The first time, Edmund thought he was dreaming. He was in Latin class, half paying attention as his peers stumbled their way through reading the Aeneid and the teacher stopped them to explain the poetry of the Latin language. Edmund was rather enjoying the drama of Aeneas' abandonment of Dido, but everything about the teacher was so papery dry, from his voice to his skin that he reduced the feats of Aeneas to all but dust.

Next to him, Peter was slumped at his desk, propping his chin up on his hand, his eyes glazing over. Edmund snorted to himself as Peter shook himself awake and furrowed his brown in concentration. Edmund admired his brother—Peter applied himself in everything, even Latin, which he was not very good at. Although he was three years behind Peter, Edmund was in the same class as him for all his language classes: Latin, French, and Greek. Edmund found he had an ear for languages, and some of his more enthusiastic teachers wanted to cultivate his talent. The other boys teased him with half jealousy and half admiration that Edmund would go in for the foreign service. Edmund didn't much care, but it was nice to have a bit of a challenge. Except when he had to slog through the epics in the most boring way possible.

A fly buzzed in front of Edmund and he followed its progress out the window, and found himself staring into the hedges outside. The classroom was stuffy and the deep green of the shaded leaves looked deliciously cool. He wished he could go for a hike with Peter so they could have a proper chat about Narnia, although Peter didn't like to talk much about Narnia per the professor's advice. He then thought about drafting a letter to Lucy, and was half composing it when he saw the hedges rustle. He watched more carefully, his interest piqued. It had to be a rather large animal in the hedges and he wondered what sort of animal would be brave enough to enter the school grounds and come so close to the building. It might be a deer. He didn't much care for deer. He thought them bad luck now.

He leaned back in his chair, tucking his pencil behind his ear. The bushes rustled again, and this was far more interesting than Mr Winslow's explanation of Virgil's use of the ablative case. He mused a bit more, until Peter hissed at him. Edmund realised the last question was addressed to him, and he scanned the text and found the answer. He could see that old Winslow was frustrated as he wanted to catch Edmund out, but Edmund had the ability to focus on more than one thing at once, and the ablative case was not the arcane secret Winslow made it out to be. Peter shook his head in admiration, smiling a bit, and Edmund gave him a little smile and a shrug before turning to the window again.

But there he almost jumped out of his skin. For there was no animal in the bushes, but a face. The face of a boy his age with green eyes so familiar they made him shudder with surprise. He tried to get Peter's attention, but by the time he dragged his brother away from concentration, the face was gone, and Edmund was left wondering why on earth he would imagine seeing a Narnian face in the bushes when Narnia felt further away than ever.

He puzzled over it all that afternoon and evening, but by the next day he convinced himself that he was just seeing things and he really ought to write that letter to Lucy before these pent up thoughts of Narnia turned his head completely. He scratched out the letter after lunch and then went out to play some rugby and clear his head. He wasn't quite as good at sport as Peter, but he was a fair player, and the boys fought for him to be on their team as he was a quick and clever fly half. He could see a tackle coming and knew which way to dart to avoid the traps, and he was agile enough to do it. The problem was that rugby didn't hold much of his interest. It wasn't the same as battle training or playing chess or horse riding. But at least it was something, and the exercise brought some of his old strength back to him.

That day, however, he lost his team a good chance at a try because the figure appeared under the trees at the edge of the field. Edmund stopped stock still in astonishment and was tackled as a result. His teammates groaned, but Edmund didn't hear their rebukes. His heart was hammering. He went to investigate, but he couldn't search much without being followed and he wouldn't know what to say to anyone who asked what he was doing.

He went back to his room and wrote a post script to Lucy. 'I think I saw Peridan again. I don't know if this is some magic or if I'm going mad.' He pushed the letter aside and rubbed his face.

There was a knock at the door, and Edmund was grateful to see his brother. Peter would know what to do about this. Edmund gestured Peter to a spare chair as he used to when Peter visited his chambers in Narnia. Peter sank into it and chucked his Latin book onto the desk. 'I can't make heads or tails of this translation,' he said.

'Never mind that,' Edmund said. 'There's something more important. Peter—I swear I've seen Peridan. Yesterday, and then today. In the woods at the edge of the grounds.'

Peter's face closed off. 'This is why the professor counselled us not to talk about Narnia too much. You're living as if you're still there.'

'I didn't imagine it, though!' Edmund protested. 'At least, I don't think I did.'

'So you acknowledge there's a possibility you might have.'

'There's a possibility, but why would I imagine that?'

Peter heaved a sigh. 'I think I see faces all the time. Amelia. Anna. Susan writes to me about how often she thinks she sees Erech. Anyway, Peridan can't be here because he's long dead in Narnia.'

'I know that.' Edmund frowned hard and looked out the window.

After a moment, Peter spoke. 'I know it's hard. But we have to accept that we live here now. There's nothing else for it.'

