Page 26 of A Tower of Half-Truths

Fifteen

After Mavery scampered out of the apartment and slammed the door behind her, Alain released a heavy sigh. The weight of everything that had happened over these past minutes came crashing down all at once, and his body sagged against the doorframe.

He had known this day would come, though he’d hoped he could have delayed it for a while longer.

It had been days since Mavery had last commented on the storage room.

But he’d noticed the way her gaze would flick toward the door when she thought he wasn’t paying attention.

The way her brow would furrow as she no doubt pondered what lay beyond it.

He couldn’t fault her for sating her curiosity after he’d created such an aura of mystery about this room.

If anything, he should have been more upfront, perhaps shown it to her from the first day of their partnership.

After all, she’d complimented his paintings. She hadn’t disparaged him as some of his colleagues once had.

And why would she? She wasn’t like them. She wasn’t like anyone he’d ever known in the wizarding community.

Alain secured the trapdoor and retrieved the desk lamp without sparing a look at the paintings.

The glimpse he’d gotten moments ago had been more than enough.

He could go another year—or a lifetime—before he glimpsed them again.

He closed the door, though he didn’t bother locking it.

Now that this secret was out, he no longer saw a need for it.

Back in the bedroom, he lay down and closed his eyes, but sleep would not come. His mind kept returning to what Mavery had revealed to him outside Enid’s shop. All along, his apothecary had been a Brass Dragon. And Mavery had once had “run-ins” with them.

Perhaps she’d been a member of law enforcement, tasked with infiltrating the guild and cracking down on black market operations.

That would have been a viable theory, had he not recalled Enid’s parting words. She’d called Mavery a “kindred spirit.”

He already knew Mavery had once been a wardbreaker. What if her other pursuits had been more nefarious?

With a low groan, Alain opened his eyes. Sleep was a fickle enough mistress on an ordinary day, and today’s events had been anything but ordinary. As he did whenever sleep failed him, he threw himself away from his bed and into work.

In the kitchen, the small mountain of herbs remained on the table.

Mavery had ordered him to begin grinding the fallowroot petals, and so he continued what he’d started.

Having something to do with his hands brought him immediate relief, though the sound of stone scraping against stone quickly faded to his stentorian thoughts.

What did he know about his assistant?

First: She bore callused fingers and a smattering of old scars. Whatever life she’d lived before coming to Leyport, it had been far from a pampered one.

Second: Despite having no formal education, she’d somehow managed to acquire a patchwork knowledge of several Schools of Magic—including Soudremancy.

Third: That knowledge included not-so-savory subjects. He doubted black market ingredients and criminal organizations were the extent of it.

Alain couldn’t necessarily assume the worst. He himself had first come across kutauss claws in a tome he’d picked up at an antique dealer’s, not realizing at the time that the High Council had banned the book nearly a century ago.

Per the Covenants, he was duty-bound to turn in banned books to an arcanist, but this one had proven so useful, he’d selfishly kept it.

Besides, he saw little harm in doing so.

He would never use a forbidden book for his real research.

He wiped his violet-stained fingers on his trousers, then made a quick detour to the sitting room to fetch that very book.

Thanks to Mavery’s efforts in culling his collection, he’d had little trouble finding it last night, and he’d taken copious notes for his current project.

Book in hand, he returned to the kitchen to put those notes into action.

He turned to the page on kutauss claws. In their current state, they were incredibly poisonous.

But the alchemist who had penned this tome—simply, “the Maker”—had discovered that bringing the claws to a supergressive state reduced their arcana-sapping properties.

That seemed the most promising place to start.

Alain placed the book aside, then performed a fireproofing ward.

As it did whenever he performed the most rudimentary of spells, his mind wandered.

This time, he was transported to a moment from a little over a week ago, in this very room, when Mavery had healed his injured finger.

She’d never trained at any temple, so where else would she have learned Soudremancy?

Perhaps she’d been a medic in the military. That would explain not only her healing skills, but her shorter-than-fashionable hair, her toughened hands, her blunt manner of speaking.

No, he couldn’t imagine her wearing a uniform while someone barked orders at her, much less taking those orders without question. The thought alone made him laugh.

He retrieved his torch—and reminded himself to focus. Though his fireproofing ward would stop a fire from spreading beyond the kitchen, it wouldn’t prevent him from catching himself on fire.

He began with a tiny amount of powdered claws, barely enough to fill a thimble half-way.

He deposited them in the bowl of a calcinator and, with an infusion of arcana, ignited his torch.

He guided the flame in a circular motion, carefully heating the powder from above until it blackened, then continued until it turned white as fresh snow—purification.

Had this been any other alchemical recipe, he would have stopped here.

But he continued until the ashy substance began to glow from the inside out, much like a brick of charcoal.

Ordinarily, reaching the point of supergression would render an ingredient useless, but the Maker had yet to lead him astray.

With this step complete, he now needed to render the powdered claws into a liquid state.

