Written for Hydrangea for the 2019 Narnia Fic Exchange who asked for, among other things, Alternate Universe, Steampunk, Lucy/Caspian, England is magical - Narnia is mundane.

A huge thanks to WingedFlight for the beta.

Tags:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationship: Caspian/Lucy Pevensie (not underage, no physical content beyond hand-holding)
Characters: Lucy Pevensie; Edmund Pevensie; Caspian; Peter Pevensie; Susan Pevensie
Additional Tags: Were-Creatures, Alternate Universe, Steampunk, Alternate Universe, Magic

Lucy swirled the reagent in the vial, keeping an eye on the enormous countdown clock on the wall, only to have a blast of steam from a burbling concentrate on the Bunsen burner fog up everything with a glass face.

I'll have to do this the old-fashioned way.

She blew damp hair out of her face, tried to clear misting goggles by rubbing them on her shoulder, and kept swirling the flask, counter-clockwise, always counter-clockwise. Clockwise would mean (another) explosion and she'd only just cleaned up the last one. The solution within was just beginning to colour from pink, darkening to rose to hopefully red. In another 30 seconds the heavier elixir she sought should precipitate out and settle at the bottom.

27 26 25

A whistle tore through her concentration…

Blast.

"Edmund!"

She kept swirling the flask. Had she lost count?

21 20 19

The damned whistle, again. Where was her infernal brother? With his head in the clouds, again?

"EDMUND!"

The whistling increased in intensity, insistence, and volume. It was going from tea kettle to air raid siren.

15 14 13

"EDMUND! You scrying glass is going off! GET YOU ARSE IN HERE!"

"I'm coming!"

It was too late.

"Damn it!" In those moments of distraction, the solution had gone from red to black and the chemical reaction that should have synthesized fire-flower elixir had turned to sludge.

"Sorry, Lu! I'm here!"

Edmund shoved the heavy, sliding wooden door open and hurried into the lab, rubbing his eyes. He looked so bleary he had surely been deep in a meditative trance – head in the clouds was never wholly metaphorical with her mage brother. He waved his arms about and the shrieking subsided back to mere tea kettle intensity. "Alright, alright, I'm coming you beastly nag."

He was scolding the glass, not her.

"I've half a mind to dump this into your scrying glass," Lucy grumbled, joining him at the basin.

"Hush now, or she'll hear you." Edmund passed his hands across the steaming water and murmured a few words. The waters stilled.

Lucy peered in with him. "It seems foggier than usual."

"You're still wearing your goggles, Lu."

Right then.

Lucy shoved them up on the top of her head, feeling the buckles catch on and snag her wispy blonde hair. Susan would surely scold her for poor laboratory hygiene.

It was always hard to tell when the water she was looking in was actually water she was looking at. Scrying was Edmund's province, not hers.

"There," Edmund said, pointing. "Whoever it is the glass is alerting us to, they've appeared at the Highgate Ponds."

Given that the full moon was rising tomorrow night, whatever the scrying glass was concerned about was surely urgent. And likely dangerous.

"Do you want me to go?"

"It's my turn," Edmund replied heavily.

Which left her to deal with Peter and Susan this time.

Her brother knew the direction of her thoughts. "Just keep them away from Hampstead Heath for as long as you can. Just in case."

"So you don't know?"

Edmund shook his head and shucked off his robes. "It's too tangled to see clearly."

Lucy handed him his favorite duster coat from the rack. He freed the tangled hair from the goggles askew on her head and brushed her cheek with his finger. "I am sorry about the fire-flower potion. I do sense we'll likely need all you can brew this week."

"It's going to be bad?"

Edmund's eyes went briefly vacant as her brother again searched the ley lines that ran into the laboratory and out again, across the length and breadth of Britain. "Complicated, if I read the signs correctly."

"You always do, Edmund." Her brother was the only one who ever doubted his Sight. As he pulled on his goggles, Lucy handed him a pair of thick gloves. "Take the air bike. And …" She turned back to her workbench and pulled a drawer open. "Here."

"You got the Farnsworth working again! Brilliant!"

Being able to communicate across town was hugely helpful for their work. Just as Edmund tapped into the ley lines criss-crossing London for his magick and scrying, she had used them to create an instantaneous telegraph between two devices that were small enough to fit in a pocket. She'd had to undertake repairs after Remus, a very nice man she hadn't been able to treat in time, turned full Were, tried to eat her, and gotten a fatal shock when he bit into a Farnsworth instead.

