Page 28 of A Tower of Half-Truths

Seventeen

Mavery spent her day off plotting her next move. She’d first considered taking her savings and running off in the middle of the night. But no, she’d done enough of that for one lifetime. Alain had been decent to her in the short time they’d known each other; she at least owed him a proper goodbye.

Ultimately, she decided to announce her resignation first thing on Onisday morning.

She would keep the details vague: she’d been presented with another job opportunity that was conveniently far away from Leyport.

She would wish him luck with his current endeavors, then bid him farewell with a shaky promise to keep in touch.

Then, she would seek out another mark or, gods forbid, another crew.

It was far from an ideal plan, but what choice did she have?

Alain opened the door before she barely had the chance to knock. She wondered whether he’d augmented a resonating ward for her, or if he’d been standing by the door with his ear pressed to it.

“At last, you’re here!” he said, though she was precisely on time—same as every morning. He grasped her by the shoulders and steered her toward the sofa, moving so quickly he nearly caused her to trip over her own feet. “Come in, take a seat. I have something to show you.”

“I need to talk to you about something,” she said, but he was already halfway to the kitchen. “Alain, did you hear me?”

“Yes, we’ll speak in a moment. But first…”

He slipped through the doorway, and the clinking of alchemy equipment soon followed.

Mavery dropped her pack at her feet, then dropped herself onto the sofa.

No doubt, he’d finally completed his experiment.

She would humor him, let him indulge in his excitement for a moment before she snuffed it out.

He returned carrying a single teacup. He placed it before her on the table, then bounced on his heels as he waited. Simply watching him made her exhausted.

She raised the cup and peered at the liquid. It was black as tar and nearly as viscous, with a medicinal smell that made her nose scrunch.

“Remember the café we visited almost a fortnight ago?” Alain asked. “Think of this as my own take on alchemical tea.”

Whatever he called it made it no less unsettling. Mavery thought back to the assortment of ingredients he’d bought from Enid. Based on how his supplies had dwindled, every ingredient had gone into making this potion, including…

“Don’t tell me you put the powdered claws in this.”

“Only a very small amount.” She balked, and he dismissively waved a hand. “As the old saying goes, the difference between medicine and poison is all in the dosage. I’ve tested it myself multiple times and found that it’s perfectly safe. As for its effectiveness, well, only you can determine that.”

“And what, exactly, is this supposed to do?”

Alain sighed. “A healthy dose of skepticism is a virtuous trait for a scholar, Mavery, but you can have too much of a good thing.”

She gave him a hard stare. “I’m not drinking this until you tell me what it does.”

“But that would spoil the surprise.”

“Alain…”

“All right!” He threw up his hands. “I’ll give you a hint: I’m hoping this alleviates some…symptoms…that are specific to you.”

“I hope, for your sake, you’re referring to my Senses.” She raised an eyebrow, then stifled a laugh as his face turned red.

“I…I’ve already said too much,” he sputtered. “You’re just going to have to trust me.”

Mavery’s instincts told her to never trust a suspicious drink—especially if said drink contained poisonous ingredients, and doubly so if said drink was a potion crafted by someone who only dabbled in alchemy.

On the liquid’s dark surface, her reflection stared back at her, then rippled as she exhaled.

“All right. How much of this do I have to drink?”

“This dosage is based on a rough estimate of your weight—”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

He cleared his throat. “Er, all of it. Best do it quickly.”

She closed her eyes and threw it back like a shot of liquor. It had an astringent, slightly bitter taste, paired with the bergamot tea she liked. It was a bit gritty and didn’t taste good, but she was able to keep it down.

She placed the empty teacup on the table and waited. A moment passed without feeling anything, not even a hint of protest from her stomach. She opened her eyes again to find Alain watching her intently.

“Well, do you feel anything?”

“No.”

“Try looking at the door.”

She peered over his shoulder, then gasped.

The warding magic had vanished.

She rose from the sofa and approached the door.

