At this point, Voldemort's eyes abruptly turned cold.
"So, I sent you to Azkaban. It was bait. If Douglas knew nothing of my plan, Azkaban should have had its normal defenses."
"But there was an ambush specifically prepared for us."
Voldemort spun around, his robes stirring a gust of wind. His gaze grew piercingly sharp as it bored into Lucius.
"This proves one conclusion: the instant the command left my brain, Douglas had already received the signal. It confirms the hypothesis of 'blood-based thought surveillance.'"
Lucius felt a chill shoot from his tailbone straight to the crown of his head.
These two... these two lunatics!
He had risked his life out there, nearly been riddled with spells, and it turned out he was nothing more than a stone the Dark Lord had casually tossed out to test a hypothesis?
And that menace Douglas could actually monitor the Dark Lord's every move through his blood, from hundreds of miles away?
Was this even magic anymore?
And even... Lucius suddenly thought of an even more terrifying possibility.
If this connection worked both ways, then even though he hadn't tipped Douglas off, Douglas already knew everything that had happened today?
Didn't that mean he would face Douglas's reckoning too?
He had never trusted him at all, that damned Douglas.
"Douglas..."
Voldemort returned to the Microscope, his voice dropping as though he were talking to himself.
"His methods are ingenious, combining magic and biology to such an extent. But he is still too young, after all. That arrogance, that eagerness to humiliate his opponent and flaunt his superiority, made him reveal this trump card too soon."
"If he had restrained himself and let me continue exposing myself in ignorance, that would have been truly fatal.
But he made a move on Azkaban. For this