Several hours later, Grace was lacing her ballet slippers. There were no signs of the hours worth of tears she'd shed that day. She had gotten over her grief, she bottled it up and sent it to the back of her heart, where the rest of her pain was. She did not feel the scorching dark eyes burning into her back.

   Rodger had done wonders with her face, she could do wonders with her feelings. She could blur the outside world and direct everything towards her dancing.

    Which she did that night.

   She poured all of her raw feelings into her dancing. She danced and shoved her sadness, her despair, and her fury into her movements. The audience was quite taken by the Prima Ballerina, as much as with they were with the famous Prima Donna. Christina Nilsson and Grace were the talk of the night. Except the programs listed Grace's name in a very strange manner. There was a mistake printed into one of the letters. The audience refered to her by her first name.

   Christina kindly complimented Grace backstage, and introduced herself to Nora and George, who were awed. Rodger didn't care either way. He found Guy more interesting. Christina could not stay very long; she had people to meet, the patrons and Erik were waiting for her, according to Monsieur Lefay, who Erik sent to retrieve her. Grace sadly found that she liked Christina. After all, not many people tolerated Nora's admirations and rambling as genuinely.

    Grace was swarmed with people and drowning with flowers. She recieved a proposal and a gift of ten francs from two different men who asked her to balls and gatherings. Paris was fascinated with the new ballerina, who danced as gracefully as the word grace itself was defined.

    Nora, George, and Rodger went out to dinner with her, and a few people on the street suspected her of being the dancer, as many of their friends had come calling or met with them earlier to tell them of the opera and its stars. Opera fanatics, theatre fanatics... they oriented themselves around the players playing on the stage.

     When it was all over, Grace was glad. She loved the attention. But she'd rather have the attention of a few people who were important to her than the attention of an entire city.

      That evening, she retired late in the night, flustered, content, but longing for the friend she had lost.

   She should have expected it. Catherine was old thirteen years ago. She must have been in her eighties when she died.

   Grace slid under the covers of her bed and closed her eyes. Catherine had saved her in many ways. She had taught her so much. Grace would alway love her, and that had to be enough.

             She was sixteen. She was trapped under the cab of a carriage. Blood dribbled down her face from a gash above her hairline. She heard Leopold sniffing, whining, and digging his way to her. The seat was on her back, her hip felt funny, and there was something wrong with her shoulder. Warm, sticky liquid flowed on her chest. She had not yet realized a scar from years past had been cut open again, along the same line. She wouldn't care though. She had many scars.

   She knew Leo would take her free arm as gently as he could in his mouth and start trying to drag her out. She knew the wooden post holding the harness, now empty of horse, would fall onto his leg and crush it. She screamed at him to stay, even though she also knew it was useless. When the thing actually happened he had refused to stay. The only thing different, really, about this dream, from the real event, was the laughing she heard in the distance. It was softer than Nora's crying. It was gentler than the distant music she once heard Erin teach her on the piano. This laugh was the Monsieur's laugh. It became louder and louder, and this time, the carriage moved too. It didn't stay put, crushing her where it was. It jolted and cane crashing down on her. She heard Leo give a whine. Then silence. She heard Nora and George scream. Then she screamed.

          Erik was almost happy, which was as close to being happy as his grumpy, dark demeanor would ever allow. Christina had said she'd had so much fun tonight, she'd stay on for the rest of the season, and part of the next. She had forgotten how much she liked working with him, and the kind of people he employed - those who truly respected the arts and accomplished the duties their positions required of them with perfection.

     If only she hadn't leapt into Pierre's arms the moment she spotted him in the crowd. Erik almost could have deluded himself into thinking she cared for him, for a short while that is. Pierre would have cropped up at some point that night.

    He was taking the back tunnel that ran down the side of his theatre. It was no surprise he could hear the things going on in the rooms on the other side. He had designed them like that.

   Lefay was snoring. Guy was with Véronique. Grace screamed.

       Erik quickened his pace, still a long way from her room. He did not hear another sound though.

    Half expecting to find her dead, he slid a brick from the stone wall and found her shaking, obviously having a nightmare of some sort. She was curled up in a ball... just like Celine had been that one night when she'd fallen asleep on his lap. He'd been such a stupid teenager. He might still be enjoying her company if he hadn't let his temper get the best of him. He should have taken into account her past when he yelled at her. In her eyes, from the moment he threatened her and raised his voice to her, she had probably viewed him as one of those men who had been so ready to do vile things to her. He could still have her next to him instead of having a wall separating them.

