Authors: Kristine Grayson
Only Blue’s tone wasn’t nasty or sarcastic or even bitter. It was admiring.
Blue’s voice shut down Young Gregor’s scream. Young Gregor put a hand over his mouth, as if his own lack of control frightened him.
Jodi pivoted even more, careful not to turn her back on the bad guy, as Young Gregor so disingenuously called him. Yet she wanted to see Blue’s expression.
It was warm and welcoming, and she wondered if that evil spell poisoning his aura had made him “like” this man in front of them.
“It depends on what you mean,” the horrible thin man said. “Am I The One in the sense of
The
Matrix
? The One and Only, out of fairy tales? The Chosen One that so many stories in this Greater World refer to? Then probably not. No one has ever considered me to be the romantic hero or the next in line to the throne or the one that the entire world has been waiting for.”
“You’re the one with all the magic,” Blue said in that same admiring tone. He put an arm around Jodi’s back and moved her aside, ever so carefully, and she grabbed at him. She didn’t want him anywhere near that man.
“Oh,” the horrible thin man said, “not
all
the magic. Just my own fair share.”
“Still,” Blue said, “those are some mighty impressive spells you’ve designed.”
The horrible thin man smiled. The smile seemed genuine. He seemed flattered by all of the attention. “They are, aren’t they?”
Blue had planted himself in front of Jodi. He was taller and wider, and she couldn’t see around him without moving. She started to move, and that was when she figured out what Blue was doing.
He was charming the bugger so that she and Young Gregor could get away.
But she didn’t want to get away. She wanted to stay beside Blue, to help him.
“I certainly didn’t expect to meet you,” Blue said. “At least not this way.”
“Well, you found me out,” the horrible thin man said, “so it was the least I could do.”
But he should have come sooner. He should have stopped Jodi from getting anywhere near Blue. The horrible thin man should have defended himself after she destroyed his spell on Young Gregor.
Young Gregor had passed out when the spell shattered. Had the horrible thin man done the same? It was the only thing that made sense.
And now he was here to what? Stop her, probably. Blue had clearly figured that out already, and he was letting her escape.
Instead, she moved closer to him. She glanced at Young Gregor who appeared rooted in place, hand still over his mouth. She couldn’t worry about him.
She slipped her dead phone in her pocket and focused her vision on Blue’s aura.
The amber was sparking and reaching toward the horrible man, like a child wanting to be picked up. Some of Blue’s dark blue charm was still visible, and she reached into it with her right hand.
Blue started, then remained still.
“You’ve been charming me, haven’t you?” the horrible thin man said, with real menace in his voice. “You don’t remember me at all, do you, because if you did, you’d realize how much I hate charm.”
“I’m sorry,” Blue said, with even more warmth. “I should have realized. It’s a reflex, you know. It’s how I operate when I meet someone I want to impress. I just ramp up the charm a bit. I’ll ramp it down.”
Jodi didn’t want to touch the amber in Blue’s aura, because that would let the horrible thin man know what she was about. She was searching, though, searching for the parasitical representative of the spell. It had to be easy to see, because it had to be huge.
She peered around the blueness and saw it. What she thought was a sea of amber was actually its big, fat, dominating body. It was huge, and killing it just might kill Blue.
But he had already told her he had wanted out, and if this horrible thin man got hurt when his magic got hurt, then he was already diminished a bit from what she had done to Young Gregor. She wouldn’t get a better chance.
She wished she could tell Young Gregor to call for Selda or Tank or some kind of backup. But she couldn’t. She was on her own.
They were on their own.
“You think you can charm me, don’t you?” the horrible thin man said. “You think you can just talk your way out of this. Have you learned
nothing
these past several centuries?”
The horrible thin man was getting angry. The sparking in Blue’s aura had grown worse.
“Oh, no,” Blue said. “I’ve learned a lot, thanks to you. I realized that charm magic simply can’t hold a candle to most other kinds of magic. We Charmings are dependent on everyone else for everything.”
He was telling her to go ahead. She was shaking. She didn’t want to do this.
But she had no choice.
She formed a pistol with her thumb and forefinger, imagined the biggest bullet she had ever seen, and fired.
Chapter 48
Blue felt something burrowing through his magic. He didn’t know if it came from this malevolent being in front of him or from Jodi. He didn’t want to focus on it or think about it any further. He needed all of his charm right now, and he hoped to whatever god he should believe in that Jodi had figured out what to do.
Because he couldn’t hold off this guy for long.
“I know you!” Young Gregor shouted from behind Blue. “I remember you now!”
Blue let out a small sigh, trying to camouflage it as best he could. Young Gregor was a problem.
So was whatever Jodi was doing. It hurt. Rivulets of pain ran through him, taking all of his control to keep his body from shuddering.
“You!” Young Gregor said, stepping forward. He was pointing at the man in front of Blue.
“You don’t need to shout,” the man said calmly to Young Gregor.
Young Gregor gave Blue a panicked look, and Blue finally understood what Young Gregor was doing. He had gotten the message Blue had meant for Jodi. Young Gregor was doing his best to help Blue.
“Gregor,” Blue said, “Why don’t you do what we were talking about earlier?”
“I know who he is, though,” Young Gregor said to Blue. “He’s that etiquette instructor my father hired. You’re an odious little man!”
“Gregor!” Blue said. “Please. Leave. Now.”
