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　　 ❛𝐁𝐔𝐓 𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐃𝐈𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘—' Caspian cut off his own sentence as he stared in disbelief at the spot Bellicose was at mere seconds ago. He wasn't a stranger to magic or the supernatural, but this was something he'd never seen before. One moment they were there, the next they were sucked into a portal and vanished.

It strangely reminded him of his first goodbye to the Pevensie siblings. Through a magical portal in an ancient tree, they returned back to their world. They vanished in the wink of an eye, just like Bellicose had. It was the last time he'd seen Susan. Her fair complexion made her dark hair all the more prominent. The shine it had in the bright sun was unmistakably hers. The first thing he'd ever noticed about her were her eyes.

Eyes the colour of the Great Eastern Sea. It was also the first thing he'd noticed about Florence. How her eyes resembled those of Susan, though they saw the world in a very different way. Florence's eyes seemed to have more boldness and gratitude and had an ease to them that Susan always seemed to lack.

'It's magic,' Peter vaguely explained, which caught Caspian's attention again. He waved over towards Charlotte, Harry, Hermione and Aiden without sparing them a second glance. 'They could do that too.'

'It's the same trick they played in the forest. They vanish from one point and appear again in another,' Eustace said as he went over the words of the prophecy. He tried to memorise it by heart, but always had trouble with odd rhymes and terms. It reminded him of silly children's stories, fairy tales that had no use to be memorised in the first place.

Charlotte let go of Harry's hand so she could walk over to the place Bellicose was. 'It wasn't exactly the same though,' she muttered, whilst reenacting Victoria's movements.

Florence cocked her head sideways to watch Charlotte repeat the same movement over and over again. 'What exactly is she doing?' she asked.

'She's trying to figure out how they fled by reenacting what they did,' Harry answered, though even his eyebrows stood in a frown as he watched his girlfriend twirl around.

In her mind, Charlotte could see ghost-like figures of the four Bellicose members standing in an almost perfect diamond-shape. She recalled how the four of them stood, which way they faced, what their hands were doing, all from the perspective of where she stood.

Despite the fact that she was several feet away, the motion their bodies made was not the same as it would've been if they'd apparated to another place. They were too perfectly in-sync and she knew the members well enough that all four of them would apparate on their own for efficiency reasons. Her mind scoured around the square in a desperate attempt to find the answer she was looking for.

It didn't take a foolish wizard to know that the magic in Narnia was not the same as on Earth. There was magic, but it's different and conjuring a spell wasn't as easy. Charlotte just couldn't understand how they were able to vanish in the first place. Wandless magic is already a form of magic most witches and wizards tend to avoid as it's harder to focus one's energy and magic and even though apparition is performed wandlessly regardless of one's capabilities, it's not something Charlotte could do in Narnia.

It was tricky at best to pull off apparition on Earth where their magical abilities were familiar to them. If the Bellicose members would've botched any part of the process, it could've had disastrous consequences and quite frankly, Charlotte didn't think the four of them would ever be that reckless, especially considering their need to flee the castle wasn't a life-threatening decision that had to be made then and there.

The sun mirrored in her eye when her mind finally found the answer. 'I think they somehow used a Portkey,' she mumbled and turned to the others, standing before them as if she were their teacher. 'There's no way they would apparate away from here with all of the possible dangerous consequences.'

'Alright so they used a Portkey,' Eustace huffed indifferently. 'What does that change?'

'Well,' Hermione piped up. 'With apparition, you can go wherever you want as long as you have the destination in mind. You simply think of the destination before you disapparate. Portkeys, however, have a pre-assigned destination when you create the Portkey itself, thus they must've gone to somewhere they've been before. If they are as clever as I think they are, they might've made the Portkey earlier today in case they needed to flee. I don't think the Ministry could detect anything in this world, so there's no way of knowing whether they do or don't have one.'

Edmund scratched the back of his head as he tried to understand all the new terminology, the words going by him like the wind with how quickly Hermione spoke. 'That does eliminate a lot of Narnia,' he said and eyed his brother.

'Unfortunately for us though, they also know where to go thanks to Peter's loose lips,' Florence said.

'I didn't think they would vanish into thin air again,' Peter retorted with irritation.

'Have you learnt nothing of magic?' Florence bickered back.

'Apparently not enough no.'

'Shouldn't surprise me and yet it does.'

'That's a mistake on your part then.'

'I don't make mistakes. Only miscalculations in your abilities.'

Caspian cleared his throat to stop the two from continuing to bicker. Peter rolled his eyes shortly, before blowing off the small argument and waving Florence's insults away. Florence, on the other hand, made a mocking face to Peter behind his back which prompted Edmund to bite on his lip as to not to grin.

Eustace stuffed his notebook back into his pocket and looked over to his cousins and Caspian. 'What's our plan of action?' he asked them.

'Only way to get to the bottom of this is by travelling to the Western Wild,' Peter declared. 'I hope you're all good walkers, because it'll be a long journey.'

Behind the pillars of the arches, Aluna and Raiden were waiting together with other guards on orders from royalty if they decided to give them. Raiden's eyes lit up by the prospect of travelling beyond the Archenland borders and venturing out to the rest of the world. 'Aluna, we have to go with them,' he whispered to them. 'This is a once in a lifetime chance to go on an adventure with the Kings and Queen of Old.'

Aluna averted their gaze away from him. 'I'm not leaving Archenland,' they replied solemnly.

'Why not?' Raiden asked, concern lingering in the two-word question.

'This is my home. I need to stay here for if it needs protection. I will follow no other king or queen. I wish you luck on your quest, Raiden. May you create history and memories.'

Aluna strode forward, leaving their post, and bowed stiffly in front of Raiden; something they'd only do for royalty. A short smile greeted Raiden when they straightened their posture again, before they disappeared into the dark corridors of Anvard castle.

