"Ileana! Ileana, please! Ileana!" Edmund chased Ileana through the streets. She was fast and angry; she didn't care who she bumped into or who she pushed out of her way. Edmund tried to be apologetic about it and it slowed him down. Ileana, however, was running in heels and Edmund was not.

"Lena, please..." Edmund eventually caught a hold of her arm.

"*Lasciami!" She shrugged him off.

"No, Lena, please look at me." She allowed him to gently turn her around. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

"Didn't know what, Little King? That the people you work for would so easily turn on their own? That Daniels is a rotten swine? Or that they knew about Meri?"

"Any of it; well, except the Daniels one. That was obvious from the start." Ileana pulled away from him again. "I swear, Lena. I didn't know they knew about Meri."

"And who do you suppose told them?"

"It wasn't me. I swear it upon my honor as the Just King of Narnia."

Ileana huffed.

"I know that may not mean anything to you, but it means everything to me."

"Then how...?"

Edmund hated to say it. "Because, we...we are all spies in the S.I.S."

"No." Ileana shook her head. "I told everyone she was my sister."

"There must have been a nurse, or a doctor somewhere who saw you. Or they..." He hesitated.

"They what?"

"Or they read your letters to her."

Ileana faltered in her anger before succumbing to her tears. With just the slightest touch, Edmund pulled her into an embrace. Her head fell on his shoulder as she wept.

"You won't have to go through with this. I don't care what Daniels says; we'll...we'll leave." Even as he said it, he knew leaving would never work.

"And go where? They know about Meri. They'll be waiting for me. There is no escape."

"I'll...I'll protect you."

"Protect me? As the best swordsman in Narnia?"

"Yes!"

Ileana pulled back. "But we're not in Narnia. You are not a king in this world; your life would be forfeit, same as mine." She wiped away her tears. "Even in this world, my life is not my own. I will never be free of what they made me. Once a puttana, always a puttana."

"You are not a puttana," Edmund said adamantly. "You are the strongest person I know. You are absolutely amazing, stunningly beautiful, and you are..."

"Without choice," she finished. "You can see that, can't you? They have me trapped; I must do as requested or else..." Her voice faded. "They executed traitors in Narnia, beheaded them, shamed them and their family."

"I know," Edmund replied gravely.

Tears came back to her eyes. "I cannot do that to Meri. I...I will have to play cortesana to the rat. But you..."She stepped away from him, distancing herself. "You should not be there. I do not want you to see me like that."

"It doesn't matter," Edmund said, closing the gap between them again. "My life is forfeit without you, Lena. Where you go, I go. I will not leave you to them alone. Promesso."

"Pete? Peter, are you there? Can you hear me?"

"Yeah, Ed...I'm...can barely...hear..." The reception was in and out and Edmund could hardly hear his brother.

"Alsan, please help."

"What's wrong?" Peter's voice was suddenly loud and clear. Edmund breathed a sigh of relief.

"I...I've really mucked up." His voice cracked as he watched Ileana from across the small pub. She was sitting alone at their table, waiting for him to return, and nursing a pint of ale between her fits of tears; she had just informed Meri that she would not be returning home after all. Meri had not taken the news well.

"I'm sure it's not half as bad as you think it is," Peter reasoned. "But tell me anyway."

Edmund told him everything that had transpired in the last hour and his fears that came along with it. "I must have changed something somewhere. I did something wrong, or I didn't do enough. Now I've royally messed everything up."

"I still don't see how, Brother. You say Lena admitted to flirting, dancing, and permitting the unseemly groping hand?"

"Yes. But she swore she never laid with them. And now..."

"And now she still has not laid with them," Peter said calmly. "I believe in you, Ed. I believe you will still find a way around this, but you must believe it as well. Trust in Aslan; He will not let you..."

The line clicked and turned to static.

"Peter? Peter?" It was no use; the call was dropped. Edmund placed the receiver back on the hook and looked over at Ileana again. She had hardly moved. "Alsan, please show me the way to make this right. Help me protect her."

Trust.

He felt the purring in his heart. "I will," he whispered. "I do. Always."

Edmund took a deep breath before making his way back to the table. Ileana did not look up at him, even as he pulled the pint his way and took a hearty sip from it. He reached across the table and took her hand in his.

"You won't have to go through with it," he said. She tried to pull her hand back but he held on. "No, Lena, please look at me."

She slowly lifted her face towards him. Her eyes were broken, hollow, and trimmed in red.

"You won't have to go through with it. I will tear the place apart. I will turn over every leaf, search under every stone until we have the information we need. And then we will get the hell out of there. You will not have to play cortesana to the Polkovnik."

"And what if we fail?" she asked quietly.

"Failure isn't an option. I swear it to you. Just please, trust me."

There was a long pause, and then she nodded. "I do. I do trust you, Edmund."

With the aid of Lucy's cordial, Sara was fever and cough free and back to acting like her normal self by mid-morning. She was even laughing and playing with Edmund, Lucy, and Lady Bea when Ileana returned with Meri and Nalsa.

"Mamma!" Sara ran to her mother with vigor and threw her arms around her.

Ileana was surprised to find Sara in such high spirits so soon. "Sara, Topa, how...?" Ileana felt Sara's forehead with the back of her hand.

"Mamma, Eddie and Lulu gave me Lulu's special core-core-cord-juice and now I better."

"Her special cordial?"

"Sì! Her cordial. I'm not sick no more!"

