Read Chapter 6: Under the Opera House

The tunnels beneath the Palais Garnier smelled of dust, candle wax, and something older—something that clung to the limestone like a held breath. Camille pressed her palm flat against the cold wall, feeling her way forward in the near-total darkness. Isabelle’s note had been terse, scratched in hurried pencil on a scrap of ledger paper: *The opera. Beneath. They keep things there.*

They. Always they. Never a name.

Camille had spent her afternoon convincing the stage manager she was a costume illustrator researching period dress for an upcoming feature. A few francs and a well-timed smile had earned her access to the service corridors. The rest had been a matter of patience, waiting until the evening rehearsal let out and the building emptied into the Parisian night.

Now she was alone in a place that felt deliberately forgotten.

Her lantern cast a weak pool of light ahead of her. The passage narrowed, then opened into a wider chamber. She stopped. The air changed—less stale, more breathable. Someone had been here recently. Her fingers traced a rough-hewn shelf carved into the stone. On it, a brass candelabra, half-melted. Beneath it, a scrap of black lace.

Camille lifted it. Silk. Expensive. The kind of trim that adorned the collar of a couture gown. She tucked it into her pocket and pressed deeper into the chamber.

The room opened into what must have once been a dressing room, or something like one. A vanity stood against the far wall, its mirror cracked but intact. A velvet chaise slumped beneath a faded tapestry. And there, on the vanity’s surface, lay a leather-bound book.

Camille crossed the room and picked it up. The cover was soft, worn at the corners. Gilded initials on the front: *A.M.*

Adélaïde Moreau. The first woman to disappear.

She opened it carefully, the spine creaking in protest. The pages were filled with elegant, sloping handwriting—a woman’s hand, educated, refined. Camille scanned quickly, her lantern trembling with her hand.

*January 12, 1891. He came to the salon again tonight. He did not dance. He only watched. Everyone thinks him a patron of the arts, but I know better. There is a hunger in his stillness.*

Camille’s throat tightened. She flipped ahead.

*February 3. The symbol. I saw it pressed into the wax seal of his invitation, and again on the marble of his mantel. A moth. Death’s-head. I laughed when Marguerite called it a superstition. I do not laugh now.*

Camille’s pulse quickened. She turned more pages.

*March 14. He knows I have noticed. He smiled at me across the table, and it was not kind. He said I was curious, and that curiosity was a lovely thing in a woman—so long as she knew when to stop. I told him I did not know how to stop. He said that could be arranged.*

The next page was blank. Then three pages later, a single line.

*April 1. All Souls’ Night. He told me I would see the truth beneath the opera house. He told me to bring the letter. He promised me eternity.*

Camille’s skin pricked. All Souls’ Night. The autumn solstice was still weeks away, but the mention of it sent a cold spike through her chest. She read the final entry, dated April 12—the day before Adélaïde vanished.

*I am not afraid. I am chosen. Whatever happens beneath the stones, I go willingly. If you find this, do not come looking for me. What I become will not be the woman you knew.*

The lantern flickered. Camille’s breath caught in her throat.

A sound. Soft. Behind her.

She spun, her hand flying to the small pistol concealed in her coat. The chamber’s shadows were deep and slow. Nothing moved. But the air shifted—a current, warm and human, close enough to stir the loose hairs at her neck.

She backed against the vanity, sliding the diary into her coat. “I know you’re there,” she said, her voice steadier than she felt. “Show yourself.”

Silence. Then, from the darkest corner of the chamber, a step.

He emerged slowly, deliberately. A figure in a black opera cloak, face hidden behind a white porcelain mask—featureless, expressionless, save for two dark eyeholes. He tilted his head as if studying her.

“You are not supposed to be here,” he said. His voice was low, muffled by the mask, but distinctly masculine. Not Philippe’s. Deeper. Rougher.

“And yet here I am,” Camille said. She raised the pistol. “I would prefer you not come closer.”

“You would prefer many things.” He took another step. Then another. “The diary you have. It belongs to me.”

“It belongs to a dead woman.”

“She is not dead.”

The words struck her like a slap. Camille’s finger tightened on the trigger. “Where is she?”

“Where you cannot follow. Put down the pistol, Mademoiselle Delacroix.”

The name on his lips—the fact that he knew it—sent a jolt through her. She had not told anyone where she was going. Not even her editor. “Who are you?”

“Someone who has been watching you for longer than you know.” He moved closer, and the lantern’s light caught the edge of a blade at his belt. “The diary is not the only thing I have been sent to retrieve.”

“Sent by whom?”

He laughed, low and humorless. “By the one who noticed the moth flutter into his garden.”

The pieces clicked. She opened her mouth to speak, but he lunged—faster than a man his size had any right to move. Camille fired.

The shot cracked through the chamber, deafening in the enclosed space. The figure staggered, his hand flying to his shoulder, but he did not fall. Instead, he let out a snarl of animal frustration and lunged again.

She threw herself to the side, rolling across the stone floor. The diary pressed against her ribs. Her lantern had fallen and guttered out, casting them into near-total darkness.

She heard him draw the blade.

“You will not leave this place,” he said.

A third voice cut through the dark. “She will.”

It was quiet. Civilized. And impossibly familiar.

Camille’s heart seized as a new figure stepped between her and the masked man. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Moving with the unhurried grace of a man who had never needed to hurry for anyone.

Philippe de Montfort.

He wore no mask. His face was pale in the dim, his eyes fixed on the intruder with an expression of cold, measured amusement.

The masked man froze. “My lord.”

“You were told not to touch her.”

“I was told to retrieve what she took.”

“And I am telling you to leave her.” Philippe’s voice did not rise. It did not need to. In the darkness, it carried a weight that made the air itself feel heavier. “Go back to my brother. Tell him the arrangement has changed.”

The masked man hesitated. Then, with a vicious oath, he turned and vanished into the shadows.

Camille remained on the ground, her heart hammering against her ribs. Philippe looked down at her, and for a moment, something flickered in his eyes—relief? Anger? She could not read it.

He offered her his hand.

“You have a talent for finding trouble,” he said.

She ignored his hand and pushed herself upright, clutching the diary to her chest. “Your brother sent him.”

“My brother is many things,” Philippe said. “A patient predator among them.”

“And you?”

He was silent for a beat. Then he stepped closer, close enough that she could smell the sandalwood on his collar, feel the faint warmth radiating from him.

“I am the one asking you, Camille, to trust that not all wolves hunt the same prey.”