They don't get home until the morning after they first expected, but at last, Cair Paravel approaches quickly over the horizon, gleaming in the rising sun on the sea. It looks, as always, like a star. Oreius sounds a horn to announce their arrival. Their surroundings brighten around them. Little sleepy animals poke their heads out of their holes to see what all the commotion is about. Some of them join the procession to Cair, jumping and prancing and singing.

Peter and Edmund can breathe easy at last.

The air is fresh and the grass is green. The darkness of the forest leaves hardly an impression on them as they make their way home. The sun is the bright early morning sun that Narnia always promises to them. The wind is sweet and carries the triumphant sound of Oreius' horn all the way to the castle, so that Susan and Lucy are already waiting at the front gate for their brothers when they are still a hundred yards off.

When she sees them, Lucy runs as fast as her little legs will carry her to the party of once-down trodden Narnians. Oreius is at the front and smiles at Lucy. For all his roughness, he is quite fond of his little queen. Susan follows close behind, all her usual properness forgotten inside the castle, bounding and leaping towards her brothers. Peter and Edmund break away from their ranks and collide with their girls. They wrap each other in an awkward, sweaty hug, crying and kissing each other until they're all tired out. Nothing is said for a long while. Just lots of hugs and kisses and hair-ruffling and hand holding until Susan says in a tiny voice overflowing with relief, "We thought you had died."

Peter laughs and kisses Susan on the cheek again and wraps her tightly in his arms. "We've missed you both so much," he sighs. Susan hugs him back.

The children don't go inside after the Narnians disperse, and before long they find themselves sitting in the grass outside the castle. They don't say much, at least about the ordeal. Lucy has much to say. She talks of Mr. Tumnus and the Beavers, and of all the new Narnians she and Susan met. She also talks of Aslan.

Edmund looks up at the mention of the name. "I saw him," Edmund says suddenly without realizing it. His brother and sisters look at him.

"Really?" Peter asks. "When?"

"After the execution," Edmund says, twisting a clump of grass around his fingers and pulling it up by the roots. "At the Stone Table."

"What did he say?" Lucy wonders

"Execution?" Susan presses.

Edmund looks Lucy in the eyes. He shrugs. "Not much," Edmund says.

There's not much to say after that, but none of them really mind. They just sit and enjoy the sun and the grass. They're not too grown up yet that they can't enjoy sitting in the grass. Peter's not too magnificent, Susan not too gentle. Lucy, always valiant, did not have to be seen as such. And Edmund never grew out of things, not even in legends, the things that made him Just.