AN: I've been talking about this story for far too long. WillowDryad's been reading bits of it for months. Laura Andrews, for almost as long. My thanks especially to Willow for suggesting that I relieve the wall of archaism with scenes of real action, to Laura for proofreading and encouragement, and to all the readers who have discussed the idea with me and encouraged me to post it.

Peter, Susan, Lucy, and especially Edmund are not mine. Any mistakes are mine—to quote Lisa Gardner, I have to take credit for something.

There was a woman in the city of London whose name was Pevensie, and that woman was one who feared God and eschewed evil. There were born unto her two sons and two daughters, and they were yet young. And she rose up early in the morning and offered prayers according to the number of them all: for she said, Let not my children sin and curse God in their hearts. But especially did she pray for her son Edmund.

Dear God, they're still so young. Lucy's only eight, and Edmund torments her so. Peter tries to be big and manly, but he and Edmund will fight, and Susan will try to stop them, and Lucy will cry. Please, watch over them and let this dreadful war be over soon.

And it came to pass that the children did seek amusement one day, and a door opened, and they went through, and entered into a strange land. And a prophet of the Lord anointed them, and they were called kings and queens, and made rulers of the land and all that did dwell therein. And they increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and men.

They were known as good and upright, and ones that followed the Lord and eschewed evil, and they ruled the land justly and well, and were greatly loved by all their subjects: men and women, he-beasts and she-beasts, and spirits of the waters and trees; so that they were called the greatest of all the kings and queens of the north since the dawn of time.

And when they were come to men's estate and full-grown, the kings and the younger queen also did often ride to war, but the elder queen remained at home and offered prayers for their safety, lest enemies fall upon them unawares and the edge of the sword devour them, and she be left alone, without her sister or her two brothers.

Aslan, Great Lion, watch over them. Smooth the road before them, warm the chilling winds at their backs, turn their enemies' arrows from their necks, and strengthen their sword arms. Dear Aslan, please guard them, protect them, and bring them safely home.

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and the Accuser came also among them. And the Lord said unto the Accuser, Whence comest thou? Then the Accuser answered the Lord and said, From going to and fro in the earth and from walking up and down in it.

And the Lord said unto the Accuser, Hast thou considered my servant Edmund, that there is none like him in all the earth for wisdom and understanding? For he feareth God and escheweth evil, and hath walked in the ways of righteousness since he was but a boy.

Then the Accuser answered the Lord, saying, Doth Edmund fear God for naught? Thou didst rescue his life from mortal danger and enthrone him on high, and all to which he putteth his hand thou hast blessed. Every creature of the land accordeth him high honor and respect, and thou hast given unto him wisdom and great riches. But withdraw thy hand of blessing and deprive him of the blithe life which thou hast granted him, and he shall reject thee; as surely as once he turned against thee, so shall he again.

And the Lord said unto the Accuser, Behold, these things are in thy power, and with them thou mayest do as thou wishest, only reap not more than the appointed number of lives from among my creatures.

And thus there came a day when Edmund, his brother the High King, and his sisters the Queens did ride out to the hunt, and they traveled farther than was their wont, yet still the quarry eluded them. But would none of them yield themselves mastered in the quest, but pressed on, and the door opened before them as once it had done, and they sank down through the chasm.

Then they found themselves lacking their thrones and crowns, their land and their people and the lives which the Lord had given them in that land; for they had become as strangers in the land of their birth and vanished were the years in the land which they had called their own, as years devoured by the locust.

"Fair . . . Consorts," said Peter, but the words sounded suddenly strange. "Sister—Lu—thou wast in earnest when thou spakest of a great change in our fortunes."

There was a mothball on the floor. The rain drizzled down the window-pane. A dead bluebottle-fly lay in the dust on the windowsill, and Mrs. Macready's voice, answering a question ("No, sir. The kennels have been empty for years, but if you're lucky you'll see a glimpse of Cabal's great-grandson. . . . ") drifted through the door.

They stood silent for a moment, and Lucy's hand stole into Susan's, for she was suddenly a little girl again. Then she broke away and ran desperately into the open wardrobe, her hands outstretched to catch hold of anything—a dusky fir branch, the edge of a gown, a thread of dried grass—before it melted away.

But the door was closed and barred from the other side.

There was a thump, and a sob. Peter and Susan looked mutely at one another. Susan wondered for a moment if they had imagined it all. She could distinctly remember that Edmund had not eaten his porridge that morning and had muttered things under his breath about Lucy and magical forests until Peter glared at him. But at the same time, she could see them just that afternoon, cantering through the splendor of the autumn forests and laughing together. Which was the truth?

It was Edmund, now, who stepped forward and brought Lucy, crying, out of the forest of coats. He would not have done that when they were children—but they were children now. Lucy ran and flung her arms around Peter.

"Sisters and brother," said Edmund, and his his round, freckled face was both familiar and unfamiliar, just as in the way photos of you when you were three or four or eight are both familiar and strange. "A quarter of an hour past, if indeed 'twas but a quarter hour, we thought it a hard thing merely to consider turning aside from the course we had set ourselves, and we all of us vowed, as my sister Susan rightly phrased it, to press on and take the adventure as it befell us."

"Oh, look not so at me!" said Susan, the old-fashioned words slipping out easily when she thought of the conversation by the lamppost. "I wished to turn back and give up the chase, as ye well know."

"Nay, sister," said Peter, stroking Lucy's hair. "Our brother hath the right. Thy tender heart seeketh not adventure, yet thou shrinkest not when once it is thrust upon thee."

Lucy raised her head. "But of what sort is this adventure?"

"Ye do not remember?" said Peter, his eyes beginning to twinkle again. "Ye do not remember how just last winter, of a long and merry evening, we spoke together of all we had undertaken in Narnia and all we had achieved, the battles, quests, feats of arms, and acts of justice?"

"Aye," said Edmund. "Did we not jestingly say that no quest remained to which we might lay our hands, and did not our sister Susan say that truly, one quest always and yet remained: the quest for the land of our birth, of which not even the oldest Centaurs could tell us aught? And now, ye see, the quest is achieved, and within a year and a day of our words."

"I think—" said Susan, memories and lives and ways of speech overlapping in her mind, "I don't think—I meant not my words in earnest." Then she, too, began to cry. Narnia was slipping away. She felt less and less a Queen and more and more a schoolgirl. Edmund, now half a head shorter than she, put his arms around her. She touched the end of one plaited pigtail; then jerked her hand away and clung to Edmund.

Presently, she raised her head, dug for a handkerchief, and said, "I suppose the coats we borrowed are back in the wardrobe, and everything is just as it was?"

But the coats were gone, mouldering somewhere in western Narnia between the Beaver's Dam and the Stone Table.

"We shall just have to man up and tell the Professor that we have lost them," said Peter.

"Think you—will he believe us?" Susan offered her handkerchief to Lucy, who was wiping her eyes on the backs of her hands and looking very little again.

"Nothing for it but to tell the honest truth," said Edmund, offering his arm to her.

And so they did, and talked long with that wise man, into whose care the Lord had placed them. And when the full extent of their situation was made clear, and many tears had been shed, then at last did Edmund arise and say, "The Lord giveth and the Lord hath taken away, and have we not been granted this promise: that one day we shall return? Therefore let us not be cast down, but remain steadfast in this land, which is also ours."

And he blessed the name of the Lord.