Free Blow by Daniel Nayeri

wailing like an orca. She alternately beat her own head and nibbled on the unconscious man’s toes. Chloe had the intuition that Brutessa wouldn’t hurt him. She would be of better use if she escaped. She edged toward the door, slowly, in between the phlegmy sobs of the pirate queen. Meanwhile, messengers had been dispatched across the palace to inform the prince that his war general had gone insane . . . more insane.
    Chloe slipped across the hall, into a broom closet, just as the prince arrived at full gallop. Prince Dimple Pimple slid off his horse and tied the reins on the doorknob of the broom closet. Chloe held her breath. The prince marched into the room to see Brutessa weeping and Giacomo unconscious.
    Thankfully, a violist in the prince’s soundtrack entourage had some medical training. From what he could tell, the knock had jostled Giacomo’s brain loose. He’d make it but barely, and only if he didn’t suffer another concussion for a while. Even a strong shake would push him over the brink.
    At this point I had to leave. The prince was the first to notice that Chloe was gone. The kazooist in his entourage performed a cartoon surprise noise. Then Brutessa made him eat the kazoo. I rushed the musician to Dora. When she asked him his name, he did a disappointed
wah-wah-waaaah.
Then I returned to the castle and found Chloe.
    The reason I had to stay with her is obvious, or it should be, if you’ve ever been in love. Giacomo could have shoved off at any minute, stepped through my door, answered the eternal footman, yours truly. But if he did, the part I was interested in wasn’t with him in that bed. He’d already given it away. So when I came to collect for one Mr. Giacomo “Co-Co” Chianti, good servant, novice marble painter, a guide on the most excellent way, well, I wouldn’t find it lying there with him. I’d have to find Chloe first.
    And I’d honestly hate to, but I’d have to take it from her.

W HILE G IACOMO WAS ailing in his delirious half-sleep, Chloe snuck through the northeast wing. I kept back, out of sight. Poor girl had already met me once. When the prince noticed her gone, he ordered a search party to find her and put Brutessa in the group, which implied biting her face off when they did. Then he ordered his carriage to the north tower.
    In the meantime, Babbo stood at Pierre’s sewing station and held up a swatch of fabric as though it was a dirty tissue. “You know what makes me think your job is useless, Pierre?” said Babbo. “It’s that you essentially make a replica of nature. It’s like tracing someone else’s paintings.”
    Pierre sat in Babbo’s chair, with his feet propped on the marble-painting table. The glass rods were piled by an unused burner. Paints sat in clean tubs in manufactured rows. Neither of the men had moved a single ingredient from its position. Pierre responded, “You wouldn’t know craftsmanship if it was on a dinner menu, you boar. You make toys for children. Choke hazards at that.”
    “You realize that I can grow more flowers on a compost heap than you could make in a lifetime?”
    “I gag just looking at them.”
    They heard the carriage wheels careen around the tower and the prince’s high-heeled boots on the stone. The door slammed open, but the old rivals were far too busy to acknowledge Dimple Pimple.
    “What would you do without a
real
flower to copy?”
    “What would you do without the money-rich and taste-poor middle class?”
    The prince cleared his throat. His trumpeter and his bass drummer remixed a few beats. But Babbo and Pierre had decades of snipes saved up. They shouted over the intro music.
    “I always knew you flower quilters were sycophants to actual florists. It’s obvious the vases would be better with my painted marbles and a few votives to accent the light.”
    Pierre’s mustache twitched. “You, you . . . hairy man! You’ve got those glassblowers of Murano over-blowing vases into every fat shape so they need