Tragedy strikes this morning at the University of Ethermancy at White Chasm. A devious plot to murder a student and collect the insurance payment was recently reported to the Hightown constabulary. What is worse, the perpetrator conspired to murder his own brother. The oculomancers of Spire Lin have verified that the life insurance policy purchase was in fact valid and signed with the perpetrator's signature. The perpetrator has been arrested and is currently being held in the Hightown Constabulary Prison.

We have an eyewitness account from none other than Right Honorable Princess Claire of House Aden, the younger sister to our own dear King. Here is what she has to say about the incident:

"It was so horrible to see. His body was all broken up. I am terrified and haunted by what I saw. How could somebody do something so horrible to another person? And their own brother?"

Sources say that the victim was witnessed inside of a flying machine, with the exception that this flying machine was not a balloon. While this may seem ridiculous and outrageous, it was this very flying machine that fell out of the sky and killed the victim. We received the following report from the Hightown Constabulary:

"We are seeing an uptick in fraudulent insurance claims in other cities. The scam works like this: some charlatan lures the victims in with promises of being the first person to fly in a flying machine, while also purchasing a life insurance policy on behalf of that person, generally claiming to be a sibling or spouse. Then, the machine falls out of the sky and kills the victim. If anyone out there in the public is listening, we implore you to please report any instances of charlatans who claim to have invented a flying machine. It may save your life."

Our Senior Correspondents have found the world's leading experts on flying machines. Here is what they have to say:

"Flying machines are relatively safe and well-understood, so long as they are balloons. There is no safe way to fly through the air without a balloon. The weather patterns are too unpredictable to fly very far, and balloons are required by Spire Law to be tethered to the ground. The fact that the victim's body was found broken apart on the ground is proof that the human body is not robust enough to withstand the forces that will be subjected to it without the slow, predictable motions of a balloon."

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The professors at the University claim that there is a graveyard on campus for students that die while trying to invent the flying machine. The victim's body is going to be buried there. The professors had this to say:

"We inspected the classroom that the perpetrator was using as a club headquarters. We read through their notes and designs. They were complete nonsense. None of the calculations were correct, none of the facts and figures were correct, and the design contained blatant flaws and direct contradictions. We concluded that the perpetrator had never actually done any real design work on the flying machine, but only created an elaborate illusion that design work was taking place. This is strong evidence, in my mind, that fraud may have been involved."

We know this tragedy may be very disturbing to some readers, but we have published it without a content warning because the message is too important: don't be a victim yourself!

Quinn set the broadsheet down on the floor of his prison cell after he finished reading. The witch with the blue hair, Fiona of the Morning Mist, loomed over him outside. Kiera was standing behind her.

"Your reputation is destroyed, you have been expelled from the University, the Maidens came and took your aura, and nobody will ever trust you to make a flying machine ever again," the witch said. "I offer you a simple deal, the same deal I made Vince and Bjorn, and they wisely both accepted my offer. Swear an oath with an oculomancer as witness, that you will never make another flying machine for the rest of your life."

"I refuse," Quinn said.

Fiona turned to Kiera. "See? I told you this was a waste of time."

"I want to know something," Quinn said. "Did you sabotage the thermometers in the school laboratories?"

"Those thermometers have never worked properly at low temperatures, not in a thousand years. Why do you think," Fiona hissed, "that the only school in the world to teach commoners like you how to use ethermancy, is also located in the worst possible climate for flying?"

"I'm sorry Quinn," Kiera said. "It's the best I could do. I didn't think it was fair that they were not going to make the same offer that they made to the others."

"You are going to end up in the mines of Cloudsea as a slave, boy," Fiona said. She turned around and left.

"Please reconsider," Kiera said. "The trial is in a few days."

"A sham trial," Quinn said.

"That should be relatively obvious," Keira said. She also left.

Then he was alone. Alone with his broadsheet.