Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Have you heard?” The whisper cuts through the ballet group, Hermann looks up from rolling his ankle, working out the stiffness.

“They sold box five!” Hermann rolls his eyes as excited murmurs break out and carries on with his stretches.

“Don’t they know about the ghost?”

Hermann would have been surprised if there were a rat in the city that hadn’t heard of the ghost, let alone the opera’s new owners. Mind you, the rats might have more sense.

“Do you remember the last time?"

"The prima donna almost lost her voice!"

"And the time before, when the trombonist's chair broke?"

Hermann eases himself off the chair to sit, legs spread on the floor, reaching down to touch one foot, then the other.

"And then I knew- I just knew it couldn't have been the eggs. It was poison!"

“We’ll be cursed! On opening night!” The speaker sounds delighted at the idea.

Yes. Hermann thinks, exasperated. They will be cursed. They will be cursed by singers who forget their lines, distracted by the expected calamity. The audience will be too busy wondering what is about to happen to pay any attention to the production, and Hermann is fairly sure one of his fellow dancers will misstep, thinking they saw some danger, and pull the line down- probably including him.

He wonders if their new owners have ever heard the term ‘a self-fulfilling prophecy’. Most of the previous owners had thought the same way- why bother keeping a box empty that could fetch a few hundred coins per night?

After a disastrous night or two with the entire cast convinced they were cursed, and bringing that true with every performance, the owners usually decided it was worth the loss to keep the damned box empty.

The only time Hermann can remember that the ghost actually provably did anything was when one of the set movers saw a dark figure beside the rope holding up the chandelier a few minutes before the whole thing came down and destroyed the stage. And none of the dancers had shed a tear over that worm eaten horror. The managers were continuously putting off getting the stage replaced and it was generally agreed that someone would have broken their neck had the ghost not destroyed the cursed thing.

And then there were the operas. They didn't appear often, maybe one every two years or so. A complete opera, brand new and never heard before, would appear in someone's desk, in a dressing room or, on one memorable occasion, in a manager's pocket. Everything was there; parts, songs, music, everything. The opera was packed out every time one was put on, and the royalties alone were worth thousands.

And on top of that, it wasn’t as though the ghost didn’t bring them good publicity. To watch a performance in a famously haunted Opera House? Apparently the nobility had nothing better to waste their time on, and it was considered great amusement. They even deigned to turn up to the performances on time.

Hermann finished his stretches and rose, limbering up into the first few steps of today’s rehearsal- a ballet interpretation of Othello to start the evening’s performance. It will be a short piece, but it is the first major role Hermann has had. Iago might not be the part he wanted, but it is a leading role, and challenging.

Sasha Kaidonovsky is a brilliant dancer from the Russian ballet, but she is growing older, and after her marriage she has been talking about returning to Moscow to teach. The opera will need a premier dancer and Hermann is good enough. He knows he is good enough. He might not have Sasha’s beauty, but he has the skill for it.

Sasha plays Desdemona beautifully; she flits like a wraith, her hair a shock of white, her pale skin glowing as she brushes in and out of Othella’s arms, a perfect contrast of cream dress against her black uniform.

Hermann would have liked the part of Desdemon for himself, but apparently his face makes for a better backstabbing monster than a beautiful lover. Othella is a little slow and clumsy, she looks the part, but she lands too heavily and steps too short. Hermann straightens as he steps on stage, lifts himself up from the tips of his toes to the upraised arch of his arms, and dances.

The rehearsal goes as well as tonight's performance is likely to go badly. Let them all behave like idiots. Hermann will shine all the better for actually playing his part well.

He catches his breath and washes his face and the back of his neck. He is warm, but not tired, skin thrumming pleasantly from the heat of action. To dance. Always to dance. He has danced since he was a boy, in the Schwartzwald, until he managed to scratch up enough money to travel to Paris and train his body and voice at the great Opera House.

If only his father could see him now. Hermann’s lip curls. In a few weeks, he will be training to become the premier dancer of the Paris Opera House. His name will headline the performance announcements, and will be recorded forever in the Opera House books. And his father had sneered that he would end up on the streets.

They have several hours before the evening’s performance and his stomach is stiff from exertion and hunger. Time to eat and regain strength for tonight, he thinks as he leaves his dressing room.

Something flickers in the corner of his eye; Hermann turns and looks down the corridor- dark from the lack of windows and the new owners’ cuts in the candle fund. The silence is unbroken.

It might have been nothing. It might not. No one who has lived in the Black Forest could doubt the existence of ghosts. Hermann had seen enough dark nights with the wolves howling at the door, enough abandoned houses sighing with the memories of the long-dead, to suppose the stories of the opera ghost to be false.

But in all the stories he had heard, the ghosts never did anything bad. They were just spirits held on earth by some unfinished business, rather sad and sorrowful. There was a woman in the village where Hermann had grown up who claimed to have several in her house, and she seemed to get on fairly well with them. They were company, she said.

If he thinks about it, it’s rather more surprising that the Opera House doesn’t have more ghosts. Several people died while the building was under construction and Hermann wonders if one of them has remained to enjoy the fruits of their labours. Or if the ghost is older, someone who had haunted one of the ancient houses which had been destroyed to make way for the Opera House and is now wandering, lost and bewildered, through this strange new home.

He leaves the Opera House, picking his way through the muddy streets towards a food stall he likes. His pay is not high, but tonight’s performance will net him enough to warrant this treat.

A shout from behind him makes him turn. A two horse carriage hurtles down the road towards him. The wheels crash and clatter, and the horses are blind and frothing at the mouth, flanks bloody from the whip.

The stallkeeper throws himself out of the way, toppling the stall and knocking Hermann off balance. He tries to run and stumbles. The carriage horses scream, plunging in the harness as the driver lashes them, roaring drunkenly at the beasts. They rear and kick, and Hermann tries to scramble out from under them.

A horse turns and lashes, hooves kicking above his head before coming down hard on top of him. The hoof catches him in the thigh. He feels the impact without the pain at first, a thick and horrible snap as his leg goes limp under him. The pain hits just as he falls to the ground, a slow blooming burst of agony so intense and unbearable that the scream freezes in his throat. He hits the cobbles and tries to roll from under the maddened horses.

The carriage shaft cracks and falls, hitting Hermann hard on the back of the head. The world swims, and the pain mercifully, blessedly whites out a second before darkness falls, and there is nothing more.

The pain drags him back to waking. He cries out, his throat raw as though he’d been screaming for hours already. It rises and crests until Herman’s stomach lurches and he retches. Someone holds a bowl under his chin as he dry-heaves helplessly. They remove the bowl after it is clear nothing more will come up, and push him back to lie on the bed.

Someone else holds a glass to his lips and Hermann feels his stomach kick again at the stink of laudanum. “No-“ His voice cracks and he turns his head away.

“You have to drink.” The voice seems to come from a long way. He blinks and recognises the face of one of the opera owners. “You’ll be sorry if you don’t.”

His left leg is bare to the waist, and the pain is dulled to a deep throbbing ache from the ligature around his upper thigh. One of the opera aids is sharpening a saw.

Hermann screams, tries to back away and only manages to jar his leg. The bone is broken and out of joint and Hermann can see the edge of it pressing tight against the skin of his thigh. The pain is blinding and he claws at the leather tie cutting the blood from his leg.

“Stay still!” The man tries to pin him down.

“No!” He tries to throw him off. “You can’t!”

“You’ll never walk again anyway! Drink and it’ll be over before you know it.”

“I want a doctor!”

The manager goes red. “He’s a good man; he knows what he’s doing.”

“From L'hopital,” Hermann snarls, “Not a half-trained sawbones!”

The opera aid gives him a black look, and the owner bristles. “And who is going to pay for that? I don’t have the money to throw away on-“

On someone who will never dance again

Hermann grits his teeth against the despair. He will not lose his leg. He will not let all his work be for nothing. He will not limp back to Germany a cripple. “I will pay. I have enough.”

“Fine!” The owner throws up his hands and shoos the aid out of the room. He stops only long enough to pull the tourniquet from Hermann’s leg with more force than necessary. He cries out again, and the owner shoves the glass of laudanum in his hands. “Drink. I won’t have you keeping everyone awake all night. The doctor won’t come before tomorrow.”

Hermann doesn’t drink, watches until they are all out of his room. He’d bar the door if he could get up, just to make sure they weren’t waiting for him to sleep to cut his leg off.

“Sasha!” He shouts; his voice raw and hoarse. “Sasha, are you there?”

There’s a scuffling at the door, and the premier dancer pushes her head in.

“Please, don’t let them come in.” He begs. “Don’t let them take my leg, please.” He’s babbling, lightheaded with pain and terror. “Please.”

She doesn’t leave. Instead, she comes in and sits at his side and holds his hand. “I will not let them hurt you.”

“Danke Gott. Thank you.” He puts the glass down on the table and clenches hard on Sasha’s hand. She squeezes back, so hard Hermann gasps, the pain in his leg momentarily blotted out.

“I will bring Alexis in, we will throw them out of the window, da?”

Sweat breaks out across Hermann’s back as the pain returns in great, all-consuming waves, spiking intolerably when he is foolish enough to move. Hermann growls and hisses and grits his teeth so as not to scream. He will not. He will not.

"The driver is worse than you." Sasha says conversationally. She sees Hermann's expression and laughs shortly. "No, not in the accident. But he came to the Opera House and demanded repayment for his carriage. He blamed you."

Hermann's stomach knots itself further. Sasha squeezes his hand. "He was drunk. He saw me and starting shouting. Alexis was with me." Hermann laughs raggedly. "He could barely stand, no surprise he crashed his carriage. Then he tried to hit Alexis."

"Is he still alive?" Hermann manages.

"You will walk again before he does." She says, smiling like a knife. "The managers are sure it was the Ghost. They had to pay a thousand sous to a Marquis to make sure box five remains empty."

Hermann laughs again; it jars his leg and the pain is blinding. "Gott." He coughs. "Gott, are we the only sane people in this place?"

He will never dance again.

The doctor comes with an orderly and sets his leg. Hermann sleeps through it under chloroform, and could cry for joy when he wakes and his leg is still there, bound under layers of cloth and splints. The doctor nods with little sympathy, and breaks the news with no fanfare.

He will never dance again.

The man says it as though discussing the weather. He may not even walk, and if he does he will do so with a cane. The break is severe enough that the strain of dancing will most likely rupture it again, and this time there would be no saving it.

He will never dance again.

Then he leaves. Taking most of Hermann’s hard-earned savings with him.

Sasha stays. She is pale, having helped the orderly with his leg, and sits beside him again. Hermann’s head is pounding from the drug, and his entire body is sickeningly numb.

“You can come with us until you are better.” She offers, patting his hand. “Until you are better. We can stay in Paris a while.”

Hermann shakes his head and regrets it; his stomach revolves and the world spins. “You barely have the space for yourselves, and you can hardly take me along to Russia.”

She squeezes his hand. “We can help.”

The thought of that charity- from someone who doesn’t have much more than he does and needs the money to start her own life- is reprehensible. “I am fine.” He assures her. “I still have money, and I can rest here until I am better.”

She looks at him doubtingly, and Hermann forces himself to smile. “It will be fine. You look after yourselves.”

Sasha smiles. “I am sorry; I was looking forward to seeing you take my place.”

The sob catches in his throat, and Hermann manages to turn it into a laugh. “Me too.”

“Rest, we will see you soon.”

He waits until she is gone, and her footsteps have faded, before Hermann lets himself fall back on the bed and screw his eyes closed to keep the tears back.

He will never dance again.

He has almost no money now- certainly nothing that could get him back to Germany. The owners will let him rest here until he is recovered, but they will not let him stay beyond that. He will find no shelter in the Catholic churches, and after that there is nothing but the streets; and the miserable, short choices therein.

Could he stay? He will never dance again, but he has been trained for music as well. He had been reckoned to have a reasonable voice, before he chose to specialise in dance. If he could train well enough to be taken into the chorus, he could at least stay here until he had enough money saved to-

-To what? To go back to Germany? To his sister’s poor forge or his father’s cruel house? Better the streets.

Hermann drags himself up on his pillows. It’s late, after everyone has gone to bed. The books Sasha has brought him are stacked on the floor. It’s the first night he can sit up without the pain blinding him.

He closes his eyes, plays the note in his head. Then opens them and tries to match it humming. His voice wavers, cracks and hits every note but the right one. He stops; swallows. Tries again, starting low and slowly building. He’s not sure if he gets it right, or even if he sounds as he thinks he sound.

His posture is all wrong, hunched as he is in bed, but he can hardly stand- and anyway, the moment that he can, the management will have him out.

He takes a deep breath. Plays the note in his head, and slowly climbs to it again. This time, he does not lose the note in his voice. It stays, ringing so clearly that for a moment Hermann is sure he hears it until his own attempts to match it down it out.

He stops, and maybe he is still too light-headed from the pain in his leg, but he would swear the note had hung in the air just a second too long. He sips from the glass beside his bed, then tries again, this time trying to build a little higher. It's about the limit of his range and his voice cracks suddenly, starting a painful coughing fit. He is terrifyingly out of shape.

