Page 37 of The Teras Trials

“You gave your blood the same as the rest of us. They’d hunt us down before we got anywhere. And besides, where are you planning to go? Back to your family? The lot of you would be thrown out of London by the morning.”

It is obvious Victoria knows this, but a sadness settles over her face anyway. It makes her look like one of those painted renaissance ladies, the ones who demand an audience; who say see me with their glares. See me. I want to see more than fierce sadness when I look at Victoria.

But there is no freedom here except forward. I have to keep reminding myself.

“They lied to us,” Bellamy says. It’s the first time he’s spoken in hours. A weight is in his voice, like his throat is filled with gravel. He stares into the fire and says again, “They lied to us.”

Whether he means the University or us Londoners’ families, it doesn’t matter. He’s right. But the longer I think about it, the more I am forced to accept it. What was Thaddeus meant to do? Warn me what the trials really were? Risk the family’s position and his own standing behind the wards and as a Hunter?

I am here for people other than Cassius Jones. I am here for the family. To keep the Jones behind London’s wards. Safe. Solid. Cassius Jones is not a person. Cassius Jones is a means to an end. Another piece on the board. What I want doesn’t really matter.

Besides, I don’t know myself well enough to have an ambition outside this place. The University has been my path for over a decade. Before that, I had no bigger purpose than to survive.

Fred stands and starts to pace. Her brother watches her carefully, quirk in his brow. I see him clutch his side and wonder if the wound from the manticore has worsened after the python. After a minute, he stops Fred and encourages her to sit, but she just yanks her hands away and runs them through her hair. “Home was better than this,” she whispers.

Silas nods. “I know,” he says softly. “How terrible is that?”

Leo Shaw says nothing. I fiddle with my falling-apart braid and try to catch his eye. But Leo just frowns into the fireplace, red flames reflected in his eyes.

I take a final drag of my cigarette, crack the window, and stub it out in the rain, sending the smoke into the night. “We need a plan.”

No one deigns to answer, so I try again. “We need to—”

“Do they expect us to die smiling?” Leo speaks suddenly.

I freeze. There it is—that sharp anger I’d been expecting out of the rest of them. Leo is bursting with it. “What are they trying to do here? What are they trying to produce?”

“Soldiers,” says Fred.

“Teras killers,” says Bellamy.

“But they need us trained. They want professionals. Why?”

I look between them all. I’m not understanding his line of questioning. “What are you asking?”

Leo’s anger slips. Some genuine, sad curiosity peaks through. “They put all this effort into training people. Not everyone who comes, but a select few. Why? Wouldn’t canon fodder work more in their favour?”

I look to Victoria and Bellamy, and they stare back at me. We are all thinking of the same thing—the written threat we received before coming here.

There is only so much room in this place. I want to tell Leo, but I see the look in the other Londoner’s eyes. As much as I want to trust Leo, I can’t push Bellamy and Victoria away to do it.

So I think for a moment for a plausible lie and say, “Not if they need to protect the University’s image.”

Fred unfolds her arms. “You think this is branding? They’ll kill every sub-par soldier for the prestige?”

Surprisingly, Silas follows up. “They only produce the best. And the people who get through the trials untrained will undoubtedly be the best, even before they receive the University’s tutelage.”

My hand itches to grab another cigarette, because what Silas has said sounds right, but ugly. Even without the threat of overcrowding, this has been the University’s game for God knows how long. If the trials were always this brutal, they were always meant to weed out the weak.

“How did they get so many teras?” Fred asks. She sounds scared by her question. “Did Hunters trap them? Drag them back?”

“Or are teras living on campus?” Victoria whispers. “Breeding here.”

That sinks the mood even further.

But when the entire city is designed around the concept of protecting a favoured few, it really isn’t a shock. So what is there to do? Competing in the trials seems inevitable.

I flash a look to Leo. Leo, this newcomer, who makes me curious. I track the glow of the fire along his jaw, the way it dances down his neck. Leo catches my eye. I snap my gaze away and light that cigarette.

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