Page 19 of The Teras Trials

I don’t want to talk about Thaddeus. Victoria and Bellamy were doing me a service, and they weren’t talking about Thaddeus. But how many manticores are running around? They know, now, who Leo is and how I know him.

Bellamy is the one who breaks, and I hate him for it. He swallows heavily. “Cass, I am deeply—”

“In your glass,” I snap, then smile to smooth the hurt. “It’s not wise to get drunk, Mr Taylor, not when we don’t know what’s coming.”

No one says anything. I’ve probably stepped over the line; the air is thick and uncomfortable.

Victoria motions for my cigarette and I give it to her. I’ve known her for years. We fucked a grand total of once, before I realised my interests lay elsewhere. At one point we were both pining over Bellamy. These two are the closest people I can think of, but it’s still surface-level. Bellamy has lived in London forever, Victoria was six when she came, and I was fourteen when I stumbled through the gates. I was too old. Victoria could slip in and assimilate, and can hide her accent with effort. London has been so much of their lives, and I will always be slightly tainted.

I met them in study halls where generations of Londoners have been dumped by their parents to absorb the histories of teras, if not to actually kill any. It is where I’ve studied most of my young life, but it’s not practical the way the University is. The secrets beyond the trials are inaccessible to the general public, and I have a scholar’s mind: I want those secrets for myself.

Victoria watches me and when I see the sympathy in her eyes, I turn away. I refuse to be Thaddeus Jones’ living brother. I am my own man. I don’t want to be known for his death.

Victoria, of course, knows none of this, so she says to Leo, “Did you kill it?”

A stab in my heart. She knows that I didn’t kill it.

Leo hesitates again. Some decision deflates the man’s shoulders a fraction.

“A no, then?” Victoria prompts.

Leo scans the hall and stops. “There,” he says, nodding across the room to a far table. “Those siblings wounded it. Perhaps fatally. We never saw the body.”

All three of us Londoners swing towards the pair. Bellamy coos under his breath — trying to work them out, or trying to determine if they really have dispatched a manticore.

This is Leo’s game. I am the easy target, the one Leo can charm. Silas and Fred Lin are in need of allies too.

But I am under no false pretence. Whatever the trials are, manticore-wounders are always better to have on your side.

“Call them over,” I tell Leo. “They look lonely.”

Leo stands without another word. I wait until he’s out of earshot to address the looks on the others’ faces.

“What are you doing?” Victoria asks, voice curling sweetly.

“No offence, Cass, but he’s…” Bellamy clicks his tongue but says no more. They are basically one person, now, I think; I wonder if they’re fucking, and then wonder why I care.

I ignore them and glance around the room. The untrained eye might have seen nothing more than people talking. Awkward friendships starting to bloom, all entirely innocent. But I can see the strategy at play. Londoners with an inkling of what they are getting into shaking hands with other Londoners. Anyone new to the Calling is sitting alone engrossed in a feast or trying to make friends.

“Range is better,” I say quickly. “All three of us have some idea what we’re getting into. We need allies. Not friends, but allies.”

I see Leo approach the table and send an encouraging nod back the way he’d walked. The girl glances between Leo and me, and says something back to him. Bellamy is still staring at me so I prod him with, “You think there’s an advantage in only speaking to Londoners?”

“I do.” Bellamy sets his jaw, clearly frustrated. He shifts and tries to puff his chest without making the boyish play too obvious, but Victoria gives it away with a roll of her eyes. “Everyone who’s meant to be here has killed a teras.”

I think again to those study halls, dissecting teras bodies dragged in my hunting parties, or facing an F tier cerastes with graduate Hunters on standby.

“In a controlled format, maybe,” I say, moving my attention to her. I grab back my cigarette and lean towards them, both elbows spread on the table. In my periphery, Leo is helping the siblings stand. “I’ve only ever gone up against a teras with my brother on hand. When I went out there to get him, I’ll admit they nearly got me.”

Neither seems fazed by this. They should be. I owe my life to xenos, and I don’t quite understand these two. They’ve lived in London for most, if not all, of their lives. They don’t have the same taste of life beyond the wards.

“Well, there’s isn’t a Hunter in my family. My sister’s an Artificer,” Bellamy says, like the knowledge of how to craft a teras-specific armoury, or how to weaponize prosthetics, has done anything but put him at an advantage.

“My father’s a Scholar,” Victoria says with a raised brow. “And I’ve killed teras.”

“And would you have known the first thing about them if your father hadn’t read you their horror every night?” I splay both hands, but both of them are staring at me with pursed lips. I’m not swaying them. Perhaps I’m losing them. “Anyone who was born outside of these walls and has killed a teras without a lick of the University’s influence is worth five of us the moment those trials start.”

Bellamy’s face contorts. He doesn’t like that—hates it, actually. He spits over his shoulder. Briefly, when my brother’s anger flares in my chest, I consider standing up and slapping him across the face. But Victoria and he are a package deal, and I like her too much to risk it.

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