Page 13 of A Tower of Half-Truths

The kitchen door opened, and Mavery’s gut reaction was that this woman could not possibly be the wizard’s mother.

Aventus had her pallid complexion and dark eyes, but their similarities ended there.

The woman was shorter than Mavery, even in heels, but her raised chin and perfect posture gave the illusion of someone much taller.

She wore a high-necked dress the same shade as the amethysts dangling from her ears, and her silver hair was pulled into an elegant bun.

Aventus appeared behind her. His grimace relaxed as he looked in Mavery’s direction.

He must have noticed a flicker in her faltering shroud, or glimpsed her own grimace as her arms grew weaker by the second.

He gave her a subtle nod, then took his mother by the arm and attempted to steer her back to the sitting room.

“See? There’s nothing here. Do you believe me now, or shall we start tearing up the floorboards?”

Refusing to budge, she narrowed her eyes. “I still think you are hiding something. Or someone.”

“Nonsense. Why don’t you take a seat on the sofa, and I’ll fix you a cup of your favorite jasmine tea.”

“Ah, that was it! I saw two teacups on the table. There is someone here!”

“No, I… That was from—”

“Aventus, tell me the truth. Now.”

Mavery swore under her breath; the shadows had finally slipped from her grasp. Aventus’s mother flinched as Mavery appeared out of thin air. Once she’d recovered from the surprise, she shot them both a smug look, which promptly morphed into disgust as she took in Mavery’s appearance.

“Oh, Aventus.” She clicked her tongue. “I knew you needed company, but a streetwalker?”

Mavery scowled. She no longer doubted that these two were related. Evidently, condescension ran in the family.

“Mother,” he groaned, “I can assure you she’s not a streetwalker.”

“Then who is she, and why is she here?”

He shot Mavery a pleading look. She returned it with one that conveyed that he was on his own here; he wasn’t paying her to manage this sort of mess. Especially when seeing him so flustered was more than a little satisfying.

“Well?” his mother pressed.

Aventus sighed. “This is Mave…my new assistant. Before you ask, yes, she answered one of your ads. Mave, meet my mother, Priscilla Tesseraunt.”

Priscilla grinned more smugly than before. “So, my plan worked!”

“No, not necessarily. We only agreed to a temporary—”

She ignored him as she turned to Mavery. “Hello, dear. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Priscilla extended her gloved right hand. Mavery shook it, though a curtsy felt more appropriate. The woman was dressed for a visit to the duke’s palace, not her son’s disorderly apartment.

“As a supposed expert on the subject, the pleasure is all mine,” Mavery said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Aventus glared at her from behind Priscilla’s back.

“Well, now you know,” he said. “Are you happy?”

“I am happy that you do remember how to accept help.”

His beard sagged. “I’m thirty-four, Mother. I’m quite capable of helping myself.”

Mavery’s brows raised slightly. He was even younger than she’d expected.

“I know this.” Priscilla patted his arm. “But that does not mean you can do everything on your own. Well, I shall leave you both to your work.”

The three of them returned to the sitting room. At the front door, Priscilla said something in Dauphinian that, judging by her stern tone and Aventus’s glowering, wasn’t particularly affectionate.

“And Mave, if you ever wish to wear something more ladylike than that…“ Priscilla’s lip curled in disgust as she gave Mavery’s outfit another long, critical look.

She opened her handbag and extracted a lavender-colored calling card.

“Call upon my boutique sometime. Tesseraunt’s, in the Garden District.

I am certain my son will pay you well enough to afford something more befitting of a wizard’s assistant. ”

“Goodbye, Mother,” Aventus grumbled as he opened the door. She left with a dainty wave of her hand, and he shut the door with a drawn-out sigh.

“Well, she was charming,” Mavery said.

He laughed dryly. “Not the word I would choose. And please, pay no mind to her nonsense about your attire. I wouldn’t dare ask you to hunt down books in one of her evening gowns.”

Mavery had nothing against dresses, or feminine clothes in general.

She defaulted to wearing trousers for the same reason she kept her hair short: it had always been the more practical option.

She looked down at the threadbare pair she was wearing and could no longer deny she was in need of new clothes—and not ones she swiped from her neighbors.

