Page 152 of A Tower of Half-Truths
“Oh, darling, youcan’t get rid of me that easily.”
Though he couldn’t see Conor, his voice was everywhere—ringing inside his head and surrounding him on all sides. Alain began to run, but something cold and unyielding grabbed him around the middle. He couldn’t move. His feet sank into the loam. The taste of decay filled his mouth as he was pulled down, down, down…
He awoke drenched in sweat, his heart hammering in his throat. He eyelids fluttered as he regained his bearings. The double bed he lay upon comprised the majority of the unfamiliar room. A light breeze drifted through the open window, fluttering the patchwork curtain and filling the room with the scent of fresh pine. Somewhere nearby, a clock ticked softly.
He’d been dreaming. Yet, there was still decay on his tongue, a weight against his body.
Mavery was asleep beside him, atop the quilt and fully clothed. Her arm was wrapped around his, and she clutched a damp rag in her hand. Beside her was a stack of papers bound together with thread—her Compendium of Knowledge, she’d called it. It was open on a page taken from a Soudremancy textbook: an overview of arcana deficiency-induced comas. As Alain reached for it, she stirred. Bleary-eyed, she raised the rag to her mouth to cover a yawn, then gasped.
“You’re awake!” She threw the rag aside, then threw both of her arms over his torso. “Gods, you had me so worried.”
He put the Compendium aside and returned her embrace, though his arms felt as though they were made of lead. His entire body felt that way, in fact—save for his mouth, which was drier than a desert’s worth of sand.
“How long was I unconscious?” he rasped.
She peered at a clock on the bedside table. “About thirty-two hours.”
He couldn’t remember the last time a single spell had left him incapacitated for that long. Luckily, only a little more than a dayhad passed. They could still investigate the temple, albeit on a tighter schedule than he would have liked.
He raised his left hand to summon a protective ward. A faint wrinkle in the air indicated that he was successful, but even this most elementary of spells left an acute ache deep within his marrow, much like walking on a broken bone that hadn’t fully healed.
Mavery grabbed his hand and forced it downward, dismissing his ward. Of course, she’d very clearly seen what he’d done.
“No magic,” she said. “At least, not until you’ve made a full recovery. Don’t over-exert yourself.”
He sank into his pillow with a sigh. He considered telling her that she didn’t have to play healer. Despite what her Soudremancy texts may claim, he’d been through this enough times to know that being able to performanymagic meant he was nearly fully recovered. But, if he was being honest, he didn’t mind being fussed over—and especially not if she was the one doing the fussing.
“All right,” he said. “No magic.”
“Can I get you anything?”
He attempted to wet his lips, but his tongue was too parched to accomplish even that. Without his needing to ask, Mavery rolled off the bed and poured him a glass of water from the pitcher on the bedside table. Alain shifted to a seated position, then gulped it down as if it were the most wonderful thing he’d ever tasted. He handed Mavery his empty glass, which she promptly refilled.
“What happened after I passed out? Is everyone else all right?”
She nodded. “More or less. Ellice had to drive the carriage for a bit. Evrard was so shaken up over the ordeal, he cried for nearly an hour, poor thing. Last I saw him, he was in the taproom downstairs, a few pints deep and reconsidering his entire stagecoach idea.
“After I made sure you weren’t injured, I healed Neldren’s arrow wound, though I couldn’t do anything about the kutauss claw poison. We got him to a healer as soon as we arrived here last night.”
“And ‘here’ is…?”
“Archstone, a village a few miles west of the temple. Evrard’s brother, Benard, runs this inn. He was so grateful that we helped Evrard, he gave all of us rooms free of charge.”
Alain winced. “That’s too gen—”
“I know. I offered him money, but he refused.” Mavery sat on the edge of the bed and smiled warmly as she brushed a sweat-soaked clump of hair from his forehead. He blinked slowly at her touch. “You wereincredibleyesterday. I still can’t wrap my head around how you pulled off that spell.”
He chuckled. “Neither can I, truth be told, and it will likely take weeks before I can repeat it—assuming I even remember how. I improvised most of those modifications. I knew if I could extend the spell to another person, it stood to reason that I could extend it to multiple people. The odds of pulling it off in a moving vehicle seemed nigh on impossible, but…” His face grew warm, and he tried to hide it by taking another long drink of water.
“But what?” Mavery asked.
He looked up with a sheepish smile. “You were with me.”
“But you didn’t draw from any of my arcana.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t need it. Your presence is all the assurance I need that there’s no such thing as impossible odds.”
She smiled broadly as she cupped his face, then pressed a soft kiss to his mouth. But it was exceptionally brief. She pulled away with a grimace.
