AN: Contains some thematic elements. Take a look at the rating. You still here? Okay, let's move on then; I hope you enjoy the chapter. Without further ado, I give you all Chapter Ten!

Peter was just taking a very late tea in one of the mansion's many studies, eating only a few leftover biscuits, downing several cups of plain tea without sugar or cream, when one of Susan's thoughts from downstairs in one of the back entryways alerted him to the fact that Edmund had unexpectedly brought an injured person into their home and was in need of immediate assistance.

This didn't unsettle him too much; after all, no physician truly can rely on having nothing to do on what is-in theory-one of his days off; people fall ill and hurt themselves too frequently for that. Besides, he'd had a fairly quiet week, and while it had been relaxing, in a sense, it was also making him revert into a beginning stage of depression. So it was almost a relief to get his mind working usefully again on an urgent cause.

What Susan's thought hadn't informed the young physician of (simply because she found it too unimportant a detail to register, being very practical and not of the male gender, unlike her more fanciful twin) was that the injured person in question was actually a rather attractive young woman, only perhaps a year or so their senior. Peter had to discover this for himself, descending on the staircase and catching sight of the woman with the bloody arm propped up on a long narrow couch near the coat-hooks.

She was obviously of Calormene ethnicity, though noticeably a great deal less dark-skinned than the average person from Calormen was, almost to the point where one might wonder if one of her parents wasn't a northerner, from Archenland or Narnia. Her hair was long, black, and shinny with sweat. She had a pretty face and figure, but was rather too thin (Edmund, in fact, was wondering if the blasted slaver had even been feeding her at all, considering she'd been at least five or six pounds heavier the last time he saw her). Peter, while he wouldn't dream of remarking on it aloud, also thought the poor lass could use fattening up a bit.

"Oh, Peter!" cried Lucy, running to her brother with her hands held out. "Thanks be to Aslan today was your day off! The clinic was in the other direction, and if you hadn't been here, that horrid slaver might have been able to try and stop us from getting to you."

"Slaver?" Peter looked at Susan.

Silently, she filled him in; Edmund had rescued a slave from the Calormene slaver and Lucy had helped somewhat, being on hand with Snowflake at the right time so they could make their getaway.

Lucy, knowing her brother and sister well enough to be aware of the best time to cut into their wordless conversation, piped up. "Actually, it was Edmund's cunning that got her away. He swore on his mother's grave, only she mightn't really be dead, so that's all right." She almost began to laugh and had to press her hand to her mouth. "Oh, the look on his face, Peter! I wish you could have seen it."

"But why is she bleeding?" Peter inquired.

"Well," said Edmund, scratching nervously at the back of his head, "it was the only way. I didn't think he'd release her without motive."

"Does she speak Narnian?" He gave the Calormene lady a kind glance, to which she replied only by lowering her eyes and dropping his gaze.

"Speak it?" Edmund shook his head and twisted his mouth pensively. "No, not really. Understand it? Certainly."

"She knew Edmund from before," Lucy added unwittingly. "She's a dancer."

"I hadn't known that Calormene dancers wore such ill-fitting garments," Susan commented dryly. Even with the woman's small size, the thin billowy clothing draped over her body, very similar to what Aravis might use as summertime curtains in a window but never as part of a dress or tunic, looked too clingy in all the wrong places.

The woman looked mildly embarrassed, but it was Edmund's face that reddened and turned away from everyone until it cooled back down again. Lucy might not have understood Susan's implications, but Peter undoubtedly did, and that could easily spell trouble for Edmund in the near future.

Peter, however, was very kind to the lady, acting as if he hadn't heard (and sensed) his sister's words as he bent down to her level. "Now, then, you've had a nasty scrape, but it's all right now. I'm going to give you something to avoid infection, then we'll have that wound bandaged up before you can say Jack Robinson."

She looked up at him shyly and said something long-winded in Calormene, gesturing emphatically with her one good arm.

Peter blinked uncomprehendingly, only understanding maybe one out of every four words at best.

