Page 22 of A Tower of Half-Truths

“My Sensing has been a benefit, but it’s also been a burden. I’m still freezing after that episode downstairs. Having a reaction like that isn’t something I’d wish on anyone—even if they can just turn it off with a spell. I can’t do that. I’ll never be able to do that.”

To her own surprise, this was bothering her more than she’d anticipated. But why? She would be gone long before he finished the damned spell. And there was no guarantee he would finish it, especially if he needed her assistance.

Because, once again, she had landed herself in a situation where someone was assuming his authority over her, not even bothering to ask for her input, and she was supposed to accept it.

“I didn’t think—” Alain started.

“No, you didn’t.” She averted her gaze and muttered, “That’s the problem with you wizards. You never—”

“Alain!”

They both turned toward a boisterous baritone voice. Upon seeing its source, Alain’s shoulders sank.

“Oh, gods, not now,” he groaned.

Bounding toward them was a hulking middle-aged man.

Everything about his body seemed to be out of proportion with itself, from his barrel chest contrasted with his slender legs, to his bulbous nose paired with his beady eyes.

His plum-and-silver robe strained against his protruding stomach.

The man had a bushy red mustache that was leagues thicker than the hair atop his head.

His cheeks had the ruddiness of someone who had just come in from the cold, or from downing a pint.

Despite his imposing build, the man had a jovial spirit—a little too jovial. His thick arms seized Alain around the middle, drawing him into a full-bodied hug. Alain stiffened and, once he was free again, gave the man a forced smile.

“Aha, so the rumors are true!” Though he now stood in front of them, the man’s voice was no less booming. “The elusive Alain Tesseraunt has returned at last. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming to campus today?”

“I—”

“Ah, and who is this lovely lady?”

“This is Mavery, my new assistant. Mavery, meet Volsegar the Fourth.”

“Bah! No need to be so bloody formal. My Gardemancy students call me Professor Ward, my friends call me Declan. As far as I’m concerned, we’re all friends here.”

He extended a hand that dwarfed Mavery’s. She cracked a grin as they shook hands.

“Your surname is actually Ward?”

He beamed. “Since the day I was born! That my magic and my name happened to be a perfect fit, well, I call it fate—and the good kind, too. Once knew a lad named Burncock. You don’t want to know what fate had in store for him!”

Declan guffawed while slapping his knee. Alain sighed and rolled his eyes with the agony of someone who had heard that joke a hundred times too many. Mavery, however, gave Declan a genuine chuckle. She then laughed even harder at Alain’s scowl.

“Finally!” Declan reached forward and clapped Alain on the shoulder. “You found an assistant with a sense of humor.”

“Yes, Volsegar, because humor ought to be a scholar’s most important attribute.”

This comment came from the professor who had just entered the room.

Mavery recognized her as the same professor whose class had overwhelmed her Senses.

While the professor’s blue-gray complexion suggested she was Nilandoren, her height—she was a few inches shorter than Mavery—suggested otherwise.

The wrinkles around her mouth, but not her dark yet piercing eyes, suggested she was someone who frowned more than she smiled.

Her wiry salt-and-pepper hair framed her hawkish face like a frazzled halo.

The professor stopped in front of Mavery.

Trailing behind her was a much younger woman whose black robes marked her as the professor’s assistant.

She was the same height as the professor, with black curls and a heart-shaped face covered in freckles.

Of all the scholars Mavery had met today, this woman was, by and large, the most attractive of the lot.

“So,” the professor said, “not only does Aventus remain among the living, he’s managed to hire a new assistant.”

Her eyes flicked up to Mavery’s face, then down to her feet. From her hard stare and even harder frown, she was not impressed with what she saw. But Mavery didn’t take offense; she gathered this woman was exceptionally hard to please.

“You’re a bit old to be an assistant,” she said bluntly.

Well, Mavery would take offense to that. She placed her hands on her hips and returned the older woman’s hard stare.

“I’m in the middle of something of a career change.”

Declan chuckled. “Come now, Nez, go easy on the new—”

The woman veered on him. Though Declan was over a foot taller than her, he recoiled at her steely glare.

“Don’t you dare use that familiar tone with me, Volsegar. It’s Nezima. Understood?”

Declan mumbled an apology.

“As for you, Aventus,” she said, pivoting on the spot, “I hope the reason for your visit is to pick up some of the slack that your colleagues, myself included, have had to assume in your absence. I’ll have you know, I’m teaching four classes this term—four!

I haven’t had that kind of workload in a decade. ”

Alain winced. “I’m sorry for putting you in that position, Nezima.”

She huffed.

“I am, truly. But I’m afraid my reasons for being here today are solely for research.”

“You’re conducting research again?” Nezima’s eyes widened briefly before narrowing again. “How nice for you. I’ve little time for it myself these days. Case in point: my next class starts in five minutes. As much as I would love to stay and engage in idle chatter, I must be off.”

She turned to Mavery. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but Mavery swore she saw Nezima’s expression soften slightly. There was a look behind her eye that was unreadable. Mavery glanced at Nezima’s assistant, who was staring at the floor as if she were trying to ignore this entire conversation.

“Best of luck with your…career change,” Nezima said to Mavery. “You’ll need it.”

Nezima approached the door to her right.

It opened at the flick of her hand, and she pointed for her assistant to go inside.

The younger woman rushed in the office, where she exchanged the stack of papers she’d been holding for a thicker one.

Meanwhile, Nezima left the common room without another word.

The assistant closed Nezima’s door behind her with one hand, careful to not spill the papers pinned under her other arm. Before she trailed after Nezima, however, she stopped and looked at Alain.

“Er…hello, Aventus.”

“Hello, Wren,” he said flatly.

“You look well.”

“As do you.”

