The sun slipped into the western half of the sky, afternoon heat beating down onto open wasteland by the time Lucy finally found a shallow stream at the bottom of a steep ravine, and nearly passed out from relief.
She'd been suppressing the fear that she might never find water in this place, sweat slicking her back and dripping down her chin as she climbed down into the welcome shade and splashed her face with impossibly fresh, cool water, gathering a handful and drinking greedily.
By the time she finished, she was wet all down her front, but she couldn't bring herself to care. If it poisoned her, at least she would die here instead of walking another hour in this heat.
She heaved her bag off her shoulders, unsticking her shirt from her back and pulling off her boots and socks to dip her burning feet into the stream. A sigh escaped her lips and she closed her eyes for a moment, letting her muscles relax.
Not a single tribute had crossed her path since she'd left the District Seven pair behind, and that had been hours ago.
"Don't stick too close," Digory said again in her head, "clean water is where you'll be most likely to meet other tributes."
"Just ten minutes," she muttered. The first time she'd spoken aloud in the arena.
Had it been caught on camera? What would the sponsors think of a girl who talked to herself?
It's not as if there's anyone else to talk to.
She glanced around, studying the jagged rock walls in search of the cameras that must be there… somewhere. But the gamemakers had outdone themselves, the rock face unbroken, nothing but nature surrounding her, and eventually she turned back to her bag, unzipping it to investigate the contents.
From the brown backpack she pulled a packet of crackers, dried apple slices, a spool of twine, an empty water bottle that she quickly filled and capped, some empty resealable bags, and a small first aid kit with bandages and tape and disinfectant.
Not bad, for a small bag.
Susan's arrow stuck out of the side pocket where she'd tucked it, red feathers a singular splash of color against the endless grey and tan.
At least here a few scraggly plants grew along the water, sticking out of cracks in the stone, but this arena seemed to be a very dry and arid place.
The slightest tickle against her toe made her jump, yanking her feet out of the water as a school of minnows scattered.
Just fish.
She sighed.
Well, at least there are fish.
It took several moments for her heart to calm again.
At every tiny movement, a weapon could fly out of nowhere, her nerves constantly pricked for danger. At least some company might have taken the edge off, but that certainly wasn't happening now.
How would Caspian even find her?
She could wait here, hide, try to spot him, but that was no more likely than spotting any other tribute. Did he even know which way she'd gone?
No matter how many times she puzzled it out, there seemed to be no good answer.
Her rippling reflection gazed up from the clear stream, no Capitol makeup to hide her plain, pale face now, entirely unremarkable; flushed cheeks she'd tugged at in school washrooms as if she could carve them into gentle high-boned shapes like her classmates, thin lips that would never look like Anne Featherstone's, almost invisible eyebrows without Emerald's expert pencil-work. Far from Swanwhite, far from her dreams on the balcony in that moment when anything had seemed possible.
She was just Lucy Pevensie now, no beauty to draw the eyes of the sponsors, no ally.
They'd muffed the plan right from the beginning.
She pulled her feet out of the cool water and shoved them back into her socks, laced up her boots, slung the backpack over her shoulder, and crawled out of the riverbed onto the jagged, sunbaked rock, leaving only damp handprints behind.
Even if she couldn't see the cameras, they could see her. The Capitol could see her. The whole country could see her. And she'd learned long ago that wallowing got you nowhere, especially with your life on the line. She had to at least act like she knew what she was doing.
So with the sun beating down hard on her shoulders, casting her shadow harshly out in front of her, she struck out northeast, toward a dark patch on the horizon she'd begun to hope was a forest.
The rest of the afternoon dragged on with very little to break it up, except when she stopped to tie her jacket around her waist, or refilled her water bottle further upstream, the terrain still low and craggy so that you always felt exposed but never had a good idea of your surroundings either.
The only change came from the sun falling lower and lower into the west, and the dark patch creeping ever closer, until she became quite sure it was a forest, and probably pine at that, though much sparser than the pine forest back at the cornucopia.
Shades of orange and purple spread across the sky like spilled paints soaking into scattered puffs of cloud by the time her boots crunched over pine needles instead of stone, sun dipping behind distant mountains and casting long, spindly shadows from skeletal trees.
