The celebration had gone on for hours, the warmth of wine and laughter thick in the air, but Peter had drifted away from the revelry, drawn to the quieter shadows of the corridor just beyond the Great Hall. He could still hear the music—lilting strings and the rise of a flute—but he was no longer part of it. Not really. Not when she was in the room.

She danced like a blade held just above a flame: controlled, brilliant, and impossibly dangerous. Her gown—deep midnight blue with a fall of silver embroidery at the sleeves—swept the marble floor like water. It was nothing like the styles worn by the court ladies of Narnia. And neither was she.

She smiled, but never too sweetly. She curtsied, but only just enough. Her wit could slice through the thickest pleasantries, and when she entered a room, Peter found himself standing taller, trying—without meaning to—to be someone she’d actually look at twice.

“She’s trouble,” Edmund muttered beside him, sipping from a goblet. “Royal trouble.”

“She’s a guest,” Peter replied.

“She’s a queen,” Edmund corrected, tone sly. “Not by blood, maybe. But in how she walks, how she moves—she commands the room like she owns it.”

Peter didn’t disagree. Instead, he leaned against the stone archway and watched her laugh at something Lucy had said, her hand brushing the younger queen’s arm gently, affectionately. There was a softness to her, sometimes. But it was rare. Rare enough that it made Peter ache when he saw it.

“She frightens you,” Edmund added, more quietly now.

Peter gave a slow nod. “Yes.”

“But you like it.”

Another pause. Then, with a breathless kind of honesty: “I don’t think I’ve ever liked anyone more.”

Edmund made a sound of amusement, but didn’t tease him further. He’d seen it coming. They all had.

Back in the hall, she turned, just slightly, as if sensing the weight of his gaze—and her eyes met Peter’s across the distance. She didn’t smile, not right away. But her chin tilted, barely perceptible, and something passed between them that was sharper than a sword and just as binding.

Peter’s heart knocked once, twice.

He pushed off the wall, adjusting his tunic absently, as if the movement could steady him.

“She’ll be the end of you,” Edmund warned, but it sounded more like a prophecy than a joke.

Peter didn’t look away. “If she is,” he said quietly, “then let her be.”

And then he crossed the threshold, back into the golden light of the hall—back toward her.