"Mrs. Macready," said Headmaster Coriakin, trying-and, though it was strenuous, mostly succeeding-to keep a straight face as he spoke to the housekeeper for the girls' dormitories, "there has been a misunderstanding. Young Count Edmund Pevensie is in fact married to the daughter of King Frank and Queen Helen."

"Headmaster, I'm sorry," Mrs. Macready replied; her face was stern, but there was a trace of a genuinely apologetic tone in her voice all the same. "I was not informed of anything regarding a marriage between any of the students in this school; and when the boy came out of her room looking pale as anything, quite out of his wits, answering me cheekily with such absurd comments, I naturally assumed there was rule breaking going about. I was under the impression that he might have been intoxicated and, not knowing he was telling the truth, assumed that his visit was outside of the bounds of the high level of propriety you hold this establishment to."

Still wanting to laugh, for it was a little funny when you really thought about it, the star kept control of himself, his emotions very nearly fully in check, and nodded in an understanding, seemly manner. "Very well. In future, however, there is no need to discourage the young man from visiting his wife."

Mrs. Macready had, as you have probably already figured out, reported early the following morning to Coriakin's office to tell him of Edmund's visit to Lucy's room the night before. Now, however, it was clear that she had misunderstood; but she still thought it was very rude of 'that Pevensie boy' to have sardonically loaded his mouth with all that gibberish regarding Narnian legends and telepathy.

She bobbed a quick curtsey to the Headmaster and showed herself out of the office.

On her way back to her many duties, she encountered Edmund and Lucy walking together and nodded to them, as if to say they had an understanding now, although begrudged to some degree.

"Think you'll miss it, Lu?" Edmund joked as Mrs. Macready walked off.

"Miss what?" she answered innocently.

"Me having to sneak in to see you in the middle of the night." He looked both ways and slipped an arm around her waist.

"Of course not," Lucy giggled, leaning into his arm, which felt warm against the small of her back. "It will be so much easier now to see each other whenever we want. Besides, your ear is still a little red."

He chuckled at that. Honestly, he was surprised the Macready hadn't managed to pull it all the way off last night, considering how hard she had tugged, dragging him back to his room to be with Caspian and-still unbeknownst to her-Jill Pole.

"Never-mind my ear," said Edmund after a pause. "How's the bruise on your arm?"

"Edmund, I told you it was fine," Lucy whispered, shaking her head.

"I'm sorry about last night," he told her, for what must have been at least the tenth time. "I didn't know I was fighting you."

"How many times must I tell you it's all right?" She sighed and reached up to touch the side of his face.

"I don't know what's wrong with me lately," he said, closing his eyes momentarily then opening them again, looking down at his wife compassionately. He had always suffered from nightmares, but the ones he'd been having as of late were more eerie than average; usually the past liked to torment him, only now it seemed his present and future wanted a turn and were much more vindictive and sadistic about it. "It's like I've been under a curse."

"Everything will be all right," Lucy said gently, pressing in even closer against him as he held onto her.

"I hope so," he began…then stopped, letting go of her waist and looking around anxiously. "Someone was listening to us."

Lucy crinkled her brow. "What?"

"I heard footsteps and what sounded like a sharp whisper."

"We are in an open corridor," she pointed out, weakly, unsure of why she felt a twinge of fear prickling under her armpits.

"Come." Edmund grabbed her hand, peering, just once, nervously over his shoulder. "We'll be late for our lessons if we stay here much longer anyway."

As soon as they were gone, Marjorie and Anne's heads appeared, like a pixie and a brownie popping out from under a toadstool, behind a hanging tapestry depicting a long cross-stitch broadsword with a silver hilt.

At first it had been only Marjorie, spying again on her own, despite Anne's warnings that she ought not to, and when she had heard Edmund himself say the word 'curse' she had felt a sudden rush of hope. If the count was beginning to realize that he was under a spell, he might be more inclined to allowing her to help free him. Maybe he could even break free on his own; and then he would proclaim his true feelings for her, and Anne Featherstone's uncle would return and take Lucy away for being a wicked enchantress.

On that line of thought, Marjorie began to worry that perhaps Edmund's moment of clear thinking in which he almost saw the truth would pass before he could break free. She thought if she could rush out there and keep him on that line of thought, perhaps she could rescue him. And wouldn't he be glad! She would face down Lucy; the witch needed standing up to!

