Ellie and the Prince (Faraway Castle #1)(9)

“E-Ellie,” she stuttered. “And I spilled lemonade down your back. Don’t you feel it?”

His eyes went wide. At eighteen he had looked more boyish, but those eyes had been just as devastating. “Uh, yes, I guess I do feel rather damp.” He asked for her towel, and she watched helplessly as he reached over his shoulder and tried to soak up the sticky juice. The princess took the towel from him and rubbed at the places he couldn’t reach, talking all the while about the stupid, clumsy girl who had ruined his fine dress coat. But Omar frowned, took the towel back, and stood up in that narrow space. “Here.” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat, holding out the towel. “I think I . . . I mean . . . Thank you, Miss Ellie.”

Then he had stood there looking down at her.

And she had stood there looking up at him.

Remembering this, Ellie smiled and shook her head. Now she realized how bashful and embarrassed he had been. And how completely he had ignored that princess and his brother .

During the six years since she first laid eyes on him, Ellie had told herself countless times not to be a fool—Omar was a prince. But every year when his family arrived at the resort in late June, she had sighed and dreamed of him. Many times he had smiled shyly at her and sent her heart and head spinning—but today marked the first time she had spoken with him since the lemonade incident.

Her position as magical-wildlife controller had finally brought her into his charmed circle but was unlikely to do so twice. In years to come she would cringe over the memory of thanking him . . . for what? For being incredibly hot and allowing her to stare at him? What must he have thought? Her face burned all over again. She looked at herself in the bathroom mirror and watched the blush spread.

“Enough obsessing over the unattainable,” she said firmly, pointing the comb at her reflection. A pink face was no better than a pale one, but at least her hair no longer looked ashen. “Time for work.”

She checked on the new sprites before heading outside. The babies, fully recovered, now snuggled up to their sweet little mother. “It wasn’t your fault you were inside the castle,” Ellie assured her. “You can return to the garden if you like.”

Sensing only uncertainty from the tired little sprite, she spoke a soothing farewell. “Everybody relax, and I’ll see you later!”



Ellie spent the misty afternoon helping her friend Rosa, Faraway Castle’s head gardener, catch another imp in the kitchen garden. She first talked the magical trap into appearing harmless and cozy like a pile of compost—an imps’ favorite nest—then, at Rosa’s suggestion, she baited it with baby lettuces.

“Imps usually eat insect larvae, so I rarely disturb them, but lately they’ve taken to devouring my greens,” Rosa explained. “I could probably eliminate them myself, but your live-trap methods are kinder.”

While Ellie finished setting the trap, she pondered Rosa’s possible methods for eradicating imps. Might she set her tiger lilies on their trail? A frightful thought! Rosa, only seventeen, had advanced to the position of head gardener for good reason. Chuck and Tasha, a pair of dwarfs who’d worked in the garden since before Ellie first came to Faraway Castle, occasionally dropped hints about their young supervisor, implying that she had more ability with plants than anyone else suspected and praising her to the skies.

“Why so mopey today?” Rosa’s voice interrupted Ellie’s thoughts as they exited the kitchen garden and descended a trellis-covered stairway into a lush topiary collection. Rosa brushed her hand over the leafy wing of a topiary heron.

Ellie blinked. Had she really seen the heron bob its head? No, it was just a beautifully trimmed boxwood shrub.

Rosa gave her a sly glance. “My guess is boy trouble.”

Ellie smiled. “I don’t spend enough time with boys to have any trouble. What boy would I want?”

Rosa’s lips curled into a wise smile. “One you cannot have, of course.”

“You know too much,” Ellie retorted in a teasing tone, “which is dangerous—especially for someone as mysterious as you are. Jeralee and I ought to spy on you again in retaliation.”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” Rosa said quickly, and her glance held . . . fear? Regret?

“No worries,” Ellie assured her with a rush of guilt. “I haven’t the time to be nosy these days.”

Why was Rosa so secretive? She had brilliant skill with plants and worked longer hours than the rest of the staff. She was sweet, occasionally witty, and quiet. Other than her Evoran accent, she offered no clues about her past, and she always dressed in unflattering work clothes and wore her hair in a long braid down her back. Since the day she first arrived at Faraway Castle two years ago, the girl hadn’t left the grounds for longer than an hour or two.

She was a mystery.

At present, however, Ellie didn’t have a brain cell free for wondering about Rosa’s secrets. Her own life was complicated enough.

“Since I’m here, I might as well make myself useful. Where shall I work this afternoon?” she asked.

The girls were trimming shrubbery when Ellie sensed her trap snapping shut. A high-pitched scream rolled down the hillside from the kitchen garden. “Caught it!” She dropped her shears and started off at a run, with Rosa close behind.

The imp stamped around inside the cage, shaking its fists and undoubtedly swearing in its high-decibel language. “You’re a girl, aren’t you?” Ellie commented as she gently tipped the furious creature into one of her glass cages. “I wonder if I don’t have your mate locked up in my room.”