The Charming Way by Kristine Grayson Read Free Book Online Page A

reconnoiter.
    She wanted the maximum amount of airtime
for the minimum amount of exposure. She’d learned long ago that if you gave the
media too much time in the beginning, they’d distort everything you said.
    Better to parcel out information bit by
bit.
    The Book Unfair was only her first salvo.
    But, she knew, it would be the most
important.

 
    ***

 
    He parked his silver Mercedes at the far
end of the massive parking lot. He did it not so that he wouldn’t be
recognized—he wouldn’t anyway—but because he’d learned long ago
that if he parked his Mercedes anywhere near the front, the car would either
end up with door dings, key scratches, or would go missing.
    He reached into the glove box and removed
his prized purple bookseller’s badge. He had worked two years to acquire that
thing. Not that he minded. It still amazed him that no one at the palace had
thought of opening a bookstore on the grounds.
    He could still hear his father’s initial
objection: We are not shopkeepers! he’d said in that tone that meant shopkeepers were lower than scullery maids. In
fact, shopkeepers had become his father’s favorite epithet in the past few
decades, scullery maid being both politically and familially incorrect.
    It took some convincing—the
resident scholars had to prove to his father’s satisfaction that true
shopkeepers made a living at what they did, and in no way would a bookstore on
the palace grounds provide anyone’s living—but the bookstore finally
happened.
    With it came a myriad of book catalogues
and discounts and advanced reading copies and a little bit of bookish swag.
    He’d been in heaven. Particularly when he
realized he could attend every single book fair in the Greater World and get
free books.
    Not that he couldn’t pay for his own
books—he could, as well as books for each person in the entire kingdom
(which he did last year, to much complaint: it seemed everyone thought they
would be tested on the contents of said gift book. Not everyone loved reading
as much as he did, more’s the pity).
    Books had been his retreat since boyhood.
He loved hiding in imaginary worlds. Back then, books were harder to come by,
often hidden in monasteries (and going to those had caused some consternation
for his parents until they realized he was reading, not practicing for his
future profession). Once the printing press caught on, he bought his own
books—he now devoted the entire winter palace to his collection—but
it still wasn’t enough.
    If he could, he would read every single
book ever written—or at least scan them, trying to get a sense of them. Even
with the unusually long life granted to people of the Third Kingdom especially
when compared with people in the Greater World (the world that had provided his
Mercedes and this quite exciting book fair), he would never achieve it. There
were simply too many existing books in too many languages, with too many more
being written all the time.
    He felt overwhelmed when he thought of
all the books he hadn’t read, all the books he wanted to read, and all the
books he would want to read. Not to mention all the books that he hadn’t heard
of.
    Those dismayed him the most.
    Hence, the book fair.
    He was told to come early. There was a
breakfast for booksellers—coffee and donuts, the website said, free of
charge. He loved this idea of free as an enticement. He wondered if he could
use it for anything back home.
    The morning was clear with the promise of
great heat. A smog bank had started to form over the city, and he couldn’t see
the ocean, although the brochures assured him it was somewhere nearby. The
parking lot looked like a city all by itself. It went on for blocks, delineated
only by signs that labeled the rows with double letters.
    The only other car in this part of the
lot wasn’t a car at all but one of those minivans built so that families could
take their possessions and their entertainment systems with them.
    The attractive