"She says thanks," Edmund translated, rolling his eyes.

He raised an eyebrow, amused. It took how many words for her to say that?

"Oh, and that you look awful young to be a physician," he added offhandedly.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Peter laughed, shaking his head. "The other day, a little girl, around five years old, came into the clinic, asked my age, and then exclaimed, 'you're so old!' in a very loud voice. Made me feel very self-conscious."

"Everybody's hopelessly old to a child of five," said the lady, in Calormene.

Edmund translated again.

Peter nodded, left the room, returned with the supplies he needed to disinfect and bandage the lady's arm as well as something wrapped up in a cloth napkin, then said, "You have a name, I presume?"

"Raynbi."

"Aslan bless you," said Lucy, smiling kindly.

"No, Lu," Edmund laughed, almost shaking with amusement at that; "she didn't sneeze. That's her name. Raynbi."

Lucy blushed and fidgeted with her fingers. "Oh, sorry."

"How do you spell that?" Susan wondered aloud.

Edmund wrinkled his nose at her. "It's as it sounds." What did it matter how the woman's name was spelled?

"Raynbi. So that would be, R-A-B-E-A?"

"No." But if she was going to make such a point of it, he might as well correct her. "There's a silent N in there. And you're sort of pronouncing it wrong; it's not Ray-bee, it's like Rye-bye."

"Like the bread and saying goodbye?" Lucy guessed.

Edmund nodded. "You got it."

"Well," said Susan, a bit huffily, folding her arms across her chest. "It's not spelled how it sounds, then."

"Look, as deep and meaningful as this conversation evidently is," snapped Peter, twisting his head round to glare at them, especially his twin sister who he took for the instigator of the whole petty argument, "Raynbi, however by the Lion's mane she pronounces her name and sneezes, has lost quite a bit of blood here. So if you could all just be quiet and let me bandage her up without distraction, that would be greatly appreciated."

Lucy choked back a giggle.

Once Raynbi's arm was bandaged, Peter peeled back the cloth napkin and took out some herbs, placing them in her palm. "Here, chew on these. They'll help build up your blood-count. Very good for you." Then he took out two rolls of very rich bread, fresh from the kitchen, still on the warm side. "And eat this while you're at it. When did you last have a proper meal?"

"Calormen." She took the roll from his hands and shifted, turning her back to him while she ate it gingerly, like a hunched-over squirrel at work on a nut.

It was at this point that Eustace and Tumnus decided to put in an appearance, coming down the stairs and noticing the scantily-clad girl eating rolls like she was afraid someone would take them from her if she wasn't speedy and cautious.

"Who is that indecent person?" Eustace demanded tactlessly.

Edmund frowned. "Mind your own business, Useless."

"How stupid I've been!" Lucy realized, getting only one idea out of that exchange between the cousins. "I should have gotten her something else to put on. She must be freezing!" She started for the staircase, lightly nudging Tumnus out of the way. "Excuse me. I'll be right back."

"Susan," Peter said in a very serious tone, "could you go into the other room? Now that Lucy's gone for a moment, there's something I want to speak with Edmund about."

"I'll hear you anyway," she said with a shrug. "I don't feel like leaving. Just come out and say it; I already know what it is anyway."

Peter squirmed uncomfortably. "All right, since I guess this is as private as it's going to get...Edmund, where exactly did you meet this woman before today?"

"Just, you know, around, in Calormen," he said evasively.

Before Peter could press for more information, or at the very least turn and beg the lady's pardon for discussing his suspicions right in front of her as if she weren't there (just because Raynbi might be disreputable was no reason not to treat her with courtesy, after all), Lucy reappeared on the stairs carrying an old but well-maintained silken frock of Susan's in her arms. Gael was at her side, peering over the railing curiously at their unexpected guest.

There was nothing else to do but to give Edmund a hard look, reminding him that he couldn't be passive and secretive for ever if he intended to remain in their house, and wait for a more convenient time to resume the conversation.

