Page 48 of The Teras Trials

Victoria turns to me. I see her mouth the letter, and I shake my head, urging her to keep all talk of the University’s ultimatum to herself.

Bellamy spins. He’s sweating out the alcohol now, and he’s out of Victoria’s grasp before she can stop him. “It’s a fair system! As fair as something like this can be. I’m not defending the University, but this is war. It’s war. Humans against those fucking monsters. And that means people are stuck doing jobs they don’t want to do, because the alternative is the death of the human race. So, yeah. Us Londoners do have freedom.”

It’s Leo who scoffs. “If you think anything about this is fair, you’re blind. Consider it for a moment, really consider it. You got lucky. Maybe a few others born outside London made it in, but only because someone in their family could do something the University wanted.”

Bellamy gestures wide. “What about the workers?”

“What about them?” Leo asks, growing frustrated. He frowns and uncrosses his arms to gesture right back. “Maybe London would twist a little for the people already in London—for the people who are integral to the city’s survival. For workers, like the toshers who work the sewers, or the miners who get ferried back and forth out of London for coal and gas. They’re far more integral than a bunch of entitled asshats who sit behind the wards and eat and contribute nothing else.”

The three of us who know that this treatment is at an end grow quiet, which is stupid, because our rapid silence gets the xenos’ attention. I’m aware of Meléti watching all this with great interest, but I can’t stop it.

Leo looks at me. “What? What is it?”

I want to say nothing, nothing that concerns you. Instead, I look to Victoria. She slides her eyes away and shrugs.

“They’ll find out eventually.”

I grit my teeth, and when I get nothing from Bellamy, I give it up and tell them.

“Londoners have an ultimatum. For all of us here, only those who manage to graduate from the University will be able to keep their families in London proper. If we fail, anyone who has lived with us is booted, unless they themselves are graduates.” I swallow and try not to fiddle with my hands as I deliver this. I keep expecting the xenos to laugh—a taste of our own medicine. But they are silent and waiting as I say, “London will be a city of useful graduates or workers and nothing more. The teras’ evolution, the growing lack of resources. . . it’s all part of the same horrible thing, isn’t it? London needs to become a military base. It can’t remain a simple haven.”

Fred makes a noise and nods at her brother. Silas shrugs in response. “Told you.”

“What?” I ask.

Fred puts a hand to head. “We’re from a farm,” she says. “Farm for London. We get a retinue of Hunters and Healers, to protect the crops, and most of it goes to London. But we keep hearing stories. Farmlands being abandoned. Either the entire Hunter squad gets eliminated, or the University is pulling them out. But they were just rumours. Hadn’t happened to us. Still, when the Call came. . .”

“You couldn’t pass up the opportunity,” Leo finishes for her. They share a look, something I think is only for another xenos.

“Truly, I’m surprised London bent for so long for the disenfranchised few who needed the city’s good will to survive,” Silas says.

“Yeah, yeah,” Bellamy spits. “Shut up. You’re in the same boat as us now.”

Before any of this can spiral further, Meléti whirrs beside us. Bellamy jolts with a sharp, “Jesus,” at the noise.

“Thank you, Cassius Jones, for this bit of information. But it will not be enough to access the information you seek.”

I sneer, but keep my gripe to myself. I let it eavesdrop thinking this would be enough, but contention and gossip are not information, really.

“Then what?” I say, folding my arms. That itch for laudanum and nothingness flares in me again. “What do you want from me?”

“Something personal, Cassius Jones.”

I tense. I don’t like where this is going. “Like what?”

“Your brother gave me the memory of seeing your father return broken from the sea.”

I am dazed, suddenly, and horrified. Vulnerability swarms into me, and any bit of peace I was encroaching towards evaporates. I look around at my fellow applicants and hate how naked I feel. This is not theirs to know.

Wrestling back any semblance of control, I say, “A memory, then.”

“Yes,” Meléti says, with a tone approaching cheerfulness. “Something you don’t particularly want to give up.”

I stare at it, and realise its danger is this: offering too much of oneself to a teras, even one so seemingly innocent, given charge of the information, might compromise me. It is information for information—the deepest secrets of the University offered for my own.

Very smart, Dean Drearton. Exceptionally cruel.

I rack my mind for a memory, something not too horrible, but enough to sate this creature. And when I find it, I nod to myself, resigned.

---