Elara decided that even a neighbor who framed an acquaintance like a carefully calculated investment might prove more useful than an empty shelf and a few scrolls.
Kelira already knew about the trial results, could recognize the servants' uniform, and had approached her on her own initiative. The least Elara could do was use the conversation to find out what she had missed while unconscious.
She opened her mouth, but before she could ask a question, the sound of rapid footsteps echoed from the corridor, followed closely by a booming voice.
“All newly accepted first-rank apprentices are to report to the last lecture hall on the tenth floor of the Ash Wing at nine o'clock! First joint class!”
A woman marched past their door without slowing down, repeating the exact same announcement in the exact same tone, clearly indifferent to whether anyone had heard it the first time.
One of the new apprentices leaned out of her room and tried to ask a question, but the messenger didn't even turn her head, simply continuing toward the ramp leading to the next level.
Doors began opening on both sides of the hall. The silence was quickly replaced by whispers and chatter.
Girls were looking around, comparing the instructions they had just heard, and straightening their clothes, evidently relieved to finally receive a concrete order that marked the start of their new lives.
“Kelira!” called one of the two apprentices approaching from the adjacent rooms. “Come with us to class.”
The girl had bright eyes and smiled so openly that for a second, Elara expected an equally polite response. Instead, Kelira merely gave her a passing glance before turning back to Elara standing in the doorway.
“We should get going.”
The two newly arrived apprentices stopped nearby, but neither voiced any protest to being so blatantly ignored.
Instead, they both studied Elara with cautious interest, as if trying to figure out what she had done to earn the attention of someone who had just treated them like a piece of the hallway decor.
Elara adjusted the scrolls under her arm and nodded. She had no intention of explaining the gap between the aptitudes assigned to her after the doll test and what she actually knew about her own potential.
It wasn't nine yet, but almost all the new apprentices set out immediately. Elara locked her door and joined the group, carrying the materials she had still been holding after inspecting her room's meager furnishings.
Noxveil Spire was built in the shape of a massive tower, wide at the base and tapering gradually toward the top. Inside, however, it was divided into two semicircular halves, separated by a thick central wall.
The Ash Wing and the Glass Wing were only connected by corridors on the fifth, sixth, tenth, and fourteenth floors. At night, these passages were sealed, and crossing between the wings was strictly forbidden.
Until now, Elara’s duties had been confined entirely to the Glass Wing. As she followed the group through the passage on the sixth floor, she found herself in a part of the Spire she hadn't even seen during her morning cleaning rounds.
On the other side, she didn't find rows of doors like those by the apprentices' rooms. The corridor was lined with stark, gray walls covered in runes and intricate patterns. Instinctively, she tried to trace a repeating sequence among them, but only a few seconds of looking was enough to send an unpleasant, squeezing pressure building behind her eyes.
She quickly averted her gaze, blinking rapidly, and noticed that Kelira had been walking with her eyes fixed on the floor the entire time.
Of course she already knows what not to look at… It would be nice if someone mentioned these things before you have to find out the hard way.
Up ahead, the heavy thud of a falling body echoed through the hall, followed almost instantly by a second. Two apprentices hadn't looked away from the walls fast enough. They collapsed onto the stone, bracing themselves with their hands, visibly struggling just to stay upright.
The others simply walked around them, giving them just enough berth to avoid tripping over a stray leg.
No one stopped to offer a hand. As Elara passed one of the fallen girls, she saw her eyes squeezed shut, her fingers fruitlessly scrabbling for purchase on the smooth floor.
Elara shifted the scrolls under her arm and slowed down for a second, but the crowd carried her forward. Kelira kept walking, head still bowed. The earlier fantasy of peacefully studying at her own desk lost a bit of its luster before they even reached the lecture hall.
The last hall on the tenth floor was already open. They took seats near the back, where Elara instinctively felt safer than she would right under the instructor's nose.
Kelira sat next to her, set her satchel by her chair, and gave the room a brief scan as the rest of the apprentices filed into the empty benches.
They waited about ten minutes before the door at the front of the room burst open.
“Silence!” a voice barked, instantly cutting off most of the chatter.
A woman who looked to be in her fifties marched into the room, moving with an aggressive energy that completely clashed with her heavy, stomping gait.
She had a massive build and a large bust that strained the front of her uniform. But what drew Elara's attention the most was her flushed, tense face and the way she slammed her hand down on the lectern.
“The first class covers the rules of Noxveil Spire! I will say everything exactly once, and if any of you ask about it later, I’ll eat you alive and…”
She cut herself off, leaned over the side of the raised platform, and violently vomited.
A splash of greenish sludge hit the floor, splattering near the front row benches. Along with it tumbled several human fingers. They bounced off the stone and rolled to a stop in the sticky puddle.
A heavy, foul stench immediately drifted all the way to the back of the hall. Elara clamped her mouth shut, feeling her stomach pitch.
The girls in the front row scrambled backward, knocking over chairs and benches. The woman straightened up, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and glared at them furiously, as if they were the ones who had just done something inappropriate.
“I said: silence!”