The spasms shake his leg, and pain flashes up his entire left side, and the world threatens to subside completely in flashes of white. He bites the inside of his cheek so as not to cry out, and when the pain fades he sips a little more water to quiet the sore rasp in his chest.

His second attempt is borderline painful, even the reverberations in his chest are enough to make his leg twinge warningly. He rubs his throat and scales higher, catching the note and holding it.

And - another voice. It is another voice. Just a fraction of a note higher than his, perfectly on key where - he suddenly realises - he had been very slightly off. He lifts his voice to match it, and the other responds by raising itself a little higher- well above his range. Hermann stops.

"I'm no Countertenor." He points out.

"You are." The voice is very soft, and seems to come from right next to him. It's a little disconcerting.

"The voice teacher would disagree with you." Because if he is having a conversation with thin air, he would like to be having an accurate one. He wonders if Sasha slipped something into the water. If she had, it’s done nothing for the pain.

"Which is why you have been an unremarkable Alto. Your natural range is higher."

"And how do you claim to know that?" Hermann rubs the bandages around his leg and only succeeds in replacing the dull throb with a sharp spike.

"Anyone with ears should be able to hear that." It sounds a little disgruntled, as though Hermann is being purposefully stupid.

"Excuse me if I don't take your word for it." It's sharper than he really meant it to be, but his leg is agony and he's being insulted by thin air.

"Why don't you try?" The voice hits that note again, with an effortless grace that sends a bright jolt through Hermann that has nothing to do with the pain. It's taunting, and how someone managed to infuse that into a musical note is beyond him.

He takes the bait. He has to make two attempts, but he manages to hit the note. It sounds shrill, nasal and absurd.

"I told you, it's outside my range." And now his throat is sore.

"Sit up straighter, tilt your head back- further- fill your chest. Now try."

To Hermann's shock, he hits the note perfectly. It's still a little harsh, a bit raw, but clear and steady.

"You see?" The voice sounds smug.

Hermann doesn't dignify that with a reply. He closes his eyes and tries to remember what the books had said about chest voice, trying to maintain and note and memorise how it feels in his chest. He touches his throat and feels it reverberate there.

The voice slowly starts scaling down again, holding each note for a long moment so Hermann can get used to it. It's a higher range of scale than he's used to, although he admits to himself he's glad to no longer have to reach for D flat.

They practise until his throat starts to ache and the air catches in his throat. Hermann stops and drinks a little more. The voice is silent.

"Are you still here?" He looks up from the glass, trying to catch- he doesn't know. Something. The room is empty.

Nothing answers him.

He must have slept, because when he wakes his room is warm with light, and when he calls, the voice is gone.

He reads. Sleeps. Eats the miserable meals the managers are willing to provide for him, and the extra portions Sasha steals for him and which he is no longer too proud to accept. He does his stretches in a hot haze of pain, the world blurring around the edges because he will not let his body seize up and grow useless- even more useless.

Hermann doesn't tell anyone about last night. Even Sasha. Bad enough to be crippled in the body without everyone believing his mind has gone as well.

He tries scales though, now and again, just to check if anyone joins in.

By evening, he is almost convinced he imagined last night entirely. Something Sasha left him in the water to help him sleep.

Then- he would say he was asleep, but his eyes have been open for hours, waiting despite himself- there's a sound. Something waiting.

There is no introduction; the voice just begins, singing a perfect middle-C. Hermann draws in his breath a few times to warm up, and begins.

This time, they scale down slowly, paying attention to each note, it brings back memories of voice training when he first started here. It's becoming almost comfortably familiar, and it's easier to forget the pain of his leg in the exercise-

"Countertenor." The word comes so suddenly Hermann almost swallows the last note.

"What?"

"You were slipping back into Alto. Countertenor. Come on, focus."

Hermann rolls his eyes. His leg twinges vengefully, as though in punishment for forgetting it. He pitches his voice too high, hitting a falsetto high-C.

A moment's silence; and the voice joins his, only it hits the note perfectly. It's so sweet, so pure a sound that Hermann is struck dumb.

"You want to try that again?"

Hermann swallows, and tries again- genuinely this time. The voice lets him struggle to find the note before guiding him up from middle to high C. It's difficult to hold, but it sounds stunning. Hermann didn't know he was able to make such a sound- so bright, so vivid.

"Do you know the part of Pamino, for the Bei Männern welche Liebe fühlen duet?"

Hermann catches his breath, and shakes his head. It wasn't in the books Sasha gave him.

"Never mind. I'll run it through, and then we'll try again, and you'll take the part of Pamino."

It might be just Hermann, but the voice sounds almost excited. He wonders how long it has been since it has had a chance to sing a duet.

The rendition is beautiful, the voice switching with ease between the two roles until Hermann feels utterly absurd in trying to match it. He starts slowly, working the words slowly and trying to match the voice's notes-

"No- don't try and just copy it. Feel it, there's emotions behind the words- put in how much it means to you and we can work on getting it right later."

Hermann feels his lip curl a little as he starts again. He does not feel much like a duet on the joy of love right at this moment. If the voice had asked for him to sing Tamino pursued by a giant snake, Hermann is certain he could infuse the words with the right amount of desperation.

"Better, you wavered a little at the end- remember, you're a Countertenor."

"I thought I was a distressed lover?" Hermann snaps, annoyed but enjoying himself despite himself. It had been good. Not as good as the voice, but there had been points- the third couplet mainly- which had sounded promising-

"That as well. Now, try it again."

They do it three times before the voice is satisfied, and twice more until Hermann is satisfied. Then they move on to Pamino's lament, and that, Hermann can sing all too well. The voice sings wordless accompaniment for the words of misery.

"If I were Tamino, I would be afraid to come near you." The voice sounds amused. "You sound like you might break his head."

Hermann smiles, and rubs his leg. The anger and frustration of the last week is an ugly feeling, like poison inside him. It clenches his guts, sinks its claws into his stomach, and is the reason, as much as the pain, that he hasn't been sleeping recently.

"If that's how you feel- try Hölle Rache. Don't bother trying to hit the high notes- you'll only hurt yourself. Just the words, let it out."

He had heard it once, the opera put on the Zauberflotte a few years back. He lets the voice go through the words before joining in, savaging the notes, spitting the words.

The voice laughs, and Hermann feels, maybe, just a little better. The air between them is warm, close. It's comforting, and Hermann doesn't feel quite so alone.

"What are you anyway?"

There's a sound a little like an amused snort. "Your Angel of Music."

Hermann's lip curls, "And you came out of hell just to bother me?"

"You don't seem to be complaining."

"I will if you treat me like an idiot." Hermann rubs his leg again. It's becoming a nervous twitch. "What are you- or who- if you like."

"You have to be able to guess. How many disembodied voices can one place hold?"

Hermann snorts. "You're claiming to be a Ghost?"

"Is there more than one?"

"The same Ghost who writes Operas and burnt down our stage? Or another one?"

"That stage was a deathtrap, I regret nothing."

The laugh catches in his chest; he looks down at his leg, swollen with pain.

"And I had nothing to do with that." The Ghost's voice is very soft. "I promise. I'd rather smash stained glass than hurt someone with your skill."

"I feel rather like stained glass." His voice breaks a little, deep in his chest. The anger and hurt and despair wells up again.

"I'm only sorry I couldn't stop it."

"What would you have done? Can you even leave?" He tries to make it into a joke, but the fear crouches on his heart like a toad. Deep, sick and cold.

"I will not let them throw you out."

It's a pitifully small hope, but it lights in Hermann's chest all the same. "I'm not a ghost."

Yet stains his tongue, although he doesn't say it. Outside, autumn is failing. Even now, when he looks out of the window he can see the first flakes of snow fall outside. It’s only November. The winter will be a cruel one, and he will have nowhere to go but the streets.

"But you are a singer. You are good enough and even these fools will see it. I promise. I can train you, and when you can walk we can show them all."

Hermann rubs his shoulders, and nods.

It's something to cling to, some speck of light in a world suddenly gone very, very dark.

It almost becomes routine. Every night, the Ghost comes or appears or however voices travel, and sings to him. They do scales to warm up, then go straight into songs- arias, duets, almost anything. The Ghost seems to know an almost endless number of operas and flows easily from Italian to French and German.

They see out every lesson with Hölle Rache, it's short, but the sheer fury in the song speaks to something inside Hermann. Some hot and miserable part of him raging and hurting for what he's lost. If it were not for the accident, he would not be here, crippled in bed and trying to keep himself from being thrown to the streets. He would be training with Sasha to take her place, preparing to become premier dancer.

The Ghost never speaks of it, for which Hermann is almost pathetically grateful. His tutor is nothing but praise and enthusiasm, so convinced of Hermann's skill that he can't help but believe him, just a little.

He wonders if this is why the Ghost ended up haunting the Opera House. If he just loved his art so much that he could not leave it and remained here, writing operas and teaching promising singers. There are worse fates. Hermann's father had been voluble as to where Hermann would end up, and in comparison haunting an Opera House would be pleasant.

And the company, at least, is good.

Sometimes however, Hermann starts wondering he might discover his final destination sooner rather than later. The nights are starting to freeze and apparently he is costing the Opera House too much for them to come and build him a fire. Tonight his breath fogs the air in front of him. It’s too cold to sleep.

Hermann huddles himself deeper in the blankets and waits, feeling his bones ache and his leg under the bandages is a cold draining bar of pain. The singing will be a distraction- will hopefully keep him awake until morning, and the pale warmth of the sun.

The Ghost never exactly appears- apparently even the translucent forms others of his kind manage are beyond him- but Hermann is starting to learn when he is here. The air takes on an indefinable air of expectation.

He thinks he's arrived. The air is so cold that hurts his chest when he pulls in his first breath to start working through his scales.

The fireplace suddenly flares up in a burst of flame. Hermann jumps and almost bashes his head on the wall behind him. Coal that had not been there a moment ago jumps and cracks, catching quickly. The warmth hits like a blast from an open furnace, and his small room begins to warm almost at once.

Hermann huffs warm air into his hands, flexing them to get the blood flowing again. "Thank you."

"I hate the cold." The voice comes so close that the Ghost sounds as though he's sitting on the side of Hermann's bed.

Hermann wriggles over a little, to allow him more space. The thought of being close to someone, even a ghost, after so long alone is borderline painful in its relief. "I thought ghosts couldn't feel anything?"

"No one likes the cold." The answer comes a little quickly. "How are you?"

Hermann turns a little, painfully, and pulls the blanket back from his leg to let the heat play over the damaged thigh. It's like sinking into a hot bath and the relief is immediate. "Better." He manages. "Won't someone miss the coal?"

"Damn them, I've made enough money for them, they can spare some to keep you warm."

"You're determined to be good to me." Hermann smiles. He is starting to feel very tired.

"Did you stay up all day?" The Ghost is very near to him now, and Hermann wonders how he does it. People say you can feel it when ghosts are close, that they make the air cold and clammy, but he feels nothing.

Hermann closes his eyes, basking in the warmth, the comfort of company. "Sasha brought me more books."

"Oh, books." The Ghost sounds mildly contemptuous. "I've rarely found anything worth learning in books on singing."

Hermann opens one eye, too tired to feel outrage but disturbed all the same. "You think books are useless?"

"Books are wonderful." The Ghost is so close he is almost whispering in Hermann's ear. He's suddenly reminded of sharing a bed with his sister, when they were very small. The sudden surge of nostalgia surprises him. "I love books, but you can't learn everything out of them."

Hermann is needled. He learnt to dance out of his mother's old books, "Unless you've got a good grasp of technical aspects, you can't get to be consistently good."

"The prima donna here learnt out of books." The Ghost sounds smug. "She had every tutor her family could find, learnt every 'technical aspect' you're so in love with. Do you think she'd have made prima donna if her family hadn't paid the Opera House?"

Hermann pulls a face, wishes he had someone to glare at. "No." He admits. "She's wooden, every part sounds the same."

"We might as well have a pipe organ on stage." The Ghost agrees. "You sang Hölle Rache better than she ever could."

"At least she can sing the entire thing." Hermann is exasperated. It's lovely to be praised like this, but the Ghost is delusional. "Her technical grasp got her that far. I haven't been able to hit the high notes yet."

"After only a month of practise spent lying in bed?" The Ghost is smiling, Hermann is sure of it. "You can't sing properly in that position. But even with what you can sing, you're better. Do you know why?"

"Because I have an insomniac Ghost bothering me at all hours?"

"Because you give something of yourself in the music. You have the anger for Hölle Rache, the heartbreak for Pamino's Lament."

"If all anyone needed to sing Hölle Rache was to be angry, every thug in Paris could sing it.” Hermann closes his eyes.

“That’s what I’m there for.”

Hermann smiles. “And if I feel too happy for Hölle Rache?”

"You don't have to worry about that. I saw your passion when you were dancing. You were beautiful."

It's a knife of ice through his heart. For a moment the pain in his thigh is drowned by it. He stares up at the ceiling, head tilted back so the tears that threaten do not show. Yes, he had been beautiful. Not classically, as the dance master had loved to point out in his attempts to push him to the rear, and let the more conventionally attractive dancers shine. But he had had grace, and that was the greater beauty.

