Page 47 of The Fae Girl 1

“What about?” Jelric asked.

Nela shrugged. “She won’t say but she wakes up screaming and sweating. The maid, Mira, told us she’s done it every night here although she doesn’t always wake up and she doesn’t always remember it.”

“Interesting.” Jelric said more to himself.

“Is it?” I asked him. “It sounds like the girl’s unstable.” Another reason she should be taken far from this castle. Because we both knew what happened with the unstable ones.

“Does it?” Jelric countered. “You had nightmares after Elynn.”

I rolled my eyes. Sometimes I wished Jelric didn’t know my every secret. Thank fuck he didn’t know about the new ones. The ones ofher.Because there had been more. A lot more. The damn girl was haunting my every sleeping hour, no matter what I did to stop it. What I did to exhaust myself.

Nela didn’t react. She knew all about Elynn anyway, they’d trained together back when they were new recruits. We’d helped pull each other out of our grief when she’d died.

“Anything else? Has she done any magic?” I asked diverting the conversation back to where it should be.

Nela shook her head. “Oh but she does play the stringlet.” Nela said before necking the rest of her drink.

“What?” Jelric said confused. “Are you sure?”

“Pretty certain, she’s been teaching the maid how to play it all afternoon.”

“Bet you enjoyed that.” I said laughing.

“It’s not actually that bad.” Nela grinned. “The Fae girl is quite good. The maid not so much, but I’m sure she’ll learn.”

“Well while you’re busy being serenaded I want you to find out more about her, whatever you can. We need to know if she can be trusted or not.” I replied.

Nela nodded before bowing and leaving us to it.

We both knew she couldn’t risk being gone long or the girl might suspect something.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” I asked Jelric.

He let out a low sigh. “You’ve never questioned me before.”

“No. But considering how this went the last time we were in this position.”

“We don’t know that we are here again.”

“The signs are there.” I said louder, more forcefully than I intended.

He paused, scrutinising me. “I’m not a fool. I won’t let history repeat itself.”

“And yet the girl is still here. In this castle.”

“We have no proof she would do the same. That she would behave the same.”

I snarled. “You have no proof that she won’t. That she isn’t exactly like every single one before her.”

Jelric tutted. “Not every one.” He stated. “Only one was mad. Only one was the cause.”

I shook my head. It sounded like semantics to me. And I wasn’t willing to risk every person in this city on such an argument.

“Let Nela do her job.” Jelric said. “You know her. You trust her. If there’s anything amiss she’ll see it.”

I met his gaze but didn’t reply.

I needed to sleep.

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