Your footsteps echo a little too loudly. You pull your coat tighter, breath misting in the air. That’s when you hear it—a second set of footsteps, falling into rhythm with yours a half-beat behind.

You glance over your shoulder. A figure, tall and cloaked, stands under a lamp-post twenty yards back. The light glints off something pale and porcelain on its face. A mask. A Death Eater’s mask.

Your heart kicks against your ribs. You quicken your pace. The footsteps quicken too.

You break into a run. The wet cobbles are treacherous. A sharp crack splits the air ahead of you. The space in front of you wavers, and he’s there, materializing from nothing, blocking the narrow mouth of the alley.

You’re in a grand, cavernous entrance hall. A staircase sweeps up into darkness. Tattered sheets drape over furniture like ghosts. Moonlight filters through grimy, towering windows, painting everything in shades of silver and gray.

The hand releases you. You stumble back, gasping. The cloaked figure steps into a shaft of moonlight. Long, elegant fingers reach up, grasp the edges of the mask, and pull it off.

He’s younger than you expected. Maybe your age. Dark, tousled hair. Sharp, aristocratic features. Pale skin. And eyes—a stormy, unsettling gray that holds the moonlight and seems to swallow it. He tosses the mask onto a sheet-covered console table with a hollow clack.