❝ 'Never trust a survivor,' my father used to warn me. 'Until you find out what he did to stay alive.' ❞ — Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard

Something wasn't right. Something wasn't right. Something wasn't right and I couldn't find rest.

Not at any point during the night, despite how restless I felt from all the hours of dueling, not even as dawn began to creep in through the windows, lighting up the border where sea and sky met in shades of gold. I clutched the dagger in one hand and the wand in the other as I paced back and forth around the bedroom. Willard's voice buzzed in my head like an emergency alert.

I know you're out there, Polly Kin. I don't know where exactly, but you seem to be hiding yourself well because my men and I have been in pursuit of you and your fellow killer friends ever since you escaped, and still haven't been able to locate you. So this is the last warning, either you show yourself, or you are going to regret it. And I'm always a man of my word.

One message. Four sentences. They came to me like an announcement over a loudspeaker; no longer a mere whisper, glitching as if he was testing a new communication method to see how well it worked. This time, I'd heard every word loud and clear, his voice pouring like molten lava inside my head. Laced with rage, with impatience, with lunacy. A brewing threat.

But beneath it all, I sensed something else. Something I knew he didn't want me to. Fear. Insecurity. He couldn't live with the idea I'd found a way to outsmart him. His request was as much a threat as it was a begging. He needed me to reveal where I was hiding because he couldn't do that himself, and it was driving him mad.

It was this acknowledgment that filled me with a burst of satisfaction and made me momentarily forget about the fear that stirred in my stomach.

Damn right you should fear me, bastard. But when I find you, you're going to regret wishing to have me there.

And if worrying about Willard wasn't enough, I still couldn't shake off the disturbing thoughts about Zoë's survival. It was more than a matter of omitted truth. She lied to me. I didn't have to look into her thoughts to know it wasn't Emilie at all who helped her escape. That was something she'd taken upon herself, and whatever means she'd used to slip away without the Azkaban guards noticing, it had cost her something.

She wasn't the same Zoë I found there. A shadow followed her now, and not a benevolent one. I couldn't even stand in the same room as her for more than a couple minutes without shivers crawling down my spine. And as much as I tried to tell myself she wouldn't harm me, my heart didn't feel lighter because of it.

I reached for the glass of water on my bedside table. Beyond the lilac curtains, the sun was starting to rise. The hallway was noiseless as a cemetery when I opened the door. It couldn't be more than five in the morning. Bertha would wake in an hour.

I shoved the wand in my front pocket and the dagger in my back one, then tiptoed out of my room and down the grand set of mahogany stairs. The boots that Bertha gave me when we got here were in a cupboard. I put them on in a haste and slipped out.

With each step I took away from the manor, I hoped, expected, demanded Willard's voice to fill my head once more. This time, I wouldn't hesitate. This time, he'd get what was coming his way.

I know you're out there, Polly Kin.

A step toward the beach. Still water, clear as glass, growing flaxen under the early sun rays. Birds warbling from the trees. I drew out my wand and bared my teeth.

I don't know where exactly, but you seem to be hiding yourself well—

The water swirled. Tides grazing the shore. Maybe I should've taken a jacket.

—because my men and I have been in pursuit of you and your fellow killer friends ever since you escaped, and still haven't been able to locate you.

I reached the bay. The sand, wet and gray under my feet. I drew a circle with the heel of my boot. A seagull's sharp cry tore through the air.

So this is the last warning: either you show yourself, or you are going to regret it.

"Come on, Willard," I muttered. "Come on, you coward. I showed myself. Your turn."

The salty sea breeze on my face. From this side, the island curved in an L shape; the forest, where we'd spent the last week, stretching out to the edge of land that ended in cliffs. I turned and ran in the direction of the woods.

And I'm always a man of my word.

"Come on."

I picked up the pace, wand in hand, heart drumming in my ribs. The towering trees covered whatever sunlight had begun to creep into the sky. I paused and leaned against one to catch my breath. From the distance came the faint glow of the aspen tree with the sparkling trunk I'd stared at every night during our stay in the shed.

"Is that where you are?" I challenged. Then louder, more viciously, "Show yourself, you bastard! I'm ready! Show yours—"

A firm hand seized my arm. Another pressed against my mouth. I lifted the wand but it flew out of my hand. The attacker stepped back. I spun, expecting Willard, but my mouth fell open at the sight of Hatsue.

