Page 35 of A Tower of Half-Truths

Twenty-Two

Adistant crash roused her from the depths of sleep.

It took her a few seconds to remember where she was: not on her tiny cot at the boarding house, but on Alain’s double bed. Stars dotted the night sky, thick clouds obscured the moonlight. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she felt around but found only an empty bed beside her.

“Alain?” she called.

Silence.

“Etero rah mira shah.”

However long she’d slept, it had been enough to recover her arcana. She shivered, then winced as an orb of light appeared above her palm. Her excitement from remembering the incantation vanished when she confirmed that she was alone.

She tossed aside a thick blanket that she couldn’t recall covering herself with, then slung herself off the bed. The orb of Ether followed her into the main room. She flicked her wrist and sent it to the ceiling, where it cast the space in white light.

“Alain, are you in here? What happened?”

The clock on the mantel said it was a quarter to midnight. She’d been asleep much longer than she’d anticipated, though it wasn’t surprising; she couldn’t remember the last time her arcana had been drained so completely.

Aside from the clock ticking away, the apartment was eerily quiet at this time of night.

The air itself was more stale and stagnant than usual.

She looked to the front door, and her stomach lurched.

Most of the wards had vanished. All that remained was the blue aura of the protective ward—the one that was anchored to the stone inside a desk drawer.

She looked down and found Alain motionless across the tea table.

“Shit!”

She rushed to his side, dropped to her knees with a twinge of pain. She grabbed his shoulder, but he didn’t respond. His body was warm but unnaturally still, lacking even the most minute movement.

“Oh, no-no-no, don’t you fucking dare…”

When she pulled him from the table, he landed on the floor like a felled tree.

She rolled him onto his back. His skin was even more pallid than usual, his lips were tinted blue, his widened eyes lacked any semblance of warmth.

No breath, no heartbeat, but no sign of what had killed him.

The only thing out of the ordinary was a thin book that had been pinned beneath his body.

Its crumpled pages were covered in Etherean runes.

Though Mavery couldn’t make heads or tails of the text, she knew this had to be one of the spells Kazamin had given Alain to peer review.

Why he’d decided to resume this sort of work in the middle of the night, effectively by himself, gods only knew. All she knew was that something had gone horribly wrong.

Mavery hoisted herself off the floor, then hurried back to the bedroom with her orb of light trailing behind her. As she’d done nearly two weeks ago, she removed the rug, then the loose floorboard. This time, she snatched the long, thin box.

She laid out the box’s contents: a syringe with a needle so thick and severe looking, it made her skin prickle; a thumb-sized vial filled with silver liquid; three pairs of surgical tweezers in various sizes; a folded paper with Read This First written upon it; and a bundle of potins.

Her own heart nearly stopped upon realizing how thick that bundle was. But she put it aside and unfolded the paper. The protocol instructions were written in Alain’s most elegant script.

In case of fatal accident:

1. Remove any clothing covering the heart area. If necessary, use tweezers to remove foreign objects that may pose a lethal threat upon revival.

2. Fill syringe with one vial of resurrection serum.

3. Aim syringe directly over heart.

Below that step was a sketch of a torso; an X indicated the exact spot to insert the needle.

He’d said his instructions would be straightforward, though Mavery wished he’d informed her of the details.

Still, she’d seen worse than this not long ago.

Fennick’s slashed throat flashed in her mind’s eye as she forced herself to continue reading.

4. Pierce chest with a firm, downward movement.

5. Slowly inject serum. (For best results, count to 30.)

6. Remove syringe and wait. Revival may take several minutes.

Serum must be administered no more than ONE HOUR after death. If serum is unsuccessful, deliver body and enclosed funds to a Resurrectionist within THREE HOURS. They will make house calls for an additional fee. (Addresses are listed below. Use the password “camellia.”)

In the event that three hours pass without a successful revival, please notify next of kin: Priscilla Tesseraunt in the Garden District.

She’d heard him fall only moments ago. There was still time to administer the serum. But then her attention drifted back to the money, and her curiosity got the better of her. She counted out the notes.

Two thousand potins.