Young Gregor gave him a confused look.
“You’re insulting our guest,” Blue said, wishing he could be blunter, wishing he could tell Young Gregor that he had this under control.
“Well, the boy never had manners. He was one of those charming rebellious types, the kind that women fawned all over because they thought he would improve somehow.” The man spoke with disdain. “He’s completely ineffectual. If you’ve assigned him some task, he won’t do it.”
“I didn’t assign him anything,” Blue said, turning his attention away from Young Gregor. If Young Gregor had gotten the message about helping Blue, then he should have understood this one.
At least Blue hoped so. Because he couldn’t do much more. Sweat was beginning to form along his torso. Something was happening all through him. He felt queasy and the pain was growing worse.
“I’m not staying here with him!” Young Gregor said, and Blue wanted to close his eyes. The kid would never be an actor, no matter how handsome he was, no matter how much he wanted it.
He certainly wasn’t convincing Blue right now.
“I have to leave!” Young Gregor announced. And then he slammed out of the room.
To Blue’s surprise, the man let him go.
“You know,” Blue said to the man, trying to keep him distracted, “you’ve been such an influential part of my life, and I don’t even know what to call you.”
The amber in the man’s eyes grew flinty. “The boy gave you a clue. You don’t remember me at all?”
Blue caught his breath, as much from pain as from any kind of realization. “You’re Mr. Danvers,” he said, more breathlessly than he wanted to.
He was getting light-headed. He needed to continue to focus.
“Ah.” Danvers smiled. “You do remember.”
Blue remembered, all right. Danvers had been hired to teach Blue royal etiquette, how to behave in every circumstance from a ball to a private dinner. How to dress. How to hire a gentleman’s gentleman. How to be a prince, as if Danvers—a lowly commoner—had known that.
He had been hired when Blue was very young and impulsive, and Blue had asked him at one point where his expertise came from.
Were
you
a
prince?
Blue had asked naively.
Of
course
not
, Danvers had snapped.
But
I
have
molded
generations
of
them
.
And he had already become bitter. If Blue had done something wrong, Danvers pinched him, leaving little bruises everywhere. The bruises were what eventually got him fired. Not the verbal abuse, not his real lack of expertise.
Those little bruises that Blue’s father could see.
A
prince
should
not
have
discipline
marks
, his father had said and had fired Danvers.
“Yes, of course I remember,” Blue said warmly. He was focusing as hard as he could on being pleasant, on being charming without being obvious about it. “I never understood why you left. I thought we were doing so very well. I never really did as well after that.”
That last part, at least, wasn’t a lie.
Danvers’s mouth twisted. Blue actually remembered that expression. He hadn’t remembered the man, but that nasty smile had remained locked in his memory for a very long time.
“Your father said I was no longer needed. He told me that you could handle any situation thrown at you.” Danvers’s eyes twinkled, the amber looking particularly threatening. “It took me years, but I eventually proved him wrong.”
Blue swayed, then caught himself. He was feeling awful. He almost lost his composure at that moment, almost told Danvers that once Blue figured out what was going on—what he
believed
was going on, in any case—he had found a way to handle it. It hadn’t been pretty, but it had saved lives.
“Don’t bother to talk,” Danvers said. “I know that your little girlfriend is doing her best to destroy my spell. She thinks it’ll hurt me, when all it will do is murder you.”
Blue should have felt afraid. He didn’t. He also knew that Danvers was the one lying right now.
“I’ve had my fun with you and Young Gregor both,” Danvers said, “and now I’m off to find new people to torment.”
“You don’t like charming men, do you?” Blue asked, keeping his voice level. He wished he was standing a bit closer to the table so he could brace himself. Hell, he wished he could see Jodi so that he could convince her to leave. He had no idea if she even knew this conversation was going on, not while she was trying to eradicate the parasitical spell.
“I think ‘like’ is one of those misleading terms,” Danvers said. “I think the world, the worlds, really, the Greater World and the Kingdoms, are terribly unfair. There you are, born to power, with your pretty face and your ability to convince anyone of anything, no real talent to speak of, a man who has never worked at anything, and if you had followed your script, you would have gotten your pick of the women, and you would have remained rich and powerful.”
But Danvers had gotten in the way of that. Blue was seeing sparks in front of his eyes. He didn’t know if that was because he was about to pass out. He hoped not.
“But I have worked hard to become what I am, and because I am not rich and handsome and born into the right family, people ignore me. Even now, when I am more powerful than the rest of you put together.”
He peered around Blue, clearly trying to get to Jodi.
Blue wanted to step sideways but couldn’t.
“You two really aren’t thinkers, are you?” Danvers asked. “Because, really, all I have to do is this.”
He clenched one hand into a fist. Something (someone?) slammed into Blue’s back. The pain was excruciating.
“And,” Danvers said, raising his other arm. “If I do one more thing, you’ll never find me. All I have to do is vanish.”
He smiled that twisted smile again. Blue shuddered, trying to figure out what Danvers was doing.
“Because even if I pass out, you won’t be able to trace the magic until it’s too late.” Then he chuckled. “What am I saying? Your friends won’t be able to trace the magic. I’ll be long gone—and you’ll be long dead.”
Gone
. Blue’s brain had become sluggish, but he got that. He used the last of his strength to grab Danvers’s arms and pulled him forward. That made the pain even worse, and Danvers struggled mightily.