"This should be much warmer for you," Lucy said to Raynbi, who looked as if she might burst into tears. "You can throw it on over your clothes now." Honest-and occasionally blunt-as the youngest demistar was, Lucy still knew better than to out-right say the woman looked as though she were wearing little more than undergarments or else a thin nighty.

Raynbi patted Lucy's cheek with her good hand and accepted the dress gratefully.

"Gael and I can show you to your room, if you would like. You must be tired from bleeding so much."

"My room?" Raynbi repeated slowly, managing to speak in Narnian but with a Calormene accent so strong, even on just those two small words, that if they hadn't been able to guess plainly what she meant they might still have needed Edmund to translate regardless.

"You do need your rest," said Peter kindly. "The mansion has several guest rooms. You aren't going to be in anybody's way."

"Biyda?" She looked anxiously over at Edmund.

"It's all right," he said quickly, gesturing at the stairs. "Go with them."

"They are not..." she said slowly, in Calormene, "...angry with me?"

"Of course not."

"But, Biyda, they...at least the good physician and the pretty, dark-haired sister of his...they must know that I am...they surely can tell, even though you've not said..."

"Yes, so?"

"They still don't mind my being here?"

"Why should they? You're just an injured guest."

"I've bled on their couch." Her eyes looked regretfully at the blood that had dripped from her arm before Peter had bandaged it. It didn't help her feelings of being ill at ease that some blood had already seeped through the bandage as well.

"It doesn't matter."

"I cannot afford to pay to replace it."

"I'll take care of it," Edmund told her, thinking of all the exchanged gold he now had at his disposal. "Don't worry. You're safe now. No one is angry with you here."

The others-save for Tumnus, who knew a little Calormene, and Eustace, who had been trying to learn it for the day he got his freedom and could move anywhere he liked-were mostly lost, understanding nothing at all of the conversation between Edmund and the 'dancer'. When they were finally finished talking, Raynbi allowed herself to be helped up by Peter and escorted by Gael up the stairs and down some hallways to a bed-room.

Lucy hung back to walk alongside Edmund for a bit, even if was only as far as his guest room (much to the annoyance of Tumnus, who was aching to get a sharp word or two in edgewise with the boy and not be over-heard); and Peter stayed with Susan, silently communicating to his sister that he hoped Raynbi's bleeding would be clotted completely by the bandage after an hour or so had passed, because if not she might need some stitches, and that he thought Edmund was hiding something and wasn't entirely sure what, though he had his darker guesses.

As soon as Tumnus found himself alone with Edmund (with the sole exception of Eustace, who had naturally followed the faun into his cousin's room and made himself right at home), he made certain the thick, heavy door was shut and latched, then promptly lit into him.

"A prostitute, Edmund?" exclaimed the faun furiously, throwing his hands in the air as if at his wit's end. "Seriously?"

"Seems you had a much better time in Calormen than your letters lead one to believe," simpered Eustace cheekily.

"Eustace, shut up." Edmund glared at him. "Being in Charn is like living in a bloody cage, as you well know, I needed to talk to someone in Calormen! I was by myself and I was going mad."

"Talk?" Tumnus arched a brow.

"Tumnus, you know me," Edmund arched a brow right back at him. "What do you honestly think I was doing in Calormen with that woman?"

"As much fun as teasing Cousin Edmund for spending time with harlots is," Eustace sighed, "I don't believe he actually did anything."

"She's not a harlot," Edmund defended her. "That's not what they call them."

"What do they call them?" Tumnus asked impatiently, feeling that this was all besides the point.

"Courtesans." He sat down on the edge of his bed. "And the courtesans were much nicer to me than the innkeepers, all of whom said I was a white barbarian who was going to burn in a pit full of fire for not participating in their morning Tash-worshiping rituals before breakfast."

"Edmund," said Tumnus, "I don't doubt your word, especially not after what happened with Ammi. But do you really think bringing a har-"

Edmund frowned warningly.

