Page 10 of A Tower of Half-Truths
She chewed on a nail as she read the ad for a fourth time.
Enchanted talismans, magical staves, rare potion ingredients… A wizard’s tower was a treasure trove. She had a good idea of how much those treasures fetched on the black market, courtesy of her brief tenure with the Brass Dragons, the kingdom’s largest criminal network. A single artifact could make up for what Neldren had stolen from her. An entire display case of artifacts could have her living comfortably for years.
Wizards collected magical artifacts like the nobility collected unread books. Of course, they tended to contract out artifactfetchingto people like Mavery. She’d done it a handful of times, but she’d rarely interacted with the wizards directly. They preferred to conduct that sort of thing through their assistants—the bookish types who had no business delving into old ruins.
But that didn’t mean being a wizard’s assistant was asafejob. Mavery recalled Draconus the Vile, the Necromancer who’d died over five centuries ago but still held the record for the most assistants to die under his employ: thirty-three. And those were only the recordeddeaths.
Whether this wizard in Leyport was as ruthless as Draconus was none of Mavery’s concern; she had no intention of sticking around long enough to find out. She would travel to Leyport, convince this wizard to hire her, and then clean his tower of valuables at the first opportunity.
Convincing him that she was the right woman for the job wouldn’t be too much of a challenge. He just so happened to be looking for a Gardemancer, which she knew was the fancy, academic word for warding magic.
She also knew that her ability to detect magic was something of a rarity. The average mage could not see the color of a ward, taste a spell being cast, or differentiate the pungent odor of shadow magic from the calming aroma of healing magic. What she lacked in formal education, her abilities would make up for in spades. The wizard would never even know she’d failed to finish university, so long as she kept the details vague enough.
And even if the wizard saw through her ruse and didn’t give her the job, she would at least use the interview to case out his tower. The only challenge would be getting to Leyport before any other applicants.
She ripped out the newspaper ad and tucked it in the front pocket of her pack. Though she wouldn’t yet be leaving the criminal life, it was within reach. All she needed was one final score.
Four
Atrain whistle sounded, and with a clamor of whinnying, the wagon lurched to a halt. Mavery dodged crates and barrels as they tumbled forward in the wagon bed, colliding into one another. Thanks to her protective wards, the abrupt stop hadn’t damaged any merchandise. She couldn’t say the same for her Compendium of Knowledge, however. It had slipped from her hands, and then had been promptly crushed beneath a crate of cabbages.
“Sorry about that, Jayne!” the merchant called from the driver’s seat. He’d told her his name was Herold; she’d given him a fake one in return. “The train spooked the horses.”
Mavery groaned as she grabbed one corner of her Compendium. She was about to pull it free when Herold snapped the reins and the wagon moved forward again. The cabbage crate slid backward—and took a section of her Compendium along with it. Mavery emitted a colorful string of expletives as she gathered the torn pages.
Whether out of fear of the unknown, or fear of bruising his ego, Neldren had always been content relying on shadow magic alone. But dropping out of university had never quelled Mavery’s thirst for knowledge. Once she’d squeezed as much as she could from Neldren, she’d begun pilfering books while performing jobs.Thus, her Compendium of Knowledge had been born: hundreds of loose pages, bound together with needle and thread.
A life of constant travel meant she could only carry so many books at a time. When she finished one, she would cut out the most interesting sections and add them to her Compendium. Sections would come and go as she grew bored with the material or had committed it to heart. Arcane knowledge was the one exception. Things like Gardemancy textbooks were difficult to find outside of university campuses and wizards’ libraries, and so anything on magic had a permanent place in her collection.
She’d been poring over those pages on her journey to Leyport, in case the wizard wanted to test her skills. At least the rogue cabbages hadn’t destroyed anything useful. The only casualty had been a tedious but thorough chapter on the history of the First Reforms. Unless the wizard was also a historian, she doubted he would quiz her on that.
She lowered herself onto the sacks of grain she’d arranged into a chair. After being discharged from the infirmary yesterday, she’d tracked down a merchant who was heading to Durnatel, the capital city. In exchange for some protective wards, he’d promised to drop her off in Leyport. They had to be close by now. She pulled a section of canvas aside and peered through the gap.
To say Osperland’s largest port city had changed over the years was an understatement. Much of it had spilled outside the original city walls, and the southern outskirts were now a hive of working-class activity. Shipyards, fisheries, and factories stretched on for miles. Beyond that, the landscape was dotted with villages robust enough to be cities in their own right.
The University of Leyport’s five white towers loomed over the heart of the city. The University was the largest wizarding school in the country, and it boasted one of the largest libraries on the continent—over a hundred thousand books. But the wizards kept that vast hoard of knowledge behind their warded gates. It was off-limits to someone like Mavery, who had to make do with her portable, illegally acquired library.
They were still a few miles out, and so she decided to get some rest before the next leg of her journey began. She turned away fromthe view, closed her eyes, and tried her best to ignore the rattling wagon wheels and distant train whistles.
The wagon stopped outside the city’s southern gate. She climbed out the back and winced as her feet collided with cobblestone. Though her arcana allowed her to heal much faster than someone without magical blood, an overnight trip in a cramped wagon had hampered her recovery. And being in Leyport didn’t help her feel any more refreshed. Her stomach lurched at the stench of rotting fish and burning coal. Her ears rang at the endless din of noise. Even her arcana felt more subdued than usual, as if it, too, wanted to escape all this chaos.
She remembered now why she avoided cities whenever possible. But it was too late to turn back.
“How well do you know your way around Leyport?” she asked Herold.
“Well enough. I stop here at least once a season.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know where I can find Steelforge Towers?”
“Steelforge Towers?” He scratched his whiskered chin. “Doesn’t ring a… Oh! You must mean the old armory.”
Mavery had only vague memories of an armory along the riverfront. Given her profession, she tended to avoid areas swarming with armed guards.
“Yes, that’s the place,” Herold mused. “They decommissioned the armory fifteen years ago, give or take, when they opened the munitions factory. Completely gutted it and turned it into some hoity-toity apartments.”
Mavery frowned. An apartment building sounded a far cry from a wizard’s tower, but she wouldn’t know until she confirmed it for herself.
“It’s on the north end of the city. Just follow the river for about three miles. You can’t miss it.”