Lucy's chest flooded with awe.
It may have been far from the forest of her daydreams—in fact these trees looked much more like the shuddering, bone-like things out beyond the bridge at the edge of town—but they carried their own majesty; older, ancient giants whose homeland had long since turned to stone.
Her stomach growled.
For a moment she thought of foraging, but the sky had already darkened considerably, so instead she fell to collecting fallen branches and setting them up at an angle around one of the smaller trunks, twisting them into the shallow earth as the day's heat leached from the air.
She tied the tops together with twine and cut the excess with the head of Susan's arrow. Not the most advanced shelter—an upside-down cone with enough space around the trunk for one person—but it would keep out smaller scavenger animals, and possibly keep her out of sight if another tribute came through.
"See, I can do something." She propped her hands on her hips and glanced around, voice thin and small in the great open wilderness. "Not that you asked. Since you're not here, and I'm talking to myself." She squinted into the trees and sighed. "But I can do something."
Only the dark forest gazed back, shadows spreading as the last hint of purple faded above the treetops.
Brush rustled, branches swayed and groaned in a chilly breeze, and she ducked into her makeshift den, shedding her backpack and sitting with her spine against the rough tree trunk.
A scattered chorus of crickets struck up their disjointed song as she broke into her packets of crackers and dried apples, and nibbled on a few of each, forcing herself to go slow. It took all her willpower to wrap them back up before she'd eaten anywhere near her fill. Her stomach grumbled again, not at all dissuaded by the swallow of water she chased it down with.
She pulled her jacket back on and zipped it up, brushing the sharp imprint of the folded page on the inside pocket, but she had no light, no way to gaze at Swanwhite's delicate figure in the gathering dusk. She missed her stained glass nightlight in the Capitol, her little stump of candle in Digory's attic. She would probably be missing a lot of things soon.
Where was Caspian now?
Huddled up in a shelter of his own? Hurt? Dead? Lying in a wooden box in the Capitol morgue, ready to ship back to District Eight in the morning?
Emptiness ached in her chest and she rubbed her sternum as if that would ease the pressure within. Instead, it only brought last evening back in vivid detail, choking but not yet suffocating on silence, restless in silky sheets and the downy dress she refused to take off, tossing and turning until she sat up and searched for the remote to the TV she had not yet used amidst all her training.
If Caspian wouldn't talk to her, at least one of these Capitol people could.
The screen had flickered to life on the opposite wall and she'd settled in amongst a sea of cool pillows as the auditorium flashed into view and her own face glowed in the spotlight, beaming into the crowd as she stood from her interview and took a bow, and a commentator's voice toned in over the broadcast.
"I'm sure you betting folks out there will be taking special note of this alliance. Intriguing to say the least!"
"Yes, yes," came another voice, jovial and over-exaggerated in the way only Capitol TV personalities managed to pull off, "Honestly I didn't see this one coming."
"We should have, though, shouldn't we? After the ceremony? I say, we're getting slow in our old age."
"Come now, we're not that old!"
Lucy smiled, and the hosts joked as her image exited to a round of wild cheers. Then Caspian walked onstage, and the interview picked up just as she'd seen it in person, her ally practically glittering in the stage lights, grinning as if nothing were amiss, as if he'd never vanished into himself, as if he'd never avoided her, and for a second she actually wondered if she'd only imagined it all.
"I've also got to ask," said Caesar on TV, "Many people have noticed a similarity, you might say, to another tribute, some years ago. Do you know anything about that?"
Caspian's gentle smile flickered just as perfectly as it had the last time she saw it, dark eyes locating the camera before they met Caesar's. "I believe you mean my father."
And the crowd erupted, Caspian's eyes glittered, the volume fell as the commentators cut in again.
"Another surprise, I knew he looked familiar! Did you know about this?"
"Well, eighteen years is a long time, but I think this will jog your memory."
The screen flicked and the sound changed, the crowd fell silent but the stage remained on screen, chairs white now instead of red, Caesar's hair a lemony yellow that nearly clashed with his turquoise suit, but Caspian still sat opposite, leaning back in a dark suit.
"Well, Caesar hasn't aged a day," quipped one of the commentators.
"That suit has, I'm afraid," laughed the other, but Lucy wasn't listening anymore.
