Page 114 of Our Strange Duet

I tried the run again, transposing the key so it turned messy and discordant. Even as terrible as I was making it, the music still lit waves of shock and awe through me. This melody, this song, this opera was staggering. Erik’s phrasings were so unique—his stylings complicated and intricate, but undeniably brilliant.

This music would usher in a new era of art. These notes would inspire and transform. Erik’s creation would change everything and everyone it touched.

I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted my voice to be the one audiences first heard sing the role. My voice bringing Aminta to life. My voice filling the theatre with Erik’s music. It would be a perfect marriage of power and passions, talent and skills.

The muscles along my rib cage tensed and tightened. My limbs shook as hunger and need swelled within me. I wanted this so badly I could cry out.

And then I did, startled, as his voice swept into my dressing room, a breathless whisper, reaching out from behind the glass.

“Christine?”

“Erik!” I took in a great gulp of air, suddenly trembling before the magnitude of my request, the audacity of what I must ask him.

He remained silent, waiting, and I licked my lips.

“I…I need…” I hung my head low, studying the black-and-white keys before me. With an unconscious gesture, I reached out and played middle C, letting its pitch ground me. It was the note all musicians learned to find first, a north star that centered every other thing to come.

Like Erik was for me.

The truth of it was undeniable.

I could not do this without him.

Nor would I want to.

“I need…” I repeated, louder this time, finding both my nerve and my voice. “I need my Angel of Music.”

There was a long pause, pregnant with possibility. I kept my focus on that middle C, waiting, waiting, waiting, as doubts swirled within me, as fear and agony rose up my throat, ready to crystallize to a scream if he said no.

He drew a soft breath, and I looked toward the mirror, surprised to see how wan and worried my reflection was.

When he finally spoke, his voice was dark with satisfaction, husky and deep. “I’m here.”

Chapter 38

I spun around on the piano stool to address the mirror directly. “Before we begin, I have a few requirements.”

Erik’s laughter was incredulous, though he stopped short as he took in the severity of my stare. “Requirements?”

I nodded. “First, no more of this.” I gestured to the glass between us. “I’m not going to spend whole lessons shouting to be heard through a mirror. If you’re going to be my instructor, I need you here, with me.”

The silence went on for so long I began to think he’d left, abandoning me to my folly without a second of remorse.

But then the mirror changed, dissolving in a sparkle of trickery and light that I was powerless to explain but that I had no doubt Erik had spent exhaustive effort in engineering, and he was there, before me. He stood in the center of the gilt frame, a shadow come to life, with eyes darting about the room, alert and wary, as if readying for an attack.

My body danced with restless and warring impulses. Part of me was on the verge of bolting, fleeing from the room and the madman I’d so recklessly invited into it.

But the other half of me…

It, too, wanted to run—to run to him, to race to Erik and beg for forgiveness. It wanted to throw its arms around him, to feel his arms close around it. It wanted to lose itself in his embrace, to fall into the security of his devotion, to close its eyes against the past and accept only this present, here, with him.

Not “it,” my mind corrected pedantically. “I.”

I wanted.

And I did.

I took a deep, shuddering breath to hold back the tide of heady desires pressing against my limbs, urging them to action, spurring them to ruin. “Come in.”