But Anne had come by and seen her about to approach Lucy and Edmund, and had grabbed her by the arm and dragged her back behind the tapestry, scolding her soundly for being so foolish.

"What were you thinking?" Anne demanded, glaring at her roommate, now that there was no chance of Edmund or Lucy over-hearing them.

"He's almost figured it out, Anne," said Marjorie, almost tearfully. "Lucy has him so trapped he can't break free on his own, though, I don't think. He knows he is cursed; he knows what she's doing to him. In the back of his mind, I'm sure he wants my help."

Anne wrinkled her nose and very nonchalantly muttered, "Yes, I'm sure he does." Then, "But it was so thick of you to just try and talk to him like that; with her around."

"I suppose it was," Marjorie whimpered in a small-sounding voice. "You don't think Lucy would have turned me into a toad or anything for trying to interfere, do you?"

"I don't know," snapped Anne crankily. "Why can you not just do as I say?"

"Because we aren't getting anywhere!"

"We would if you would stop being such a pest!"

Marjorie frowned and began to cry. "I am not a pest!"

"Calm yourself." Anne rolled her eyes. "You're being impossible. That is not how one of my friends is going to act."

Marjorie nodded and wiped at her eyes. Anne was right, she was being rather babyish; really, everything Anne had been doing was only meant to help her-and Edmund, for that matter-and she, in her impatience, wasn't proving very grateful, she thought. "I'm sorry."

"I don't know when my uncle is coming back," Anne told her, twisting her face into such an exaggerated expression of deep thought that it looked rather as if she were a bit constipated. "But I've been thinking…if only there were some way to catch him alone-Count Edmund, I mean-and then you could try and talk sense into him."

"I thought," said Marjorie slowly, still wiping at her eyes a little, "that you said talking would solve nothing."

"Not with Lucy, it wouldn't. But since my uncle is taking so long getting back, and you do want to help Edmund so badly, if we could catch him alone without that witch, maybe…we could try, just once."

"Supposing," Marjorie worried aloud, "he told Lucy about our attempt?"

Because Anne had a very different real plan than the fake one she was patronizing Marjorie with, she wasn't worried about that; but to keep her guise firm, she said, "We would lie and say he was mistaken, of course."

"It doesn't seem very certain," stated Marjorie, sounding not so stupid for the first time in a long while.

"Well none of our plans are, nothing is when you deal with witches."

"No, I suppose it wouldn't be."

"But he is always with Lucy," Anne pretended to lament.

"He often walks to her room alone in the evening so he can spend the night," Marjorie came up with.

"True," said Anne. "But how would we know which route he'd take on any given night?"

"I would," cried Marjorie, becoming excited. "Why, I've followed him before! And more than once! Don't you remember, Anne?"

"You could chart out his exact path, then?"

"Yes!"

"We'll do that." Anne grinned, mostly to herself. "This afternoon, after our lessons are done with for the day, we'll chart it out. And tomorrow night, once we've had sufficient time to plan out exactly how we will approach him, you and I can try to relieve him of his bewitchment."

The day went on normally from there on out, except for two things. One being that Andrew Ketterley slipped Lucy Pevensie a note saying he wanted to see her in private (she would have gladly refused except the post script on the note mentioned it was to do with 'the dragon', and she still felt Eustace's unfortunate transformation largely on her own conscience). The second was simply that, as they had planned, Anne and Marjorie charted out Edmund's usual route.

Marjorie was so pleased to be 'doing something for Edmund's good' at long last instead of merely sitting about and watching him 'suffer', that it never occurred to her to wonder at Anne's questions the whole time they worked. She kept asking her if she was certain no one else passed that way at the same time as the count, and if she knew without doubt that he didn't have another route he used by turn.

To which Marjorie simply said, shrugging, "Yes, I'm sure. I told you that already."

And, trusting Anne as she did, she never bothered to wonder why, although they made their plans completely in that one afternoon, they had to wait until the following night to speak with him instead of simply going that night. She simply figured Anne knew what she was about, whereas she herself knew nothing about witches and their ways, and was thankful to have a friend who, while not tangled in black magic herself, knew enough about it to keep safe because of a relative's occupation.

