Page 33 of A Tower of Half-Truths
The attendant sighed. “Fine, but only for a few minutes. Keep to the center of the room and don’t touch anything.”
With a raise of his hand, a section of the desk swung forward. Mavery couldn’t detect any hinges, nor could she Sense another fabrication spell; whatever magic powered the desk was buried deep within the wood.
Mavery followed Alain into some sort of gallery. The walls were lined with frames large enough to drive a stagecoach through. There were fifteen in total, and each one housed an identical painting…or were they mirrors? The magic in this room was unlike any Mavery had ever Sensed before. Her mind reeled as she tried to attune herself to it, but she couldn’t grasp anything distinct. It was like trying to describe the innate taste and smell of the wind. All she could Sense was raw arcana.
“This is the portal room,” Alain said.
She hadn’t misheard him after all. The portals were made of a gaseous, silvery substance that flickered in and out of existence. One moment, she could see the portals shimmering in their frames. The next, only the stone wall behind them.
“Each one connects to a similar chamber at the other fourteen wizarding universities across Tanarim, as well as the High Council’s tower in Montesse. That’s the capital of—”
“Dauphine,” Mavery said curtly. “Yes, I know my geography.”
“Of course.” Alain cleared his throat. “Er, anyway, these frames are more than simply decorative. They’re made of silver—permanent anchors for the portal magic.”
She spotted the frame engraved withAtterdell College of the Arcane. It was hard to believe that the place she hadn’t seen in twenty years was now only a few steps away. And if that wasn’t enough to marvel at, the frame alone had to be worth thousands of potins. Never had she seen so much wealth contained in a single room—and there werefifteenrooms just like this one.
“I thought portal magic was a myth. Or, at least, it was only theoretical.”
“Portals are so highly regulated, seeing one outside of a room like this might well be like seeing a mythical creature.”
“How long have these rooms been around?”
“A little over a decade, so not long after you would have graduated. The High Council created them to facilitate scholarship, though students aren’t allowed to use them unless accompanied by a professor. Even full-fledged wizards aren’t allowed to come and go as they please. Each room is guarded twenty-eight hours per day. You can only imagine how people would abuse them.”
Mavery nodded. She could think of a few reasons why someone would want to hop across the continent in an instant. The attendant had mentioned something about a pass. One of those should be easy enough to steal…or forge…
But she was getting ahead of herself.
“On that note,” Alain said, casting a glance at the front desk, “let’s go before we overstay our welcome.”
Mavery had hoped to glimpse the library and its hundred thousand tomes, but as they were running short on time, their final stopwas the tower that housed the Gardemancy Department. Much of the life on campus had congregated inside the classrooms on the tower’s lowest floor.
Warding magic emanated from the rooms as professors demonstrated spells. The taste of magic around here was more than a metallic tang; it coated Mavery’s tongue like a bitter medicine.
They passed by the open door of a lecture hall, where a Nilandoren woman stood at the front of the room. There was hardly an empty seat to be found.
“Wonderful,” Alain muttered. “Let’s go before she notices me.”
He hurried down the corridor, but Mavery didn’t follow. A female wizard—a femaleprofessor—was such a rare sight, she was compelled to stay and watch.
The professor spoke Etherean, and Mavery Sensed the somewhat pleasant chill she felt whenever Alain voiced a spell. The professor instructed her students to repeat the incantation.
Dozens of voices called upon the Ether in unison, turning that gentle breeze into a dead-of-winter blizzard. The onslaught of arcana squeezed the air from Mavery’s lungs, chilled her down to her core, froze everything from her muscles to her thoughts. And then her body, desperate for warmth, fought to regain control. Her limbs trembled, her teeth chattered within her aching skull.
The Ether dissipated once the incantation was complete, but its chill lingered. Once Mavery regained control of her limbs, she clung to the nearby wall and dragged herself down the corridor. She inched her way toward the lift, one agonizing step at a time. Alain was too preoccupied watching the floor indicator to notice that his assistant was no longer at his side.
The lift door slid open with a chime that might as well have been a gunshot. Mavery clenched at her temples, unable to shake the sensation of her head being squeezed in a vise. She desperately needed respite, if only for a minute.
“Wait,” she groaned.
Alain stopped and turned, then gasped. “What happened to you?”
“Magic…too much. My head…cold…”
“Your Senses, of course.” As he stepped toward her, the lift closed and ascended without him. “I should have known. Why didn’t you mention something sooner?”
Mavery replied with a grunt, which was all she could manage.