Raiden's gaze was stuck on Aluna as they walked away, until he heard Peter's already all too familiar call for the guards. He immediately perked up and rushed back onto the square, feeling secretly victorious when he was the first one to stand in front of the kings and Queen Lucy and bow for them.

Lucy began to smile once Raiden entered the courtyard. She recognised the glint in his eyes and she poked her elbow into her brother's side. 'Peter, we'll be travelling through Archenland's forest and mountain range. Don't you suppose we'd need a guide?' she asked him.

'I suppose so, yeah,' Peter said hesitantly.

'I happen to know a brilliant guide.' She looked over to Raiden, who was still bowing before them.

Peter glanced from Raiden to Lucy and back to Raiden. He'd seen the excitement that they shared as soon as Raiden had come into sight. 'Alright, he can be our guide,' he told her with a slight chuckle. 'We'll need a lot of supplies. Water, food, tents. It'll be a long journey to the Western Wild. . .'

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　　 𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐊𝐄𝐘𝐒 𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖𝐍 𝐓𝐎 be uncomfortable ways of travelling for witches and wizards. The sensation that it would leave the user was beyond unpleasant and could lead to serious nausea and worse. The swirling wind and bright colours of the portal seemed to be the least of the concern. The extreme tightness and the feeling of the body being squeezed into an inhuman form was what caused most people to opt for other travel options.

Victoria could barely breathe as the force of the Portkey pushed her organs into a line, her body stretching to twice her normal size. She felt like a two-dimensional character, drawn into someone's notebook whilst they had to listen to professor Dumbledore's lectures on Transfiguration. She eagerly awaited the moment Dumbledore would notice the sketch and bring it to life right in front of the class; the moment she herself would come back to life again.

The tingling feeling of life in her feet returned as soon as it hit the other opening of the portal. She tried with all her might to fall steady onto her feet, but the sheer force of the Portkey made her unable to and her knees buckled when the pressure was pulling her down to the ground. She gasped to fill her lungs with air and let go of her necklace.

Alexis, Kiano and Chrys came falling through the portal as well and landed with soft thuds around her. Leaves were ripped off the delicate trees by the strength of the Portkey's wind. The brightness appeared as lightning in the forest, illuminating it for only a second as the portal closed again and the wind died with it.

'Always a pleasure to travel by Portkey,' Chrys muttered and frantically pulled her hair from her mouth.

Victoria stood back on her feet and plucked the pine needles from her dress. This part of the forest wasn't as well kept as it was near the Anvard pass. 'It was either that or go with them as prisoners,' she said.

Alexis looked around to where the portal had landed them and was surprised to see the castle of Anvard through the thickly-grown foliage of pine trees. 'I don't understand. Why did you bring us here?' she asked curiously.

'Why take the lead and be hunted down by them when we can wait around to follow them?' Victoria answered and pulled her small pouch in front of her. The pouch was no bigger than the size of a large orange, though it could be loosened far enough for one to put their hand through the opening. The dark cherry wood colour of the fabric together with the small size of the pouch made it difficult to spot. A thin, black robe tied the fabric together and secured it around her shoulder where she'd pinned it to her dress so she could never lose it.

Every Bellicose member had one of these pouches. Kiano's was as dark as a moonless night, whereas Alexis' pouch was as vibrant as a summer's sun. Chrys' pouch tended to change colour. She never stuck to one colour, instead she changed the colour to that of the clothes she'd be wearing. Since she hadn't been able to adjust the hue, it still had the same soft-pink colour as the dress that she'd entered Narnia in.

'Besides,' she said, opening her pouch and sticking her hand in it. Her whole arm got swallowed into the pouch as she tried to reach for something. 'This gives me some time to create new wands for us.' She fished out a map of the Narnian world and knelt down on the ground where she cleared a small space of needles and cones. She rolled out the map while the other three surrounded her.

Kiano bowed himself over the map and pointed to the name 𝑊𝐸𝑆𝑇𝐸𝑅𝑁 𝑊𝐼𝐿𝐷 once he saw it. 'That's the place Peter mentioned they'd travel to.' His eyes scanned over the parchment, marking every mountain surrounding Archenland in his head. He envisioned a clear path on the map and how this path might look during their travel. The land of Telmar stood in the way between Archenland and the Western Wild, which was located in the North-West of Narnia. Only Telmar shared a border with the Western Wild, as from all other sides it was surrounded by unnamed waters.

'That is if you can trust him on his word,' Alexis scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest and slouching her shoulders.

Victoria's head shot up from the map. 'I do still think we can trust them,' she told her with slight intrigue in her voice. 'Fear impacts the brain in many ways. Some cannot think clearly anymore, others make less well-thought out decisions. Few can even paralyse from the fear, become completely numb or become in such a state of shock, they'll panic. Do not underestimate the effects of fear.'

Kiano patted Alexis' back a little too harshly which straightened her back and shoulders again. 'Never make me see you pout over a boy again,' he almost demanded from her in a stern voice. 'You're better than that.'

Alexis didn't hesitate to compose herself again before she smacked Kiano's arm with full force. 'Never hit me that hard again, you idiot,' she huffed, though a grin slowly crept on her and Kiano's face.

Chrys chuckled at the pair and stretched out her arms. 'So now we just wait?' she asked.

The corners of Victoria's lips curled up. 'Now we wait. . .' 

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Hii,

I'm back from Italy everyone! I've had a blast there, even though it was so warm I could barely do anything hahah. Are any of you going somewhere for your summer holidays or have you gone anywhere recently?

I don't really have anything to say, not going to lie lol

Thank you for reading xoxo
xo xo xo xo xo xo xo-

xx Theresa

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