A/N: Again, thanks to everyone who has posted a review for this story! It's been so exciting to watch everyone formulate theories and try to figure out what's going to happen...and this is the last chapter before things really do start happening. ;) Again, there is no pairing intended between Fio and Edmund. Any 'romance' you pick up on is a figment of your imagination. ;) Thanks again, and enjoy!!!

--Chapter 15: Midnight Meeting--

I slept very little that night for all the blasted thinking that went on in my mind. What if I'd gotten it all wrong and Corin was right? How could I know if Lord Irwin was truly guilty? What if I was looking at the evidence all wrong? At last, I sat up straight in my newly washed sheets—all of the mud-stains had come out except for a few of the darkest ones—and heaved a long sigh.

This is ridiculous.

After a moment of hesitation, I got up, pulled on my trousers, and strapped on my sword. Perhaps the night air would do my restless mind some good.

I went to the door, but then paused before opening it. No good. Peter had been reluctant enough to let me stay in my own bed that night instead of the infirmary, and had looked at me so suspiciously that I couldn't help but think he'd left a guard at my door. He was probably lying awake too, thinking—just like me. No, if I wanted to escape, it'd have to be out the window.

As quietly as I could, I made my way to the window. Slowly, I drew back the drapes and took a long, deep breath of the cool Narnian air. A sweet, refreshing breeze chilled my feverishly hot skin, and I sighed in relief. Looking down, I could see the rose trellis that climbed directly up to my window. I'd had it put there, and had the trellis made strong enough for a person to climb up—or down. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, and it had already proved quite useful on several different occasions.

Carefully, I lowered myself from the window onto the trellis, thinking twice about what I was doing only for one long moment as my hands gripped the stone windowsill firmly before letting go.

The thorns on the rose vine scratched horribly as I climbed down the trellis. Of course, that's to be expected from roses. 'Beauty and pain go hand in hand', wrote one of the Calormene poets, one of my favorites because he lacked the loquacity of his fellow countrymen—and the dull never-ending-ness of their proverbs. I reached the ground unscathed, save for a tear in my sleeve and a nasty scratch on my palm.

Then I began the tiresome work of thinking. Instead of sitting on one of the cold, stone benches that shone like marble in the light of the half-moon, I paced back and forth between the rosebushes, thinking, thinking, thinking. It was maddening, really. Everything would've been so much simpler had Lucy's cordial not been stolen. Or if Lord Irwin had stolen it before or during the ball. But that was impossible, as was now the idea of his working alone.

But why? I wondered suddenly. Why would Irwin want to poison Peter? Or me? Or anybody here in Narnia. Galma is working toward an alliance. They need an alliance. Desperately. They're such a small country that they're liable to be taken over any day now by Calormen or one of the other islands. They need Narnia as—

But then I stopped dead in my tracks. They needed Narnia. Exactly. But who? And why Irwin? Who was he working for, and why? Was the whole Galmian party in on this scheme?

Of course not, I thought wearily, plunking down on a bench. Gavin wants Peter to marry his daughter so the match will provide an alliance and he wants Eric to become a knight. Perhaps it's some other power-hungry lords who want to ally Galma with Narnia the bloody way, where they kill everyone and then take over.

But Corin had accused Iliea. Of course, I realized, that was probably because he had a personal grudge against her. I did too, and I might begin to allow myself to think badly of her if I wasn't careful. I didn't want her to marry Peter any more than Corin wanted to be called 'adorable', but that wasn't relevant right now.

"Oh bother it all!"

I sighed and put my head in my hands, just about ready to send the whole thing to blazes. A sudden noise from elsewhere in the garden made me start. All my senses spiked. I half drew my sword and looked up. A dark figure was standing about a yard away. Adrenaline raced through my veins, but I did not move for a moment. The idea suddenly occurred to me out of thin air that the rose trellis could be used to gain entrance to my room by someone other than me. But I quickly ignored that thought and stared hard at the shadowed figure that was taking anther step forward. Was this the murderer?

"Come to finish what you began?" I asked quietly, almost to myself as much as to the figure.

"Relax, your highness. It's me."

The voice was low as it spoke. The figure stepped forward into the moonlight, and I saw, with relief, the slender form of my gypsy friend.

"Fio! What are you doing out so late?"

Fio's dark eyes gleamed as she watched me.

"I could ask you the same question."

There was something in her voice, some veiled hostility, almost, that I couldn't place.

"Is there something wrong?" I asked, leaning back and gesturing to the bench next to me.

She didn't sit, only stared.

"Fio?"

The girl sighed and turned away.

"King Edmund, what would you call me?"

I stared at her in confusion, not understanding. Her voice didn't have any romantic sound to it, so I wasn't worried that it was that kind of question and that she wanted that kind of answer, but still, I wasn't sure how to reply.

