If Lucy had not already thought something was horribly wrong, she thought it now, as Phillip's canter became a gallop-as they went further and further away from Cair Paravel, into a dense wood-or maybe, though it was too dark to say for sure, a forest.

Silvery-white moonlight fluttered in and out from the gaps in the lush tree-tops above them; and though such rum light was unreliable, Lucy thought she saw-she almost could have sworn it-something go out of Phillip's eyes. Something like intelligence. It seemed that the further on they went, the less the talking horse looked...well, like a talking horse. When his ears began to prick at the slightest cracking twig and his tail started swaying back and forth in a rather dumb-animal manner, she was convinced.

See, it was like this: Phillip thought he only carried his master part of the way to the place of his cursing, but that wasn't actually true. He carried him all of the way, uncomprehendingly, not to gain back his old talking self until it was over. The brave gelding was a talking beast as long as they were in possible danger from wild speechless animals, but as soon as they had left those areas behind, his very thoughts and eyes were transformed. Edmund knew of this, had always known of this, but never told Phillip of it for fear of putting his proud horse to shame.

Lucy, as invisible as ever, was appalled. She had heard of talking beasts reverting to their old ways, but only as punishment from Aslan: the great Lion of Narnia, never in a context such as this. And never had she imagined a poor creature forced to go back and forth. Worse still was knowing that whatever it was that happened to Edmund must be so dreadful that what became of Phillip every night was nothing next to it.

The young princess of Ettinsmoor shuddered and-without thinking-tightened her grip on Edmund's waist. For the most part, the Narnian prince didn't feel it; however, he sensed something was different and was confused for a moment before another round of coughs cleared his thoughts.

"Almost there," he whispered to himself, his throat feeling like fire while he spoke.

You poor boy, thought Lucy, broken by the sadness in his tone and by the raspy voice that spoke those words.

Edmund moaned and held his head with his right hand for a moment before digging his heels into Phillip's side, urging him to keep going.

A tear escaped Lucy's heart and-more noteworthy-her left eye; and it fell away from her face down into the collar of Edmund's greatcoat. As soon as the teardrop was no longer touching the princess's face, it became visible and the prince felt the warm droplet of water on his neck, wondering if it was about to start raining. Looking up, he didn't think so-the starry sky seemed clear enough, not a single cloud to be seen.

Suddenly the trees thinned out a bit and those that existed still along a white-pebble path had leaves that twinkled like diamonds with some hard, round things sticking off of the tips of their branches.

Stretching as quickly and steadily as she could so that she didn't fall off Phillip's back in the process, Lucy grabbed onto a branch and pulled one of the round things off to examine it more closely. It was the perfect likeness of a crackernut, only it was hard and made of what felt like solid silver. If there was any real nut inside, it was nearly impossible to get at, and it seemed doubtful that there actually was, anyway.

Beyond the crackernut trees loomed a great hill that would have been a rich, lush winter-green in the daylight but gleamed with a grayish-purple hue at this dark bewitching hour.

For a moment it seemed as though Edmund intended to ride Phillip right into the side of the hill until a harsh collision made them come to a stop, and of course Lucy was horrified-and even a little scared for herself, unsure if the cloak of invisibility could protect her in such a rough accident when push came to shove. But then, thankfully, a glimmer of sense shone through Edmund's feverish mind and he pulled on the reins to make his horse halt.

"Courtyard in another realm," croaked Edmund. "Let me and my horse pass through."

"And me," whispered Lucy under her breath.

Edmund didn't hear her.

Part of the hill slid away to reveal a golden gate which opened of its own accord-wide enough for Edmund, Phillip, and Lucy to pass through. For a full minute there seemed to be no light-they all seemed to be nowhere, neither here or there, in a place between worlds and realms. This was actually one of Edmund's favorite places to be; because nothing-good or bad-ever happened in such a place, just like when you weren't awake but you weren't sleeping either.

Then they were fairly engulfed in light; Lucy wondered that they weren't blinded (Susan would have said it was impossible) and worried about Edmund's eyes-so used to the dark sick chamber-being exposed to such brilliance. Gemstones glittered, diamond windows glinted, lamps burned as bright as the sun.

When she was finally able to stop blinking, Lucy attempted to get down from the horse and fell off, seeing nothing but a screwed-up purple blob in front of her. She bumped into someone as she crashed, and though he noticed her, no one else seemed to. He was a funny sort of creature, she thought, taking him in, certainly not human-or at least not all human.