It hurts worse than any broken bone. "Thank you."

"I hurt you. I'm sorry."

Hermann shakes his head. Shrugs.

"You are beautiful, and you'll be wonderful on stage. I promised, didn't I?"

Hermann nods, clenches his empty hand on the bedclothes, and suddenly wishes there was something of his companion to hold. A hand in his, a knee to rest his palm on, a shoulder to put an arm around. Something to hold onto, when everything else might as well be so much smoke.

It takes a month and a half before Hermann is capable of sitting up properly. He perches on the edge of the bed, feet flat on the floor. The Ghost has lit the fire, and proximity eases the angry stabs of pain from this unaccustomed motion. Hermann rubs the muscles mechanically. They feel thinner than they had been a month ago, and a stab of fear goes through him. He will have to exercise more and damn the pain. He has maybe another month before the management loses patience with him-

"Your shoulders are too tense."

Hermann stiffens, then drops his shoulders hard. He’s been hunching over- stupid-

"Not like that. Relax. Lean back, like you're about to fall back- but don't. Breathe."

Hermann draws in a breath. The position is a good one. With nothing at his back he can breathe in properly for the first time in a month, let his ribcage expand to its greatest extent and get his full range of voice.

"Good, I'm going to count, breath in until I get to four, then hold until I get to four, then breath out for four again. Understand?"

Hermann nods. Breathes in, breathes out.

"Okay, now we'll try in for six, and out for ten."

This goes on for the best part of thirty minutes, then the Ghost runs through several bars of Hölle Rache, then "Try for the high notes, this time."

It takes him two attempts before he finally reaches the first one and it feels less like singing and more like a concussive blast, as though his chest had turned into a firing chamber for a revolver. He climbs impossibly high, arches, raises to the crescendo in a burst from his diaphragm fuelled by nearly two months of pent up anger-

-there's a hammering at his door.

Hermann chokes, breaks off and his chest spasms in an explosive coughing fit, his chest locks and his entire body tenses uncontrollably. His leg clenches and cramps in response and the pain is so blinding the coughs are choked off as he tries to scream at the same time.

"Keep it down!" The snarl comes from outside. "We're trying to sleep, bastard!"

Hermann grinds his teeth, curls up helplessly on the bed in a seizure of pain running up from his leg across his whole left side. Everything goes white and his ears ring, as the pain crests and he almost wishes someone would come in and take his leg off just to make it stop-

Some indefinable time later, the pain ebbs enough for the rest of the world to come back into focus. Hermann has sweated through his sleep clothes, and his body shudders every so often, too exhausted to even shiver.

The Ghost’s voice is very close, so much that Hermann opens his eyes and turns his head, trying to see him. It sounds like it's coming from just beside his head.

"Shhh, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have suggested it, I'm sorry I hurt you-"

Hermann swallows, his throat is bone dry. "You didn't." The words crack, and he slowly, painfully rolls over and finds a cup of water. It tastes sweet, he's so thirsty. His ribs are bruised and it feels as though someone has punched him in the stomach several times. His leg is a solid ball of aching, draining pain.

"I pushed you too far, you weren't ready."

Hermann’s mouth twists; it’s almost a smile despite everything. "I hit the notes. You haven't been wasting your time after all."

"I never thought that."

"I thought it a few times." In the dark moments before the dawn, when his Ghost had gone and the night was at its coldest, and he couldn't sleep for the sweat of fear.

"I must remember to praise you more often."

"Do that and it will be nothing but praise. I already think you're mad."

A pause. "For wasting time on you?"

"You must have better things to do. Have you seen any performances in the last month?"

"The best performances have always been up here."

Hermann laughs, it hurts, but he can't help it. "Gott, you are mad. Why did you even start- it wasn't because you felt guilty about the carriage, so don't try that."

There’s a moment’s silence. “I could see how good you are.”

“Good at dancing.” Hermann digs his thumbs into the muscle around the wound, trying to ease the cramps. "You said it yourself, I was a mediocre singer before you came."

“The music master was an idiot not to see what was in front of him, and to let you transfer to the ballet company. You would have made a passable dancer-“

Hermann feels blood rush into his face, the anger that never quite dies in him suddenly explodes in the pit of his stomach. “I would have been a premier dancer!” He snarls.

“Yes. You’d have been good. You’d have held the position for a few years, and after that no one would remember you. No one will forget you when you sing. People will fight to see you. Posters will headline your name. After you retire, people will talk about you forever.”

His mouth has gone dry. Hermann stares at nothing, into the darkness of his room. “You’re mad.” He repeats again, blankly.

“I’ve been here for a long time.” The Ghost sounds ironic. “I know a good voice, and your voice is far beyond good.”

It hurts, to have someone put so much faith in him- unreservedly, asking nothing in return. To give and give and expect nothing. Hermann wonders if the Ghost's joke might have some truth to it- an Angel of Music, but not Lucifer.

Hermann closes his eyes, and holds out one hand, palm up on the bed in invitation. The Ghost is so close, he can hear his breath. It stutters. There is a long, unbroken silence, then, so light Hermann wonders if he could have imagined it, the slightest touch on his outstretched fingers.

He opens his eyes, but the room is dark, the fire burnt low. By the time his eyes have adjusted to the gloom, anyone who had been there is long gone.

He is given three weeks before the audition. The days are spent trying to walk again, his leg is mostly healed now, but stiff and difficult, and it seems like ‘mostly healed’ will be the best he can expect. At night, he sings.

They work through what seems like the Ghost’s entire repertoire of music, and narrow down to those he will use for his audition. Hölle Rache, Pamino’s lament, Faites-lui mes aveux from Faust. The last was his choice, and he wonders who his Siebel will be singing it for, the prima donna Marguerite or Hermann's own Mephistopheles.

The morning of the audition, he is woken from a black-out sleep by a knocking on the door. He had not sung the previous night, frightened of wearing out his voice, but the Ghost had kept him up doing breathing exercises and scales until the sun was almost rising.

Hermann gets up. His leg manages his weight begrudgingly, and he has to lean against the wall when he opens the door.

Sasha is waiting outside.

She is wearing- not her dancing clothes, but a thick fur coat. A beautiful matching winter hat sits lightly on her short blond hair. Her lips are painting red, and her eyes are shadowed blue.

Hermann’s heart sinks, he tries to smile, but it’s like ice on his face, freezing and slowly sliding off. “Is it-“

Sasha smiles and nods. Hermann steps back and lets her in. He sits on the edge of his bed and she takes the lone spindly chair.

“We will not be leaving the city until tomorrow.” Sasha breaks in, without fanfare. “If you do not make it, come and see us. We will be at l’Hotel de Ville.”

Hermann shakes his head. “I can’t-“

She takes his hands. “You will.” It’s an order. “If you do not tell us you were accepted by tomorrow, we will take you with us.” Seeing Hermann about to object, she interrupts him. “If you do not, Alexis will break your other leg, and carry you off. You understand?”

Hermann snorts. “And you think I’ll be any better off in Moscow?”

Sasha smiles. “If I teach, I will need a glamorous assistant, da? Can you imagine Alexis in tights? Like a great dancing bear.”

He can’t help but laugh at the image- Alexis attempting a jete. “The floorboards would never survive.”

She squeezes his hands. “So you see; I cannot do without you. I hope they do throw you out. They do not deserve you.”

Hermann squeezes back, but says nothing. Sasha and Alexis are not rich. The journey to Moscow will take almost everything they have, and their first months in Moscow- in the depths of winter – will be hard. If Hermann comes with them they might well all three starve in the gutter.

And the thought of leaving the Opera House suddenly ignites a surprisingly sharp pain somewhere in the region of his chest. A hollow pit opening in his stomach.

“I’ll remember.”

“You do that.” She lets go and stands, picking up a long package he hadn’t noticed before. “Here. From Alexis and I. Don’t you forget.”

The brown paper crackles under his hands. It’s got a lovely weight. He turns it, finds the string and carefully unties it.

Inside, is a beautiful new walking stick. Hermann stares down at it, at the delicate casting of the silver handle, the sleek dark wood stained almost black, the silver tips and bands along the length. “Sasha-“

“No. You say nothing.” She holds up a finger, and gets up. “It is the only thing good enough for a primo uomo.”

It is. The silver is fine enough to hold up Pamino, the black lacquer like something Mephistopheles would carry. He could take it with him to the stage and it would look like a prop. “Thank you.” He should say more, but there are no words. “Thank you.” He repeats helplessly.

“Here.” Sasha points to a small inscription under the handle, which he had at first overlooked.

Hermann frowns at it. 10 Katryana Bulva.

“Where we will live.” Sasha grins. “When you are rich and famous, you will look for us, yes? And you will take Alexis drinking, and the next day you will be poor again.”

Hermann tries to laugh, chokes, and Sasha hugs him. She feels hot inside her layers of furs, smells of lavender scent. Hermann drops the stick and hugs her back, feeling tears prick the inside of his eyes.

“You will look for us.” She pulls back, and her hand rests on his shoulder. “If anything happens.”

Hermann nods wordlessly. She nods, pats his shoulder, and leaves.

He waits until the door closes, and her footsteps die away along the corridor. Then he sighs, gets up, and goes downstairs for the first time in two months.

The music teacher looks as though she has been sucking lemons. “These are the pieces you wish to sing?”

Hermann meets her grey, cold eyes, and nods. He tries to straighten, shifting his weight on his new walking stick to free his chest.

“Hölle Rache?” Her lip curls, a heartbeat away from a sneer. “You cannot sing Hölle Rache as an Alto.”

“I can sing a higher range.” But meeting her thunderously disbelieving gaze, his heart quavers, no longer uncertain. He can do it. He’s done it.

Or he thinks he has. Unless he is as mad as his Ghost, both of them fooling themselves into thinking he can do this. That his talents could run beyond his now tattered body.

Hermann takes a deep breath. The music teacher shrugs. “Begin then. I assume you’ve prepared.”

One, two, three. One, two, three. In and out, deep breaths. The music teacher sighs theatrically.

He begins, and feels his voice quaver with the effort of the pitch. He has to fight to steady it on the note, and then he has to climb. There is no accompaniment, nothing to keep him on note but practise. He feels his voice start to slip, struggles to right it and isn’t sure if he regains the note- or if he’s just off it-

Then, close enough to him that Hermann almost turns his head to see, he hears the note. Perfectly held, exactly correct. Hermann checks himself and harmonises with it. The voice is gone the next moment, but Hermann has it now. He works his way through the words, and arches to the crescendo. This time, no one interrupts him.

He can taste every impossible note, the rise and fall that takes everything he gives it and demands more. It’s perfect, the height of Mozart’s fantastic genius, every note is perfectly chosen, every arpeggio placed just so, the pitch rising until Hermann rather feels like a musical instrument, reverberating with sound.

With the final flourish, he’s done. His throat feels almost raw from the effort and he looks around for a pitcher of water.

The music teacher looks thunderstruck. For a moment Hermann wonders if he has actually hurt her- the aria is intense, and having it delivered at point-blank range must be painful. He coughs slightly to attract attention.

She stares at him, then seems to come to life. “Yes, well- I- That was- very good, young man. If you will, I mean- carry on-“ She finally lapses into silence.

Hermann feels something hot and brilliant fill him, something which has nothing to do with music or rage, but pure blind triumph. He is good. He is good. He knows this now.

He makes a last minute change of song. Instead of slower, more tragic songs; he decides instead to sing one he suspects the Ghost loves- they’ve sung it together, although it’s not opera. He takes a deep breath and pours himself a glass of water and sips it slowly, savouring the moment. Then he puts it down, closes his eyes, and launches into Ode an die Freude.

They take him on. He has to stand and listen when the owners argue with the music teacher, give barbed hints about the unity of the chorus, the need to be able to show an attractive whole, and shooting nasty looks at where Hermann leans increasingly heavily on his walking stick, fighting the urge to hunch over and disappear.

He throws his shoulders back and returns their glares tenfold. They want to sweep him out of the door like yesterday's rubbish. He's an embarrassment to them, with his twisted leg and lopsided gait, a reminder of the meanness of their charity.

He'll become even more of an embarrassment, he promises himself. He'll make his Ghost proud. He'll become the primo uomo of the Opera House. He will make himself the best singer they have ever heard, and every time they look at him, they will remember how close they came to throwing him out and ruining themselves.

"He has the voice." The music teacher insists. "He'll blend in for crowd scenes, and we can keep him in the back for formal ones-" Hermann feels the back of his neck heat up with rage, and grinds his teeth. They'd said the same when he’d started to dance, and the master had looked at his face and shaken his head, advising him to stay away from the front of the stage. He'd proven him wrong too.

Damn them all.

Finally, they throw up their hands and say fine. Yes, he can stay. You! Get your things and move them to the singer's wing. Be ready to start tomorrow at once. Ah yes, the wages- well, as you're just a junior in the chorus-

It sickens him, as he walks the long corridors and endless stairs between his old room and the miserable garret they've given him. The pay of a senior dancer had been poor, and this cuts to the bone.

