Lena flexed her fingers with a grimace and massaged her hand before the pain could spread up her arm. She contributed the mild tingling pain to the fact that she had been sewing for over an hour when she was long out of practice. It seemed reasonable enough to her. She couldn't explain why she felt the same tingling pain in her knees and feet, however.

"You do know that the tailor could handle that for you, don't you?" King Edmund asked, looking up from his desk and the mound of paperwork in front of him.

"I can manage. I'm almost finished anyway."

"What are you doing?"

"Letting out the hem on a few of Sara's dresses. She's grown four inches since we arrived last autumn. I think she's going to be tall like Meri."

"Four inches? Really!"

Lena nodded and held up the dress as evidence.

"We're going to have to strap some rocks to her head to stop her from growing."

"That sounds highly implausible, my King," Nalsa commented from her spot in the sun. "Does that work on human pups?"

"Not likely, no," King Edmund replied with a laugh.

"Then why would you suggest a strategy that is sure to fail? That is unlike you. Do we need to send for Lady Willa?"

"No. I am not ill. It wasn't a real suggestion, Nalsa. It's just a human phrase. My...My dad used to say it to me before he...went to the war."

Edmund grew silent and his eyes stared at the empty air before him. He'd been remembering more and more of his life in the other place lately, or trying to at least. Lena wished she could help, but she knew very little about his parents, only that they had died in a railway accident before she could meet them.

"Perhaps it works better than you think then."

There was a beat of silence that followed Nalsa's comment before King Edmund replied. "I take offense to that, She-Wolf."

"You should not, my King. It was a mere statement of observation. You are among the shorter males of your species I've seen."

King Edmund's eyes narrowed but Nalsa remained unfazed. "I don't appreciate the laughing either." He turned his attention to Lena.

"Aww, poor bambino got his feelings hurt." Lena pouted.

King Edmund put down his quill with a huff and crossed his arms. "Yes I did, and I think you should come kiss it and make it better."

Lena grinned and pushed herself off the sofa.

"Queen Lucy and Princess Meri come with their guards," Nalsa interjected.

"Later," Lena whispered.

"I'm going to hold you to that," King Emund said.

"Oh, I hope so." Lena winked before directing her attention to the library entrance. "Lucy! Meri! What can we do for you today?"

"We're not interrupting, are we?" Lucy asked.

"Not at all—"

"—Yes, go away," Lena and King Edmund replied at the same time.

"Only a little," Lena amended with a grin. King Edmund huffed again and muttered something that soundly vaguely like 'it's not so little.'

Fortunately, Lucy spoke at the same time so no one but Lena heard him. "Relax, Brother. Lena will make it up to you later."

"Excuse me, daughter in the room," Meri said.

"Sorry, Meri, you'll see for yourself one day."

"Excuse me—"

"—Parents in the room," Lena and King Edmund said.

Lucy brushed off their worries with a wave of her hand. "So, Meri told me the wonderful news and I knew we had to do something right away; there isn't much time left."

"News? What news?" King Edmund asked.

"Sorry, Mamma. I know you don't like parties, but I didn't realize young Aunt Lulu was so enthusiastic about them."

"A party? Why do we need a party?"

"Oh don't be silly! Of course there must be a party," Lucy said, ignoring her brother still.

"I'm inclined to agree with Ed." Lena moved closer to him. "Why do we need a party?"

"To celebrate your anniversary of course!"

"Our anniversary?" King Edmund repeated.

"I'm sorry, Mamma. Aunt Lulu and I were just talking, and it sort of just came out."

"Our wedding anniversary?"

"That's the one. How many years will it be again?" Lucy asked Meri.

"It doesn't matter, because there won't be a party or a celebration of any kind," Lena said shortly.

"Don't you think this is something we should at least discuss?" King Edmund asked. "I don't intend to be the sort of husband who forgets anniversaries or birthdays."

"There is nothing to discuss. Thank you, Lucy, for your enthusiastic suggestion, but it will not be necessary."

"Are you sure? Because, I really..."

"Lu." King Edmund gave a slight shake of his head, and Lucy gave it up.

"Very well then, but if you happen to change your mind, I promise to make this better than the French Villa."

"Thank you. But I won't." Lena nodded brusquely and turned away from all of them as she walked over to the large window. There were muffled exits and the sound of padded feet crossing the wooden floor. The heavy library door shut behind them, and Lena knew she was alone with King Edmund. Even Nalsa had been asked to guard from the hall.

"What's bothering you, Lena?" King Edmund asked.

"Nothing," she replied, keeping her back to him.

"I know it's something. You just snapped at your best friend, and Meri seemed rather upset by your reaction as well. They were just trying to do something nice for us." He placed his hands on her shoulders to message out the tension in them, but Lena pulled away from him.

"I'm fine. I just... I just don't feel like celebrating an anniversary when..."

Lena could not finish her statement. King Edmund didn't know. King Edmund couldn't know, and he wasn't going to find out from her. How could she tell him she didn't want to celebrate their anniversary here because in the other place she would be dead before they could celebrate their sixth? When she didn't continue though, King Edmund drew his own conclusion.

