Wren woke to the same stone ceiling as always, and a headache sitting behind his eyes that hadn’t been there the night before.
He caught his own reflection in the small mirror by his desk while getting dressed and stopped for a moment, unsettled by it.
He looked pale — properly pale, the color drained clean out of him in a way that made the shadows under his eyes stand out sharper than usual.
He pressed a hand briefly to his sternum, testing.
The ache was still there, duller than last night but not gone, a low, patient reminder that his body hadn’t forgotten what he’d asked of it, even if the rest of him would have preferred to.
Should probably mention that to someone, he thought, and then didn’t, because there wasn’t really anyone in this tower whose job that seemed to be.
He got dressed anyway, tucked his notebook under one arm, and made himself walk normally the whole way down to the fifth floor, which took more effort than it should have.
Rian and Adeleine were already waiting outside the lecture hall when he arrived.
“You look like death,” Rian said, by way of greeting.
“Thanks.”
“No, I mean it.
You look worse than after your willpower test.” Rian squinted at him, more curious than concerned.
“Did you actually sleep?”
“Some.” Wren didn’t particularly want to explain the rest of it, not yet, not until he had something more solid to show for it than a shape he still couldn’t name.
“Long night.
I’ll live.”
Adeleine studied him a moment longer than Rian had, quiet in the way that always made Wren feel like he was being filed away for later reference rather than simply looked at.
She didn’t push, though — just filed it, and let it go, at least for now.
They filed into Room 5-C together.
Mage Ellowen was already at the front of the room, sorting through a small case of crystals, the same faint rainbow shimmer catching in her hair as it had the day before.
The three of them found seats — no gap this time, not since Adeleine had broken the pattern the day prior — and Wren pulled out his notebook, doing his best to look like a person who’d gotten a full night’s sleep and didn’t currently have a mystery eating at the back of his skull.
Later, he told himself.
Corren, after the lectures.
Ellowen cleared her throat once, and the room quieted.
The cafeteria was as loud as it had been every morning since the new apprentices arrived, and Wren found himself grateful for it — easier to disappear into noise than into silence.
“Alright,” Rian said, dropping into his seat with none of his usual looseness.
“Spill it.
What actually happened last night?”
“Told you already.
Long night.”
“You told me nothing already.” Rian leaned forward, elbows on the table, his usual grin nowhere in sight.
“I’ve seen you tired.
I’ve seen you frustrated, annoyed, whatever you were after the affinity test yesterday.
This is different.
You look like something used you up and forgot to put you back properly.”
Wren opened his mouth to deflect again, and found Adeleine watching him with the specific patience of someone who already suspected the answer and was simply waiting to see if he’d admit it himself.
“I kept the identification spell running longer than I should have,” he said finally, picking at his food instead of eating it.
“Trying to get a clean read on that second material in the ore.
Found something buried under it too — smaller, denser, looked worked rather than natural.
Didn’t get a clear look before the pain hit and dropped the whole circle.”
“How long’s ‘longer than you should have’?” Adeleine asked.
“…A couple hours.”
Rian blinked.
“A couple hours.
“Basically, yeah.”
“Wren.” Adeleine set her fork down.
“That spell doesn’t draw from a crystal on its own.
You’d need one sitting in the circle to take the cost off you — Ellowen showed us that yesterday.
Did you have one?”
“No.
Just the fragment and the diagram.”
“Two hours, unsupported, and the only reason you stopped was because it started tearing something apart in your chest.” Adeleine didn’t say anything else for a moment, which was somehow worse than if she had.
“So don’t do that again,” Rian said, blunt about it in a way that had nothing playful left in it.
“I don’t care how close you were.
Whatever’s buried in that thing isn’t worth finding out the hard way twice.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” Wren said.
“That’s why I’m bringing it to Corren today.
Let him decide what to do with it.”
“Good.” Rian relaxed, just slightly, though he didn’t fully let it go.
“Actually tell him about the two hours, though.
Not just the ore.
If your body’s doing something it shouldn’t, that’s not a research footnote — that’s a you problem, and you should probably want an answer for it too.”
Wren didn’t say anything to that right away.
He just nodded, mostly to end the conversation, and let breakfast move on to something easier.
It ended soon after.
Looking down at his schedule, he noticed a different class than yesterday, with a new mage listed as well.
Modifications, with Mage Thale.
He tucked the schedule back into his notebook, already thinking less about lectures and more about the small, unrefined fragment still sitting in his pocket — and the shape buried inside it that hadn’t wanted to be found.