EDMUND'S POV
Y/N is a very confusing person. I've known her for roughly three days and I already know this. Actually, I only needed to talk to her once to know. I tried to comfort her, and she went off on me. I think she fails to realize that her and I are in the exact same boat. Like, I don't want to be married to her either!
"We're never going to find anything!" She exclaims. We've been searching the palace library for hours. So far, we've found a few biographies about old Narnian kings, and none of them mentioned anything about how to mysteriously disappear from this world.
Maybe this was a bad idea, telling Y/N that she might have a chance of escaping Narnia. I should have done a little research first before telling her. But I saw Caspian storming out of her room, and with the broken teacups...I could tell what was going on. I cant believe Caspian would hurt his own sister.
I just wanted to say something to make her happy.
She can be a royal pain, (haha.) but I actually feel bad for her. Of course, I'm not the nicest to her either. It's all very confusing.
"Maybe we need to take a break, get some lunch or something." I said as I idly flipped through a book about the Golden Age.
"No, we have to keep looking. There has to be some way out of here, I know it..."
"You could just...walk to somewhere else. Sneak onto a ship?" I offer.
"No, you don't understand. They would realize I'm gone and catch me before I'm even out of the country. It has to be fast, and I can't leave any evidence."
I shut my book and carry it over to where she is. She's touching the worn spines that cover the thick oak shelves, reading every title and author. I slide my book back into its place and start to follow her fingers with my eyes, searching for anything she might've missed.
"Wait—what's that?" I ask, my eyes catching on a title.
Spells and Enchantments For the Weary Traveler
"Oh, I saw that. Too bad I'm not a weary traveler." She continues moving down the shelves.
"We should at least look inside."
"Edmund, I was joking. I'm not going to get out of here with witchcraft." She spits the word.
"Why not?" I ask, confused.
"Do you fancy getting burned at the stake or something?" I raise my eyebrows at that and she laughs, "Right. Narnians probably don't care if you're a witch."
"Telmarines do?"
"Oh, yeah. Hang them, burn them, pretty much any punishment you can think of."
"Well, it's a good thing Telmarines don't rule anymore." I slide the book out. It's a dull brown color with faded black lettering on the front. There's no author listed. I flip through the thick, yellowed pages, searching for anything that might be of use.
A Spell For Good Luck
A Spell For A Plentiful Harvest
A Spell To Turn Your Enemy Into A Pig For A Day
A Spell That Can Be Whatever You Want It To Be
A Spell—
Wait.
A Spell That Can be Whatever You Want It To Be. The rest of the page is completely empty, where there would normally be ingredients and instructions for how to perform the spell.
"Y/N—hey, Y/N, come here!"
"Don't tell me you found something in that thing—"
"Look." I jab my finger at the page and she narrows her eyes, mouthing the name of the spell.
She grabs the book out of my hand and shoves it in front of my face "The page is empty, Edmund. There's no spell. This is so stup—" Suddenly, words begin to write themselves right before our eyes.
A Spell For Entering Other Worlds
She gasps and pulls the book back to her, "How did it—"
"If you would have let me explain—"
"Shut up!" She's smiling at the book, waiting for it to do something else. Slowly, new words appear in fresh ink over the old dull lettering.
Step One—
"Y/N, Edmund!" Lucy's voice echoes off of the walls in the corridor outside of the library. Y/N turns her back to the door in case she walks in.
"What is it, Luce?" I call back. She suddenly bounds into the library with a smile on her face. Y/N slaps the book shut and turns to face my approaching little sister.
"What are you guys doing?" Lucy asks, eying the book clasped in Y/N's hands.
"Oh, just exploring," Y/N explains, "This castle is huge."
"What's that?" Lucy asks, pointing to the book.
"Oh, some boring biography about some...guy. Actually—that reminds me, Lucy. I meant to give you a book yesterday, it's upstairs. Wanna go grab it?" Y/N slides spell book into place on a random shelf and shoots me a look.
