Ellie and the Prince (Faraway Castle #1)(12)

“I agree with you, but many regular guests to Faraway Castle insist that the sirens remain. Want to know a secret? Their singing gives me a headache.”

“I thought only men could hear them,” Aisosa said.

“I have a little bit of magic, so sometimes I can hear them too. But to me they sound like buzzing hornets.”

The little princess laughed. By the time Ellie dropped Aisosa off at the docks, they were fast friends. “I feel happier now,” the girl told her as she climbed off the scooter. “I think I’ll keep trying to water ski, even if I don’t like it much. Rafiq likes to ski.”

“His brother Omar used to be amazing on skis and wakeboard,” Ellie said without thinking. She hastily added, “Taim and Layla are great skiers too.”

Oh dear. She sounded as if she knew the family personally.

“You’re awfully nice.” Aisosa had a dazzling smile.

“Thank you,” Ellie said with genuine warmth. “I think you’re pretty awesome too. See you later!”

As she headed back out on patrol, Ellie kicked herself for the slip. For all her magical gift of speech, she had the most trouble keeping control of ordinary words.



On her second day of lake duty, Ellie saw the Zeidan children, along with Aisosa and two of her younger siblings, playing in the water at the beach, which was roped off as a safe area. Ellie scanned the shore eagerly but saw only the nanny seated under a tree with Rita. No sign of the Zeidan parents.

Or of Omar.

She was disappointed. But, she acknowledged to herself, Omar’s absence made it easier to concentrate on her work. She needed to get all these silly thoughts about him out of her head anyway.

Around midmorning, while skimming along the north shore of the island, Ellie saw a scaly something floating on the surface. Curious, she slowed down to move closer. It was long and thin, much longer than she’d first guessed. Much, much longer. And were those . . . spikes? The lake serpent! It must be sunning itself.

Just as she decided to back off and sneak away, the creature suddenly sank beneath the surface, and her scooter spun helplessly about on the waves.

Heart pounding in her throat, she resumed her patrol, but her thoughts were scrambled. The serpent had never harmed anyone, so far as she knew, but once she had seen it threaten a guest—Omar, actually—and that memory lingered, sometimes in her nightmares.

After that alarming event, the morning was uneventful. Sometime after her lunch break, she was trolling along the northeast shore when screams and shouts reached her ears. They seemed to come from within a small bay, so Ellie gunned her engine and followed the noise.

Among some reeds near the shore, she saw a man in a wetsuit. He appeared to be dragging a small rowboat occupied by three boys, hauling it by its mooring line while they desperately tried to row in the opposite direction. One of the two larger boys stopped rowing to attack him with an oar, but the man caught it and yanked it from his hands. She heard the rumble of the man’s voice and saw him snatch something from another boy and throw it onto the nearby bank. The boys were panicked while the man remained eerily calm.

What could she do? She carried no weapons, and that man was big. Her voice was her only weapon. Using it on guests was forbidden . . . but this was an emergency.

As she cautiously approached, the smallest boy, a freckled redhead, called out to her in his treble voice. “Help! Thief! He’s stealing our things!”

“It’s just a girl,” snapped the other redhead, who had to be his older brother. “What could she do to help, idiot?”

Just as Ellie drew breath and opened her mouth, the man said, “Stealing? I took away your fishing poles.” He turned to Ellie. “They were fishing.”

“We only want catfish and panfish,” the biggest boy said, shoving lanky black hair from his face. “We aren’t hurting anything.”

“You think catfish and panfish don’t feel pain?” The man glowered as if the fish were his personal friends. Now she could see that he was young, early twenties at most, with wide shoulders and a rangy build, a short beard, buzz-cut hair, and sunblock on his nose.

Ellie put her scooter into idle and let it drift closer. “The rule is no fishing, with no exceptions,” she told the boys, then gave the man a curious look. “Are you new here, sir?”

“I stayed at the resort twice before, most recently six years ago.” He kept his focus on the boys.

Six years ago? That would have been her first summer at Faraway Castle. He didn’t look familiar.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Torbjorn. I’m from Hyllestad.”

His tone was polite but distant. Guests were often haughty in their manner toward staff members. This guy just seemed distracted.

“I thank you for rescuing the resort’s fish,” she said. “If you would hand over the boys’ fishing gear, I will take it to the office for proper disposal and alert the director to this misconduct.” Still seated on her idling scooter, she pulled a pad and pen from a waterproof compartment under her seat then fixed her gaze on the boys. “Names, please.”

The boys mumbled their names, spelling them when necessary. She’d been right—the redheads were brothers, and all three were lords’ sons from Rathvilly. Then Torbjorn waded out waist-deep and passed their gear to Ellie, who stowed the small tackle box in her storage compartment and laid the fishing poles across her lap.