Read Online Elves and Escapades (Scholars and Sorcery Book 2) by Eleanor Beresford - Free Book Online Page A

soul. I hope she can’t read it now.
    It makes me restless. I can’t bear too much scrutiny, not with all my secrets. I find myself wishing Harry was here—this is his last chance—and at the same time, I’m fiercely glad to have Rosalind to myself in our last hours together. Not that I’m even talking to her much.
    As if she’s heard my thoughts, Rosalind calls me over. “Come here, Charley. I want to show you something.”
    I settle obediently on the arm of her chair and look where she’s pointing. The book is about care of fabled beasts. She points out to me a section about people with Healing talent using their Gift on fabled beasts, not just humans. It’s particularly dangerous, the book says, because magical creatures’ life energy is so much greater than that of humans that they drain the Healer more quickly than an injured human, but it can be done in an emergency. The biggest risk, apart from causing the Healer’s health permanent damage, is that the Healer and the beast’s energies become permanently bonded, so that the beast is useless to sell, and will flee back to the Healer if hunted.
    “Is that what happened with Sunflame?”
    She nods. “I told you, I know she will come back. I felt that we were bonded.”
    I lean an arm behind her head, my mood easing as I read companionably over her shoulder. “You healed me, too,” I say, suddenly.
    She giggles. “You’re not an alicorn.”
    “But I’m a Fable Empath. It’s the next best thing. So—that means we’re magically bonded?”
    I’m teasing, but I realise Rosalind is looking at me very gravely, no glimmer of humour in her face. “Perhaps we are.” She loops the fingers of one hand through mine, entwining them. “Would you like that?”  
    My breath catches in my throat. “Maybe.” The word is difficult to get out.
    “I would, too.”
    I really can’t breathe. She can’t mean what I want to think she does. Not after her confessions of last night. She’s just declaring our friendship again.
    Meggs materialises in her lap and she gives a yelp of surprise. He’s no lightweight, these days. We both giggle and the mood is broken. Bobby comes in a moment later in search of his beloved Rosalind, his arms full of puppy. The dark mood is broken. With it has gone that odd, intense moment.
    I puzzle over the conversation, at intervals, during the day. I would give anything to know what Rosalind had been about to say, even though I can’t see my way clear to asking her. Part of me, secret and daring, wishes that it was something that lies in my own heart. It’s just as likely, more likely, given how gay and natural Rosalind is for the rest of the day, to be a confession of feelings for golden, curly Harry, for wanting to be bonded as sisters by marriage and family.  
    First love is precisely the kind of thing best friends who are like sisters confess to each other, after all. It would be the best thing for everyone.  

    I once was a good sleeper. Hit the pillow, sleep like a hibernating dragon. Maybe it’s part of growing up, this miserable lying awake all night with my brain racing. If so, I wish I could be a child again.
    Rosalind’s parents are sending a car for her tomorrow. There will be a fortnight of blankness, completely without her. Then, school—no privacy, hardly any time. I’ll manage, I know. Just now it seems very hard. I’ve been so glad to have my own room, away from the other girls. Now I feel stupidly lonely.
    The door swinging gently open makes me sit up a little. I squint to make out a figure against the dim light from the hallway.
    “Bobby?” Sometimes he has a bad dream and sneaks in to be cuddled and spend the night in his big sister’s bed. I know, even as I say his name, that it’s not him and not one of the little girls. I’m unsure why I feel unwilling to call the obvious name.
    "Just me. I'm sorry to wake you. I couldn't sleep, and I wanted company." Rosalind shuts the door carefully, cutting out the