His feet were not feet at all, rather, they were hooves like a goats. They were covered in glossy dark-brown fur that lasted up to his pinkish-white torso, beyond that he was very much a little human-like man in appearance except for the two horns that stuck out of his curly hair. She knew what he was now; he was a faun.

"Ouch!" said the faun, looking around for whoever had just banged right into him, but finding no one.

"If anyone is allowed to say that-" coughed Edmund rather sulkily, "-it really ought to be me."

The faun glanced at him sympathetically. "You look terrible, your Highness."

"I know," said Edmund. "Please help me down, I can't move, my legs ache from the ride."

"Yes, your Highness," the faun answered, lifting the prince down from Phillip's back and signaling for another goaty creature-a satyr-to take the horse away for the time being.

"Thank you, Master Tumnus," Edmund murmured, so weak that he could barely stand up without using the side of the faun's arm for support.

"You should not have come." Tumnus said wearily, somewhat thoughtless in his tone.

"I had-have-to." Edmund reminded him. "You know that."

"She should not make you come; not when you're like this." Master Tumnus amended.

"You tell her that, then." the prince hissed hoarsely. "I'll start writing your obituary."

"If you die, can I have your book collection?" a little gray dwarf so small he might have passed for a gnome asked Tumnus with a hopeful grin.

"Um, no." Tumnus answered shortly.

Edmund chuckled mildly and Lucy-who had retreated to a corner to watch him and see what he would do next-felt her heart thump happily for a second before it turned from pretty merriment to another coughing fit.

"Here," Tumnus produced a long-necked diamond bottle of spiced wine and filled up a wineglass for the young prince.

"Thanks." Edmund swallowed the whole glass-full in one gulp and then held it out again, signaling for Tumnus to refill it.

"Oh...all right..." he poured some more wine into the glass, clearly surprised that Edmund had drunk it down so quickly. "Don't drink yourself into a stupor now, you need to be able to stand up at the very least."

"Not straight up!" Edmund laughed annoyingly (Lucy didn't like this laugh), rather like a drunk even though he was still mostly sober. He didn't drink because he liked it, he drank because it numbed the pain he was in, especially his ever-bleeding feet.

Tumnus didn't protest, although Lucy thought he looked very much as if he wanted to say something about it, he simply loosened his grip on Edmund slowly enough so that the boy regained his balance without falling over-however much he lurched in the process.

Master Tumnus seemed like a nice faun-indeed, Lucy already found she liked him, and was fairly certain it wasn't his fault that Prince Edmund suffered. She gathered that he was a servant of sorts who did not agree with his mistress's way of doing things (for of course it was a mistress, as Lucy had clearly heard him say 'she' in a very direct tone). As to who the mistress was and what she wanted with the young sickly prince, she didn't know, but was more determined than ever to find out.

Soon, poor innocent Lucy thought (with all sincerity at the time), this will all be over; Edmund will go back home and I will follow him, and I will tell Peter all about this so that he can fix it. It never occurred to her that maybe there were some things the crown prince couldn't fix, even if he learned of them.

She had been so lost in thought over what she would tell Peter and how relieved everyone would be that the mystery was over and Edmund was safe at last, that she almost forgot to follow Tumnus and Edmund, and had to scamper after them. Thankfully, Edmund's hurt feet slowed him down and Tumnus would not go faster and leave him, thus making it easier for a certain invisible little princess to keep up.

If she had thought the room they had just been in was painfully bright, she hadn't known what bright was; this next room was far brighter but somehow easier to stand. The purple blob had stopped swimming in front of her eyes so that she could see again; and she saw that they were in a ballroom now.

It was a glorious ballroom with transparent walls that showed gardens that seemed as much a part of the room as the high ceilings and the diamond-and-ruby chandelier hanging from it. The floors smelled like sandalwood; but they looked remarkably like cherry-wood, glossier than Tumnus's leg fur, gleaming like a mirror.

"It is such a pretty place," Lucy commented to herself, as though deeply surprised. Perhaps, being light and pure herself, she had expected anything wicked enough to harm a little boy of barely fourteen had to be ugly and cruel, and was thus bewildered to find the conventional ideas shattered.

