We sat there, he and I, by the flickering light of the fire in the hearth. I could feel his eyes on me. Always, always his eyes were fixed on me these days, every time I drew a single breath in his home, it seemed; and yet, his demeanor had been so utterly, uncharacteristically aloof of late that I hardly knew what to make of it.

It was silent in the little drawing-room, a strange quiet having fallen after our latest lesson. I was pretending to be heavily engaged in a weighty leather tome I had found on one of his end-tables; in truth I could hardly concentrate on the words, which I had belatedly realized were written in his own scrawled hand and seemed to swim before my eyes. But I could not bear to look up from the book; I could feel him looking at me, and I had no wish at present to meet the frightening intensity of his eyes.

"Christine," he said at last – and while the soft, low smoothness of his voice sent a familiar sensuous ripple down my spine, I also thought I detected a trace of amusement in his tone – "I had no idea you had such a keen interest in the art of stonemasonry."

I snapped the book shut, my cheeks burning. I heard his chuckle from across the room. "You needn't laugh," I said hotly, still not looking at him. "I should think you'd be pleased that I'm attempting to expand my mind a little."

"Is that so?" he asked lightly. "Then I don't suppose you'd mind if I asked you a few questions to ascertain just how much of my notes you retained in half an hour."

My stomach dropped. I quickly placed the book aside. "Truth be told, it was a bit difficult to read your writing," I said, trying not to betray the fact that he had caught me so off guard. "Had it not been for the frontispiece, I might have been worried that it was a private journal of some kind…although I don't suppose you would have left something of that nature out on your end-table."

He laughed heartily at that. "No, indeed," he said genially, and then silence fell over the two of us again for a few moments. The sudden, strange awkwardness became palpable enough to cut with a knife; the heat came into my face again, up the back of my neck to the roots of my hair. We had, at one point, fallen into a kind of easy, highly predictable rhythm during my visits, a near-ritualistic set of routines. But lately Erik had largely begun to deviate from the strict structure of my previous visits, at times unaccountably distant and aloof and at other times strangely intense to the point of practically being invasive, and I had grown increasingly unsure as to what I was meant to do next when I was in his company.

"You did well to-day," he said at length, and I managed a small smile, though I avoided looking at him still. "I daresay your voice is going to rival the best singers in Europe before long – I'm sorry, my dear, does it bother you when I praise you so?" he asked quickly as I ducked my head in a mixture of pleasure and embarrassment.

"A little," I admitted, but hastily added, "It isn't that I don't want praise, Erik—"

"No, of course, my dear, I understand," he said kindly. "Upon my word, you are quite possibly the shyest songbird I have ever seen – do not mistake me, Christine, I mean you no insult; this is only a curious observation. Most of your peers appear content to preen and bask in the spotlight of praise, reveling in the flowers thrown at their feet and the stares of young, dashing would-be suitors. You are the only one I have known to shrink from such attentions – mostly," he added not quite under his breath, and it was as though all the air had been taken out of my lungs for a moment…he knew about Raoul, I knew that he knew, and yet this was the closest thing to an admission that I had heard from him on the subject. Our conversations had never yet steered this dangerously close to such uncharted waters, and I wondered that it had never been brought up before.

What puzzled and infuriated me the most about Erik was the fact that I could never quite seem to glean the exact nature of his regard for me. At times, it seemed more fatherly than anything, sometimes domineering, and altogether businesslike during our lessons – and yet, at other times, it seemed a bit more…unnameable.

No, I could not – would not – give that strange look in his eyes a name, for I feared what would happen if I did. If I admitted it, admitted the truth of what I wondered, things might start to happen more quickly than I could fathom them, and I knew that I was not in the least bit prepared for such frightening territory.

It was why I was not comfortable looking at him now, why I avoided his eyes whenever I could. The thought of his face, especially whilst hidden behind a mask, did not frighten me half so much as what I could plainly see in his eyes.

Was he miffed about Raoul merely out of fatherly protectiveness, or was it because of…

No. The word jealousy, while it seemed strangely to fit Erik like a glove, was not a word I felt comfortable using. It suggested…feelings on his part that made me more than a little discomfited to contemplate.