But he can stay. He’s being paid again. He'll have a roof over his head this winter, fuel for the fireplace and food on the table. He won't die of cold or hunger or disease, or force Alexis and Sasha to beggar themselves for his sake. He can stay. He can live.

It takes most of the day to move his handful of belongings, three trips that stretch on forever with the painfully slow progress he makes, the frequent halts he has to make to rest and try and rub away the stabbing pains from his half-knitted thigh.

It's dark when he finally arrives at his room for the last time, too tried to want anything but to throw himself down on the narrow bed and try and claw up some sleep before an early morning tomorrow. But he's already missed dinner, and he'll have to make it to the kitchen if he wants anything to eat. The thought of all those stairs has him thumping his head on his door and groaning. And he should write a letter to Sasha to tell her he's staying- that she doesn't need to worry-

He opens the door. And stares. He backs out slowly and double checks the door because he must have made a mistake- this has to be the door to some prima's room, not his-

The door number reads 32. Hermann looks down at the key in his hand- the little copper disc is stamped 32.

He opens the door again, carefully. The room is just as it was- as it wasn't when Hermann left it two- three hours ago. He had almost fallen down the stairs and had to rest for almost an hour and a half to be sure of getting down safely.

He walks in slowly. The furniture is all still there, but the rickety chair is half-hidden by the cushions tied to its back and seat. The mean little bed's previous threadbare blankets hardly deserved to share the same name as the thick plush coverings there now. The outsized mirror beside the bed reflects the glow of the candles and makes the tiny room shine. There is a roaring fire in the fireplace, and the dresser is draped with a tablecloth, and decorated with a candlestick, a bottle of wine, and solid, hot meal for one.

Hermann hesitates, but Sasha couldn't have done this. She doesn't have the money. And there is no other living soul in this city- in this country- who cared if he lived or died.

"Ghost?" Hermann asks

Here's a sound of sorts- not words, but a sort of stuttered breathing that sounds embarrassed. As though Hermann had caught it at a guilty pleasure.

"Did you do this?" He sits at the table.

"You are tired, you need to eat and rest for tomorrow."

Hermann examines the wine. He's fairly sure he saw this bottle in the cellar, reserved for rich patrons only. He tries to feel outraged out the theft, but he's too tired. Why bother loyalty to people who had planned to throw him out to starve?

The cork is already out. Hermann pours some into his cracked cup, feeling vaguely he is committing a blasphemy. "What about you? You couldn't find a bottle of spirits?" He smiles at his joke, and pokes at the food on his plate. "Does the cook know you've made off with her meat pie?"

"She'll not miss it."

Hermann tries a bite, and revises his opinion. It's not the cook's bland pies, with unrecognisable meat and soggy pastry. This is good, rich and sweet, beef and mushrooms in a thick sauce. The wine is wonderful with it. The single bite and the smell is enough to open a gulf in his belly that Hermann would swear had not been before. He eats ravenously. Wine and pie and potatoes and turnips swimming in butter.

Hermann pushes himself back, stifling a half-yawn, half-belch. He smiles slowly, starting to feel warm and sleepy and more comfortable than he has been since his accident. "Ghost?"

"Yes?"

"That was amazing. Thank you."

He gets up and starts to undress. Hesitates.

"I am not looking."

"Quite the gentleman." Hermann gets under the blankets. A warming pan must have been placed there at some point, because the bed is wonderfully warm. He blows out the candle.

Then, "Ghost?"

"Still here."

"Do you get hungry? If there's anything I could do-" He trails off, feeling stupid.

"Don't think about me. Think about tomorrow, and your music, nothing else."

"Hmm." Hermann closes his eyes. Sleep steals over him soft and sound as it hasn't been since his accident.

The next morning, the tablecloth and dishes have gone, with the candlesticks. Hermann runs his hands over the bedclothes; the blankets are still there, and the new mattress and pillows. They are thick and rich, if plain.

Hermann looks around his room, already warmer and more welcoming, the memories of last night dressing it. "Thank you." He could say it forever.

No one answers.

Despite the scorn of the managers and the scepticism of the teacher, it's an ungodly relief to be active again. After years of dancing every day, the two months of bed rest had been maddening. He aches to move properly, for the perfect, precise motions of dance, of building up the motions step by step until he could almost feel he was flying.

Singing is something, at least. Better than lying around being useless but whatever his mad Ghost might say it's not the same. He fills his lungs, feels his chest expand and his diaphragm tense, and it take his entire body, tipping his head back and sounding the note- the stanza- the verse. But it's static, and he aches for motion.

The chorus is not as engaging as his old position. He can sing, yes. He can sing well, but the parts available to the chorus are few, and there is little chance to shine in a role where harmony is everything. His fellow singers look askance at him, uncertain and tending towards dislike- he had been lucky to escape the backbiting with Sasha, but there will be no such luck here.

Hermann is grateful for the refuge of his little room, in the end. The weeks wear on and cold bites deeper, and the rehearsals become frantic as the winter season gets fully underway. The walls of his room might be close but they are thick, and Hermann notices his room is set a little apart from the others, so no one will be disturbed by his nightly recitals- another gift from his Ghost, he assumes.

He always seems to be waiting for him when he comes in. Every night Hermann comes in the fire is burning, and his bed has been warmed. There is sheet music for the parts they will be practising that evening. And the Ghost is there, so close Hermann still catches himself turning around sometimes to see him.

He's there. Not invisible or as a spirit but- there. There is something so solid about the voice that Hermann cannot quite convince himself there isn't someone standing just beside him.

That day they sing Isis und Osiris, Quelle éloquence and Hermann manages to hold the part of Lindoro during a recital of Ecco, ridente in cielo. Lunch is bread and soup that they quickly wolf down before starting again.

It's exhausting, and standing for so long makes Hermann's leg start to seize and ache. He refuses to sit down, only allowing his weight to shift to his stick when his part is finished. His shoulder is a cold, draining ball of pain when the practise finally ends and he can take his dinner and retire to his room.

Hermann opens the door and heads to the bed and today's songsheets, he can eat while they study tonight's work. The sheets of music look rather familiar. He flicks through them. O zittre nicht, mein lieber Sohn, Nur stille stille and their old friend Hölle Rache, all written in the Ghost's barely legible scrawl.

"I thought we could cover something familiar."

Hermann says nothing, looking down at the notes. "They are starting auditions soon." He remarks, trying for off-handed. "But no one knows yet what we'll be working on."

There's no answer.

"But I suppose, for someone who can walk through walls, you might have overheard something."

"It's possible."

Hermann smiles. "Very well, but let's do Bei Männern and Pamino's lament as well; that's a role I've got a chance of getting."

"You're too modest. Of course you can do it."

Hermann snorts bitterly, "Oh I can, but the day the managers give the Night role to anyone but their prima donna is the day the opera house grows wings. But they might overlook Pamino. Do you want to start with Bei Männern?"

"A duet with you? How could I say no?" It's flippant, but there's an undertone of such warmth in the Ghost's words that Hermann finds himself suddenly voiceless, and has to swallow the rest of the water just to find the words to join in. The Ghost has lit another fire, not in the grate, but somewhere in Hermann's chest.

The Night role goes to the prima donna the moment the news is announced that they are performing Die Zauberflotte. Hermann is disgusted, usually the managers at least run a few rounds of show auditions to pretend they're being fair. This lot haven't even bothered.

It stings at him more than he wants to admit, because the Ghost was right. The prima donna is a miserable choice for the role. She has the range, she can hit the notes, but she relies on the words to give the role meaning. After training so long, Hermann could ignore the words entirely and everyone would understand. The outrage, the betrayal, the fury blazing like wildfire. That is what makes the role.

He tries to let it go, and sets himself the task of getting Pamino. It's a good part, a duet and solo piece as well as several joint numbers. It's also less active, and he can at least spend a certain amount of the performance sitting or lying down.

But that goes too. To a young chorus boy who understudies with the prima donna. She smiles when it's announced, and Hermann feels a ball of hot rage drop to his stomach.

He gets a part as one of the attendants to the Queen of the Night. The songs are passive and miserable, and right now Hermann doesn't feel passive and miserable. He wants to shout his anger from the rafters, he wants to snap his cane in half and never see it again, he wants to sing Hölle Rache as they have never heard it before- loud enough to blow in the skulls of the bloody-minded fools who cared nothing for ability or skill and pinned everything on money and a pretty face and a body that worked.

He sings Hölle Rache that night. He aims it at the ceiling and imagines the force of his voice cracking the ceiling, plaster and bricks raining down on himself and the Ghost. The miserable, compressed atmosphere of the Opera House blown away by the winter wind. All the petty intrigues and childish rivalries exposed like insects under an overturned rock, left to shrivel in the cold.

He imagines sitting with the Ghost on the bed in the room open to a sky translucent as crystal, the stars like pinpricks of ice eons away.

He imagines a hand in his.

The crescendo rings with more despair than it should. A King of the Night pleading rather than raving at his wayward child.

He is getting dressed for the first performance. Outside, the house is packed. The orchestra is thundering. Tamino is running desperately from a great serpent. Hermann pulls on the cowled robes, the music teacher's words still clinging to him like a miasma - make sure to keep your hood up- tuck that stick under your clothes- like that- make sure you stay behind the others-

Something falls out of the hood. A crumpled note of paper.

Look in the last dressing room.

There's no signature, but the slanted scrawl is almost as familiar as his own by now. Hermann hesitates. He will be coming on in a moment.

He just has time for a quick look. The last dressing room is the prima donna's. Thrown over the back of the chair, as though cast there by a careless hand, is the Queen of the Night's wand.

But he had see her leave, five minutes before, readying herself for the night's performance. And she had been carrying the wand.

Hermann picks it up. It's heavier than he expected, almost as long as he is tall. The wood is black polished so deep it's almost blue. Encrusted here and there with tiny crystals that catch and hold the light. It's like the night sky trapped in wood. A band of the Milky Way in his hands.

The top is capped by a silver full moon, with spun glass comets spinning around it. It's not a wand. It's a sceptre.

A sceptre for a King of the Night.

"Gottlieb!" Hermann jumps, stumbles, but manages to catch himself before he jars his leg. The director is coming. Hermann drops the staff and hurries out. "Gottli- what were you doing in there? Never mind. You're on. Go!" She shoves him unceremoniously towards the stage.

He feels his body tense expectantly when he comes on. Unconsciously falling into the light walk of a dancer, preparing, somewhere that has nothing to do with his mind, for the first steps.

His leg trembles with the unexpected demands put on it, and Hermann falls back into a more manageable gait - still light, still graceful, but held back by his injury, no more able to dance than a bird with clipped wings could fly.

Outside, beyond the stage, the hall is a mass of velvet dark, the night insect buzz of talk unbroken when the three of them rescue Tamino and argue amongst themselves about which one should fetch the Queen of the Night.

Hermann risks a glance up to box five. The curtains are drawn, as always, but he wonders if he sees them stir, just a little. He smiles, and hopes the Ghost can see.

The prima donna arrives, shimmering and dazzling in a gown of sheer black, her glittering wand held in both hands. She moves like a dancer, flits and skips and barely seems to touch the floor, as though she were a faerie herself. But her words are stiff when she speaks them, promising her daughter to Tamino as though offering him a sack of potatoes. Then she sings.

It's zittre nitch, and it's so familiar that Hermann finds himself mouthing them as she sings- and maybe more than mouthing, because one of his fellow aids gives him an elbow in the back to shut him up.

Her song has no grace to it, no passion, nothing but concussive force. There is none of the false hope and helplessness, the malicious cunning undertones the song should suggest at. She might as well be bellowing a war hymn in one of Wagner's barbaric disasters.

But she hits every note, flourishes every coloratura, until the last one. She opens her mouth for the final display; "So seisiedaaaaaaaaaann-" and a hideous croak cracks her voice.

Hermann stares. So does everyone else. The prima donna's eyes are wide, she tries to swallow several times. The lazy buzz of chatter turns into the angry wasp's nest of shocked exclamations.

She rallies. She draws in breath, and so close Hermann can see she's made a mistake- it's too deep. She's trying to continue from where she left on instead of repeating the verse and building to it again.

"So sei sie-" Another croak. She chokes, grabs her throat. She tries to pull through; "daaaaan-" This croak is louder than the previous two put together. The prima donna is seized with a fit of coughing. Tamino stares at them pleadingly- he can't leave, his role dictates he has to remain on stage.

"Come on." Hermann whispers to the other two. They hurry forwards and grab the prima donna just as she is struggling for one last attempt. "So sei sie-" she doesn't even get that far. The croak echoes around the house.

She tries to fight them off, but she can barely catch her breath. They pull her backstage as the opera hall collapses into riotous laughter.

The prima donna is taken to her room, still fighting the entire way, and a doctor is called to make sure the damage is not permanent. Hermann takes the chance during the interlude and runs out of the backstage area, and up towards the boxes.

Box five is locked. He pounds on the door, to no answer, and the door to the next box opens. A surprised looking nobleman in British clothes stares at him, Hermann looks back, uncertain as to what to say.

