Page 51 of A Tower of Half-Truths

“I’ll take care of writing the final draft, if that makes things easier,” he said.

Mavery looked at what remained of her work. A mere two pages had taken her most of the morning, as each errant drop of ink had forced her to restart, and her penmanship still looked no better than a child’s scrawl. She’d wasted a small fortune in vellum and ink, but she wanted this to be perfect.

After spending so much time with Enodus’s unfinished tome, she couldn’t say she felt any personal connection to the long-dead wizard.

Their Sensing abilities truly were all they had in common.

Enodus had been born into a noble house—one whose family tree was abundant with mages.

He had served as Court Wizard for three of North Fenutia’s monarchs.

Despite being so acclaimed in his homeland, Enodus’s writings had never been translated.

Mavery felt it was her responsibility to share another Senser’s work with the rest of the continent.

Having someone else do that work, even partially didn’t sit well with her.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “You still have so much left to do.”

“Actually, I think the incantation might be ready for a test run.”

“Really?” Mavery raised her brows.

He nodded, though the look in his eyes belied the confidence in his words.

He gestured for her to join him on the sofa, where he handed her the notebook he’d been using to draft the spell.

Not even two weeks ago, she’d seen the runes as little more than a jumble of elegant lines and curves.

Now, she could identify patterns that formed words and phrases.

The lines of runes looked like stanzas, further cementing her view that incantations were like poetry.

She doubted she had the stamina to attempt reading this spell aloud; it spanned three full pages.

“It’s quite…long,” she said. “It must take you several minutes to recite all this.”

Alain sighed. “Two minutes and fourteen seconds, to be precise.”

That was over twice the length of the incantation he’d used to shroud them in Ether—and that one had sounded exceptionally complex.

Mavery looked over the incantation again. This time, she noticed a series of fourteen runes that repeated five times in various places, though she lacked the fluency to know what purpose they served. She pointed them out to Alain.

“Each one of these will reveal ley lines,” he said.

She pondered this for a moment.

“If I’m going about this correctly,” she said, “Enodus’s spell reveals all wards, but only casts them in Ethereal light.”

“That’s the first step. Then, my additions will cast the primary types of wards in their respective colors.”

“Does Enodus’s spell also work on ley lines?” When he nodded, she said, “They always appear silver to me, so not much different than Ethereal light. Why not take out all these repetitive sections?”

Eyes widening, Alain gaped at her. “Gods, how hadn’t I thought of that before?”

He took back his notebook. While he patted his pockets, Mavery spotted a pen on the tea table and handed it to him. He muttered something that she interpreted as appreciation, then fell silent as he scribbled his revisions.

“I’d been so caught up in ensuring the spell was comprehensive, I’d completely neglected Venetum’s Fifth Principle: efficiency. Well, this will definitely shorten it by a considerable amount.” He snapped the notebook shut, then watched her for a moment as a smile tugged at his lips.

“Is something the matter?”

“Not at all,” Alain said, then smiled fully.

There was a glimmer in his eye that warmed Mavery in places that she dared not acknowledge at this exact moment.

She forced herself to look away before she did or said anything foolish.

To her immense relief, he asked, “Well, shall we give this a trial run?”

He rose from the sofa and began preparing the room, starting with adding a detonation ward to the slew of magic covering the front door.

He assured Mavery it was harmless, but she kept her distance anyway.

She then repeated the fireproofing spell she’d mastered yesterday, applying it to the wooden box before going to the kitchen and taking a dose of anti-Sensing potion.

She would need to ensure any auras she saw were due to Alain’s spell, not her innate abilities.

Finally, she retrieved the resurrection kit beneath the bed. It was only a precaution—one she hoped they wouldn’t need. Alain had since replaced the vial of serum, and the stack of potins was much shorter than it had been before.

With everything assembled, they stood side by side in the center of the room, facing the front door as though they were anticipating a visitor to come bursting through it.

“Ready?” Alain asked, giving Mavery a sidelong glance.

She nodded. “Ready when you are.”

He took a deep breath, then began reciting the incantation. Now that she was a little more familiar with Etherean, she better appreciated Alain’s mastery over it. She closed her eyes as his words washed over her.

“—shah rah ee-shah—oh! Oh, gods!”

Mavery’s eyes flew open, and she winced at the burst of Ethereal light emanating from the door. As her eyes adjusted, she gasped. The light came from more than magic alone: a small section of the door was on fire.

Alain’s focus, however, was solely on his notebook. He frantically flipped between pages as he searched for the source of his error.

“I must have accidentally left in a few runes from Ardemin’s Hue Shifting Augmentation. My blasted fault for using one from the Elemental School…”

Mavery ignored his ramblings as she snatched the fireproofed box from the ground—it, too, was aglow with white light—and bolted across the room.

She slammed it against the door. The box jerked beneath her hands—she’d triggered the detonation ward—but it smothered the flames in a puff of black smoke.

Slowly, she removed the box. The fire had lasted not even a minute, and it had only left behind a scorch mark. Her heart continued to pound as she turned to Alain. Aside from clutching his notebook to his chest, he hadn’t moved a muscle.

“I think I can prevent that from happening again.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You think?”

“That won’t happen again.” He grimaced. “Give me a moment to make some adjustments.”

Though his second attempt didn’t result in any fires, it was also a failure.

The wards glowed white, but the colors never appeared.

After another round of revisions, every ward appeared orange, for reasons that left him completely baffled.

His next attempt was a bit closer to the desired result, though the resonating wards appeared violet when they should have been gold.

And after a dozen attempts, he only recited half of the incantation before the Ethereal light dissipated. His arcana was completely spent.

He tossed his notebook aside and tossed himself on the sofa with a drawn-out groan. He lay on his stomach, face pressed into the cushion.

“I shouldn’t have let you transmutate my pack earlier,” Mavery said. She picked up the notebook, smoothed the pages that had crumpled upon impact with the floor. “You shouldn’t have wasted your arcana on me.”

“None of this is your fault,” Alain said, his voice muffled. He turned his head and gave her a pointed look. “And no spell I cast for your benefit will ever be a waste, I can assure you.”

She smiled in spite of herself as she sat in his armchair.

“No,” he sighed, “I should have known better than to attempt spellcraft after a night of heavy drinking.” He rolled onto his back, gazed at the ceiling. “I think this room, this apartment, could also be playing a role. Too many reminders of my previous failures.”

Mavery was inclined to agree. As far as she knew, he hadn’t left his apartment in days. If confining himself to these small rooms for long periods of time was detrimental to his wellbeing, it might as well have the same effect on his spellcasting.

“Then maybe we need a change of scenery.”

“I could request a classroom at the University,” he said, then shook his head. “No, that likely won’t be possible with final exams coming up.”

Mavery looked out the window, where the sky had turned blue and cloudless. Finally, the season had taken a turn for the better.

“Actually,” she said, “I have something else in mind.”