Mara stared at Elara for a moment, clearly trying to gauge whether that calm nod stemmed from a genuine decision or sheer ignorance of what the girl had just brought into the laboratory.
She herself had hesitated for an entire month before initiating the reforging of her own hands, yet here was a newcomer on her second day of study, sitting before her with a book whose contents were likely just as lethal as the experiments detailed across its pages.
She didn't know where that determination came from, but after last night, she had no intention of dismissing it as mere childish recklessness. Elara had walked out of the laboratory alive. Either she was capable of far more than she let on, or someone powerful enough had deemed her worth saving.
Mara pushed the book across the table, sliding it back toward the girl.
“Copy what you need first. The author explains things clearly enough, so you should at least grasp the general concept. If you still want to pursue it after reading, come to me. You can find me here for the next month.”
Elara offered her thanks and sat down, having no desire to squander her paid time wondering how long this goodwill would last. Meanwhile, Deyra and Angeline watched the exchange from the other side of the room, plainly startled by a tone the senior apprentice had never once used with them.
Once Mara walked away, Angeline picked up her manual and hurried after her, wearing a bright, pleasant smile.
“Could you help me? During today’s practice, I couldn't complete my rune several times, and I don't know what I was doing wrong.”
She held the book high, almost under her chin, looking at the senior apprentice with hopeful eyes, expecting that a polite request would yield a similar response. Mara smiled just as warmly as she had with Elara, then named her price.
“Ten magic crystals or two points.”
Angeline blinked, and the light in her eyes died instantly. She possessed only a few dozen crystals, and parting with such a hefty portion of her reserve just to troubleshoot a handful of mistakes felt far too steep, especially with her training having only just begun.
“I’ll… try on my own a bit more,” she murmured after a pause, pulling the manual against her chest.
She retreated to her station with her head down, avoiding looking around to see if anyone was laughing at her.
There was still Caldra, but yesterday’s meeting had given Angeline little confidence that the mentor would welcome more questions - assuming she even showed up today.
The borrowed book was nothing like the heavy tomes Elara had received at the start of her studies.
It was barely over a hundred pages, resembling a handwritten manuscript. As a result, each page held less text, though the uneven script occasionally required a closer look to decipher individual words.
As she transcribed, she skipped personal musings and digressions, focusing strictly on explanations, prerequisites, and descriptions that could genuinely aid her understanding of Flesh Reforging.
She didn't trim any warnings regarding hazards, however, even when she couldn't yet connect them to the rest of the text.
Grasping the content proved far more challenging than the physical act of copying it. After only two days of classes, she still lacked foundational knowledge; she could replicate a sentence flawlessly and still have no real grasp of what it actually meant.
This was where Mara's presence paid off.
Whenever she hit an obscure passage, she formulated a question and approached the senior apprentice, pinpointing exactly where her comprehension broke down. Mara clarified the terminology, highlighted crucial sections, and pointed out which tangents were safe to ignore for a beginner.
I don't know if she's unsettled just because I came back, or if she found out who pulled me out…
Either way, if she's willing to help, I'm not going to let this change in mood go to waste.
With her guidance, Elara worked with increasing speed, growing confident she could copy all the vital sections before noon tomorrow.
Two crystals remained a painful expense, but if she came away with legible notes and a working grasp of the subject after returning the volume, the cost was well worth it.
Caldra arrived after half past three, her brow furrowed so deeply that even Mara instantly set down what she was holding. The mentor looked preoccupied with a matter she had no intention of discussing, and when Deyra attempted to approach with a question, Caldra brushed her off with a flick of her hand.
The girl froze, then retreated to her seat, clutching her book to her chest.
Only now were she and Angeline beginning to understand why senior apprentices didn't run here with every trivial hurdle.
The mentor's offhand comment yesterday certainly hadn't guaranteed she would have time for them today, and simply showing up at the workshop didn't even ensure a chance to speak.
Elara tracked the scene out of the corner of her eye without interrupting her transcription, until she heard footsteps heading toward her counter.
Mara straightened immediately.
“Mentor?”
Caldra walked past her, stopping right beside Elara. The girl set down her quill, uncertain whether she should stand or brace for a reprimand over the contraband text.
“Come with me,” the futa ordered, turning toward the exit.
Elara gathered her materials as quickly as she could without scattering the loose sheets. Yesterday she had been left behind with Mara while Deyra and Angeline followed the mentor; now, an uneasy flicker of hope stirred within her, though she couldn't guess what had prompted the shift.
