During those final days together, the two of them had suffered several Scourer attacks. No matter how they hid, their pursuers always managed to find them in the end.
Natalie said it was neither wizarding power nor No-Maj technology, but something else that seemed real yet unreal.
She had been crushed by an unknown fear...
Even now, Isabella did not know what Natalie had been thinking before deciding to die. What had made her choose to end her own life?
Could it have been related to that "something that seemed real yet unreal" she had mentioned?
With Natalie's death, those questions would never be answered. Natalie had left Isabella no clues, only contact information for several black-market illegal safe houses.
The apartment building Isabella had just escaped from was one such illegal safe house. Its operators were a married couple of Pukwudgies—distant European goblin relatives—and most similar illegal safe houses were run by magical creatures like them.
They did not care whether wizards were good or evil, or even whether their customers were wizards, No-Majs, or trolls. As long as they had Galleons, Dragots—North American wizarding currency—dollars, or euros, they were willing to provide their services!
I hope those people managed to escape...
Isabella thought.
Most of those staying in the illegal safe house that night had been wizards like her, affected by the current situation in North America and hoping to sneak across the border into Canada for refuge.
Perhaps it was precisely because so many people had gathered there that they had drawn the Scourers' pursuit!
But all she could do was offer a warning before fleeing and pray now...
The temperature grew increasingly bitter in the early hours. Isabella wrapped her arms tightly around herself, trying to hold on to warmth, while listening to the sounds of