We were now mere inches apart. I leaned down, my face level with hers, my eyes blazing with barely contained fury.
"You don't want to make an enemy of me, Hawke." I growled.
Lyanna swallowed hard, but her gaze remained defiant. "I'm not afraid of y...
I melted into alcoves and ducked behind furniture, my heart thundering so loudly I feared they might hear it.
Every movement felt like a dance with discovery, each step a potential betrayal of my presence.
My disillusionment charm stretched thin around me like silk, threatening to tear at any moment.
The aftermath of repeated curses still rippled through my body, my muscles were exhausted with residual pain.
I felt like I'd been through a war, which, in a way, I had.
If Theo was right about Lyanna's potential resistance, I needed more than determination and desperation.
I needed strength, and quickly.
The irony wasn't lost on me — not long ago, I'd been willing death to take me in that lightless cell, and now here I was, fighting to survive with every fibre of my being.
Amazing what hope could do to a person's will to live.
Who helped Theo orchestrate the escape?
The question nagged at me as I pressed myself against a wall, letting a pair of masked figures pass by.
Was it Narcissa?
The thought seemed impossible with Lucius in the house, yet who else knew these halls well enough to coordinate something like this?
The main floor crawled with Death Eaters like ants on a disturbed hill.
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I counted at least ten in the entrance hall alone, their voices a low murmur of dark promises and darker plans.
Some clustered in small groups, heads bent in conversation, while others stood sentinel, their silver masks catching moonlight filtering through the high windows.
The absence of any alarm or commotion was both reassuring and unsettling.
Either my friends had already made their escape undetected — or they were playing the same deadly game of stealth that I was.
I made my way toward the medicine room, a chamber that held more memories than I cared to count.
How many nights had I spent there, tending to wounds from my father's and Lucius's "lessons"?
The room had been my sanctuary of sorts, a place to piece myself back together after whatever new torment was devised.
Now it might serve that purpose one final time.
Wiggenweld potion would be in there, along with other remedies that could help put strength back in my limbs.
