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Where was he? Surely he hadn’t fallen out the window or something ignoble like that. This was Farrendel. He could put a cat to shame with his balance.

Essie glanced from the open window to the door. Should she go look for him?

There was a scraping sound outside the window, then Farrendel swung through feet first, landing gracefully on his bunk, hunched in the tight space.

“How...where...” Essie shook her head. She couldn’t even manage to get the questions out.

He shut the window and dropped to the floor. “I was on the top of the train. It is getting light, and I did not want to be seen. Your soldiers might think elves were attacking the royal train.”

“They might be trigger happy, that’s for sure.” Essie eyed him. He didn’t look any worse for the wear, even though he’d been doing his flipping, spinning exercises on the top of the fast-moving train. She didn’t know how it was even possible.

Even after whipping about in the wind, his hair floated in perfect, unfrizzy strands down his back. Elven conditioner was truly magical stuff. Though her red hair was making it work hard. Her hair was still decently sleek this morning, and after traveling all day and sleeping on an unfamiliar bunk, that was amazing.

She stepped closer and gave him a short kiss. More a peck, really. “Good morning, by the way. You must have slept decently well. You didn’t have a nightmare last night. First time in three days.”

“Yes.” Farrendel rested his hands lightly on her waist and gave her a longer kiss.

She smiled as she kissed him back. As long as she and Farrendel kept choosing each other, they would be fine.

After a few moments, she stepped back and patted his chest. “Edmund tends to be an early riser as well and will probably have breakfast laid out in the sitting room already.”

Farrendel straightened at the mention of food and grabbed his silver, formal clothing from his bag before he wedged himself into the tiny water closet attached to the sleeping compartment to change and clean up after exercising.

Essie quickly changed into her new, dark green dress, leaving her hair loose. In the mirror, the green of the dress set off the flaming red of her hair. It almost made her want to switch into a different dress or pin up her hair to hide most of it. She shouldn’t feel this self-conscious about her hair. Especially when she was only meeting her family today, not the full Escarlish court.

In the mirror, Farrendel appeared behind her, his gaze focused on her rather than their reflections. He ran a lock of her hair through his fingers. “You were correct. Green brings out the vibrant color of your hair.”

“It isn’t too red, is it?” Essie grimaced at her reflection. The freckles across her nose were more prominent in the morning light.

Farrendel’s gaze snapped up to meet hers in their reflections, a furrow on his brow. “No. It is pretty.”

If he’d said it in a swoony tone, she might have doubted him. But his tone was so matter of fact, as if there wasn’t any other opinion to be had besides pretty, that she couldn’t doubt his assessment.

She leaned back against him, his hands on her shoulders. This was nice. It almost made her want to skip breakfast.

Except that her stomach made a loud grumbling noise, making Farrendel smile.

She turned to the door. “How come your stomach isn’t growling? You’re probably hungrier than I am, considering you usually eat breakfast long before now.”

He reached the door first and opened it. “It stopped an hour ago.”

In other words, he’d been up so long, his stomach had given up rumbling a long time ago.

In the sitting room, they found toast, jam, eggs, and sausages laid out on the table while Edmund lounged on one of the benches, reading what looked like that morning’s newspaper. One of the guards must have retrieved it when the train stopped for water and coal earlier that morning. He glanced at them over the top of the paper. “Morning.”

“Anything interesting in the news?” Essie picked up two plates, handed one to Farrendel, and started dishing food onto hers.

Edmund turned a page and flapped it to straighten the paper. “Just a headline about the visit of elven royalty and competing editorials either in favor of the closer ties with the elves or protesting it. Nothing they haven’t already printed a dozen times over since your marriage.”

There was something to Edmund’s tone. He wasn’t telling her everything.

But she didn’t want to press him for details now. She’d rather focus on being reunited with her family and properly introducing them to Farrendel. The grim realities of trying to stop another war from sparking, the impending war between the elves and trolls, the traitors in Escarland and Tarenhiel, the reaction of Escarland’s people, could all wait until later.

She took a seat on the bench with a table in front of her. After thoroughly inspecting the food, Farrendel picked out a slice of toast, a piece of sausage, and eggs. When he sat beside her, he still eyed his food suspiciously.

Had he ever eaten hot food for breakfast? Elves tended to only eat a hot meal once a day for dinner in the evening.

The door at the far end of the car opened, briefly letting in the louder sound of the rushing wind and clacking wheels, before Jalissa stepped inside.