The wards were still present, but she was likely seeing them as Alain did: a rippling effect instead of vibrant auras.

There was no longer the hum of arcana, nor the metallic taste she’d grown to ignore whenever she was this close to the door.

She turned to Alain, who hadn’t taken his eyes off her.

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“I take it the potion is working as intended.” His tone was much calmer than she’d expected. She could only assume it was taking every crumb of his willpower to not boast right now.

She nodded. “I can’t Sense a thing. This is… I don’t know what to say.”

“Before we get too carried away, let’s test how it works on incantations.”

He spoke a few syllables of Etherean. An orb of light appeared above his palm—the same one he’d conjured after catching her in the storage room. She felt no rush of Ether, no change in temperature.

“Nothing,” she breathed. “How did you…?”

Alain made a fist and snuffed out the orb. He stepped forward, close enough for her to see how the brightness in his eyes outshone the darkness encircling them.

“Walking you through the entire process would take all morning. Key to it was determining the exact amount of kutauss claws to negate the side effects of your Senses, without negating any of your arcana. I used myself as a test subject. But because my ability to detect magic is a poor substitute for yours, there was much trial and error involved. Many late nights sampling far more potions than one ought to.”

That explained the dark circles, the gauntness of his cheeks, the complexion that was more deathly pale than usual.

It was no wonder he’d kept her in the dark.

Had she known he was going to spend the past ten nights poisoning himself and forgoing sleep solely for her benefit, she would have put her foot down.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she said, “I appreciate it, but why go through all that trouble?”

“We’ll soon be taking more frequent trips to the University. Eventually, we’ll return there full time.” He smiled. “We’ll never get any work done if you’re having endless headaches and chills.”

She nodded as her heart sank. Of course he’d done all of this for practical reasons; a useful tool needed to be kept in prime working condition. It was ridiculous to hope, if only for a second, there had been more to it than that.

His smile faded. Softly, he said, “When your Senses overwhelmed you so much, you could hardly breathe…” He lowered his eyes as he raked his fingers through his hair.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought back to that.

And later that day, when you drank that tea, I knew I could find some way to help you.

Not to remove your Senses altogether, but to give you more than a single moment of relief. ”

He took another step forward and, just as he’d done in the corridor outside Nezima’s classroom, he touched her shoulder.

She glanced at his hand, then upward, until her eyes met his.

His gaze was so soft, so focused, a different instinct urged her to look away.

But she held it, even as her pulse raced and the air around her became sweltering.

“I once said I would find a way to thank you for cleaning up my messes. I hope this potion is adequate.”

“It’s…”

Her breath caught in her lungs. Her mouth suddenly turned dry.

“Er…excuse me,” she muttered.

She rushed into the bathroom and closed the door.

As she leaned against it, tears stung her eyes, but trying to blink them back was no use; they broke free in hot, wet rivulets.

She lunged for the sink, turned the tap, hoped the running water would drown her out as she leaned against the basin and sobbed.

Gods, when had she last allowed herself a good long cry?

Paired with relief was a cascade of every emotion she’d tamped down and tucked away for over a month. Altogether, they were too strong to suppress. Individually, they were too fleeting to grasp.

And it was all because she couldn’t recall anyone in recent memory doing something so kind for her, because she’d done nothing in recent memory that made her worthy of such kindness.

She especially didn’t deserve kindness from the man she intended to, if not rob, then use as a means of robbing someone else.

And at the heart of this whirlwind was Neldren, that godsdamned bastard, for betraying her, for being the reason she was in this mess in the first place.

With the next sob came a surge of arcana.

Like a rushing flood against a cracked dam, unbridled magic broke through her body and ricocheted off the bathroom mirror.

She yelped, stumbled backward, collided with the linen cabinet.

The bolt of magic dissipated midair but left behind a spiderweb of cracked glass.

Right. That’s why a good long cry is a bad idea.

Now that the surge had passed, she turned off the tap and examined her face in the broken mirror.