She blended in with the foliage in her forest green dress and brown scarf, almost like a hood, that covered her long hair and casted a shadow over half her face. I tried not to let my disappointment show.

I was hoping for Willard. I wanted it to be Willard. I was ready to face him.

"You shouldn't have followed."

She pressed two fingers to my forehead, but before I could even as much as raise an eyebrow, she began to sign a response.

"You shouldn't have come."

My eyes goggled. I had . . . understood her.

It took me a minute to recover from the bewilderment. "How did—How did you do that?"

A smug smile touched her lips. "Japanese magic is centuries old, far more advanced than anything British wizards have discovered so far. Growing up Breeze McBon's daughter as well? I'm sure you've gathered I'm no ordinary sorceress."

"Right," I breathed, like I understood, like it was ordinary stuff, like it made any bit of sense.

"But just so you know," she continued. "You'll have to learn sign because I can't lip-read more than three sentences. I just sped up your process of understanding me, but I can't give you the ability to communicate back. I may be powerful, but I'm no miracle worker."

She signed all of that and I understood every single word. Just like that—one nonverbal spell, one touch of the forehead, and a knowledge of a new language had poured into my head like I'd studied it for years.

Hatsue turned and picked up my wand from the ground. I thrusted it in my pocket and we made our way out of the forest, the chirping of birds trailing behind us like a marching band.

I thought we were going inside again, but Hatsue gestured for me to follow her around the side of the manor. The kitchen window lit up, a sign Bertha had just woken up. Goosebumps began to form on my arms and I ran my hands up and down them to create friction.

When we reached the back of the manor, I stopped dead in my tracks. A bittersweet sense of deja vu crept in. I'd had the same reaction almost a year ago, at Mike's cottage in Westlake Village, when I first saw his backyard. The beauty of it had amazed me, from the vast array of flowers to the pond of water lilies, the same pond I'd stared at as I sat on the bench next to Sibi. The first conversation we had, where I didn't feel like slapping her.

That was the day she told me the truth that changed the course of my life.

"Wow," I breathed.

Daises punctuated the stone path that led to the garden. There were no trees in sight, except a willow that stood almost removed from the scenery, its weeping canopy billowing like a veil. From the center rose a fountain in the shape of a waterfall. Clusters of pink and yellow flowers cascaded down the rocks encircling it. Butterflies danced in circles around them, fluttering like plastic toys of a crib mobile over a baby's head.

"Come with me," Hatsue signed.

She made her way towards the weeping willow. The graceful leaves dangled from its branches, dancing in the breeze that filtered through them, longer ones brushing the grass. I pushed the canopy open and stepped into the shade. The breath caught in my throat when my eyes fell on what Hatsue wanted me to see.

A tombstone rose from the grass, made of white marble, shaped like a heart. Its height hardly surpassed my knees. A series of red roses surrounded it, forming a circle that looked as protective as it did ornamental. More flowers burst from the patch of grass in front of it. Some of them magical—a garland of blue ivy gliding in tendrils along the surface of the marble; white blooms floating like a halo around it. Others were ordinary flowers. Daisies, daffodils, violets.

And at the foot of the tombstone, a bouquet of yellow dahlias.

I took a step forward. My feet staggered, like I had sacks of flour tied to them. Right in the middle of the heart, Stella's face was carved on the surface of the marble. A sculpted portrait that moved, just like magical photographs or paintings, except the only color was white, the only material marble. Her gentle face with the wavy hair that flowed like a curtain down the sides of it. The big, soulful eyes.

She blinked once, the corners of her mouth rising in a warrior's smile. The same smile she wore when we made it out of Azkaban. When she held the wand tightly in her hand after having casted the spell that saved us from the fall and said, "We did it, Polly." Beneath her face was her name and lifespan.

Stella Josephine Cole

2019-2032

I sank to my knees beside the tombstone. She blinked, then flashed the warrior's smile. With trembling fingers, I reached to touch the surface. It was cold, smooth just like her face. In the air that sparkled with magic, the white flowers floated like bubbles, emitting a sweet aroma.

In this moment in time, in this memorial adorned with flowers, beneath the ground—sweeping branches of the willow, her memory came alive. It would remain alive, carved in stone as a moving sculpture, with the red roses encircling it and the halo of floating white flowers that preserved her gentle strength, her fierce beauty, her soulful eyes and warrior's smile. The Stella that deserved to be remembered, that demanded to be remembered.