Mercifully, Leyport had no shortage of clothiers.

She would find a way to “accidentally” misplace Priscilla’s calling card.

“So, I take it you’re Dauphinian.”

Aventus nodded. “I was born in Dauphine, though Mother and I moved here when I was only a few months old.”

“Never would have guessed. ‘Aventus’ doesn’t strike me as a Dauphinian name.”

“Oh, no, that’s just my honorific.”

“Your what?”

“When you earn the rank of wizard, the High Council bestows upon you an honorific. A ‘wizard name,’ if you will. It’s always three syllables—for reasons I doubt anyone remembers—and many wizard names have been recycled throughout the years. I’m Aventus the Third, actually.”

“Why ‘Aventus’? Did you choose it?”

He shook his head. “No, that was the High Council’s doing. Aventus the First invented the resonating ward, and Aventus the Second is hailed as the greatest Gardemancer of the ninth century. I suppose they deemed me worthy of filling those rather enormous shoes.”

With a half-hearted laugh, he folded his arms across his chest and lowered his eyes.

“Are you required to use your wizard name?”

“Only professionally, though most wizards use their honorific as though it were their real name. My real name is Alain.” He shrugged. “Not that it matters. I’m sure you noticed how even my own mother prefers my wizard name over the one she gave me.”

“What about you?”

He looked up at her. “Me?”

“Yes, which name do you prefer?”

“Alain,” he said without hesitation.

“Good choice. Rolls off the tongue a bit easier.”

Aventus—Alain—nodded in agreement. “It’s odd… People have always assumed which name to use, one way or the other, without my input. You’re the first I can recall who’s ever asked.”

“I know what you mean. My name is Mavery, but everyone has always called me Mave, ever since I was a child.”

“And which name do you prefer?”

The nickname was so persistent, even she had defaulted to it. But she’d always seen herself as Mavery. Speaking it aloud just now had felt familiar, right.

“Mavery,” she decided.

“Likewise, a good choice. Mavery suits you much better than Mave.”

Her face suddenly warmed.

“Well, then,” he said, “if you agree to call me Alain from now on, I will call you Mavery.”

“Deal.”

His scraggly beard twitched, suggesting a hint of a smile that she couldn’t help but return.

This new agreement between them seemed to have lifted a heavy burden.

He now stood a little taller, his shoulders were a bit more relaxed.

Enough so, Mavery doubted he would berate her for admitting to a bit more of her ignorance. She decided to test that theory.

“All this time, I thought Archmage Seringoth was Seringoth the First’s great-grandson or something.”

He shook his head. “No relation whatsoever. Very few wizards have children, in fact. Many will argue it’s to prevent nepotism, but the real reason is that most of us prefer research over child-rearing. Or, to put it more bluntly, we prefer the company of books…over…people…”

He fell silent as his thoughts seemed to transport him elsewhere. Mavery lingered awkwardly, wondering whether she should leave the room and give him a moment to himself. Just as she was about to step away, he met her eye and spoke again.

“I’m sorry.”

“For…?”

“For belittling you earlier, for my lack of decency in general. I never intended to insult you, but I still managed to accomplish that at least twice in a single morning. To be completely honest, my opportunities for socializing had been rather…limited before you came along. I’m woefully out of practice when it comes to conversing with others—not that I was ever much good at it to begin with.

” He sighed, shook his head. “Gods, I’m only proving my point, aren’t I?

What I’m trying to say is, going forward, I promise to be less of a… ”

“Pompous ass?”

He laughed. “Precisely.”

She would believe it when she saw it. Still, his apology seemed sincere enough.

“All right,” she said. “And, er, thanks.”

He nodded, then turned to his hoard of books. Thanks to Priscilla’s surprise visit, they hadn’t so much as touched a single tome.

“If you’d like to call it a day,” he said, “I completely understand. You can come back tomorrow and—”

“No, I’m ready to work. Where should I start?”

Only an hour ago, she would have accepted any excuse to avoid tolerating Aventus’s company for gods knew how much longer. It was too soon to know for certain, but Alain seemed significantly more tolerable.

And, with his guard lowered, robbing him would be significantly easier.