Paegeia

Paegeia is both the setting for Elena’s life with Lucian and a kingdom whose borders are crossed through a vast network of Enchanted elevators. Its political arrangements reach into private life: a pact between its two ruling kings ties the future of the royal children to a plan for uniting the kingdom under one ruling family, placing Lucian and Elena’s relationship under the shadow of a marriage arranged for dynastic purposes.

Travel and the Kingdom’s Borders

Paegeia’s Enchanted elevators distinguish between movement within the kingdom and travel beyond it. White tubes serve local destinations anywhere inside Paegeia and can be used by humans as well as others; green tubes lead out of the kingdom. Their scale makes the system part of everyday infrastructure rather than a rare magical passage: Lucille explains that Paegeia has more than five thousand elevators.

Crossing out of Paegeia also entails formal controls. Dragons from the kingdom must be registered before entering the world on the other side, and they carry passports and identification issued by other countries in case they need to prove who they are. The system therefore joins magical transportation to administrative requirements, making passage across the border both convenient and regulated.

Royal Politics and Personal Consequences

Paegeia’s rulers have made a pact intended to reunite the kingdom under one ruling family. Made when the Prince and Princess were children, the agreement commits them to marry; Lucian is consequently expected to marry Arianna Kinsley after graduating from Dragonia Academy in two years. The arrangement turns the kingdom’s political ambitions into a direct constraint on his private life.

That future helps explain the strain between Lucian and Elena. Although she cannot imagine life without him, Elena knows that his parents have not approved of their relationship and that the royal marriage arrangement threatens its continuation. Even their summer time together is limited: after returning from the Quest to Find the Lion King's Sword, they struggle to see one another, and Lucian’s parents take him on a two-week family vacation near The Wall, where poor reception prevents them from speaking by phone. Paegeia’s political reach is thus felt not only in royal plans but in the lovers’ ordinary attempts to remain in contact.

A Connected but Distinct World

Paegeia’s elevator network presents it as a place connected to destinations beyond its borders without erasing the distinction between the kingdom and the outside world. The green tubes offer a route outward, but registration and foreign identification accompany the dragons who cross. Meanwhile, the local white tubes serve routine travel within the kingdom, including travel by humans. Together, these details establish a world where magical mobility has an organized infrastructure and where crossing between realms is a recognizable, regulated act.