A/N: Late update again, sorry y'all! Writing everything week by week is a challenge right now. Which brings me to the update schedule... I'm sticking to weekly uploads as much as possible, but for the rest of this month, you can expect updates to be a day or two late. The good news is November is National Novel Writing Month and I'll be able get some of my buffer back. So just hang in there with me until next month, and we should be back to Sunday uploads. Also realized I've been forgetting to update the Spotify playlist, so that's been rectified now!

Enough of that, on to the chapter! We're setting up for one of my favourite tropes 😈


Chapter 67: she'll make you happy

Caspian

In the first true hour of night, Caspian meets Lilliandil atop the north tower. The sky is clear, her western cousins winking from the heavens, and Doctor Cornelius already set up the telescope eastward. Finished mere days before Caspian departed on his voyage, the telescope is a combination of Calormen ingenuity (Calormen mathematics, astronomy, and architecture are deservedly famed across the kingdoms) and scaled-up Narnian spyglass designs, standing as high as Caspian's shoulders.

Lilliandil greets him with the same soft smile - gentle, guileless, an easy goodness that aches to behold.

Never is he more aware of their differences - her effortless warmth, his stiff reserve - than when Lilliandil smiles.

Caspian joins her at the tower's edge and gestures to the polished telescope between them.

"The easternmost constellations may not be visible, but perhaps you will find some familiar stars."

Lilliandil obliges and hums at once. "Ah, the Serpent, just there! Peeking over the horizon, near the…" She points due east.

"The marshes, south of Ettinsmoor," Caspian supplies. He guides Lilliandil's glowing finger slightly north, a ghostly brush of fingers. "The River Shribble - yes, exactly - marks the border."

"I believe the marshes are home to the Marshwiggles?"

"Yes," Caspian says. "They helped build the Dawn Treader."

"Then they are excellent craftspeople indeed." She taps his wrist with a single, cool fingertip and steps aside. "See the two stars where the river meets the sea?"

Caspian peers through the glass and there they lie, winking intermittently as if sharing a private joke. He once knew near any constellation in Narnia's sky, but he hasn't made time for stargazing since making port. Or since his coronation.

How small he still feels beneath these skies.

"I see it," he answers. "Do you know them? Those stars?"

"Sometimes we sang together," says Lilliandil. "Distantly, but I would know Ozici and Uropelt's voices anywhere."

Stars' songs can travel so far? How can they communicate such distances while the world below hears nothing?

When Caspian asks, Lilliandil's brow furrows.

"I suppose the distance between earth and the sky is greater than the sound can carry. But I wouldn't say I heard them as I hear you. I heard their song like a whisper inside myself, a voice not my own. It's more like…" Lilliandil blinks into the distance, puzzling. A night breeze whistles past, and she brightens. "It's like wind carries a scent - of pine, though we are not in a coniferous forest, or of the sea's salt well before you see the shore."

Lilliandil dims, frustration returning to her brow. "I'm sorry, it's difficult to describe."

How beautifully she describes the indescribable.

"I think I understand," Caspian says. "If only a little."

"Well, that is something." Lilliandil turns to face him fully. "I expect you know these constellations?"

"There was a time I knew them better." Caspian angles the telescope upward and southeast, toward Cair Paravel. "The Ship has climbed higher since we made port."

His favourite constellation, though he doesn't say so - it might be rude to admit favourites to a star.

Lilliandil takes his place at the telescope. "So it is. I confess I don't personally know any of the Ship's stars."

How do stars know each other at all, across all that distance? Do they ever meet face-to-face? When they've charted their seasonal path across the sky, where do they go? Question after question itches at Caspian's tongue, queries he would have asked on the voyage home had he apportioned his attention less on preparing to reenter the endless march of kingly duty waiting him on Narnia's shore and more on the Dawn Treader's celestial guest.

Caspian's curiosity gets the better of him.

"What is it like in the sky?"