Edmund didn't feel this was quite right. He wasn't wishing for Peridan, Peridan just seemed to appear when he wasn't looking for him. Yet at the same time he didn't have much of a counter-argument because he had no solid proof, just the odd tingly feeling of magic and a haunted feeling. He sighed and pulled the Latin book to him, though he didn't much have the heart for translation.

After Peter left he lay on his bed and stared at the paint peeling on the ceiling and the damp patch which dripped when it rained too much. He turned over and curled onto his side. It wasn't that he demanded luxury. He missed Cair Paravel of course, and his room lined with books and the cozy armchairs before the fireplace, but he had been happy too camping while they were searching for Caspian or roughing it at sea on the Dawn Treader. He just wanted the opportunity to do something good, something great, something useful. Reading two thousand year old poems hardly seemed to fit that bill, especially when the world was so upside down. Worse still, Peter was set to finish school in little more than a month, and then he would be going off to war. But he would be a foot soldier, and there were guns instead of swords, and he, Edmund, would not be there to plan the battle and ensure everything came out alright in the end. But Peter didn't want to talk about any of this and kept quoting the professor's line about not talking about it too much.

He tried not to think of this too long. If he did, despair started to creep at the corners of his mind, and he was quite sure that was what the Professor was counselling them against. He tried to read to distract himself until dinner time, and then he went to the dining hall alone.

The May evening was bright and cool, and the shadows were only just starting to lengthen. Edmund took the long way, round by the rugby ground. He told himself it was because he wanted to enjoy the evening. Really, though, he wanted to see. Maybe he was going mad.

He slowed when he came to the bushes where he thought he saw Peridan earlier in the day and stared at them dubiously. They rustled once more. He cast a look around him and plunged into the thicket. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness he expected to see nothing, perhaps a rabbit or a bird. But instead there was Peridan, in Narnian dress. He was younger than when Edmund knew him, but he would recognise Peridan anywhere, at any stage of life.

'I was hoping you'd come and find me. I didn't think I could risk being seen,' Peridan explained with a grin.

Edmund gave a cry of wild joy and rushed to embrace him. 'What are you doing here?! You made me think I was going mad!'

Peridan laughed and returned the embrace. 'I hardly know myself. Yet here I am.'

'It is so, so good to see you,' Edmund said, and he would have added more, but a gong interrupted him. 'Blast—the dinner bell. Listen, I've got to go in. Promise me you'll stay right here. I'll find a way to be back after dinner.'

Peridan nodded, and Edmund left the secret space, but not before he glanced over his shoulder to assure himself that Peridan was really there.

Edmund was barely able to keep up with the conversation at dinner, his mind was so thoroughly occupied. His mates kept wanting to talk about his ridiculous tackle earlier in the day, and Edmund had to devote some energy to their jibes and offering some ripostes so as not to seem suspicious. Meanwhile, he needed to get to Peter and also figure out how to get some food to Peridan. Peridan was no fool and knew how to take care of himself, but at the same time the school grounds offered little in the way of hunting, especially when he didn't seem to have any equipment. And that was to say nothing of why and how he was there in the first place.

He gave himself a shake and told him to prioritise. First was to get the other boys distracted so he could have some space to think. He quickly diverted their attention to the failings of another boy in the previous day's cricket match—he had dropped a ball outside the boundary letting the opposing team score a six and then let another ball roll between his legs for a four and finished by being out for a duck—all of which Edmund smoothly pointed out. The boys were soon roaring at him, and though Edmund felt a pang of remorse for making him pay for his misdemeanours again, but he reasoned that it was no very great tragedy. The next bit was finding a way to Peter, who was sitting with his classmates several tables away. Of course there were all sorts of rules about getting up and who you had to sit with at dinner and who you could talk to, and every evening as he forced the stodgy school food down his throat Edmund thought of his place on the dais next to Peter, where he was king himself and always had the ear of the High King. Now Peter wasn't even Head Boy, although everyone knew that was because Alistair Golding's parents all but bought the position for him and Peter Pevensie was seen as a dangerous leader. He was far too galvanising. The headmaster clearly thought that better left to the battlefield when Peter inevitably went to war. Edmund thought he didn't realise how on the nose that idea was.

Nevertheless, this presented a problem. He could wait until after dinner and speak in the common room, but then there would be the problem of getting out again, and he couldn't bear the thought of not seeing Peridan again that evening. He would have to find a way to get to Peter at dinner. He reflected and then took a chance and rose to approach Peter's table. He improvised as the prefect approached him and announced his need to use the lavatory. His disturbance caught Peter's attention, and he signalled to his brother with his eyes. Peter seemed to get the message, but once in the loo he had only to wait, and he paced back and forth, his footsteps echoing on the tiles.

The door creaked open and Peter came in. 'Well?'

'He is here, Peter. Peridan. I talked to him.'

'What? That doesn't make any sense, Ed. He's been…well, he's been dead a thousand years in Narnia. We talked about this.'

'I can't explain it either, but I saw him. I touched him. He's in the thicket at the edge of the sports ground.'

Peter blew air out of his cheeks and pushed his hair back. 'I just can't make heads or tails of it.'

