"Peter, you can't deprive the poor girl of anymore sleep!" Susan exclaimed as the girl was led out of their shared chambers. "I can't believe you wanted to interrogate her tonight!"

Peter glared at his sister. "And I can't believe you undermined my authority like that! I said we should talk to her before we made any decisions, and there you go offering her a bed and food!"

"She was tired, Peter," Lucy pointed out. "She's been travelling all day, and she's got that big cut on her forehead… what difference will one night make?"

"A lot!" Peter replied crossly. "How do we know she's not faking it?"

"Faking what?" Susan said, completely baffled by her brother's behaviour. "She was ready to drop she was so tired. Anyway, why would she fake being tired?"

"I don't know." Peter shrugged irritably.

Edmund stepped in. "Look, we're all tired," he said calmly. "Why don't we all go to bed?"

Susan nodded. "Good idea. I… I'm sorry if I've upset you somehow, Peter, but I really don't see how."

Lucy hung back from Susan to wait for Edmund in the corridor. She looked at her brother.

"What's Peter not telling us?" she asked.

"Nothing," Edmund insisted. "He's just had a long day, you know how he thinks he has to be High King all the time."

"And I know when he's hiding something," Lucy persisted. "And you."

"It's fine, Lu." Edmund was adamant.

Lucy looked down at the floor before saying, "You can't treat me like a kid forever, you know, Edmund. We're not at home anymore." She walked towards her bedchamber without another word.

Edmund sighed. Didn't he know they weren't at home anymore?

Emma felt more dressed for the part the next morning, having awoken to find a dress draped over the foot of the bed. She'd slept so soundly she felt ready for anything, which was just as well, she thought, as she entered the library, where the two kings and queens were seated. They looked friendly enough. Especially the two queens. Now if only she could remember their names…

"I trust you slept well?" the tall pretty one asked. Susan, that was it, Queen Susan the Gentle.

"Oh, brilliantly." Emma nodded.

"That's one of the most comfortable beds I've ever slept on," the other queen insisted. Lucy the Valiant, whatever that meant. Now that Emma was seeing her in daylight, she didn't seem any older than she was, maybe even less so.

"And she ought to know." the younger looking boy, a man really Emma supposed, seeing as he was king, laughed. "Lucy tried every single bed out the first few weeks we were here."

"Edmund!" The older king frowned at him. He was the only one who didn't look so friendly. Emma wasn't sure why, but he seemed angry with her.

Edmund fell silent again.

"We're pleased you slept well," Peter said eventually, adopting the grand voice he always put on for these important occasions "But now that you have slept well, we need to ask you a few questions."

"About who I am and why I'm here?" Emma suggested.

"Well, yes." Peter looked taken aback. He glanced at Edmund. How could she know that unless she was some sort of witch?

"Well what do you want to know?" Emma asked, looking at them all. They were all barely older than her, now she looked at them.

"Well, your name would be a good start," Susan suggested, as her older brother seemed very slow at asking the questions. "And how you got here… people said you just appeared!"

"I did." Emma nodded. "Well, I assume I must have done. I don't remember much." She shrugged. "My name's Emma White, I'm sixteen. I live in London."

"What?" Peter suddenly reacted. "London, England?"

"Is there another London?" Emma looked taken aback at his outburst. "Of course London, England. The world, the Milky Way, the universe if you want to be precise, but…"

Peter was at a complete loss. This girl claimed she was from London, his own home town. He knew it so well… or he had done before he came here. Surely this wasn't what it was like now. Even with the war…

"Hold on," he said quickly, just as Susan was asking another question. "You said you live in London?"

"Yes." Emma nodded.

"I think we've established she lives in London," Susan reminded him sarcastically.

Peter ignored her. "How? What about the war?"

Emma was completely at a loss now, and stared back at Peter. "The war?" she managed to say finally.

"Yes, the war," Peter replied. "We were evacuated to the country. Surely you haven't stayed in London."

Emma looked at the other three, wondering if this High King Peter was losing the plot. But they were all staring at her too, looking as though the penny had dropped for them.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said finally. "What war are you on about? There is no war, at least not in London, not for years."

"Maybe it finished," Lucy suggested in a small voice. "Maybe it's over."

"Has the war finished?" Peter asked.

Emma was still utterly confused. "What war?"

"The war with Germany!" Peter replied.

Emma's jaw dropped. It took a long time for her to regain her speech. "You mean… the Second World War?"

"I've never heard it called that." Peter looked at his brother. "Ed, you were always more into that than me…"

Edmund shook his head. "Nope."

Emma was still trying to comprehend what was being said to her. "You're on about the war against Hitler that started in…." oh why hadn't she listened in history? "1939?"

"Yes." Lucy nodded. "Has it finished?"

Emma looked the other girl in the eye. "It finished in 1945… nearly sixty years ago."