Lilliandil's ease of manner falters - the first time it has done so. That look… he knows that look. He has seen it staring back at him in the mirror many times.

Lilliandil stares off into her homeland.

"It's beautiful. Truly, it is. The path of every star is a dance, and the songs we sang to welcome the sun's rising…"

Caspian braces his elbows on the stone crenellations. He knows a little of what she speaks.

"As you and your father sang?"

If so, songs crossing an oceans-length of sky is more comprehensible. When the Dawn Treader returned to Ramandu's Island, Caspian was fortunate to witness Lilliandil and her father Ramandu sing the sun over the horizon. Their song was clear and sparkling as a snowmelt stream, shrill and incomprehensible and nearly deafening. A song so beautiful he could do nothing but stand perfectly still and watch as dawn blossomed into daylight.

"Very like it," Lilliandil says. "But as much as I loved the sky… to spend night after night watching the world carry on below…" Lilliandil's light flickers like a candle flame. "At times, it was lonely."

How well he knows the pang of loneliness.

"I can imagine." Caspian murmurs. "To watch the world's happenings across an unbreachable divide."

He's said too much; Lilliandil tilts her head, her blue eyes soft with understanding.

"Not quite unbreachable," she says, smiling. "I am here, after all."

Yes, she is.

Lilliandil is here, right before him and kind and curious and so eager to learn everything of Narnia, and she is everything any king could desire.

Too much, still, to think of that.

Caspian blinks himself back to academic curiosity.

"Is the journey difficult?"

Though Lilliandil descended to explain the enchantment on Aslan's Table, she did not ascend afterwards.

"It takes great effort, yes." Lilliandil's light steadies. "But it has been worth it to walk this world with my own two feet."

"I am glad for it," Caspian says. His voice falters, a sudden realisation twisting in his stomach.

Foolishly, he has thought only of Lilliandil's descent and her explorations of his kingdom.

He gave no thought that she might ascend again.

"Do you miss it?" Caspian busies his hands with the telescope, fiddling with the focusing dials. "Your home, do you miss it?"

Another careful blink, as if Lilliandil perceives the heart of what he's asking.

"In a way. But I find my mind more occupied with the present." A fleeting flush of pink. "My present explorations, that is."

She is content, then, as reasonably as he can hope. Caspian lets out a sigh that tastes of relief.

"Fortunately, there is much still for you to explore in Narnia," he says.

Lilliandil smiles. "Indeed."


Addie

Lady Opheodra's residence is nestled into a row of white-washed, two-story homes along the main street. The air is perfumed with early summer flowers in windowsill bouquets, but the house with the pine-green door has decorated its windows with overflowing baskets of ivy - similar to English ivy, though the leaves are slightly darker and shinier.

Addie smooths her blue skirt (the festival dress, because a servant's dress seemed too informal) and knocks before nerves can send her scuttling back to the castle's darkest halls. She's accepting a courteous invitation, and she said she'd be here.

A Marshwiggle with webbed hands, hair like grey straw, and green skin so pale it seems translucent answers the door.

"Mistress Addie?"

"That's me."

The Marshwiggle swings the door open on silent hinges and stands aside.

"Tea is ready in the sitting room," he says in a flat, tired voice. "Hopefully you like it, though you might burn your tongue."

Burn her tongue, as if she's never drank tea?

"Have a care for the china," the Marshwiggle continues. "Terribly breakable, and can't have you cutting your hand, though you'll likely stain your dress."

Addie stifles a smile as she follows him through the foyer. Such morose pronouncements from anyone else would be insulting, but Marshwiggles are known for thinking the worst of any situation.

"I'm sure I can manage a cup of tea," Addie says. "I'm afraid I didn't get your name, Sir Wiggle."

"Mossmire, at your service," he says as the hall widens into a sitting room. "Though you'll forget it shortly, I shouldn't wonder."

