Page 84 of A Tower of Half-Truths

Fifty-One

As Mavery stepped through the open door, the midday sun blinded her. She closed her fist and at last extinguished the light hovering above her palm.

“Watch your step,” Neldren said.

She took his hand again, and he helped her down the two-foot drop from the tower’s door. The ascent had fractured the ground and felled several trees on the outer edge of the forest.

Ellice was leaning against the tower’s exterior, arms clutched around her midsection.

Upon seeing Neldren, she became a blur of red hair as she launched herself at him.

She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him down into a hard kiss.

Mavery raised her brows. Even Neldren seemed taken by surprise, but he quickly recovered and returned her kiss with wild abandon.

When Ellice pulled away, her face was nearly as red as her hair.

That was yet another mystery solved.

“Gods, when you ran after that thing, I thought you were dead!”

“Oh, come now,” Neldren said with a smirk. “You know it’ll take a lot more than that to kill me.”

“Where’s Alain?” Mavery asked.

The two of them turned to her with blank looks, as if they’d already forgotten she was still there.

“He went off to sulk,” Ellice said, rolling her eyes. “Go look around back.”

Mavery shouldered her pack and took off at a slow jog—her aching body could manage no more than that—and found Alain on the other side of the tower. He trailed his hand over its stone exterior as he paced back and forth, muttering to himself.

“Alain!”

He turned around. He dropped his satchel, tossed his staff aside, and ran toward her. They collided in an embrace. Alain clung to her tightly, his face pressed against her hair.

“I heard the gunshots,” he said, his breath warming her neck. “Did he…take care of the beast?”

She nodded. “It’s dead.”

He sighed with relief. “I’m sorry for failing you back there. I should have told you I was weaker than I was letting on. My magic was useless against that—”

She pulled back. “You were anything but useless! You destroyed the anchor and disabled the wards. Not only that, your theories about the temple, about Aganast, were correct.”

“All fair points,” he said. “But I failed to protect you. I wish I could have done more in that regard.”

She placed her palms to his cheeks, angled his face until he looked her squarely in the eye. “Alain, I don’t need your magic, or your protection. I only need you.”

She realized she’d been holding back tears. She let them fall freely as Alain gave her the warmest smile he’d ever given her. He raised his hand to her cheek, dried it with a slow swipe of his thumb. He leaned forward, lips parting—

“Well, this has been fun,” Neldren said.

Alain froze, and Mavery suppressed a groan as Neldren came sauntering over. Ellice clung to his waist, looking none too eager to leave his side anytime soon.

“Now that the job’s done, we’ll be taking our leave.” He extended a palm. “The other half of our payment, as we agreed.”

Ellice hissed something at Neldren, who mumbled in return.

But Mavery was too preoccupied with wiping away her remaining tears and rummaging through her pack to make sense of their bickering.

She pulled out the old sock in which she’d hidden the five hundred potins, along with the syringe of resurrection serum.

It was by some miracle that she hadn’t needed to use the latter today.

She held out the wad of cash to Neldren. For a second, he stared at it hungrily. But then his eyes flicked to Ellice, and that hunger faded. He sighed.

“Keep it.”

Mavery blinked at him. “What?”

“Consider us even. Besides, all this silver we collected should fetch a fair price.” He tipped his head to Mavery, then Alain. “Until we meet again.”

“Let’s hope we don’t,” Ellice said, though there was no malice in her tone. Her lips pulled into a smile as she looked to Mavery, who was too flummoxed to respond.

“Oh, you never know,” Neldren said. “This continent is only so big.”

He slung his arm around Ellice’s waist, and they parted without any additional fanfare. Once they vanished into the pine forest, Alain broke the silence with a heavy sigh.

“I, for one, am glad he didn’t decide to dole out another round of hugs.”

“That was rather odd, wasn’t it?” Mavery said, then looked at the cash that remained in her hand.

It had been almost as odd as him turning down a payment, but perhaps she’d underestimated his willingness to change.

Why he could only do that for Ellice, a woman half his age, Mavery would never understand.

But she put that thought to rest as she returned the money to the sock.

Alain peered up at the tower. “Now that that business is settled, we ought to give the tower another sweep.”

“Dare I ask why?” Mavery groaned.

