The girls stared at Elara in silence, as if still waiting for Brynn to peel herself off the floor and prove the whole incident was just an accident.
But Brynn just lay there, cradling her crushed arm against her chest and breathing through gritted teeth. The longer she remained down, the more the bewilderment on the other maids’ faces shifted into glaring reality.
Finally, three of them exchanged looks and slid off the bed, clearly deciding that if they let Elara assert dominance now, it would be much harder to restore the pecking order later.
The first girl grabbed a wooden stool by the wall and hoisted it up with both hands, twisting her mouth into a sneer that was probably meant to resemble a confident smirk.
“You’re getting way too cocky, you little brat!” she spat, taking a step forward. “Let’s see if you can catch a stool just as easily!”
Elara saw the wind-up and reflexively raised her left hand, sliding it out of her sleeve directly into the path of the falling wood.
The impact reverberated down her forearm, but she felt nothing in her actual hand. Before she could even wonder if the bones would hold, the wooden seat cracked with a loud snap and splintered to pieces between them.
The attacker flinched back, shielding her face from the flying splinters, while the two girls backing her up stopped so abruptly that one nearly crashed into the other.
Elara lowered her arm a fraction, and only then did she notice that none of them were looking at the ruined stool anymore.
The bare finger bones were clearly visible in the light. As she slowly uncurled them, Brynn scuttled backward across the floor, momentarily forgetting even her own pain.
Elara had known from the start that she wouldn't be able to hide the change for long. Maids didn't wear gloves, most chores required both hands, and keeping one arm permanently hidden beneath a sleeve would draw just as much attention as simply exposing it.
At least now she could use the shock value before the other girls had time to properly process the unnatural strength of her right hand.
“Are you… are you cursed?” the attacker asked, still clutching the broken remains of the stool.
“Is it contagious?” someone on the bed chimed in, instantly pulling her knees under the blanket.
“We have to tell the supervisor!”
Elara didn't answer. Instead, she looked at Brynn and stretched her left hand toward her, just to see if the movement alone would be enough.
The girl let out a strangled gasp and started frantically pushing herself back with her heels, desperate to put as much distance between herself and the skeletal fingers as possible. Satisfied, Elara turned her bare hand toward the rest of the room.
Several girls squeaked. One maid nearly fell off the bed when her dormmate shoved her, trying to use her as a human shield.
I’m acting like a child scaring other kids with a dead bug…
But after all those mornings, it’s hard for me to give a damn about their feelings.
“I went up there every day already,” she said, lowering her arm. “Now you’re going to take turns scrubbing.”
Nobody protested. She pointed at Brynn with a bare finger, and the girl froze, staring at it with stark terror.
“You start tomorrow.”
Brynn opened her mouth, but before she could get a word out, an excited voice rang out from the doorway.
“It’s her! She’s cursed and didn't tell anyone!”
Elara glanced back to see one of her roommates leading a middle-aged woman in a black supervisor’s uniform into the room.
The girl who had brought her was one of the quickest to mock others’ mistakes, and now she stood in the doorway looking like someone who had just heroically saved the entire dormitory.
The supervisor looked at Elara’s left hand without a hint of fear. She frowned and jerked her head toward the corridor.
“Come with me.”
Elara spared a glance for the snitch, committing her smug face to memory, then tucked her hand back into her sleeve and followed the woman out to the utility room.
The supervisor closed the door, turned around, and stared at the girl for a moment, as if calculating how much of a headache it would be to dispose of yet another problem.
“Speak,” she ordered, shifting her gaze to the bones protruding from the fabric.
“I assisted Lady Vespara Syth, a second-rank apprentice, with an experiment,” Elara answered calmly. “She needed a living subject for a trial.”
The woman’s expression shifted almost instantly, her gaze snapping from the hand back to the girl’s face.
“Did you volunteer?”
For a moment, Elara didn't know how to respond, because the question sounded surprisingly close to concern - something no one here had ever shown her before.
Still, she highly doubted the supervisor was planning to march up to the thirteenth floor and demand an explanation from a woman who kept her own eyeball floating in a glass dome.
Now you’re suddenly going to check if someone asked for my consent?
Shame that didn't cross your minds when you pulled me out of the trash room with a smashed skull.
“I mean regarding compensation,” the woman clarified, clearing her throat. “Did Lady Vespara pay you something? If not, you can report this to the head of servants. You belong to the Lady of the Spire, so even the apprentices cannot simply use you up like that.”
Elara listened without changing her expression, though that last phrase was enough to completely shatter any illusions about this sudden display of care.
The previous owner of her body had been killed by a book to the head, and when she crawled out of the storage room, no one had gone looking for the culprit or mentioned any compensation.
It was far more likely the supervisor was just trying to gauge exactly what kind of connection she had with Vespara.
“No,” she replied, and upon seeing the first flicker of change on the woman's face, she added, “We didn't need to discuss payment.”
The woman pressed her lips together as if she were about to scold her, but then her jaw relaxed, and she managed a brief, rather unconvincing smile.
“In that case, I won't interfere,” she said, glancing at Elara’s left sleeve again. “Go back to your room. You can rest for the next two days. I won't assign you any work.”
“Thank you,” the girl replied, bowing her head before heading for the door.
A few maids had gathered outside the dorm, craning their necks to see if she was going to be dragged away. But the moment they saw Elara walking back, they instantly scrambled inside.
She fixed her eyes on the girl who had brought the supervisor and pointed at her with her right hand.
“You go the day after tomorrow.”