"What are you telling my guest, Mossmire?" Lady Opheodra rises from a plush settee beside the fireplace, cast in half-shadow from the drawn curtains. "Welcome, Addie. I'm so pleased you came."

Should she curtsy? Opheodra waved off an honorific, but she is still nobility, and most nobility values class hierarchy.

Addie dips into a shallow curtsy, just in case. "Thank you for the invitation."

Opheodra shakes her head. "No need for that. We are to be friends, aren't we?"

Friend - someone who knows nothing of the girl she was, who decided that her current self is sufficiently pleasing to strike up an acquaintance.

"I hope so," Addie says, more honestly than she expected.

Opheodra smiles, an easy curl of pale pink lips.

"Good. Please, sit. Mossmire, please fetch the tea, if you would be so kind."

Addie hesitates between Opheodra's settee and twin upholstered chairs across from it. Opheodra sits first and pats the settee, so Addie sinks beside her gratefully and scans the room.

It's dimly illuminated only by the fire, the outside sunlight a scarce glow edging the dark curtains - likely shut to keep the day's heat at bay. The hurry of passersby is a muted hum, unobtrusive and far quieter than Mum's London house. A sweet, heavy scent tickles Addie's chest when she breathes deep. Opheodra must be burning green wood or pine.

"How are you finding the capital? I assume you're staying in the castle?"

"Yes," Addie says. "The capital is… vibrant."

More accurately, the city's atmosphere is unrecognisably lively, the old tensions of Miraz's iron rule apparently forgotten in favour of relative harmony between humans and Narnians.

Opheodra's eyes flicker with amusement as she clasps delicate, porcelain-pale hands in her lap.

"While I find the city's vivacity pleasant, its energy exhausts me. And you?"

Addie picks at her cuticle. The capital isn't quite exhausting, just… different from her memory. Distant in its unfamiliarity.

"I don't mind it," Addie says. "It's never boring. But sometimes, it feels like all that energy is passing me by too quickly to grasp."

"As if you are only an observer?" Opheodra nods. "Some would say unobtrusive observation is the most valuable skill to have in a city."

Addie abandons her cuticle before her nail breaks the delicate skin.

"Well, there's plenty to see."

"So there is." Opheodra clears her throat. "Now then, you must excuse a little curiosity on my part. You said you've travelled far?"

Bollocks, precisely the topic she hoped to avoid.

"A bit," Addie says. "Actually, I was curious about your ivy. Where did you find it?"

A silly distraction, but a far safer topic.

Opheodra's lips twitch in amusement. "It is common mountain ivy, native to Ettinsmoor. I suppose I ought to match my neighbours, but flowers are so temperamental."

"I like the ivy," Addie blurts. "It makes your home easy to find."

"True."

Just then, Mossmire returns with a tray laden with a steaming teapot, two teacups, two saucers, a plate of cold-cut meat, and a small tower of powdered biscuits. Addie echoes Opheodra's thanks as the Marshwiggle sets the tray on a side table and fills the cups.

"Would you tell me about Ettinsmoor?" Addie accepts her teacup and a sugar cube (tan, a coarser sugar with molasses). "My readings focused on the Giants."

Opheodra declines sugar and sips her tea. "It is a harsh land of stony moors, rushing streams, and ages-old ruins. Our summers are mild summers and our winters desolate." Opheodra plucks a paper-thin strip of cold meat from the tray, chewing slowly. "If you ever wish for snow, you will not find a better quantity than in Ettinsmoor."

"Snow is better than rain," Addie says. London's winters brought more freezing rain than snow; she never quite got used to damp Christmases. "Ettinsmoor has ruins?"

"Oh yes, many," Opheodra says, offering the biscuit tower. Addie takes one and almost moans - delicate crumb, buttery, bright with lemon, powdered sugar that melts on her tongue. Even better than Josie's favourite shortbread.

