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Lore had to agree with that and nodded, "Where do you think they'll be by this time?" he enquired curiously.

He didn't even know what time itw as, and he just realized it, thinking about it.

"Actually I don't even know what the time is."

Elnara headed over to the large window and opened it wide, then peered outside at the bright sunshine. Their room was in the east wing of the palace, and their view overlooked the city, as well as the ruins of the Old City in the distance.

"It looks to be about noon-ish," she murmured, closing her eyes and basking in the desert sun's warmth. "But Neko promised to wait for us with Nako in her study ... we should probably check there first. Hopefully they've already spoken with Sir Valdemar."

Elnara left the window wide open and turned around, smiling. "Yes," she agreed, heading over to pick up Hana. "I can take us a shorter way than Neko took us up here ... there are some things that children realize about castles that adults don't."

She winked at Lore and snuggled Hana close.

Elnara giggled. "Remember, there were nine of us running around," she reminded her husband. "Sure, Nako designed the palace, but in practice how much exploring would she have done?"

She bounced Hana a bit and headed towards the door. "Come on, you'll see - we'll make it back a lot faster than it took us to get here."

"Hm, not all of us," Elnara remembered. "Shea and Mikhail were too young, Mikhail couldn't even walk yet, as I recall. But yes, the rest of us had fun ... when we weren't in lessons."

She made sure the door was closed behind them (habit now after having two rambunctious infants crawling all over the house for a few months already) and headed down the hall in the opposite direction her grandfather had taken them in.

"Though to be honest, I don't think any of us ever found all of the secret passageways," she murmured. "Earendil believes he has found them all, but no one else would ever claim to even come close."

"It was," Elnara murmured, "for the month that I was here. My only thought was to keep my brothers preoccupied so that they would not mourn so much for our parents ... well, that and that I was going to somehow get out and find Mother on my own."

She blushed slightly, remembering how she had been at fourteen years of age. "I was brash."

Elnara's blush deepened, but she smiled up at Lore and moved to walk a bit closer to him, so that she could lean her head on his shoulder.

"I know," she murmured. "If anything had been different ... anything at all ... where would we be, you and I?"

She looked up at him, her eyes filled with warmth and love. "Everything that I've gone through ... it was all worth it ... to be with you ... the twins ... all of our children ... all of it."

Elnara's eyes shone brightly. "Exactly," she murmured happily.

She led them down a spiral staircase that seemed hidden (or rather, just off the main hallway, through a closed door, and thus out of the way and forgotten by most) and that went down to the main floor, where they came out just halfway down the hall to the study.

"See?" Elnara beamed, pleased that she had remembered correctly. "Just as I said."

In Lore's arms, Garrick began to fidget, twisting towards the ground as if he wanted to be put down.

"And just in time, it seems," Elnara giggled. "Maybe you should just hold his hands and let him try walking ... it will be slow, but maybe it will keep him happy."

After all, they couldn't just let him go crawling all over the place, not in the middle of the hallway, and not when they had a specific destination in mind.