The third time Ed and Peter nearly come to blows, and Lucy valiantly holds back tears as a child of her age should not be able to manage, Susan follows Edmund out to the gardens.

"I don't know what's wrong with us, Su," he says without looking at her, his head tipped back against the wall, the shadows running along his child's jaw in a way that makes her face recall the scrape of his stubble, back when he had to bend to embrace her.

"We used to be kings and queens," she says, sitting beside him, repressing the urge to spread invisible skirts, "and now we've crumbled back down to this, and have to make the best of it, and remember who we are."