Opheodra continues. "Ages ago, even before the Golden Age, the northern lands were a kingdom in their own right, populated by far more civilised Giants than you will now meet. I have heard tell of a great City Ruinous in the northwest, with steps as high as a grown man's shoulders. I haven't confirmed the stories, but is it not remarkable that any race could thrive in such a place?"

North of Ettinsmoor is uncharted territory. Sometimes called the Wild Wastelands, Narnian rumour speculates that sparse White Witch's loyalists may yet live on there, hidden in the snowy mountains and cavernous river gorges that are frozen half the year.

Addie stirs her tea, the spoon grating over undissolved sugar granules.

"I read something about old followers of the White Witch living in the far north, but I didn't know a civilisation once existed there."

Opheodra hums around another cut of meat. "If you will pardon my bluntness, many Narnian rumours of the northern lands are born of superstition, not first-hand knowledge. Our only troubles have been with the Giants - brutish, senseless creatures."

"I heard about a campaign in 2304," Addie says. "The Second Ettinsmoor War, wasn't it?"

Caspian's first major victory after his coronation, and after mere weeks of fighting.

"That's right," says Opheodra, sipping. "It was a decisive victory. Between you and me, the king was quite the strategist - even more skilled than I hoped. It was as if he had never lost half his army shortly after his coronation."

He lost half his army through that tree?

Addie takes another biscuit.

"I imagine some Narnians who fled south returned soon after."

Opheodra peers over her teacup. "I believe so, yes. Their loyalty was unlike any I've seen. I think none will dare challenge Narnia's army for a long time."

Good; Caspian's seen too much war, as has Narnia.

"I'm not surprised," Addie murmurs.

Caspian sacrificed so much of himself to help the Narnians take their kingdom back; anyone with two eyes could see that. Of course his army is loyal.

Opheodra leans in. "I was unsure at first. Not of his battle prowess, naturally, but there were rumours the king was… well, never mind. He merely did not have the youthful bearing I expected of a newly crowned king."

Addie sets her teacup aside and swallows a flash of frustration. How could Caspian be a carefree youth when he had so many centuries of wrongs to set right - a kingdom to resurrect, a new age to chart, a divided populace to unite?

And he lost people. His aunt, his newborn nephew, the Kings and Queens of Old.

Her.

"I suppose he was grieving his lost kin - his aunt left through the tree, you know." Opheodra continues, hopefully oblivious as Addie tries not to remember that day. "I was grieving my late husband, and not wholly myself either."

Addie takes up her teacup and murmurs condolences.

Opheodra glances into the fire, friendliness overtaken by resignation.

"We had mere months together. Three years hence, and still it is…"

So little time… Opheodra knows the sting of never enough, too.

"I know what you mean," Addie whispers.

Opheodra straightens and eats a meat strip, echoes of loss smoothing into amiability once more.

"Look at me, dwelling on loss when gaining a friend. Enough of sadness! You must tell me something about your homeland."

Distraction - an easy medicine for remembered grief.

Addie obliges and describes the Shaws' farm without naming specific towns or regions - different enough Opheodra won't ask if she hails from anywhere nearby, but general enough to be most any farm in a cool, rainy climate.

"You are from the countryside, then?"

"I spent a few weeks there," Addie answers. "I wanted to get out of the city."

And then Opheodra asks about the city, and bits about London spill out - the rain, the tightly packed houses, the seas of people. The library, afternoons in the park, hours spent poring over fairy tales.

It's probably more than she ought to say, but Opheodra leans close and follows her every word, and…

And it feels good to talk about England with someone, even in such vague terms. No one else ever asks. To Lola, England is a loathsome place she doesn't want to hear one whit about.

But Opheodra meets every detail with curiosity.

"So, what brings you to Narnia's capital across such a distance?"

Addie drinks the last of her tea before answering. She can't very well say she fell in or wandered here accidentally.

"For the sake of curiosity, I guess."

Opheodra hums. "You are fortunate indeed to have secured a position supporting the Lord Chancellor's research. I hear good things about Cair Paravel's restoration."