"A good friend," I answered at last.

"And Corin? What would you call him?"

I hesitated, glancing after a moment down at the hilt of my sword, and then back up at the gypsy girl. So that was what this was about. My and Corin's argument. I still hadn't cooled down completely from our fight, and I wasn't about to admit that I was sorry.

"A bothersome, troublemaking miscreant."

A low laugh came from Fio's figure, a laugh that sounded strange and eerie in the moonlight.

"A miscreant. Nothing else? You're more stubborn than my Uncle's donkeys."

"All he ever does is get into scrapes," I retorted angrily. "And when he goes back to Anvard he'll have to live without me dragging him out of them. He can use a little practice now. Anyway, he survived all right on his own before he came to Cair Paravel."

"Does your brother have that attitude toward you?"

I opened my mouth to speak, but then stopped and shut it again. He had, of course. Long ago, back when we lived in England and had never heard of Narnia. Back before the war. He hadn't cared terribly whether I got into trouble or not, back then. But that wasn't the Peter I loved, for after we had found Narnia, he had changed. Changed so suddenly that I could still scarcely believe how different he was. The old Peter I would've—actually had—traded off for Turkish Delight, but this new Peter…I would have exchanged my life for his.

Now I saw Fio's point. I was behaving like the old Peter, the Peter who didn't care a fig what trouble I got into. No wonder Corin and I had gotten into a fight. In a way, it was identical to the ones Peter and I had fought, ages ago, in England.

Blast, I thought, though most of my anger had left now. Bother Fio. Now I have something else I have to work out before this summer's through.

"I can't imagine that he really expects me to behave as a brother toward him," I said, sighing and resting my head in my hands. "Goodness knows I wasn't that horrid as a child."

"So say you," my friend replied, a trace of humor in her voice at last. "But that's not the point. The best things in life can be achieved only through hard work and devotion. Such as being a brother. Tell me, does your brother find it easy to be responsible for you and your sisters?"

I paused, staring at her with a somewhat shocked expression.

"I don't know. I've never asked him."

"Easy is just another word for hollow," Fio replied grimly. "If it was easy to love or be brave or honorable or noble than it wouldn't be such an achievement. Those kinds of things have to be worked for, and it's not an easy path that leads to love and brotherhood. It would be meaningless if it was."

I nodded, beginning to understand.

"So maybe in loving the unlovable incorrigible Corin, you might find yourself rewarded for your labor. I heard it said once, in a ballad," Fio glanced up at the stars, smiling slightly as she thought, "that no act of love is ever wasted. It's not my place to tell you, O mighty king of Narnia," this slightly sarcastic, but not ungentle, "what you must and must not do; but I would ask, as a 'good friend', that you would not judge our young prince so harshly. Give him a chance. He only wants to please you."

There was a moment of silence before I spoke.

"You have a silver tongue, milady," I said somewhat hoarsely. "I wonder that your uncle didn't make you into a diplomat."

"He'd have preferred me to join his troupe of actors than become a juggling minstrel, but I prefer ballads to plays," the girl replied with a crooked grin. It disappeared in a second as she returned to more serious thoughts. "I can't stay any longer. Remember what I said when you see Corin again."

I opened my mouth to speak to her, but she held up a hand before I'd said a word.

"Goodnight, King Edmund. My family leaves tomorrow at dusk. Think carefully on how you will treat our young friend. Please, I beg you reconsider, if only for my sake."

And then, in a flash of moonlight, stars, and dark, dark eyes, Fio was gone and I was alone in the silent garden again.

Quite frankly, I still wasn't quite sure what to make of my gypsy friend. She seemed more like a dryad than a human in more ways than one. Smooth and strange; almost eerily inhuman sometimes. Of course I didn't hate Corin. I just wasn't about to admit that I needed a younger brother, which I didn't, or that Corin needed an older brother, which he did. But she had a point, blast it. All that about things worth having being hard to get…it was true. I just wasn't sure if being a brother to Corin was worth all the work it would take.

A cold breeze blew through the orchard and slithered across my skin. I shivered, rubbing my arms and thinking about a villain with cold, merciless eyes who might even now be wandering about the castle, unchallenged by the guard, ready to put whatever horrible plot lay in wait into action. Or was that villain Irwin? Surely his accomplice, or whoever had stolen the cordial—if it had been stolen, that is—wasn't the one behind the poisonings too. But how could I know?

The freezing air snaked across my face and through my hair again, and I shuddered. Somehow I knew that before night fell tomorrow, I would know. And for some reason, even though I wasn't exactly sure why as I sat in the dark courtyard, staring up at the moon and shivering in apprehension and terror, I knew that gaining the knowledge would be much, much harder than becoming a brother to Corin.

TBC.......