Page 127 of Our Strange Duet

My whole body shook under the force of my sobs. “Erik, please…”

“There is no other choice. There is no other chance.” He knelt beside me and reached out, touching my chin in an echo of the gesture Don Juan was meant to give Aminta before she fell prey to his advances. He almost looked sad, as if he felt sympathy for the impossible position he’d placed me in. “You’ve passed the point of no return.”

“Erik…” I pleaded, my throat pained and raw. “Angel…”

He only shook his head, and, in that moment, watching him playact at pity, something within me snapped.

“You deceived me!” I shouted, smacking the floor between us. Surprised at my outburst, he fell back, posed in an ungainly sprawl I’d never guess him capable of. “You never were the Angel of Music. I gave you my mind blindly!”

The instant the hate-filled words left my mouth, zipping from me like a barrage of bullets, I regretted them. Erik’s eyes widened, and he flinched as if he’d been struck.

“Blindly?” he repeated, his breath coming out in harsh rasps. His hand clawed at his chest, and I dimly worried he was suffering from a stroke or a heart attack. He looked like a man gravely ill, his skin so pale and waxen that even the port-wine stains seemed ashen. “Blindly?”

He scuttled away, his eyes darting to Raoul, then me. Even in the candlelight, I could see how he trembled, and, despite everything, I wanted to reach for him.

I could loathe the situation he’d forced me into and still long to offer him comfort. He now looked like a bewildered child, scared and in need of someone to take his hand. I remembered how Madame Giry had described him at the carnival, seeing him all alone, wretched and frightened.

Before I could move, Erik stood and straightened, his body tensing, back under his control. He smoothed his tufts of hair and adjusted the cuffs of his shirt. He was putting his façade back on, brick by brick, strengthening and hardening it like a molting invertebrate’s carapace. He drew in a deep breath, elongating his spine, and I could see the exact moment he regained his equilibrium, his transformation complete.

“You try my patience,” he said coolly, his voice flat and disaffected. “Make your choice.”

From my miserable spot on the floor, I held up my hands in penitence, even as I heard Raoul’s sharply drawn breath. “Erik…” I begged.

He only turned his head, uninterested in whatever compromise he assumed I intended to offer.

I looked past him to Raoul, who was standing on the tips of his ruined dress shoes, struggling against the Punjab Lasso with heroic effort. He’d fought for everything heroically, all his life. To be a good son, to become a good man. To rescue a beloved scarf from the sea…

He’d been a hero, always, and a hero did not belong here now, fighting for his very life all because he’d given his heart away to a girl who had already given hers to another.

I stared at him, watching his perfectly handsome face redden. Then, as it began to turn blue, I realized that this time, I could be the one to bravely fight. It was my turn to play the hero. It was my turn to save him.

Our eyes locked and his struggles increased as he guessed what I was going to do. He reached for me, choking as the movement tightened the noose round his neck.

I looked away, unable to watch, unable to bear the weight of his heartbroken eyes upon me. This was no longer about Raoul.

This was all about him.

Slowly, as if confronting a cornered animal, I pushed myself from the carpet, keeping my movements deliberate and unthreatening as I crossed to Erik. “I know about the carnival,” I confessed.

He would not meet my gaze, and so I stepped closer, feeling like a penitent approaching an angry god. “How they locked you in a cage, how you were all alone and in the dark.”

His body was rigid, waiting, but I caught the smallest flicker of movement as he swallowed, inadvertently revealing his nerves. Buoyed by this tiny triumph, I took another step toward him. “And even after you escaped, you were still on your own. I can’t imagine how frightened you must have been, how lonely.”

His eyes betrayed him, landing on mine with a worried expression. He didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t know what decision I’d made.

I took my last step, bridging the gap between us. He held out his hands, instinctively cowering, and I swiped them into mine, lacing our fingers together, joining them, palm pressed against palm with surprising intimacy.

“You’ll never be alone in that darkness again,” I promised, standing before him as a bride swearing a vow.

“I won’t?” he whispered, his expression lightening as he dared to hope.

I looked up at him, taking in all the angles of his twisted visage, knowing in my heart that this was the last face I’d ever see. I could not return to the world above. Not after this night. Not after all that had happened. We would have to flee the opera and start again somewhere new.

I would never have the stage or the spotlight.

But I would have Erik and his music.

And his love.