There was a banging sound from her right, but Via ignored it. She was halfway through. There was nothing left to do but keep going. She refused to let anything distract her, including the banging noises that were now growing louder.
"Via!" she heard Hunter shout. 
Via stopped, annoyed. "I'm trying to focus!"
"Look!"
"What is it?" Via snapped, turning around. "Oh, shit."
Lityerses had found her. He'd found himself a new, unmelted sword, which he was now pointing at Via's neck. He was flanked by half a dozen blemmyae, who were also armed. They stood between her and the doors, blocking her way and erasing all hope of getting out of here. 
There was no way she'd be able to fight her way out. They were too close for her bow to be effective, and Lit had a few thousand years of experience on her, meaning she couldn't fight with her knife. 
"Yield," Lityerses ordered. "Drop your weapons. All of them."
Via backed away and glanced around the room, looking for something, anything, that could help her get out of here. She felt her breathing accelerate. Her heart was beating so fast she was sure it would explode. She could feel the adrenaline pumping through her body. She was going into fight-or-flight mode, but this time, she couldn't do either. She was truly trapped.
"This doesn't have to end with your death, Olivia," Lit said. "Come with us now, and you'll be perfectly fine. After you answer a few questions, of course."
Via hesitated, then slowly set her knife on the ground. She dropped her bow, arrows, and medical bag as well. "Happy?"
"Very," Lit replied smugly. He turned and nodded at the blemmyae. "Take her."
Two blemmyae grabbed an arm each, and two more fell in behind her in case she tried to escape. Via felt a sharp sting in her neck and hissed at the pain, she snapped her head over to see what had just stung her and was horrified to see one of the blemmyae putting a now-empty syringe in a biohazard bag. Her gaze found the label on the syringe and her eyes widened.
"Propofol?" Via demanded, starting to freak out. "You're not supposed to administer such a high dosage directly! There's a reason they administer it in an IV — it's too strong on its own, it could make me stop breathing!"
"It's necessary," Lit said. "We can't have you memorizing the layout of the palace, can we?"
Via didn't remember falling asleep — usually nobody did when they were given anesthetics — but waking up was a freaky experience. She found herself suspended in midair, face-to-face with Commodus. 
"Hello, Olivia," the emperor said pleasantly.
"Hi," Via drawled, still under the effects of the anesthetic. She gasped in wonder, realizing she was in the air. "Cool... I'm flying!"
Commodus frowned at Lit. "I think you gave her too large of a dose."
"Perhaps," Lit agreed. "I must have guessed her weight wrong — She is quite short."
"Hey, now," Via slurred out. "I'm — I'm not short... I'm —" she broke out in a giggle. "I'm fun-sized." She giggled some more, convinced she had made the funniest joke ever.
Lit and Commodus exchanged a look.
"Olivia," Lit said. "We're going to ask you about that show of power you showed in the throne room. You know — when you started to glow and you melted my sword."
"Your face was so funny," Via said, holding back another round of giggles. "You were like, 'huhhhhhh?' " She made an exaggeratedly confused face.
"What exactly was that?"