Jill Pole was not in the room with them; Caspian had spoken to Lilliandil for her and the headmaster's daughter had consented to allow the girl, since she too could not abide, or condone the recent actions of, Jill's roommates, to stay with her.

Because of that, Marjorie was alone, fast asleep, in the room late that night when Anne rose from her bed, walked to the closet, pulled a hooded gray cloak over her shoulders, and left, studying the chart they had mapped out one last time to make sure of exactly where Edmund would be. Marjorie's following of the count, at first so irksome, since it meant her own chances of catching him alone were becoming practically nil, had turned out for the best after all.

Secretly, Anne Featherstone had been the leader of the Order Of the Dryads all along; it was her that Lucy had seen that night Gumpas and Pug tried to sell her into slavery, and she was the same hooded figure that haunted Edmund's subconscious in his most recent dream. She knew by this point that Lucy was not High King Peter (her uncle had seen Edmund draw Rhindon out of its scabbard, too, you'll recall), but that worked just as well. If Lucy was Susan, she was the perfect instrument to use for breaking Peter's will to rule-even to live-if all else should fail. Just then, however, she had plans for a much more brutal and direct approach. Within the folds of her cloak, she concealed a sharp dagger, the tip of the blade of which was poisoned.

Lucy waited in her room for Edmund to come (she wanted to tell him that Andrew Ketterley wished to meet her and beg him to come with her, not wanting to be alone with the magician again; not because she was frightened of him so much as that she was afraid of the magician's dabbling and ineptness in themselves), but he didn't show.

She suddenly felt unwell and sat down on the bed. Something was wrong. It wasn't simply that Edmund was late. Their entanglement was working on her now; she could feel his discomfort.

"Edmund?" Lucy said aloud, as if she was desperate for him to answer her, despite the fact that he was not there, her voice almost echoing in the stillness of the round-walled room.

In the corridors not far from Lucy's room, but not close enough either to Drinian's domain or Mrs. Macready's for anyone to see them, somewhere in between the both, the very place Marjorie had thought she and Anne had plans in for the following night, Edmund stood, his path blocked by the leader of the 'dryads'-a young woman in a hooded gray cloak.

This time, in spite of the hood, because of the way the light was falling through the slatted windows high above them, the count saw her face.

"I should have known you had something to do with this, Anne," said Edmund, speaking through his gritted teeth.

Back in her room, still sitting on the bed, suddenly shaking in an almost violent manner, Lucy exclaimed, "Let him pass! Leave him alone!" She had no idea who she was yelling at, only that Edmund was in some trouble.

Her whole body felt tense and weak. She wanted to stand up and start running down the corridors, searching for him, even it meant being taken up for a mad woman (it was a step up from 'witch' at least, if nothing else), but there was a buzzing in her ears and the room seemed to tilt up and down like the world was a giant teeter-totter.

Then there was a pain in her stomach like somebody had taken a knife and thrust it into her belly.

"Edmund!" Clutching her abdomen, Lucy scrambled up, fighting against her spell of extreme dizziness, and ran out of the room, right through the curtain and into the corridor.

Mrs. Macready called out, "Princess, where do you think you're going at this hour? Come back!"

But Lucy wouldn't stop. It was a wonder she could run so fast, as her limp was still existent and pretty overt at that, yet she managed, heart-pounding, to get to where her husband was.

It was a pretty clear night, still a single cloud blocked the light momentarily and Lucy almost stepped on Edmund before she heard a moan and looked down. The cloud moved, and Lucy truly understood a bit of the horror Edmund must have suffered through when he'd found her with Maugrim and the bloody ankle.

The Count of the Western March was sprawled out on the tiled floor, utterly helpless, his eyes half-closed, his mouth agape and gasping uselessly, the hilt of a dagger sticking out from his bleeding stomach. Ironically, the dagger had been pushed into the very same place his scar had been.

Letting out a shriek of pain and fear, Lucy threw herself down, hard, on her knees at his side, and then thrust herself across the upper part of his body, clinging to him and weeping.

Lucy, she thought in-between her shaking sobs, pull yourself together and call for help!

She lifted her head up and called, at first too hoarsely and no one could hear, but by the second or third time loud enough almost to wake the whole school, "Help! Someone please help! Edmund's been hurt!"

The Macready was the first to hear her, and for once the woman's stern face softened with pity and recoiled with horror when she saw what had happened.

