As though waiting for those very words, she quickly pushed past him, and threw herself prone upon his bed. Like him, she was tired, almost past the point of being able to sleep.
Sitting on the side of the bed, watching Malina in repose, Ralph mused tiredly, ‘While you’re here, I was thinking . . . some of those old stories Pran used to tell us at his house late at night, about people being taken from my world and brought here . . . I didn’t quite get it. Who did take the people from my world? The Elves or the Wizards?’
Answering brusquely, impatient for sleep and an end to conversation, Malina replied, ‘Don’t be silly, Rowf! It was Faeries who brought your people to our world. Don’t you ever read Faerie tales?’
By degrees, he too fell asleep, laying spoon-fashion at her back, all the time wondering if she was having it on with him.