Not as the muffled voice that begged for help as the waves defeated her.

Not as the innocent child with a heart too brittle for Azkaban.

The Stella that saved us. The Stella that survived, and would continue to do so, right here, underneath the willow tree. The yellow dahlia that would never wilt.

Tears pooled my eyes and the sculpted face blurred. I held onto the tombstone as I leaned closer to kiss the cold surface, lips aquiver, strained breaths racking my chest.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered. My fingers traced her name in silver letters—the middle name that I'd never known, never gotten around to asking her about. "I'm sorry, Stella." The tears spilled down my chin, sprinkling one of the yellow dahlias in the bouquet at the foot of the tombstone. I touched the raised numbers of her date of birth. 2019. I'd lived three years by then. "I-I'm so-so-sorry."

And there I lingered. Not on her death, so premature, so abrupt; not on the dash that signified her lifespan, cut so short, over before it could even begin. On her year of birth, her life, her time on this earth. That's where I would continue to carry her.

I pressed my forehead against the cold marble. My tears turned to sobs turned to tears again, then a wheeze, then silence. Silence. Just the birds warbling around me, the graceful willow leaves swaying in the breeze, the gentle flow of the waterfall in the distance. My hand glued to the heart of stone, the other clutching the golden one around my neck.

Hatsue approached me then, at last. She rested a gentle hand on my shoulder and I let her pull me away from the memorial and into her chest. She caressed my face with one hand and stroked my hair with the other, and in her touch I felt Breeze. Breeze as I'd once seen her. Breeze as I wished to see her still. Breeze as she, despite the rose-tinted lenses I'd viewed her in, had never quite been.

She had always been a little too distant, a little too cold, with one more card hidden under her sleeve, one step out of reach. What did I expect from someone whose mystery was part of their allure? From someone whose body went rigid when I embraced her, almost like she didn't quite know what to do with her arms? Whose lips had only been graced by the ghost of a smile at most? Always an 'almost but not quite' kind of woman. Why had I built a shelter in a person like that? The altar she stood atop was my invention. My mistake.

"Zoë sculpted the tombstone," Hatsue told me as we were making our way back to the manor. "Wally and I planted the tree and enchanted the flowers. You can only see the willow if you're looking for it."

And all I could say was, "Thank you."

It became the first phrase I learned in BSL. Fingers touching the chin and extending forward. Hatsue turned to me, her smile warm and whole, the way Breeze's had never been.

"I don't have to be here right now," she began. "But my mother wanted me to, because she wanted us to meet."

We had reached the manor. She dusted off her boots in the doormat, then pushed the door open to let me in.

"You're her daughter as much as I am," she continued. "So don't doubt, even for a second, that when you think of her as a second mother, that love is unrequited. Because of that love, she's out there and not here." A gleam of pride flickered on her eyes. "She would risk losing your trust, your respect, anything it takes. Anything but you."

▼

Hatsue and I helped Bertha set the table for breakfast, while Wally gathered his things to leave for Hogwarts. It was Monday, which felt as weird to acknowledge as the fact that I, too, had once looked at the day as nothing but the start of a new week, back to waking up early and getting ready for my morning classes. Now, it hardly mattered what day it was.

"Wonder how Natalia is doing," Bertha said in a concerned tone. She glanced at the big clock on the kitchen wall that struck 7. "She's usually up by now."

Hatsue took the pan of scrambled eggs from the stove. She turned to Bertha, a smile playing on her lips.

"I think she's fine," she signed.

She handed me a basket of bread rolls. As I turned to set it on the table, Theo appeared on the doorway. He had taken a shower, the ends of his hair still damp, his eyes swollen. Had I not known better, I'd assume he was drunk.

"Morning, dear," Bertha greeted him with a grin. "Sleep well?"

He staggered to a chair and lowered himself slowly to it, as if he'd just had spine surgery.

"Uhh, y-yeah," he said with a look of slight discomfort. There were bruises on his neck. He waved at Hatsue, then immediately reached for the pitcher of water when I set it on the table. "Hey."

I frowned. "Are you okay?"

He nodded and poured himself a grass, downing it in two gulps.

"Oh, he's more than okay," came Zoë's amused voice. She leaned against the doorway, hair disheveled but face radiant in a way it hadn't been in days. "Polly, you're up early."