"Courtesan," he amended, mostly undeterred; "bringing a courtesan in here, when you're supposed to be getting Coriakin's daughter to like you...gaining this family's trust...how are they going to believe in you now?"

"I couldn't leave her," he pointed out. "If it weren't for her, I'd have been hung. A life for a life, I owed her that much."

"True, but..."

"Tumnus, did you get a good look at her face?"

"No, I didn't pay much attention, why?"

"Nothing, I was just wondering..." He shook his head. "Nothing, forget I said anything. I'm probably wrong, like I always am."

"Can I just ask one more question?" the faun said, his voice a little more gentle now.

Edmund nodded resignedly.

"Why did you choose to spend your nights at a courtesan's house? No one in Calormen knew who you were and, aside from some innkeepers bent on shoving their beliefs down your throat, there was no reason..."

"I didn't feel comfortable anywhere else." Edmund laughed a little to himself, almost incredulously. "The funny thing is, when I was in that house, even though I was playing cards and eating with women who took money, and that knowledge was sickening, it was the only time I didn't feel guilty or in danger."

"Cards?" Tumnus said. "Did you at least let the ladies win?"

Edmund smirked. "Most of the time."

"Good boy." The faun patted his shoulder in a manner that said he was done scolding him. "Now we must figure out how to explain this away before it snowballs out of control and robs us of what might be our one chance for freedom."

Meanwhile, Raynbi was settling into her room. She had nothing to unpack, and she was rather timid of touching anything much, so she made herself a comfortable place in the window-seat by dragging the multi-coloured patchwork comforter off of the bed and putting it over her feet, ankles, and lower legs, the only parts of her that still felt cold.

Looking out at the view, which was of the very garden Edmund and Lucy had walked through the morning a certain traitor had seen fit to tell off the neighbours in their native tongue, Raynbi thought, in a low whisper to herself, "One could be very happy, having a home here."

She had not expected Narnia to be beautiful. How could she have? She had been taken forcibly away from the only country she had ever known, a place of heat and sand, and visitors who come and go and have the most dreadful habit of coming back when you don't want them to and never darkening your doorway again when you do.

It was the only life she had ever known; her mother's life as well as her own, and maybe her grandmother's as well, only her mother had taken to strong wine so much that she couldn't remember to tell Raynbi much about grandmothers, so it was only a guess on her part. Of her father, she knew even less; only that her mother had not wanted him, that he was not of Calormen, that he was frightening and domineering, and that inquiring too much about him would get her a drunken slap across the face.

The Narnian visitors she had occasionally entertained were not reputable, and had very little of importance to say. They rarely ever mentioned Aslan, and if so, only when very, very drunk. She could only assume that Aslan was either very like their Tash (a Tashlan, if you would) or else that the stories told by palace folk, of a demon lion who would kill an honest Calormene as soon as glance at them, were closer to the truth than she in her more than half-antagonistic heart believed.

To her, Narnia might well have been a freezing icy wasteland full of possessed beasts who could talk with the voices of men and gods.

Then, even upon discovering she was quite wrong, that the landscape was rather breathtaking, before now she'd had no chance to enjoy it, being traded about in shady taverns and hollow groves like she was naught but a sack of potatoes.

The last slaver, the one Biyda had rescued her from, was the worst of the lot. He was mean, had a passion for starving and hitting his stock, and his breath smelled like a sweaty camel with bad diarrhea.

How glad she had been to see Biyda again! She had missed him a great deal. One day he had just up and left, leaving no hint of where he was going, his satchel slung over his shoulder, his eyes dry though all of the ladies in her house were dampening handkerchiefs by the pound, waving her scoldings away when she told them to behave and for mercy's sake stop sniveling. The others he had merely nodded farewell at, but her-Raynbi-he had actually hugged goodbye. It was the first and only time he had allowed any of them to touch any part of him other than his feet.

Sobbing, whatever she had told the other girls about dignity long forgotten in that brotherly gesture, she'd smiled shakily at him and reminded Biyda that he would always have a place there, should he care to return.

