Page 47 of A Tower of Half-Truths
In the kitchen, the small mountain of herbs remained on the table. Mavery had ordered him to begin grinding the fallowroot petals, and so he continued what he’d started. Having something to do with his hands brought him immediate relief, though the sound of stone scraping against stone quickly faded to his stentorian thoughts.
What did he know about his assistant?
First: She bore callused fingers and a smattering of old scars. Whatever life she’d lived before coming to Leyport, it had been far from a pampered one.
Second: Despite having no formal education, she’d somehow managed to acquire a patchwork knowledge of several Schools of Magic—including Soudremancy.
Third: That knowledge included not-so-savory subjects. He doubted black market ingredients and criminal organizations were the extent of it.
Alain couldn’t necessarily assume the worst. He himself had first come across kutauss claws in a tome he’d picked up at an antique dealer’s, not realizing at the time that the High Councilhad banned the book nearly a century ago. Per the Covenants, he was duty-bound to turn in banned books to an arcanist, but this one had proven so useful, he’d selfishly kept it. Besides, he saw little harm in doing so. He would never use a forbidden book for hisrealresearch.
He wiped his violet-stained fingers on his trousers, then made a quick detour to the sitting room to fetch that very book. Thanks to Mavery’s efforts in culling his collection, he’d had little trouble finding it last night, and he’d taken copious notes for his current project. Book in hand, he returned to the kitchen to put those notes into action.
He turned to the page on kutauss claws. In their current state, they were incredibly poisonous. But the alchemist who had penned this tome—simply, “the Maker”—had discovered that bringing the claws to a supergressive state reduced their arcana-sapping properties. That seemed the most promising place to start.
Alain placed the book aside, then performed a fireproofing ward. As it did whenever he performed the most rudimentary of spells, his mind wandered. This time, he was transported to a moment from a little over a week ago, in this very room, when Mavery had healed his injured finger. She’d never trained at any temple, so where else would she have learned Soudremancy?
Perhaps she’d been a medic in the military. That would explain not only her healing skills, but her shorter-than-fashionable hair, her toughened hands, her blunt manner of speaking.
No, he couldn’t imagine her wearing a uniform while someone barked orders at her, much less taking those orders without question. The thought alone made him laugh.
He retrieved his torch—and reminded himself to focus. Though his fireproofing ward would stop a fire from spreading beyond the kitchen, it wouldn’t prevent him from catchinghimselfon fire.
He began with a tiny amount of powdered claws, barely enough to fill a thimble half-way. He deposited them in the bowl of a calcinator and, with an infusion of arcana, ignited his torch. He guided the flame in a circular motion, carefully heating the powderfrom above until it blackened, then continued until it turned white as fresh snow—purification. Had this been any other alchemical recipe, he would have stopped here. But he continued until the ashy substance began to glow from the inside out, much like a brick of charcoal. Ordinarily, reaching the point of supergression would render an ingredient useless, but the Maker had yet to lead him astray.
With this step complete, he now needed to render the powdered claws into a liquid state. For this, he didn’t bother referencing the Maker’s recipe. Many alchemical recipes used water as a solvent, but Alain knew from experience that most types of claws required a solvent with a touch more potency. He doubted kutauss claws, even in their powdered form, would be an exception.
For this, he would use alkahest: an odorless liquid that could be easily confused with water. But if one were to drink an entire glass of it, their melting insides would quickly inform them of their mistake. There was little alkahestcouldn’tdissolve.
He wondered if Mavery knew that. She could heal, yes, but were poisons also part of her repertoire? As Alain grabbed a bottle of alkahest from the larder, his breath hitched.
What if she’s anassassin?
Perhaps one of his colleagues had hired her to bring his guard down and turn his year-long sabbatical into a permanent leave of absence.
He shook his head, then poured the alkahest into a metal bowl. No, he was letting his imagination get the better of him. If Mavery were a hired killer, he’d given her ample opportunities to follow through on the killing part.
As he tipped the powdered claws into the bowl of alkahest, he considered how this afternoon was a prime example. She would have knifed him in his sleep, not broken into his—
The alkahest and powder combined with an angry hiss. Instead of bubbling and then dissolving, the mixture erupted into a plume of white vapor aimed directly at Alain’s face.
Too distracted to react in time, he inhaled a lungful of it. The taste and scent—a bit like rotten eggs—made his stomach churn, and his eyes burned as he bolted for the window.He threw it open, but the burst of fresh air only heightened the tempest in his stomach. He then lunged at the sink, where he spat a mouthful of white phlegm into the basin.
Alkahest is a bit too potent,he thought as he gulped down handfuls of water. He shouldn’t have trusted his instincts. If he believed in the afterlife, he could imagine the Maker, whoever they’d been, chiding him from the Beyond.
Once his coughing subsided, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before taking a deep breath. He’d only used a small amount of kutauss claws, so he hadn’t wasted too much of an expensive ingredient. His mishap hadn’t proved lethal—just very unpleasant.
Furthermore, it had given him a bit of clarity. Mavery being an assassin was absurd, but what if he wasn’t too far off the mark? There were many ways to end a wizard’s career prematurely. Death, while the most common, was but one of them.
What if a colleaguehadhired her—not to kill him, but to get the dirt on him? What if Mavery had expected to find that dirt in the storage room?
It wasn’t lost on Alain that he and Kazamin had a close relationship, and that the dean had a history of giving him special treatment. Alain couldn’t recall the last time someone in his department had been granted a year-long sabbatical, much less after failing to follow the proper protocol for it. Alain wouldn’t put it past someone like Nezima to resent him for that. But hiring someone to sabotage him? Would she go to those lengths for petty revenge?
Yes, Nezima most definitely would. If she was scheming something, he only hoped Mavery had nothing to do with it. No, he wascertainshe had nothing to do with it. Either Nezima and Mavery were exceptional actresses, or that moment in the common room yesterday had truly been their first meeting. He recalled how Mavery had returned Nezima’s glare with an even steelier one, how she’d taken Nezima’s critique without so much as a flinch…
Alain realized he was smiling.
He couldn’t deny that, just as he couldn’t deny that he enjoyed Mavery’s company—and that he was beginning to let it color hisjudgment. Had Wren or Lorcan broken into his storage room, he would have dismissed them without a second thought. Not only had he told Mavery to come back tomorrow, his initial reaction had been to blamehimselffor his assistant’s transgression.
