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Farrendel didn’t resist as Lord Bletchly pressed a rag over his mouth and nose. He met and held Essie’s gaze.

Essie blinked, trying to keep her eyes open. Heaviness filled her arms, her legs.

She was being dragged through a doorway. Lord Bletchly hauled Farrendel after her, keeping the rag over his face. The lord patted Farrendel down, removing knives from each of Farrendel’s boots.

She was on the floor, blinking up at the man standing over her. Light brown hair, a slim face.

Mark Hadley. There was something significant about the fact that he was standing there. But she couldn’t...quite...

Sleepy...dizzy...blackness...

HER HEAD POUNDED. Essiegroaned and tried to find a more comfortable position on her pillow.

Except that her head wasn’t resting on her pillow. It was thunking against something hard in time with a clatter that almost sounded like...

Train wheels.

Essie blinked and pushed herself onto her elbows. Her head spun at the movement, her stomach lurching. She barely swallowed back the bile in time to keep from hurling the contents of her stomach onto the freight car’s wooden floor. Still, the bile provided some relief in her far too dry mouth.

The train boxcar clattered again as its wheels rattled from one section of rail to the next, thumping her body up and down on the floor. Wind whistled through the cracks in the slatted wall, shivering against her skin.

She still wore her green silk dress, gloves up to her elbows, and dancing slippers on her feet. Patting her leg, she located the derringer still strapped to her calf. They must not have searched her thoroughly, not expecting a princess would be carrying a weapon.

Drawing in a deep breath to try to calm her nauseous stomach and hammering head, she pushed all the way to a sitting position and, slowly so as not to cause another wave of dizziness, studied her surroundings.

In front of her, the train car was dark and empty. Not even a pebble or a spare crate that could be turned into a weapon if her derringer’s one shot wasn’t enough. At least her hands were free. Maybe she could pry a loose board from the floor or the slats. Not that any piece of wood rotted enough to break off would be much use as a weapon, but it would be a distraction if thrown at someone’s face.

A muffled groan came from behind her. She eased around as fast as she could in the shaking train with her head swirling and aching.

Farrendel lay curled on his side on the train floor, his back to her. Blood puddled on the wooden floor beneath his shackled wrists.

“Farrendel!” Essie crawled across the train car until she reached his side. She rested a hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right? Are you awake?”

He gave another small groan, curling and uncurling before he blinked up at her. “Help me up.”

With his hands shackled behind his back, he couldn’t push upright by himself. She heaved him upright and helped him shift back until he leaned against the wall of the train car.