Although snow had yet to fall in the Albanian Forest in late December, thick frost already coated the grass, and icicles draped the great trees in beautiful silver.
The scenery might have had a charm all its own, but danger now lurked throughout the forest, filling it with a murderous chill.
Beneath a great tree stood a simple, concealed treehouse.
Inside, Tom, who had changed into clean silver robes, was eating a simple meal of "food."
He had not lit a fire-not because he was immune to the cold, but because smoke would draw his enemies' attention, or even bring a lethal attack.
Of the two mysterious forces that had recently been hunting him, the one without tattoos had stopped attacking him and turned its attention to finding Voldemort.
The force whose members bore tattoos of an Ouroboros entwined around a cross, however, remained hot on his heels.
In fact, that force also had another team hunting Voldemort.
To be precise, the depths of the forest had long since descended into a chaotic bloodbath, with the exception of the Albanian Ministry of Magic, which had been the first to withdraw.
The cross and Ouroboros faction, the unidentified force, the international Auror forces, himself, and Voldemort-and recently, some veteran Death Eaters who refused to obey him-had made it all a tangled mess.
Tom had not tracked down and hunted those disobedient Death Eaters. In a sense, he was using them as bait.
Whenever the others encountered one another, they generally launched into indiscriminate slaughter, which continued unabated even in the bitter winter cold.
Tom could actually have withdrawn first, but he had recently made some unexpected discoveries in the forest.
In some deeply buried ruins that had accidentally become partially exposed, he had found eagle and giant serpent totems.
So Tom