We left off with a bit of a cliffhanger last time I posted a chapter in this book. I’d hate to leave you in suspense for very long, so here is chapter 6! Remember, feel free to leave some feedback in the comment section or send me an email! I’d love to hear from you!

In the dingy attic of the church, an obfuscated form shrinks into the shadows. He’s been hidden here for a long time. Can’t you tell by his overgrown locks? He limps to the corner of the dusty room, falling to his knees and leaning against the wall. His hooded eyes look up at the planks: pinned to the oak is a series of parchments, and on every sheet is scribbled a single face. He reaches up to touch the closest scrap, hesitates, then brings his hand back down to his heart in a fist.

“Alas,” he whispers. His voice is husky, with an accent foreign to Paris’s residents.

The door creaks open and a stream of light enters the room. The stranger in the attic hardly looks up when Gérard approaches. The priest looks down at the figure on the floor, his brow furrowed.

“Erik,” he says. “Stop wallowing.”

“What else can I do?” Erik replies. “She wants someone else.”

“Well, how can you give up now when you haven’t even shown yourself to her?” Gérard challenges. “Give her a chance.”

“I gave someone else a chance a long time ago…and she is bound to another now.”

Gérard purses his lips, sighs through his nose. “Angelique is not like her, Erik,” he says. “She is kind. She might love you if you only gave her the chance to.”

Erik scoffs. “How can anyone love a creature such as I?” he mutters.

Gérard kneels in front of Erik. “You are no creature,” he says. “You’re just as human as anyone else.”

Erik shakes his head, his absent gaze falling on his bare feet extended before him. “If I were a human, then why am I trapped in an attic, hidden away from the world like a piece of unwanted furniture?”

Gérard stares at Erik. Then he shakes his head and stands to leave. “You are not as lost as you think, Erik,” he says. “Perhaps if you put an effort into reaching out to her—like you did at the ball—you might find the affection of someone who isn’t ashamed of you.”

As Erik watches him leave, he squeezes his eyes shut. Tears flow that he hadn’t noticed, and he swipes at his eyes with rapid motion. His breathing grows shaky and he makes to stand, but a glance finds a shattered mirror. He stops, crawling over to the mirror and staring at the form in the fractals of glass. The mop of ebony that adorns his head, the thin hands, the sallow skin, and…

He shudders and turns away from the mirror with a disgusted grunt. “No,” he whispers. “No human…only a monster.” He looks up at his wall of sketches with bloodshot eyes, the images of her auburn ringlets and verdant eyes captured in charcoal and graphite. He stands, stumbling over and ripping the parchment to shreds with little regard to the splinters under his nails and his now bleeding fingers. He sinks to the floor, his body wracked with breathy sobs. “No…she could never love me…”