Lucy crossed over the lab to the bookcase on the far wall, pulled Gadow's Advanced Potions to the right, pushed the Animalia and Botanica of Britain to the left, and pressed the button hidden in a fake Rights For Weres in a Modern Society – Peter and Susan weren't bookish and certainly would never open anything involving Were rights. The wall turned on a well-oiled pivot and a gust of fresh, cool air from the passageway wafted through the room.

"Go," Lucy gestured. "They'll be here any moment and you need to be gone."

Edmund nodded and ducked into the passageway. "Signal me once it's safe to return."

They didn't want to risk him sending a message on the Farnsworth with Peter or Susan standing right over her.

His duster billowing behind him, Edmund jogged away down the passage to their private garage.

Just as she closed the bookcase and shoved the books back in their appropriate places, the scrying glass burbled like a fountain and then began humming. So, maybe some hard feelings but not so bitter that she wouldn't warn that Peter and Susan had acknowledged receipt of the earlier alarm. They'd come over from the house soon, once they had donned their hunting gear.

"Thanks, Luv. And I'd never dump burnt up potions in you."

Lucy binned the sludge, flask and all, and returned to her bench, pulling her goggles back down. Opening the linen sack on the counter, she began carefully measuring out dried fire-flowers on her balance. The Crown always made sure she had plenty of raw ingredients for brewing the vital potion; it was just a damned tricky elixir to synthesize and there weren't many in London who could do it.

She lost herself so thoroughly in her work, humming along with the glass, and grinding the flowers that Peter and Susan were in the lab before she noticed the clanking sounds of sword, knives, and quiver against brass buckles and mail shirts. The scent followed; Peter and Susan always reeked of death to her.

"Good girl," she whispered to the scrying glass.

"Lucy," Peter began but she cut him off.

"A moment, please," and continued to carefully and intently grind the fire-flowers with her pestle. Her brother and sister knew interrupting certain processes in her potion-making had catastrophic consequences – though they didn't know that crushing fire-flowers wasn't one of them. The longer the head start Edmund had before Peter and Susan began searching London for their next quarry, the better.

"Lucy, you really should secure your hair," Susan said, predictably. "It is untidy and unsafe."

The moment before they would begin to fidget and ask awkward questions, Lucy set down her pestle and looked up. "Good morning!"

Peter leaned down and kissed the top of her head. She managed to not flinch at the close proximity to the Were-wolf pelt her eldest brother sported across his broad shoulders. "Good morning, sister. Is Edmund about? We heard the glass go off?"

"He was up early, catching sunrise for me for the fire-flower elixir," Lucy replied. "I couldn't make heads or tails of whatever the scrying glass was trying to tell us. Maybe a Were in Greenwich?"

Susan's metal hand landed gently on her shoulder; the kiss to her cheek was gentler still. "Thank you for your work, sister, as always. Though, if Edmund was up early, it seems you never went to bed."

"The full moon rises tomorrow; it's busy for us all." Lucy turned back to her mortar and pestle so she wouldn't see her sister's armband of Were-wolf teeth and her Were-hide vambraces.

Peter and Susan went over to inspect the scrying glass basin.

"Greenwich?" Susan said, sounding far too mystified. "I shouldn't think so. What do you think, Peter? There's definitely water. The Docklands, perhaps? Or Tower Bridge?"

Lucy looked up from her work and tried to not hold her breath as Peter rubbed his eye and squinted into the basin.

The glass would never lie, she couldn't, but neither would she make interpreting her easy. Sir Peter Wolfsbane, however, had never needed two eyes, or even the one that now remained to him, to find prey. "No, I think that's water amidst park land. Perhaps Regent's or Hyde Park."

"Or Battersea?" Lucy suggested.

The pause ran long and painfully.

"Possibly," Peter finally said. "Su, let's start south of the Thames and work our way north, through Hyde, Green, and St. James's, then Regent's and, if still no luck, up to Hampstead."

"Very well."

They turned away, jangling and creaking toward the door.

"You'll have our silver solution ready tonight?" Susan asked, adjusting her quiver to rest flatter across her back.

Before the full moon, every month, it was the same ordeal for their family. Sir Peter Wolfsbane bathed his sword, Rhindon, the Were-Foe of Londontown, in a bath of silver; Dame Susan Bow-arm dipped each arrow point in lethal argentum paste. Mage Edmund Pevensie traversed across Londontown, raising wards to protect and secure those not infected. That night, Wolfsbane and Bow-arm would roam the streets, hunting down and killing every Were they found. The next morning after, Doctor Lucy Pevensie wold venture out to treat those bitten with fire-flower to prevent the cursed infection from taking hold.

