Page 6 of A Tower of Half-Truths
“And? As you’ve said countless times, you’re not running a guild, we can leave whenever we like.”
“So, after barely a month, you’ve decided you’ve had enough?” His furrowed brow darkened his gaze. “What is it this time?”
She sighed. “What happened with Fennick—”
“I told you, he was a dead man either—”
“Let me finish.Please.” She forced her trembling hands into white-knuckled fists. And then she forced herself to ask thequestion that had lingered deep within her mind, the one she’d been too afraid to ask downstairs. “That wasn’t the first time you killed someone, was it?”
Neldren remained silent.
“Answer me, Nel.”
He hung his head. “No, it wasn’t.”
Mavery released a held breath. She’d already known the answer, though that didn’t make the truth any less painful. She shouldered her pack and began to move forward. Neldren stepped in front of the doorway, blocking it with his body.
“Look,” he said, holding out his palms, “I only killed when it was absolutely necessary.”
Mavery laughed coldly. “And that’s the difference between you and me. I wouldneverthink it was necessary.” She lowered her eyes. “So would the Neldren I knew a year ago.”
“A lot has changed since then. You would know, had you bothered to stick around for any of it.”
That was a low blow, even for him. But instead of enraging her, his words only made her all the more exhausted.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she said.
“Do what?”
“All ofthis.” She gestured vaguely at the dim room. “Roaming from village to village, never knowing what tomorrow will bring, never having a place to call my own. Yes, we had a good score tonight, but that money won’t last forever. And then what? I’m not getting any younger, and so—”
“You thinkyou’regetting old? What does that make me?”
She scoffed. “Oh, please. You’ll live another century at least.”
“Not in this line of work.”
“See? You’ve just proved my point! If there’s little hope for you, then there’s even less for me. And everything that happened tonight proves I’m not cut out for this life anymore.”
“Then what’ll you do instead?”
She shrugged. “Maybe I could return to my studies, or—”
“Gods, not this again.” He shook his head, laughing incredulously. “You think living in dusty libraries, surrounded by ink-stained blowhards, is going to make you happy? Even Ellicecouldn’t hack it, and she’s…”
Mavery crossed her arms as she waited for him to finish that thought. Like Mavery, Ellice had once attended wizarding university. Unlike Mavery, the brat had squandered the opportunity by failing out during her first term. Ellice’s family had banished her for it, but that didn’t erase all the years she’d lived in privilege, attending the finest boarding schools, wanting for nothing.
“She’swhat, Nel? Cultured? Well-bred?”
“All I’m saying is, don’t throw away everything just to go chasing old dreams. We’ve become a good team again.”
“Good foryou, you mean. In all the years we’ve run together, never once have you asked me what jobsIwould like to take.”
“Then let me ask you now, Mave. What do you want to do?”
She hesitated. All that came to mind was the bundle of textbook pages stashed in her pack. Beyond that, her ideas were all abstract.
“I… I don’t—”
