(Untitled)

[kitchen_maid]

She'd been up in her room, with the chair under the doorknob again, warding spell or no warding spell, sitting in the window and staring out at the lake

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[young_tmriddle]

Tom approaches Amy right away. "Evening, Amy. Are you all right?"

[kitchen_maid]

Amy shakes her head. "No, not really," she says. "But I'm not hurt, or anything like that. I'm worried. How are you?"

She looks . . . tired. But she's calm. She will not be babbling tonight.

[young_tmriddle]

"Not as bad as you might think. The difficulties in London Below are now finished, thanks to my son's wizarding prowess. I haven't seen Caspian yet, but I wanted to ask you what you thought was off about him. What specifically made you notice?"

[kitchen_maid]

Amy is quiet for a long moment.

"Little things, really," she says, finally. "The speed and ease with which he dismissed the warning about Mrs. Rowlands, for one. A vagueness to his eyes, just slight, but not as clear as usual, or something. A flatness to high laugh, again, small but . . . I've heard my brother laugh, Tom. I've made my brother laugh. It wasn't right. There was a Wrongness to it, but only a the smallest of ones. Something there was not him, or some part of him was not there or something."

[deserved_it]

"Amy?"

Eustace noticed the dimming of her smile, not to mention the crow.

"Who's this?"

[kitchen_maid]

"Eustace," she says, "good evening. This is Peter Aurelious."

"Qwa," says the crow.

"He is keeping an eye on me, I think."

[deserved_it]

Eustace nods to Peter Aurelious. "Hullo, then."

And then raises his eyebrows at Amy. "Oh? Is he?"

[kitchen_maid]

"Yes. He tends to, when he deigns to come downstairs at all."

Amy studies her hands for a second, and then looks back up at Eustace.

"How are you this evening?"