“Because the High Council will soon arrive to claim what’s theirs.”

Mavery’s eyes widened as realization struck. “Not that covenant.”

He nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

“Fucking hells…”

She couldn’t recall the precise wording, but any wizard who discovered an arcane archaeological site was required to turn it over to the High Council.

That covenant explained why so many wizards sought out contractors.

Not exclusively to avoid getting their hands dirty, but to take advantage of a loophole.

Paying a mage for hire a small fortune for a useful ruin was preferable to letting the Elder Wizards seize control.

Mavery had been so preoccupied with other matters—most of which had centered on not dying—it had slipped her mind.

“But we cracked this together,” she said, “and I’m not a wizard—”

“But you were performing your duties as my assistant, so you also forfeit your ownership rights.” Alain shook his head.

“Had Neldren and Ellice not been so hasty to leave, that would’ve made matters a bit less straightforward.

Not that I wanted to partake in more negotiations with them.

In any case, we ought to get started now, while we still have time. ”

“You speak as if the High Council will swoop in at any moment. How will they even know?”

“Just look around.” Alain gestured at the cracked ground and toppled trees. The top of the tower was likely visible from Archstone—or even further out. “It won’t be long before they receive word of a significant arcane disturbance in this area. I wouldn’t be surprised if they already have.

“If Aganast took these measures to hide his research, I’m not about to turn it over to the High Council. At least, not until I’ve gotten the chance to read his writings for myself.”

“What about the creature? Aganast’s remains?”

He shrugged. “I’m not too concerned about either. The books are our most valuable resource.”

Mavery chewed her lip as she once again recalled the creature’s dying words. If it hadn’t been tricking her—if it truly wasn’t a demon—she had come so close to discovering something about her abilities. But now she’d lost that resource forever.

Unless…

She reached inside the sock and pulled out the syringe.

“Will this work on something that’s not human?”

Alain gawked at the syringe, then blinked at her. “Mavery, my love, are you suggesting you want to revive that demon?”

She nodded. “This is going to sound mad, but just before Neldren shot it, it spoke to me in my mind, like a Mystic but…different. It—he, I think—told me that Aganast was a Senser, that there’s a connection between my magic and demonic magic.

Well, not exactly. He said he wasn’t a demon, but he died before he could explain. ”

Alain stared at her, mouth slightly agape.

She sighed. “I know I must sound insane—”

“Not at all.” He grasped her by the shoulders. “I believe you. I only hesitate because the resurrection serum has limitations.”

“Right, it has to be administered within an hour.”

“Not only that, as the vital organs grow older and therefore weaker, resurrection becomes less viable. This creature is at least five centuries old. Even if the serum works on its species, it may not work on one so ancient.”

“But we won’t know until we try.”

He nodded. “Where, exactly, did Neldren shoot it?”

“In the heart, I think.”

Alain frowned. “That’s far from ideal. Besides, if any bullets are lodged in its heart—or any vital organ—you would revive it, only to have it die again within minutes.”

“Then I’ll make sure to remove the bullets first.”

Though she spoke matter-of-factly, she knew her plan was deranged—and potentially suicidal.

But if this creature could tell her anything of use, then it would be well worth the attempt.

Alain’s eyes searched hers. A few times, his jaw quivered as though he were about to posit another warning, another caveat, but he said nothing. He took a deep breath, then smiled.

“If this is truly what you want,” he said, “then I’m with you.”

She leaned forward and pecked him on the lips. The kiss was too brief for her liking, but time was not on their side.

“Come on, we need to hurry.”

She seized her pack and headed back to the tower’s front door, taking care to avoid tripping over exposed rocks and uneven ground.

“Er, say you do need to remove any bullets,” Alain said as he followed closely behind. “How are you planning to do that?”

Mavery’s fingers slipped against the matted fur.

From the floor, she’d recovered two of Neldren’s bullets that had missed the creature entirely, so she needed to search for only one.

Even with an orb of light directly beside her, it was hard to differentiate the creature’s blood from his flesh and fur.

It was all various shades of black on black on black.

But then her finger slipped into a small divot—a bullet hole.

She dug her finger in deeper. Behind her, Alain groaned at the squelching sound. Her fingertip brushed against metal.

“Found it,” she said.