She was holding the equivalent of the payout from the Burnslee job—the full payout, and she wouldn’t have to split it with anyone.

She then picked up the vial of resurrection serum and held it to her eye.

It was metallic and viscous—a bit like quicksilver with an iridescent sheen.

How much would this fetch on the black market?

A serum that was only accessible to wizards had to be worth another thousand, if not more.

Here it was, the score she’d been looking for all along. For the past ten hours, she’d been quite literally sleeping on it. She laughed as tears muddled her vision.

Had she gotten her hands on this weeks ago, she would have taken it and slipped out of the city without a second thought. Now, she would still use it, but not in the way her past self ever would have expected.

With the resurrection kit tucked under her arm, she returned to the sitting room. She pushed back the tea table with a grunt—it was much heavier than it appeared—and cleared enough space to sit by Alain’s side. As she fumbled with his shirt buttons, she recalled the last words he’d spoken to her.

“You were wrong,” she whispered, though she knew he couldn’t hear a thing. “I’m the one who doesn’t deserve you.”

Once she revived him, she would have to tell him the truth—and there was a not-so-small chance she would never again be on the receiving end of his warm smile, or his even warmer embrace.

Once he turned her away, she would never again hear his impassioned ramblings or words of encouragement.

Never again would they engage in deep discussions or playful arguments.

But she couldn’t keep her ruse going forever; he deserved better than that.

When she unfastened the final button and parted the fabric, she gasped.

A thin scar ran down the length of his torso, from sternum to navel.

Beneath a wisp of dark hair, there was another scar—no larger than the head of a nail—in the exact spot where she needed to insert the needle.

But she could ponder all that later—after she revived him.

She filled the syringe, taking care to avoid pricking herself with the needle, then held it directly above his heart. She took a deep breath as her vision focused on the tiny round scar. Everything else faded to darkness.

In one swift movement, she plunged the needle into his chest, then depressed the plunger as she counted to thirty.

In a sense, this was nothing more than a healing spell.

And as with any healing spell, all she needed to do was focus and breathe.

When the syringe was empty, she pulled it out and tossed it onto the tea table.

A spot of blood bubbled from where the needle had been.

She’d saved him…or had she? Her heart lodged in her throat as she recalled the instructions—and the caveats. What if the serum didn’t work? What if she’d misjudged the time, and more than an hour had passed? Could she find a Resurrectionist this late at night?

As the seconds stretched on like hours, she chewed on a hangnail until her skin turned bloody and raw, and her eyes stung with more tears. But never once did she leave his side. When she placed her hand upon his chest, his heart remained still as stone.

Come on. Come back to me…

Even more seconds passed, even more tears filled her eyes.

Then, the lightest pulse stirred beneath her fingertips.

Alain’s eyes widened. He inhaled sharply, followed by a fit of ragged coughing that made his entire body quaver. He bolted upright, and Mavery was relieved she’d had the foresight to move the tea table.

“Careful,” she said. Standing up was likely out of the question, so she helped him turn around, lean his back against the sofa.

He continued to cough, but with each one, more color returned to his cheeks.

She noted to herself that she would never again think of his complexion as “deathly pale.” Compared to the real thing, he was radiant.

She rubbed small circles against his shoulder as his coughing fit subsided. He then turned to her.

“Mavery,” he gasped. Coming from his voice, her name was like the most beautiful music she’d ever heard. “Thank—”

She lunged forward and threw her arms around him, nearly knocking him to the floor again. Simply feeling his breath and pulse strummed up a well of emotion and arcana. The former sprung free in a shuddering sob, while the latter coursed through her veins like a gathering storm.

She pulled away at once, not wanting to risk her magic surging beyond her control.

She recalled what she’d done to his bathroom mirror, and she had no intention of seeing what would happen if Alain was on the receiving end of that.

Besides, it probably wasn’t a good idea to squeeze someone whose lungs had started working again only a moment ago.

“Sorry about that.” She dried her eyes with the back of her hand. Yet another emotional impulse had gotten the better of her. “I just…for a minute there…I thought…”

“No need to apologize. Now that you’ve gone through the procedure, I’m sure you understand why I was reluctant to tell you more.”