Page 45 of The Teras Trials

“This isn’t something London could dream of,” Leo murmurs.

He is right, of course.

Silas, braver now, says, “I agree. Machines that can speak?” He sounds different — scared, maybe, or unsettled enough to make his voice raw with hostility. But then he says, “No, I know my myth. And look at it. This isn’t a swan. This is something that can talk.”

Bellamy laughs, buoyed by Victoria’s calm. “What are you saying?” But then he locks eyes with the automaton and his smile dies.

Silas pulls away. “I’m saying there’s automata in myth. Talos. Ones made by Daedalus—and given voice by quicksilver. Hephaestus’ workshop.”

No one says anything. Perhaps the thoughts are brewing in all the others’ minds like they are in mine. I put the gun down. It suddenly seems silly, holding it up to something that wouldn’t die from a wound. More than that, though, I know both Silas and Leo are speaking truth.

The machine has stayed unnervingly quiet all this time, bronze metal gleaming in the library’s light. It’s waiting, I think. Either used to this outburst from new cohorts, or in need of instruction to continue.

“You’re a teras,” I whisper.

I glance at Leo, who smiles at me faintly even when the others baulk. But I can’t parse the expression; whether he experiences disgust or interest, I’m not sure.

“What?” Victoria asks. I see Fred ready herself, centring her body to attack. I ignore their reactions, in chase shock finds a footing in my already exhausted mind.

“Daedalus and quicksilver,” I tell the automaton. “That’s why I couldn’t find your voice-box.”

“I have no voice-box,” the machine says soberly. “But I have a voice.”

I grimace. “So I hear.”

No one else speaks for a time. There is a tension that can’t be explained by our situation, exactly. It isn’t about the true brutality of the trials, it isn’t that we’ve been caught. If we are right, and this automaton has manifested the way the other teras have, won’t that change the world? Won’t that change London, and the University, and the nature of what we are meant to be fighting?

Did Satan tear a hole in the world, or did God? An ambivalent cosmic force? Random happenstance?

“Tell us,” I whisper. “Tell us where you’re from.”

The automaton’s head clicks to the side, unnaturally fast. Its impassive mask stares at me blankly before its neck resets its position, springing upright too quickly.

“Perhaps we should begin with introductions,” it says. It steps backwards, bronze legs clanking along the floor until its whole body comes to rest against the circular service desk. The machine folds itself onto it, the way a human would rest. But there is nothing relaxed about its posture. Has it been programmed like this? Ordered to act human when it was anything but?

For some reason, it only makes my skin crawl.

Victoria steps forward, hands clasped near her chest. “You have a name?”

The automaton looks towards her. What happens next makes my head spin. The machine opens its mouth. I hear the name, hear it say Meléti, but see in my mind’s eye the Greek:

μελ?τη

It is emblazoned, etched in fire in my mind, then my human brain scrambles to assign meaning to what it has seen. I groan and hold my head, and when I right myself the image is gone.

Meléti, from the paper my brother left for me. Meléti. “Study,” I translate automatically, after seeing the Greek. Well, what was in a name, after all? Everything, apparently. This automaton’s entire purpose is laid out in its title.

Bellamy’s face has an ashy, green tone to it. Either the alcohol from earlier this evening is making him nauseous, or he is sobering up enough to be terrified by the machine in front of him.

“Victoria.” He says it firmly, beckoning her to retreat. When she doesn’t, he speaks it again, more harshly, growl tinging the edge, “Victoria.”

“Stop it,” she insists, waving him away. “It’s fine.”

“It’s as bad as the bloody teras!” He shouts it, barrelling forward to rip her back towards him. Victoria yells, tearing herself free. She shoots him a fiery look as she recovers.

“That you think this a matter of benevolence or malevolence says much about your people,” the automaton says. “I am Meléti, built to house knowledge. You are trespassers on University property. You are not initiated. You will leave.”

I am scared, but I’m not stupid. I trust Thaddeus Jones and that bit of paper more than I do this thing. And if my brother says Meléti will help for a price, then I believe him. I just have to know what I have to pay.

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