"There's much to recover," Addie agrees. "Thankfully Doctor Cornelius saved many records of the Old Days."

"His knowledge is renowned even in Ettinsmoor. My husband often spoke of Telm- excuse me, Narnia's libraries," Opheodra says. "I hope you find many curiosities to engage you here."

Addie stops herself from saying the opposite.

"I'm sure I will."

"Excellent." Opheodra sets her empty cup aside and stands. "I fear I've kept you too long; it is nearly dinner hour."

So late?

Sure enough, the sunlight is tinted orange along the curtains. No kitchen shifts today, but she's usually at the library by now.

Well, at least here she can't run into ex-lovers or their new girlfriends.

"Thank you for the tea," Addie says, standing. She really should be going; another stack of centuries-old scrolls awaits her.

"Think nothing of it," says Opheodra. "Do come again, whenever you please. I must return to Ettinsmoor when the leaves change, but I shall be glad for a friend in the capital."

Addie smiles and breathes in the fire's subtle, sweet smoke.

"Me too."


"An apple tree, you say?"

Addie gives Doctor Cornelius the Golden Age book, pointing to a sentence about the Kings' and Queens' apple orchard. She meant to discuss this with him days ago, but the Doctor's been increasingly busy. A team recently unearthed another treasure room under Cair Paravel's ruins and Doctor Cornelius has spoken of nothing else.

"Carved on the box, yes," she confirms. "I know the Kings and Queens came and left through the lamp-post, but it's a connection, isn't it?"

"Potentially." The Doctor adjusts his spectacles and squints at the book, then hands it back. "Certainly worth investigating given the dearth of more obvious connections."

"It's the only lead we've found," Addie says. "Do you have anything else about Cair's orchard?"

Cornelius thinks for a moment, stroking his beard and turning in a slow circle, as if cataloging the entire library.

"In the great lives of kings and queens, an apple orchard is not very important," he finally answers. "If only the moles wrote things down! I expect they may have a story about it in their oral histories."

"Do any moles live nearby? We can ask them, can't we?"

"I see no reason why not." Cornelius leans over the library table - overtaken as it is by books, scrolls, and overlapping stacks of notes she really should organise - and tears a corner of clean paper. "Their chief is having their histories transcribed for my collection. I'll write to hurry his report and ask if he knows anything further."

That'll be a week or more of waiting.

"Where is the chief?" Addie asks. "I could ride out, pay him a visit."

"No need," says Cornelius. "We'll have an answer shortly. Though that puts me in mind… I think a field study is in order at Cair Paravel."

Addie frowns. "Aren't all the records here in the castle?"

"All our known records," he says. "But the excavation teams at Cair's ruins unearth new findings every week - treasures, artifacts, documents." Doctor Cornelius mutters to himself and scribbles on his paper scrap. "Those archives will be far older, perhaps as old as the Cair itself."

Cair Paravel is thought to be almost as ancient as Narnia. If the treasure and record rooms were sealed, it's possible they contain stories of Narnia's earliest dynasties. Far more likely to have answers than the Golden Age records here.

Yet, to leave the city when already her time is borrowed…

"We haven't exhausted all your records yet, have we?"

"Very nearly," says the Doctor.

Addie chews her lip. This is a good thing; a new lead, and distance from Lola's increasingly short patience.

"When do we leave?"


Addie shoulders her bag of scrolls and ducks between two manservants. The only flaw of these servant passages is how narrow they are - not even two shoulder-spans wide.

Better than any more ill-timed chance meetings.

Addie shakes off the memory of her fleeting, awkward small talk with Caspian. She has bigger problems - Lola, for example. Lola had several things to say about her upcoming trip to Cair Paravel, and that's one too many frustrating conversations today.

For someone who encouraged her to seek out her parents, Lola apparently never considered that some journeys are supposed to be one-way, and sometimes people don't come back.

Addie sighs.

No use thinking about that.

