I don't own Narnia or the Pevensies. Major, major apologies for the wait time on this. I have no good excuses. I'll try harder next time.
She awoke, much to her surprise, not entirely uncomfortable. A slow check of her body let her know that first, she had acquired no broken bones or unusual injuries, and that second, her attackers hadn't taken her dagger or cordial. Opening her eyes slowly, she eased herself up so that she could sit on whatever they'd laid her upon; it turned out to be a rough cot, with a thin pillow propped underneath where her head had been. The room was cold but not freezing, since someone had lit a small fire in the miniscule fireplace. The room looked to be some sort of servant's chambers.
"Hello?" she called hoarsely into the room. Her head was aching, and she had a decent assortment of bruises, but both ailments were bearable. She had more important things to think about, like escaping, and finding out whether or not Peter had made it back in time to stop whoever might have attempted to kidnap Ed in his absence.
Sliding off the cot, Lucy made her way over to the little window. It was just big enough for her to crawl through; anyone bigger than her probably wouldn't be able to make it, but when she looked outside she realized that she was probably halfway up the castle – climbing out would mean a thirty-foot drop, suicide. She turned away from it and looked around again. The only other potential exit was the door, and when she walked over to try it, it was locked as expected. With a small noise of frustration, she began to pace back and forth, running various schemes of escape through her head, each more improbable than the last.
It must have been more than an hour before she received any sign from the outside world. The sun, which Lucy hadn't seen since her arrival, was close to arriving at its peak when the door made a clicking noise, and two skeletal men entered. One bore a tray with a meager meal upon it, which he set upon the nightstand as the young queen locked stares with them fiercely.
"What do you want with me?" she demanded when they did not leave. One's purple lips twisted repulsively.
"Are you comfortable, sorceress?" he asked. She crossed her arms.
"I am no sorceress," she said. "And I will not be comfortable until I know why you imprison me, and what state my brothers are in."
"We are not so easily fooled," one of her captors said. "You have used magic to enter our realm, so obviously you are a manipulator of power – a sorceress. As for your brothers, we are not predisposed to tell you of their whereabouts. You may be assured that they are alive."
She crossed her arms. Ordinarily she would doubt that they had been captured, as either one of them alone was worth twenty of the skeletal warriors, and fighting together they were nearly unstoppable, but with Edmund injured and Peter's natural overprotective tendencies, she knew it was possible that had been taken, though for sure they had gone down fighting. She considered this for a moment before turning her attention back to her captors, who had not moved an inch.
"Well, what do you want?" she asked irritably. Her head was still aching, and she did not take well to helplessness.
"For hundreds of years we have sought an escape from this hell," the taller of the two said suddenly, coldly. "We know that your magic has brought you here, so if you wish to be set free, use it to send us away."
"I told you already," she said. "I'm not a sorceress. And why should I help you, after you've shut me up in this dratted place?"
"Because if you don't," one began threateningly. "We will hold you here and kill your brothers should they attempt to rescue you. Know that it is well within our power to do this."
"Threats won't change the fact that I can't do what you ask. The magic we used is contained only in the rings; we just use it, we don't control it."
"Then tell us how we might control it."
Lucy glared at them. If she told them how to use the rings, obviously they would use them, and they would be trapped in the castle until they died. If she didn't, however, that death might be a whole lot sooner. But there was always the chance that Peter and Edmund were still out there, formulating a plan to rescue her, and in that case she shouldn't give away their only bargaining tool.
"I have nothing to say to you," she told them, and turned her back. She heard them exit a few moments after, talking to each other in low voices – she caught something that sounded like "green to come back, only one yellow…" before the door thudded shut. And she suddenly realized that whoever stole Ed's ring must have touched it – with a bit of amusement, she imagined that some poor skeletal soul must be wandering in the Wood Between the Worlds, without a green ring to let him leave.
This was an important piece of information. Somewhere in the castle, there were two green rings and a single yellow, since they undoubtedly wizened up after the first incident. This meant that for her to escape with her brothers, they all had to be in one place at the same time, which would be difficult, given that Edmund was probably not up to fighting his way to her prison whether or not Peter was there to help protect him. She still had her dagger and her cordial. Her mind began to paint a crazy scenario in which she leapt from the window and took a sip of her cordial just as she hit the ground, preventing her inevitable death, and then fighting her way to Peter and Edmund where they sat waiting for her, knowing the whole time she could do it. She laughed quietly and humorlessly at her self. Ridiculous.
There wasn't a point in thinking on an empty stomach, though, so she sat down and began to pick at the stale bread and cheese they had provided for her. There had to be some way to escape, somehow. But the only ways out seemed to be the door, which led to death at the hands of her captor, and the window, which led to death at the hands of gravity. It all seemed so hopeless. Ed was injured. Peter was, Lucy thought miserably, mentally wonky. And she had let herself be captured because of her childish stupidity. If they were to make it out of this mess, they needed a miracle.