Utterly Charming (12 page)

Emma made a small whimpering noise. Nora picked up the receiver and started to dial 911.

“I’m a lot more sophisticated than I used to be,” Blackstone said. “I’m sure I can handle one kiss-and-tell spell.”

“Are you?” Ealhswith asked. “Are you sure it’s that simple?”

And then, with a twirl of her arm, she disappeared.

Nora hung up the phone before it even rang. She stared at the place where Ealhswith had been. “Somehow I expected to see a puff of black smoke after she’d done that.”

“A bit of fire and brimstone,” Blackstone said, arms crossed.

“I did not realize she was here,” Emma said, her voice so soft that it almost sounded as if she had whimpered.

Blackstone and Nora turned around at the same time. Emma was cringing against the couch, clutching the leather fabric in one hand. “You did not tell me she had come here too.”

“I was getting to that,” Blackstone said. “It’s hard to cover centuries in the space of a few minutes. I wish you’d let me do the spell. It would—”

“Actually,” Nora said, “on this one, it’s not that hard. They’ve been fighting over you for the past thousand years. She put the kiss-and-tell”—Nora looked at Blackstone for confirmation. He rolled his eyes but nodded—“spell on you, and it nearly killed you. He stopped it by putting you in a coma, but no one could wait the requisite time to get you out. They kept stealing your damn coffin, back and forth and back and forth—”

“For a thousand years?” Emma whispered. “A thousand years?”

Blackstone swallowed so hard that Nora saw his Adam’s apple bob. “It was more complicated than that.”

“Why could you not set aside your differences for even ten years?” Emma asked him. “God’s blood, that is barely a heartbeat in the amount of time you let go by.”

“Emma, if you would give me a chance—”

“Why?” she asked. “You gave me none.” Then she bowed her head and hid her face against the cushions. She apparently felt that she had nowhere else to go.

And she didn’t. Not really.

“I think it’s time you should leave,” Nora said.

Blackstone smiled at her, the full-watt, how-can-you-refuse-me? smile. She had forgotten how very gorgeous it was. It sent shivers all the way through her and reminded her how long it had been since anyone had touched her.

“I’ll take Emma with me, then, and get out of your way,” he said.

“Sorry,” Nora said. “You can’t have her. Not unless she wants to go with you.”

“Emma,” Blackstone said, putting his hand on her shoulder. She jumped so violently he had to pull his hand back. “Would you come with me?”

“You can stay here,” Nora said as Emma raised her head. “I’ll do my best to protect you. I think you’d be safest here.”

Her thin bloodred lips narrowed. “I do not want to go with you,” she said to Blackstone. “I am not even sure I want to see you again, Aethelstan.”

“Now, Emma—”

“You heard her,” Nora said. “I think it’s time you leave.”

“Nora, you know better—”

“No,” she said. “I don’t. I told you, ten years ago, that I’m an attorney with ethics and one who likes to play by the book. I expected you to honor that then, and I expect it now. She has no tie to you, not as far as I’m concerned, and you are in my house. I am telling you to leave. If you do not, I will call the police.”

“You know I can manipulate them.”

“I know,” Nora said. “But I can keep calling them until one of us tires of this game.”

“I’ve been known to have a stubborn streak,” Blackstone said.

“A thousand-year-long one,” Nora said. “That still doesn’t change my mind. Get out.”

“Emma—”

“It’s better for her to have you leave.”

“I want to hear her say that.”

“You have become obtuse in your old age, Aethelstan,” Emma said, turning her back on him and crossing her arms. “You have been asked to leave.”

Again, that vulnerable, wounded look filled his silver eyes before he had a chance to mask it. He reached for Emma, then curled his fingers into a fist. Then he turned to Nora. “You’re making a mistake.”

“Threats don’t bother me,” Nora said.

“It’s not a threat,” he said. “It’s a fact. You don’t know what Ealhswith can do.”

“No, I don’t,” Nora said, “and at the moment, that’s not my concern.” She inclined her head toward the door. “Are you planning to leave now?”

He raised his hands in a gesture of mock surrender. “I’m going,” he said. “But call me if you need me.”

“What, am I suppose to call out your name in rhyme?” she asked, thinking of Dr. Bombay in the old
Bewitched
television show. “Or am I supposed to use the phone?”