She sat up in bed.
The boy on screen wasn't Caspian.
"You're very brave, you've proven that much," said Caesar, eighteen years ago, "And handsome, too, I might add."
"Well, I don't know about that," laughed the boy. He could have been Caspian's identical twin. Even his warm voice could have belonged to the boy she knew, the grin slipping into his tone in just the same intoxicating way, dark hair framing his jaw as the crowd interrupted with shouts of approval and he laughed as he glanced out at them. "Thank you, thank you, alright, I'll trust you, I daresay you've got a sense for that sort of thing around here."
They cheered again and he grinned.
"I guess I just learned I'm handsome, what were you saying?"
The crowd and Caesar both laughed, and Caesar shook his head. "Come now, don't play with us, you've been told before, there must be someone special back home, perhaps a girl…?"
"Oh, yes, there would be my wife, I suppose she's mentioned it once or twice."
The crowd erupted in surprise and drowned out his joke, Caesar's yellow eyebrows shooting straight up.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, your wife?"
The Caspian on screen smiled and nodded, glancing at the camera just as her Caspian—his son—had done so expertly, something bittersweet and raw flickering in his eyes for just a second before he raised his fingers in a subtle wave. "Hey, Dora."
"Dora?"
"Isadora."
"Well, that's a beautiful name, I— I don't mean to pry, but, my dear boy, aren't you a bit young for marriage?"
Caspian looked back to meet Caesar's eyes, tilting his head back ever so slightly as he took a breath. "I'm not too young to die, why should I be too young to love?"
For a second Caesar only blinked, stammering like Lucy had never seen before from the ever-steady host.
And then Caspian's serious demeanor broke and he cracked a grin. "Of course I have no plans to die, I have a son to raise, after all."
The audience exploded again.
"Now, now, now," Caesar put a hand out to steady the crowd, collecting his wits, "A father, too? You really have been busy!"
"I suppose we got an early start. Not on purpose, but I couldn't be happier, truly."
"And what's his name?"
"Caspian, after me, yes, it's a family name but it was her idea—" He put his hands up in preemptive defense, "Honestly, her idea, I swear I'm not—"
"Quite sure of yourself," laughed Caesar, "No, no, that's what we like to see, we like that here, don't we, folks?"
Cheers and applause answered, roaring, deafening, and Caspian laughed and shook his head.
The buzzer went off and the audience rose up in protest.
"Alright, folks— I know, I know, I'd like more time with him, too, but unfortunately the rules— yes, yes, we'll just have to wait for tomorrow, won't we?" Caesar turned back to Caspian as they both rose. "We look forward to your performance my boy, I'm sure we all have the utmost faith in you."
"Thank you," he said, and bowed, passing the microphone back to the host as he waved and walked off stage, finding the camera again to blow a kiss.
Lucy wondered if it was meant for his wife.
The commentators toned in as the screen switched back to this year's interview, this year's Caspian, and Lucy realized the stylists had even dressed them alike, silky black sleeves, criss-crossing belts up the abdomen.
"It's easy to see why he was such a fan favorite," said one of the commentators, "Clearly the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."
"No indeed, and aren't we lucky to get the sequel to such a stunning performance?"
"Not luck, though, this year," laughed the first, and the second clapped his hands, bursting in the microphone with his excitement.
"Yes, of course, of course. To whoever voted him in, thank you!"
Fire burst in Lucy's middle, boiling blood sweeping through her stomach and chest as her heartbeat doubled.
Thank you?
Was he serious?
That little boy who'd watched his father's gruesome death, who'd seen red pools for eyes in a face identical to his own, who'd grown his hair and scanty beard to emulate so perfectly a man he would never meet— She'd seen the longing in his eyes, a longing she understood, a longing that hadn't been part of any act; and they laughed?
Shrill horns blasted through the chill midnight air and Lucy shot bolt upright, heart pounding as her makeshift shelter snapped back into place around her and she gasped, the national anthem registering after the first few deafening notes.
She scrambled to her knees and pressed her face against a crack between two twine-bound branches, gazing up through silhouetted trees to the Capitol seal shining in the sky, rotating every few seconds, heralding the arena-wide broadcast of the day's dead tributes.