“Would you like a hand with that?” The man walks over to him and tries the door. It doesn’t move. He presses down the handle and pushes hard against the wood with his shoulder to no effect. “Is it locked? Do you not have the key?”
“I-“ Hermann feels humiliated under the kindly stare. “Sir, the interlude will end soon. Please-"
More people in the neighbouring boxes are coming out too to see what the noise is about.

Hermann catches his breath, feeling his face start to burn. He is still wearing his ridiculous robes from earlier, and his leg aches from the sudden activity. "I am- sorry. I just need- please, go back to your seats, the show will be starting again."

"I never saw the Magic Flute as a comedy," some wit remarks as they leave, to general laughter.

“If you are sure.” The Englishman smiles before turning away. “I look forward to seeing you on the stage again.” He steps back to his box, “Sit down Mako-“

Hermann turns back to the door, tries it once more. It opens.

Inside, all is warm red darkness behind the drawn velvet curtains. There are no candles or lamps here. It takes him a few minutes to get used to the dim light, filtering through a crack in the curtains from the stage. It is not a surprise to find the place empty.

"You're here." He hisses.

"Of course I am."

"Did you think that was somehow amusing?"

"That they called a doctor when she wrecked her own voice but didn't when you broke your leg? Hardly."

Hermann swallows that anger. He's only angry towards one person, and he's here. "She might never sing again- what did you do to her?"

"Nothing- hardly anything. I tightened a few stays in the absurd corset she insists on wearing- and how idiotic is that, really-"

"Her voice might be ruined!" Hermann snarls, and tries to lower his voice in case someone hears.

"Why do you care? The way they treated you- and now they'll have to give you the role, no one else can do Hölle Rache-"

"Why do you think I might care that you wrecked someone's career?" He spits.

There is no answer. The silence is heavy, and Hermann can hear the music from the interlude, the noise from the neighbouring boxes as the patrons mingle.

"You heard her performance." The Ghost says finally. "What sort of reviews do you think she would have gotten with that show? Her career was over either way-"

"Why do you have the right to decide that?" He's angrier than he could believe. "You said I'm a better singer than I could ever have been as a dancer- would you have made sure I'd had that accident, just to make sure I didn't have a choice?"

"No!" He sounds horrified.

"Because that is what you did with her, I know how it feels- it's hideous. And I'm young, I could change careers. She- can't."

"No- listen. I didn't hurt her. Even after she nearly killed herself trying to sing, she won't have permanent damage. If the doctor has any sense, he'll have her out of the corset by now. With some rest, she'll be fine."

It appeases him a little, but- "And after that- what? She's the laughing-stock of Paris! What sort of roles-"

"Comedy."

"What?"

"If she has half the sense I think she has, she'll be able to play that ridicule into a new career. You're right, she is getting old. You can do comedy for much longer than this kind of Opera. She'll never sing Mozart again, but she won't starve. She won't freeze. I promise."

The anger dies. Hermann sighs. "All that so I could have that role?" He leans against one of the pillars with a thump. He freezes.

"To get you the role, and to get the opera house out of the influence of one of the worst prima donnas I've seen in a long time. We'll be better off like this, I promise."

"You're promising a lot." Hermann surreptitiously tabs his knuckles against the pillar.

"I promised you would be primo uomo. Look at you now."

"I don't have it yet." He presses his ear against the pillar.

"Just wait. I'd leave now, you don't want them catching you here, and I don't want people in my box." The Ghost's voice is so close it tickles Hermann's ear.

"What am I then?" He pulls away, and makes his way to the door. The intermission is ending. He should be able to slip out without attracting attention.

"Always welcome."

His heart skips a little, and he pushes his way out and into the throng of patrons returning to their seats. The door clicks locked behind him.

He doesn't have the time to think about what the Ghost said or the prima donna or even what he found in box five, because the moment he sets foot backstage the director is grabbing him and dragging him towards the prima donna's dressing room. With her understudy playing Pamino and no one else knowing the role, it will be up to him to play the King of the Night.

"We'll throw in something about deities being genderless-" The prima donna's dress is torn where she apparently fought to keep it on. Hermann is wrestled into it and several tailors set to work pinning it into place. "God knows, this'll be known as the only performance where the Queen of the Night changed sex halfway through- I hope the music lady was telling the truth and you're as good as she says you are, because those hyenas out there are going to tear you apart-"

Hermann wonders, as he snatches up his sceptre and is hustled towards the stage, if the Ghost had thought this part out nearly as well as he pretended he had.

Then he's out on stage again, and spotlight is on him. It's blinding, he cannot see anything- not the stage, not the seats, not box five.

He can hear them though. A low roar slowly building to a crescendo of laughter. He looks absurd, in a dress made for someone twice his size and his opposite in shape, clutching his staff like a life preserver in a stormy sea.

Then his eyes focus. He sees Pamino, looking at him desperately. Monostrata pulls a face, begging - please, do something-

In box five, the curtains are pulled back, just a little.

He knows the lines, he knows the aria. He knows it as though it had been carved into his bones. He spits them with rage and Pamino cowers back in shock. The laughter subsides, just a little. He throws the dagger at his feet, and the words boil up inside him as though Mozart had known, a century ago, that he would be here, right now, and would need them.

They ring with every scream of pain of the last four months. The fear of losing his leg; of starving in the streets. Every misery- humiliation- every time he has been overlooked and dismissed with barely a thought- made to not matter, because he wasn't good enough in their eyes.

Pamino and Monostrata cower before him; the crowd beyond the stage is silent.

He rises; crests; crescendos with all the outrage he can draw up. Every moment he withstood, every time he refused to yield- was powered by nothing but the stubborn blindness that this would not happen to him. Not here, not now. Not if there was anything he could do to stop it.

He throws his head back and screams the final notes, the impossible pitch, the force of it like gunshots from his lungs, as though he wanted to bring down the chandelier as the Ghost had done on the heads of all these fools and miserable imbeciles who'd tried to keep him from this.

He finishes to stunned silence. Pamino and Monostrata are on the floor, shaking. The crowd outside is still.

Then, the roar again. Soft at first, then building like a great wave approaching shore. Not laughter. Applause. Loud enough to deafen. Shouts, cheers. Pamino grabs his hand and pulls him into an impromptu bow, the young boy's face glowing with relief. This was his first major role, Hermann thinks, with belated sympathy. The prima donna's fall would have pulled him with her, had this performance failed.

He staggers backstage to more applause, people clapping him on the back, a rather shocking kiss on both cheeks by the delighted director. "-every performance! We'll get you a new dress something that can fit you- they'll be beating down the doors after tonight-" Hermann nods, feeling suddenly exhausted.

They deposit him in the prima donna's dressing room- now his. Hermann looks at himself in the mirror. He's pale. He still hasn't put back the weight he lost during his convalescence. His eyes are dark and he feels- hollow, somehow. As though he had poured so much of himself into that song that he will never get it back. As though something inside him had ruptured- some buboe he had not been aware of, and he had bled black blood and rotten pus across the stage.

He feels empty- but light. Freed from the clutch of something vile and poisonous. He wonders if he might finally succeed in doing what he had only dreamt of when dancing, and finally fly.

He is dragged back to eight curtain calls, but does not stay to celebrate. Instead he hurries up to his room. It is dark, the fire is cold. The Ghost has not had time to get here from his box.

Hermann raps his knuckles on every surface his can reach- the mantelpiece, the mirror, the wall above his bed- and presses every raised surface or hidden nook that might conceal a catch or button.

And yes, the mirror frame seems hollow in several places, and there is surely more room in the chimney than for just the flues. He checks the wall just above his bed, remembering how the Ghost had sounded as though he was just beside him, and discovers that the wall there is so thin it’s barely brick at all- just plaster. Some corner cut when this place was first being built.

Hermann sits down heavily on the bed, against the false wall, and tries to let the realisation sink in. His heart is hammering against his chest and he should be angry at being lied to- and some part of him is - but it’s drowned out by a hot, fierce joy he can barely allow himself to feel, in case he’s somehow wrong.

Gott, he’s dreamed of this, of being able to see his Ghost- not just to hear his voice but see him. Meet him as one man to another and thank him, face to face and properly and find out if there was anything he could give that could make up for what he has received from this strange, brilliant man.

There’s nothing the living can offer the dead, but if he is right- Gott, if he is right-

“Waiting for someone?” The voice behind the wall makes him jump, and startles a laugh out of him.

“You are a bastard.” Hermann feels that ought to be made clear. He’s still annoyed, for all he cannot stop smiling. “That took some nerve, throwing me on stage with that audience.”

“I knew you could do it.” God, he’s smug, no one should have the right to be that irritating and wonderful at the same time.

He has played Hermann for a credulous fool over the past four months, has lied and misled him and the worst of it is that Hermann cannot even hate him for it. He’s angry- in a distant, almost fond fashion- but he’s alive to be angry. He has a craft and an art and a career. His Ghost gave him back his life and Hermann holds that to his heart with a bright, sweet light.

He wants to hack away at the plaster of the wall until it falls apart and take hold of the man behind it and drag him to the light- he wants to find whatever secret door he used to get into his room and chase him down and find him and hold him down and- Hermann isn’t sure. Shout at him or hit him or- well. His heart is racing.

“You bastard.” He whispers. He presses the knuckles of one hand to the plaster wall. He wonders if he can feel the warmth of the body on the other side.

“And this is the thanks I get.” A theatrical, long-suffering sigh. A Ghost that breathes. Hermann is an idiot. “And here I’d hoped-“

Hermann lets him talk, closing his eyes and trying to imagine him, on the other side of that wall. What sort of person pretended to be a Ghost haunting an Opera House? Hermann would say someone running a con, but the Ghost demanded no money, stole so little food that it was barely missed, and turned over manuscripts worth thousands of sous to the Opera management. Even with his arrangement with box five, it still left him out of pocket.

An eccentric then. Hermann would say madman, but he is in no position to judge. An eccentric with a love of opera and a mania for training new primas.

"Hermann?" The Ghost's question comes very soft, and Hermann shivers.

He had never heard the Ghost speak his name until now, and he says it with almost worshipful grace, as though enunciating some perfect verse that required all of one's being to do justice to.

No one has ever said his name like this.

"Are you listening?"

He pulls himself together, trying to suppress the delicious shivers and enjoying them anyway. "Of course."

"So soon, and you already forget me," He bemoans. It's mocking, but there's a tension to the words.

Hermann turns, unfolds both hands flat against the wall. He presses his face to it, his chest, his whole body. His leg aches angrily at being knelt on, but Hermann ignores it. "I won't." He whispers, "Never."

There's a pause, and Hermann wants to shout that he knows, that the Ghost's secret is no secret at all. He's a man, of flesh and blood, just like Hermann.

There is a sudden hammering at the door. Hermann jumps and the Ghost – he leaves. He doesn't hear him- whatever is behind the wall must let him move silent as his namesake, but there is a noticeable absence in the air, a sense that he is now alone. It aches inside him.

He realises that whoever is outside is actually waiting for him to call them. "Come in."

It's one of the Opera servants, looking embarrassed. "The managers say you are to- um, come at once. They say you're to have the premier rooms from now on."

Hermann stares. The servant misunderstands and carries on, "Just until the prima donna is well enough to leave her suit, of course, but as there is no one in the premier dancer’s rooms, the management said- um-"

Hermann gets up as though in a dream, he starts to pack- and is prevented by the servant, who calls in a companion to start organising Hermann's things. Hermann is apparently now only required to carry himself.

The premier rooms are close to the ballet school, not far from where Hermann had slept when he'd trained only months ago, and where he had spent those miserable, slow weeks recovering.

This room is huge, compared to his old dancer’s rooms, even more compared to the one he had just left. He can see touches of Sasha's hand everywhere. Her taste in the simple sheets of the bed, a glove lost under the wardrobe.

For a moment he thinks they had left the flowers from her last performance as well, but no- surely they would have wilted by now- it had been months-

The dresser, side tables all the way to the foot of the bed are a riot of flowers. Hermann picks up a bouquet as though in a trance. Roses. The smell is so intense it drowns out the rest, even the hothouse lilies. They are white roses, petals so pale and delicate they might be tissue paper. Their smell is so rich and sweet that if Hermann closes his eyes he could be in a rose garden.

There is a note. In a familiar, slanted scrawl. To the King of the Night, you never were more beautiful.

It’s a stab in his heart so sharp and sudden it’s almost pain. A fierce, brilliant yearning. He holds them so tightly the thorns cut his hands.

They are sweet pains both. I’ll find you. He promises silently. I’ll find you, no matter how you hide. You’re mine; you ridiculous, wonderful man.

The roses have pride of place in the best vase the staff can find. Hermann barely has eyes for anything else, even the gorgeous oriental lilies which dust pollen over the accompanying note, obscuring the perfect copperplate British handwriting.

Hermann’s idea is to find the old plans of the Opera House, and see what parts of it might have been boarded up and forgotten. There must be old passages between the walls- and he’s sure he heard once that the cellars connect to the old catacombs.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the chance. He barely has time to get up and dressed before he’s rushed out and set to practise almost constantly. The managers might have trusted him for one night, but they are determined to make sure he is capable before they put him on stage again.