I had been staring at my shoes for far too long, and I realized I could not avoid his gaze forever. With an iron will I finally brought my eyes up to meet him, suppressing a shiver as he glanced at me for a long moment, and then – to my surprise – turned his head to look at the fire.

I regarded him for a moment – the long, lean lines of his body, the relaxed and easy manner in which he stretched out his legs from where he sat in his high-backed chair. And yet there was a latent tension in him, too, as though the strange, uncomfortable energy crackling in the air between us had descended upon his very shoulders.

A very queer thought indeed took hold of me then – the strangest thought I'd had yet that evening, or any evening for that matter.

The garden of my imagination conjured up a mental picture – disturbing and yet strangely, unexpectedly pleasurable, this image – of Erik and myself sitting in his drawing-room, not as teacher and student, but as something entirely else. Close together, my smaller hand clasped gently in his long fingers, as he read to me some passage from the adventure stories of which I was fond.

The image shook me to my core; it was impossible, unthinkable, utterly preposterous. To think that my clearly over-active imagination had conjured up Erik in the role of my husband or lover! It was not to be thought of – I could not possibly suffer myself to entertain such a strange notion. For that matter, why on earth should I want to entertain it? He had lied to me, flagrantly deceived me almost beyond forgiveness at the beginning of our acquaintance; he was all too often prone to volatile, unpredictable black moods, and he had verbally lashed and prodded at me more times than I could count, certainly far more than Raoul or any gentleman would have ever dared, and –

And he is not at all handsome, my treacherous, hateful mind whispered in a paroxysm of self-doubt. You think that too, don't you? For all his myriad faults, might you not be able to overlook or at least tolerate them were it not for the horror of his face?

I could not help my sudden flush, but I was forced to lodge an ardent mental protest. No, indeed, I thought primly. If Raoul had ever lied to me, if he had ever betrayed my trust so completely, I supposed with not a small amount of certainty that I should scorn him. I supposed that if such a thing ever were to happen, and if he were to apologize profusely and genuinely enough and I considered his remorse to be utterly sincere, I would be able to forgive such a trespass and continue on as his friend. But friendship was one thing; romance was quite another. It has nothing to do with the way he looks, I thought. With the way either of them look.

And there lay the genuine problem at the heart of my consternation - Erik had never once outright apologized for his deceit, had never once promised to never deceive me again. I had, it was true, forgiven Erik in my heart enough to continue on as his student, one might even say his friend, but anything more than this was sheer folly. Despite my earlier flight of fancy, I could not conceive of it. Even the handsomest man could not possibly have won my affections with such an apparent lack of remorse, and Erik was anything but handsome.

Ah, but here lay yet another problem – yes, his face was terrible, and many times he had all the personality to match it, but for all of his faults, Erik really could be strangely kind. His strict stridence during lessons was ever tempered by equal amounts of praise, and many was the time I had found an encouraging note tucked away somewhere only I would find it – in the drawer of the vanity table in my dressing-room immediately after a performance, or mysteriously appearing in the pocket of my coat on a chilly day or evening (I preferred not to imagine how or when he managed this, although it never happened when I was at my own flat or outside of the Opera at all, so there was that comfort, at least). My room in his underground house always had a fresh bouquet of flowers sitting in the vase upon my night-stand when I arrived; he knew my favorite was peonies, and somehow he had insofar managed to get them even when the weather had turned cold. I never asked how he obtained them at such times; after all, it was not as though one could or would illegally or otherwise improprietously obtain flowers of all things, was it? I simply told myself that it was Erik; he had his ways, and that was that.

But for all this, the fact of the matter remained, or so I told myself – ravaged face or no, moments of questionable kindness or no, exceedingly brilliant talent and intellect or no, Erik was simply unsuitable to be someone of any greater importance to me than what he already was. And he was important to me in a great many respects; that could not be disputed. Romance, however, was not – could not – be one of them.

I gradually became aware that throughout my musings, Erik's eyes had once more turned toward me. His fingers drummed slowly upon the arms of his chair; my own eyes drifted cautiously in that direction, and against my far better judgment I became slightly mesmerized by the sight of his long, pale fingers curling up and down, the soft thump-thump that his fingers made when they would hit the fabric.

He shifted in his chair, moved his legs a bit, straightened. I felt warm, too warm; I wanted to be away. I wanted to be home, in my own bed. I suddenly became very interested in my shoes again, but he was having none of it this time.