Wren looked from Alain to Mavery, then shifted her arms to keep her stack of papers from slipping. “Well…I’d best not keep Nezima waiting.”

As Wren left the common room, Mavery pondered the odd exchange. Yet another mystery. Whether she could benefit from this one remained to be seen.

“Well!” Declan said, clasping his hands together. “Now that we’ve each gotten a pep talk, I suppose now’s as good a time as any to get some work done!”

He crossed the room to his office, which now had a queue of students waiting outside.

The interruptions had forced Mavery and Alain to place a pin in their argument. She wasn’t eager to revisit it. Judging by his silence, Alain shared that sentiment. He gave her a sidelong glance.

“Shall we get out of here?”

“Gods, yes,” she sighed. “Thought you’d never ask.”

They arrived at a café around the block from campus.

On the walk over, Alain had told her how this had been his favorite spot from his university days, until his sabbatical.

Its owner was Dauphinian, and it was one of the few places in Leyport where you could find authentic Dauphinian pastries.

But what really set it apart from the other cafés were its alchemical teas.

“Alchemical teas?” Mavery asked as they approached the front door. The café was a quaint cottage nestled between towering brick buildings. “You mean potions?”

“In a sense. Think of it as tea, but with a touch of magic.”

“I think what I need right now is less magic.”

“Just trust me,” he said, opening the door.

Her doubts persisted as he led her to a small round table beside the fireplace.

He pulled out her chair and offered to take her robe, but she declined.

While she attempted to warm herself by the fire, Alain went to the counter and ordered for both of them.

That was fine by her, as she couldn’t begin to make sense of the menu.

Half of it was in Dauphinian, and the offerings were so vast, Alain’s tea collection seemed primitive by comparison.

A few minutes later, a server returned with a plate of buttery scones, an assortment of jams, and a pair of cups large enough to be soup bowls.

At first glance, Mavery’s cup seemed to be filled with ordinary black tea. But the iridescent sheen on its surface indicated it had been enhanced with…something. She held back her hair as she leaned forward and sniffed. It smelled like cinnamon.

Alain’s tea was a scarlet liquid that smelled like grass but looked disturbingly like blood. Instead of drinking from his own cup, he was watching Mavery with anticipation.

“This better not make me sprout feathers or burst into song.”

He laughed. “No, but now I’m hoping it does.”

She was so desperate for relief, she decided to not argue with him further.

She lifted the cup with both hands, brought it to her lips, and took a careful sip.

Warmth flooded her body the second the liquid reached her stomach.

All at once, it was like soaking in a hot bath, bundling up in a thick blanket, and napping in a sunny meadow.

Alain’s smile broadened as she relaxed in her chair.

“Finally, I feel warm,” she sighed, then took a large gulp. After that, she shrugged off her robe.

“I suspected all you needed was the right mix of alchemical ingredients.”

He raised his cup, then paused as a distant look crossed his face. It was one she’d grown familiar with over these past weeks. So, she wasn’t the least bit shocked when he lowered the cup, took out his notebook, and began writing.

“What does your tea do?” she asked. It was a futile attempt to reel him back in. Once he started recording his thoughts, he was unlikely to stop until every last one had been committed to paper.

“Try it for yourself if you’d like,” he said without looking up. He nudged his cup toward her with his right hand while his left continued to scrawl feverishly.

She had to close her eyes as she drank because, gods, the liquid really did look like blood.

But it tasted just as it smelled: like grass.

And then a sense of calm trickled over her from head to toe.

It was not the typical sensation from a normal cup of tea.

It was as if her thoughts had become muted, pushed into the background.

They were still present, but if she tried to focus on any details, they became fuzzy, detached.

What instead became more pronounced—more important—were her breathing, her heartbeat, the liquid slipping down her throat, the warmth of the cup against her hands.

For a moment, she had no concerns, no worries.

All too soon, the sensation passed and her thoughts returned to normal.

“I think you need this more than I do.” She nudged Alain’s cup back toward him. But he continued to write as if he’d forgotten she was there.

She studied his pen gliding across the page. In one swift movement, she leaned forward and snatched it from his hand. At last, he paused and looked up. He blinked at her, seeming more surprised than irritated.

“What were you writing about?” she asked, twirling the pen between her fingers.

“It’s nothing.”

He reached for the pen, and she returned it without a fight.

Getting him to stop had been her only goal.

Instead of resuming his writing, he pocketed the pen and tipped his notebook away from her as he closed it.

Not that there was any need to hide anything.

During his note-taking frenzies, his perfect script regressed to a scribble that she doubted even he could decipher.

“For ‘nothing,’ that sure was a lot of something.”

“Just another research idea I had.”

“Oh.”

Mavery took a long drink of her tea, thankful that the cup was large enough to hide the sour look on her face. His research was the last thing she wanted to talk about right now.

“I’m sorry for what happened in Kazamin’s office earlier.”

With a sigh, she lowered her cup. Of course, he wanted to talk about it.

“I’m sorry for not being transparent with you,” he continued. “Since you are my research subject—not to mention, the highest authority on Sensing that I know—I should have asked your opinion on the matter before diving in head-first. But, once again, I got ahead of myself and I…”

“Was an ass.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Well, at least you admit it. Again. But I’m not just your research subject, Alain.

I’m your assistant.” She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table.

“I’ll help you with this Sensing spell however I can, but you need to be honest with me.

You need to keep me informed about everything you’re researching. ”

She looked him in the eye, wondering if he would understand her true meaning behind those last three words.

Would he admit that he’d looked into her past?

Would he admit that he knew she was lying, bending the truth, omitting key details, whatever he wanted to call it?

Or, would they both continue to keep their secrets?

“I will,” he said, holding her gaze, “in due time.”

Finally, he drank his tea.