    You don't know if it's her. He reminded himself of this every so often. Besides, if it was, he couldn't stalk or obsess over anyone again to begin with.

   Her sleep grew more violent.

    He blew out the candles of a nearby candlelabra and smashed the thing into the wall, after replacing the brick.

   He heard her getting up and opened her door to find her inspecting the wall against which he threw the thing with a puzzled frown on her face.

   She stared when she saw him. Her expression grew faintly worried as he locked the door.

     Wordlessly, he took hold of her wrist, triggered another door to open in the wall, and led her down a passage. She noticed it was the same passage from the time he choked her.

    She remained silent since he did the same.

   Erik had no idea what came over him. Did he just want company? Unlikely, he thought. Did he feel bad for her? Ha, he was a man without pity. He never felt compassion. But he brought her to his home nevertheless.

    Grace was barefoot and interested in where they were, her usual childlike inquisitiveness coming back to her from the minute she recognized the corridor. She wrapped an arm around herself, as she soon became cold in the drafty passageway. Erik noticed and reflexively handed her his coat.

   The issue was not her modesty - she was one of the few girls who bothered to keep their undergarments on under their nightgowns - but of her temperature.

   They came out from the tunnel, and walked through another door, to his home under the theatre. Stone walls made his roof and rooms - there were many of them, Grace saw from all of the doors all over. And a little body of water ran along the side of the main room, turning outwards, out of her view.

    Clearly a man had collaborated with the earth to build this. But this certainly was not her Erin then. He lived in the woods. In a house. Though... Erik did have identical taste in decorations.

    And she could have sworn she'd seen some of the carpets on the floor before.

   Grace turned to Erik. They stared at each other for a moment.

   "May I speak yet?" She asked.

   "I never said you couldn't," he replied.

   "Hmm. But it was implied."

   "By silence?"

   "Silence," she said, "speaks louder and communicates more things than any noise ever could."

  Erik laughed. "Don't ever say that to a musician. They'll want to kill you for insulting them."

   "Doesn't everybody?" She muttered, trailing her fingers down the spine of a black velvet sofa. She stopped in front of a large picture of a young girl hanging above the fireplace.

   "How long exactly have you known Christina?"

    "Fifteen years. But that's not her."

    No. Christina was blonde. This girl had brown hair. Mousy brown hair.

   "Oh? Who is it?" Dread fell through her stomach.

        "A friend."

         "Do you have some kind of obsession with young girls?"

   "Given the fact you are in my home, I would appreciate it if you would play the part of proper guest and not be rude, curious, or offensive. Do not pry into my business." He scoldedher harshly.

   She turned a bright smile on him. "I think you protest too much and denying only leads me to believe the affirmative."

   He stared at her, incredulous.

    "If I may pry further, why am I here?"

    "I wanted company, and to apologize," he said, only partially lying.

    "What do you need to apologize to me for? I'll probably forgive you anything. Even murder - depending on who it is of course. You are aware that if you ever fly into a rage at Guy that if you call for me first, I'll happily assist?"

   "Do you always ramble?" He asked.

      "Yes, it is my specialty."

    "Why are you so proud when you say that? Or better yet, why am I surprised?" He groaned out.

    She laughed. "Now who's rambling, Mr. Five Syllables Then Goodbye?"

   "You are contagious. I should stay away. And that didn't even make sense!" He realized she was teasing him and promptly changed the topic.

    "I'm sorry for deserting you with your family... I became a bit... nervous, you see. I'm not comfortable around groups of people I can't yell at, order around, or make fear me."

    She just looked at him.

    "And why were you having such a violent night terror? Did you want to talk about it?"

    "Do you want to talk about why you are uncomfortable around people?"

   "No."

   "Then no for me a well. Besides, you know part of it. I was in an accident," she shrugged her thin shoulders. "But the matter at hand is much more important." Her hazel eyes narrowed. "I'll only forgive on one condition."

   "Do you want money?"

   "I'm going to pretend you did not say that. I would like to visit you."

         Let's just say I hate Guy, and in the next chapter, we are all going to hate The Monsieur even more. Thank you to my lovely readers, especially to Aubrey and Lady Erika Destler.