The only protest Waver could manage was an instinctive, strangled cry when he was yanked up by the wrists. He didn't struggle to get free so much as he struggled to stay upright and keep up while he was dragged and herded out, down a narrow, neon-lit hall, and pushed down into a metal chair at the heavy table that occupied what seemed to be some sort of interrogation room. He did not yank on the cuffs when he was latched into place.

He sat frozen and wide-eyed, like a rabbit in the headlights, his gaze swiveling without much movement of his head to take in the menacing strangers, the guarded door. It seemed to take a moment for the question to penetrate his state of numb shock and actually make sense.

So that was why. They were after his family's magic. It was a simple, vague explanation, easy to latch onto right now. Someone wanted the secrets of the power the Archibald family bragged of, and so they'd come in the night to steal them. His family. Him.

There was a nagging, sickening flash of something like memory or nightmare, snatches of half-seen faces in the crumpled pile of bodies he'd been dropped next to before he'd been in the cage. Dead bodies. Had his father been among them? Had those voices he'd heard screaming been familiar? Had they come from this room?

The guard would have to be patient. Waver, ashen-faced and quivering, just stared at him for nearly a full minute, mouth working soundlessly. When words finally came, it wasn't an answer, but a question of his own.

"Wh-where is... my father?"