At least she remembers I exist…
***
They descended through the sloping ramps of the Ash Wing, passing apprentices who immediately cleared the way for Caldra with bowed heads. Elara kept close behind her mentor, matching her pace. After the previous night's horrors, she had no desire to be left alone in an unfamiliar section of the Spire, even for a few seconds.
She had never visited the lower levels of this wing before.
She knew the Glass Wing housed the servants' quarters and the overseer's offices, with the bottom floor reserved for waste disposal. During her time cleaning, she had left trash in designated collection rooms for others to haul away, so she had never seen the disposal facilities herself.
Rumors claimed only veteran maids worked down there - taciturn women who kept entirely to themselves - though she had never had a reason to test the truth of those tales.
The deeper they descended, the dimmer the light became, and Elara found herself fixing her gaze entirely on Caldra’s back. In her head, she counted the passing levels, memorizing the path, until the mentor finally turned off at the second floor.
Stationed by the entryway was an exceptionally stout woman, leaning heavily against the wall in near-total stillness.
Her broad frame and large bust under thick cloth took up a sizable chunk of the passage, but as Caldra pushed past, the guard didn't so much as turn her head.
Elara followed, suppressing the urge to stare, and a few paces later they halted before a set of red wooden doors.
Caldra hauled them open with a drawn-out groan of hinges and stepped inside. An oppressive stench slammed into Elara almost instantly.
The air reeked of blood, decay, and a sharp chemical tang that coated the back of her throat even through shallow breaths.
She pressed her lips together and glanced at her mentor, but the woman stood in the center of the chamber without the slightest reaction, as though the odor didn't even register. Elara took shallow, measured breaths and began inspecting the room she had been brought to.
The walls were coated in a pale, chalky residue bearing unevenly spaced runes and inscriptions.
They looked chaotic, but at least they didn't induce the headache-inducing vertigo of the earlier diagrams. She let her gaze wander over them for a moment before turning toward a machine protruding from a gap in the wall.
It was a conveyor belt, its mouth obscured by hanging strips of black leather. Beside it stood a long table laden with open containers of varying sizes - empty, yet crusted along the rims with dried residue, their corners dotted with clusters of tiny pale mushrooms.
Hammers and chisels hung from pegs along the side, while beneath the counter sat a large wheeled chest, its lid propped open to reveal an interior stained with dark crimson, near-black smears.
That was where the heaviest reek originated. Elara shifted back a step, careful not to draw attention to the movement.
Against the back wall, she noticed a desk with two chairs, piled with books and loose papers. An overturned utensil tray lay near the edge, several quills scattered across the floor, giving the impression that whoever worked there had left in a hurry.
“The first and second floors of the Ash Wing comprise the Pale Ossuary,” Caldra said. “This is where we store the bodies. This chamber is on the second level.”
Elara looked back at the conveyor, the tools, and the open containers; the equipment's purpose suddenly became glaringly obvious. That didn't mean she had any desire to picture how each item was used.
“If you can handle the work, you will receive three points a month.”
Elara’s head snapped up before she could hide her interest.
Under the Spire's regulations, one point could be converted into ten magic crystals, but that exchange rate barely reflected a point's true worth. Points granted access to privileges and resources that ordinary coin couldn't touch, and ten crystals couldn't simply be traded back for a point.
Three points meant access to things currently far beyond her reach, and a chance to stop funding her education on borrowed coin.
Hours of instruction, higher-tier books, maybe materials for experiments…
She almost agreed on the spot, but the memory of Deyra and Angeline being led away yesterday gave her pause. They had likely been brought to this very room. If they had returned to the laboratory afterward, there was a reason Caldra was still looking for a worker.
“What exactly would my duties be?” she asked, keeping her voice neutral so as not to betray either her interest or her disgust at the stench.
“Processing mutated corpses,” the mentor replied, walking over to a lever beside the conveyor.
She threw it, and the mechanism engaged with a low hum. Elara watched the black leather strips at the aperture until they parted beneath the weight of an incoming payload, revealing a body strapped to the belt and draped in dark hide.
She took two steps back, all thoughts of compensation evaporating instantly.
She had anticipated a corpse, but she hadn't prepared herself for the exposed face - one belonging to someone she might have brushed past among the new apprentices only yesterday.
She recognized the girl from the intake. Suddenly, the gruesome details of Kelira’s morning story ceased to be a distant piece of gossip.
Only hours ago, during their first class, she had asked whether the girl could be saved. Now she was standing over her body, and her mentor was offering to pay her to dismantle it.