It twinkled, then faded, and a boy's face appeared in its place.
District Five.
The one Susan's arrow had killed.
Lucy shook her head to clear it, reorienting herself, processing what that meant. Everyone from One, Two, Three, and Four had survived. The careers. Peter.
The District Five girl followed.
Their names were Olvin and Liln, she remembered from training, but nothing else about them had been very notable.
Then the District Nine boy appeared.
They'd skipped Eight.
Caspian was alive.
Lucy heaved a deep sigh and slumped against the rough branches, bark digging into her forehead as her chest released its pressure, weightless relief washing through every inch of her body as little Gael appeared next, and Lucy distantly connected that the boy must have been her district partner, Rynelf, but suddenly none of that mattered.
The Twelve girl's face flashed against the stars, Betty, and then the music swelled as the anthem came to a close, the seal spinning one last time before casting the arena into darkness.
Caspian had escaped the bloodbath. Perhaps he'd injured Peter? Or been injured.
She collapsed back against the pine needles and curled up with her head on her backpack as the nighttime noises filtered back in, fingers playing absently in the prickly bed beneath her.
He was out there, somewhere.
In this arena.
An owl's cry pierced the night, branches and underbrush rustling with what she could only hope was the wind, and at last the day's exhaustion dragged her beneath the waves of a fitful sleep.
Every small noise woke her again to wonder how much time had passed as she stared into the darkness, only to drift off and wake minutes later from the same snatch of a dream; always Caspian, his back to her, leaning against their balcony railing, but every time she tried to speak the scene vanished and she woke again. Alone.
She'd lost all concept of time before the dream finally changed, and her eyes fluttered open to rich golden light filtering through the lowest branches, no shelter, no tree at her back, only a steady warmth falling across her face and the bare pine needles.
A smile split her face. "Aslan!"
She bolted up and dashed across the clearing, laughing as she collided with the Lion's golden mane and the majestic beast rolled over and crashed to the undergrowth, huge and warm and rumbling with laughter.
She buried herself deep into his thick, wild scent, never thinking for a second that he might be dangerous.
Lucy had never met a dangerous lion.
"I was wondering when you'd come, you haven't visited once since I left home!"
Aslan raised his head, and Lucy sat back to look into his face, huge and tawny and nearly the size of her entire body, gazing back at her with deep, solemn eyes that told her without a shadow of a doubt he could talk, though he'd never spoken to her with words.
Those same eyes that had gazed up from the lion's face in the book, the very same page tucked inside her pocket now.
"Oh… I suppose you were there after all," she murmured, and something like a fond smile crept into the Lion's eyes.
She buried her face into his shaggy mane and snuggled into his side, safe and warm and utterly secure, the way she only ever felt in her dreams.
"I've missed you ever so much."
She stroked his soft fur as her eyelids grew heavy, his deep purr rumbling in her ears, and at last she drifted off into the Lion's intoxicating warmth; a real, deep sleep this time, and she didn't wake again until the golden rays of dawn pierced the branches of her shelter.
Lucy blinked.
Brush rustled as she sat up and looked around, tree and shelter intact, air laced with a morning chill. Her fingers flew to her pocket and pulled out the folded parchment, smoothing it to see that face again, pale and crude compared to the real thing, but still gazing up with solemn eyes.
She flipped it over to the delicate image of Swanwhite, and a pang of loneliness struck her ribcage as the chill crept in and the last traces of the dream faded away.
No Digory and no Polly to give a chipper good-morning from the breakfast table, no Zardeenah to remind her of the training schedule, no Caspian to chat with over muffins.
She pushed a tangle of copper curls out of her face and worked her fingers through her hair, wishing for a mirror, a hairbrush, a shower.
Her stomach growled, but she stuffed the page back into her pocket and crawled out into the foggy morning without digging into her precious rations, glad for her jacket now as she disassembled her shelter, winding the twine back onto its spool before slinging the backpack over her shoulder and striking out through the trees, the place where Aslan had stood now empty, golden shafts of sunlight harsh and cold.
She came out the opposite side of the forest less than half an hour later, not particularly expansive as it turned out, though she'd managed to strip a few scrawny bushes of wild blackberries and made a decent enough breakfast.
