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“You licked yours.”

“You’ve kissed me. You didn’t find my saliva disgusting then.” At least, she didn’t think he did. He seemed to enjoy kissing her well enough. But elves were apparently persnickety about things.

“It is supposed to be in your mouth. Not on your fingers.” Farrendel’s expression remained blank.

She had better cut off this line of thinking and fast. If she gave Farrendel too much time to think about it, he might never want to kiss her again. Kissing was something that only sounded good if one didn’t think about it too logically.

But then she finally noticed the twinkle in his eye.

He was joking with her. This joking, absurd side wasn’t something she saw in Farrendel often, and it had taken her a moment to recognize that’s what he was doing.

This was love. Not just the kissing and attraction, though that certainly was nice. But simply the fact that she enjoyed his company. This moment, walking through the market with him, was special and fun and different than anything she’d experienced with anyone else. When times got hard, this was what she’d choose to dwell on. Laughing with him. Smiling. Having fun together.

They only had a few more days. She drew in a breath at the pang deep in her chest. In two or three days, he had to return to Tarenhiel and go to war. Until that war was over, there would be very few days like this one.

The smile dropped from Farrendel’s face. “What is wrong?”

“I don’t want today to end. You’re going to be leaving for war, and...” She couldn’t finish. She didn’t want to lose this. Lose him. Not when they were building something real and deep and precious between them.

“Do not think about it.” Sticky hands and all, Farrendel stepped closer, though he didn’t touch her. “Do not let tomorrow spoil today.”

Wise words. She could usually push aside what-ifs. But this seemed bigger. Harder. The hurt deeper.

“All right.” She smiled and shoved away the worries. He was right. She would savor today. “Let’s sanitize our sticky fingers.”

AFTER ESSIE AND Farrendelwashed their hands, they browsed a few more aisles. They briefly stopped at the merchant selling Illyna’s elven shampoo and conditioner. The merchant was already nearly out and hoping for a new shipment to arrive quickly.

Next to that booth, Essie found one of the local coffee shops that had a booth with a selection of coffee, hot chocolate, tea, and mugs.

“We should pick out mugs we can take back to Estyra for hot chocolate there.” Essie dragged Farrendel into the booth to the mug display. “What one would you like?”

She already knew which one he’d pick. It was a deep blue fading to black at the rim, made of a thick ceramic.

Farrendel considered the mugs for a moment, before he gently picked up the dark blue mug she’d spotted. “We do not have a way to heat hot chocolate in our rooms in Estyra.”

“I have a plan for that.” Essie claimed a deep green ceramic mug that matched Farrendel’s blue one. “A small camp stove should do the trick until we can convince either an elf or human inventor to come up with a compact, magically-powered stove. If they can power trains through magic, surely someone can figure out how to power a small heating device. Lance Marion is the human inventor I was probably going to ask. He has a shop at the edge of Aldon, and he has worked with the Crown before. We can stop there before or after our ride since we probably want to have him start right away, considering you elves have a thing against fires in your treetops.”