They work him until late, and when he comes back, the servants have set out his meal and lit his fire. And for all the rush and hurry, the loneliness sits cold and hollow in his stomach. They fawn over him as they had once fawned over the prima donna, but their eyes are cold. There is no one he could call a friend as he had been with Sasha, let alone the companion his Ghost has been.

During the days, long into the evening, he practises. He is driven hard, and drives himself even harder- just as he had as a dancer.

And on the appointed nights, he performs.

They cut him new robes, for the King of the Night. High collared and stiff, with a long and gorgeous train, dense black velvet, sown with small beads of glass and crystal. The slippers are black and beaded too, curling at the toes. Hermann needs help to get them on; the embroidered collar and mantel are heavy on his shoulders. A slender silver crown, gleaming with the moon and stars, rests on his head. His eyes are painted dark, his lips blue. He looks half a ghost himself.

Hermann takes a deep breath, leans on the sceptre and steps out under the light.

The curtains on box five are drawn open, just a little more. As though the Ghost missed him too, and wanted to see him more closely. Hermann smiles up at him. I miss you.

In the next box along, box four, the tall British gentleman watches intently, his arm around the little girl beside him. And when Hermann stands centre stage, trying to catch his breath after Hölle Rache, the girl smiles, and throws a bundle of sweet lilies to the stage.

The final performance is packed to bursting. Every night has seen the seats filled. This time, even the boxes are overflowing. Hermann sees that even the British gentleman has filled his. Usually he attends with only his little daughter, but now he sits with a rugged man, and a little boy who refuses to sit still, and noisily eats biscuits.

Hermann takes his final bows to thundering applause. Lilies fall at his feet, and violets, wreaths of flowers. He takes a breath, tastes the heat of the lights, the triumph.

Tomorrow there will be time to consider his next move. Tomorrow he will begin to train for whatever new role he will fight for. Tomorrow, he will worry about his next role. Tonight, this triumph is his.

In his chambers, two gifts are waiting for him. The first is large, soft, wrapped in dark cloth. Hermann strokes the fabric, but turns to the second. It is a small card, tied with a ribbon. He opens it first.

It’s an invitation to a masked ball, held at a hired room in the Opera. The writing is in a childish hand, careful and rounded, but the signature is a man’s. Earl of Pentecost.

A visiting noble holding a ball with most of the nobility and gentry at the event. A place to see and be seen. Hermann can afford one night’s revelry, to make sure the managers are under pressure to keep him in the limelight.

He turns to the first package. It has a note slipped inside the folds of cloth, the Ghost’s writing. To the fairest.

Hermann smiles, he cannot help it. His fingers slide over a blur of silks and velvets. Dark colours, deep sweet blue like the sky just after the sun has set. A sprinkling of jewels like the first stars after moonrise glittering around the collar and sleeves. They form geometric patterns down his chest and up his arms to the elbow, like constellations.

It’s so soft it’s like holding eiderdown, like rain-heavy clouds. Hermann buries his face in the fabric, and inhales the sweet smell of white roses.

The silver and black crescent moon mask hides his face for the dance, but everyone knows who he is. The whole of Paris is buzzing about the mysterious singer who came out of nowhere and dazzled the city as the King of the Night.

But although everyone knows who he is, no one really knows him. And he knows no one. The ball is a whirl of hidden faces and talk he can just not quite catch, like a strange dream.

He turns and looks into the face of a wild dog. Rich blond fur and gold inlay. The man’s dark eyes show inside the holes. “Young mister Gottlieb.”

Hermann bows deeply, one hand to his mask to keep it from slipping off. “Lord Pentecost.”

“Will you deign to allow me a dance?”

Hermann hides a smile at the man’s utter phlegmatic Britishness. “Of course.”

His hands are even larger than Hermann’s own, light tan leather gloves to his black silk. Hermann leaves his cane against a table, and Pentecost takes his weight easily. He is stiff, even in the waltz, but the relief at the motion- at making the steps, moving to the music- is wonderful.

“I had heard you were a dancer.” Pentecost leads very well, “Mako will be sorry she missed this.”

“Is your daughter not here?” Hermann glances around, but he cannot see the little girl.

“Rather too late for eight year olds.” Pentecost’s voice is warm. “My partner Colonel Hansen is looking after her, and his son. Leaving us free to socialise.”

“You enjoyed the opera.” Hermann nearly misses a step, his leg uncertain under him, he compensates and straightens. “I saw you there almost every night.”

“Mako loves the entertainment in this country; I think she misses the Kabuki.” He pauses, and Hermann wonders if he is trying to bring something up but, with typical British resolve, is uncertain how to begin. He wonders how they get anything done where he comes from.

Hermann glances around to offer a distraction, and his eyes catch on the door, which has opened to allow a newcomer in.

This man is dressed in blue, a few shades lighter than Hermann’s own. His clothes are styled to resemble some reptilian creature- a lizard, or perhaps a dragon. The thick leathery cloak is slit up the back, looking rather like a pair of wings.

“In fact, it is because of her enjoyment that I wanted to talk to you.” Pentecost finally begins.

Hermann nods, eyes still trailing the stranger. He hasn’t moved, standing and staring around him as though looking for someone.

“Mako is my adopted daughter. A sweet girl, but her life has not been easy. I want to offer her a distraction.”

“A distraction?” Hermann frowns, concentration broken. He frowns at Pentecost, unseen under his mask.

“To make her happy. Mako loves the Opera, and has taken rather a shine to you.”

They turn, and Hermann sees the stranger again. He is still scanning the room, and then his eyes alight on Hermann. He suddenly straightens, almost stumbling. He takes a step and hesitates, and Hermann meets his eyes.

And he knows.

“I am a patron of the arts in my own country.” Pentecost continues. “I would like to expand that to the continent. An artist of your skill is no common find.”

“Yes.” Hermann barely hears him. The Ghost. His Ghost.

He’s barely aware of the smile that drags across his face until his mouth aches with it.

“I understand you will need time to think about it- it will mean a great change, but my means are good, if I say so myself; you will preform in the best of venues, and my daughter will be so pleased.”

“Yes- I will think about- and thank you-“ Hermann stammers. They turn away, and he cranes his head back to keep the Ghost in sight. “I will give you an answer soon but I- I must go and talk- excuse me-“ He drops the surprised man’s hands, and stumbles off the dance floor, leg trembling and almost colliding with another pair of dancers.

He grabs his cane, and hurries towards the Ghost. The man seems to have lost him in the crowd, again looking around for him.

Hermann gives a short, wordless shout, and immediately feels stupid. He does not even know the man’s real name.

The Ghost turns and sees him. Starts again, violently this time. “Wait-“ Hermann starts, but too late. He turns and runs, leather wings flapping behind him.

“Sheisse.” Hermann swears. He settles his grip more tightly on his stick, and hurries after him.

The Opera is quiet- between productions, most of the staff is out- and the Ghost’s footsteps clatter on the marble floors. Hermann moves as fast as he can, trying not to lose the Ghost’s footfalls in the thump and drag of his own.

They climb fast, up the stairs and backstage towards the singers’ quarters. “Wait!” Hermann tries again, but he is getting out of breath and the shout is thin and reedy.

He finally reaches the singers’ floor- where he had slept during his months in the choir. The edge of the Ghost’s cloak is only just disappearing around his own door.

Of course, Hermann catches his breath, ignores the burning pain spreading up his left side, and runs.

He hits the door shoulder first- the room has been empty since he left it, stripped bare – The mirror is slowly swinging back into place where it had pivoted out.

Hermann jumps forwards, lands badly and shouts a wordless curse when his leg buckles, but he jabs out with his cane, and the mirror closes on it heavily, almost wrenching it from Hermann’s hand.

He staggers up, levers the heavy door open, and pushes through. Behind him, the mirror closes with a heavy, final click.

He gasps; snarls- “Will you stop!”

There’s no answer, just footsteps on wood disappearing into the distance. Hermann curses again, and hobbles after him.

Along a corridor, narrow and strung with cobwebs in the corners. The only light comes from the main corridor and room, filtering through small holes and cracks in the cheap plaster.

Then down rickety old stairs, lit only by the odd candle sitting in a puddle of its own wax. Hermann gets to the bottom, and listens.

There is nothing. Nothing to see, nothing to hear, the silence is complete. Hermann hesitates, then grits his teeth and pushes on. He will not give up, not now, when he is so close.

Fifteen minutes later, Hermann is lost. The corridors are empty, dark and dusty. He tries to examine the floor for footsteps, but all look equally disturbed. The Ghost must go around here regularly.

He takes a candle to guide him, but all the corridors are equally unremarkable, and they branch off in all directions. There is nothing, no light, no sound-

No. There! Down a flight of stairs is a glimmer of light. The light of candles reflects on an ice-smooth floor at the bottom. Hermann hurries down the stairs two at a time, landing heavily with every step before striding down three at once to hit the floor.

Which means that when his foot goes straight through what turns out to be a half-frozen lake of filthy street water, he cannot catch himself and falls in headfirst.

The cold is like a kick to the head, forcing every breath of air from his lungs and setting a thousand burning needles of ice through his leg. He struggles, losing sensation in his hands as he tries to swim. His robes are dead weight around him, dragging him down.

The light around him wavers, and is swallowed by the black as his head goes under. He opens his mouth and the foul taste of gutter runoff fills it. He throws his head back and tries to catch his breath, but his lungs have shrunken inside him, and even the smallest gasp is too much for them. He chokes; tries to kick and his leg doesn’t move.

The cold. The intolerable cold. It sinks through his ruined, drowning clothes and sinks long, icicle teeth into his skin. His lungs burn, he tries to pull in another breath, and his head goes under. The cold scorches its way down his throat, into his lungs-

He opens his eyes, the light above ripples and parts, but before Hermann can see anymore, everything goes black.

He wakes up with acid burning in his lungs, a miserable, twisting pain in his bad leg, aches in every part of his body, and a feeling that he has been very, very stupid.

He is surrounded by warmth, and soft things. Sheets worn soft as lace around him; heavy blankets trapping the sweet heat around him. It feels wonderful, like a hot bath, and eases the worst of the pains racking him.

Hermann flexes his hands, questing fingers finding the edge of the coverings, and the start of the pillows, worn but still soft. The air outside is cold and damp, and light flickers beyond his closed eyelids. The air is sweet with the scent of roses.

He opens his eyes slowly. He is in a high-ceilinged hall, lit by hundreds of candles sitting in piles of wax on tables and candelabras. The walls and ceiling are ancient brick, and only a few feet from his bed, Hermann can see the dark, mirrored surface of the lake. Roses pour from an urn beside his bed, their petals grown thin and translucent from candlelight.

Hermann swallows, trying to ease the burning in his throat. He sits up and pushes the blankets off.

The air is freezing, and Hermann suddenly realises he is completely naked. His robes are hung over the back of a rickety bed that looks like it was stolen from prop storage. Hermann shivers, and wraps himself in one of the nubby wool blankets. The soft fabric tickles his skin. Hermann tucks his feet under him.

The candlelight throws everything into such sharp contrast that Hermann doesn’t see his companion for a few moments. Sitting just beyond the end of the bed, hunched over a desk, is someone dressed completely in black, hands hidden in his sleeves, a hood drawn up high over his face.

For a moment, Hermann thinks he is absorbed in writing- but although he’s holding a pen, and has paper in front of him, the paper is empty, ink is already dry on the nib and caked on as though the man had mindlessly dipped it over and over without writing.

Hermann smiles. The Ghost has removed his blue scaled clothes, but he can see the mask hanging off the end of the chair. He hugs his knees and doesn’t say anything, just watching- seeing what he will do next.

The Ghost doesn’t move, staring down at the paper. Then, as though drawn by irresistible force, his head turns, just a little, to look at him. The candlelight plays on the curve of a second, white mask covering the right side of his face. The left is left in darkness.

He starts when he sees Hermann sitting up, jerking back and almost falling off his chair. Hermann smiles, rubs his still aching leg. The Ghost gets up uncertainly, whether to come over or to try and run away, Hermann doesn’t let him decide. He beckons him over, shifting over to invite the man to sit beside him.

He doesn’t take it, coming over only to sit at the very end of the bed, tucking the tails of his too-long coat around him and huddling into it, trying to hide like a guilty puppy in the blanket. Hermann cannot help it, he grins, his face aches with the unfamiliarity of it.

For a moment, all he can do is look. The Ghost. His Ghost. Even through the pain in his leg and lungs, the rawness in his throat, Hermann is elated.

Despite the camouflage of the coat, the man is rather short- nearly a head shorter than Hermann, stockier- although most people are, these days. A few curls of short, dark hair struggles to escape the confines of his hood and seems to beg Hermann to touch them, brush the hood back and bury his hands in the strands.

Something hot and excited kicks in Hermann’s stomach, pools lower. He feels a flush start around his collarbones and move up his neck.

The Ghost doesn’t say anything, he tries not to look at Hermann, eyes darting down at his knees, or out at the lake, or back at the abandoned pen and paper on the desk.

But he cannot help it, and Hermann feels his smile broaden when the man’s eyes are dragged back to him, shooting tiny glances from under his hood, behind his mask, eyes glinting bright and vivid in the light of the candles.

