For the first time in recent memory, Alina didn't have nightmares. She wasn't even sure what she had was a dream at all. As soon as she fell asleep, she found herself in some sort of forest, standing in a pool of water. And she wasn't alone. There was another girl, about her age standing in another pool near her. It was so quiet that she didn't want to break the silence, but there was only person that girl could be. "Lucy?" she asked tentatively.

"Yes. You must be Alina." Her voice was calming, protective even. And she didn't carry herself like a girl. It was almost if she were one of the older Grisha, with a face that never betrayed their age, but that wasn't possible.

"What is this place?" Alina asked as a place to start.

"I'm not entirely sure, but the Professor who tutored my oldest brother talked of a place like this. He called it the Wood between the Worlds, but not all the details are right. Even if that is where we are, I haven't got the slightest clue why, or what's going on."

"This is the second strange place I've ended up today, so even your theories might be helpful."

"The Wood between the Worlds was a place that Professor Kirke was only able to get to using rings his uncle made. It was a quiet forest with pools, like here, and all the pools corresponded to a world. The simplest explanation is that I'm standing in your world, and you're in Narnia, which means you should be safe for the time being. But we shouldn't be standing, and we shouldn't be asleep, and we…" Lucy trailed off.

"And we should be able to move. If I'm in your world and you're in mine, then we should be able to switch places," Alina said as she tried to use her power to free herself.

As soon as Lucy saw the light, she muttered, "Light of his life indeed."

"What?" Alina asked.

"Something that Darkling of yours said to me when I asked him who you were."

"He's not mine, and you're not safe in Ravka."

"Would you tell me about it? Maybe that's why we're together in this limbo. To talk."

"You first."

"We just met, and you don't have any reason to trust me. I get that, and normally I wouldn't mind. But we've established that you're safe and I'm not."

Alina interrupted her, "What makes you so sure that I'm safe?"

"Edmund and Caspian won't harm you. They're good men, both of them, and it looks to me like you're more than capable of taking care of yourself if you need to. On the other hand, I'm in hostile territory alone and in a nightgown. I may know more about different worlds than you do, but I don't know anything about this one, and I'm not used to being alone. I also don't know how much time we have here."

"You speak like a soldier."

"I know quite a bit about warfare."

"That should help then. I'm a war orphan, from the war Ravka and Fjerda have been waging for as long as most people can remember…" Alina began, explaining all she could about Ravka, Fjerda, the Grisha, and the armies, before talking about herself. She explained about her early years at the orphanage and the army, about Mal, and about learning that she was a Grisha with a singular and important purpose. "I'd never been important before, and I'd certainly never been around people who thought and expected me to be important before. And I was bad at it. Baghra said it was because I was holding back. I was holding on to someone. When the Darkling was around, I didn't have any problems, and he was far more understanding than most of the people I trained with. The more I was around him, the fewer letters I sent to Mal. I didn't think it mattered, because I never received any replies. One day, my power finally exploded out of me, past the block I'd created as a child. And then, one night…" Alina closed her eyes.

"Are you alright? You can skim over the parts that make you uncomfortable. I've already learned more than I would have from anyone else." /

"This is important. It's just embarrassing." Understatement of the year.

"We all make mistakes," Lucy said, obviously thinking of something in particular.

Alina took a deep breath, "One night, the Darkling kissed me. I didn't know what to think, and I didn't tell anyone. What would I say, that the second most powerful man in the country had kissed me? And then he was gone, back to the army, right up until the demonstration I had to make, we had to make, for the court. He sent me the black uniform again, and this time I took it. Afterwards…I've never told anyone about this."

"You don't have to tell me."

"Too many people have hidden things from me that I needed to know. If we're going to trust each other, I can't be one of those people." It had been a while since he had trusted her instincts, but she felt that she could trust Lucy, that it might even be necessary.

"Whenever you're ready then."

"Afterwards, he kissed me like I was the oxygen he needed to breathe. I don't know how long we were hidden away, but we stopped when we thought we might get caught. He asked to come to my room that night. I didn't answer, and he left. The only reason I didn't let him take me entirely is because he wasn't the one that showed up at my door that night. Baghra did and she told me that he was the original Darkling that had created the Fold, but the volcra were never part of his plan. They were the people that had been caught in his darkness."

"No!"

"Yes. He needed me to grant him safe passage across the Fold so that he could expand it. He planned to take my power for himself using one of the amplifiers of Morozova."

"I'm so sorry, Alina."

"That's what you needed to know. The Darkling is more dangerous when he's kind to you than when he's threatening you. He's relentless. He used me, and Genya, and Zoya." She was distracted from her spiraling when she saw Lucy try to move again.

"I'm trying to hug you. I've been told I'm a great hugger, but I still can't move.

Alina nodded and sped through the rest of her story, how she had reunited with Mal, what had happened to the stag, being captured by the Darkling over and over again. When she reached the part about Nikolai, Lucy chuckled.

"You remind me of my sister. You attract every powerful man in a thousand miles."

"They aren't attracted to me. They want my power or think it can be used to bolster their own. It's the image they want."

"Like an ornament on a mantlepiece," Lucy said thoughtfully.

"Precisely."

"I'd never thought about it that way. Nobody has ever looked to me to increase their power."

"Either they want it, or they're afraid of it." Alina continued to talk about Mal pulling away from her, about the Apparat, about the feeling of going insane, and finally about the attack on the palace.

"And I finally thought, Enough! If he can use the connection that been created between us to take my power, shouldn't I also be able to take his? It was at least an active strategy. Almost the moment that popped into my head, and I attempted it, I was sent away."

"Aslan must have a plan for us both. What should I do, while we figure this out?"

"First, it's your turn to talk."

"Ask Edmund. There are some things that he can explain much better than I can, things that you have in common. I promise to fill in any of the gaps," Lucy said.

"Like how it is you were sent to Ravka?" Alina asked.

"Yes," Lucy said as a blush rose up her cheeks.

"The only thing you feasibly could do is pass me information that I can use to save my country when I return. You're in the perfect position to be a spy."

"I'll do what I can. You need to rest. Saving the world is a taxing burden, even more so when you feel you're doing so alone."