Ileana smiled and kissed the top of Sara's head. "That's wonderful, Topa." Then she let Sara run off to continue playing while Ileana turned her gaze to Edmund and Lucy. She did not look overly happy.

"Well, you see..." Edmund began.

"Wait. You didn't have permission to use the cordial?" Lucy asked, turning to Edmund. "I'm sorry, Lena. I never would have given Sara the cordial unless I thought you were alright with it. Edmund should have told me if that wasn't the case."

"I..."

"It is my fault, Lady Ileana," Bea said, cutting Edmund off. "I did not inform King Edmund that you had previously turned down the use of Queen Lucy's cordial."

Edmund sighed. "That is incorrect. Thank you, Lady Bea, but I must own my mistakes. Which, the only mistakes made were allowing Lucy to believe I had your consent and failing to inform you myself. I do not think it was a mistake to give Sara the cordial. I could not bear to see her ill, and Christmas is just around the corner. I did not want to risk her being sick on Christmas morning."

Ileana sighed, her face softening. "It's all right. I suppose I cannot be angry when Sara is so happy. I hate seeing her sick as well. Thank you for taking care of her."

Edmund felt relief for just the slightest moment.

"But now, if you would please leave us. My daughters and I have missed breakfast. I have asked for something to be sent up, but I would like to spend the time with them alone."

There was a coldness in her eyes when she looked at him; Edmund did not like the way it felt. "Of...of course. Come on, Lu, I'm sure there is work for us to do somewhere."

"Oh, all right. Farewell for now my little darling. I will see you again soon." Lucy kissed Sara's head before hugging Meri's neck.

Edmund wanted to say something more to Ileana, but she had turned her back to him.

And she kept her back to him for the next week-and-a-half, or so it felt. She canceled their horseback lessons, she no longer stayed around to talk after his play-time with Sara, and anytime they were in each other's presence she either kept her distance from him or found a reason to leave. They barely spoke two words to each other, and those words were cold and unfriendly.

Worst of all, Edmund had a feeling that Nalsa knew exactly what was going on but she refused to tell him. He had caught her and Ileana whispering fervently one afternoon, but by the time he'd reached them Ileana had disappeared and Nalsa would not speak except to say that Ileana was obstinate and impertinent, two words he'd used to describe her very early on.

Edmund didn't know what he had done wrong and he was unwilling to admit why Ileana's absence bothered him so much. He was becoming quite sour and unpleasant to be around, or so his siblings told him. He tried to tell himself that it didn't matter one way or the other, he'd never wanted this in the first place, and that perhaps it was better this way.

And yet, he found himself lingering at the spots he knew she'd appear, the music room, the training yard, even the entrance to the guest wing, all in the hope that she would cave and speak to him again. Though, if she did, he had no idea what he would have said to her.

And then came Christmas.

Edmund could feel his head bobbing, his eyes rolling to the back of his head, but he couldn't stop it. Sleep overtook him.

He found himself on the beach, Cair Paravel in the distance, Lena wrapped in his arms as they danced to some distant tune. It had been a long while since he felt this content.

"I don't want you to leave," he whispered desperately.

She held him a little tighter. "I've told you before, Little King, what we have can never end."

"Yes, I know, but I still don't want you to go."

"I will not. You are cuore mio, my heart; I will always be with you."

"Lena, I..."

Edmund was awoken by a closing door.

"Oh, shit. Were you sleeping?" Peter asked.

Edmund nodded. "We were dancing on the beach.

Peter swore again. "Sorry. Do you want me to leave?"

"No, no, I don't think I could get back there." Edmund sat up in his chair and rubbed his eyes. "What's that?"

"Coffee. Extra caffeinated. I thought you could use some if you didn't want to sleep." Peter handed over a cup as he took up the seat Lucy had vacated an hour ago.

"Thanks. Ugh!" Edmund pinched his nose. "This may be worse than the hot chocolate Lena and I had at the airport one Christmas."

"I said it was extra caffeinated, not extra good."

"No worries." Edmund forced down another hearty swallow. "This may just be the thing I need to keep me awake."

Peter forced down his own coffee. "Holly sends her love and prayers; she regrets not being able to be here."

"Where is she?"

"At home with Stevie. He's cutting his first tooth and he's very cranky because of it."

Edmund grimaced. "I remember those days, not pretty. But...you love every second of it."

"More than anything in the world."

Edmund smiled. "Enjoy it, Brother. Next thing you know he'll be going off to school, like Sara is about to."

Peter groaned. "Ugh, don't say things like that."

Edmund took another gulp of bad coffee. "Do...do you remember our last Christmas in Narnia?"

Peter paused. "It's a hard one to forget."

There was a stretch of silence. "You knew then. Didn't you? You knew Lena was..."

"I..." Peter hesitated by taking a sip of his own coffee, "...received confirmation then; I suspected beforehand. If you had seen her when she first arrived, you would have known too."

"And Nalsa knew?"

Peter nodded. "She did."

"But she...neither of you ever told me."

"No. We didn't. I made it clear that no Narnian was to tell you."

"Why?"

Peter sighed. "Knowing you...You would have tried to fix things to keep this from happening. Or you would have done as she did, and distanced yourself from her."

"A lot of good that did." Edmund forced himself to finish his coffee. "And did you...did you know about Kursk? Did you know what Daniels and the Polkovnik did to her?"

"No," Peter said, finishing his own cup. "If I had, I would have killed them myself."

Lasciami: Let go of me