"When... I am not the man you married."

Lena could hear the heartbreak in his voice. She knew he'd been trying so hard to be like Little King, to be the man she loved. And he was, in every way that mattered. But still she thought, maybe it was better for him to believe this lie than to know the truth.

"No. You are not," she said softly.

She didn't have to see his face to know the pain she caused him. She could hear it in the breath he exhaled. She could feel it in the coldness that enveloped them. She could sense it as he walked away silently.

Only after she heard the library door close behind him, did Lena allow the tears to fall.

Pregnant. Again! Lena thought she would have learned her lesson after last time, but she had become reckless with Little King. She had let things go too far with him. Perhaps worst of all, she'd been found out. Little King's little sister had discovered her secret. Lucy had insisted on taking Lena to a healer; he had confirmed what Lena already knew.

The only positive thing Lena could find in her current situation was that Little King still didn't know. He had been called into Broadway that morning and he hadn't returned yet. Lena could do what she needed to do, without him ever knowing. She would be gone already, if it weren't for her tears. She couldn't figure out why, but she kept having to stop packing so she could wipe away her tears.

"Hello? Lena? Meri?"

Merda. He was home. Lena tried to pack faster; if she gave him a chance, she knew he'd try to stop her from leaving and she didn't think she was strong enough to resist him.

"There you are," he said.

"You can put that away." Lena was certain he'd taken out his knife when she didn't answer his call. Sure enough, she could hear him lay it down on the dresser behind her.

"Where's Meri?"

She could feel him closing in behind her. She couldn't let him get his hands on her. She knew, if she allowed herself to feel his tender embrace, her resolve would crumble.

"At your sisters'," she replied, stepping away from him.

"Are we going somewhere?"

Lena struggled to maintain her composure, taking in a deep shaky breath. "Don't worry, Meri and I will be out of your way as soon as I'm done here."

There was a long pause. Lena continued to pack, fighting her tears.

"What about me?"

What about him? They'd been laying together regularly for months now. She'd grown to really like the nights they lay together, and the days, and the times when they didn't have sex but just sat together, or read together, or laughed together. Could she really do this without him? Did she really have a choice?

"What's going on, Lena? Please, talk to me."

"I'm late," she let out with a sob. She had to pause her packing to wipe her eyes again.

"Late for what?"

"For my monthly bleeding. It has not come as it should." She had to stop completely. She braced her hands on the bed as the sobs took over. "The healer confirmed it today; I am with child. I... I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen. I wasn't as careful as I should have been. But don't worry, I don't expect anything from you."

Silence. Pure and terrible silence. Just as Lena had feared. She knew he'd be angry. She hastily grabbed the last of her items and threw them carelessly into her bag and zipped it closed. She hurried towards the front door.

"Wait. Wait! Stop, please, Ileana stop!" Little King ran around her in the hall and blocked her escape. "You... Are you saying you're pregnant?"

Lena nodded, looking down at the ground. "That was the term he used."

Lena couldn't bring herself to look at him.

"Wait, so... why are you leaving?"

"Because I am not an idiota!" She looked up at him finally. His beautiful face was marred with confusion. "I know how this works. When a cortesana is careless she finds herself with child."

"As I recall from my biology lessons, we both had a part to play in that and if memory serves, we both rather enjoyed it. And you are not a cortesana, you are..."

"I am what, Edmund? What am I if not a cortesana? What am I to you?"

"You... You are everything to me, Ileana. You and Meri and Sss...and this child of ours, you are everything. Il mio amore, la mia vita, il mio cuore. My love, my life, my heart. You are the very air I breathe. Without you, I would be nothing, the shell of a man. You are my bondmate and my wife. At least..." He half-laughed. "At least, I hoped you would become my wife.

"Ileana, I fear I have been the idiota, not you. Please, please come with me. Let me show you something." Little King took her hands in his, her bag dropped to the floor. He led her back to the bedroom. He rummaged through the drawer beside the bed and pulled out a small square box.

"I have had this for several weeks now, months even, but I have been looking for the perfect one for much longer. I've been trying to plan the perfect moment even longer, waiting for when you were ready. But... I suppose there's nothing for it but to just do it. Ileana Maria Bellariu, formerly of the House La Bugia, will you marry me?"

It seemed Lena was destined to keep hurting the ones she loved. Little King or King Edmund, it didn't matter anymore; they were the same, They were Edmund to her, the man she loved; the king who held her heart. She'd hurt one of them by dying too soon and the other by lying about dying.

She knew what she had to do to make it up to King Edmund. She knew he deserved the truth, he deserved to know why she didn't want to celebrate their anniversary. But she just couldn't do it. She didn't have the strength to look him in the eye and tell him that she would die before they could celebrate six years of marriage.

"You are everything to me."

Those words alone had broken her down. She didn't fully understand them then, but she understood them now. Edmund and the girls were everything to her, and she would be nothing without them.

"You are my bondmate and my wife."

He had called her his wife before they were ever married. He had called her something else too. His bondmate. Surely it was a Narnian term, but what did it mean? She looked around her at the many books in the library. Perhaps one of them held the answer she needed.