"Yeah." I sighed. "Couldn't sleep."

Zoë winked at Theo, a smirk slipping on her face. "Neither could we."

Then I took in her outfit. She was wearing his shirt, which fit her like a dress, almost reaching her knees. When I glanced at him again, his face had turned beet red.

Oh.

"Someone call for Wally," Bertha said, oblivious to our conversation. "I'm not letting that boy leave without some pie again." She turned to me and shook her head in an expression of exasperation, but a smile hung on her lips. "He hates when I give him food."

I smiled back. "I'll go get him."

Wally sat on the first steps of the grand mahogany staircase, tying his shoes, the strap of his school bag slung over one shoulder.

"Hey," I said. He looked up, ebony hair falling over one eye. "Bertha wants to make sure you don't leave without some pie."

A grin built on his face. He stood up, adjusting the strap of the school bag, then began to take out his wand, but I stopped him.

"You can talk," I said. "Thanks to Hatsue, I know BSL now."

His eyes widened, first with surprise, then the look melted into one of admiration.

"Can't talk it. Yet, at least. But I can understand it." I laughed. "It's crazy, you know. I mean, all my life, I've only known English. But all it took was one spell, and suddenly I'm bilingual."

"Not just any spell," he signed, and despite not being the first time, I still marveled at the sheer fact I could understand him. "What Hatsue knows isn't even taught at Hogwarts. Half the advanced spells I know, I've learned from her."

"So you guys must be close."

He nodded. "We grew up together. She spent every holiday with us, came to every gathering my family held, all that."

"Oh?" The statement piqued my interest. "How come?"

"My family lives in the same neighborhood with professor McBon. Growing up, there were no other kids around for me to play with. Only Hatsue."

"Why did Breeze not make her attend Hogwarts, then?"

Wally hesitated. The briefest smile cracked at his lips. "Do you think she needed it?"

Fair point.

"Come on," I said. "Before Bertha comes here and starts to shove pies in your pockets."

He laughed. When we entered the kitchen again, they all sat around the table and had begun to eat. Bertha leaped to her feet upon seeing Wally, almost choking on her scrambled eggs.

"Oh, good!" She scuttled over to the counter. "I thought you left like last time."

Wally rolled his eyes, but his smile was benign when Bertha handed him the pies, wrapped in aluminum foil. He put them inside his bag, then took out a journal and gave it to me. It was the same one he had, the one he had invented that I'd seen him use to communicate with Sibi.

My brows shot up. "You're giving it to me?"

"I made a duplicate," he explained. "So you can have your own copy. Just remember the spell before you start talking to her."

For this part, he took out his wand and wrote the incantation in the air in floating red letters. Communico. I held the journal hesitantly, gingerly, like it was a delicate plate.

"Wally, I'm sure I'm not the first to tell you this, but—" I gave him an awestruck look. "You are a genius."

He gave a dismissive shrug, but the smile on his face was one of self-satisfaction. I stepped forward and gave him a hug.

"Thank you," I whispered.

When I pulled back, Bertha embraced him in a hug as well. Hers was tight and prolonged, like a mother sending her son off to war, and though he promised her he'd be back the next weekend, it took her a moment to properly let go. When she finally pulled away, the look on his face seemed to say, "I'll have to reconsider that promise."

Hatsue escorted him to the door and out of the manor. My gaze followed their retreating figures out of the window as they made their way towards the bay.

"The secret passageway," I turned to Bertha. "Is it in the middle of the ocean?"

"Oh, no. It's not too far from the bay actually. Hatsue just likes to use the boat, but Wally swims there sometimes."

"What is it?"

"An underwater Portkey. Goes straight to a lagoon in the middle of the Forbidden Forest."

They really had ensured this place would be as difficult to access as possible, it seemed. Willard's voice floated in my head again. I recalled what I'd told Theo the other day. It could be a trap. Whatever spell he was using, it was me he had managed to reach, not my location. But if there was even a slim chance he found a way to bridge that connection, track me down like muggle phone hackers did an anonymous number, I had to find a way to dispel him from my head as soon as possible.

We ate breakfast for the next half an hour, me being the last one to finish. Bertha went upstairs to make our beds, and Hatsue said she would help us practice more spells in the garden. I was making the table when Zoë entered the kitchen, now wearing her own clothes and with her hair combed.

