Page 39 of A Tower of Half-Truths

“Well, if more people used that same reasoning, perhaps all the Pantheonic churches would have less influence.” They had now returned to the plaza.

Alain stopped before the dome of warding magic and sighed.

“Sorry, you wanted me to take a night off, and here I am, diving head-first into a theological discussion.”

Mavery grinned as she nudged him with her elbow. “You can take a scholar out of his library…”

She stepped through the magical barrier, and Alain followed closely behind her. The Night Market was less crowded than before, but the festivities continued on, now with much shorter queues at the stalls. Mavery gasped as she spotted a familiar sight at one of them.

“I haven’t had one of those in years!” she cried, pointing to one of Fenutia’s signature pastries. Dozens of flaky layers formed a spiral shape that was roughly the length of her forearm and half as wide. The entire thing was encased in a thick, white glaze and dusted with powdered sugar.

“Good evening, sir,” she said to the merchant in Fenutian. “How much costing, this is?”

Though Mavery had read plenty of the language over the past week, speaking it was another matter entirely. Despite her butchering of Fenutian grammar, the merchant—a stout, gray-haired man—gave her a broad smile.

“Normally, three potins each,” he replied in Fenutian, albeit at a glacial pace. “But for speaking my mother tongue, you pay half.”

Mavery relayed this to Alain, who balked at the cost.

“You did promise me anything,” she said. “And trust me, these are so incredible, they’re worth the cost ten times over.”

“If you say so,” he muttered as he handed the man a single note and fifty coppers.

Mavery had barely put any distance between herself and the stall when she could no longer resist. Hearing the crunch as she took a bite brought about a wave of nostalgia.

Tasting the rich butter as it melted on her tongue, then ungracefully licking the cinnamon and sugar from her lips, brought about a second wave.

“It’s called an eenerharn. Unicorn horn,” she said, holding the pastry up to Alain. “Go on, try it.”

He leaned forward and took a bite straight from her hand.

She laughed. Though she had intended for him to take it from her, his method was definitely more efficient.

From the corner of her eye, Mavery spotted an elderly couple shooting them disapproving looks, but she was too focused on Alain’s reaction to the pastry to care.

The longer he chewed, the more his eyes widened.

“You were right,” he said. “That is incredible. I would’ve thought that was a Dauphinian pastry.”

Mavery snorted. “Dauphine doesn’t have superiority over everything, you know. I must have eaten my weight in these when I lived on the other side of the Merimar. They were far less expensive over there.”

“Is that how you learned Fenutian?”

“Yes, although…” She narrowed her eyes at him as she took another bite. With her mouth full, she added, “Didn’t you say it only requires sticking a sock in your mouth?”

“If only I’d known at the time how useful your Fenutian skills would be.” Alain lowered his head. “In any case, I shouldn’t have said that. I would like to know about your time in Fenutia, if you wish to tell me.”

She took another bite as she considered his apology. As she swallowed, she decided to reveal a bit more about her past.

“Not long after I left the Dragons, I joined up with the River Watch. Thought I’d give mercenary work a shot. Mind you, I joined as a medic, not a soldier.”

Alain looked up. “Ha, I knew it! I figured that was how you’d learned Soudremancy.”

“Oh, no, I already knew a few healing spells by then.” She thought of the stolen primer in her Compendium. “The Watch was so desperate for healers, they took me on even though I couldn’t patch up more than a paper cut.

“But there was little need for me in the end. When the duke who’d hired the Watch showed up with a thousand militiamen, the other duke practically shat himself.

They settled the border dispute before the ink on my contract even dried, but I ended up staying in Fenutia for nearly two years after that. ”

“If it was for the pastries, I don’t blame you,” Alain said. He gestured for her to hand over the eenerharn, then took a generous bite from what remained of it.

“It wasn’t just the pastries. As is the case for many ill-fated decisions, there was a beautiful woman at the center of it.”

“Are you talking about yourself?”

“Gods, no!” Mavery cackled as her heart thundered in her chest.

“Oh,” Alain said. As he started to take another bite, he paused. His eyes widened, and now it was his turn to blush. “Oh, you mean…”

“I’m talking about Eryka, the barmaid who won the hearts of the militiamen but only had eyes for the medic.” She pointed at herself, then frowned. “That was, until the civil war broke out two years later, and she refused to flee across the river with said medic.”

“Do you know what happened to her?”

“No, I don’t tend to keep in touch with old flames.”

All except for one, but she wasn’t about to speak of him tonight. Mavery lowered her gaze and fell silent as she ate the last of the pastry. Alain cleaned his sugar-dusted fingers with his handkerchief, then passed it to her. After she handed it back, he hesitated, fidgeting with the soiled cloth.

“So…” He cleared his throat. “Are you exclusively interested in women, or…?”

Her heart pounded again. “Er, no, I’ve taken lovers of all sorts. To put it more plainly, what’s beneath someone’s clothes has never mattered much to me.”

He smiled. “That’s yet another thing we have in common.”

They held each other’s gaze for a moment, until applause sounded nearby. Mavery realized they were alone; the remaining market-goers had crowded around some of the performers.

“Shall we go see what the fuss is about?” Alain asked.

“By all means,” Mavery said, and followed him toward the source of the applause. It didn’t take long to find what had drawn everyone’s attention. Even the other entertainers had stopped their own performances to watch the show.

Alain weaved through the crowd, presumably seeking a spot where top hats and plumes wouldn’t obscure the view. He found one near the front, but this section was still so dense, he and Mavery had to stand shoulder to shoulder.

Each of the performers controlled a ring of fire the size of a wagon wheel, which they tossed between one another.

Every few passes, the rings split—first into six, then into twelve—and the crowd gasped each time.

Yet, the performers juggled the enormous, fiery rings as though they were merely children’s toys.

Mavery looked at Alain, half-expecting him to watch this flashy display of magic with a critical eye. But he was as transfixed as the rest of the audience.

The fire wielder in the center molded her rings into a whip, which then surged with white-blue flames. Her partners tossed her their rings, and she snagged each one with a crack of her whip.

How she had managed to make fire emit that sort of sound, Mavery pondered for only a second.

She blinked, and both whip and rings vanished.

In their place, a fiery serpent hovered above the stage.

Together, the performers motioned as if casting a large net, and the serpent soared above the crowd.

It twisted and writhed in a manner that was eerily realistic, illuminating the awestruck faces in orange light.

A few screams of terror cut through the applause, and not all of them came from children.

As it swam closer, Mavery realized it wasn’t merely a serpent but a dragon. Sculpted from fire were its bearded head, long snout, and tendril-like whiskers. Flames rippled along its body, creating the illusion of scales.

The dragon’s jaws unhinged, and from its maw spewed a plume of bright yellow fire. As it swooped in close, Mavery briefly forgot herself. With a gasp, she grabbed Alain’s hand. When she realized what she’d done, even the dragon’s intense heat couldn’t compare to what radiated from her own skin.

But before she could so much as mutter an apology for her impropriety—and here, in a place more crowded than the University’s quad—Alain’s fingers entwined with hers.

She glanced at him. He was still looking ahead, but with a hint of a smile on his lips that she suspected had little to do with the show.

As she returned her attention to the stage, she relaxed, nestling her fingers more comfortably between his.

They remained that way until the Elemental wielders dismissed their fiery serpent and took their final bow. Alain released Mavery’s hand to add to the crowd’s enthusiastic applause. She frowned, feeling a pang of loss, before joining in herself.