"As always, dear sister," Lucy said. "Good hunting to you both. The King protect you."

"And you, Lucy," Peter said.

"Close the door behind you?"

"Of course, Lucy. Try to get some rest if you can." Susan looped her metal fingers into the iron handle of the door to slide it shut. They'd had to amputate her sister's left arm at the elbow two years ago to prevent the spread of a rare Were-infection that hadn't responded to fire-flower. The strength of the metal replacement had made Dame Bow-arm even more lethal. With a gentle smile she added, "And do put on a coif, for your own safety."

"I shall consider both, Susan dearest," Lucy replied.

The heavy door sliding shut muted her brother and sister's merry laughs.

The scrying glass began burbling again, sounding very pleased with herself. Though she might have just been happy that Susan had looked in her.

"Thank you, Friend."

She finished two batches of the careful crushing of the fire-flowers into a fine, dry powder and mixed the first of the many solvents the elixir required before she deemed it safe to pull the Farnsworth from the drawer. Lucy listened carefully but surely Susan and Peter were well away, running as the tame wolves did, to Battersea.

"Luv? Are they about?" The scrying glass remained silent.

She pressed the button on the Farnsworth and waited.

"Lu?"

She could immediately hear the strain in his voice. "Edmund? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," he said quickly. "Is it safe to come in?"

"For the moment, yes. What's wrong?"

"We have a problem."

Lucy didn't know what to expect so she packed her medical bag, a bone saw, sutures, and the strongest fire-flower concentrate in her dispensary. Edmund didn't keep her waiting. He rolled down the hill and into their garage thirty minutes later. Rolling was the only forward movement the air bike was capable of, for the gauge on the pressure tank showed empty and the battery meter was in the red – Edmund had drained everything to get back so swiftly. There was a man in the sidecar, covered in a heavy cloak and hood, and wrapped in a scarf, with goggles holding it all in place. He did not seem to be in immediate medical distress and her dread increased further.

She lit the lamps, closed the garage doors, and Edmund dismounted, motioning the man riding next to him to climb out. He made an awkward business of it and Lucy finally had to help him with the buckles and fasteners of his safety harness, and then his outerwear. His goggles kept tangling in his black hair, longer and far silkier than Lucy's own.

He was heart-stoppingly handsome, as tall as Peter, more beautiful than Susan, kind, strong features, dark eyes, flawless, olive skin, and his hair much too long to be fashionable or even common. He was wearing a soft shirt and snug trousers in deep hues of blue and green that showed him off to tremendous advantage. She'd never seen casual clothing so richly colored, or close-fitted, in England.

It made her feel shy and tongue-tied, even a little girlish. Edmund snorted, seeing the whole thing (which was pretty rich as he was undoubtedly as attracted to the stranger as she was).

Lucy tentatively put out her hand. "I'm Doctor Lucy Pevensie. You are?"

He stared at her hand then uncertainly stretched out his own. "Caspian."

His hands were warm and dry, maybe, Lucy thought with a fearful thud, too warm. She glanced at Edmund and her brother nodded slightly.

Lucy shook his hand and then withdrew her own. "I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Caspian."

"I am Caspian. That is my name, of the House of Telmar."

"I am not familiar with that family."

Edmund kicked a stool over toward Caspian, "Sit." Lucy pulled up her own chair. Caspian carefully set the cloak down on the motor bike with a lingering look, and took the seat across from her, a little tentative, as if testing its weight.

He's never seen any of this before.

Edmund carelessly tossed his own duster over the bike's handlebars and snagged a chair with his boot, threw a leg over it and sat backwards. When Peter wasn't there to nag him about decorum, he always sat backwards in chairs, with his arms on their backrests. "First, Caspian, my apologies for hustling you here so unceremoniously and with nary an introduction." Edmund reached across the chair and offered his hand. Caspian was better at this second handshake. "I'm Edmund Pevensie, Mage in his Majesty's Coven Corps."

Edmund turned to her. "By the time I arrived at Hampstead, the account was widely circulating that he rose out of the Highgate bathing pond, fully dressed, completely dry, and politely asking for directions to Londontown."