The smug satisfaction vanished from the snitch’s face just as quickly as Brynn’s smirk had earlier. Elara stepped into the room without waiting for a reply.
Life grew considerably more comfortable over the next two days, though the change itself revealed more about the rules of this place than she wanted to know.
No one woke her with a kick, no one tried barking orders at her, and no one shoved her aside in the food line. For the first time, she was actually able to eat her meal before it went cold, and occasionally even found a piece of meat on her plate.
She was also given more freedom to roam the fourth floor. The following day, the supervisor even brought her a small vial of potion, explaining it should help with the head wound.
Elara stopped herself from touching her perfectly smooth forehead, which didn't even bear a scar, and accepted the vial with both hands as carefully as if she had just been handed an extraordinarily precious gift.
“Thank you very much,” she said, making sure her smile didn't betray her true thoughts.
I could walk around with a cracked skull for days, but I just drop Vespara's name and suddenly there’s medicine…
How fucking convenient.
However, she didn't intend to mistake this courtesy for genuine status. The whole charade was built entirely on an assumption the supervisor had pieced together herself.
Vespara hadn't even cared to ask her name, and if she failed the qualification trial, there would be no reason for anyone to keep treating her carefully.
She might be able to terrify her roommates with her skeletal hand, but to the residents of the upper floors, she was still just a maid whose worth was measured by how much work she could do before needing to be replaced.
On the third day, the girl sent out to clean before dawn didn't return.
At first, Elara only noticed her prolonged absence. But later, the supervisor appeared in the corridor carrying a body, and whispers flooded the quiet space around the dorms.
One of the maids came running to report that the dead girl’s head had bloomed into a massive red flower, recounting the sight with as much excitement as if she had just witnessed a neat magic trick.
Elara looked at her, then at the empty spot on the bed, but found nothing she wanted to say in response.
The body was handed over to those who dealt with the waste, leaving behind a trail of blood in the hall that had to be scrubbed before someone decided the mess was another proof of the servants’ laziness.
This time, Elara’s supposed break was completely ignored. Shortly after, she found herself kneeling alongside the other girls, dragging a wet rag across the stone.
The water in her bucket steadily darkened as the apprentices passed by without stopping, engrossed in conversations or their own affairs.
Not one asked what had happened, and not one seemed to think a missing maid warranted even a moment’s curiosity.
Elara even recognized the lower half of Vespara’s face as the futa walked down the corridor with a hood pulled low over her head. The glass dome was hidden, making her look far less terrifying than during their nighttime encounter, but she didn't slow her pace or even glance at the kneeling girl.
Elara lowered her gaze and went back to scrubbing the blood, feeling the stare of one of her roommates on her back.
After all, she never promised to smile at me in the hallways… She promised a trial.
When they returned to the dorm, the supervisor appeared again - this time without a bottle of medicine or a polite smile.
“I think you’ve had enough rest,” she announced, stopping in front of Elara. “Starting tomorrow, you’re back to your duties.”
“I understand,” the girl replied without a hint of protest.
Behind her, someone whispered something to a neighbor, followed by a muffled giggle. Elara didn't need to turn around to guess how they had interpreted Vespara’s indifference.
Evidently, some of the girls decided that a single hallway snub was enough to prove she was lying about a connection she herself had never fully explained.
The supervisor frowned, as if such easy compliance didn't match the resistance she had prepared for. But before she could say anything else, the door opened and the head of servants walked into the room.
The woman standing next to Elara immediately turned and bowed so deeply that every trace of her earlier severity vanished completely.
“Madam… What brings you to us?”
The newcomer ignored the question and fixed a cold stare on the girl.
“Are you Elara Veyne?”
Elara clenched her right hand beneath her sleeve, fighting back a sudden surge of hope. After two days of waiting, it was hard not to connect this question to Vespara’s promise.
“Yes, Madam.”
“Come with me,” the head of servants ordered. She turned on her heel and walked out, still without so much as glancing at the supervisor.
Elara followed her. As she passed the woman standing beside her, she gave a slight nod and allowed herself a small, polite smile.
Fine beads of sweat broke out on the supervisor’s forehead, but the girl didn't stop to see if there were any further wishes regarding her rest.
She followed the head maid all the way up to the sixth floor, struggling to keep pace, though this was her first real chance to observe this section of the Spire. From what she had gathered, the sixth through ninth levels were primarily occupied by lower-ranked apprentices, though older ones who chose not to change rooms after a promotion lived there as well.
Usually, the corridors of Noxveil Spire felt empty. But here, dozens of girls were lined up in rows, dressed far more neatly than the maids from the fourth floor.
Elara noticed clean collars, sturdier shoes, and carefully styled hair. But when she looked at their faces, what stood out most was a pale, drawn tension she recognized all too well.
No one was chatting casually. Several candidates were clutching their sleeves or wringing their fingers so tightly their knuckles had turned white.
“Stand at the end,” the head of servants said, indicating the spot with a sharp jerk of her chin.
Elara nodded and walked along the line, trying to steady her breathing. With every step, she felt it becoming more and more real - Vespara’s promise had actually led her to something beyond another morning beside a mop bucket.
The last girl in line turned at the sound of footsteps and eyed her uniform, first with confusion, then with overt disdain.
Elara didn't know if it was the maid’s outfit, joining the group late, or simply standing next to her that offended the girl. But this time, she didn't lower her gaze.
For a moment, they stared at each other in silence until Elara calmly took her assigned spot, keeping both hands tucked beneath her sleeves.
I don’t know what’s waiting for me yet, but I’m definitely not going back to letting everyone think they can push me around…