"Yeah, let's go!" My sister says, and Y/N smiles in relief, "Actually, I came down here to tell you guys something. Caspian says there's going to be a ball tonight. Everyone has to go."
Y/N's face falls for a split second, but she quickly covers it up with a smile, "Oh, okay. Well, let's go grab that book then." As they head out the door, Y/N turns around and points to the spell book, indicating that I should grab it. I pick it up carefully and flip to the mysterious page. I find that the sentence has finished writing itself,
Step One: To escape this world you must find the door, the tree that stood through the war. Good Luck.
I furrow my eyebrows, what is that supposed to mean?
I tuck the book under my arm and walk out of the library, going as quickly as I can up the stairs to avoid being intersected by—
"Eddie!"
Selene.
"Yes, my love?"
"Will you be escorting me to the ball tonight?" She asks, stepping in front of me and smoothing out the collar of my shirt.
"Selene, you know we can't...I'm married to Y/N."
"So? Everyone knows you don't actually love that undesirable hag." I frown. Y/N is undesirable, but she's not a hag.
"It wouldn't be right Selene, you know that."
Her bottle-green eyes pout up at me and then suddenly change. She gives me a catlike look and places a hand on my jaw, "But you'll come up to my room afterward, right Eddie?"
I look at the ground, my face hot, "Of course."
"See you then." She places a quick kiss to my cheek and struts off, leaving my mind whirring. I shake my head, shake the feeling of Selene off. She messes with my brain.
I continue walking until I reach mine and Y/N's room, where Lucy us walking out of with a book clutched in her arm.
"Bye Y/N, see you later!" She calls over her shoulder and walks down the hallway in the opposite direction of where I'm walking. I reach the door and push it open, Y/N is trying to pet Eva again, who is just hissing at her.
She lets out a frustrated sigh and turns of face me, "You got the book!"
"Yeah, have you seen the first step yet?"
"No, ah had to close it before it ever finished writing. What does it say?" She looks at me excitedly.
I hold out the book to her and she snatches it up into her arms, flipping through the pages. She eventually finds the right one and her eyes track across the words, a look of confusion flooding her face.
"Well, what does it mean?"
I shrug, "No clue."
"Could 'the war' it's referring to mean the Telmarine war?" She says, face drawn together in thought.
"Maybe..."
"Was there a forest near where the battle took place? Trees that got destroyed? One that was left standing?" She spoke quickly as the thoughts spilled from her brain to her mouth.
"Yes, the whispering wood. I don't know about any destroyed trees though—plus, they would have regrown themselves by now."
"Well, we'll have to just look then, won't we? I'm sure it would be pretty obvious if we found a gateway to another world."
"Yeah, maybe." I scratch the back of my neck, unsure.
"We should go now! If we go on horseback i'm sure we'll be back by dusk."
"The ball, Y/N. We won't be back in time for the ball.
I see it in her face again, how her features shift into something like dread and sadness, before changing back into her normal, scowling self, "Stupid ball." She mutters.
"Hey," I say nervously, "I know it's not my business but uh...Caspian—he hasn't hurt you or anything, right?"
Her face twisted into shock and defensiveness, "No, no, Caspian would never do something like that." I wasn't sure I could believe her.
"Well, you know you could tell me, right?" I say quietly, stepping a little closer to her. She looks at me, furrowing her eyebrows.
"Edmund, he's not hurting me!" She exclaims. Here we go again, after going almost a whole day without fighting. We were even getting along. Laughing.
"Okay, fine, whatever." I say, backing away, embarrassed.
"It's not your job to protect me, Edmund. We aren't—"
"We're married! Is it wrong that I care if you're brother is hurting you?"
"No, it's just...you don't need to worry about that. I can take care of myself. And I cant believe you would even think he could ever do that!" I feel stupid, Y/N is really good at making people feel that way.
