Page 90 of The Hopeless Romantic’s Guide to Enchantment

“I have come all this way,” Emma told him softly. “Not out of academic curiosity – but for some other loco-motive. Do you understand my meaning?”

Simon tensed further against her hand. Several times over the course of his visits to their home, he had engaged Emma in battles of wordplay; each time, he had made a strong showing, but had ultimately come away defeated.

“If you are the Em that I know,” he replied slowly, “then you have clearly been train-ing in my absence.”

A flicker of giddy relief coiled in Emma’s throat at the response. His hand was warm and reassuring against the numbing mist that surrounded them – and while she might have been indulging wistful memories a bit too much, she swore that she had caught a familiar whiff of ink off of his skin.

I have found you, she thought. Now I know that I have truly found you.

“My conduct has been impeccable, I assure you,” she told him. “Not that anyone has been keeping track.”

Simon’s wary expression melted into a soft, helpless smile. There was a touch of genuine affection in that look – the sort that had always made Emma’s heart ache with longing, though she knew that it was nothing like the affection she would have preferred from him.

“All of this seems to have terribly derailed your plans,” he observed quietly. A heavy sigh followed, and she knew that he was already half-convinced. “Will you… tell me something that only Emmeline would know?”

Emma glanced away from him. “I once asked you to marry me,” she murmured. “You rejected me far more kindly than I deserved. I do not think you ever told anyone else that I had asked.”

Somehow, she felt the expression of awful sympathy that Simon offered her, though she could not bring herself to look at him. She wondered if he still remem bered what his exact response had been; surely, it had been less consequential to him than it had been to her.

“Ah, Em,” he had said. “I am so very fond of you. Why, if only you were five years older, I would marry you in a heartbeat.”

If all went well, she thought, then he would never need to remember that response at all. Perhaps – if she was very fortunate – they would reach the next stop without further trouble, and the words would stay safely forgotten.

“Oh, Em,” Simon said softly. “You should not be here, rescuing me from my own mistakes. I cannot believe that Isaac let you onto this train.”

Emma swallowed down a knot. “You seem to believe that it was his choice at all,” she said. “I would never have left you here while I had any power to bring you back – I would feel your absence forever. You may go back to England, Simon, I don’t care; you may never speak to me again. All of that is still better than knowing that you are nowhere at all.”

Simon absorbed the words in silence. Emma kept her eyes cast safely down to her lap, so that she would not be obliged to see his reaction to them.

“I should have expected that time might pass more quickly,” he said finally. “But Em… there is a far more pressing problem. Only one of us has the right to be here at all. The Conductor invited me onto this train; as such, I am protected by the laws of hospitality until the stop at Gare du Nord. I must assume that you were not invited. If the faeries here should discover you…”

Emma dared to look back up at him. “That was a danger,” she admitted. “But I paid my fare, and the little wax man accepted what I gave him. Surely, that will keep me safe?”

Simon grimaced. “It will do until the next stop, at the very least,” he agreed. “But we must get you off this train as soon as possible.” He now spoke with what Emma termed to be his ‘professor’ voice – firm and deliberate, with the implicit assumption that he was the most responsible man in the room.

Emma raised her eyebrows at him. “My dear Simon,” she said. “I hope that you have not mistaken the situation. I am here to rescue you, and not the other way around. I came here with full knowledge of the danger. We must both step off this train at the very next stop – but we will make that happen together.”

Emma had expected a certain amount of stubborn resistance to this idea. Instead, to her surprise, Simon studied her consideringly. “That is… entirely fair,” he admitted. “Please accept my apologies, Em. I am adjusting to a lot of changes in rather a hurry. When you were younger, I felt responsible for your wellbeing. But we are nearly of an age now; if I am free to make my own choices, then certainly you are free to do so, too.”

The observation abruptly punctured Emma’s rising belligerence, leaving her hopelessly bewildered. Worse, she realised: She was falling in love with the poor man all over again. How dare he be so kind and sensible and conscientious? It was terribly unfair of him, especially while he still held her hand with such familiarity.

“Professor Everly? Are you in here somewhere?” A voice floated through the car, bouncing strangely in the fog. Emma thought it must belong to the elf with the rose cravat.

Simon glanced sharply back the way that they had come. His grip shifted to Emma’s arm, holding there as though he intended to keep her behind him. After a moment’s calculation, however, he rose silently to his feet and tugged her after him towards the far end of the silver benches.

“I believe that we have finally agreed upon a compromise!” the elf called helpfully. “We shall have the lecture now in Japanese, while the students respond in Welsh!”

Simon ignored the elf. Instead, he pulled open the door at the end of the car, preparing to spirit them both through it.

This time, however, it was instantly clear that they could not continue. The gangway at the end of this car led only to the tender car, where all of the train’s fuel was kept. No door opened into that other car; rather, there was a ladder leading up to the top of it.

Simon coughed on a very ungentlemanly word, as he realised there would be no escape in this direction. Emma hauled them both back inside, before their skin could burn too badly.

“Do you know how long we have before the next stop?” she wheezed at Simon. He caught her against him as she wavered on her feet, holding her up with one arm firmly wrapped around her waist.

“I haven’t the foggiest idea,” he mumbled back. “But clearly, we cannot hide forever.” He forced himself to straighten, looking back towards the parlour car. “It seems that we shall have to improvise.”

Simon strode back for the parlour car with such unexpected determination that Emma stumbled as she tried to keep up with him.