"You've been very quiet this evening, Christine," he said.

"So have you," I replied, a bit brashly. I bit my lip after I said it, lacing my hands together in my lap.

"I have…a great deal on my mind," Erik said, a note of discomfort creeping into his voice. I looked at him curiously before I could help myself. His hands had begun shaking a little.

"Are you all right?" I asked, sudden concern springing up in embarrassment's wake. "You're not—"

"No, Christine," he sighed, "I'm not going to have another attack just yet. At least, I don't think as much."

"Erik—" I said with a little alarm, but he shook his head. "Listen to me," he said. "I have other things to speak of at present, other matters far more pressing, but before I do so, I will tell you simply that you need not worry about such things. If it ever comes to that, if I ever…fall ill while you're here, you go and you get the daroga. He knows what to do. I've mentioned this before, haven't I?"

"You have," I mumbled, feeling entirely useless all of a sudden. Of course he would never trust me to do whatever was needed myself. He thought me very young and stupid, didn't he? And at any rate, why on earth should I care what he thought?

Because, my mind began to murmur again, because—

But I would not give that a voice. I would not. No more unbidden images, no more strange flights of twisted fantasy. Erik was…well, he was Erik. That alone was enough.

He straightened in his chair again, a little taller this time. I didn't want to look at him, but I couldn't seem to help it.

"Christine," he said, and cleared his throat. "Christine, I…" He paused. "Devil take it," I heard him mutter, "the devil take it, I can't, I can't possibly…excuse me for a moment, Christine."

Bewildered beyond expression, I sat helplessly in my chair as he rose and went to the kitchen without looking at me. I heard the clink of a glass, the clatter of a bottle, the sound of a drink being poured. And I heard him muttering to himself in that strange, mad way of his, though from the next room I couldn't make out exactly what he was saying.

At length he returned, having apparently consumed his drink while out of my view. "Will you have a cognac?" he asked me, standing a bit awkwardly beside his chair. "This particular year I have is excellent."

I politely declined, and he nodded, his hands suddenly seeming to come alive with a strange nervousness. He rubbed them against each other a bit, as if to ward off a chill, though the room was quite warm due to the fire.

We had altered our positions, it seemed – now he was the one looking at his shoes, and I was the one staring. A strange feeling began to quiver in my belly, unease mixed with something I didn't want to name.

"Christine," he said, as he had before, as though he were trying out my name on his tongue despite having said it a thousand times. He has the manner of a schoolboy, I thought, a schoolboy terrified of his headmaster, and that was an exceedingly disquieting thought, for up to this point, he had always been the master, and I the shrinking student. I didn't quite know what was happening, but suddenly I felt a strange feeling infusing my bones. It was heady; it was powerful. I suddenly had an inkling that for all of his uncanny physical strength, his intellect, his talents and gifts and prowess, he was frightened of me, though I could not begin to fathom why.

"Erik," I said as gently as I could manage, "please. What is the matter?"

He took a deep breath. "Christine, I…as you know, as you must know – or perhaps you don't, at that – for a very long time I've…well…that is to say, I've…" He took another breath, and one hand came up to absent-mindedly rub the back of his neck. Generally Erik had a habit of appearing either ageless or quite mature and learned in his manner and way of speaking, and despite knowing his natural age to be far more advanced than my own, I could not help but think that he had never before seemed so oddly fumbling and inexperienced as he did at this moment. It was altogether unlike him. It was highly disconcerting, and it was almost…endearing.

"I might as well tell you I have no idea how to go about these things," he said in a rush, his eyes darting about the room, landing anywhere but on me – again, a rarity considering how often he had been looking at me nearly the entire time I'd been in his house. "I am not accustomed to having friends; the daroga is one notable exception, and sometimes even he does not count; and I am especially unused to the company of –" Here he at last looked at me, and in spite of myself, I blushed. "The, ah…the gentler sex," he finished awkwardly, and I began to fidget, growing impatient with this unfamiliar and blundering speech, this strange inability to find his words.

"Erik, for God's sake," I finally blurted out, and he had the grace to flinch.

I saw him swallow, saw the hard movement in the impossibly pale length between his mask and jacket. "Christine, might I ask you a very strange question? One might even call it a highly impertinent question."