He rubbed his hand over his face, pulled his gloves off, and dropped them next to his goggles on the floor. "The magick was running wild and the ley lines were doing such a vigorous foxtrot around him, they gave me a headache. Anyone with an eye in their head knew he wasn't from around here. Before he started a panic of another portal opening up to gods knows where and letting another plague in, I threw a glamour over both of us, a cloak over him, tossed him in the side car and started motoring around, waiting for your all clear."

Lucy folded her hands in her lap and leaned forward. "So, Caspian, of the House of Telmar, how did you come to be here, and why?"

"As your brother has surmised, Lady…"

"Doctor," Lucy put it. They needed to get off on the right foot here.

"My apologies." Caspian inclined his head, looking adorably contrite. "Where I am from, Doctor Pevensie, women do not hold such titles."

Before she could ask just what titles women could aspire to (and she suspected it was wife, mother, spinster, seamstress, governess, and sex worker), Edmund injected, "And where are you from, Caspian?"

"As you ascertained, Mage, I came here by magick, from the land of Narnia."

Lucy sucked in a startled breath. "Cornelius!"

Edmund rocked so hard in his chair, he nearly tipped over.

"Doctor Cornelius now and he sends his regards to you both. He is my physician and valued advisor, but alas, no magician for, as you may recall, magicks remain little more than myth and parlor tricks in Narnia. He sent me to find you and it was indeed fortunate that this unfolded as it did. I had doubted it, but the Doctor had thought, by your own devices, you would identify me swiftly."

"The Rings? He promised us he would never use them again. The risks to Narnia…"

"Just so. It has been, in Narnia, some 40 years since he was here." Caspian looked at her closely and with, what Lucy thought, was curiosity that might be nudged to admiration. She was very glad it had not been 40 years here.

"It's been barely three years," Lucy said, returning his warm look with a smile of her own. "Time runs differently between England and Narnia." Caspian was within a few years of her own 30.

Edmund cleared his throat. Lucy thought he was a little jealous; her brother had not gotten such an admiring look… yet. "Cornelius was an excellent student," Edmund put in.

"So, Doctor and Mage, Doctor Cornelius deemed the matter so dire, he broke his solemn vow to you, unearthed the Rings, and taught me their ways so that I might find you. He believes that the problem that arose in Narnia has its origins here. The solution, if there is one, he thinks is also to be found here."

"And that dire situation is?" Lucy asked, though she thought she already knew.

"I am the rightful heir to the throne of Narnia and embroiled in a Civil War with my uncle who claims it as his own. He has my country in a terrible and tyrannical grip. By some rare and perilous dark art, he smuggled an agent into my camp. There was a fight, I killed the spy, but…"

Caspian paused and then rolled up his sleeve, exposing a very well-muscled arm and a very familiar-looking and savage scar.

"You were bitten," Edmund said.

"And am now a Were-Wolf."

"And you need my cure."

One of Edmund's Irregulars brought them back food from Chinatown. It was Edmund's idea of either humour or foreplay so he could then show Caspian how to use chopsticks and feed him bits of juicy chicken and slippery noodles. He'd also helped Caspian find some very dull brown trousers, boots, vest and duster so that he wasn't so obviously from somewhere on the other side of a portal that had magically opened up on Hampstead Heath. The disguise did not fit Caspian nearly so well, though he looked marvelous in the open-necked shirt and boots. Her brother was very devious. It was also very frustrating because Edmund was much better at flirting than she was, and usually more successful at it.

In the meantime, she'd inventoried her ingredients in the laboratory and dispensary, readied herself for an argument with Edmund, and returned to the garage.

"The good news," Lucy explained to Caspian, "is that I may be able to cure you."

"And the bad news?" He had given up on the attempt at chopsticks and was scooping the noodles up with his fingers. It was delectable.

"That is the only good news at the moment." Edmund was watching Caspian a mite too avidly and sounding flustered. Lucy kicked him gently with her toe of her boot. Stop getting distracted, you child. He probably heard her silent reprimand and certainly understood her intent.

Edmund became very occupied with a study of his dumplings and murmured, "Attempting the cure is illegal…"

"Illegal!" Caspian echoed. "My sincere apologies. I had no idea I was endangering you. Allow me to…"

Edmund waved at Caspian impatiently, nearly sending a dumpling flying across the garage. "Oh do sit down. None of those theatrics, please."