She dumped the last handful into one of her empty bags and sucked the leftover juices from purple fingers as the rocky terrain stretched out before her, just as barren and jagged as it had been yesterday. And with a deep breath, she abandoned the trees and followed the path of the rising sun that had yet to heat the earth like a frying pan.
Scattered trees appeared here and there now, lonely and twisted in the open sun, but otherwise the terrain remained unchanged, and eventually the cool morning lapsed into noontime heat as she wandered with no particular goal except to get as far from the cornucopia as possible.
She'd just hit a particularly steep crag when her ears pricked.
"What, do you want to go back now?" a boy snapped, and Lucy flattened against the stone.
He couldn't be more than twenty yards away. If he hadn't spoken she might have run straight into him without even noticing until it was too late.
"I don't know," whined a girl, "You come up with a better plan."
"This was the plan!"
Lucy blinked.
Wait a second.
"Well, it's a rubbish plan."
"I'm sorry, maybe you could have contributed, instead of—"
"Oh, stop it! If you don't want me here then just leave!"
"Don't tempt me."
Lucy took a low, deep breath, and inched back down into the gully she'd just climbed out of, the stone fissure stretching around a corner into where the voices must be coming from. She grasped for purchase on dusty grey ridges, careful not to let her backpack slide or make noise as the boy sighed.
"Just… keep an eye out for anything we can use, maybe there's—"
"There's not, there's nothing here, no grass, how are we supposed to make a trap? We don't even have any weapons!"
The last shred of her guard dropped away as she moved silently along the rock wall.
What do you think you're doing, Pevensie? You can't just jump out and strike up a casual conversation in the middle of the arena.
But she could practically feel the cameras focusing on her, zooming in, prickling on her skin, this was too close of an encounter not to broadcast. The audience would be waiting with baited breath to see what she did next, and Lucy Pevensie wasn't about to disappoint a crowd.
"You were the one who didn't want to take any weapons!"
"And get a spear through my head," scoffed the girl. "No thanks."
"Faster than starving to death, at least."
"Scrubb!"
"What?"
Lucy made up her mind.
She squared her shoulders, glanced back into her escape route and smiled to herself in hopes the cameras would pick it up, before turning and stepping out into the sloping space between two natural stone walls.
Eustace started.
Jill squeaked and jumped behind him, eyes bugging out as she gripped his arm, Eustace's sleeves pushed up above his elbows, Jill's jacket tied around her waist, both frozen like wild animals about to bolt in the other direction.
"It's just me," said Lucy, but it sounded dumb out loud.
Eustace's eyes flicked sharply over her whole body and Lucy held up her empty hands.
"Where's your ally?" he snapped, glancing around like he expected to find Caspian hiding up in the crags.
"We got separated. At the cornucopia. I don't know where he is."
"Yeah?" His gaze lingered anyway, openly distrustful, and Jill peered at Lucy with wide brown eyes as if she'd never seen her before in her life, as if the arena had turned her into an alien.
Eustace had never looked so tall or so old in training, either, the slant of the sun casting unusually sharp contrast over the ridges of his flat face, though she knew for a fact he was only fourteen. Perhaps it had never mattered before. Now the steely glint in his eyes struck a chord of danger deep in her core, and she scrambled to gather her wits, remain calm, remember the cameras.
"Listen, I didn't mean to run into you, but really, what are the odds of the three of us meeting out here?"
"Low ten thousands."
"What?"
"The odds," deadpanned Eustace, "They're one in the low ten thousands. And you really want me to believe you didn't follow us?"
"I didn't!"
Eustace snorted. "Sure."
Lucy crossed her arms, but before she could come up with a retort, he spoke again.
"What do you want?"
"I— well, honestly, some company would be nice."
"You came all the way out here for company?"
"No," she snapped, "I came all the way out here to get away from our charming competition and their lovely shiny spears, thank you very much. I only stopped you for company."
Eustace's mouth hardened into a thin line.
"That and I figured we could help each other."
Jill inched out from behind her district partner. "I…" she faltered, "I don't suppose you have any food?"
"Pole," hissed Eustace, but Lucy had already shrugged off her backpack and unzipped one side.
"Not much, just a bit of dry stuff, but... I do have…" she rummaged into the bottom and pulled out the spool of twine.
