Page 97 of The Teras Trials

And I realise this is the first round. The first victims of Drearton’s sweep through London, evicting any who aren’t of immediate use, any graduate families that are simply too large to ride on the coattails of a single graduate. Which means: I see pregnant women and infant children. I see a child no more than ten arguing they can be put to work to stay behind the wards. I see the injured, the disabled, the undesirables that cannot be made to maintain the city, or haven’t entered the University, lining up to be expelled. And just before Lucy leads us up another side street away from the crowd, a scream goes out.

It’s this brutal and horrified wail that twists into a chant: Drearton lies! Drearton lies! Drearton lies!

I see the body of a teras hefted high above heads, a Cult of the Rift follower chanting beneath it. It’s not a teras I’ve ever seen before. Its body is warped and bulging, an unwell amalgam, an upsetting triptych of cerastes and Stymphalian and Caledonian—rotund body of a boar, sad, useless wings, razor sharp, jutting out of its back, the thin, long neck of the cerastes, and two horns that usually protrude from the cerastes’ head bursting at odd angles in the body.

A hybrid.

In the days I’ve been on campus, has there been another attack? Another town like Watford obliterated, another new form of teras wreaking havoc on England?

I slip my eyes to Leo, and even if he doesn’t understand entirely, he nods at me. As if he’s seen this before.

As if this is the reason he’s here.

But I am thinking: I need to earn a spot here more than ever. I need to learn how to fight these things—properly, under the guidance of trained professionals. Because this world is changing.

And if hybrids can form, what hope do we have?

“Come on,” Lucy orders. “We don’t have much time. Get in the wagon.”

A covered wagon is waiting for us. Two horses and a hooded driver wait at the front. We climb inside only to find there are no windows, save for the tiny barred slit at the back door. It is filled with weapons. Swords, flintlock pistols, ammunition. I immediately fill up Thaddeus’ pistol and rummage for another sparker. There is none, so I’m left with whatever fuel remains in mine.

“Mr Jones,” I hear called from outside. I get up and press my face against the barred window in the door. Lucy checks the bolt outside and stares up at me, expression blank and uncaring.

“Open this when the wagon stops,” she says, and slips a thin white envelope through the bars. It has Cassius Jones scrawled on it. No one else receives a letter.

At first I’m not sure if she’s abandoning us, but then the horses knicker and the wagon jolts. Lucy doesn’t even wait to see us make it through the gates. She turns on her heels and stalks back to the campus, calmly ignoring the growing throng of angry Londoners as they are shoved out of the gates.

28

LESSON TWENTY-EIGHT

Within three hours, the doors to the wagon are pulled roughly open. Wind barrels inside, buffeting all of us with a freezing sharpness and snow.

“Out,” the driver tells us. He is gruff, face nose and mouth covered by a black cloth, and hair jammed tightly under a wide-brimmed hat. “One weapon each.”

I take an extra sword, because he hasn’t seen my pistol. Leo and Victoria take guns, Silas takes a sword, and Fred takes an axe (though she has two daggers tucked into her back pocket already). We jump out. My feet sink instantly into thick snow.

It will be impossible to run in this.

We are in Nottinghamshire, in Sherwood Forest, where the world is segmented by a thousand birch trees, grey slicing through white. I expect to be led somewhere, to be deposited probably beneath the major oak out of legend, because the University seems to love its rituals. But then the driver stalks back to the front of the carriage with insane speed, quick footsteps crunching in the snow.

“Only waiting a few hours,” he says. “I’ll be a kilometre or so south. One of you got a watch?” Silas nods. “Good. If you’re not there at five o’clock, I’m gone.” Then he’s whipping the horses to move before I can even open the letter.

“Read it out,” Fred whispers quickly, as I’m still tearing it open. She is glancing back at the dense snow, keeps whipping her head to canvass a new angle. I feel the same nervous tension from the others. Leo hovers near Silas and whispers something I don’t catch, and Silas nods, frowning. “Yes, I think so,” I hear him say.

“We could run,” Victoria murmurs, to no one and to all of us. She says it so quietly I think she must not mean it, but I see the Lins give each other a meaningful glance.

“There is no running,” I say, in an echo of Fred’s own conclusion. Fred nods at me tightly, but Victoria just stares forlornly at the departing carriage, arms crossed tightly across her chest.

“Go on,” Fred nods at the half-opened letter in my hand.

I open the rest of it and read it. Aloud. Which is a mistake.

Mr Jones,

I have been very impressed with your assiduity thus far, and I look forward to seeing you blossom during your tutelage at the University.

I think I am most pleased with your understanding of necessity. You do what needs to be done.

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