For this, he didn’t bother referencing the Maker’s recipe.

Many alchemical recipes used water as a solvent, but Alain knew from experience that most types of claws required a solvent with a touch more potency.

He doubted kutauss claws, even in their powdered form, would be an exception.

For this, he would use alkahest: an odorless liquid that could be easily confused with water. But if one were to drink an entire glass of it, their melting insides would quickly inform them of their mistake. There was little alkahest couldn’t dissolve.

He wondered if Mavery knew that. She could heal, yes, but were poisons also part of her repertoire? As Alain grabbed a bottle of alkahest from the larder, his breath hitched.

What if she’s an assassin?

Perhaps one of his colleagues had hired her to bring his guard down and turn his year-long sabbatical into a permanent leave of absence.

He shook his head, then poured the alkahest into a metal bowl. No, he was letting his imagination get the better of him. If Mavery were a hired killer, he’d given her ample opportunities to follow through on the killing part.

As he tipped the powdered claws into the bowl of alkahest, he considered how this afternoon was a prime example. She would have knifed him in his sleep, not broken into his—

The alkahest and powder combined with an angry hiss. Instead of bubbling and then dissolving, the mixture erupted into a plume of white vapor aimed directly at Alain’s face.

Too distracted to react in time, he inhaled a lungful of it.

The taste and scent—a bit like rotten eggs—made his stomach churn, and his eyes burned as he bolted for the window.

He threw it open, but the burst of fresh air only heightened the tempest in his stomach.

He then lunged at the sink, where he spat a mouthful of white phlegm into the basin.

Alkahest is a bit too potent, he thought as he gulped down handfuls of water. He shouldn’t have trusted his instincts. If he believed in the afterlife, he could imagine the Maker, whoever they’d been, chiding him from the Beyond.

Once his coughing subsided, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before taking a deep breath. He’d only used a small amount of kutauss claws, so he hadn’t wasted too much of an expensive ingredient. His mishap hadn’t proved lethal—just very unpleasant.

Furthermore, it had given him a bit of clarity. Mavery being an assassin was absurd, but what if he wasn’t too far off the mark? There were many ways to end a wizard’s career prematurely. Death, while the most common, was but one of them.

What if a colleague had hired her—not to kill him, but to get the dirt on him? What if Mavery had expected to find that dirt in the storage room?

It wasn’t lost on Alain that he and Kazamin had a close relationship, and that the dean had a history of giving him special treatment.

Alain couldn’t recall the last time someone in his department had been granted a year-long sabbatical, much less after failing to follow the proper protocol for it.

Alain wouldn’t put it past someone like Nezima to resent him for that.

But hiring someone to sabotage him? Would she go to those lengths for petty revenge?

Yes, Nezima most definitely would. If she was scheming something, he only hoped Mavery had nothing to do with it.

No, he was certain she had nothing to do with it.

Either Nezima and Mavery were exceptional actresses, or that moment in the common room yesterday had truly been their first meeting.

He recalled how Mavery had returned Nezima’s glare with an even steelier one, how she’d taken Nezima’s critique without so much as a flinch…

Alain realized he was smiling.

He couldn’t deny that, just as he couldn’t deny that he enjoyed Mavery’s company—and that he was beginning to let it color his judgment.

Had Wren or Lorcan broken into his storage room, he would have dismissed them without a second thought.

Not only had he told Mavery to come back tomorrow, his initial reaction had been to blame himself for his assistant’s transgression.

Wanting to keep her around was only natural. After all, she comprised the entirety of his social circle most days. But he knew there was more to it than that. If all he desired was human interaction, he could call upon Declan at any time. Or, gods forbid, his mother.

Declan expected him to endure bustling taverns, cheap ale, and off-color jokes.

His mother expected him to accept a deluge of criticism and be grateful for the kernel of affection buried within it.

His colleagues’ expectations weren’t much better.

As the Wizard Aventus the Third, he was to carry himself with decorum, to be the stoic academic who never showed a hint of weakness.

It was all so exhausting.

He’d always found books much easier than people.

They never expected anything from you, never demanded that you alter the essence of your being, never hurt you in the way another person could.

And so, for the better part of a year, he’d believed that he could forgo people and get by with only his library for company.

But books made for terrible conversation partners. Even the Ether, for all its wonders, had its limitations. It wasn’t until Mavery came along that Alain realized how lonely of an existence he’d created for himself.

With her, there were no expectations. No matter how many times he stuck the proverbial foot in mouth, she never demanded that he change himself into someone she found more favorable.

It was refreshing to simply be in someone else’s company for once.

Of course, there was a chance she only tolerated his company because she was working for Nezima, or another of Alain’s disgruntled colleagues.

If there was any truth to his suspicions, then so be it.

He would do anything to secure another day in Mavery’s company, even if it came back to haunt him.

And so, he measured out another sample of kutauss claws. The sun now hung low in the sky, and a long night of experimenting awaited him.