"I'll give you a hand," she said.

She pointed her wand at the plates, which levitated in the air and went floating toward the sink. I looked at her ghostly white hands and bloodshot eyes as she moved around the kitchen, trying again, failing again to pinpoint what bothered me about her survival.

The story, the story, what was the story? Why wouldn't she tell me?

Why couldn't I bring myself to ask?

"Hatsue showed me the memorial," I said. She turned to me. Here came the sensation again, like a sea urchin was stuck on my esophagus. My tongue felt heavy. "Thank you," I managed. "It was . . . you've done an amazing job."

Zoë approached me and pressed her hand against my cheek. It felt like an ice block against my warm skin. I had the instinct to retreat, but didn't.

"That's how she deserves me to be remembered," she said softly.

I closed my eyes. The relief felt like bricks sliding off my back when she dropped her hand before I could push it away. I hurried over to one of the drawers and pulled out a fresh tablecloth, chalky white with patterns of blue flowers embroidered in it. Zoë helped me lay it on the table, but I tried to avoid even the tiniest physical contact with her again.

Hatsue entered the kitchen. "Thank you for cleaning up," she signed. "I just wanted to say we're starting Defense practice in a minute."

"Okay," I said. "I'll go get my wand."

Not throwing another look at Zoë, I practically dashed out of the kitchen and up the set of mahogany stairs. Chills started to prick at my skin. Something wasn't right. Something wasn't right. Something wasn't ri—

"Polly?" Theo called. I held onto the railing as I reached the last step and almost tripped over my feet. He stood down in the hallway, looking up at me. "You goin' to your room?"

"Yeah, I—" I tried to keep my voice steady, but the same three words boomed in my head. Something wasn't right. "I'm just, uh . . . I'm getting my wand."

"You mind gettin' mine as well while you're at it? It's on my nightstand."

I nodded and raised a thumbs-up, not trusting myself to speak another word. Calm down, stupid. Everything is okay.

I entered my bedroom. Bertha had made the bed, pulled back the lilac curtains to allow sunlight in, and sprayed some sweet fragrance in the air. Everything in order, but something just didn't fit. I grabbed my wand on the vanity desk. Maybe another bath wouldn't do me any harm.

No. This time I wouldn't be able to relax, no matter how warm the water, how soothing the bubbles, how soft the towels. No matter if I took one bath or twenty, my chaotic brain wouldn't find rest. Not until I got to the root of what wasn't right.

Theo's bedroom was three doors down, on the left side of the hallway. The only time I'd been inside was the night Wally and Hatsue brought us in the manor, when Theo collapsed at the dinner table and Bertha carried him up here. The sheets were baby blue then; they were lime green now. There had been red roses in the vase on top of his dresser. Now, that vase stood empty.

I walked up to the nightstand to get his wand. Something else caught my eye. His Crucifix. I frowned. He hardly ever took the thing off. Though, I could recall times he'd gone without it. Fear of getting it tainted by the Devil's presence and all. What was it he said that day at the cliff again?

The more this energy consumes me, the furthest from God's light I feel. It feeds me all these sacrilegious thoughts, makes me wanna go against the holy teachings I've always lived by.

Faith. God's light. Holy teachings. Well, good thing I never had much of those to begin with. I wondered how different my life would've looked if I did. Would it even?

I shoved his wand in my pocket and grabbed the Crucifix.

The moment I held the necklace in my hand, a heat began to blossom simultaneously on my palm and right in the center of my heart. A needle popping a balloon filled with blank ink instead of helium; a dam cracking and the river rushing forward not in water, but blood. The wild beat of my heart stilled, replaced by a tranquility like a beat of silence before the crack of thunder. I felt everything and I felt nothing. Molten rage. Terror. Numbness. And the voices in my head, the ones that had whispered that something wasn't right, something wasn't right, something wasn't right . . . now they seethed and hissed, winding around my brain like ribbons embroidered with the same repeated word. Destroy. Destroy. Destroy.

I jerked backwards, gasping so hard I almost choked on my own breath. My chest burned. I dropped the Crucifix like it was a lit dynamite. The silver cross looked dull against the white carpet. Nothing peculiar about it. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just a simple religious necklace.

I brought a hand to my chest. "What the fuck?"

