Free Utterly Charming by Kristine Grayson Page B

when I drove here, there wasn’t any smoke. And no one said a word about it on the radio.”
    “Max,” Nora said, feeling more impatient than she probably had a right to. “You were going to tell me about Blackstone.”
    “So I drove by the neighborhood, just to see all this destruction for myself. And you know what? It looks fine. No burned houses. No ashes. Just flowers and porches and electric lights.”
    “Max,” she said, worrying that he might lose complete control before he got to the point. “What did he tell you?”
    The waitress set down Max’s beer, and Nora paid for it, just to get her out of the way before Max forgot the question. He looked at Nora, waved a hand in thanks, and said, “What did Blackstone say?”
    “Yes,” Nora said, clenching her fists in her lap. If she didn’t, she would shake Max, and that wouldn’t be good.
    “He said that fairy tales are true. Sort of.”
    “Great,” Nora said, leaning back.
    “And we got stuck in the middle of Sleeping Beauty , only there was a dwarf. At least the glass case is correct—”
    “Max.” A chill ran down Nora’s back. It wasn’t that she was afraid she didn’t follow him. She was afraid she did. “From the beginning. Please.”
    He looked up, his eyes bleary and sad. So very sad. “I told you about the police station. Didn’t I? I thought I did.”
    “You did. But you were going to tell me what Blackstone said when he took you to your car.”
    “Oh, yeah. From the beginning.” Max ran a hand over his face, as if he were trying to hide. “Blackstone said—are you sure you want to hear this?”
    “ Yes .” Maybe she would shake him. Maybe that was her only option.
    “Blackstone said he was a wizard.”
    “A wizard?”
    “Only he used the word mage.”
    “Mage?”
    “You asked.”
    Nora bit back a sharp response. “Go on.”
    “Over a thousand years ago, he fell in love with a witch’s daughter. Or was she a stepdaughter? I’m not clear on this point. It’s the mention of fairy tales. You know, you hear them all your life, you don’t pay attention, and suddenly it becomes relevant. Kind of hard to deal with, don’t you know?”
    “I know,” Nora said. “The witch’s daughter?”
    “Or stepdaughter. Yeah.” Max drained his beer stein. “Shouldn’t do that,” he muttered. “Will get drunk.”
    Nora took the stein away from him. “Will pass out before finishes story. I need to hear this.”
    “Right,” Max said. “That’s what Blackstone said.”
    Only now his s ’s were sounding like sh ’s.
    “Anyway,” Max continued, “this daughter, stepdaughter, whatever, had a hell of a witchy mother who didn’t want anyone near her stepdaughter or daughter or whatever, and so she hid the daughter with her assistant, a magical dwarf named—”
    “Sancho Panza,” Nora said, beginning to see the pieces.
    Max looked at her strangely. “No,” he said with great precision. “The magical dwarf was named Merlin. No one talked about Don Quixote de la Mancha. Besides, that was less than a thousand years ago, right?”
    “Right,” Nora said, sorry to have interrupted him.
    “This Merlin dwarf had something to do with the great Merlin of old, only Blackstone said he wasn’t that old then. And that it was in a different kingdom. There are lots of kingdoms, I guess, some magical, some not.” Max waved a hand as if clearing the cobwebs from his own mind. “If I tell you all the tangents, I’ll never get another beer.”
    “Just the main points,” Nora said, wondering how long they had before Max anesthetized his memory into oblivion.
    “Okay,” Max said. “This dwarf, he was a good friend of Blackstone’s, and he managed to get Blackstone and the girl together. What they didn’t know was that the witch had put a curse on them so when they kissed, the girl passed out.”
    The waitress stopped to offer Max another beer, but Nora shook her head. Max looked after her longingly. “When you finish,” Nora