Page 23 of The Teras Trials

“And what will you give me for it, young Jones?”

I swallow hard, because all I have to offer is my life and that of my party. Part of me wants to turn around, but I stop myself with everything I have in me, because once I see them—once I recognise that they are people whose lives I am toying with—I know I’ll falter. So I say, “At some point in time, the six of us will rid London of that manticore, should it still pose a threat. And if not that, the next S-Tier teras.”

Professor Dexter shifts and gives me another appraising look. Whether she decides I’m terribly smart or resolutely stupid, I don’t know.

It is, perhaps, a ridiculous thing to offer in exchange for a nice tower view. But even if I know very little about these trials, I know at least this: Thaddeus used his dying breath to guide me there. Snubbing him is not something I have the strength to do.

“Why would I sacrifice fledgling, prospective students?” the dean asks; there’s a twinkle in his eye that betrays this faux concern.

I see the truth laid bare and speak without snark. “Because you would rather sacrifice us than graduated Hunters.”

I say no more, though I could confirm that the Hunter cohort is dwindling. Professor Dexter leans in to whisper something, and then leaves without waiting for the dean’s final word—nor spares me another look.

“So be it, Jones,” says the dean. He rummages in his robe and opens up a little notebook. He flicks through several pages. They’re all stamped with the University’s coat of arms and delineated rooms in gold. Conspicuously, they’re also all blank. “Tell me the names of your roommates.”

I list them out and he scribes. When he’s done, he tears the page out and hands it to me.

I wait to see if he says anything more, or if he will comment on the room assignments we were supposed to have, but of course, that’s never coming.

When I turn, I spot someone hovering by our table, and my stomach curdles because of who it is. A Londoner; big, sturdy build about him. He has a dark set of curls that contrasts pale skin. The type you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley at night. He looks like he’d beat anyone senseless, indiscriminately. One of his teeth is missing.

He’s got Bellamy in a headlock, exposing a line of poorly concealed hickeys, and Victoria’s cheeks are browning in shame, so I walk up and put myself in the spotlight.

“Peter Drike,” I snarl, “thug and bully. How are you?”

Drike looks up, eyes flashing. He lets go of Bellamy. “Cassius Jones, ponce and sodomite. All the worse for seeing you here. I thought the manticore had ripped your guts out, but it was your brilliant, graduate brother who died, wasn’t it?”

I smile and pretend like there isn’t any fire in my throat. I let myself imagine punching him, and in this dream he falls like a sack of bricks. I punch him three times: once for ponce, once for sodomite, and once for Thaddeus.

“Manticore got your tongue, pervert?”

Leo shoots to standing. Upright, he’s slightly taller than Drike. Standing there in his blood-covered clothes, xenos mark on his forehead, makes him intimidating enough I see Drike step back instinctively. Leo doesn’t say a word. I watch Fred wrap her fist around a bread knife, tensing, like she’s readying herself to jump up and defend my honour too. But Drike just sucks his teeth and spits over his shoulder.

It's a lot less fun to bully me when I have people in my corner.

When he’s gone, Bellamy exhales. “Sorry, Cass.”

“Don’t be,” I say, but I’m not looking at him. My eyes are on Leo Shaw who jumped up so quickly for me. I wonder if I’ve read anything between us correctly, and if he would ever subject himself to being labelled sodomite just for the chance to bed me.

Once again: I am getting ahead of myself. I am not here to fuck. I am not here for friends. I am here for a spot in the University. I am here to secure my family’s future.

Everything else needs to be forgotten—and fast.

“Thank you,” I say to Leo. Then I turn to Fred and repeat myself; her knuckles are growing white from her grip on the knife. She meets my eye and her brow quivers, so I say it again with as much sincerity as I can muster. “I mean it.”

She wets her lips and shrugs, glancing away from me. “You act like that in the farms and you get beaten bloody. I’ve never—” she scoffs and looks at her brother. “Never encountered someone like that.”

“Like what?” Bellamy prompts.

“Cruel for the sake of it,” Silas says. He reaches over for some bread and clicks his tongue. “Nothing like backbreaking labour to stamp that out of you.”

I look at the size of him and try to imagine either one of them working. They’re thin, but sinewy, as if their bodies have claimed every bit of muscle they could with what little food they had. The farms that service London are protected; Hunters and Healers that get stationed to care for crops and protect from teras. But the labourers would get to take very little food from them.

“Hopefully the trials will stamp it out of him,” I say. Then I flick up the card with our room assignment.

“Mad bastard,” Bellamy grins. “What the hell did you offer for that?”

All our fucking lives. A really, really bad day sometime in our graduated future.

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