Page 17 of A Tower of Half-Truths

Nine

“I’m afraid I must be off,” Kazamin said. “I look forward to continuing this conversation next week.”

“As do I, sir,” Alain replied with a shallow nod.

Upon the tablecloth, Alain’s supervisor laid a ten-potin note to cover both the bill and a generous tip—despite Alain’s insistence that he would pay for lunch—before pushing back his chair.

Once the short elderly man exited the restaurant, Alain finally let fall the smile he’d managed to maintain for the past hour.

He hoped that his expression had appeared less painful than it had felt.

He reached up to massage his aching jaw, then startled at the prickle of blunt hair beneath his fingertips. This change would take some getting used to—a thought he’d had countless times over these past weeks.

Without Kazamin to focus on, Alain was now starkly aware of how crowded the restaurant had become.

Lunch service was booming, and there was hardly an empty table in the dining room.

A swell of piano chords sounded from the far corner, interlacing with the tinkling silverware and polite conversations.

Alain knew, logically, that the dozens of patrons were too focused on their own meals to pay him any mind. Yet, he couldn’t help but feel exposed, as if everyone in this room knew that this was the most people Alain had been around in nearly a year.

On impulse, he began chewing on a nail. And then another impulse kicked in: the phantom sting of a rolled-up newspaper, courtesy of his mother, striking his knuckles.

He lowered his hand from his mouth and picked up his fork, though he’d long lost his appetite. As he pushed bits of cold, half-eaten cottage pie around his plate, he considered what he’d just agreed to. Taking on an assistant had been one thing. Delving back into research, another.

But returning to the University next week?

Returning to teaching next term?

He should have explained to Kazamin how his sabbatical had given him a newfound perspective, and that he wasn’t ready to return now—or ever again.

But he’d run into his supervisor outside the barber’s this morning, completely by happenstance. He’d been too blindsided to decline Kazamin’s invitation to lunch, and when Kazamin had asked whether he would return to the University, “yes” had been the only word in Alain’s vocabulary.

Perhaps Kazamin was right: once he returned to his old routine, he would feel like himself again. Perhaps being alone with his thoughts over these past months had—

“May I get you anything else, sir?”

Alain flinched. Amid all his pondering, he hadn’t noticed the waiter approach his table.

“Er, yes, I’ll take some wine,” Alain said. He fully expected the waiter to balk at his request, but the man only nodded.

“Of course. Shall I bring you the wine list?”

“No need. A glass of your house red will do.” As the waiter began to walk away, Alain raised a finger. “Actually, make that a carafe.”

He’d held back around Kazamin, who undoubtedly would have protested at drinking before midday. The dean was as devoted to decorum as he was to his faith. The Covenants might well be holy scripture.

The waiter returned with a filled carafe and an empty glass.

Alain didn’t bother giving the wine any fanfare.

He prepared a generous pour, then gulped from his glass like a parched man at a wellspring.

The wine was cheap: thin-bodied, slightly sour, and it burned all the way from mouth to stomach.

It did nothing to dampen the noise of the surrounding crowd, nor did it distract Alain from thinking about what awaited him next week.

At least he could count on Kazamin to not ask too many questions about his new assistant. The dean didn’t care where his subordinates’ assistants came from, so long as they didn’t make a mess of the common room.

Alain could understand why Mavery hadn’t come forward about being a university dropout.

He knew that his colleagues—with the exception of Declan, perhaps—would have dismissed her the moment they learned about her lack of a formal education.

That was assuming she would have gotten past the initial interview.

Had she arrived at any of their doorsteps instead of his, she would have been better off stumbling blindly into a den of starving wolves.

What he couldn’t understand was what “personal reasons” had forced her to leave university in the first place.

She was attentive, organized, clever. Her only fault was a curiosity that bordered on nosiness.

Every day, she found some way to postulate a question about the contents of the storage room. Every day, he brushed her off.

But he had to admire her persistence. In fact, he’d left her a small “gift” that she was sure to discover by the time he returned home. More than likely, she’d already found it.

He knew there was no need for scheming. The obvious thing to do would be to ask her why she left university.

But if he asked her about her private matters, she would likely do the same to him, and he knew what her first question would be.

Given the choice between providing the answer and returning to teaching, he couldn’t say which was more daunting.

Perhaps one day she would come forward of her own volition.

Perhaps one day he would be ready to do the same.

For now, Mavery would remain a puzzle he’d made little progress toward solving. When he found no solutions at the bottom of his wineglass, he poured himself another.