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He followed my gaze back toward the stage, his thumb brushing slowly across the back of my hand. “I know.”

“They’re already extraordinary,” I said, unable to look away. I watched the conductor repeat the same few measures. “They’re just refusing to stop there.”

When the first act came to its close, the conductor lowered his baton and the company relaxed almost immediately. Musicians set down their instruments, performers disappeared into the wings, and stagehands emerged to begin preparing for the second act. The house lights rose. I didn’t move.

“You don’t want to leave.”

“Not even a little,” I said.

He smiled. “I was hoping you wouldn’t.”

The theatre below had changed. The illusion had given way to craftsmanship. Singers crossed the stage carrying bottles of water. Members of the orchestra leaned toward one another over passages they had just played. The stagehands continued preparing for the second act.

“I think this is my favorite part.”

“The rehearsal?” Alexander asked.

“No.” I searched for the words. “The creating. The performance is beautiful because everything already exists. This…this is where they’re still discovering together.”

“Why Phantom?”

The question surprised me. “I think most people remember it as a love story. That’s never what really stayed with me.”

“What did?”

My eyes found the actor playing Phantom, standing near the edge of the stage while someone adjusted a light above him.

“The loneliness.” The answer came more easily than I expected. “He wants to be loved, but he has spent so long believing that no one could truly know him and still love him. He hides himself away as a form of protection. The tragedy isn’t the mask itself, but the belief that he has to remain hidden to be loved.”

Alexander’s thumb brushed slowly across the back of my hand. He still didn’t speak. The silence felt like an answer. Then his hand moved to my neck, drawing me closer. He kissed me. “Emilia, you are extraordinary.”

The house lights dimmed once more and the theatre slowly gathered itself back into silence. The conductor returned to the podium, raised his baton, and somewhere beside me, Alexander’s hand found mine. I intertwined my fingers with his and kept my eyes on the stage.

The opening of The Point of No Return had always felt different from the rest of the score. There was an inevitability to it, an understanding that whatever happened next would alter every life on stage. It occurred to me that there was no thought in my head that wasn’t joy, no dream in my heart that wasn’t love.

Christine’s voice filled the theatre with effortless clarity, answered moments later by the Phantom’s. The two melodies circled one another before gradually becoming something inseparable, each drawing strength from the other until the music was too large to belong to a single room.

Beside me, Alexander was perfectly still, his hand wrapped around mine. Without taking his eyes from the stage, he slowly turned my hand over and brought the back of my hand to his lips before kissing it.

The duet carried us gently toward its conclusion. The orchestra reached its final cadence and held it there for one suspended, breathless moment before allowing the sound to dissolve naturally into silence. The conductor lowered his baton. No one moved.

I became aware that Alexander had turned toward me. He was looking at me with the expression I had come to know best. Quiet. Certain. Entirely Alexander. He took one of my hands, held it against his cheek. He closed his eyes as he took a deep breath. Then he turned my wrist and kissed it. He reached into the pocket of his jacket. I felt my heart begin to race before I understood why.

Then he knelt.

When he opened the small velvet box, the sapphire caught the stage lights, answering them with a deep blue that seemed strangely familiar before memory found it. The masquerade.

“Emilia. I love you. You’ve made every part of my life more beautiful simply by being in it, and I cannot imagine a future that doesn’t begin and end with you. It would be the greatest honor of my life if you would let me spend mine beside yours.”

He held my gaze. “Will you marry me?”

Six weeks. I had known him for six weeks. By any reasonable measure, it was too soon.

But I had no doubts about my answer. In six weeks, I had come to know him more completely than I had known people in years. I loved him. I wanted the mornings and the late dinners, Winston waiting by the door, his hand finding mine without thought. I wanted the ordinary days as much as I wanted this one.

I wanted a life with him.

I laughed. “Unequivocally yes.”