Her eyes and nose were red and swollen, her cheeks damp.

And she was certain Alain had heard the commotion, even over the running tap.

She couldn’t hide in here forever. She dried her face with the hand towel and opened the door.

In unison, she and Alain flinched, gasped. He had been waiting outside, leaning against the doorframe.

“Are you all right? The tea didn’t make you ill?”

“I’m fine.” Her voice was thick, her throat raspy.

“Oh, that’s a relief,” he sighed. “I was considering whether to change the—”

She threw her arms around his shoulders. His body stiffened as he emitted a chuckle that sounded equal parts surprised and nervous.

“It’s more than adequate,” she whispered.

He relaxed against her.

“I’m glad,” he whispered back.

His arms wrapped around the small of her back. And then her breath hitched as what she’d intended to be a brief, appreciative hug escalated to a far more intimate embrace. He pulled her closer, leaving no space between them.

A bit to her own surprise, she rested her chin against his shoulder. He clung to her even more tightly, as though afraid of what would happen when he let go. She didn’t want to find out, either. So, they remained that way for a moment longer, his body warming hers, her breaths slowing to match his.

When he pulled back, his hands shifted to her waist, just above her hips. Hers skimmed down his arms and came to rest at his elbows. There was a mistiness to his eyes, and she wondered if he’d suppressed a sob of his own.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Me?” He cleared his throat. “Never better.”

It was the least convincing lie she’d ever heard.

“I’m just relieved that my little experiment was successful.”

She scoffed. “ ‘Little experiment’? Don’t be so godsdamned modest. And you didn’t need to do all that just for me.”

“I know I didn’t need to.” He smiled at her. “But I wanted to.”

There was no fire in the hearth, but the room had turned oppressively hot again. Then, with a grimace, she remembered what had happened in the bathroom.

“Well, as a token of my gratitude, I broke your mirror.”

He laughed. “Not on purpose, I hope?”

“No, of course not! I had a magic surge just now—my first in over a year, actually.”

“Do you think the potion had something to do with it?”

“Er, not directly. My surges have always been more of an…emotional reaction.”

She looked down and realized their hands were still on each other.

She cleared her throat and shifted her eyes, drawing his attention to how his fingers still pressed into her hips, though not uncomfortably.

From the way his eyes widened and his face flushed, he’d also forgotten how they were standing.

They both dropped their hands, backed away, exchanged a nervous laugh.

But the awkwardness carried an undercurrent of regret for breaking their connection so soon.

“So, er, how long will this potion last?” Mavery asked.

“A dose of that quantity should last four hours, give or take,” Alain said. “That will give us ample time for the second phase of this test run, if you’re interested.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“We’ll take another trip to the University, see how the potion works against larger, more concentrated sources of magic.

Plus, Kazamin sent word the other day that the incomplete Sensing spell he’d told us about is now available.

There’s but one problem: the tome is so old and delicate, it cannot leave the library.

So, if we want to study it thoroughly, what I’d hoped would be a quick trip to campus may take a few hours. ”

“If you found out days ago, why haven’t you gone already?”

The High Council presentation was now less than three weeks away. She had expected him to jump at the first opportunity to continue the research that would secure his wizard rank.

“Well, I did promise to involve you with every step of this spell. I had to make sure the potion was ready, so you could join me without any ill effects.”

She smiled. If he continued on like this, she would feel obligated to embrace him again…though she supposed there were worse things she could do.

“By the way, what did you want to talk about?”

Mavery blinked at him. “Oh, er… Honestly, I don’t remember.” She shrugged. It wasn’t a complete lie; she’d almost forgotten about her plan to resign and leave Leyport. “Must’ve not been all that important.”

In hindsight, perhaps she’d been too hasty. Her life had been little more than an endless string of temporary arrangements, all born out of convenience and built on half-truths. Wasn’t this just the latest one? Why not stay a little longer and enjoy it while it lasted?