Addie follows the narrow halls until she can't, slipping down a wide hall bright with sunlight, torches, and passing chatter until Doctor Cornelius' study greets her. She shoulders open the heavy door and hopes the Doctor has a long list of travel preparations for her, anything to keep her from thinking about -

"Ah, Adelaine. Perfect timing."

Addie stalls in the doorway, the door handle cool against her palm. Three figures stand over the Doctor's desk: Cornelius is one, and it was he who greeted her.

The second is Lady Lilliandil, and the third is King Caspian.

"Lovely to see you again," says the star, shining brighter than a full moon.

Right, the king's lady is friendly.

Addie eases the door closed and curtsies. "Likewise, my lady."

Caspian taps the map spread on the desk, wholly unconcerned with her entrance or anything that isn't the Great River at his fingertip.

"It would be best to leave at dawn, before the heat of the day. Lion willing, the wind will favour us, though the current will already be at our backs."

"Sunrise on the river would be most pleasant," says Lady Lilliandil. "A bright start to our journey, isn't it?"

Our journey?

Addie stands stupidly with the door at her back and the bag's strap digging into her shoulder for long enough that Doctor Cornelius clears his throat.

Lady Lilliandil's looking at her.

"The sun's like that," Addie says. "Bright."

The sun is bright? What the hell's wrong with her?

Caspian coughs, lips twitching before his usual aloofness shutters over his features.

"Sailing downstream, we'll reach the Great River Delta within five days."

"We?" Addie hoists the bag higher and rolls a kink from her shoulder.

Doctor Cornelius meets her questioning gaze sharply, looking none too pleased himself.

"King Caspian and Lady Lilliandil will accompany us to Cair Paravel with a small contingent of guards. We depart at week's end."

The king and his lady are coming with them to Cair Paravel?

Is there no other charming seascape in Narnia they want to gallivant off to? Have the king's duties suddenly dried up? Are the Cair Paravel restorations so troublesome that they require a royal visit twice in the same season?

Addie sets her bag on the floor and stands behind an armchair, clenched fists hidden.

"We depart at week's end," she repeats. "And we're taking a boat?"

"Yes," says Caspian, without looking up. "Professor, I trust four days is sufficient for you and Adelaine to prepare?"

"It is," says the Doctor.

By hell it is! Less than a week to convince herself that five days on a riverboat with King Caspian and Lady Lilliandil's inescapable presence will be perfectly fine?

She should keep quiet. She shouldn't say anything, should weather this like she weathered Caspian's ire in the throne room and his cool disdain ever since.

In silence.

Thus far, silence has gotten her nowhere.

"Why take the river?" Addie blurts. "Horseback is more direct."

Two pairs of eyes meet hers, but not the pair she wants to see, just to figure out what the devil's got into him.

Caspian's gaze stays on the Doctor's map. "Horses need to rest. Ships do not."

"As the crow flies, the quickest way to Cair Paravel is over the eastern plains and through the forest," Addie says, never mind that she shouldn't run her mouth. "And ships need crews."

"Fortunately, my crew is as skilled with blades as they are with sails and oars," Caspian says. "With the current carrying us downstream, the ship will outpace even the finest horses."

"Make what preparations you require, Adelaine," Doctor Cornelius cuts in, as stern as if he can see her clenched hands. "You are excused from our research for today."

Addie forces her fingers to uncurl. Why isn't the Doctor arguing? There's no reason Caspian and Lilliandil need to come with them to the Cair.

Addie's mouth opens, but Doctor Cornelius' eyes narrow and he shakes his head.

Fine then. She'll find a shadowy corner in the boat's bowels and stay there the whole ridiculous trip.

Addie curtsies stiffly and turns to go.

"It really is lovely on the water," adds Lady Lilliandil with an amiable smile. "Have you ever visited Cair Paravel?"

For God's sake.

Addie pastes on politeness and grips the armchair's upholstered back.

