They said the theatre was haunted.

That a voice lingered behind the red velvet curtains. That the chandeliers wept wax even when unlit. That the piano in the sub-level hall played at night, without hands, summoning melodies that clung to the air like breathless ghosts.

You had never heard the voice.

Not until the day you sang alone in the rehearsal hall—softly, just enough to chase away the echo.

He answered you.

A single note from the shadows, perfectly in tune. It startled you. Not for its volume, but for its precision.

It was as if he had known what you would sing before you even opened your mouth. —

He taught you in secret.

A voice through the mirrors. A hand that never touched, but guided. You never saw his face, not fully. Only a glimpse now and then through the opera house’s endless maze of corridors—a gloved hand vanishing behind a column, a cloak swaying like a shadow against candlelight.

“You have the voice of starlight,” he told you once.

“You are kind,” you replied, flustered.

“No,” he said. “I am not.”

But he kept returning. He taught you breath, phrasing, grief. He spoke of music as if it were blood. You began to rise above the others—your voice growing, gilded, soaring.

And yet, you never once saw the face that trained you.

He asked you not to look.

So you didn’t.

Not even when he stood behind you at the piano, breathing so softly it almost sounded like silence. —

They called him a myth. A ghost.

But you knew better.

He had a name. He whispered it to you one night, when your voice cracked in rehearsal and you nearly fled in shame.

“Anaxagoras,” he murmured from the veil of shadows. “If you still wish to sing… speak it. And I will come.”

You did.

And he did.

Always.

—

There was a man in the audience.

A nobleman, warm-eyed and golden, who called you familiar. Who claimed to remember you from childhood. He brought you roses. He laughed with the others. He did not believe in ghosts.

Anaxagoras grew silent.

Then—angrier. The chandeliers trembled when you sang love songs for the nobleman. The piano keys slammed shut at the end of your arias.

He stopped correcting your pitch.

He just… listened.

And then one night, he left you a letter.

Come.

—

He led you beneath the stage. Deeper than you thought possible. Through stone corridors carved with musical notes. To a hidden room where candles burned without smoke, and water kissed the marble floor like breath.

And there he stood.

Half of his face was shadowed by the mask. The other—pale, untouched. Beautiful in the way that winter can be beautiful. Silent. Cold.

“Why did you bring me here?” you asked.

He didn't answer at first.

Then, slowly: “To give you everything the world would never let you keep.”

He showed you compositions written in your name. Arias designed for no other voice. Music that only lived when you sang.

He reached for your hand.

And stopped short.

“I am not a man,” he whispered.

He was the echo of what could have been.

You didn't run.

But you couldn't step closer either.