Illusion

My first mistake, the next morning, was to get out of bed without checking that the floor below was clear. A big mistake, especially when Corin happened to be hanging around the palace. Rather than both hitting the soft, carpeted floor of my bedroom one of my feet instead sank into a large bowl of custard, thoughtfully placed where I would be most likely to stand in it.

My second mistake occurred as I hopped towards the bathroom and pushed the door open, forgetting to move out of the way as I did so. A large bucket of water emptied itself over my head, soaking me to the skin. It was painfully obvious to me that I had forgotten to lock my door the previous evening, a habit I always made sure to follow whenever Corin happened to be within a mile of Cair.

Shivering, I washed the cold, slimy custard off my foot and grabbed a towel, wrapping it around me as I tried to dry my hair, muttering something unrepeatable under my breath.

A soft knock made me scowl at the door.

"If that's Corin," I said, enunciating clearly so there could be no confusion over my words, "then he had better start running now."

There was a scuffling sound as Su poked her head around the door.

"Do you want me to hang on to him?" She asked and the door swung open to reveal Corin, my sister hanging onto the back of his shirt as he tried to make a run for it.

I deliberated for a moment, then regretfully shook my head. It was almost too good a chance to pass by, but there wasn't really time for a proper revenge.

Corin straightened his rumpled shirt with injured dignity when she let him go.

"There was no need for that!" He exclaimed haughtily but dropped all pretence at dignity when he saw me, standing there dripping on the floor. The splots of custard trailing from the bowl to the bathroom illustrated how well his prank had worked without any need for words on my part.

"Cor!" He said, before bolting. Susan and I watched him as he skidded down the corridor and turned out of sight. There was a crash, as he ran headfirst into one of the suits of armour. Whilst we were waiting for silence to return, Su picked up the bowl of custard.

"Ed and Peter are just getting the last of their things together," she said. "They're going to meet us in the courtyard in about five minutes to say goodbye."

"No breakfast?" I abandoned any hope of getting my hair properly dry and grabbed a dress instead.

"Eating on the march," she explained and indicated the bowl of custard. "I'll get rid of this and meet you down there in a moment."

"Right, I'll be down as soon as I'm dressed."

Five minutes later I was racing down the same corridor that Corin had fled down earlier, narrowly avoiding the same suite of armour (I'd had far more practise, you see) and down the stairs to the entrance hall.

Peter and Edmund were waiting in the courtyard just outside the main door, ten members of the guard with them. They all looked alert (or in Edmund's case, simply awake) and prepared, ready for anything.

Our guests were also there. Corin attempted to hide behind his father when he saw me coming, only to be foiled by King Lune putting a hand on his shoulder to keep him still. Governor Temus stifled a yawn behind one hand and his daughter looked equally sleepy.

Susan came through a door just as I reached the bottom of the stairs, custard bowl gone and as serene as ever, despite the early hour. We both walked over to where our brothers were standing, waiting for us to arrive, and hugged them tightly.

"Stay safe," I whispered so that only the four of us could hear.

"Safe as houses," Peter promised and Ed grinned.

"Come on Lu, When was the last time we ever did something foolish, hey?" Susan mock scowled at him and I vividly remembered the last time he had said the same thing. That was the time he'd nearly lost an arm in a fight with an ogre.

"Just stay safe," I insisted and Ed gave me a hug.

"Safe as houses," he promised, echoing Peter's words.

Letting me go, he hugged Su again and they mounted their horses.

"We should be back within ten days," Peter said more loudly so the rest of the courtyard could hear him. "If there's more trouble than we're expecting Asa has agreed to carry word, although he'll only come in an emergency. Till then, sisters."

"Till then," we replied. Wheeling around, he and Edmund led the squad out of the gates, turning around to wave as they passed the gates.

"I hope they stay safe," Susan was already fretting, pleating her handkerchief into a fan.

"They'll look after each other," I reminded her, hoping this would prove true. "Come on, breakfast!" And there were revenges to plan. One small boy just wasn't going to know what hit him.

OoOoO

The rest of the day, and the days that followed, passed quietly. Susan and I entertained our guests and tried not to worry too openly, knowing it would do no good in the long run.

The large squishy something that I put in Corin's bed produced a satisfyingly loud yell; it's hard to believe sometimes that it's me who is supposed to shriek like a girl! He retaliated by trying to put a spider in my hair, which scared Beatrice when she saw the small black thing, so Susan put something large and squishy in his bed. The yell this produced was much louder than the one I had managed to illicit but she did warn him (and I can vouch for the fact that my sister never makes empty threats) so I didn't feel too sorry for him.

Susan still won't tell me what she used which is a shame, I think. She simply told me that Edmund would not be too happy to find that between his sheets and left it at that. The lack of trust from my family members wounds me!

OoOoO

It was about five days later that there was the first sense that all was not as it should be. We hadn't had any news from Peter and Edmund, but then that wasn't really surprising; they would only have arrived a day or so before and it would have taken a while for any word to get back to us.

That was without the help of Jenna and her messengers.

Jenna and her family were slightly different to the normal servants that were around the palace. After their help at the stone table, Aslan gave them the gift of speech and since then they, well, sort of adopted us, in a way. They were less servants, and more friends, confidants and helpers whenever the need arose. The four most senior of their family group had each adopted one of us Pevensies and were always close by, whether within shouting distance or sitting in the specially made pouch attached to our belts.

They were also an infallible source of knowledge. Want to know where Peter is? Ask Jenna (or Sita or Fenn, depending on who was around). It was almost uncanny how they could pinpoint the whereabouts of any of the castle's inhabitants and I soon learnt to never doubt Jenna's word on anything.

So when Janna confessed that she was concerned about the lack of news from Peter and Edmund, I was inclined to take her seriously. This was after she had convinced me that it was possible to get a message from one side of the country to the other in less than a day, a feat the royal messengers would definitely struggle to duplicate.

"They could have just been too busy to write," I pointed out, knowing this was unlikely. Peter and Edmund never forgot to write.

"Oh, I didn't mean the kings' messages, "she said," although that is concerning too. No, Miko and Fenn always send some sort of news if they've been gone over two days; just a general all's well. But there's been nothing, and that's what I don't like." Put that way it did seem slightly worrying.

"Maybe they've just got stuck in a storm, or something," I suggested. Jenna didn't look at all convinced. "Let's give it a couple of days and if there's still nothing then we can go from there." I hoped I was doing the right thing. I didn't like to go charging after the boys on the basis that there had been no news when they themselves had said there probably wouldn't be, but Janna had never once confessed to being concerned before and I didn't take her warning lightly.

We left the conversation there, but I was uneasy for the rest of the day. So distracted was I, in fact, that my retaliation to Corin's latest trick was so feeble that he decided I must be feeling ill and generously gave me 'the day off so that I could recover'.