The scream tore out of Wren’s mouth, echoing around the room and out into the hall.
That’s a person.
A body.
A real person’s body.
His breathing spiraled, ragged and too fast, until his knees gave out under him entirely.
He hit the floor and started scrambling backward, putting as much distance between himself and the corner as the small room would allow.
It didn’t take long for the scream to draw attention.
The Head Butler appeared in the doorway first, a look of open disgust crossing his face at the sight inside.
“Second one this month,” the Head Butler said, already turning toward the door, like the sentence answered every question Wren could possibly have.
He stepped around the body without so much as a second glance at it, careful only to avoid the blood pooling near his boots, the way you’d sidestep a puddle on a rainy day.
From somewhere inside his coat, he produced a small ledger and made a mark in it without breaking stride.
“His instructor won’t be pleased.
Come, Wren.”
Wren didn’t move.
Couldn’t, really.
“Second—” His voice cracked.
“This happens every month?
This is normal here?”
“I warned you, didn’t I?” The Head Butler raised an eyebrow.
“Did you think studying magic would be painless, Wren?
I know you’ve tried practicing already.
I know you’ve felt what casting costs your own body, even on something as small as a training circle.” He nodded once toward the corner, not quite looking at it directly.
“Everything in magic has a price.
Everything.
This boy simply paid a heavier one than most.”
Wren looked down at his hands, still stained with ink from his practice earlier.
“I—I didn’t know you could end up killing yourself.”
“I told you already.” Annoyance crept into the Head Butler’s voice.
“Everything — and I mean everything — in magic has a cost.
I’d think you, of all people, would know that by now, given you supposedly drew your own circuit.” He offered Wren a hand.
“Now get up off the floor.
We have a report to file.”
“I…
yes, sir,” Wren replied weakly, his stomach still churning at the gruesome sight behind him.
He followed the Head Butler up through the tower, matching a pace that felt wrong for what they’d just left behind — unhurried, almost idle, like a man walking off a light meal rather than one who’d just stepped over a corpse.
They stopped in front of a door on the fifth floor: Room 5-D — Earth Element Research, Mage Reinhardt.
Without knocking, the Head Butler opened the door and walked straight to the back.
He rapped his knuckles against an inner door near the rear of the room.
“Master Reinhardt.
One of your apprentices had a rune failure.
A letter will need to go out to his relatives soon.
His body’s still downstairs, in Practice Room 4B, if you’d like to investigate.”
Silence hung in the air.
Eventually, a short, portly man emerged, a yawn still tugging at his face.
“Whatcha say, Sebastian?
One of mine died this time?” he asked, sounding half annoyed, half genuinely upset.
“Correct, Master Reinhardt.
I heard the scream come from Apprentice Wren here, came to investigate, and found your apprentice crushed nearly flat inside his own ribs — practice circle still clutched in his hand.”
“Well, that’s a damn shame.
Which one was it, then, Sebastian?” Reinhardt asked, half-jokingly.
“I believe it was Apprentice George, Master Reinhardt,” Sebastian replied curtly.
“Damn.
Kinda liked that boy — had a glimmer in his eye, ya know.” Reinhardt shrugged.
“Oh well.
And you said this one here saw him first?
How do we know no foul play was afoot?”
Wren looked at the man, stunned.
“I just noticed the door ajar.
It smelled the same as the Metal element room down the hall, so I thought he could help me with a spell I was having trouble with.
I don’t even know how to do something like that to someone,” he said, his voice rising over the accusation.
“Relax, boy.
I doubt someone of your status could manage something like that after only knowing magic from a book for a few days.” Reinhardt laughed to himself.
“Just a good-natured jab.
No need to get your panties in a twist.”
“Regardless, Sebastian — I’m gonna go take a looksie, and I’ll be ready to write that damn report.
Get it started for me and make sure you get this here boy’s testimony.”
“Right away, Master Reinhardt,” the Head Butler — Sebastian — replied, with a slight bow.
Reinhardt ambled out of the room and down the hall toward the apprentice’s body, unhurried as ever.
“Well, Apprentice Wren, I’ll need your testimony for this report.” Sebastian held out a form from the same ledger as before.
“Please, try to be as detailed as possible.
We’re required to report all deaths to the Association, and they prefer to have specifics — helps warn other apprentices if a new kind of mistake gets discovered.”
Wren stared at the paper, a dozen thoughts colliding at once.
It’s like he isn’t even a person to them anymore.
Just another bit of paperwork to get done and filed away.
Is this really the world I want to be part of?
Steeling himself, Wren took the paper and began writing — how he’d been practicing, the smell drifting from the open door, the blood and fluid pooled across the floor, the crushed and folded ruin of what had been a person.
All of it, in as much detail as he could stomach.
By the time he finished writing, something in him had gone quiet — not fully, not in a way that felt safe, but enough that his hands had stopped shaking somewhere around the third paragraph, and he hadn’t noticed exactly when.
That, more than anything else in the room, was what actually scared him.
I just have to not end up like him.
The thought arrived simple and clean, almost comforting in how easy it was to think — and that was the part that didn’t sit right.
An hour ago, he’d been on the floor, screaming, certain he’d never get that image out of his head.
Now it was sitting there, filed down to a lesson, a warning, something to learn from rather than something to grieve.
He wondered, distantly, whether that was what surviving this place actually required, or whether it was the first small piece of himself that this tower was quietly asking him to give up.
He didn’t have an answer.
He handed Sebastian the report anyway and didn’t let himself look toward the door on his way out.