Free Blow by Daniel Nayeri Page B

onto the courtyard stones not ten seconds later.
    Prince Kaiser stormed off, ordered the doctors out of Giacomo’s room, and almost killed him when he grabbed Giacomo by the hair and said in his ear, “—.”
    It was pretty standard evil-guy stuff. Something like: “As soon as this is over, I will butcher you personally. I’ll give your body to Brutessa for dinner, and I’ll bronze Chloe into a naked statue on my front lawn.”
    Okay, maybe not so standard.
    In the tower, Chloe explained everything to the dads. Her plan, for now, was to nurse Giacomo back to health. After that, escape. She would sneak around the castle in search of food and medicine. There were plenty of empty rooms to hide in now that so many artists had been murdered. But more than anything, she needed Babbo and Pierre to quit angering the prince. They would have to work together. Pierre took off his glasses and cleaned them on his sleeve. Babbo looked off into the far corner of the ceiling. “Isn’t their some
other
way?” said Pierre.
    “Yeah,” said Babbo. “Couldn’t we just stop throwing things at each other?”
    “We’re geniuses, you know,” said Pierre.
    “We have genius ways,” added Babbo.
    “No,” said Chloe. Pierre’s mustache twitched. Chloe’s freckle above her lip twitched even more. “I love him,” said Chloe, “and I love you. Now, sit.” After all her years of acquiescence, Chloe had finally stood up for herself. Nobody could refuse her, especially not those two. Giovanni Babbo Chianti and Pierre Vouvray finally had to agree on something.
    As she left, she leaned up and kissed Babbo on the cheek. Then she hugged her father and kissed him twice. “Please be good, Daddy.”
    “Be safe,” he said.
    “Don’t worry,” she said. “You forget I’ve wilted once already. Fate must have a different plan for me than simply getting beheaded and dropped in a ditch.”
    This happens a lot with people who refer to me as Fate. But as I said, I don’t do any of the planning. And I’ve found plenty of people lying in ditches. I have a huge tramp collection. But it was nice of her to comfort Pierre.
    She rushed out. Babbo was still blushing, with a hand on his cheek. He jostled Pierre with a pat on the back and said, “She’s wonderful.”
    “I know,” said Pierre. “It’s yours that’s the problem.”
    “Nope,” said Babbo. “They’ll have fat and talented babies.”
    Prince Kaiser and Chloe almost passed each other in the hall. As she ran down the grand stairway, Chloe heard the thunder of hoofbeats and raced back up the stairs. She stayed barely in front of the horses as she circled the massive tower. Finally, she reached the landing and flattened herself to the wall on the left. Prince Kaiser’s horse galloped up the stairs and went right. Chloe snuck back down as Prince Kaiser dismounted the horse, kicked open the door, and blitzed into the room. The prince was so enraged that he was willing to wreck his own plans and kill both of the old artists. Instead, he found Babbo and Pierre bent over their tables, working in silence. They looked quite similar, actually, in their finely tuned focus. The prince opened his mouth to shout, rethought the idea, and closed it again. Babbo’s precision, as he cut a marble in half with the Hair from the Chest of the Monster Bernardo the Hammer, was not something to interrupt. Likewise, Pierre was stitching the stamens on a posy of baby’s breath — a process so delicate it required even the baby to stop breathing. The prince didn’t have anything to do but wheel back around a second time and leave.

T O DESCRIBE THE work of Babbo and Pierre, as they combined their craftsmanship for the sake of their kids’ lives, is a job I’m not up for. The thing is, I’m what you might call a closer, a cleaner, a last-call kind of guy. I’m not a morning person. The glass is all empty and has shattered on the floor. Feel me? I watch stuff break. The great and terrible ballet of