“Don’t be sarcastic, Nora,” he said.

“It was an honest question.”

“I have a cell.” He took a business card from his pocket and threw it on the table. “I expect to hear from you.”

“I don’t expect to hear from you.” Nora put her hand on his back, intending to lead him out of the apartment. It was the first time she had touched him deliberately in ten years. Through the fabric of his linen shirt, his back was smooth, tense. A jolt of energy ran through her, and he turned as if he had felt it too. His eyes softened as they gazed at her. She shoved him forward.

He frowned, as if he weren’t quite sure what happened, took two steps, and nearly stumbled up the stairs leading to the door. She followed him. They both avoided the spot where Ealhswith had stood.

“Please,” he said softly, as he glanced over Nora’s shoulder at Emma, “call me if she needs anything.”

“I’m still not sure if you’re the good guy or the bad guy in all of this, Blackstone,” Nora said.

“You don’t know how to take care of her,” he said.

“It sounds like you don’t either.”

“I at least have some abilities at my disposal.”

“I’ll be fine,” Nora said. “Good-bye, Blackstone.”

With one last look at Emma, he went through the door. “I’ll be in touch, Nora.”

She closed the door after him, thinking it strange that he didn’t even try to say good-bye to Emma. She didn’t know if that was him being sensitive, since Emma so clearly wanted nothing to do with him, or if it was something else altogether, something Nora hadn’t yet figured out. She opted for the something else. Blackstone hadn’t exactly shown himself to be sensitive where Emma was concerned.

Nora turned the dead bolt and put on the chain lock, even though she knew that would do no good against a determined Ealhswith. She wasn’t even sure it would do any good against Blackstone.

She came back down the stairs and crossed to the couch. Emma had her face buried in her hands. Nora sat down in the armchair and poured them both some tea. The liquid still steamed. She held a cup in one hand and with the other, tapped Emma on the arm.

“Here,” she said as Emma looked up. “This might help calm you.”

Emma took the tea, holding the saucer as if she had never seen anything like it before. Nora picked hers up, then offered Emma some cream and sugar as well. Emma looked surprised at the milk in a little pitcher, the sugar in blocks, but said nothing. She shook her head slightly, refusing, and then took a loud, slurping sip of the tea.

“Ah,” she said, “it feels as if it is cleaning cobwebs out of my mouth.”

Nora didn’t want to think about it, but she couldn’t stop herself. How would a mouth feel after not tasting anything for a thousand years?

Emma drank the entire cup and then looked at Nora. “Is it all right if I have some more?”

Nora grinned. “That’s why I made it.” Simple things, that was what her father had once taught her. Simple things were the most important after a traumatic experience. They showed that the business of life continued. “Some bread too, if you like.”

Emma picked up a piece and took an experimental bite. Then she smiled. “It is good.”

“Yes,” Nora said. “It is.”

They sat in silence for some time. When they were finished with the bread, Nora said, “I expect you might want some rest.”

Emma shook her head. “I have been resting for a long time. Right now I need to remain awake, at least for a while.”

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Nora said, “what happened with you and Blackstone?”

She was more interested than she wanted to say. His reactions were so different from Emma’s. Nora had expected Emma’s hug when she saw him, but from that moment on, everything seemed different.

Emma smiled for just a moment, and then the smile faded. “He was so different then,” she said. “Young. He was just a boy early in his magic.”

“Why don’t you have any magic?”

“Girls get theirs later, but it is more powerful when it comes. When I am fifty, I will gain my magic.”

“And when do boys get theirs?”

“When they reach twenty-one summers,” Emma said. “I met Aethelstan just after his twenty-first summer.”

“And Ealhswith? She didn’t like him?”

Emma cringed at the name. “Ealhswith wanted him for her own.”

“She’s not your mother?”

“No.”

“But she is your guardian?”

“My mentor,” Emma said. “My parents gave me to her when it became clear that I would have the power.”

Nora poured herself another cup of tea. “But what’s the point of mentoring if you haven’t come into your magic yet?”

“The magic arrives full strength,” Emma said. “You must know how to use it when it arrives or it could kill you.”

“I don’t get it. How can you practice?”