Whatever I thought before about Theo's behavior, about this dark unknown force that had possessed him, I was wrong. Oh, how wrong. Not that I ever believed he was lying, but I had drastically underestimated the severity of this—this—what the hell was this?

Hell.

Devil. That's what he had called it.

Sometimes, I wonder if it's the Devil tryna tempt me.

I recalled that day at the cliff, right as I was contemplating jumping. When I'd just chopped off my hair. The day after our fight. When he came to apologize, he wasn't wearing the Crucifix. And he said . . . I remembered he said something about—

For a while, I tried to hold tighter to the Crucifix, but what's crazy is . . . I felt his presence stronger then.

The blood began to clot in my veins. I clenched my jaw, trying to steady my breathing, trying to both make sense and not wanting to because I could hear the roar of the avalanche in the distance, and if I wasn't careful enough, it would crush me.

But everything was falling into place. All the times Theo and I had carried a normal conversation, all the times he'd said "I'm sorry" or "Let me help," all the times he had been the good-natured boy I met in Azkaban instead of the violent person, spitting out biting remarks and lashing out in anger . . . all those times, he was not wearing his Crucifix. That day we went fishing, he tossed it on his bed before we left the shed. The other day when I bumped into him in the hallway and he asked how I was doing, there was no Crucifix around his neck.

I looked down at the necklace, cursed object, Devil-possessed. What sort of Dark Magic was in it? How did it get there? Where did it start?

The Devil speaks to me in her voice. Every time. Every day.

The avalanche rolled closer. Doubled its speed.

"Polly?" came Zoë's voice down the hallway. "What's taking you so long? We're waiting on you, chica."

Zoë. Of course she had something to do with this. Since the day we got here, I knew she wasn't quite what she seemed. But it was with her that this whole thing had started. Theo's mood had soured since we left Azkaban. Since her death, not Stella's. Before that, the Crucifix had just been a Crucifix.

I see her. All the time. Even when I sleep-especially then.

The ground felt hollow. The snow around my feet cracked.

Memories flooded to the forefront of my brain. Him asking me to give her the Crucifix in the cafeteria. Her holding it between bruised knuckles when I slid it across the floor from my cell. Her voice in my head, reassuring me when she was being carried to the Execution Chamber, that the guards let her see Theo one last time. That she'd given him back the Crucifix.

But it's not quite her, you know what I'm sayin'? She's angry and mean. Sometimes I wake up sweatin' in the middle of the night, and I see her standin' over my bed, and her eyes are red like the Devil's.

Flowing snow and air rushed forward. The roar grew louder.

"There you are!" Zoë exclaimed. My neck spun. Her hands rested on both sides of the doorframe, an amused look etched on her pallid face. "What are you doing here?"

Do you know what might be the matter with him?, I'd asked her. The day I found out she wasn't dead. He thinks he's possessed by the devil.

And as she cut my hair, she replied, In a way, he's not wrong.

Snow mixed with air. Rolled closer. Faster.

Her lips curled in a curious smile. "Not going through my boyfriend's stuff, are you?" she teased.

What did it for me was something else she mentioned that day. The very moment I ran into her arms. When I asked her how she had survived. And she said . . .

You're not the only cat with nine lives here.

The breath caught in my throat. The avalanche accelerated.

I feel like a cat with nine lives, I'd told Theo. The day we went fishing.

"You weren't there."

She raised a confused brow. "Come again?"

"Cat with nine lives." My voice was shaking. "It's a muggle idiom." My hands were shaking. "You didn't hear me when I said it. You had no way of knowing. You weren't there."

She stepped into the bedroom. I took a step back. Stumbled. Almost tripped at the edge of the bed frame. No. I reached for the wand inside my pocket, heart threatening to burst out of my chest. I stepped on the Crucifix. The metal seared my sock. No.

I fell backwards. Zoë began to walk towards me. Her footfall lazy, the snowslide cataclysmic. My shoulders rose with each ragged breath.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

It was Xavier who told me. He who first warned me without meaning to, without even realizing he had. When Zoë's guard Richard died, the one who kept her in the Torture Chamber for a week, prior to her execution. When they pinned the blame on her and I didn't believe them, but . . .

She killed him, that lunatic. She killed Richard.

The boom was louder than the thunder's.

No. My eyes met Zoë's. All I saw in them was blood. No. An involuntary gasp escaped my lips.

The avalanche had arrived.
The avalanche.

"You're a Horcrux."