“What? You worried our friend here might tell on me?” His partner smacked the corpse on the back jovially, making its head roll back and forth on the desk. “Pretty sure his lips are sealed, friend. Just because we’re on some shady businesses doesn’t mean we have to be so jumpy all the time. Besides, all that Empress’ Demon stuff is just bullshit, anyway. This is just another eccentric man with more money than sense in search of things that don’t exist.”

Based on the grunts and thuds coming from behind him, Remus assumed his partner was trying to break into the desk drawers. The idiot had clearly never dealt with mages before. If they weren’t booby trapped, then they were enchanted to only open when the owner wished it. Torn between letting the idiot be and not wanting to get blown up by a mage’s trap, he sighed dramatically as he turned back around.

“Hey, dumbass. If you want to get yourself killed, leave me out—”

Remus was left staring at nothing. His partner was nowhere to be seen. Had he just wandered off? If he was dumb enough to go after that devil woman by himself, Remus was just going to leave the fool to die.

Walking around the desk, he was about to resume his partner’s search, more carefully this time, when he slipped and almost lost his balance. He caught himself with his hands before he could tumble to the floor. Carefully, he climbed to his feet and dusted off his hands on his pants, only to find them smeared with blood. Damn it, this guy was bleeding like a fountain, wasn’t he?

Then he saw what he’d tripped on.

His partner’s lifeless eyes stared up at him, a look of horror permanently painted on the one half of his face. The other half was face down behind the headmaster’s chair. Something had bisected him down the middle, from head to crotch, at a perfectly straight angle. Both his and the headmaster’s blood were forming into a lake of gore around the desk.

Remus instinctively turned to run for his life, but ran smack into what felt like a boulder and tumbled onto his butt. Looking up, he saw a man dressed in fancy, full plate armor towering over him. His good looks and amiable smile were completely out of place in this horrific situation. Remus’ mouth tried to work out a scream, but only a pitiful squeak came out.

“Hello there. You’re lucky I need at least one of you alive. I react poorly when my friends are stabbed, though I guess you’d know that already.” The man looked at the corpse sitting at the desk with a frown. “You can stop pretending now, Kedrin. It’s rather morbid, seeing you like that.”

“Damn it all, Balrus!” the corpse at the desk exclaimed. This time, Remus really did scream. Rather shrilly.