Jill's eyes lit up, and even Eustace raised his eyebrows.
"Hit the jackpot, did you?"
"Not really." She tucked it back inside. "There's not a lot in here. I don't even have matches."
"We do!" piped Jill, and Eustace shot her a withering glare.
"I was just thinking," said Lucy before they could start arguing again, "I mean, since you're better at traps anyway—"
"A truce!" Jill's short hair bounced as she nodded. "Yes, yes, oh, come on Scrubb, I'm starving."
Eustace swatted her away. "A string and some crackers and you change your mind just like that?"
"I'm sorry, you didn't sound too keen on starving a second ago, either."
"It would make sense," Lucy interjected. "At least… for now." She glanced hesitantly at Eustace.
"And how do we know you're not just planning to kill us in our sleep?"
"Scrubb!"
"Shut up, Pole."
Lucy shrugged, the words slipping out before she could stop herself. "Don't sleep at the same time?"
Eustace squinted, and she followed it up quickly.
"Shouldn't I be more worried about you? I'm outnumbered here."
"Well, you're the one who stalked us."
"I didn't—"
"And it's not like Pole could kill a fly, anyway."
"Hey!"
Lucy slung her bag over her shoulder, glancing from one to the other. "So, is that a yes?"
Eustace's grey eyes pierced hers as if he could cut straight through to her brain, searching for a flaw in her logic, and for a moment she almost feared he might find one, but at last he shifted on his feet, glancing between her and Jill. "For now."
Lucy extended her hand.
Eustace rolled his eyes. "This again?"
"Just take it."
Jill nudged him forward, and he sighed.
"Fine." He clasped her hand in his larger, bonier one. "Truce."
Lucy smiled.
"But you don't have to look so chipper about it."
"Well, you can't stop me. I've been dying for someone to talk to, and this place is just so huge and empty and—"
"Isn't it terrible?" asked Jill, "I haven't seen a single animal yet."
"We should probably get moving if we want to change that," said Eustace.
And so they set out, Eustace in the lead, keeping mostly to lower paths and fissures until the ground leveled out and forced them back on top of the stone, still heading vaguely east just as Lucy had been, but the past day's nerve-wracking dullness evaporated at once. Even if the Three pair never stopped arguing, and even if it took nearly an hour to convince Eustace that Caspian really wasn't tailing them, anything beat the horrible silence of her own thoughts.
After a while her stomach growled, and she shared some of the crackers and dried apples with Eustace and Jill, who had apparently not eaten since the Capitol.
Eustace didn't make any more negative comments about their truce after that.
Jill jumped at every tiny sound, skittish as a street cat expecting to be kicked, and Eustace had to nudge her along whenever a gust of wind clattered too hard through the branches of a nearby tree, or whenever one of their boots sent a rock skittering.
"Do you suppose the whole arena is like this?" asked Lucy.
"What," asked Eustace, "Miserable and dry?"
"Yeah. I mean, there was the forest by the cornucopia, but the trees out here are all dry and spindly, too."
"Maybe. I wouldn't put it past them to make it as obnoxious to navigate as possible." He glanced over his shoulder for the hundredth time, even though the landscape hadn't changed an inch save for the gradual increase in trees.
"Maybe it's different in other places," said Jill. "We've only been going east."
"Northeast," corrected Eustace.
"Whatever. Maybe it's not all like this."
Coming from Jill, that statement almost sounded hopeful, but a whimper followed it only a few minutes later when they came to a deep gouge in the stone, too deep to climb down, bottomless, pitch black, but only a few feet across.
Lucy leaped over without so much as a running start, boots connecting solidly with the stone on the other side, and Eustace followed easily, his long legs making it more of an exaggerated step.
But Jill hung back, eyeing the dropoff as if it might jump up and bite her.
"Oh, come on," said Eustace. "Just get across, will you? It'll take all afternoon at this rate."
She made no move to follow.
Eustace sighed, extending a hand to her, his long fingers reaching nearly to the other side. "It's just like P.E. at school, remember those beams? You jumped across faster than anyone else in class."
"Yeah, and then Eleanor Blakiston pulled my hair for beating her."
"Well, Eleanor Blakiston isn't here."