'Neither can I, but that's all the more reason to talk to him, isn't it? I just want to get him some food.' Edmund was already planning, despite Peter's disbelief. 'We can get it to him on the way back from dinner.'

'It's only a short window before they'll come looking for us,' Peter observed doubtfully.

'It's something, isn't it? Aslan's mane, Peter, anyone would think you had never been a king.'

Peter stiffened and frowned. 'I'll pocket what I can from the table. You do the same and we'll see what we can get. Wait for me and we'll go together.' Edmund knew he had struck a nerve, but he also knew that Peter needed some jarring. He hadn't been himself of late.

Edmund spent the rest of dinner trying to collect something of a meal for Peridan. Everything seemed to go painfully slowly, for everything in him was bent on seeing Peridan once again. He almost didn't care about the mystery of it, how Peridan, who had lived a thousand years before in Narnian time could appear in England and younger than Edmund had ever known him. He and Peridan were around the same age, but they hadn't met properly until Edmund was twenty and they went to Calormen together. He relived some of the moments of their twenty odd years together while tensing with anticipation of seeing Peridan again.

Edmund's table filed out first, and he didn't bother finding an excuse. He simply waited for Peter. One or two of the prefects looked as though they might hustle him along, but he simply stared them down. He didn't have any time for boys who were jumped up on a modicum of power. Not tonight.

Peter joined him and they exited the dining hall together wordlessly. Edmund marvelled sometimes at how green the other boys were, how unobservant. He supposed he would be the same if he had not lived a whole other life, but still. He and Peter lagged behind, still silent, and simply peeled off from the straggling line of boys and ducked into the thicket.

All was quiet, and in the dappled moonlight the place seemed to be deserted. Peter began to look doubtful, but Edmund used the whistle signal he and Peridan had developed long ago. A moment later, the bushes rustled and Peridan appeared. Edmund had to press his lips together to keep from grinning at the sight of him.

Even though he was looking a little scraggly from being in the bushes for two days, Peridan swept into a perfect bow when he saw Peter. 'Your Majesty,' he said.

Peter put his hands up. 'Don't. Nobody calls me that here.'

Peridan lifted his face, looking confused. 'But…once a king in Narnia…'

'Always a king in Narnia,' Edmund finished in unison with him. 'I've been trying to tell him this, but you know how he gets.' Peridan grinned.

'We brought you some food,' Peter announced. 'Edmund thought you would be hungry.'

'Very,' Peridan agreed, and although he tried to retain his manners, the way he fell to eating the bread it was clear that he was understating things.

Peter watched this, and rubbed his chin. 'I have a thousand questions for you, but we have precious little time tonight. Tomorrow is Sunday, and we will fare better then. In the meantime, are you keeping well?'

'Tolerably,' Peridan said after swallowing. 'There's a few strawberry plants and other berries, but not much else.'

'We'll bring you what we can scrounge from breakfast,' Edmund offered.

'And is this place secret enough? You can't be discovered—not yet, anyway,' Peter continued. 'We'll have to come up with some sort of plan.'

'I had been here some space of time before even Edmund observed me. I didn't think you could be so obtuse,' Peridan grinned as he aimed this jibe at Edmund.

'Forgive me for not being on the watch for visitors from another world,' Edmund rolled his eyes, but he grinned as well. A bubble of excitement expanded in him. Maybe the doors of Narnia were closed, but there were still adventures to be had. And Peridan was here.

Even Peter seemed cheered by his presence, and he relaxed enough to make a joke too. 'If I had any doubts it was really you, they are truly erased. No one can tease Edmund so well.'

'Certainly not you,' Edmund retorted, and they all laughed, because they were happy.

'Right, so,' Peter recommenced with a clap of his hands, 'Stay hidden unless you hear Edmund's whistle. We've got chapel in the morning, but we'll bring some food before then, and hopefully after we can talk properly. Ed and I have got to get in—it'll be curfew soon enough.'

'Why are you so beholden to schedules? Don't you make your schedules?' Peridan asked.

Peter and Edmund exchanged a glance. 'We get to ask you the questions first, and we're saving that for tomorrow,' Edmund said. 'In the meantime, it feels as though it might get cold tonight.' He wriggled out of his sweater and passed it to Peridan, who pulled it on.

'Strange garment, but warm,' he said, observing his arms clad in knit sleeves. Edmund had to admit he cut an odd picture with a school jumper on top and a Narnian tunic, leggings, and boots on the bottom.

'Good night, Peridan,' He said warmly. There was so much more he wanted to say, but he could hear the prefects starting to do a final sweep. He clasped Peridan's forearm, and Peter did the same. Then Peridan retreated further into the thicket and he and Peter stole back into the halls.

A/N: Quarantine and life have brought me back to writing and fanfiction. In the past I have been guilty of not finishing stories, which is human but still frustrating. So I made myself a promise that I wouldn't upload until I had finished a story, and now I have one! Hopefully it does a good job of taking you out of this world for a moment, and if it doesn't, please do tell me how it could.

New chapters every Monday and Thursday.