Hermann shifts, feels the wool brush over his body- almost painful over the raw skin of his leg, tickling around his neck, rough and warm along his back, and shifts his right foot free of the folds, chill and bare on the bedclothes. “That’s the second time you’ve saved my life.” His voice is rough. He swallows.

The Ghost says nothing. He reaches over behind the bed, and finds a carafe of water and a cracked mug. He pours some, and hands it to Hermann.

The water is pure and sweet after the foulness of the lake. It soothes the pain in his throat, and Hermann sighs in relief. “Well?”

Nothing. The Ghost hunches a little, then, finally; “You wanted me to leave you to drown?”

“Of course not.” Hermann shifts his foot a little further out, the blanket skimming over his ankle, tickling his calf. “I want to thank you. And see you. I’ve wanted to see you for so long.”

“Why?” He shrugs, the hood slips a little, and Hermann catches a flash of a pale, drawn face before the Ghost grabs his hood and pulls it back over his face. He’s wearing gloves, hiding every inch of skin.

Hermann is vividly aware of his own nakedness in contrast, and doesn't care. After so long spent wondering, longing, he'd tear off the blankets, the Ghost's own clothes- just to let them both feel each other at last, skin to skin. He eases his leg out a little more, as though stretching before a dance.

“You’ve saved my life. Twice. You taught me to sing. You’ve been the only one I could talk to since Sasha left. Why wouldn’t I want to see you?” The blanket creeps up over his thigh. The Ghost is trying not to stare at the bare curve of his leg, and is failing miserably.

His foot nudges the Ghost’s thigh- thicker than Hermann’s own wasted limbs. His toes flex, playing gently against the muscle. The warmth of his body is sweet after the chill of the room. The contact shocks a hot jolt up his body, Hermann's scalp prickles, the hair on his arms stands up. Heat pools between his legs.

Hermann’s foot starts tracing up to his hip, the warmth and soft texture under his toes send delicious ripples down his spine. "Don't." and the Ghost stops him, taking his foot in both hands. The warmth is lovely, his gloves rough and worn against the tender skin of his instep. The Ghost tries to push him away; Hermann doesn’t let him, pushing his leg down to settle in the Ghost’s lap. “Please.” His voice cracks, pleading.

“You think I don’t want you?” Hermann whispers. “After everything you’ve done?”

“I don’t-“ He chokes, his voice is not the beautiful thing that had astounded Hermann in their lessons together. It is heavy, broken. So impossibly sweet that Hermann’s heart aches. “Anyone would have done the same.”

Hermann laughs, short and sharp. “And either they couldn’t or they didn’t want to. Did you forget how you found me?”

“Anyone should have.” Almost a whisper. Hermann touches his toes to the inside of his thigh, where the fabric is so thin and stretched so tight around the curve of muscle. God, he wants him, he doesn't even care how it will work- just as long as it is both of them, here, now. Together.

“And if it wasn’t for you, I’d be dead.” Hermann pushes himself closer. The blanket comes loose and drops over one shoulder. “Come here, I want to thank you.”

The gloved hands come up to push him away, but the Ghost cannot seem to command himself. They only rest on his shoulders- one clothed, one bare. “I don’t want you to do this.” He whispers.

Hermann hesitates; doubt hovering for a moment that he had misread this- that his Ghost doesn’t want him-

But the hands are still holding him, thumb stroking over the edge of a collarbone. “I want to do this.” Hermann comes closer still, almost sitting in his lap. His folds his bad leg awkwardly across the Ghost’s.

The blanket falls to pool in Hermann’s lap, the touch so light and teasing he shudders with it. His hands come up to rest on the back of the Ghost’s head.

“Please.” The Ghost turns to him and Hermann can see his face now- young, pale, his one visible eye shadowed. Hermann reaches up to push his hood back-

The Ghost’s hand finds his, holding it still. “Please!” He’s begging, scared Hermann wants to find the words to calm him- everything is fine- better than fine. Everything is wonderful.

“Shh.” Hermann slips his hand free, and draws the cloth away from the side of his head. He leans in and touches his lips to the skin just behind his ear.

The skin is deliciously warm, smells of roses, tastes of salt. Hermann can feel his pulse beating under his lips, so absurdly alive Hermann cannot believe he ever thought him a real ghost.

He eases the hood back; the Ghost stiffens against him; trying to cover himself without pushing Hermann away. Hermann’s questing hands find the soft brush of the man’s hair and work their way in. It’s a wild tangle, and his fingers snag in the knots.

His mouth slips down, finds the corner of the Ghost’s mouth- his lips are dry, move silently against his- please. His hands clench convulsively on Hermann’s shoulders, pull him closer until there is nothing but the Ghost’s clothes between them.

Hermann finds the edge of the Ghost’s mask, tries to pull it aside to kiss him fully-

“No!” The Ghost grabs his hand, pulls it away. His eyes are bright, panicked.

Hermann smiles, cards his fingers through his hair soothingly. “It’s okay.”

“Please- you can’t- I don’t-” The words tangle and the Ghost stops, swallows. One hand holding Hermann’s at bay, the other keeping his mask clamped to his face.

“You don’t have to be afraid.” Hermann’s free hand strokes the side of the mask- it feels like fabric, stretched tight over a light frame. “Let me.”

“Don’t. Please.” That hand is caught too, pulled away from the mask.

“You’re not going to frighten me.” Hermann promises softly. “You saved my life. There’s nothing I can see that’ll make me leave.”

“I-” His voice cracks. “Please.”

“You can let me.” Hermann slips a hand free, and touches fingertips to the edge of the mask. “You can trust me.” He shifts it away, just a little. Just enough to kiss him cleanly on the mouth. The hidden side of his mouth feels rough and chapped under his lips. “I love you.”

The air leaves the Ghost’s lungs in a near sob. He kisses Hermann back, mouth moving desperately, sweet and hot and Hermann can feel his teeth press against the inside of his lips in his hunger. Has anyone ever kissed him like this? He kisses like Hermann, roughly and uncertainly, lost in the sensation.

He has never done this before. There had been no time, he had dedicated his life to his art, to dance and to song, and now every lost opportunity, every time to had wanted and refused to give in, comes back in a rush of fire. The Ghost shivers against him, wraps his arms around him, pulls him in tight and desperate.

Hermann eases his fingers along the edge of the Ghost’s mask; pulls it very slightly away from his face.

The Ghost’s lips move under his, mouthing a desperate warning as Hermann takes a firm grip on the fabric and pulls it away entirely.

Hermann hesitates a moment before pulling away, trying to prepare himself for whatever he is about to see. He won’t flinch or turn away. He won't do that to his Ghost. He remembers the old lady who lived with her own ghosts, who had been ravaged with a bloated, tumorous growth which doubled the size of her face and closed her eye to a useless slit. Then there had been his sister’s apprentice, who had been shoeing a horse when the animal had upset a tray of sand where Karla had been casting horseshoes. The molten iron had hit the boy in the face, and had burnt the skin from his skull, leaving only blackened skin and pale bone.

Hermann holds those memories in his mind, trusting that he wouldn't be seeing anything worse. He pulls away, and opens his eyes. What he sees is not that bad.

But only just.

Hermann does not flinch. He does not turn away. But he can’t stop staring. He hesitates, then reaches over and turns his Ghost’s face further to the light. His eyes are clenched shut, teeth gritted and bared, tautening the skin of his face.

And making the scales on his cheek stand out starkly.

The scales are bluish in the candlelight; ranging from as large as Hermann’s thumbnail, to so small he can barely see them. They trace over the right side of his face from hairline to jaw, crisping small and close in the creases around his eye, thick and heavy over his lips- like those of some reptile.

The scales gleam almost wetly, they are so smooth, but when Hermann touches the side of his face, they are quite dry. His Ghost flinches, as though expecting a blow. Hermann hesitates, then leans in, touching his lips to the corner of the Ghost’s clenched eye. The skin there is soft, grainy.

The Ghost's face relaxes little by little, and his eyes open. The left is greyish green, the right bloodshot scarlet. “Does it hurt?” Hermann whispers, touching fingertips to the underside of his eyelid.

His Ghost shakes his head slowly, staring at Hermann as though unable to believe he exists. That he is still here, and not turning away in disgust. “No- I was- born like this.”

Hermann nods, now the shock of the sight is wearing off, it isn’t so bad. It is almost- beautiful, in a way. The scales make strange patterns across his face- whorls and spirals over his cheek, and tracing out the lines of nose and face. Hermann follows their patterns with a fingertip, and the Ghost shivers.

“You look-“ Hermann’s words fail him, he can only trace the scales, so very gently. “Are you Tamino’s serpent?”

“Newt.” The Ghost’s laugh is so sharp it’s almost a sob.

Hermann blinks, finger hesitating on the curve of his cheek. “What?”

“I’m a Newt- that’s what they- what I was called.”

“Your name is- Newt?” Gott, what a name. No wonder he’d preferred to be a Ghost.

“If they liked me.” He smiles a little, sadly. “I was Monster, if they didn’t. Or The Devil’s Child, in the freakshow.”

“You were-“ Of course he was. No one in this world wants the strange, the outcast, the crippled. Hermann knows this better than anyone. “Of course you were.” His voice is sharp. "Gott, you have the voice of an angel, you write operas, you even managed to grow roses down here and they just-“ He cannot continue, he puts his arms around his Gho- around Newt. Hugs him.

Newt stiffens for a moment, then melts into the embrace. His arms come up around Hermann, and he hangs on as though he would fall off the world if they let go. Hermann sinks his fingers into the overlarge clothes and finds the scrawny body beneath- the body of a broad young man who had never had enough to eat. Hermann kisses the side of his face, lips skittering over the fine scales beside his ear.

“You are beautiful.” Hermann whispers fiercely. The body in his arms tenses, but Hermann holds him tighter in case he tries to pull free. “You are beautiful.” He repeats. “Those people were the monsters, not you.”

He remains stiff and unresponsive for a moment- maybe waiting for Hermann to laugh, or to say he was joking or- some other horrible thing Hermann has no intention of doing. Then, he falls into his arms, burying his face in Hermann’s shoulder and hands knotting into the skin at his back.

Hermann kisses the side of his neck, and his mouth finds more scales- small and fine, tracing delicate patterns across the soft skin of his neck and disappearing into Newt’s coat. How far do these scales go? Hermann is fascinated despite himself. His hands come up and find the first button of his coat, easing it free.

Newt starts, one hand coming to hold his coat closed. Hermann smiles, and his hand drops away guiltily, letting the coat flop open and slip down a little on one side. Hermann can see where the scales spread out from his neck over one shoulder, trickle in rivulets over a solid chest.

Hermann continues undoing the buttons, shushing Newt when he makes a half-hearted protest. “I want you. I said I want you. You’re beautiful. Shh.” The buttons come away; under it he is wearing a collarless shirt- again, too large. He eases the coat off, and makes a start on the shirt.

“You-“ Newt’s mouth moves, but the words do not escape. “Do you want- this? Me?”

“Gott, yes.”

Newt shudders as Hermann’s fingers trace the top of his trousers, tug his shirt free. Then, finally, he joins in. He shifts and takes hold of the shirt, pulling it over his head. Hermann takes the opportunity to sit up and remove the blanket from around his waist. He hesitates for a moment; the horse’s hoof has left a mottled, half-healed scar on his leg, still red and angry.

No- Newt has let him see, he can do no less. Hermann tosses the blanket away and settles back, completely naked.

Newt finally fights his way free of his shirt and stops dead on seeing him. Hermann smiles, a little uncertainly. He is thinner than he used to be, muscles wasted from illness and stress and forced inactivity. His skin is winter-pale, only a little hair on his chest, along his long, bare legs, a thicker thatch around his cock.

Newt’s eyes trail down there, and Hermann feels his face heat up. Then his eyes trace over to his wounded leg, and his hand darts out, hesitates.

Hermann takes it, and puts it on the ragged scar. His hands are still in their gloves, and Hermann picks them up, one at a time, and starts working them free.

Newt shivers, looks as though he’d like to pull away. Then he looks down at himself, and stays still. The scales run freely over his chest, cover his left arm to the elbow, and trace more patterns around his right. They spill down over the slight softness of his belly, dip around his navel and invite Hermann to follow their course with his mouth.

The gloves come free. Newt’s left hand is soft and pink, with bitten nails and ink-stains on the wrist and fingertips. The right is blue with scales, running up his arm like a gauntlet. His nails are overlarge, almost claws.

Newt hesitates, his left hand rests on his shoulder, but the right hovers in mid-air, uncertain if the touch is welcome. Hermann leans in, lets it rest against his chest, just above his heart. Newt can feel how fast it is beating. The scales are supple and warm, the nails prick light as needles on his skin.

"Is- is this-" His voice is plaintive. "Do you want-"

"Yes." Hermann feels the flush across his face and chest deepen, his skin is electric, sparks flying every time their bodies brush together.

"I- I've never-" Newt is blushing now, a brighter contrast between his skin and scales. "I mean- no one ever-"

Hermann shifts closer, their shoulders bump. "I know. I've not either."

Newt blinks, "But you-" It's flattering. Hermann smiles.

