Page 33 of A Tower of Half-Truths

She nodded, and he lowered himself beside her on the sofa, immediately to her right.

He was so close, his thigh nudged hers when he leaned forward to push aside his ink-smeared notes.

When he leaned back again, their shoulders were barely an inch apart.

Whatever reservations he’d had yesterday out in public, they were no issue here in private.

She caught the scent of bergamot tea in his hair, on his breath. He had a black smudge on his left cheek, and she had an overwhelming desire to reach up and wipe it away. But she remained still, her hands clasped together in her lap.

“Rather than beginning with the alphabet, let’s begin with a number,” he said. “Twenty-eight. What does that bring to mind?”

She nearly sighed with relief for being given something more productive to focus on.

“Time, for starters,” she said. “There are twenty-eight hours in a day, twenty-eight days in a month, two hundred and eighty days in a year. Oh, and I remember that Etherean has twenty-eight letters—sorry, runes.”

He nodded. “The number twenty-eight has mathematical harmony, as it is the sum of all its divisors. But it also has Etherean harmony. You’ll find many incantations that use exactly twenty-eight runes—each one representing a single syllable—though divisors and multiples of twenty-eight are more common.

The one I’m about to teach you requires only seven syllables. ”

As Alain leaned forward again to lay out a blank sheet of paper, Mavery tried to ignore the slight pressure of his knee against hers. He wrote a line containing seven runes. Below that, he spelled them out phonetically.

“Etero rah mira shah.” His finger trailed along as he enunciated slowly. This incantation sounded familiar.

“Etero rah mira shah,” she repeated. The wards mitigated the full effects of the Ether; instead of a wintry gust throwing open a door, a draft slithered in through the keyhole.

“Remember to roll every ‘r.’ That’s very crucial.”

She repeated the incantation three more times before Alain nodded.

“I think you’re ready to recite it without the warding magic,” he said.

“Are you sure? Maybe I need one more go of it.”

“Don’t worry.” He placed his hand over hers. “You’ll be perfectly safe.”

She turned her head and met his gaze. As usual, his eyes were a bit sunken and ringed with fatigue.

But there was warmth within those pools of deepest brown: a glint of amber she’d never noticed before now, a softness she’d once impulsively turned away from, a reassurance that he wouldn’t let her come to harm.

“All right,” she said.

He unfurled her fingers and lifted her hand, palm facing up. He then raised his other hand overhead and, with a turn of his wrist, the violet-hued wards vanished.

“Remember,” he said, “the Ether is very sensitive. You can whisper the words, or bellow them like an opera singer, if you so desire.” From his soft laugh, she suspected he’d done the latter at least once. “The volume makes no difference, so long as your pronunciation is spot on.”

She nodded, took a deep breath, then directed her next words to her palm. Her voice quavered as she spoke.

“Etero rah mira shah.”

Instead of feeling it against her skin, the flow of Ether was internal. In quick succession, it chilled her from the marrow, filled her lungs with ice, then streamed out with her breath. It left her tongue slightly numb, as if she’d eaten a mouthful of snow from a mountaintop.

She gasped when a small orb of white light appeared above her palm. It was bright enough to make her eyes sting, but it was too beautiful to look away from.

“You’ve just conjured a bit of the Ether itself,” Alain said. “And on your first attempt, no less!”

She tore her gaze away from the orb and back to him. His smile was nearly as brilliant as the light hovering above her palm.

His fingertips remained against the back of her hand, to help her keep the orb at eye level. While she’d been focused on the spell, his free arm had draped along her upper back in a sort of half-embrace, as though he’d sensed that the rest of her also needed support.

“It will remain tethered to you until your arcana is completely expended. It’s yours to do with as you wish. You can sever that connection by making a fist, or you can send the light elsewhere in the room.”

“How do I do that?”

“Just move your hand upward and focus on where you want the orb to go.”

He lowered his hand, but his arm remained against her shoulders. She focused on a point near the ceiling and flicked her wrist. The orb floated upward, coming to rest where she’d intended.

“If you were to go into the other room, it would follow you in there,” Alain said. “To call it back, just focus your attention on it.”