I was a bit taken aback at this, but I slowly nodded.

Erik rubbed the back of his neck again. "If…and I say if a man were to propose marriage to you…any man, say, the boy you're so fond of hanging about with…how exactly would you like him to do it? What words, what gestures? What declarations?"

I sat in stunned silence for a minute. "I don't understand what you're asking," I said, feeling a cold trickle down my spine at his offhanded yet frighteningly direct mention of Raoul. Was all of this leading up to yet another of his foul moods? Was his demeanor contingent upon my answer? "Why would you ask me such a thing?"

Erik turned his back to me for a moment, leaning his arms against the stone outcropping of the fireplace and facing the flames. After a moment, he spoke again. "I have an acquaintance who wishes to propose marriage to the gir—woman— he desires to be his wife. He does not have any other friends of the female persuasion of whom he might ask advice, and he wished to ascertain an opinion from someone of your sex on how exactly a proposal should be proffered."

"Surely he has other people of whom he could inquire?" I said in confusion, privately thinking that Erik's acquaintance sounded rather cold and altogether unpleasant. "Why should it be up to you to gather such an opinion for him?"

Erik's shoulders heaved, and then shook for a moment. I thought for a moment's alarm that he was weeping, but then I realized to my chagrin that he was silently laughing.

"My acquaintance is merely curious, Christine," he said in quite a normal voice, though perhaps a bit lower than usual. "So I ask you – if a man were to propose marriage to you, how should you like him to do it?"

"Erik, surely you don't imagine I should be at all comfortable answering such a question," I said with slight indignation. "It is, after all, a matter of some intimacy –"

"Christine," he said quietly, and something particularly somber in his tone made my fidgeting go entirely still. "Please answer the question."

All at once, my body turned to ice. He has no acquaintance, I thought with a jolt. At least not the one to which he is referring. He's talking about himself.

And then I pictured, in my head, Erik sarcastically clapping and saying in his cruelest voice, "Oh, well done, Christine!" and I flushed again, even though no such thing had occurred. I suddenly knew why he had laughed over by the fireplace, and it stung me.

I drew myself up, though he could not see me from where he stood, and I closed my eyes for a moment, feeling a slow burn of righteous indignation. Very well, then. If he wanted his question answered, he should have it answered with the most brutal honesty I could muster. "If a man proposed marriage to me," I said in a clipped tone, "presuming it was a man I wanted, I suppose I should like to have a little warning beforehand. What I mean by this is – well…that he should already have made his regard for me quite clear. Perhaps not as overtly as a declaration of love, you understand, but not in difficult ways to ascertain either – that he cares for me at least a little ought to be shiningly obvious, implicit in his manner and his interactions with me."

"Oh?" Erik asked curiously by the fireplace, and I soldiered onward before I could lose my nerve. "Never should he speak to me in anger unless it is wholly deserved," I said, trying not to let my voice shake. "Never should he threaten me with violence if I do not obey him, even if he has no intention of carrying out such threats."

Erik had become very still, almost unnaturally still in his position by the fire. I forced down my unease and tried to feel satisfaction instead. Let my words wound and shock him, then; let them take him by surprise. He had wounded me with his words before, many times. And I had remained silent about it for far too long. He would hear this. He must hear this.

I continued on as calmly as I could manage, though a curiously raw emotion began to creep into my words. "I suppose that what I'm attempting to say is that I'd care not especially how a man proposed marriage to me, if the intentions behind his suit were justly motivated and…his regard for me had already been made somewhat clear. I should want a man to woo me, Erik, not with trinkets but with words, with deep feeling. Do you want to know what I can't stand? I cannot bear feeling as though I am held in aloof disdain, or that I am thought of as an insipid child. I must be clear – I have feelings of my own, an intellect that may not be as keen as I might like, but it is mine, and I am no weakling, no pampered doll to be cossetted and cared for and yet treated as though I cannot do even the simplest of tasks. It offends me. It hurts me. I am not a child, and I will not stand for it any longer."

I took a long breath after this hurried, impulsive speech. My heart pounded; my blood was up, and I didn't know whether to feel frightened or elated. I was done with pretense, done with this silly game he and I had played for so long. We were equals now, whether he'd wanted it or not—whether I had wanted it or not.