Page 47 of The Teras Trials

“Yeah, well, tough luck,” she says.

The automaton rights itself, flinging off the desk in one fluid arc, and closes the gap between us. In one moment, it bound silently across the floor.

Bellamy stumbles back with a gurgled scream, and the others flinch, myself included. Save for Fred, who somehow saw it happen. She moves herself into a defensive position, knife drawn and raised to slash.

The automaton ignores the weapon and tilts at the waist. Its smooth bronze face hovers close to Fred’s.

She doesn’t step away, but I watch her eyes. They scan, incredibly quickly, up and down the creature. Assessing gaze, looking for a weakness. She says, “Intimidation is the mark of a weak man,” but there’s an edge in her voice, tension wound tight. She’ll strike it if it moves, but I’m not sure she’ll be quick enough.

“I am no man,” Meléti informs her. “Weapons are not permitted in the library.”

Fred stares at it for a while. No one speaks, but Bellamy starts tapping his foot frenetically. His anxiety is palpable. It wears us down, including Fred. She sighs and curses, and dashes the knife across the floor. It skids out of the library’s doors. With both weapons outside the library’s bounds, the door shuts.

“Oh, great,” Bellamy mutters.

Meléti continues, then, as if there’s been no pause in conversation. “My price, Cassius Jones, is this. I have no desire nor want for material items. You must trade something else of value.”

“Like what?” Fred asks.

“You must trade something else of value.”

There’s a brief moment where no one says anything. Victoria has given up, a little bit; now that she knows this thing is a teras, all her earlier interest has sapped away. She tends to Bellamy, who seems close to vomiting up his guts. Fred is poised still, tense and angry. Leo’s got his arms folded. He looks so tall and golden in this light, the brawn of him making him statuesque in this place. He is unhappy. He looks at Meléti like he wants to snap the thing’s neck.

“Study.”

I turn; Silas has propped himself up against the wall. He looks the calmest amongst all of us, but I see him nursing the wound at his side. He looks paler, pallid. “It’s name is study, isn’t it? Doesn’t take a genius to figure it out.”

“Oh, well, why do you bloody tell us then?” Bellamy snaps, not realising how much like a nonce it makes him sound.

My eyes meet Silas’. Though we clash occasionally, he understands. We have the same mind. I nod in agreement. “It wants information.”

Silas winks at me. “Got it in one, Mr Jones.”

I smile at him and press my own side asking silently if he’s ok. He nods, lying straight to my face—but there are more pressing matters.

Information. It’s too dangerous a game to be playing. This could be a trial in its own right. What happens when I offer something unsatisfactory for the automaton? Does it gut me with its inhuman speed? Part of me curses myself for coming here at all.

What else can you do, Cass. Thaddeus’ letter said to come here. And it’s true, isn’t it? This library, the knowledge contained here, is likely going to be our only chance. Sometime in the coming days, we’ll be thrown into another trial. We’ll likely face teras.

At least one of our cohort died tonight outside the trial, and another was being hunted by graduates. It doesn’t bode well for our future. I don’t really want to consider it, but the likelihood one of us will die is awfully strong.

I look up at the automaton. “Alright,” I tell it. “I’ll play.”

It spins to me with great interest, eyes bulging out of its head. I tense as it approaches, every animal thing in me winding taut, readying my body to flee.

“What do you offer, brother of Thaddeus, named Cassius?”

I hate that this thing knows my name. I should never have revealed my link to Thad. I am reminded, so suddenly, of the folklore of fairies, and distantly wonder if they have been pulled forth into this world. I’ve heard rumours of places like Ireland, where great infestations of the Folk have caused chaos. But what kind of power can a teras hold if it has my name? What sort of punishment can it bring down on me if I do not please it?

Unsteadily, I clear my throat. “I have information. About the teras outside of London’s walls. My brother Thaddeus and I encountered a teras that could not be categorised under London University’s cataloguing system. It was a hybrid. Which suggests. . .”

I trail off as I consider exactly what it suggests. I recall bringing the thing to the dean, the sudden change of subject as my brother was punished for bringing me along on his Hunter route. The complete lack of acknowledgement for what we had encountered—a hybrid, a creature never before written about in myth, a spontaneous development.

I’m going to be sick. “God,” I say. “The teras are evolving. That’s why they had an open call. That’s why they want the very best of us.”

“I still don’t get it,” Bellamy says. He’s angry, but it’s a quiet broiling now. There’s fear in him, too. “Why don’t they just throw all of us at them? They could send us out right now, cannon fodder the lot of us.”

“Because they would lose London,” Silas whispers. “As much as you lot might like to think you operate here freely, the University rules this place. The church, too. They are meant to be in control. The University can’t lose face by letting too many of us die in an obvious sacrifice to the teras. So they put us here. Let us die, as we fight to get a spot.” He makes a noise and sighs, like all this is boring him. “You Londoners are probably used to it. You give up tiny freedoms until they snowball.”

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