Page 22 of A Tower of Half-Truths
“Mother,” he groaned, “I can assure you she’snota streetwalker.”
“Then who is she, and why is she here?”
He shot Mavery a pleading look. She returned it with one that conveyed that he was on his own here; he wasn’t paying her to managethissort of mess. Especially when seeing him so flustered was more than a little satisfying.
“Well?” his mother pressed.
Aventus sighed. “This is Mave…my new assistant. Before you ask,yes, she answered one of your ads. Mave, meet my mother, Priscilla Tesseraunt.”
Priscilla grinned more smugly than before. “So, my plan worked!”
“No, not necessarily. We only agreed to a temporary—”
She ignored him as she turned to Mavery. “Hello, dear. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
Priscilla extended her gloved right hand. Mavery shook it, though a curtsy felt more appropriate. The woman was dressed for a visit to the duke’s palace, not her son’s disorderly apartment.
“As a supposed expert on the subject, thepleasureis all mine,” Mavery said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Aventus glared at her from behind Priscilla’s back.
“Well, now you know,” he said. “Are you happy?”
“I am happy that youdoremember how to accept help.”
His beard sagged. “I’m thirty-four, Mother. I’m quite capable of helping myself.”
Mavery’s brows raised slightly. He was even younger than she’d expected.
“I know this.” Priscilla patted his arm. “But that does not mean you can doeverythingon your own. Well, I shall leave you both to your work.”
The three of them returned to the sitting room. At the front door, Priscilla said something in Dauphinian that, judging by her stern tone and Aventus’s glowering, wasn’t particularly affectionate.
“And Mave, if you ever wish to wear something more ladylike thanthat…“ Priscilla’s lip curled in disgust as she gave Mavery’s outfit another long, critical look. She opened her handbag and extracted a lavender-colored calling card. “Call upon my boutique sometime. Tesseraunt’s, in the Garden District. I am certain my son will pay you well enough to afford something more befitting of a wizard’s assistant.”
“Goodbye, Mother,” Aventus grumbled as he opened the door. She left with a dainty wave of her hand, and he shut the door with a drawn-out sigh.
“Well, she was charming,” Mavery said.
He laughed dryly. “Not the word I would choose. And please, pay no mind to her nonsense about your attire. I wouldn’t dare ask you to hunt down books in one of her evening gowns.”
Mavery had nothing against dresses, or feminine clothes in general. She defaulted to wearing trousers for the same reason she kept her hair short: it had always been the more practical option. She looked down at the threadbare pair she was wearing and could no longer deny she was in need of new clothes—and not ones she swiped from her neighbors. Mercifully, Leyport had no shortage of clothiers. She would find a way to “accidentally” misplace Priscilla’s calling card.
“So, I take it you’re Dauphinian.”
Aventus nodded. “I was born in Dauphine, though Mother and I moved here when I was only a few months old.”
“Never would have guessed. ‘Aventus’ doesn’t strike me as a Dauphinian name.”
“Oh, no, that’s just my honorific.”
“Yourwhat?”
“When you earn the rank of wizard, the High Council bestows upon you an honorific. A ‘wizard name,’ if you will. It’s always three syllables—for reasons I doubt anyone remembers—and many wizard names have been recycled throughout the years. I’m Aventus theThird, actually.”
“Why ‘Aventus’? Did you choose it?”
He shook his head. “No, that was the High Council’s doing. Aventus the First invented the resonating ward, and Aventus the Second is hailed as the greatest Gardemancer of the ninth century. I suppose they deemed me worthy of filling those rather enormous shoes.”
With a half-hearted laugh, he folded his arms across his chest and lowered his eyes.