"Mrs. Macready!" cried Lucy. "Go find Headmaster Coriakin; please! I can't go. I can't leave him." Her eyes flickered down to Edmund, who hadn't even seemed to notice she was with him now, so out of it he could just barely made a proper groaning sound.

"Right away, Your Highness." The housekeeper turned on her heels and ran off at once.

"Thank you," she croaked, tears falling from her eyes and sliding down her cheeks into her open mouth as she spoke. Turning back to Edmund, Lucy sobbed, "Please hold on. You're going to be all right, Ed, you've got to be!"

A faint, painful-sounding grunt came from him, and Lucy noticed that his fingers were starting to feel in a slow yet frantic manner around his stomach area. He was trying to pull the dagger out; it was deep in there and if simply yanking the blade out had been advisable Lucy would have already done so, but all Edmund could understand in his current state was that something was making his stomach uncomfortable and he wanted it to stop.

"Edmund, don't." Lucy tried to grab his hands and pull them away form the dagger, but she only managed to get hold of one. The other grabbed onto the blade (making contact below the hilt) causing blood to start dripping from his now-cut fingers as well as spurting from his stomach.

Breathing heavily, fighting against the urge to hyperventilate, Lucy let go of the hand she held, stood up, and stumbled over to his other side, pulling that hand away from the blade. She tore off a piece of her nightshift and used it to bandage the sliced-up fingers.

Just as the princess was finishing wrapping the nightshift-bandage around her husband's hand, Coriakin, Digory Kirke, Rhince, Caspian, Ivy, Trumpkin, and Lilliandil arrived. Mrs. Macready, with them, as close to disheveled-looking as she could ever possibly be, came rushing down the corridor.

Trumpkin held an oil lantern which he lowered next to Edmund so they could see him better. Lucy swallowed hard; in such lighting she could see his wound even more clearly, and it was perfectly ghastly.

"Dear Aslan," murmured Professor Kirke, crouching down beside the count's head.

Ivy knelt behind his head and gently lifted it up into her lap.

"How has this happened?" whispered Coriakin, most of the blood gone from his face, his expression bleak with the knowledge that they had-once again-been powerless to prevent an attack against High King Peter, not to mention an innocent student.

"I don't know," Lucy told him, shuddering. "I felt that he was in pain…and I ran…and he was here, like this."

"You know, he was right," said Caspian sadly, shaking his head. "For a society created to protect High King Peter, we really haven't been of much use." He did not worry about bringing the society up in front of Mrs. Macready, who did not understand-and had no desire to understand-such things and so would not repeat or think about anything they said regarding the Rhindon Investigation Society.

"We have to remove the dagger," said Rhince. "But it's in there pretty deep. This will be difficult."

"There's something wrong with his eyes," said Lucy, glancing from Edmund to Professor Kirke. "I noticed the second I found him. He's lost a lot of blood, probably, but would that by itself make him that unconscious of his surrounding so quickly? He could not have been here for long before I came."

"Ivy," said Caspian, nodding at Rhince, "keep Edmund's head still. Lilliandil, hold his shoulders. Trumpkin, get the bandages ready."

Rhince bent down and pulled the dagger out of Edmund's stomach in a careful, precise manner that Lucy would not have been able to manage, much as she would have wanted to and tried her best.

And at once Trumpkin's hands held the bandages out to Caspian and Rhince.

Professor Kirke took the dagger from Rhince and brought it to his nose to smell it. "Poison; that is what has made him so despondent, Lucy."

"Who would poison him?" Lucy cried.

"There is another member of the Order of the Dryads among us, still in this school, even though we've gotten rid of Pug and Gumpas," Coriakin announced. "I can feel it in my bones now. No one else would have reason to work against us, assisting the darkness."

"Let me see that dagger." Caspian took the dagger from Professor Kirke and smelled it for himself. "It's not a poison to kill him," he told them, knowing such things from his various studies (you don't get to be valedictorian without knowing a lot of things). "It is made from a hallucination-causing herb, I can tell by the smell; it's strong and very unpleasant, but not sharp. And added to his nightmares it should make him very weak in the mind while losing blood would obviously…" His voice trailed off.

"This is only a weak attempt," Professor Kirke noted, his eyes widening. "If it works, their job is done. He's dead. If not, well they've frightened him, weakened him, and they are one step closer to using their biggest weapon against him, making sure it will be the final blow when they do."

