The tiles underfoot were made of brass.
When you stepped on them, the echo would travel from the soles of your feet straight up to the crown of your head.
Countless copper pipes, thick and thin, hung down from the pitch-black dome above.
Air currents raced wildly through these pipes, producing a deep, droning hum that grew oppressive the longer you listened.
“So big…”
Vivian craned her neck so far back she thought her cervical vertebrae might snap.
“Watch your step.”
Cicero led the way. He reached out and touched a copper pipe as thick as two people’s arms joined, coming away with his fingertips coated in a layer of black grease.
Cicero rubbed his fingers together, face full of disgust. “I hate the inner worlds of artists. All sticky and gross.”
Bastian, on the other hand, was visibly excited. The guy still held his not-yet-scrapped brass trumpet, gesturing animatedly at the pipes.
“Look at those lines! Look at that verticality! This is the perfect fusion of industry and classicism!” Bastian breathed in rapturously. “I’m inspired! I’ll write an opera called ‘The Death of the Plumber’!”
Just then—
A crisp metallic clack echoed through the empty hall.
“Who’s there?!”
Cicero halted too, but didn’t reach for his gun—just cocked his head slightly.
From the shadows behind them, a woman slowly stepped out.
She was dressed in a long black gown utterly unsuited for underground exploration, the hem soaked and streaked with mud.
In her hands, she held an old-fashioned musket inlaid with ivory and silver filigree.
“Armand?” Vivian’s eyes went wide.
It was none other than the fearsome backstage tyrant of the opera house—Armand Perrault.
Only now, a few locks of her hair had fallen loose, and that usually severe face showed a trace of sorrow.
Her gun was trained steadily on Bastian’s brass trumpet.
“Eh?” Bastian froze, pointing at his own nose. “Me?”
“Put down that ugly thing,” Armand said coldly. “That’s an insult to Erik.”
“This… this is avant-garde art!” Bastian started to protest.
“Bang!”
Armand pulled the trigger without hesitation.
The lead shot whizzed just above Bastian’s scalp, slamming into a pipe behind him with a thunderous clang, shaking down clouds of dust.
“What’s up! You’re not kidding!” Bastian yelped, hand loosening as the trumpet clattered to the floor and rolled to Armand’s feet.
“Anything you want to say?” Cicero looked at Armand, voice calm.
“After all, an ordinary headmistress could never have found this way.”
Armand ignored Cicero’s quip, her gaze fixed over their heads on the massive doors of the pipe organ castle.
“You shouldn’t have come.” Her voice was hoarse.
“This is between him and me. The sins of a past generation.”
“Sins of a past generation?” Bastian sidled closer, eyes shining. “Such a fateful term! Don’t tell me, you and the Phantom once—”
“Shut up.”
Armand whipped her head around, eyes sharp as blades. Bastian instantly fell silent and shrank back.
Armand lowered her gun. The pocket watch in her hand trembled ever so slightly with each breath.
“It was 1881,” Armand said softly, as if lost in memory.
“The opera house wasn’t even finished. The underground tunnels were just places for workers to nap. I was just a seamstress, sewing buttons, and he…”
She raised her hand, thumb unconsciously caressing the lid of her pocket watch.
Click.
The lid popped open.
In the faint light, Vivian saw a yellowed photo inset inside.
A man and a woman. The woman—Armand in her youth—face still stern, but the corners of her mouth curved in the barest hint of a smile.
And the man…
He wore full evening dress, a half-white mask covering his face, exposing only a perfect chin and pale lips.
In the lower left corner of the photo, a line of words was faintly engraved: [A.P. & E. 1881].
A.P.? Vivian had seen those initials inside the Swan. So the one who tried to help the Phantom escape was her.
“That’s… Erik?” Vivian whispered.
“He wasn’t a monster back then.” Armand’s fingers gently traced the engraving, her gaze drifting far, far away. “At least, not to me.”
“He was a genius. Architecture, music, magic… there was nothing in this world he couldn’t do. Except…”
“Except be loved?” Cicero finished quietly.
Armand gave a bitter laugh.
“Except admit he deserved to be loved.”
“He was a genius and a madman. He locked himself underground, claiming he’d build the world a ‘true temple of art’.” Armand laughed again, a sound full of self-mockery. “I was naïve, believed his nonsense, thought he was just a frustrated architect.”
“I smuggled materials for him, sewed costumes, even… installed the very first gas lamp in this underground palace.”
Vivian sucked in a sharp breath.
“And then?” Bastian couldn’t help sticking his head forward.
“And then he went mad.”
Armand cut him off coldly.
“He grew dissatisfied with his underground audience. He wanted applause from above, wanted blood, wanted to rule art through fear.”
She raised her musket, fingers gently stroking the barrel.
“He gave me this gun. He said if he ever lost himself completely, I was to use it to give him his ‘final curtain call’.”
At this, Armand shot Bastian a look, open contempt in her eyes.
“You so-called ‘artists’—always shouting about pain and despair, making a show of suffering for inspiration. You don’t know what the real abyss is.”
“He jumped in, and I…” Armand gripped her pocket watch tightly. “I failed to pull him back.”
A heavy silence fell.
Even Vivian, usually quick with jokes, dared not speak up now—this was a melon that stuck in the throat.
“Quite the touching story.”
Cicero broke the hush, pulling a cigarette case from his pocket. Ignoring the appropriateness of the moment, he lit up without a care.
“But forgive my bluntness, Madame Perrault. What we’re facing now isn’t your lover Erik anymore.”
Cicero exhaled a smoke ring, pointing at the castle.
“Sitting in there now is a ‘concept aggregate’—a collection of all the Paris Opera’s negative emotions for the past century.”
“He doesn’t just want a curtain call. He wants to take the whole opera house with him.”
Just then, a low, oppressive pipe organ began to play deep within the castle.
“DONG—DONG—DONG—”
The melody was vaguely familiar to Vivian—maybe “Don Juan Triumphant”—but so twisted as to be unrecognizable, the original rousing tune now sharpened and harsh.
The castle doors slowly swung open.
Like a great maw, waiting for its prey to walk in willingly.
“Unless we play by his rules and act out this final scene with him,” Cicero’s mouth curled into a cold smirk.
“He wants a perfect tragedy, does he?”
Cicero looked at Vivian, something sly flickering in his eyes.
“Vivian.”
“What?” Vivian backed up warily. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
“It’s opera—there has to be a heroine.” Cicero ran his eyes up and down Vivian. “Even if your acting’s atrocious, and you’ve got the air of a street hooligan…”
“Hey!”
“But on this absurd stage, maybe, as Bastian said…” Cicero smiled meaningfully. “This is a kind of ‘deconstruction’.”
“Let’s go, everyone.”
Cicero stubbed out his cigarette, leading the way toward the great doors.
“The show has begun.”
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