Page 71 of A Tower of Half-Truths
4. Pierce chest with a firm, downward movement.
5. Slowly inject serum. (For best results, count to 30.)
6. Remove syringe and wait. Revival may take several minutes.
Serum must be administered no more than ONE HOUR after death. If serum is unsuccessful, deliver body and enclosed funds to a Resurrectionist within THREE HOURS. They will make house calls for an additional fee. (Addresses are listed below. Use the password “camellia.”)
In the event that three hours pass without a successful revival, please notify next of kin: Priscilla Tesseraunt in the Garden District.
She’d heard him fall only moments ago. There was still time to administer the serum. But then her attention drifted back to the money, and her curiosity got the better of her. She counted out the notes.
Two thousand potins.
She was holding the equivalent of the payout from the Burnslee job—thefullpayout, and she wouldn’t have to split it with anyone. She then picked up the vial of resurrection serum and held it to her eye. It was metallic and viscous—a bit like quicksilver with an iridescent sheen. How much would this fetch on the black market? A serum that was only accessible to wizards had to be worth another thousand, if not more.
Here it was, the score she’d been looking for all along. For the past ten hours, she’d been quite literally sleeping on it. She laughed as tears muddled her vision.
Had she gotten her hands on this weeks ago, she would have taken it and slipped out of the city without a second thought. Now, she would still use it, but not in the way her past self ever would have expected.
With the resurrection kit tucked under her arm, she returned to the sitting room. She pushed back the tea table with a grunt—it was much heavier than it appeared—and cleared enough space to sit by Alain’s side. As she fumbled with his shirt buttons, she recalled the last words he’d spoken to her.
“You were wrong,” she whispered, though she knew he couldn’t hear a thing. “I’mthe one who doesn’t deserveyou.”
Once she revived him, she would have to tell him the truth—and there was a not-so-small chance she would never again be on the receiving end of his warm smile, or his even warmer embrace. Once he turned her away, she would never again hear his impassioned ramblings or words of encouragement. Never again would they engage in deep discussions or playful arguments. But she couldn’t keep her ruse going forever; he deserved better than that.
When she unfastened the final button and parted the fabric, she gasped. A thin scar ran down the length of his torso, from sternum to navel. Beneath a wisp of dark hair, there was another scar—no larger than the head of a nail—in the exact spot where she needed to insert the needle. But she could ponder all that later—aftershe revived him.
She filled the syringe, taking care to avoid pricking herself withthe needle, then held it directly above his heart. She took a deep breath as her vision focused on the tiny round scar. Everything else faded to darkness.
In one swift movement, she plunged the needle into his chest, then depressed the plunger as she counted to thirty. In a sense, this was nothing more than a healing spell. And as with any healing spell, all she needed to do was focus and breathe. When the syringe was empty, she pulled it out and tossed it onto the tea table. A spot of blood bubbled from where the needle had been.
She’d saved him…or had she? Her heart lodged in her throat as she recalled the instructions—and the caveats. What if the serum didn’t work? What if she’d misjudged the time, and more than an hour had passed? Could she find a Resurrectionist this late at night?
As the seconds stretched on like hours, she chewed on a hangnail until her skin turned bloody and raw, and her eyes stung with more tears. But never once did she leave his side. When she placed her hand upon his chest, his heart remained still as stone.
Come on. Come back to me…
Even more seconds passed, even more tears filled her eyes.
Then, the lightest pulse stirred beneath her fingertips.
Alain’s eyes widened. He inhaled sharply, followed by a fit of ragged coughing that made his entire body quaver. He bolted upright, and Mavery was relieved she’d had the foresight to move the tea table.
“Careful,” she said. Standing up was likely out of the question, so she helped him turn around, lean his back against the sofa.
He continued to cough, but with each one, more color returned to his cheeks. She noted to herself that she would never again think of his complexion as “deathly pale.” Compared to the real thing, he wasradiant.She rubbed small circles against his shoulder as his coughing fit subsided. He then turned to her.
“Mavery,” he gasped. Coming from his voice, her name was like the most beautiful music she’d ever heard. “Thank—”
She lunged forward and threw her arms around him, nearly knocking him to the floor again. Simply feeling his breath and pulse strummed up a well of emotion and arcana. The formersprung free in a shuddering sob, while the latter coursed through her veins like a gathering storm.
She pulled away at once, not wanting to risk her magic surging beyond her control. She recalled what she’d done to his bathroom mirror, and she had no intention of seeing what would happen if Alain was on the receiving end of that. Besides, it probably wasn’t a good idea to squeeze someone whose lungs had started working again only a moment ago.
“Sorry about that.” She dried her eyes with the back of her hand. Yet another emotional impulse had gotten the better of her. “I just…for a minute there…I thought…”
“No need to apologize. Now that you’ve gone through the procedure, I’m sure you understand why I was reluctant to tell you more.”
“I wish you had. You’re lucky I don’t have a debilitating fear of needles.”