“You cannot. You must simply imagine it. Knowledge comes first, then the power, then control.”

It all sounded very strange to Nora. “How did you meet Blackstone?”

“I met him when I arrived in the village to see Ealhswith. He was the one who helped me find her. We saw each other every day after that.”

“So you were with her a very short time.”

Emma bowed her head. “Less than a month.”

“Yet you learned several things about her magic.”

“Not enough,” Emma whispered. “I had been warned that she would be jealous. I did not listen. I thought Aethelstan could be mine.”

“Did you love him?” Nora found herself holding her breath after she asked the question.

Emma sighed. “Perhaps. I certainly wanted to kiss him.” She raised her eyes. “That boy. Not this man.”

Nora couldn’t imagine this. To Emma, only a day had passed. “How can you see the difference?”

“He speaks in a way Aethelstan would not.”

“It’s the language.”

Emma shook her head. “It is the tone. And he moves like a man filled with anger. And there are lines on his face that were not there before.”

“I thought magic could prevent that.”

“Magic may slow it down,” Emma said. “But age happens to all of us.” She set her cup down. “I do not want to talk about this anymore. I need to learn where I am, and what I can do. And is this Sancho you work for really Ealhswith’s dwarf?”

Nora took a deep breath. “That’s something we need to talk about,” she said. “I worked for Sancho—and I don’t know if he’s Ealhswith’s dwarf, but I had heard he was—but only to guard the microbus you were in. I’ve been thinking, since we had that altercation with all of your old friends, that you might want to hire me.”

“Hire you? What do you do?”

“I’m a lawyer.”

Emma frowned. “You do not look like a lawyer.”

Nora took a sip of tea, mostly to prevent Emma from seeing the bemused expression on her face. “What’s a lawyer supposed to look like?”

“A fussy dry little man with squinty eyes, who is more concerned with rules than with people.”

Nora almost said she was surprised that there were lawyers in Emma’s time, but then she remembered the mention of law and its keepers in the Bible. Hers was an old profession. “There are still men like that,” Nora said, “but there are people like me too.”

“I do not need a lawyer,” Emma said.

“What will you do then?” Nora set her cup down.

Emma opened her mouth, as if she were going to answer, and then closed it again. A flush covered her skin.

Nora put a hand on hers. “Lawyers have many purposes now. If you hire me, I can help you. I can protect you while you learn about this new world. I can keep Blackstone and Ealhswith away from you if that’s what you want, and I can do it all in a way that they have to follow.”

“They follow their own rules.”

Nora smiled. Not after that little discussion she had had with them earlier. “Perhaps,” Nora said. “But they also need to follow mine. You can teach me their rules, and I’ll teach you ours, and together we’ll be quite a team.”

Emma ran a hand over her face. “Everything is so different,” she murmured.

“Yes,” Nora said, “it is.”

Emma stood. She walked around the couch and headed to the windows, staring through the large plates of glass at the brick and concrete below. The bridges were visible over the river. The sky was bright blue, and the river reflected it. Portland looked beautiful, for a modern city. Did it look like a fairy-tale city to Emma? Something out of fanciful stories? Or did it look like a nightmare? Something only a demon could have imagined?

Emma leaned her head against the glass. “I assume payment is still required in the hiring of a lawyer.”

“Yes,” Nora said.

“Then I cannot hire you. I have no coin, and no way of getting any.”

Nora stood and walked to the window. She looked down, just as Emma was doing. Below them, people walked, men in suits and women in dresses. A couple in jeans had their arms around each other and their hands in each other’s back pockets.

“We can defer payment,” Nora said. “In my capacity as a lawyer, I can help you find work.”

Emma laughed. The sound was glorious, like the ringing of chimes. “You cannot find me work. I am unschooled in this world, unable to understand this place you live in and the carriages you use, let alone how to earn my keep.” She reached out and touched the sleeve on Nora’s shirt. “I do not even know how this fabric is made. I see no fireplace here, and do not know how you make your evening meal or even how you heated the water for the tea. I cannot do simple things. I do not know how I would work.”

Nora smiled. “I have some ideas, if you’d let me work for you.”

Emma leaned her shoulder against the glass. The blue skyline was visible behind her. It seemed, from Nora’s perspective, as if Emma were leaning against the sky.