"If I return to Calormen with a sack of gold, I'll remember your kindness," he had said jestingly.

She had shaken her head no, wishing she could make him understand that one such as he would be welcome even in the clothing of beggars without a cent to his name. But Biyda's beliefs, poor boy, were even more cynical and hard than her own; and she knew, unless he had money, he would not be coming back, whatever she said.

Often she had wondered what became of him, whether he was starving quite close by, embarrassed to come back poor, or else-which seemed more likely-he was doing all right for himself, but was too far away to visit.

How he had come to a mansion like this, with such people as these, she couldn't fathom, but she didn't particularly care. What, after all, if it were only a dream? What if the comforter on her feet wasn't real and she wasn't warm and Biyda had not saved her? What if in a moment she woke up and found herself back with that ghastly beast of a slaver? No, she would not question it; for as long as it lasted, she was going to enjoy this.

Her hair hung in her face, locks of it blocking her view when she leaned forward to wipe her foggy breath off the window-pane.

Sighing to herself, she began to weave it all into a long side-braid. The least that nasty slaver could have done was given her a hair-brush of her own, or a ribbon! Hadn't he at least had the sense to think that more people would want to buy her if they could see her face? Or maybe he wasn't a stupid idiot and knew that customers wouldn't like how pinched and thin the face in question had become since he'd bought her.

There came a light knock on the door.

"Come in," she said, still working on the braid.

It was that young fair-headed physician who'd bandaged her arm, and he had a Calormene-to-Narnian dictionary tucked under his arm!

She rose up, letting go of her hair, leaving it half-done, and managed a Calormene-style curtsey, then touched his feet respectfully.

He looked at her with a puzzled expression and said, "What's all this, then?"

She shrunk back, as if frightened she had been offensive without intending to. It was very hard being in a country you didn't know the customs of. "Good day, Sir," she managed, though mostly in Calormene.

It took a minute, because he had to look up what she said before replying, but finally he said, "How is the arm?"

"It hurts a little, but it's fine." She lifted up the arm to show him.

"The patient doesn't tell the physician it's fine," he said pointedly. "It has to hurt if you expect it to heal."

She nodded. "I did not expect a check-up so soon."

"You might need stitches, I was a little nervous about telling you that. You had a shock and all, but as you're settling in now..."

"I've had worse injuries before," said Raynbi, lowering her eyes. "I'm used to pain."

"Taken a nasty tumble or two?"

She shook her head. "No, I'm not really poor on balance. I've been knocked down by men, though."

"Ah." He flipped a few pages in the dictionary, trying to get the gist of what she was saying. "I thought you and I ought to talk."

"What about?"

A few more pages were rustled. "Edmund."

"Biyda?" she laughed.

"Why do you call him that?"

She shrugged with one shoulder. "It suits him. And he would not let me call him Eddie, it made him very cross. So there you go."

Peter laughed at that, after reading the translation.

"So what do you want to know?"

"You're not strictly a dancer, are you?"

"No."

"So what are you?"

"Nobody, now."

"Sharp's the world, you're as vague as Edmund!"

"I'll take that as a compliment."

Peter pulled out a chair from a writing desk in the corner and sat down. "What were you before, then? Please don't think I'm trying to be harsh, lady, it's just important that you tell me the truth."

"For medical reasons, or because you don't trust Biyda?" One of her slender brows raised itself up as if it had a mind of its own.

"Both." Peter made his expression unmoving.

"Fine, then. I was a Courtesan." She tucked a strand of hair coming loose from it's half-braid behind one ear.

"I see," he said in the same level tone, turning a page.

"You will turn me out, no?"

"No, of course not!" He looked up from the dictionary. "I'm not in the habit of turning my patients out of doors before they're healed."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but you're very odd for a noble, physician or no."

"How do you mean?"

"Well," explained Raynbi, "you come in here-more or less knowing what I was, only wanting to hear it from me directly, nothing more. You sit far away from me, and you ask me many questions."