"I haven't," she says. "Though I understand you have?"

Lilliandil brightens. "I had that privilege, yes. If we reach the shore before night, do walk the beach at sunset. Look carefully and you may find a sea star."

"I'll do that," Addie says.

"That will be all," says the Doctor.

Addie mutters a polite goodbye and excuses herself. Doctor Cornelius didn't mean the dismissal as a favour to her, obviously, but she's grateful for it all the same.

Five days trapped on a boat with the king and his lady.

Great.


Caspian

"With all due respect, my king -"

"Lady Lilliandil misses the sea, as do I," Caspian interrupts, standing across from his old professor's desk. "Trumpkin will see to daily affairs here."

The dwarf had spouted a few creative expletives - "Snails and snarfblats, leaving again? Soon your council chair will bear the imprint of my buttocks more than yours!" - but he heeded his king's command, and that was that.

"Moreover," Caspian continues, ignoring a twinge of guilt. "I do not need your permission to travel within my own kingdom."

Doctor Cornelius' frown deepens. "Adelaine and I needn't intrude on your leisure. I can leave with her as soon as tomorrow."

Caspian waves away the notion. "There's no sense in you travelling separately with another contingent of guards. We depart at dawn in four days - all of us."

Doctor Cornelius clasps his hands over his belly and leans back in his chair, but makes no further argument.

"Very well."

Caspian exhales, tension easing from his neck as he straightens the map. He has missed the sea, as has Lilliandil, and Addie and the Doctor's research provides a timely excuse to return to Cair Paravel. It's perfectly rational that he should spend more time in Narnia's future capital.

"If you will forgive an old man's curiosity, will congratulations soon be in order?"

Caspian's hand falters, callous-rough fingers rattling thick parchment.

He has spent less than two full months on Narnian soil with Lilliandil. She possesses every quality he could hope for, but is it not early to consider questions of a lifetime after half a year of acquaintance?

Has he not already learned the dangers of giving away his heart too rashly?

"Not yet," Caspian answers.

A stretch of silence, punctuated only by the Doctor's ticking chronometer - a gift Caspian brought him from Galma.

It is worth remembering, perhaps, that a king's marriage is not always to do with the heart.

"Soon," he adds quickly.

Doctor Cornelius takes off his spectacles and breathes on the lenses.

"If Cair Paravel's archives hold no answers, I believe some experimentation may be in order."

Caspian's gaze snaps up, though Cornelius has busied himself with cleaning his glasses.

"You yourself explained the risks to me," Caspian says. "If the pools' destinations change, Lion only knows where you could end up."

"Be that as it may," says the Doctor. "In the absence of others' research, a scholar must perform his own."

Experimenting with those rings is risky at best, dangerous at worst. The rings must be understood, for the good of Narnia, but there's no need to rush.

"As a last resort," Caspian says firmly. "And hopefully an unnecessary one. Cair Paravel is nearly as old as Narnia itself; I'm confident you will find what you need."

And then it will be over. This disquiet, this ghost haunting his awareness, this itch of unanswered questions Caspian knows better than to chase because they are all to do with her - all of it will soon be irrelevant.

Doctor Cornelius will surely unearth something about the rings among Cair Paravel's treasures, and then she will be gone. Before his coronation anniversary, Addie may well be out of his lands and out of his life - for good, this time.

It will be for the best. He cannot doubt that now.


A/N: So, a trip to Cair Paravel... nothing but good things could possibly happen 😇 I love some forced proximity. Taking votes on why Caspian invited himself and Lilli along 👀

Chapter 68 Preview:

"Why can't this be your life again? Because of him?"

She'd give anything to deny that, but lying would be even worse than the bitter truth - that she has regrets, that there are mistakes she can never take back, that just being in Narnia again shoves her every failure back in her face.

"To hell with him," Lola barrels on. "He's not the only person in Narnia."

"He's the king," Addie says, bitterer than she should. "He's inescapable."