Page 30 of A Tower of Half-Truths
“Thanks,” he said. “I don’t know why I didn’t think to do that in the first place.”
Something pattered against the stone tiles. Mavery looked down to find blood dripping from Alain’s right hand.
“You’re bleeding,” she said. “I also know some healing spells. I can—”
“No, no, you’ve done plenty already.” He raised his hand, examined it. “Besides, it’s only a small cut. It should heal in no time.”
He turned and grabbed a tea towel to stanch the bleeding. Even with his back to her, she sensed something was different about him—apart from his odd behavior—but she couldn’t place it.
Then he turned around again.
His dark hair was cropped to shoulder length and slicked back with a bit of pomade. His beard, though still full, was neatly trimmed. With that distracting tangle of hair no longer in the way, she recognized for the first time his high cheekbones, prominent yet slender nose, slightly bowed upper lip, full lower lip…
Alain’s face flushed, and he averted his gaze. Mavery’s blood ran cold upon realizing she’d been staring at him. He had a handsome face, objectively speaking, but she wasn’t about to lose her mind over it. If she’d done that with every attractive mark, her thieving career would have been a decidedly short one.
“I know it’s a bit different than you’re used to seeing,” he said, gesturing at his shortened beard. “Er, what do you think?”
She raised her eyebrows. He wanted her opinion onthissort of thing?
“It suits you,” she said, and it was more than a half-truth. “You’re far too young for the ‘grizzled old hermit’ look.”
He laughed, but the sound of it rang hollow.
The tea kettle whistled. He removed it from the stove, then carried it toward the teapot on the dining table. The towel wrapped around his hand was now saturated with blood, making his grip clumsy. Scalding water sloshed out the kettle’s spout and onto the floor, and he barely dodged getting burned. Mavery wrenched the kettle from his hand.
“You don’t…” He paused, placed his uninjured hand over his mouth to stifle what was halfway between a belch and a hiccup. “You don’t have to do that.”
“If you want to risk maiming yourself further, be my guest.”
With a sigh and a shake of his head, Alain slumped into the closest chair. Mavery took over the tea preparations. She likely poured the hot water too forcefully over the delicate leaves, but it was better than having him bleed over everything.
Once the tea was steeping, she sat across from him, took his hand, and removed the bloody rag. The cut was more severe than she’d realized: a two-inch gash along his index finger. And she was now close enough to catch a whiff of wine. That explained his sudden bout of clumsiness.
“Let me take care of this,” she said.
He shrugged. “If you must…”
Whether he was versed in healing magic didn’t matter in this case; he couldn’t heal himself. He could likely recall the academic term for this phenomenon—Some-Dead-Wizard’s Law of Transference,or something along those lines—but she knew from practical experience that healing was always an external transfer of magic. You could give a bit of yours to heal another person, and vice versa, but trying to heal yourself would result in the magic canceling itself out.
With one hand, she held his, keeping it still. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to focus her arcana, which she directed toward her other hand. Her fingertips trailed along the length of his cut, leaving behind a thin white line that would fade in a few hours. Had Mavery been an innate Soudremancer, she would have left no trace of the injury. And she likely would have felt nothing from this simple spell—not even the touch of lightheadedness it had inflicted upon her.
She wasn’t sure why she’d offered to mend Alain’s cup, heal his wound. She needed to earn his trust, but she didn’t have to go to theselengths for it. Helping him simply felt like the right thing to do, she supposed.
She was still holding his hand; he must have not realized the spell was complete. His hand was relaxed, his fingers were curled slightly around hers. He had the soft skin and lack of calluses of someone who had never done a day’s worth of physical labor. His fingertips were ink-stained, which was equally unsurprising. But shewassurprised to find that his nails were as ragged as her own. A fellow nail-biter, though a more discreet one. During these past weeks, she’d never once caught him in the act.
She was staring again, though at least now it was only at his hand. And at least now she could use her healing spell as an excuse. She looked up to find him watching her, gaze soft and lips slightly parted. Upon meeting each other’s eyes, he flinched and glanced away at the same time she looked down and dropped his hand.
“Well…I’m no healer,” she said, “but I think you’ll live to see another day.”
She slowly peered up at him as he raised his hand and assessed her work. Judging by his slight nod, she’d done well enough. He used the clean end of the tea towel to wipe away the remaining blood.
“You never trained as one?”
“Me?” she laughed. “Gods, no, I barely attended temple for the sermons. I learned a few healing spells during my…er, my studies.”
“Really? If memory serves, Soudremancy isn’t taught at the universities.”
She swore internally as she remembered, all too late, one of the stipulations of the First Reforms. For over a thousand years, since the establishment of the High Council and the first wizarding universities, only the churches had been permitted to teach the healing arts.