They were all the more shattered when she saw the beautiful persons that inhabited the room. A few were not so beautiful, only half-goat fauns like Master Tumnus was, yet charming in their own ways, but the women-like creatures-all the queen's ladies-and the young men at their sides were striking to behold. Nearly all of their handsome young men were many years their junior because they were their sons; and quite a few of the ones older than they were happened to be their brothers; only a few were actually husbands of the court. For it was a court, one very different from both Ettinsmoor and Cair Paravel, one not governed by humans.

"Fairies," breathed Lucy, pressing an unseen palm to her invisible mouth, knowing now what they must be. She had heard-as all children who are thoughtful and imaginative can make themselves hear-stories of this very court and had even believed in it once. Actually, she still believed in it, and not only because she could see it now with her own eyes, either.

A tall, stately fairy-woman holding-in her right hand-a wand the shape of a peacock feather with its ivy ever-clinging to it, twinkling, entered the ballroom and smiled at Edmund. It wasn't a vicious smile-Lucy might have lost her cool and lunged at her if it had been-but it wasn't exactly a kind one anymore than it was a bland, pointless up-curling. There was something in the smile that a human couldn't easily read, not one of our emotions, something belonging to the fairy-realm entirely. Perhaps explaining such a look is like explaining red to a person who was born blind, or explaining what a sprit creature is like to a man born fleshly-quite impossible.

"Welcome, Prince Edmund," said the fairy queen, lowering her beautiful golden head in a sort of half-bow. "How was your journey?"

Dazed, not by the queen, but by his own sickliness and from having swallowed his wine too quickly, his lips moved stupidly, but no words came out.

As if completely oblivious to his state, the queen smiled that fairy-smile again (it was starting to get rather on Lucy's last nerve, vicious or not vicious) and told him he might join in the festivities.

"Perhaps he might sit down a bit first?" Master Tumnus dared to ask. "The Prince has eaten nothing yet, and he's tired, I'd expect-"

The fairy-queen's eyes flashed. "Nonsense; he's been sitting down the whole ride here, hasn't he? Or has the boy taken to standing up on his horse?"

Master Tumnus clearly wanted to say something else, but he was afraid, for his own sake and for that of the royal boy he had long ago befriended and worried-after. So the faun wisely lowered his eyes and shut his mouth, keeping his remaining thoughts to himself.

"Witch!" Lucy exclaimed under her breath angrily in spite of the fact that the creature in question was not actually a witch. She had thought fairies would be likable creatures, but this queen was either quite stupid or mindlessly cruel, no matter how beautiful she might be.

"Tumnus," Edmund whispered hoarsely, "remember to set the couch close to the dance-floor this time, I don't fancy hitting my head again when I collapse."

"Yes, your Highness," answered Master Tumnus, going off to make sure it was done just as the prince had ordered.

What is he talking about? Lucy couldn't help wondering in horrified awe. Just what did Edmund mean by 'when I collapse'? And what were these fairies going to do to him? Was this what happened every single night?

Then the poor little princess who thought she had known true misery and woe through her once proud and beautiful sister's loss, discovered that, until that very moment, she had known nothing of pain and suffering. Until she saw the sight with her own two eyes, nothing in her life had been tragic enough to leave a mark on her heart and a scar on her innocent mind.

The fairies all danced, but they went about it happily enough, escorted by fauns and some willowy-persons called dryads in Narnia but probably something else in this realm. Edmund danced with them, his face unmoved save for when he winced and closed his eyes. The dancing went on and on and on until the young prince of Narnia let out a breathless gasp and fell to the side just like a tree that has been cut down. Lucy half-expected someone to shout, "Timber!"

Thanks to Tumnus's diligent obedience, Edmund landed on a soft velvet-cushioned couch, his eyes half-closed and his mouth hanging open like a washed-up cod-fish gasping for air.

Most of the fairies didn't so much as blink in reaction, but Lucy noticed a very little fairy-girl in a pretty, high-necked ball-gown, probably allowed to stay up late for the first time in her young life, who's eyes widened and-whether it was from the shock of the prince fainting or else from being sleepy-filled with tears.

To comfort the little fairy-girl (who really couldn't have been older than eight or so at most) an older fairy, an elder sister of hers, thrust a teeny silver wand into her sweet, rosy-pink hand.

"Hush, Gael! Go play in the corner until bedtime." the fairy hissed shortly.

A new thought and an amusing object will distract very nearly any child-except for the most sensitive-and so Gael shrugged her little shoulders and placed the tip of the wand in her mouth, sucking on it as a baby might suck on their thumb for comfort.