"But what is their biggest weapon?" Lucy asked as Rhince and Caspian lifted Edmund up so that they could carry him back to Lucy's room and put him in bed.

"You, Lucy," Professor Kirke reminded her. "Nothing more and nothing less. I would think you would know how important Susan is to Peter from that composition you had to write, if nothing else."

When Edmund had been placed in bed, he seemed to be doing worse. Delirious, seeing terrifying faces and green mist, and growling wolves and leering witches, and fire and blood, behind his eyelids, he had little will to push through. He only wanted it all to stop; everything hurt and he was sick to death of pain and fear. If only it would all go away. If only he could let go, release his cramped fingers holding on the bar of life.

His eyes were going, by turn, from half-closed to all closed; and he happened to see Lucy at his side, not in his nightmares and delusions but in reality, holding his hand and begging him to be strong while Rhince changed his bandages because the first had been soaked through already. Edmund wanted to fight for her, but he felt too weak. There was no white light, no angelic voice calling, just a calm sense of 'there's nothing more to be done, nothing more that can be done' and a shocking readiness of the body and mind to shut down.

At least he could see his wife one last time before he died. If he couldn't make it, he could say goodbye to her. His lips trembled and his clouded, drugged, glassy eyes, were peering out at her as best they could from under his eyelashes.

Professor Kirke noticed this, understood what was happening, and hastily whispered something urgent to Coriakin who nodded grimly. It would be emotionally painful, however it might just keep Edmund alive if they went through with what the history professor was suggesting. If taking Susan away from Peter could harm him, maybe it could also help him, under the right circumstances; for the high king, as long as he was able and it was at all possible, would do anything to get his queen back.

Professor Kirke ran over and grabbed Lucy by the arms and Coriakin pried her hand out of Edmund's so that Digory could drag her off.

Where was he taking her? Edmund's not quite right at the moment mind raced, absolutely aghast. The professor-though he wasn't even sure it was the professor-couldn't do that, he couldn't!

"Lucy!" he gasped out with a strength he hadn't known he had left in him.

Hearing her name as Professor Kirke was pulling her passed the curtains, unable to get free and rush back to Edmund's beside like she wanted, she shouted, "Edmund!"

He heard her call his name and the green mist in his mind lessened a bit. "Bring her back," Edmund mumbled, not even certain who it was he was speaking to (it was actually Rhince).

"We will," Coriakin told him. "But not if you give up fighting to stay alive. Keep pushing through, let us help you, and we'll bring her back into the room. Give up and you will never see her again."

In his messed-up visions it was not Coriakin who said this, but Maugrim, green mist clinging to his mangled ashen-gray fur. The wolves had taken Lucy away and wouldn't bring her back. The count knew he had to fight them. She wasn't safe if he didn't. They would hurt her; he could not leave her to that. And the witch-hunters were there and…and Aslan had not come…he had not come…and Anne Featherstone was gloating…and the mist was multiplying again.

Edmund took deeper, longer breaths, forced at first, but soon enough it came more naturally. Ivy pressed the rim of a flagon to his lips and poured something hot into his mouth and down his throat which made him feel warm and sleepy and made the green mist softer in hue and more distant. Somehow it made Maugrim go away, too.

The darkness looming over him was not death now, it was just deep sleep-the kind that heals and restores.

Then everyone was gone and the green mist had stopped plaguing him altogether. Edmund found himself returned to his senses, hours later, the shadows of the room changed, the lanterns and fire in the fireplace put out, and the door-curtain being swept aside.

What had happened was that Edmund had fought and pulled through so that the members of the Rhindon Investigation Society currently in the room with him no longer thought him in danger of dying and left him to rest, allowing Lucy (who had been locked in the headmaster's office to ensure she would not return to Edmund's side before they were ready for her to) to go back to her room.

"I'm here, Edmund!" Lucy ran to him, nearly tripping over her own two feet in so doing.

"Good," breathed Edmund, his voice understandably strained but also deeply relieved. "I don't think I'll have any more nightmares just now. Would you mind terribly if I went to sleep for a bit? I'm a little tired."

She took his hand in hers and kissed the back of it, trying not to start crying again. "Get some sleep."

AN: Please review!