck the notes.

The Master's fingers on the strings and his hand guiding the bow fairly flew at times in presto, with not one note unaccounted for or struck by accident. A true genius at his craft, she thought the longer she listened, and wondered if he had ever worked as a professional musician. He must, to know Madame Giry, who had lived at the Opera House since before Meg was born. Perhaps he also performed there in the orchestra at one time, as did her Papa…

He moved from the existing piece into a slower one Christine also did not recognize. This time, he stopped then started, playing a short section in adagio again and then again, as if learning the music. There was a pause, before the music resumed – this, a changed series of notes in places, yet still recognizable as he played the slightly altered piece in repetition as before. Astounded, she realized he must be composing.

Christine continued to listen, indeed could not move from this gate even had a match been struck beneath her skirts, and found herself softly humming along as she grew familiar with what he played in repeated execution. Once he was satisfied, he never continued from that point onward but always returned to the beginning of the piece, stopping only when he desired change.

How long she stood there, an enraptured audience to his unseen genius, she did not know, but when the music stopped for longer than usual, and she heard a distant door close, she scurried away to the stairs as quietly and quickly as she could, like a nervous mouse in escape of a great stalking cat.

Not until she reached the cleaning implements she earlier discarded did she pause to take a relieved breath. She needn't have worried. If he heard her flee, he did not pursue to address the matter of her eavesdropping, and it was with a grateful heart she wiped up her earlier spill then hurried to the kitchen to prepare the evening repast.

xXx

In the days that followed, Christine saw neither hide nor hair of the Master. Nor did he address by note her decision to switch to the upper bedchamber - or pen any other issue for that matter. Besides his music, the only other sign that he existed within the chateau was the empty plate she collected each night at least an hour after she placed the cloche that concealed his supper at the head of the table.

Even his food he preferred to remain hidden!

Christine had dryly begun to think of him as the 'beastly phantom,' her disgusted reference to his curt manner and ghost-like behavior only softened in her mind to something more appropriate, like 'Maestro,' when she heard his music.

And she did hear it, every day, making it a point to keep an ear attuned for the first strain of distant notes, which filtered into nearly every chamber of the main floor. In that, he did not disappoint, working at his craft each afternoon. At the sudden sound, she stopped whatever she was doing and drew as close as she dared – (never to the gate again, for fear of being discovered) – then sank to the floor in an adjoining upper corridor to listen, curling her legs beneath her skirts.

She could not help herself.

Ever since she was a babe in the cradle she had been surrounded by music. It had become to her a comfort and friend. Through the years, her Papa daily fiddled as she kept house or made their meals, and of an evening sometimes sent her off to sweet slumber with the gentle croon of a lullaby flowing from his strings. Rare were the days he did not play and only if he was too ill to manage lifting the instrument to his neck.

Upon her arrival to Rosemont, the sudden absence of music had been a blow, thrice felt in such a lonely atmosphere with no manner of companionship or daily conversation whatsoever.

And so, to be gifted with its return so unexpectedly under the skilled hands of the Maestro, Christine never missed an opportunity to take a short reprieve during his wondrous interlude with the violin, allowing her soul to soar with the melodies, which on occasion found themselves spilling softly from her throat in accompaniment. These enchanting moments had become the high point of her days.

He performed rhapsodies and sonatas, pieces she knew from hearing Papa play, and some never before heard but which soon became familiar. She remained until the silence grew prolonged and she felt certain the last note had been executed – always in time to return downstairs, gather her supplies and put them away, immediately then going to the kitchen to prepare their supper. She had not yet been late with a meal, the end of his music always signaling the correct time to begin preparations.

A full week had elapsed since Christine arrived at Rosemont, a truth she found inconceivable. This morning, as she polished the wall table, she glanced at the cage that barred the entrance doors and idly wondered if he intended to keep it up the full year.

"What are you doing?!"

The brusque demand came from above and startled her so, that she spun around to stare up at the balcony, falling back against the edge of the table and causing the crystal teardrops dangling from a lampshade there to tinkle.

These, the first words she had heard from another living being in seven full days.

In confusion, she blinked up toward the alcove where she could barely make out the outline of his shadowed form, her mind a muddle and unable to produce a coherent thought to form words - to once again so suddenly and unexpectedly be presented with the master's company.

No, company implied a sort of kinship, and he was certainly no friend.

"Well? I asked you a question, mademoiselle!"

Christine forced a response, lifting the cloth she held that smelled of lemon, the potent fragrance saturating the air and likely reaching the area where he loomed above.

"I, um…" She ran her teeth along her lower lip. "I found a bottle marked 'oil of lemon' in the cupboard. When the market had them in the village where I live – lived – I found them useful for cleaning. I assumed that was what the bottle is for." Nervously she awaited his response to her jumbled explanation.

Had she done something wrong?

"I do not inquire about the availability of the godforsaken lemons or how they are used – but rather what you were doing, Miss Daaé?"

"What I was doing?" she replied, dumbfounded.

"You were humming!"

"Was I..." Her face warmed. "And…is that a crime?" From somewhere within her meek soul, bravado slowly inched upward. "I know you do not dislike music, monsieur. Quite the contrary."

"No, I do not, as is made apparent in that it was my song you were humming."

"Oh." She had heard his composition of notes so often they'd become a part of her soul. She shrugged nervously. "I heard you play. It is impossible not to, the melody follows me everywhere I go," she added quickly, not wishing him to know she had been the one to follow its notes as a slave, captive to his music. "And, well, I happen to like to sing while I work. Or hum."

"Very well," he said after a moment.

When he said nothing more, she tilted her head. "Monsieur?"

"Sing for me then."

She recoiled at the very idea, the uneasy warmth of earlier becoming a flame heating her face. Briskly she shook her head.

