Page 88 of The Hopeless Romantic’s Guide to Enchantment

Emma reached into the pocket of her travelling-dress, searching vainly for something that might save her life. Her fingers closed upon something wildly unsuitable. She pulled it free with a terrified laugh, and placed it in the creature’s out stretched hand.

“Here,” she urged him. “My fare, sir.”

Silence pressed in around them both, broken only by the soft tick-tick-tick of the pocket watch in its palm.

“Is that… really your fare?” the voice asked dubiously.

“It is round and metal,” Emma told him quickly. “And you see – it has a very elegant face.” A moment later, she drew herself up haughtily and added: “It spends quite well where I am from, I assure you.”

“Hm.” The voice still sounded uncertain.

“I begin to feel insulted,” Emma continued desperately. “Perhaps we should speak with the conductor—”

“No, no,” the voice spoke hastily. “That will not be necessary.” Suddenly, Emma became aware that the pocket watch had disappeared from its outstretched hand. “Please do enjoy your journey, madam.”

Emma’s limbs flooded with abject relief. Somehow, she kept herself from swaying on her feet. She glanced behind her at the cloaked figures in the passenger car, searching through them – but of course, Simon was nowhere among them.

“You said there will be supper in the parlour car?” she asked. “Where might I find it?”

This time, there was no response at all. But as Emma turned back, she saw that the wax figure had disap peared entirely, and the door beyond it had opened with invitation.

Emma, having no desire to linger, hurried through the door before someone else could think to stop her.

A sickly green haze swam up before her as she exited the car. Emma found herself standing outside on the gangway between cars – for some definition of the word ‘outside’, in any case. The trees that whipped past here seemed to have been carved from sharp obsidian; farther in the distance, she became aware of several impossibly tall black spires, piercing up through acid green clouds.

There was an uncomfortable stench on the air that she couldn’t begin to identify. In fact, as the skin of her face began to burn, Emma decided that holding her breath was the best course of action.

She dragged her hood down over her face – and dared to step across the gap between cars. She pried blindly at the door to the next car while coughing into her sleeve, hoping that no one had decided to lock it.

It took three very determined tugs – but finally, the door slid open, and Emma shoved her way into the next car.

The parlour car was brighter than the passenger car had been; each of the small side tables had been laid with a flickering blue lantern that set the interior swimming with a strange aurora of light. The effect was terribly disorienting – for a moment, in fact, Emma wondered whether she had stumbled into an underwater compartment. But while her steps felt dizzy and uncertain, the air was once again perfectly breathable.

The passengers here were more lively than those she’d passed before, all arranged in cushioned chairs around their tables. A woman with violet skin and robin’s-egg eyes had already downed several drinks of unknown origin, if the empty glasses next to her were any indication; her harsh voice slurred as she muttered to two living shadows in the seats across from her. Meanwhile, several women in Eastern dress with blue, frostbitten skin tittered with an elf who wore a yellow rose about his throat, in the style of a cravat. All of the faeries present, however, had devoted at least half of their attention to a visibly flustered figure standing at the back of the parlour car.

Simon Everly was not a terribly striking figure, especially when compared to the otherworldly audience before him. His dark hair was mussed to distraction, and his face had the sort of sharp angles which inspired accusations that he had surely buried himself in his books and forgotten to eat again. If he had been wearing any sort of travelling clothes, they were currently missing; for the moment, he was dressed down to a stiff-collared cotton shirt and woollen trousers.

His awkward, earnest smile stopped Emma in her tracks. An aching fondness stole her voice and weighed down her limbs as she stared at him, utterly thunderstruck.

After five years of desperate searching… here he was, standing before her. Everything from his tie pin to his rolled-up shirtsleeves to his warm, friendly voice was exactly as she remembered it. Exactly that, she realised: for Simon Everly had not aged a single day since last she’d seen him.

“—which is to say,” Simon told the crowd of faeries, “that your ideas of morality, while perfectly sensible in their own context, do not precisely match up to those of the English—”

“Oh, goodness,” said the elf with the rose cravat, “won’t you please address us as students, Professor Everly? We had hoped for an authentic English lecture! You must pretend that we are a class like any other.”

Simon blinked with owlish alarm. “Well, I… yes, of course. If that is your wish—”

“It is,” the elf replied eagerly. “Most assuredly. Treat us as the most boring English students you have ever had!”

Simon opened his mouth to reply – but as he did, the violet-skinned woman threw both of her arms up into the air, waving them about with drunken frustration. Simon shot her a worried expression. “Er… are you quite all right?” he asked her.

“I have a question,” the woman informed him firmly.

One of the shadows sitting across from her shivered oddly. Belatedly, Emma realised that it must be laughing.

“You… oh!” Simon offered her an encouraging smile. “You need only raise one hand, if you have a question,” he informed her gently.

The faerie woman scowled at him. “Perhaps I have two questions,” she challenged him.