I sigh and run a hand through my hair, she can be so exhausting. "Sorry, I just thought—"
"Whatever. We have a ball to get ready for. Will you call my maids?"
"Wh—"
"Call them." She says, turning to walk to our bedroom.
I do as she says.
—
Her and I walk into the ball arm and arm. Me in black and her in sapphire blue. It makes her eyes look piercing. People are dancing and holding drinks, smiling and laughing. I search the room for my siblings, any familiar face, but come up empty.
"I think we have to dance," I say to Y/N, my voice low.
Surprisingly, she doesn't argue, "Yeah, I know. Let me get a drink first." She uncoils here arm from mine and walks off in the direction of a bottle of champagne. Is she even old enough to drink that?
"Hi, Eddie," Selene smirks, stepping in front of me and placing her hands on my shoulders.
"Selene—" I push her hands off of me, "I told you, we can't do that."
"I don't see your little wife anywhere." Selene looks striking in red: red dress, red gloves, red lipstick.
"She's getting a drink," I say, darting my eyes away from her pouting ones.
She slings her arms over my shoulder again, pushing herself forward. I have no choice but to put my hands on her waist, "I guess we can dance while she's gone then, right?"
"Selene—" She cuts me off by placing a long kiss on my lips. I want to push her off. Something stops me. I hear someone gasp and don't even have to look to know that it's Y/N. I shove Selene off by the shoulders and look over at Y/N.
Her cheeks are fire-red, and the champagne glass in her hand looks like it might burst at any second with the grip she has on it.
"Seriously?" She walks over to us and looks at Selene for a second, thinking. I try to apologize before Y/N can do something irrational, but it falls on deaf ears. She grabs Selene's very tight, very blond braid and nearly yanks it off of her head. The smirk falls from Selene's face very fast.
"Hey! You b—" Selene lunges forward to grab Y/N by the shoulders but she jerks away at the last second.
Y/N is done with Selene, and instead turns her gaze on me, throwing the champagne glass at my feet. At the sound of the crash, people turn their heads to look at us. Y/N flushes of embarrassment and grabs me by the arm, dragging me out of the ballroom. The golden liquid drips from my shoes.
Y/N likes to break things when she's mad. So that means—
"It was you who broke the teacups yesterday, wasn't it?"
We're in the hallway now, and she stops for a second to look at me, "What? Of course it was, who else would it have been."
"Um, Caspian? I thought—"
"For the last time, Edmund! Stop trying to live my life for me! Caspian would never do something like that. Ever." Her eyes flicker around nervously, she's lying. "But that's not why I brought you out here, is it?" She looks around the hallways before turning on me.
In a second, her hands are on my shoulders, and she shoved me back into a wall, "I should really hurt you for what you did back there, you know that?" I can tell by the look in her eyes that she's really, really mad. Worse thst usual, "If people saw you and Selene—it would have ruined everything. Made al this," she gestures between us, "For nothing. If people don't believe that you and I really...love each other, this doesn't work."
She's right, "I'm sorry," I say quietly.
"You know—you and I actually got along today. Made a pretty good team. But I don't think I want your help anymore, Edmund."
"What? But you—"
"No. I'll find that doorway on my own, and complete the rest of the steps on my own. I don't need some foolish little king helping me out. All you do is get in my way." Now I feel bad. Really, really bad.
"I understand."
Her eyes go wide, "Oh wow, thats a first." She shakes her head and meets my eyes again, "We still have to dance. Keep appearances up."
"I know."
"So, to make this whole night easier, can you please not kiss my cousin again?"
"I'll see what I can do," I say, trying to lighten things up with a small smile.
She rolls her eyes, "There he is."
And despite everything, despite the yelling and the fighting and the throwing of champagne glasses, I realize something in that moment.
It's not Y/N that's confusing: it's my feelings for her.
Because regardless of all of that, I still feel my heart skip a few beats when she slides her arm through mine again.
Why do I feel this way?