"I have yet another one for you," Peter announced, "you and...Bi-ha, was it?"

"Biyda," she corrected him. "Accent on the 'da'."

"Ah. Well, I think I'm going to stick with plain Edmund, if you don't mind," Peter told her, flipping in a rather lost manner through the part of the dictionary that went over pronunciation.

"Very well."

"You know you can sit down, Lady Raynbi." He noticed that she had been standing, even after he sat, straight as a poker, as if she hadn't even the right to slump in front of him.

"Thank you," she said gratefully, lowering herself back into the window-seat. "My knees were beginning to hurt."

"So, how did you meet Edmund?"

"In the brothel, where I lived."

He winced, and shifted uncomfortably. "I see, and exactly how often was he there?"

"Very often."

And to think this person, who had been in a brothel in Calormen 'very often' had been taking walks and being friendly with his favorite sister! The thought was beginning to repel him greatly to the point where Peter wasn't sure he even wanted to hear any more about it, but he felt oddly compelled to press on.

"We all knew him by sight," she added.

As awkward as the question was, Peter gathered his wits as best he could and said, "Were you sleeping with him?"

Both of her eyebrows went up this time. "About time, Lord Physician, about time." She lowered her good arm to her bad one and pressed her hands together in mock applause. "You just said it. And here I thought we would be dancing around the question for another hour at least." She smiled coyly. "You've surprised me all over again."

"Look," said Peter, knowing both that his face was red and that Susan was, from a parlour downstairs, sensing everything he was saying and thinking, and laughing at him behind the worn volume of Ettinsmoor-Latin she was engrossed in, "Edmund worries me. Part of me wants to trust him, but there's this...this sort of mark...in his face, that smacks of something bad, something I don't want my sister exposed to. I don't dislike him, but part of me is a little afraid of him. Not for myself, but for my sister. She's very innocent and she has a way of befriending anything that moves...I don't want to see her hurt, do you understand?"

"I understand," she assured him. "Listen to me. Biyda never laid a hand on any of us in that house. That was why most of us were so fond of him. He paid for us all, so that we had the night off and he didn't have to deal with unpleasant men barging in or distasteful sounds from the next room when he was trying to sleep, but he was never with any of us. He liked to play cards, and he took a bit of wine when the mood struck him."

Now it was Peter's turn to be surprised and impressed. "I've misjudged him, I think." He pressed his finger into the page of the dictionary and closed it.

"One night," Raynbi went on, "Prince Rabadash came barging in there, and I told him I was otherwise occupied and that I didn't want to see him that night. Biyda stuck up for me, but Rabadash was...embarrassed, he did look the fool...well, anyway, he would have had Biyda hung, but I hid him on the roof, where the stacks of extra flour were kept, until they were gone."

Peter opened the dictionary again, looked up her words, then laughed, "I think I am liking Ed more and more, talking to you. Rabadash is not someone I have a high opinion of, his courtship of my sister didn't exactly please me."

"You may tell her that marrying him would have been very unpleasant to say the least; he orders beheadings in his sleep." She suppressed a chuckle. "I once hit him over the head with a northern visitor's walking stick in hopes of making him shut up. He woke up with a headache, naturally, but he still kept at his mad ramblings."

"Can I ask your honest opinion, Lady Raynbi?"

She twisted her neck away from the window her eyes were drifting over to again. "Certainly."

"Do you think it's safe to let him keep spending time with my sister?"

"I would trust Biyda with my life." She lifted up her wounded arm. "In fact, I have. But my life isn't worth much, so I don't see how my opinion helps."

"On the contrary, it helps a great deal," explained Peter patiently. "You might not have led the kind of life I would want anyone close to me exposed to, but from it you've learned to know a rogue when it matters, have you not?"

"I have," she conceded.

"And?"

"And I would think he would treat your sister with as much honour as he did a house full of courtesans, likely more."

"In which case, I think our interview is coming to a close." Peter breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you, you've been most enlightening. But you might still need stitches, so I'll be back within the next couple of hours to see how the blood is clotting."