The scrambling stopped almost instantly, though one apprentice remained seated, her hand clamped over her mouth as she fought a gag reflex.
Elara lowered her gaze to her empty desk, deciding that a closer inspection of the puddle's contents wouldn't help her understand anything she actually wanted to know.
Well, at least I don’t have to wonder if the threat was a metaphor… Fuck, I should have sat even further back.
“You choose your mentor according to your elemental affinity,” the woman continued, as if absolutely nothing had interrupted her speech. “I teach Poisons, and I can also teach Metal. If you have an aptitude for either, put my name on your form.”
Elara looked down at her desk, but saw no form and no rulebook. No one had started passing anything out, either. She unrolled one of the scrolls she had brought, held it flat with her left hand, and hurriedly readied her quill.
Paper rustled beside her as Kelira pulled her own materials from her bag. After a quick glance around the room, Elara noticed that over half of the twenty-odd girls present had also come prepared. The rest looked around nervously, but no one dared to ask for paper, clearly unwilling to test the patience of a woman standing over a puddle of regurgitated fingers.
“First-rank apprentices begin with joint classes: Veyl Script, General Knowledge, Meditation, and Runes. Only after mastering the basics will you be allowed to touch even the simplest spells!”
Elara scrambled to write the words down, fighting to keep up with the pace. Within moments, she had to start abbreviating sentences because the instructor didn't leave enough time to finish a single line.
Eventually, she resorted to using symbols and shorthand she remembered from her past life, figuring the only thing that mattered was being able to decipher her own notes later.
“Do not waste time, because you do not have nearly as much of it as you think! First-rank apprentices have their progress evaluated every month, and your first inspection will be in three months. If the examiners decide you lack the potential for further growth…”
The mentor trailed off, sweeping her gaze across the silent room. Elara’s quill hovered right above the paper.
“Then there will be no reason to continue your education.”
The tip of the quill trembled, dragging the last letter into a long, unnecessary streak. Elara stared at it for a split second, then started a new line, trying to shove away the memory of her own words about staying at the first rank until old age.
So just getting a room and keeping my head down isn’t enough… Three months, and I don't even know how badly I failed at that damn crystal ball.
The mentor kept talking, firing off more instructions with such speed that it seemed as if just being in the room was a waste of her time that someone ought to apologize for. Elara jotted down whatever she could catch, but increasingly had to leave blanks, hoping to fill them in later using Kelira’s notes.
“And stop dreaming about things you aren't ready for. Focus on the books sitting right in front of you. You can start thinking about the rest once you reach the second rank.”
Elara shot a glance at the empty space on her desk, unsure exactly which books the instructor meant, or what ‘the rest’ entailed. She didn't ask, though, because the woman was already stepping away from the lectern.
“That is all.”
She marched out even faster than she had arrived, leaving behind gap-riddled notes, a lingering stench, and a room full of apprentices holding their breath for a few more seconds just in case she came back.
The moment her footsteps faded, conversations erupted across the hall. The girls sitting near the front immediately scrambled for seats further from the platform. Elara stayed where she was, staring at the note about the first progress evaluation. The longer she looked at that deadline, the less she liked what she had just learned.
“Has your left hand always looked like that?” Kelira asked, breaking into her thoughts.
Elara looked down at the bones pressing against the edge of the scroll. Only now did she realize she had completely neglected to mind her sleeve while taking notes. Still, there was no point hiding her hand now that her neighbor had already gotten a good look, so she simply pulled her fingers back, letting the parchment curl slightly.
“No, just for the past few days.”
Kelira frowned and pressed her lips together, studying the skeletal hand with intense focus, as if she had just found a detail that completely unraveled her earlier theory. But before she could ask anything else, the door opened again.
This time, a petite young woman walked in. She wore a neat uniform with a sharply tailored front that draped loosely over a modest chest.
She was carrying a stack of papers and booklets. Her polite smile made her look almost soothing compared to the previous instructor.
“It’s ten to nine, and you’re all already in your seats. Very good,” she said, making her way to the lectern. “Apprentices should utilize every passing moment. It’s better to arrive early, because sometimes being precisely on time means you are already too late.”
Elara slowly raised her head. The chatter in the room began to die down, even though no one had actually demanded silence yet.
“I will hand out the mentor selection forms and the Spire rulebooks,” the newcomer continued, adjusting the stack in her arms. “The mentor conducting your first class will be here shortly to explain everything. Please remain quiet; she does not like noise. If you have any questions, consult the rulebook first. I will provide further clarifications later.”
Dead silence fell over the hall. The woman was clearly pleased by this, as her smile widened a fraction. She set part of the materials down, picked up a few forms, and stepped off the platform to begin distributing them.
Her very first step ended with a wet squelch.
She looked down and carefully lifted her foot. Clinging to her sole was a human finger. It twitched weakly, leaving a thin streak of greenish slime across the stone.
The woman froze. Her eyes darted from the floor to the silent apprentices and the smile vanished from her face.
“The mentor… Did she already…?”
A girl in the second row nodded, keeping her hands rigidly flat on her desk.
“She was already here,” she answered quietly