The carriage stopped.
The stopping was wrong. Bellatrix knew the difference between a scheduled stop and an unscheduled one, because she had been riding in carriages for thirty years and the rhythm of a planned halt involved deceleration, the coachman's call, and the gentle rocking of a vehicle coming to rest. This halt involved none of those things. This halt involved the horses screaming, the carriage lurching sideways, and a sound from outside that was neither wind nor weather.
Dark smoke poured through the tree line from both sides of the road.
The smoke was thick, chemical, carrying the acrid signature of magic rather than fire. It rolled across the road with the deliberate speed of a substance that was being directed rather than dispersed, which meant a mage, which meant an attack, which meant Bellatrix Drakenfell's day had just taken a turn she had failed to budget for.
