If Lacey were really thinking clearly, the garden was the last place she would have chosen to fall asleep. But the stone bench was cool compared to the heat in her skin, and she had had the thought that if she could just lay down for a few minutes, she'd feel better. Of course, within a few seconds she'd fallen asleep, heedless of anyone else in the vicinity for once.

Which, among other reasons, was why she jerked awake when he shook her shoulder, almost falling off the bench in her haste to try to get away from whoever this stranger was touching her, eyes wide with shock and an instant of terror. Unfortunately, her body was being extraordinarily uncooperative; dizziness overtook her the moment she made her feet, and she closed her eyes, swaying, reaching for something to steady herself and finding only the back of the bench she'd just stumbled off of, her free hand halfway held up as if to ward him off. If this were the Games, she'd be as good as dead, not from the sickness itself but simply from being too ill to defend herself.

It wasn't the Games, though, she tried to tell herself as her sluggish brain tried to separate nightmare from reality. She was in Skyhold, in the garden. Whoever this man was, he was probably not trying to kill her. Lacey looked back up at him, slowly, reluctantly starting to lower her arm. She had to swallow twice to get her throat to work. "What— what's wrong? What's going on?"

There must have been something, for him to wake her so abruptly. Surely it wasn't just because she was sick and fell asleep in a strange place. She was still halfway trying to pretend she wasn't as ill as she was.