"Yes, we are violating English law, but this is what we do, Caspian." Lucy gently tugged on his sleeve to bring him back down. "The illegality is based upon sound public health protections. The cure is poisonous if not handled properly or administered correctly and requires scarce, expensive resources to make…"

"Like my sister's potion-making skills," Edmund put in, retrieving his dumpling from his lap.

She nodded, acknowledging the point. "Just so. Very few in Londontown are capable of concocting it safely and I did invent it."

Between mouthfuls, Edmund added, "And the Crown is not wholly wrong in prioritizing treatment of the newly bitten to prevent the Were-plague from taking hold even more than it has."

It still hurt terribly for Lucy wanted to save them all. "If we don't reach the bitten in time, or they are too afraid or ashamed to come forward, once the patient undergoes a transformation, the cure is the only option and the Crown does not wish us to waste time on what is often a futile and, for most potion-makers and patients, a very dangerous endeavor."

"To discourage attempts at the cure, the key ingredient is highly restricted and its purchase is reported to the Crown Prosecutor for investigation…"

"Or to a Were-Hunter, which includes our brother and sister, by the way."

Caspian looked nervously between the two of them, food forgotten.

"Yes, about that. It's another complication." Edmund set aside his plate. "Our brother, Sir Peter Wolfsbane, and sister, Dame Susan Bow-arm, hold royal licenses as Were-Hunters."

"Our brother and sister are as skilled at killing as Edmund and I are at saving. If you are finished, Caspian?"

He nodded.

Her chair scraped loudly over the wooden floor of the garage as she drew closer to him and opened her medical bag. "May I? I shan't be too invasive but we need to ascertain how advanced the infection is which will then tell us our probability of a successful cure."

Or if the cure is pointless because you are so advanced it would only kill you, and in such agony, we might as well have Susan and Peter kill you now and spare us all that horror.

Caspian looked at her bag warily but nodded again.

She pulled out her stethoscope and checked his heart, mostly able to ignore the way the cold metal pressed against his too warm skin. A thermometer confirmed that his body temperature was higher than normal. Taking his wrist, she felt his pulse jump a little under her fingertips.

"Both your pulse and heart rate are lower than normal." She had seen better, and worse, in Were-patients.

Holding up a candle to his eyes – they were a lovely shade of brown – "Can you still see red and green colours? "

"I'm not sure. There doesn't seem to be much colour here."

"We're a drab lot," Edmund put in. "All leathers, brass, buckles, and burning coal and boiling water to turn machinery and charge batteries."

"But beautiful all the same," Caspian replied, out of politeness. Probably. From Caspian's amused huff, Edmund had surely winked at him. Flirt.

She moved the candle back and forth, watching as his eyes flickered. "You don't have a third eyelid yet."

"I… what?"

"It's something we see in dogs, wolves, and Were-canines, a third eyelid that humans don't have." Edmund could sound so soothing. "That it has not yet formed is good, as it is one marker in the end-stage of the disease."

She returned her stethoscope to the bag. "Have you found your night vision or sense of smell have changed?"

"Yes. Especially right before and after." He looked about a little nervously and wrinkled his nose in the direction of the Chinatown foods.

"So it is a good thing I bathed this morning?" Lucy said, trying to lighten the serious mood.

"And me as well!" Edmund cried and she and Caspian both rolled their eyes at him. Caspian's whites still looked normal.

She slipped the rings from her pocket onto her fingers and held out her hands to Caspian. "Take mine. Edmund, if you would?"

Caspian, a little tentatively, reached out and grasped her hands. It started well but she could see in his face the uncertainty when it began to feel uncomfortable.

"It is beginning to burn?"

He nodded. Lucy wriggled her fingers and Caspian flinched.

She withdrew her hands from his, slipped off the rings, and then gently turned his palms over. They were red and two blisters were starting to appear.

"Almost three minutes," Edmund said, sounding cheerful enough that Caspian glanced at him.

"I put on silver rings. Silver is poisonous to Weres; in early stages of the disease it causes irritation and swelling. Eventually, it is lethal. I put on silver rings to measure your sensitivity and you tolerated them fairly well. Now, last, could you please push up your sleeve again? I would like to examine the bite."

She was again treated to Caspian's nice forearms and upper arm. The scar was very large; It had been a fearsome injury but was not festering.

Edmund leaned over to also examine the bite but he was very professional now. "Three moonrises?"

"Looks more like two," Lucy countered.

"Yes," Caspian replied. "I've transformed twice so far."

So.