By simply imagining the orb returning to her palm, it responded as if it and her thoughts were one. She formed a fist, then blinked as her eyes adjusted to the suddenly dim light.

“Can you teach me something else?”

He scratched his chin. “Since you mastered that so quickly, we could try something a bit more advanced.”

His hand left her shoulder so that he could retrieve his notebook. She leaned into him slightly—to better see his notes, of course. He stopped on a page in the latter half of the book.

“How about a brief overview on the basics of spellcraft?” When she nodded for him to continue, he cleared his throat.

“ ‘Spellcasting includes at least one, and up to four, components. Almost every spell requires a ritual component: touch, hand gestures, even simply focusing on a spell. But ritual-only spells are the most basic form of spellcasting, and are therefore the weakest.’ ”

She scoffed.

“Hmm, I see what you mean. I really ought to revisit these lessons more often.” He grabbed his pen, crossed out the last sentence, and made a correction. “ ‘Ritual-only spells are limited, but are still a completely valid form of spellcasting.’ How does that sound?”

“Much better,” she said.

“ ‘The more components a spell includes, the more complex it becomes. We just covered incantations. Next, we have anchors. Stones are the most common because they’re the easiest to acquire. Metals, while the more expensive option, will power a spell indefinitely. But anything that resonates with the Ether could serve as an anchor.’ ”

“I’ve always wondered, does an anchor have to be some sort of object? Could you use another person?”

“Inorganic materials are ideal, as they don’t need to replenish their arcana. But yes, you could use another mage—or several—for short-term spells. Once a mage’s arcana is depleted, so too will the spell end. And, of course, you’d need someone willing to serve as one.”

“Why ‘willing’? Is it painful?”

“No, but it’s incredibly draining, and it means having all the negative effects of burning through your arcana, but for someone else’s benefit.

” He turned to the next page and continued to read.

“ ‘Finally, we have augmentations. They are the most complicated component by far, especially if you are using a material that is not Ether-sensitive.’ Do you remember how I once used your hair to augment my protective ward?”

She nodded as she thought back to that day five weeks ago. No time at all, in the grand scheme of things, yet so much had transpired since then. On that first morning of her assistantship, she never would have imagined sitting this close to Alain, much less not minding it.

“Well,” he continued, “I could have used that strand of hair to allow any woman entry to my apartment, or to allow anyone with light brown hair—”

“Actually, I think I gave you a gray hair.”

“I never would have noticed.” He smiled. “So, you can see just how complex augmentations can become. For now, how about you try a simple incantation combined with an Ether-sensitive material?”

He stood up and retrieved something else from his desk. Mavery was acutely aware of how cold and empty the spot to her right had become.

Alain returned to the sofa a bit more sluggishly than before, and when he sat down, he looked dangerously close to nodding off. After setting up the wards and delivering the lesson, both his arcana and his energy had to be nearly spent.

He handed Mavery an iron coin. On another piece of paper, he wrote another line of runes—fourteen in total—and the pronunciations below it. He turned his wrist counter-clockwise, reinstating the violet auras around the room.

“This incantation will turn the iron into a basic compass,” he said. “It will glow with Ethereal light when you point it north. It’s a touch more difficult than conjuring an orb, but it’s nothing you can’t handle.”

It quickly proved to be more than she could handle.

Her tongue tripped over the strange phonics.

She would successfully remember to roll one ‘r,’ then forget to roll the next one.

After a quarter hour, she only managed to speak the entire incantation once without having to restart from the beginning.

Reciting it without the wards was completely out of the question.

“It takes practice,” Alain said. “I’d say this is a good stopping point for today. I should return to working on the Sensing spell.”

At the rate he was going, he would work himself to death before he could present the spell to the High Council. But she knew pressing the matter would be a waste of breath.

“Do you want your coin back?” she asked.

She held it in her open palm. Instead of taking it, Alain curled her fingers around it and laid his hand over her closed fist.

“Why don’t you keep it? Consider it a gift.”

“What for?”

“Er…when is your birthday?”

“The twenty-eighth of Nivose.”

“Then consider it a belated birthday present.”

