When they arrived a few minutes later0, they found everyone else already there waiting for them, their faces obviously relieved. They also found a nearly blown horse, complete with a very anxious rider wearing academy robes.

Said rider immediately ran up to the professor, not even offering an introduction. The words were already out of his mouth before the professor could properly respond.

“You must return to the academy immediately! There’s been an attack!”

Chapter 13

Early morning the same day...

Remus did his best to wipe the blood off himself, but knew it was futile. It caked every inch of his shirt, and wiping it only spread the mess further. He’d been doing this for years now and learned killing was messy work. Especially when you were Remus’s incompetent partner.

His partner, whose name he still didn’t know, was doing his best to get his sword out of the corpse still seated at the desk. Mages were tricky targets, not something you could face up front. Sneaking behind with a surprise attack was really their only weakness, as evidenced by the dead mage who still had a glassy look of surprise forever imprinted on his rictus face. His partner was trying and failing to get the sword back from the corpse, which had been slammed in so deeply that the body was practically nailed to the desk in front of it.

“Amateur,” Remus muttered to himself, too quietly for the other man to hear. Regardless of the man’s boasting, he had to be new to this. Only fresh recruits got so nervous that they drove their blade home too hard. Partners for missions like this were strangers. That way, if anyone got caught, there’d be less for them to reveal. It also had moments like this where Remus got stuck with an idiot. Again.

Remus took this moment offered to him to take in his surroundings. Must be nice to be one of the most famous magic academies in the world. It certainly paid well, if the furnishings in the headmaster’s office were anything to go by. Sophisticated pieces of magic and art littered the room from floor to ceiling, lit by the moonlight streaming in from the large window behind the desk. These things looked far too exotic for Remus to know what they were, but that only made him think they were valuable.

He eyed the corpse again, taking in the fine robes that demonstrated high rank. Good thing the headmaster had just been a healer. Any other type of mage of that caliber would have been impossible to kill so simply.

“Hey, you going to be done soon?” Remus drawled to his idiot partner. Huffing indignantly, the man finally gave up on his weapon and threw his hands in the air. We’ll need to come back for that later, moron, Remus thought.

“Whatever. I’ll get a new one,” he muttered darkly. “What the hell are we looking for again?”