The naked side of his face changes, softening to an expression so open and ethereal he looks almost angelic. “What are we, you mean to say.” His response reverberates around the chapel, deep and gruff—English words framed within a French accent. He winces at the rumbling echo, like it hurts to hear the hoarseness of his own voice.
To see him vulnerable, even for an instant, awakens that morbid hunger in me—a lust I don’t understand and can’t control. With my free hand, I touch his chest to reabsorb the glow he stole, not even hesitating. His gaze shifts down at our point of contact. The air seems to close in around us, pushing us closer together, although neither of us moves. The light behind his sternum deepens to green and seeps into my fingertips, then sluices through my veins, hot and intoxicating. My body wakes up, energized.
His jaw clenches and with a charged buzz, a green light ignites in my own chest. It snaps through my veins to my fingertips, then into him. The loss leaves me famished. Frowning, I concentrate, coaxing the glow toward me again, but it slips into the darkness between us. The light bounces back and forth as we wrestle for dominance.
Unable to choose, it stalls in midair—a sizzling, green ball—then bursts into a thousand pieces and floats upward, like luminous dandelion seeds, carrying away my insatiable appetite. All I feel beneath my fingertips now is his heartbeat, steady and strong. It matches my own, satisfied and controlled. It’s like coming back to a place I’ve been before, a place I’ve been trying to find again for years—maybe for my whole life.
Home.
That sense of peace and comfort swells to a rush of adrenaline, as hand in hand, I mentally climb with my partner onto some ancient, omniscient plateau, view our likenesses from the summit, and tread to the edge, prepared to swan dive with him into the cosmos.
Wait . . . what am I doing? I waver, afraid of the dizzying heights, anchored only by my palm, so small, wrapped within his.
Baring the straight, white teeth not covered by his half-mask, he bites the glove on his free hand, peeling the leather away. With his thumb, he touches my temple and silences the doubts within.
A throb ignites where he presses. A current, musical and pure, passes from my skull to my spine to my feet. I’m a quivering thing—the plucked string of a neglected violin, shaking off the dust of disuse until harmony resonates between me and my maestro, pure, sad, and sweet.
“Yes, we’ll conquer them, Rune.” I feel his grinding voice through my palm at his chest. The tenderness he attributes to my name, delivered on such a pained rasp, swipes through the chalky residue coating my brain. “The arias that haunt you.” His thumb caresses the hairline above my ear, and he leans so close I feel his warm whisper only inches from my lips. “I’m here. In your mind. Listen for my violin’s voice from your dreams. Shut out everything but me. Together, we already own the notes . . . every last one.”
Watching me intently, he drops his hands and steps back. My palm falls to my side and the musical current tethering us breaks. With a swish of fabric, he flourishes the cape to hide himself. A puff of glittery smoke, pungent with sulfur and ash, forms a wall. Once it clears, he’s gone, as if he vanished into the floor.
Without his eyes or touch to hold me, I rouse from my dazed state, rattled and raw, but at the same time, enlightened.
All that’s left of the Phantom are puddles shaped like his shoeprints and a discarded black glove. Diable saunters over, plops his haunches down, and scowls at me while licking his wooly, wet fur. He yawns, as if bored . . . as if the monumental encounter never took place.
My body knows better, my tongue still savoring the flavor of the Phantom’s heartbeat—a delectable, caustic burn like an electrical charge.
Frowning, I grab the glove and inch toward the door—my focus never straying from the spot where he stood. I slip twice before I gather the tub and plunge back into the cemetery, no longer running from bloody roses, operatic arias, or a guilt-ridden past.
For the first time in years, I’m running toward something . . . toward the girl in my dreams who has taken her place among the planets and stars, beside a pair of glimmering, coppery eyes.
11
THE TEMPORARY NATURE OF PRECIOUS THINGS
“Of all possessions a friend is the most precious.”
Herodotus
I stumble into the grand foyer, my body cold and wet, but my mind set aflame. The door thuds behind me, echoing through the spacious, white marble hollows. In the poststorm light, I glance around. My clothes drip, forming puddles—a rhythmic pitter-pat to accompany the images clicking through my mind: glimpses of a masked man with a shattered voice and strong hand.
Every bronze statue stares back—all-knowing and familial, as if they’re linked to the Phantom, too—welcoming me into their secret brotherhood with carved gazes and immortal expressions.