Jill swallowed and looked down into the chasm, inching ever so slightly nearer, movements stiff and stilted.
"Come on," coaxed Eustace in a tone that wouldn't have sounded comforting coming from anyone but him. "It's just me."
Jill drew a shaky breath and reached out to take Eustace's hand, his fingers closing tight around her palm.
"Okay, on three?"
Jill gave no sign of a response, but Eustace counted anyway.
"One… two…"
She jumped and Eustace pulled her across, catching her as she crashed into him and nearly toppled them both.
He steadied her and let out a breath. "There, that wasn't so hard."
"Shut up," she muttered, pulling free to keep walking.
Eustace sighed and wiped his hands on his jacket before setting off after her, and Lucy couldn't help but wonder why they were even allies in the first place.
Eustace didn't seem like the type who needed anybody around. In fact Jill only seemed to annoy him, so which was it that bound him to her? Guilt or gain?
The boom of a cannon split the air.
Eustace and Jill spun wide-eyed to each other and Lucy's knees went weak as the skip in her heartbeat ripped through her body, every nerve quivering in the uncertain silence that followed.
Caspian, her mind screamed.
Had the careers caught him after all?
Stupid, she didn't even know if it was him. He was fine. Or was he? What if he'd been hurt this whole time?
She looked away before the others could catch her flushed face, pretending to scan their surroundings as her heart hammered painfully in her chest.
"Come on," said Eustace, brushing past Jill to lead again.
No more cannon shots came, but Lucy's nerves remained pricked for hours, until the trees grew more frequent and the sun cast their shadows out in front of them as they approached a sparse forest.
Lucy almost hesitated to call it a forest at all, but it proved much deeper than the last one she'd sheltered in, and after a while they found some wild berry bushes and paused for a long rest to strip the brambles for their dinner.
Lucy filled her bag, and then they moved on, their pace more comfortable now, scouting out the best place to camp for the night.
"What's that?" piped Lucy after a long stretch of silence in which only pine needles and twigs snapped underfoot.
"No idea." Eustace furrowed his brow, squinting ahead into the same empty blueness that Lucy had been watching absentmindedly for some time.
She hadn't noticed when the grey horizon beyond the trees turned a pale robin's egg color, but no matter how hard she stared, she couldn't make sense of it.
"Is it water?" asked Jill.
Nobody answered.
The trees stopped just ahead, as if the forest had run up against an invisible barrier, and beyond that ran a short stretch of rock. And then… nothing.
Lucy broke into a sprint, hurrying up to the edge of the trees and skidding to catch herself against the last trunk, staring out in bewilderment at the sky.
Because that was what lay before her, stretching out for eternity beyond a sheer cliff, wisps of cloud floating in the distance like cotton puffs, the ground so far below she couldn't tell if it was earth or water, if there was even a ground at all.
It was the edge.
They'd come out at the edge of the arena.
Eustace let out a low whistle behind her, just as Jill stepped beyond the treeline, eyes wide.
"Might want to get away from that drop, Pole, if you can't even step over a crack."
"I'm not afraid," spat Jill indignantly, though her voice came out a bit too high. "And I'm not a baby."
"Okay, fine, I'm just saying—"
"Why do you always think I'm such a baby?"
Eustace rolled his eyes. "I don't know, because you act like one?"
Jill huffed and glared at him, and then took a step closer to the edge.
Lucy's head spun. It must have been some kind of illusion, there was no way they were actually up that high.
"Hey, what do you think you're doing?"
"It's none of your business what I do, Eustace Clarence Scrubb."
"You're going to get yourself killed, that's what!" He made a grab for her arm, but she snatched it out of the way just in time.
Then she made the mistake of looking down.
Her face went white.
"Jill," said Lucy, "I really don't think you should—"
Before she could finish her sentence, Eustace made another grab for her arm, stepping out all the way, and this time he caught it. But Jill didn't move.
She stood her ground for dear life, body rigid, and Eustace reached for her other arm just as she yanked it away.
He staggered off balance and Lucy couldn't even move before he gave a sharp cry and his foot slipped over the edge.
For one heart-stopping second, he fell.
Then a sharp snap of electricity flung him back like a ragdoll, and he crashed into a heap on the stone.