"There was no time, and after-" He touches his leg, and Newt's scaled hand covers his, comfortingly. "Well, you know about that." He kisses him. Lips rough and soft at once and Newt freezes for a moment before melting into the contact, mouth moving soundlessly against his, whispering without words. "I want you." Hermann mumbles against him. "I've wanted you for months."

When he pulls back, Newt still looks uncertain. Confused and lost, but there's the beginning of something in his eyes. He's maybe just starting to believe him.

“You’re beautiful.” Hermann repeats, and pushes Newt back on the bed.

“A freak.” Newt whispers, Hermann’s hands find the ties to his pants. “The Devil’s Child.”

“An Angel of Music.” Hermann works them free, opens his trousers and Newt whimpers. “My Ghost.”

“Please.” He’s hard as Hermann is, his cock standing free from the tangle of dark hair and pattern of scales. It’s without scales, the skin soft when Hermann kisses it just below the head. His bare feet curl in the bedsheets and he cries out, fists knotting handfuls of the cast-off blanket.

He pulls the trousers off completely, and now, he can look.

He is right. Newt is beautiful. His face alone was a shock, but like this, as a whole- the scales make gorgeous, dancing spirals across his body. Hermann follows their progress with his lips, and feels him shiver under him. “You are beautiful.” He murmurs against his stomach. “These are beautiful.” He licks a line of scales, dropping along the line of his hips. “They’re like stars.” Dazzling blue constellation across the sky of skin.

“And you’re the King of the Night.” Newt laughs helplessly, he spreads his legs, cants his hips. “God, why do you- you could have anyone- why-“

"You're beautiful!" Hermann will repeat it until Newt starts to believe it. “You were the one kind person in this place after Sasha left. You can sing like an angel. You gave me everything, and expected nothing. You saved my life twice, and I love you.” He kisses the hollow of his hip, the tender skin at the joint of groin and thigh.

“Please!” He cries again, his mismatched hands digging into the hair at the back of Hermann’s head. The long nails scratch at his scalp, and makes the hair on his body stand on end. “Here,” he pulls at his hair lightly, “Come up, I want to kiss you.”

He does so. His mouth is hot, sweet. The scales scratch at his lips, but his teeth are even and human, tongue strong and slick in his. He smells of roses, tastes of candlesmoke and beeswax.

His body is supple and strong under him, slick with sweat. Hermann shifts, their hips grind against each other. His cock slips against Newt’s and they moan- almost simultaneously – in each other’s mouths. They both jump, and laugh at their surprise.

“It feels good.” Hermann pants. They kiss again. Newt’s hands drop to grip his hips, press them together again. Sparks fly behind his eyes, the slow coiling of pleasure in his belly, twisting, growing tighter.

“Here.” Newt reaches down and wraps his left hand around both of their cocks, working them together.

Oh, it’s sweet. It’s perfect. Hermann’s hand joins his, fingers knotting together, gripping tight and stroking hard, together, knuckles brushing, giggles swallowed in each other’s mouths.

There are no more words. Just gasps, wordless whispers, soft laughter. The air between them is wet with breath. It’s a duet, Hermann thinks, they’ve sung so long together that they can’t help but be in key. It makes him laugh; a desperate, brilliant sound, broken only when he tries to catch his breath, when Newt strokes that little bit harder, rubs his thumb over the head. His right hand traces nonsense patters across Hermann’s back, drags red lines as his thrusts become more ragged.

“I’m- I’m going to-“ Hermann feels himself tense, the desperate, hungry pleasure drowning out even the spasm of pain in his leg.

“Yes.” Newt whispers, lifts his hips, holds Hermann’s hand and tightens both their grips. It’s too much- it’s delicious- Gott, it’s sweet. He swallows, shudders, and comes in short, clumsy jerks in Newt’s hand. Newt closes his eyes blissfully, and arcs his back, and joins him. It’s wet, and messy, and disgusting, and he doesn’t care. It could be ten times worse and he wouldn’t care.

Hermann wonders if he is dreaming this- if he drowned in the lake and this is their afterlife- haunting this place with the man he loves. They kiss, damp and sloppy and hungry.

Newt looks dazed, he blinks and his eyes settle uncertainly on Hermann. He is wondering if he is dreaming too. Hermann grins, and Newt burrows under his arm, tucks his head under his chin.

He looks so young. He is so young- no older than Hermann is, surely. It’s hard to believe he was the one who saved him... but maybe not. Who else could have that pure, blind faith in him? The faith that never quite let him despair. For all he thought his Ghost was mad, that belief had made him think that maybe there was a way onwards for him- something beyond a broken body and lost career and a miserable death in the winter streets.

“It’s my turn.” Hermann whispers into Newt’s hair. He makes a soft, questioning noise. “You saved me. It’s my turn.”

Newt wakes up to warmth, to hands spread across his skin, bony knees pressed in tight on the back of his legs hot sleeping breath in his ear. Their skin is sticky with sweat and clings hungrily to each other.

Newt closes his eyes. Like ice water in summer heat, real food after weeks of stale bread; this deserves every piece of his attention.

He hasn't been so close to another living thing for a decade, let alone another human being. The circus sometimes used to let him bed down with the dogs, saying that together they'd scare off any robbers. Newt had loved that, the dogs never minded him, were always glad to see him, were warm in their rough fur coats.

This though...

He hadn't known how much he'd wanted this- how badly he'd starved for it. Simple human contact- a hand on his, an arm around his shoulder, a leg bumping against his.

Lips on his.

He'd thought he'd drown from it. Everything all at once. Hermann's hands mapping every inch of him- without disgust or fear- with reverence; as though Newt were something to admire- his mouth tracing after, hot and damp and ravenous- too much to take in until Newt had just had to lie back and try and take it in; every touch sending a new wave of flashfire through him until he barely knew who or what he was any more-

Hermann kisses him, just below the ear. His tongue licks along the lobe, light as a cat's. Newt shivers deliciously and Hermann takes the bit of skin between his teeth- worrying at it as though enjoy some sweetmeat- taking his time- enjoying it-

His hands had been resting on Newt's chest. They twitch and move, skating over his pectorals, mapping skin and scale by touch, pausing to tweak and play with his nipples. His mouth tracks down to Newt's neck, sucks hot bites at the junction of his shoulder.

Newt closes his eyes, tries to swallow down any sound that might destroy this moment. Anything, just as long as this doesn't end.

Hermann bites down, and Newt moans. Loudly. Wantonly. He feels his face flush with embarrassment. Hermann laughs. "You're lovely." His voice is rough. He must have been sleeping too.

Newt grumbles, and shivers when Hermann latches onto his throat again. It feels glorious- and oh; he wants-

He pulls Hermann's hand away regretfully as it starts creeping lower, below his hip. Hermann makes a sleepy protesting sound.

Newt turns, Hermann's hair is mussed, spun with candlelight gold; his eyes dark in the lowering light, his skin seems to glow. His broad mouth is smiling, eyelashes printing dark shadows across his sleek cheekbones where his eyes are barely half open.

"You have a ball upstairs." Newt whispers, "You'll miss- mmhff-" Hermann kisses him. His mouth is broad, hot and mobile, lips sweet and sleek.
"Who do I want to talk to there that isn't here?"

Hermann sits up, smiling invitingly. The blankets slide down his shoulders, the light tracing new fine lines across his collarbones, the lean muscles of his chest. Newt's hands itch, his mouth waters. He grits his teeth and tucks his legs under him.

"What about that Earl you were talking to?" The shadow of jealously is still there, but Newt ignores it. It had hurt, like swallowing a glass of vitriol, to see Hermann dancing with that man. To be jealous now though, is absurd.

"Oh, him." Hermann stretches, and the sight of him makes Newt's blood run hot. He hasn't lost his dancing grace, and he could be limbering for a grande jette. As incredible a singer as he is, Newt cannot help but mourn the dancer he had been. "Yes, I'll meet with him. I told him I'd consider his offer."

"What offer?" Newt shifts, lies on his crossed arms and tries not to lean too heavily on his hardening cock. He strokes the taut muscles of Hermann's stomach.

Hermann smiles, Newt feels the muscles tremble under his light touch. "He wants to become my patron- parade me around Europe to please his daughter." He's smiling. Newt tries to smile, but the expression freezes on his lips, his hand unmoving on the warm skin.

Hermann blinks up at him, then stops smiling "What is it? Is he a bad choice?" He sits up, puts a hand on Newt's knee.

"No. He's a good man, and rich. It will be great for you." His lips as numb, his voice emotionless.

Hermann looks at him, eyes searching his face. "Yes, it will be good." He starts smiling, slowly. "You don't think I'm going to leave you, do you?"

"You're going to leave here." His voice doesn’t remain entirely steady, it breaks on the last word.

"I'm not going to leave you." Hermann takes his hands in his. "God, what would I do without you?"

His heart shivers in his chest, too bruised to dare hope. "Become a world renowned singer?" He tries to joke, it comes out frail.

"Then what will we do, together?" Hermann pulls him closer." Do you think I'd leave you here?" He looks around, distastefully.

Newt is needled. He built this place- well, not exactly. Who knows who did? But he made it habitable. He brought the candles, the furniture, turned it into somewhere he could live. Hermann's voice drops, softly, “How long have you been here?”

He shrugs. “I think I was- ten? I don’t know. I ran away when the circus was in Paris. They were finishing this place, and I- hid.” Thirteen years ago. As far as he knows, Newt is twenty three years old. He has no idea of the exact date. He never knew his mother.

Hermann kisses his hair. “You’ll come with me.” It’s not a question.

Newt flinches, nearly cracks his head against Hermann’s. “No.”

“You can’t live here What if you fall ill? The air isn't good here, not for your voice. You’re not eating enough-“ Hermann presses his fingers into his back, feels the edge of his backbone just that a little too clearly, where his body is trying and failing to fill out to adult bulk. “- do you think I can be happy, with you down here?”

Newt stares at his room. It is cold here, and damp. It had been a paradise, after the circus, close and safe, away from mocking, cruel eyes and striking hands and thrown stones. He had decided to stay, he'd rather weaken his chest living in the heavy, wet air and risk consumption than go out and return to that wretched life.

He decides against telling Hermann this.

"And what will they think- this Earl, and his daughter? Do you think they'll take me along? Look like a- a traveling freak show?" It's like spitting broken glass, sharp and painful.

"How many singers travel with a music teacher?" Hermann cards his fingers through his hair, brushes it behind his ears, kisses the bared skin of his neck. "You'll come with me. You'll train me and together we'l unbeatable. You'll write your operas and we can get them published-"

It feels as though Hermann was working his hands into his chest, carefully pulling him open, opening every vulnerable part of him to the air. The hope is a tickle across his bared heart. "I can't- I don't even have a surname-"

Hermann settles in front of him, barely inches apart. "Then you can have mine. God knows it needs all the good associations it can get. I can't redeem it alone." His smile is crooked, humourless.

The thought of hope- the sheer proximity of it frightens him. He cannot bear it, if it were taken away. His voice trembles. “You’d do this for me- with me?”

Hermann smiles, slow, broad, growing. “Of course. You saved my life. It’s my turn now.”

Newt's hands fumble for his. Hermann grabs at him awkwardly, their fingers slipping over each other.

Epilogue

Moscow is colder than Paris. It is autumn again in France, but in Moscow winter has already come. The snow lies heavy in the streets, and people are wrapped up so well against the cold that Newt does not give more than cursory objection when Hermann drags him out of their Hotel. The Earl has been more than generous, and their tour has taken them to the Bolshoi Theatre. Tomorrow he will have the part of Vladimir Igorevich for Prince Igor.

But tonight- well. Newt is still a little reluctant, but he comes out more easily now. Still uncertain, but he’s starting to trust him. His eyes are bright under the hood of his fur-lined cloak, face covered with a scarf. Hermann can just see the faint patterning of scales across his right eye, the shadow of the hood not quite hiding his bloodshot eye.

Hermann looks down at his stick, its balance unsteady on the frozen ground. The writing is a little worn from being held every day, but still legible.

10 Katryana Bulva

The house is tall and narrow, broken into apartments. She must have been watching for them, must have heard, although Hermann would have liked it to be a surprise. The door opens before he has time to knock.

Sasha is grinning, and he cannot help but do the same. The year has been good to her. She’s brilliant, eyes gleaming, dressed in rich clothes and jewellery at her neck. And Hermann sees himself in her eyes. Standing tall, not strong yet but- better. No longer frail, no longer helpless. Headlining tomorrow’s performance. Dressed in fine furs – a present from Newt, royalties from his Opera, sold for once under his own name; his and Hermann’s: Newt Gottlieb.

Sasha hugs him, her arms strong and powerful, her scent sweet and familiar. Hermann pulls Newt over, and she hugs him too- he stiffens, looks panicked. Hermann grins- he smiles so much, these days.

Sasha pulls them in, to a house that smells of a rich roast, of hothouse flowers and hot Russian tea. To Alexis’s bone-crushing hugs and delighted welcome. To tomorrow’s performance where he will sing of love and devotion rather than hate and murder. To Newt, and their months- years ahead together. To days stretching out one by one bright as stars, pulling them both along in their wake. The Opera Ghost and the King of the Night.