"There is one more thing," Raynbi said, trying to speak in Narnian and failing miserably. "That mark you noticed in his face...I've seen it, too. Something troubles him, Physician, but I don't know what. Maybe it is some illness, not of the body but of the mind. All I know is that when he first came to our house from where-ever he'd been, he slept so soundly that not even a fight in the adjoining room could make him stir, like he hadn't gotten any sleep for months."

Speaking of sleep, that very night Edmund found himself plunged into a very deep slumber, untroubled by dreams at first; but then, suddenly, his eyelids began to move and he was not in a bed in Coriakin's guest room.

No, he was in a graveyard, looking around at the tombstones, all of which had strange names on them he couldn't read clearly.

Someone was walking around behind him; he knew that because he could hear little footsteps breaking twigs and crunching down on dried leaves.

As he turned to see who it was, he realized there was a long dagger (a hunting knife, not his own dagger with Aslan's head depicted on it) in his right hand that he could have sworn hadn't been there a minute ago.

A glint of pure gold caught his eye, and Edmund saw that the person was Lucy, wearing the golden dress Eustace had mocked and Peter referred to as 'adequate'; she was tending to a small injured bird of some kind, completely oblivious to any danger she might be in, alone, at night in a dark graveyard.

Lucy finished mending the bird's wing, and tossed the blue-feathered creature up into the night air where it took flight and soared far, far away from that dreadful place.

How Edmund envied that bird!

"Edmund!" Lucy noticed him standing there, and seemed not to see the knife at all, in spite of its faint silvery twinkle in the murky moonlight. "There you are. I've been so worried!"

"You shouldn't have come here," he told her hoarsely. "Why couldn't you just stay where you were? Didn't you know it was dangerous?"

Lucy touched his arm. "I'm not afraid of the dark, Edmund."

"You should be," he said softly, almost more to himself.

"Come on, then." She gave his tunic sleeve a little tug. "We're going home."

"You're not going anywhere." Edmund felt his eyes filling with tears and, pulling away from Lucy's light grasp, steadied himself on the nearest tombstone. "I'm not allowed to help you."

"Help me?" She grinned uncertainly, as if she thought he was telling a joke. "How do you mean?"

He couldn't do this! Why didn't Jadis turn his heart to stone first? It was far too painful. He would be dead before he could go through with betraying another demistar. Everything hurt, inside and out.

Stumbling backwards, he banged into a stone monument with a little bell hanging from an arch.

It started ringing, echoing through the previously silently graveyard.

Suddenly Edmund could read the names on the stones; they were the names of all the other half-blood star girls before Lucy.

His breath caught in his throat, choking him. His fingers cramped around the hilt of the dagger.

"No!" he shouted, dropping the knife, watching it fall soundlessly to the ground, landing on a moist, freshly mulched grave. "Please don't! I can't do it! Not again! She cannot make me!" His three ground rules were evidently non-existent in his nightmare.

An impersonal voice blew into his ears and head like the wind. "She already has, don't you know that?"

A cold green mist filled the graveyard, blocking his view.

"Lucy!" he screamed, searching for her with his hands out in front of him, groping like a blind man, finding nothing; the mist had turned into a thick wall of black darkness.

All he heard was a sharp little scream that definitely came from Lucy's throat, followed by a softer cry of pain, then a shallow gasp.

There was nothing after that.

"Lucy, where are you?" he kept shouting, getting no answer.

He was all alone in the darkness, with only his conscience for company.

"Wake up!"

It was Lucy's voice; he wasn't alone after all! "Hmm?"

Why were his eyelids so heavy? Was it only dark because they'd been closed? Had he only imagined the mist and the wall of darkness? Why was he lying down? And why was the graveyard suddenly so comfortable?

His eyes shot open and there she was, garbed in a sleeping shift and dressing-gown instead of a golden dress, at the side of his bed, shaking his shoulder.

"Lucy!" he gasped out in relief.

AN: Pleaseth Reviewth.