"Caspian, in my judgment the infection has advanced fairly predictably. If you agree to undertake the cure I prepare, I believe there is a good probability of success. There are risks, serious ones. The Were-Cure could kill you."

Caspian frowned and shifted uncomfortably. "What happens if I decline the Cure?"

"Regrettably, the alternatives are equally grim. With each successive transformation, the possibility of a successful cure drops markedly. By five transformations, you are a full Were, changing every month, with an increasing probability of it becoming permanent. I don't know what would happen to you in Narnia, but I suspect it would ultimately be the same as what happens here."

"What is that?"

"You die, in a fight with another Were, you kill yourself accidentally whilst in a Were-rage, or you are killed by a Were-Hunter."

"Like your brother and sister?"

Lucy nodded and Edmund put a hand on Caspian's shoulder. "Don't worry. Lucy and I won't let that happen."

Caspian covered Edmund's hand with his but then reached over and clasped her own.

"Thank you, both. I will undertake this cure as swiftly as possible. I cannot reclaim Narnia, nor rule when I am like this – something my Uncle surely intended when he set the Were-wolf upon me."

"There are some ingredients we must obtain. And then I will need several hours tomorrow to brew the potion. Then, we give it to you, lock you up tomorrow night, wait for the moon rise, and see if it takes." Or you die. "I'm sorry that that sounds so brutal, but there really isn't any other way. If we let you loose..."

"I would not wish to harm my saviors, nor anyone else. Doctor Cornelius has undertaken similar precautions for my last two transformations."

"And we must keep you as far away as possible from our brother and sister, and every other Were-hunter."

"They already know something is up, Ed. Peter could see it in the glass."

"I know." She could see Edmund pull in on himself and his eyes became vacant and a little misty. "And yet they must be able to do their duty on the full moon, and, we must do likewise." He sighed, wearily. There was a lot of magicking for him the next two days and it would be draining to the point of debilitation. "What do you need, Lu, to make the cure?"

"I can harvest Valerian root by moonlight tonight. I have plenty in the garden. But I'll need to purchase dittany and powdered moonstone. And get the aconite, of course."

"Lu…" Edmund took on a warning tone.

"I know," she said sharply and pulled away from them both. She hated this. "But there's nothing for it."

"What?" Caspian asked, rolling his shirtsleeve back down.

"My sister is proposing something very dangerous."

"It's more dangerous if I don't have the right ingredients."

"But from Tumnus? Lucy, you know what he is."

"Tumnus?" Caspian injected into their burgeoning, and very old, argument.

"An apothecary, with the superior supply of drugs and pure potion ingredients in all of Londontown." My friend. My advisor. Once. Perhaps still.

"Which is so very superior to all other suppliers because he is an informant and spy," Edmund countered. His anger at Tumnus had not abated, and probably never would. Edmund blamed Tumnus for his indenture into the Mage Corps, serving at His Majesty's pleasure – an honour and burden, with attendant scrutiny, her brother had never wanted.

"Edmund, Tumnus is the only one I trust for this. "

"Trust his ingredients if you must, but not him. And he won't sell you aconite."

"Of course not, Edmund. We'll have to steal that."

Mr. Tumnus put a monocle to his eye and bent his head over the list she'd set on the pharmacy counter. His hair was so curly and wild, it always looked as if he'd sprouted horns on his head. Coupled with the long beaver-skin fur coats and hides he favored, Mr. Tumnus also gave off a peculiarly animalistic air for someone who was such an exacting apothecary.

He traced her shopping list with a long, impeccably clean fingernail. Fire-flower, argentum, atropine, lacewing, dittany, poppy, coca leaves, hammelis, mandrake, willow bark, thyme. She had made a point of burying the dittany amidst other ingredients it was frequently mixed with for commonly-prescribed infection remedies and pain relief. That it was also an essential ingredient in the Were-Cure might pass unnoticed. Hopefully.

"Still more fire-flowers, Doctor Pevensie? You purchased 2 kilos only last week."

"Oh, the scrying glass unexpectedly went off this morning and I burnt a whole batch," Lucy said with a laugh. "Susan scolded me dreadfully for the waste." Slightly more pointedly, she added, "And Edmund foresees a complex aftermath to the full moon tomorrow. I want to be prepared."

"You know where these all are, Doctor. Help yourself." He waved at the back wall where the bins were.

"Any problems with the coca and poppy?"

