Page 13 of A Tower of Half-Truths
The door opened wider. The remaining wards dissipated, taking the intruding thoughts along with them. Mavery’s ears rang from the sudden silence.
She stood eye to eye with a disheveled-looking man in a tartan dressing gown. His dark brown hair hung limply past his shoulders. It was paired with a thick beard that obscured the lower half of his face, including his mouth. Though his age was difficult to place, his croaky voice wasn’t due to advanced age. He had few wrinkles, no noticeably gray hairs.
Even the youngest of Mavery’s professors had been middle-aged, and she couldn’t recall ever meeting a wizard youngerthan that. Earning that rank took years—sometimes decades—of training, and that wasaftercompleting six years of university.
The man standing before her was definitely too young to be a wizard. And she doubted someone in this state of undress was a wizard’s assistant. Perhaps he was a relative, or even a lover. Whoever he was, she assumed he was suffering from some illness. His complexion was deathly pale, his eyes sunken.
He cleared his throat.
“I believe there’s been a misunderstanding.” His voice grew slightly more robust. “I’m not looking for an assistant.”
Mavery raised her brows. She’d been expecting an elderly man with a beard. Well, he mettwoof those criteria.
“I saw an ad in the newspaper—”
“What ad?”
She produced the clipping, and he snatched it from her hand. He read beneath his breath, pausing on occasion to add his disjointed commentary.
“ ‘Esteemed’?… Oh, for the love of… ‘Obstinacy’!?…Mother.” He read it a second time, then snapped, “Was this inThe Gazette?”
“No,The Burnslee Herald.”
“And when did you see this?”
“Two days ago.”
As he raked his fingers through his hair and muttered something she couldn’t discern, disappointment sank in. Mavery should have recognized an opportunity that sounded too good to be true.
“Sorry for bothering you,” she said, taking a step back from the door. “I’ll be—”
“Would you like a cup of tea?”
She paused mid-step. “What?”
He cleared his throat again. “I imagine coming here—and so quickly—took a great deal of effort. Though I cannot deliver on what this ad promised, it would be discourteous of me to turn you away without at least offering you a cup of tea. Your timing was most auspicious, as I was about to put on a kettle when you knocked.”
She blinked as she tried to reconcile the posh, upper-class accent with the disaster of a man standing before her. This entire situation was becoming more mystifying by the minute, but she wasn’t about to pass up the invitation he’d just offered.
“Sure, why not? Er, I mean—”
Mavery had always found her own voice too raspy and unrefined, her provincial accent too persistent despite her attempts to suppress it. She’d built up a wide vocabulary over the years, but no amount of reading could prevent her from sounding like a yokel putting on airs whenever she spoke a word containing more than two syllables. She cleared her throat, hoping she could suppress her inner yokel long enough to trick this wizard into thinking she was worthy of his time.
“Thank you,” she said, bowing her head for good measure. “A cup of tea soundslovely.”
He opened the door the rest of the way and gestured for her to enter. She picked up the box of mail and crossed the threshold.
She was bombarded with the musty scent of leather, paper, and ink. She could hardly call this a sitting room, as there was no place to actuallysit. There were books everywhere she looked—a collection that rivaled even the wealthiest noble’s library. The bookcases lining the right-hand wall were filled to capacity; their shelves bent under the weight of the hefty tomes. Books that hadn’t fit on the shelves had been scattered over every surface, from the tea table in the center of the room, to the fireplace mantel on the left-hand wall. But most of them had been dumped on the floor. Mavery took another step and nearly tripped over a stack.
Her stomach lurched when she saw a fire crackling in the hearth but Sensed no fireproofing wards. This wizard was either insane or had a death wish.
“Oh, this is your mail,” she said, showing him the box. “The old man at the front desk asked me to bring it to you.”
He shook his head. “I should have known Bertie would find a way to get that to me eventually. You can put it…oh, wherever.”
She placed the box and her pack beside the desk in the corner closest to the door. This, too, was piled high with papers and books, but she was glad to keep at leastsomepotential kindling away from the open flames.
“May I take your coat?” the wizard asked.
