“You’ve never been more beautiful,” he murmurs, and she can feel the desperate desire in his hands as they push back the hair blowing in her face, cradling her head in his palms as though he can hold her mind there with him, on the shores of Aslan’s Country, for always.

But he can’t; she knows it, sure as she knows the feel of Aslan’s breath warm on the back of her neck, as she knows the weight of Ed’s gaze, the cool clear blue of the waters, pristine at her feet.

So she breathes in deep, the scent of this liminal place filling her, tying itself to him, inextricable until the end of her days, and presses her forehead to his, feeling their breath mingle; turns away before she can ruin the moment with weeping, the only thought she can manage echoing empty in her head: Just because a thing is doomed doesn’t make it any less real.