"For you, not at all. I'm happy to be of service. But I will measure out the atropine for you." Atropine was derived from belladonna and could be very toxic, so Mr. Tumnus synthesized it himself and was particular about who could have it and how much. "How much do you require?"

"A few drams. I'm making an eye drop for a patient."

The aconite was behind the counter, in a glass cabinet. She tried to not stare at it. It was known as Wolfsbane in the old languages and formularies. Unlike dittany, there were few legitimate uses for aconite apart from poisoning a human and her Were-cure. A potion-maker could purchase it but had to account for it to the supplier and usually suffered through a visit from a Royal Were-Hunter or someone in the Prosecutor's office.

Lucy began filling little linen bags with each of the ingredients, mentally rehearsing. When she got to M, "I've not used mandrake much before, Mr. Tumnus, but I have a patient who is trying to conceive. My Pharmacopeia suggested it as a possible remedy. Do you have any other recommendations?"

"Powdered moonstone," Mr. Tumnus replied after what was either an uncomfortably long pause or her overactive imagination.

"Thank you! Yes, that's an excellent idea."

"I am surprised your Pharmacopeia did not mention it."

Do I say anything more? Is that giving it away? Or would he remark if I didn't say the obvious?

Lucy tried for a middle ground. "I confess I do tend to forget that moonstone has many applications apart from being in my Were-Cure."

"Indeed, Doctor Pevensie. As you are already purchasing dittany and argentum, will you be needing aconite as well?" His laugh sounded harsh and unnatural.

When had their friendship turned so sour? When she had refused to take his advice on commercializing the Cure? When she had patented the invention to keep the Crown from taking it? When she had published the article describing how other potion-makers could compound the Cure and announced she would never enforce her rights to prevent them from doing so? Why did he act so hurt and distrusting?

Maybe because I'm lying to him.

She laughed in return, and brought her basket with the little bags to his counter for weighing. "Of course not, Mr. Tumnus! Can you imagine Peter and Susan's reaction?!"

"A betrayal," Mr. Tumnus answered, with a smile that did not reach his eyes. He weighed each bag, recording her purchases and their cost in his ledger.

She didn't flinch when he wrote Dittany and followed it with Powdered Moonstone in the ledger under her name and the date.

She fished out her wallet to pay, as calmly as she could manage. The crowns she set on the counter bore the profile of Sir Peter Wolfsbane – the left side, so he had an eye, rather than the patch. Silhouettes and portraits of her brother with the scar across his face and patch over his right eye were very popular in souvenir shops and Peter got a tuppence royalty for the use of his likeness. "Please make sure to break out both the fire-flowers and argentum powder on the receipt, Mr. Tumnus. The Were Ministry is reimbursing us for the costs of treating Peter and Susan's weapons and for the fire-flower elixir now."

"Of course."

Tumnus slowly counted out her payment and Lucy willed herself to not fidget or stare at the aconite taunting her in the case behind him.

If Edmund had been there, he could have cast a confounding charm and in the ensuing confusion, she could have taken the aconite right then. But if Edmund had been with her, there also would have been yelling, cursing, and possible curses flying between her brother and Mr. Tumnus.

"A good likeness of your brother," Mr. Tumnus said, jolting her to attention. He was holding up one of the crowns and studying it. "Though I think the 5-pound note with your sister is better."

Is he asking for a bribe?

"I think they would agree, Mr. Tumnus! Thank you!"

"It's always a pleasure doing business with your family. Do let me know if I can be of further service to you, or your eldest brother or sister."

What is he offering? Protection? For what? Does he want a fiver?

Before she could formulate some sort of ambiguous query about five and ten notes, Mr. Tumnus pushed her basket across the counter with the linen wrapped ingredients and her pence in change. "Good afternoon, Doctor Pevensie."

Lucy counted the coins and realized he'd over-charged by a full crown. She said nothing and smiled.

"And to you, Mr. Tumnus. If any of your customers require a physician after the moon, do send them to me. I will, of course, be happy to pay the accustomed referral fee. And more on top of that."

Was that enough? People should not have to pay to keep from being turned into Weres. Gods, I hate this business.

"I shall do so, Doctor Pevensie."

The doorknob was slippery in her sweating hands. She was profoundly relieved to fumble her way outside and feel the shop door hit her firmly on the backside on the way out. The merry tinkling of the bell seemed obscene.

As she turned toward home, she knew Tumnus was watching her through the shop window. Lucy hefted her basket on her arm, and hurried down the street.