"Fan him until he rises." The fairy queen ordered her ladies absently, rolling her eyes. Such weak little creatures humans were! And this was supposed to be one of their princes! Ridiculous! No wonder the frail things were always dying off or growing old until their bodies stopped working. Even their royalty was deficient!

It took twenty minutes of the fairy-ladies waving leaves in front of his face until Edmund opened his eyes all the way and remembered that he must keep dancing until it was time to leave. He rose and-to Lucy's horror-danced for another hour before Tumnus took his arm and led him back to Phillip.

"If only King Frank and Peter knew!" Lucy nearly wept to herself. "They'd bar the doors so he couldn't come here every night." Unless it was the darkness that kept them from doing it. At any rate, she would tell them all about it the second they came to take her away from Edmund's sick chamber. Then they could take precautions.

Before she jumped up onto Phillip's back, Lucy happened to glance down at Edmund's feet in the stirrups (Tumnus, seeing that the prince had not put a saddle on his horse before coming to court, had been kind enough to loan him one for the ride back). At once she felt like she wanted to vomit; his worn-out, white feet were covered in blood.

They rode back quickly, and when they were nearing the stables of Cair Paravel, Lucy saw the saddle disappear and the talking-expression come back into Phillip's eyes.

Through the deserted corridors she followed the young Narnian prince back up to his sick chamber and watched him fall into bed, shivering. A faint trace of teardrops glittered in his eyes as he pulled the covers over his head.

While Lucy still had no idea why Edmund had danced with the fairies until nearly dawn (the sun was coming up now), she pitied him deeply, as he had obviously not enjoyed himself and would have been better off getting his rest.

The princess's loving pity lasted in all of its intensity until Peter arrived to take her away from the chamber and she blurted the whole story out in a hurry, her face burning hot with eagerness.

Peter's brow crinkled and he looked over at the sickly Edmund, noticing that his brother looked even worse than he had the day before. "What's all this, Ed?"

Edmund coughed and forced himself to sit up, shooting Lucy a superior look as if he were a grown man of twenty-five and she was naught but a silly seven-year-old making up a story for fun. "You really ought not to have left this child in here all night, Peter. You know what little children are like these days-they just..." he looked Lucy dead in the face and gave her an angry, almost betrayed expression. "...don't know when to stop pretending."

Tears of frustration made Lucy's over-anxious eyes smart and she hoped desperately that Peter wouldn't listen to his brother, that he would believe her instead.

The crown prince was conflicted. On the one hand, Lucy had never lied to him and he trusted her; also, she did look truthful. But the story that had rolled off of her tongue so wildly did seem impossible, even if it did sort of volunteer an explanation for the bleeding feet. Edmund, on the other hand, was known to lie frequently enough, while not meaning any real harm most of the time. Still, to disbelieve his own brother who looked so helpless...who stuck to his story with his glassy-eyes and deep cough nearly killing him...no, Peter dared not call his brother a liar in such a state, it might be too wicked of him, it was Lucy who had to go down on this one.

"Peter!" Lucy tried again, ignoring Edmund's anger, knowing it was for his own good. "Listen to me! It's all true; Edmund goes to the fairy-court and dances all night and that's why-"

Peter shook his head. "That's enough, Lucy, my brother's illness isn't a joke-and it's certainly not a fairy-story."

"But Peter!"

"I said," Peter's glaze tightened into a glare, convinced now that Princess Lucy was having a joke at his brother's expense. "That's enough."

He had never been so stern with her before and she was immediately heartbroken. She had to make him understand or Edmund might just go back again and maybe the next he fell down he wouldn't get up.

"I have proof!" Lucy exclaimed, remembering the silver crackernut she'd swiped from the tree.

"No you don't," Edmund said rather cockily for a sick person.

She rummaged around for it, thinking she had put the nut in the folds of her dress after she'd slipped it over the doublet, only to find that it wasn't there. "But I really did have-"

"I'm really disappointed in you, Lucy." said Peter, clenching his jaw and leaving the chamber without even bothering to take her with him.

Furious, Lucy wouldn't even look at Edmund as she ran out of the chamber, holding the magic ribbon crumpled in her hand as crinkled as her belief in good-nature.

When she was gone, Edmund closed his eyes and let a couple of tears fall. The whole time Peter and Lucy had been talking, he'd had one fist clenched-neither of them had noticed. Now that he was alone, he opened his fist. In the middle of his pale, cold-sweat drenched palm he held Lucy's silver crackernut.

AN: Please review.