Page 77 of A Tower of Half-Truths
He chuckled. “I won’t argue with that. But beyond spelling?” He polished off his own flatbread, then produced a handkerchief to clean his fingers.
“Not a clue.”
He gestured for her to follow him. “Let me show you something.”
He led her out of the market. As they passed through the warding magic, the chill in the air returned, forcing Mavery to button up her coat again. She followed Alain around a corner and down a side street, where the botanical garden loomed in the distance, perched atop the slight hill. Mavery didn’t have to ask where they were going; she knew it the moment she saw the storefront that was painted deep violet and glowing with warding magic.
They stopped beneath a lamppost directly across from Tesseraunt’s Boutique. Its front window displayed mannequins dressed in exquisite gowns in the current fashion: ankle-length, form-fitting, with cinched waists and voluminous bustles. All were made from fabrics that were vibrant even at night. Mavery could only admire them from a distance, however; the shop was closed, all the windows were dark.
“I assume the wards are your doing,” she said. Whereas the surrounding shops had only blue and gold auras over the doors and windows, the full spectrum of warding magic rippled across this building’s entire façade.
“So long as my mother lives in the apartment above the shop,I’ll ensure this is the best-secured building in the district.” He pointed up. “See that tiny window on the third floor? That’s my childhood bedroom.”
“Huh, I was certain you’d grown up in one of those manors a few blocks over.”
Alain shook his head. “Far from it. I may be a wine snob, but ‘Tesseraunt’ is a peasant name. ‘Weaver’ would be the closest translation.”
“Fitting, considering your mother’s line of work.”
“Yes, she comes from a long line of weavers, tailors, and the like. She started working in a textile mill when she was only eight years old—that was decades before Dauphine outlawed child labor—and when I was born, she was an apprentice seamstress.”
In the midst of the revolution across the border, plenty of Dauphinians had fled to Osperland. But they tended to be nobles seeking refuge from the executioner’s block; commoners like Alain and his mother tended to be the ones calling for those executions. Mavery watched him curiously as he continued to speak.
“When I was about nine years old, she befriended a customer who happened to be an aspiring wizard. Together, they developed a poison-warding fabric that earned the mage her wizard rank. One of the Elder Wizards was so impressed with the fabric, she paid my mother handsomely to design an entire Social Season’s worth of ball gowns. With her newfound fortune, my mother opened this boutique and eventually sent me to Barcombe, in the hopes that I would one day become a wizard myself.”
“So, we both come from working-class families,” Mavery said. “That’s the lastthing I thought we would have in common.”
“You come from a family of farmers, correct?”
She stared at him. When had she told himthat? She struggled to recall a single time she’d mentioned her upbringing; it was a topic she rarely spoke about.
“The day we first met,” Alain said, apparently sensing her confusion, “you mentioned something about a family farm.”
“Right, I did.” He’d remembered that little detail from so long ago? Her face burned despite the cold night air.
“What sort of farm was it?”
“An apple orchard, though we also raised hogs and chickens.”
He grinned. “Ah, no wonder you were staring daggers at that one merchant.”
“Fifty coppers foroneapple!” she huffed. “That’s worse than highway robbery!”
“Yes, I imagine highway robberywouldbe within your repertoire.”
“Very funny.” She crossed her arms, and his grin broadened.
“In any case, I’m already picturing our next project.” He raised his hands and mimed an exaggerated ritual. “An incantation to ward off overpriced produce.”
Seeing him struggle to contain his laughter at his barely half-decent joke, she held her hand to her mouth and failed to hold back a giggle.
Surely she wasn’t…giggling?
She cleared her throat and came back to her senses. “What about your father?” she asked. As Alain stiffened, she added quickly, “Sorry, if that’s a sore subject, you don’t—”
“Not sore, just…delicate. All I know is that my father was a parish priest in the Church of the Dyad. In Dauphine, the Church outranks everyone—even the nobility. So, for a priest to have a child out of wedlock with one his parishioners…well, you can imagine the scandal that caused. That’s why, shortly after I was born, Mother fled across the border with me. As for my father, I’m not sure what happened to him. She’s always been mum on the details.”
“That must’ve been difficult, growing up without a father.”
