I'd been worried about being too OOC about this, but after watching (half) Shadow and Bone Season 2, I'm not as worried anymore. Thank you to IrysRaian and CrazyOfTheShippers for favoriting and following this story. Y'all are amazing.

Lucy had fallen asleep in stranger places than a damp, cold, dirty dungeon. They were generally what she considered to be nicer places, but the skill was there. The fact that she knew she'd be transported to somewhere more pleasant once sleep was achieved helped as well. As the forest and the pool of water reappeared, she found herself and Alina in the same place that they had been and some of her pride vanished, replaced with the nervousness and insecurity that had so plagued her of late. But Alina didn't start there. In fact, Lucy couldn't have possibly predicted the words that came out of her mouth.

"Your cousin is a dragon, your brother and the king tried to kill each other, and the most talkative creature on the ship is a rat. How could you have possibly thought I have magic when you rule over a place like that?"

"Is everyone alright? What happened?"

"Magic happened apparently."

"Alina, please."

"I was able to break whatever enchantment they were under and the three of us left in one piece. Now it's about time that you answered my questions."

"Thank you. Of course. Whatever it is you need of me, ask away. I'm not doing much good in this stinking dungeon."

"How is it that you came into my country?" Alina asked.

"As you just said, magic happened. Magic and my own poor decisions. How much did my brother tell you of our second trip to Narnia?"

"He said that you are younger now than you used to be."

"That's only partially true. Our bodies all reverted back to their original states, but not our minds. There is a story that's been written down in England of a boy who never grows up, and it mocks me, for I seem to be doomed to grow up over and over again. I often feel at war within myself, as it were. Growing up in England is quite different than in Narnia. There are some parts of being a woman that I never truly understood…"

"You were never in love when you were in Narnia the first time?"

After a moment of shock, Lucy managed to continue, "Is it that obvious?"

"I had my suspicions," Alina said measuredly.

"No. I never understood why Susan spent so much time with suitors instead of doing something, really anything else. Before you ask, yes I had suitors. They were nice boys, and I remember all their names, but to me it was more like having a nice group of friends than anything else. I never cared like that for any of them, and I would have had to. Peter didn't like the idea that Susan might have to marry politically. I would have had to fight him myself if I had ever even considered the idea."

"That sounds nice."

"Peter and I are very often of one accord, or we would be if he ever stopped seeing me as a child," she paused and then got back onto the subject. "When we went back to Narnia, it was so different and so were we. We weren't what they were expecting, and they weren't exactly what we were expecting either. We helped a boy recapture thrones that used to belong to us, and like every boy or man I have ever known in any world, he fell for my sister. We left, and she hasn't mentioned it since. When Edmund, Eustace, and I returned to Narnia, it wasn't a boy that we met there. He was a man. He had grown into himself as a leader. You could see it in the way he held himself and the way people responded to him. You could practically feel it in the air, but he still got that look in his eye when he talked about Susan that I've seen on almost every man I've ever known. I realized almost instantaneously that I wanted him to look at me that way, and that that was nonsense."

"What do you mean?"

"He couldn't see the queen in me, the woman in me. I was just little Lucy, the same way I've been to everyone else since we left Narnia the first time."

"When I first saw you, I almost thought you were a Grisha."

"Really?"

"Grisha power makes the user stronger and healthier the more they use it. More powerful Grisha tend to look a good bit younger than they are, though never to extent the Darkling has managed."

"You have more faith in me than I did, or maybe I was just afraid. Anyway, we were on an island one night, and I was kidnapped by invisible creatures that didn't like being invisible. They said that an oppressive wizard had made them that way, and that I would reverse it if I ever wanted to see my friends alive again. As it turns out, they couldn't read. If they'd led with that, I would have helped them voluntarily. I found the spell book of the wizard in his study. It had spells for all kinds of things, from curing a toothache to creating snow from nothing. While looking for the spell to make the unseen seen, I came across another spell. It could make me beautiful. Not only could I look like I had when I was queen, I could be better. I could be the most beautiful woman I'd ever known to exist." Lucy closed her eyes and took a breath. "I'm terribly embarrassed to say that I took it."

"What happened to the invisible creatures?"

"I managed to find their spell shortly thereafter. It turned out that the wizard, Coriakin, had made them invisible to protect them from an evil coming from the east that preyed on the weaknesses and insecurities of anyone and everyone."

"Like a magic pool that could make it so that you'd never have to play second fiddle again," Alina said as she started to connect dots.

"We all have different weaknesses."

"How long did you keep that spell with you before you used it?"

"Two weeks, the entirety of which I was stuck in Caspian's cabin being useless."

"I'd been meaning to ask about that."

"About what?" Lucy asked.

"Why were you staying there?"

"I was the only woman on the ship, until Gael stowed away, and Caspian's a gentleman. He insisted I stay there, and he went to sleep with the rest of the crew below deck." Lucy smiled shyly.

"Oh," Alina said.
"Now, as I mentioned, I've been somewhat at war with myself. My body's hormones battle with the rationality of my adult brain. I've never been a logically driven person. I've always barreled into things without terribly much thinking and my instincts have been primarily good. But now my heart was compromised, and I had hormones raging that I'd never understood the first time, and the overwhelming fear that I wasn't enough, that I wasn't even myself."

"You don't have to explain or justify yourself to me."

"If everything had worked the way I wanted, I would have deceived him. You can't truly love a person if your relationship is built on a lie. I've never been so embarrassed or disappointed with myself."

"The fact that you recognize that means that you're a better person than you give yourself credit for. Now what exactly happened?"

"It was storming, like it had been for the past two weeks. Eventually, I couldn't take it anymore. I was driving myself mad. I took the spell from where I'd been hiding it under my pillow. I didn't get past the first line before I saw a ray of sunshine, and then I was in your country, with my wrist in an iron grip."

"When I appeared on the ship, it wasn't raining," Alina said. Lucy was grateful that Alina just kept going and didn't dwell on what Lucy had revealed about herself. Then she got an idea.

"Do you have a word for magic in your language? Not your science, but actual magic?"

"Merzost. It's a corruption of Grisha power tied to the actual creation or destruction of something. It's what the Darkling used to create the Fold."

"That's it! We were both using magic in a way it shouldn't be used, so we need to be in places of that kind of magic. The barrier between worlds might be less there. I can't think of anywhere in Narnia that fits that bill."

"What about this evil you spoke of? Wouldn't it have to originate somewhere?"

"So you need to find that, and I need to get to the Fold."

"That is a terrible idea, especially since neither of us have any idea what to do when we get there, and we can't communicate while we're awake, and the fact that the Fold is dangerous. You said you were in the dungeon. How are you going to get to the Fold?"

"We'll just have to figure it out, I guess. You should at least be able to tell my brother the general plan. Aslan will help us with the rest."

"And you're willing to bet your life on that?"

"Trusting Aslan has never been the wrong decision. Don't you trust these saints of yours?"

"Technically, I am a saint, so no."

"I'll have to have enough faith for the both of us then."

"So, I need a way to get Lucy into the Fold. Let's put it to a vote. Should she be rescued or trick the Darkling into taking her there himself. The last time I did a poll, only one person had an opinion. That means that if you have an opinion, you'll probably get what you want. I want to know all of your thoughts!