[@shylarah]

Lyra gasped when she spotted the man. She darted, tripping and falling then scrambling under a rose bush. She peered out fearfully at the stranger.

"Who-who're you?" she asked, a tremor in her voice. "You're not fae."
Why was this stranger here? Her Ba-Ba didn't let strangers around, especially not men and especially not into his and Lyra's private garden. She squeezed the little pink crystal in her hand tightly, wishing Ba-Ba was there.

Her tears, having dried, welled up again. She was so scared but not of the stranger. Not really. She was scared of what the servants had been talking about. The blackness that killed everyone.