Gnawing on my lip, I added, “If you haven’t shelved your offer, I’d like to take you up on it.”
“My offer?”
I grimaced. “To stay together.”
A smug smile tugged at his mouth. “Whatever changed your mind,prinsisa?”
I almost wanted to take it back.Almost. But a distant howl cemented my desire not to trek through this land alone. “I don’t want to die, and if that means sticking to you for the next few hours”—or days . . . hopefully hours—“then so be it.”
He studied me a moment before backing up some more. “Don’t stick too close.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. So what’s the plan?”
“Not getting eaten bylupa.”
“Besides that and reaching the portal?”
He took in the mountain and the tunnel running through it. “We need to see where the tracks lead.”
How could we when a pack of rabid wolves guarded the entrance like some fae-version of Cerberus?
An idea surfaced. “The train. It shook.”
“You don’t say.”
I rolled my eyes. “What I meant is, it’s not stuck to the tracks, so maybe it works.”
Surprise sculpted the line of his jaw. Ha! He hadn’t thought of that.Ten points to Amara. Zero to Remo.Okay, half a point for saving my ass earlier.
“You might be onto something.” He gestured to the platform with a flourish. “After you.”
“Coward,” I muttered.
“You mean, chivalrous?”
I glared at him, which just made his smirk grow.
“Fine. I’ll go first.” I kneeled and then slid myself back down toward the window, praying the wolf wasn’t waiting quietly inside.
I probably should’ve checked before threading my legs through the opening. Apparently, my survival instincts were underdeveloped. Back in Linus’s day, it was tradition for royal fae on the brink of adulthood to trek across Neverra alone and without the use of any of their powers. Although my aunt’s account had made me grateful Iba had abolished the tradition, the initiatory voyage might’ve served me well.
Thankfully, the conductor wagon was empty. I tried the door again, but it was jammed open.
The train dipped as Remo vaulted through the window and touched down next to me.
There were two levers on the conductor’s dashboard. Unfortunately, there were no plaques nailed beside either to explain what they did, and a scan of the cramped quarters revealed no instruction booklet. I sighed. They were probably just inoperable props. I wrapped my hand around one anyway, then gave a hard shove. The lever glided as smoothly as a Daneelie through water.
“Trifecta, don’t touch—” Remo’s command was interrupted by a deafening clank: the door smacking shut.
My heart fired up again. “At least, we know how to close the door now.”
Remo grumbled something under his breath. Although I didn’t make out his words, his incendiary stare gave me the gist of them. Before he could holler at me again, or grump out some more, I pushed the second lever up. A shrieking whistle tore out of the chimney, followed by a torrent of steam.
We were on our way!Skies knows where. All I prayed for was that it would belivelier,and by that I meant populated by humans instead of overzealous wolves or animate blooms.
The train shook hard, as though the wolves were throwing themselves at it, but didn’t chug down the tracks.
Remo gripped the door lever and tried to shove it down, but it didn’t move. Muscles bulging underneath his navy tunic, precariously stretching the fabric, he tried the second lever, but it, too, didn’t budge. Perhaps the person who’d activated the train was the only one capable of stopping it? I gave both levers a violent tug.Useless.