He glanced at their joined hands, then promptly pulled his away. With a tinge of red coloring his face, he rose from the sofa. It seemed he finally remembered what they’d discussed yesterday about decorum.

As he busied himself with his research notes, she examined the coin.

It was a century-old potin, minted long before paper currency became the standard.

An antique like this would fetch maybe a hundred potins from the right pawnbroker—a paltry “score” for over a month of work, not counting her wages.

Though the coin wasn’t worth much, it was another sign that her persistence had paid off. Alain trusted her enough to give her something of his.

She should have been ecstatic.

She stared at the back of her hand, where his own had been moments earlier. The warmth and gentleness of his touch were soon drowned out by the guilt that came with planning schemes, sneaking around, telling half-truths, breaking into private rooms…

“I can’t do this anymore.”

“Do what?” Alain asked, looking up from his notes.

If she told him the truth, he would want nothing to do with her. That coin would be all she had to remember him by—assuming he didn’t demand she give it back.

“Er…my Senses are acting up again,” she said. “I don’t think I can work without more of that potion.”

“Of course. I made a large enough batch to last the week. I’ll go fetch you another cup.”

While Alain puttered around in the kitchen, Mavery chided herself for her cowardice.

As much as she wanted to put an end to her lying and scheming, she wasn’t yet ready to let go of all of this…

to let go of her employer, her friend. When he returned with a cup of the off-putting liquid, she choked it down as a small penance.

They then both resumed their work. Mavery returned to her usual cataloging and sorting.

Alain paced around the room while taking notes and muttering incoherently.

She pieced together that he was making adjustments to Enodus’s unfinished incantation, much like a poet trying to find the perfect turn of phrase.

After a few minutes of this, he stopped in front of her.

“I’m not distracting you, I hope.”

“Is this what you do when I’m not around?” she asked. “Talk to yourself while walking holes through your floorboards?”

He laughed. “Only when I’m pondering new ideas. But I’ll try to keep my monologuing more internal going forward.”

As promised, he resumed his pacing, but the only noise came from his footsteps. Though Mavery wouldn’t typically use the word “charming” to describe this sort of behavior, she couldn’t think of anything more suitable. Alain was charming…in his uniquely odd way.

Once afternoon tea had come and gone, he took his work to his desk, where he began reciting the incantation aloud.

Whereas Mavery had struggled to string together only fourteen syllables, he managed to recite what must have been pages’ worth of runes before stuttering, shaking his head, and marking a correction in his notes.

She hadn’t realized she’d been watching him until he gave her a sidelong glance and beckoned her over.

She leaned against his desk as she watched him work. These past few hours of minimal talking, keeping to their own tasks, had reminded her of the earliest days of her assistantship—something she was loath to return to. There was something comforting about being by his side again.

Though the potion had long worn off and the soundproofing ward was still in place, listening to him speak Etherean gave her chills nonetheless.

There was no denying he was on the brink of collapse.

Performing a single spell outside of the wards’ protection would likely drain him entirely.

Only then would he have no choice but to get the rest he so desperately needed.

Suddenly, a new plan formed. As Alain paused to make another correction, Mavery put it into motion.

“If you want to become a wizard, you need to invent your own spell, yes?”

“That’s the usual way,” he rasped, then cleared his throat. He put down his pen and turned to her. “But you could invent a potion, retrieve a lost relic, translate an ancient text. Any contribution to arcane scholarship will do, so long as the High Council deems it significant enough.”

“What did you do?”

“I took the traditional route and invented a spell.”

She smiled. “Could you demonstrate it for me?”

He mussed his hair with a grimace. “Even on an ordinary day, that spell leaves me absolutely knackered.” At that, Mavery stifled a laugh.

“But I suppose it would be a fitting way to cap off your first Etherean lesson. It won’t be easy, especially as I’ve never performed that spell with another person. ”

“Well, now I’m even more intrigued.”

He gazed around the room. “This is not the proper place for it, though. To get the full effect, we’ll need to go outside. Ideally, somewhere that’s bustling with activity.”

“You’re not going to elaborate, are you?”

“And spoil the surprise?” He gave her a tired but nonetheless enthused grin. “No, you know me too well.”