He heard Ellie and Rafiq talking, then his rascal brother emerged from hiding, wearing a mocking grin. Something sprayed, and a lovely scent replaced the sulphur stink. Omar heard Ellie shuffling. He looked down at himself and tugged the robe to cover his bare chest. No matter what he did or said, this would be embarrassing for her. There was no getting around that.
Maybe if he looked relaxed and okay with it, as if girls emerged from under his bed every morn—No, wait, not that! How about if he looked grateful that she’d come to rescue him . . . which he was. He carefully lay down flat on the bed with his face at the edge . . . and immediately knew he’d done the wrong thing. But pretty much anything he did would be the wrong thing. At this point, he could only try to make her feel as comfortable as possible. If that were possible.
His heart pounded in his chest, and his mouth went dry as he watched her decidedly feminine figure emerge feet-first from beneath his bed. Things like this simply didn’t happen to him—a beautiful girl under his bed, the very girl he had wished for years to know but was always too shy to approach. He wasn’t altogether certain yet that he wasn’t dreaming, particularly when Ellie turned her tousled head and looked directly into his eyes.
Instead of stammering as he’d expected, he spoke with apparent confidence. Maybe her disheveled state and evident embarrassment served to level the playing field? Her horrified expression worried him. What was she thinking? Did he look that bad? His heart pounded like a drum in his chest, but the need to set her at ease gave him a voice. “It’s remarkable how you can revive cinder sprites.”
She released a little gasp. “I am so sorry! I didn’t know you were in here,” she said, her voice tremulous, her cheeks bright pink and smudged with dust. “I had no idea!” She shoved shoes onto her bare feet, shoes made of clear glass like the sprite cage beside her on the floor. Her feet and ankles were very pretty. So was the rest of her.
“I arrived during the night,” he explained. The sunlight falling through the window turned Ellie’s hair to silvery gold. Gazing at her, Omar felt almost poetic, a strange sensation for a mathematician. Sadly, nothing poetic came out of his mouth. Rita climbed onto his back and tugged at his hair, which was distracting, not to mention painful, but he maintained focus. “Next thing I knew, I had kids bouncing on my back.” He propped up on his elbows and reached one hand to loosen Rita’s grasp on his hair. “So, how did a cinder sprite get in here?”
Ellie opened her mouth, but Rafiq spoke first. “It was Karim’s idea. After breakfast we found the mother and her babies running around in the garden.”
“There was nobody else around,” Karim added, “and they looked scared.”
“We put them in a bucket and brought them inside to take care of them,” Yasmine contributed. “They were so sweet! We didn’t know they would catch fire.”
“There was more than one in the suite?” Omar asked, looking to Ellie for confirmation. Her mouth still hung open, and her eyes were wide. His plan to soothe her fears didn’t seem to be working.
She stopped gaping at him long enough to answer: “Yes, but only one in here. It must have squeezed under the door. I was preparing to leave when I heard it squeak and ignite.”
“Oof!” he grunted. Rita had flopped down hard on his back, driving the air from his lungs. Enough of that. He quickly sat upright and crossed his legs, dragging his baby sister around to perch on one knee. She protested, then squirmed away and stood behind him, wrapping her little arms around his neck and shoving him forward. While doubled over, he got a close look at his sea-monster-covered pajama legs and died a little inside. If asked at that moment, Omar might have traded away one or two younger siblings for a monkey.
“The sprites ran all over the sitting room,” Karim was saying. “They squeaked like this—” He performed an excellent imitation. “And they went ‘poof’ and Ellie had to spray ’em before the whole castle burnt down. You missed seeing all the fun.”
“Oh, not all of it,” he said, then realized how that might be interpreted and nearly choked. The pink in Ellie’s cheeks spread over her entire face as she stuffed her gloves into her pack. Had he blown it completely? Her hands trembled, but she didn’t seem angry or disgusted. Hope revived.
Karim scampered from the room, practicing his sprite calls.
“My baby one burnded up.” Tugging at his robe, Rita spoke directly into Omar’s ear, her lips wet and tickling. He cringed. “But Ellie says he’s all right. She scoopded him up and put him in a box.”
“And just now she scooped up the one from under your bed,” Rafiq said. “It was all gooey and stinky.”
Yasmine spoke quietly from her perch on a chair near the door, her eyes wide and serious. “If Ellie hadn’t come in and put out the fire it made, you might have died.”
“But all is well now, and I will send the sprites away to a safe place where they won’t harm anyone,” Ellie said, mostly to the children. Her soothing voice flowed over Omar’s spirit like warm honey. Then she looked up at him, all business again, with a worried crease between her brows. “I haven’t seen their nanny all morning.”
He shrugged. “I would have said Rafiq was old enough to watch the little ones, but it seems I would have been wrong.”
Rafiq glowered. “I didn’t know sprites were dangerous,” he mumbled.
“Though you have been told many times every summer not to approach wild animals, particularly not magical creatures.” Omar spoke without removing his gaze from Ellie’s pale face while she scooted over to spray the burned sheet with a bottle of magical liquid. As the linen fabric mended itself, a fragrance reminiscent of a summer evening beside the lake replaced the scorched scent. Ellie looked up, caught his gaze, and blushed again. Quickly she turned back to her pack.
Rafiq scrambled to his feet and left the room in a huff, mumbling under his breath.
“Miss Ellie,” Omar said, hoping she might look at him again, “I apologize for causing you extra trouble. I shouldn’t have slept in so late. Usually Asmaa, the nanny, can keep this little mob under control, but obviously she needed help this morning.”
Her gaze flashed up to meet his. “I don’t blame you. But whatever will your parents say about . . . about this?” She waved one hand vaguely, but he knew what she meant.
“You saved the day,” he said firmly, “and that is all we will tell them.”
He held her gaze for a golden moment, but then her lips set in a firm line and she focused on stuffing her spray bottles into her pack. She was not her usual confident, competent self. His hope slipped again. Did she like him at all, or was he upsetting her?
Yasmine abruptly rushed from the room. He caught a glimpse of his little sister’s expression and wondered what had upset her.
“Yasmine, wait!” Rita shouted in his ear, then lost her balance and nearly pulled Omar over by the neck of his robe in her hurry to follow her sister. He quickly grabbed her arms and helped her slide safely off the bed. She landed on her backside anyway, then rolled over, pushed herself up, and ran into the hallway, shouting “My sprite! My sprite!” in a squeaky voice.
Aware that the dream was about to end, Omar slid off the bed and adjusted his robe just as Ellie scrambled to her feet. She looked up, stammered “Th-thank you,” and fled, her glass shoes clopping on the hardwood floor.
Omar snatched up her forgotten pack and followed close behind, his bare feet padding silently. “Thank you again for saving us all,” he said, aware that he sounded foolish but unable to stop himself. “Miss Ellie, please . . .”
She took the pack from him with lowered eyes and mumbled thanks, slung it over her shoulder, then paused inside the suite’s entry door to stack glass boxes in her arms. Now that sprites filled them, they no longer fit into her pack.
“If you’ll wait a moment while I change, I can help you carry them down,” Omar said. Any excuse for more time with her.
“Oh, don’t bother,” she said shortly. “I’ve carried more cages than this before.”
“It’s no bother at all,” he began, just as the lock rattled and the door swung open to reveal the children’s nanny, her gray hair in a tangle, her expression both angry and worried.