"I cannot do that."

"So, it is an audience that you fear?"

She stared into the shadowed alcove in disbelief.

"You barely make contact with me the entire week I have been here. When you do, you keep yourself hidden, distant and in the shadows." Where she had gotten the nerve to speak out so boldly, Christine had no clue, but she could not retrieve her words now and went on, "Would you not say that I have just cause to be apprehensive, to know that I am being watched, even as we speak, when you do not return the courtesy of allowing me to look upon you?"

She winced at what sounded like an accusation, what she intended only to be an explanation, but stood her ground, though surely he must see how her body trembled.

He snorted in disdain. "A diva standing center stage among the floodlights in a darkened theatre cannot see the audience before her for such trivialities to matter."

"I am no diva, monsieur, but a simple village girl."

"I agree to the first, wholeheartedly, but as to the second… well, we shall see."

At his cryptic words, she gave no reply, only waited for what more he would say. When the silence continued, she dared to ask, "If there is nothing else, may I return to my duties?"

The air was so still she could have heard a pin drop.

"Monsieur…?"

After another long lapse, she blew out a disgruntled breath when she realized she again stood alone. "And 'Good Day' to you too," she said dryly, picking up her cleaning supplies and departing to take her task to another room.

Her papa had taught her not to think unkindly of others – but this Master of Rosemont was an insufferable boor! Perhaps the wealthy believed themselves exempt from matters such as common courtesy and preferred to wield rudeness as their self-entitled privilege. She had little on which to base the experience, save for her few meetings with the Vicomte de Chagny, and he had been a young lad at the time.

The eighth day went much as its predecessors – cast in silence with only her voice to break the intolerable quiet, which was relieved only by his delightful hour of music to give welcome reprieve.

The ninth day she had taken to having entire conversations with herself and was thus occupied in the depths of one that afternoon.

"I really must do something about that window," she mused, hands on her hips, as she stared up at the boarded stained glass. "The cobwebs are a fright. But if I try, will I also knock against the panes, as Papa did, and make matters worse?" She shook her head. "You won't know unless you try, Christine, but first you really should tend to the dusting and polishing instead of just standing here gawking at the window. It is incredible that the dust has built up again, when it seems I was only just in this room with that task. At this rate, I'll never get to the upstairs chambers, though he doesn't seem bothered that I am slow to manage it …"

She looked through her pail with the cleaning implements stashed there and picked up a cloth she then dabbed with the oil of lemon, capping the bottle again before setting it down.

Her gaze turned to the magnificent grand piano – glossy and black. It looked like a work of art, though it, too, had begun to show a faint layer of dust. She had only ever seen one piano in her lifetime, a smaller and less spectacular upright at the village tavern, which she had peeked in to see when she heard the pianist banging on the keys as she passed by the open door – and she wondered if the Master was as skilled on this instrument as he was with the violin.

An eagerness to learn the answer crept unbidden to her thoughts, and she quickly steered her mind back to the task at hand. From the glossy top of the instrument, she picked up a carved golden candlestick, empty of its candle, which sat next to a three-branched candelabrum that had rivulets of cold wax running down like frozen tears from the stumps of candles that had plastered to the metal surface.

"Well, aren't you a lovely little thing?" she mused, holding the candlestick in her hand and rubbing it with the treated cloth. "Such beautiful engravings, exquisite really, like everything else in this chateau. I mean, have you ever seen so much artwork? Paintings and sculptures in every blessed chamber, and the furniture itself is like something a king might have, all of it so elegantly carved -"

"If you rub me any harder, you'll wear a hole in my base, and then I'll not be so lovely."

Christine's eyes flew wide and she dropped the candlestick to the floor as if it had bitten her – and it might as well have.

A voice had come from inside! High and strangely pitched…

She blinked down at it. Impossible. She was hearing things. She must be. Perhaps within this forced solitude she truly had sailed over the brink into madness…

"Well, are you going to pick me up or simply stand there and gawk at me lying helpless at your feet?"

This time she gave a little cry and dropped the cloth, clapping both hands over her mouth in horror when a definite voice came to her from the metal object on the floor. Swiftly she backed away, never taking her eyes from the candlestick.

A man's quiet, dark laughter erupted from behind, and she whirled toward the entrance –

But there was no one there.

The chuckling faded, growing distant. After a momentary shock that kept her motionless, she swept from her mind any embarrassment that he had heard her talking to a candlestick and followed in the direction he must have gone, soon finding herself in the entrance foyer. Catching a glimpse of the back of his cloaked form as he took the last few stairs and disappeared into the shadowed alcove above, she glared at where he'd last been.

She did not know how he did it, whether by magic or some other means – perhaps he was a sorcerer. But certainly he must have been responsible for making the candlestick talk.

Since she had come to his chateau, he treated her as if she did not exist. When he did make a stealthy appearance and speak, he issued pointed demands. He bullied her. He mocked her. Clearly he thought her weak and inferior. Easily frightened, someone to toy with – and in her uncertainty and apprehension over her forced station as his maidservant, she had foolishly let him believe those things about her.

All the frustration and loneliness, the anger and homesickness that had wrapped itself into a bitter ball twisting inside her heart suddenly burst – giving Christine a surge of furious energy.

She stood with arms akimbo, head held high, and belted out a song her papa had taught her from his days at the Opera House, singing at the top of her lungs. Her sopranic notes pierced the stillness, shredding the silence, and bounced off high walls and through empty chambers bringing the manor to pulsating life.

Even when the stir of shadows above signaled his return, she did not stop but sang the aria until its triumphant conclusion.

xXx

A/N: Hope you guys enjoyed it! : ) More of Through Bonds Immortal next...