Page 122 of Our Strange Duet

As the time came for me to pull away Don Juan’s hood, I grew nervous, unsure of what I’d find beneath when I did.

“We’ve passed the point of no return,” we sang together, and I carried out my staging, pushing aside the hood to reveal Erik and his mask.

From Box Five came a gasp so loud I knew that Raoul had immediately recognized him and understood. There was a murmur of confusion from the audience as they realized this singer was not their beloved Signor Piangi. I could hear the clack of the gendarmes’ shoes as they raced closer, looking for the best firing positions.

But onstage, Erik didn’t seem aware of any of it. He’d fixed upon me with single-minded intent. I was the only thing he saw.

He took a step closer, reaching up to touch my face.

“Say you’ll share with me one love, one lifetime,” he sang, changing the tune, changing the rhythm. His words were so familiar, but I could not place them, could not think of where I’d heard them before. They certainly weren’t part of this opera. They were too tender, too pure, to have ever been spoken in the den of a lothario like Don Juan.

His cloak parted, and Erik took off the heavy ring that was always worn on his left hand. The gold death’s head had chips of rubies for its eyes. He held out the bauble, offering it to me with all the ceremony of a marriage proposal.

“Say you want me with you here, beside you…”

I let out a strangled gasp as it clicked into place for me. Those were Raoul’s words. Words said on a faraway beach. Words said outside of the opera. Words that Erik should have never known existed.

But of course he did.

Of course he’d been there.

And now he was using our declaration of love to ask for my already-taken hand in the most public of ways.

A spark of anger kindled within me.

“Anywhere you go, let me go too. Christine, that’s all I ask of—”

The spark spiked into a raging inferno.

Without a flicker of regret, I reached for him, but rather than accept his ring, I ripped away his mask, exposing his face for all to see.

He let out a cry of horror, trying to shield himself from the audience, but it was too late. The stage lights had shown every misshapen curve and angle with cruel clarity. He couldn’t cover it all, flashing bits of straggled hair, parts of his missing nose.

The gendarmes were at the lip of the orchestra pit, beginning to take aim.

I was dimly aware that I should move, that I should hide from any wayward bullets, but Erik moved faster, sweeping his cloak over me as we fell through a trapdoor I hadn’t even known was part of the scenery.

Above us came new shrieks and screams and the stampede of racing feet, but we were already plunging down paths of darkness as deep as hell.

Chapter 42

Erik’s home had changed.

I sensed it the moment he forced me from the boat and all but shoved me onto the shore.

The automatons were still and covered in shrouds of dust and neglect. Nothing whirred or buzzed. They lay in motionless bits throughout the room. The figure who had jumped out from the mirror, scaring me during my first visit, was still in the corner, but her body was all extreme angles and broken joints. The tip of her chin rested on her collarbone, as if she’d been hanged. The white dress she’d worn was gone.

And the music…

It had grown in my absence to a ridiculous magnitude, doubling in size—tripling, even. Hundreds of pages, thousands of them, were scattered across his work areas. Some were arranged in stacks so high they looked close to toppling. A quick scan of the Persian rug showed many already had.

I caught snippets of melodies tested then discarded, of lyrics written then crossed out with angry blots of ink.

Were these compositions for Don Juan Triumphant? I couldn’t begin to imagine the focused frenzy needed to create such a prolific mess. How had he accomplished it? I’d been gone only months, not years. What kind of man was capable of such zealous, single-minded devotion?

A mad one.

It was the only answer that made sense, and I froze, the hairs at the back of my neck prickling as I realized that I was here now, trapped and alone with such a man. No one knew where I’d been abducted to. No one would be able to find me. I was on my own.