Page 52 of The Teras Trials

“Fucking useless,” Bellamy spits. He rummages around in his pocket for a cigarette and tries to light it. Meléti spins to him and informs him smoking is not permitted in the library.

Bellamy’s eyes flicker to me, then Victoria. “Fuck this. Sorry. But,” and he puts both his hands up, cigarette taking priority. Meléti lets him out. I strain for a glimpse of Leo before the doors close, but I don’t manage it.

“I’m sorry,” Victoria whispers, flushing red. “Sorry for him.”

You shouldn’t be sorry for something he’s done, I don’t say. I just shake my head and touch her shoulder.

“What information are you trying to figure out?” Silas asks. He hasn’t moved from his place at the wall.

“Thaddeus’ paper says we’ll encounter some kind of plant in the second trial. Says it's a toxin.”

Silas nods. “Ask about the toxic plants in the greenhouse, then.”

“Meléti. Are there toxic plants outside the greenhouse?”

“No.”

I know it’s not enough to hope, but a spark ignites in me. Perhaps the next trial will take place there.

“Which plants in the greenhouse are toxic?” I murmur.

“Only one,” it says.

“Show me.”

I don’t see what it's done with my sick—thankfully—but when the automaton stands, the marble floor is scrubbed clean. Then it whirrs and turns and leads me up the staircase to the second level of the library.

It is overwhelmingly bright, all the light reflecting off the marble of the first floor. Up here, the floor is made of a deep wood. The boards creak as we walk across it, like something old groaning, disturbed in its sleep. Sconces line the walls with fire light. Rows upon rows of shelves stretch up to the ceiling. Meléti leads us to one, and then extends its body in a terrifying display; its torso spins violently like a corkscrew and separates from its legs, which then push upward with upsetting velocity until the automation is towering above us, thin and eerie in it inhumanness. It plucks a book from high above, and when it returns to its normal height I realise it has returned something that’s barely more than a bound series of handwritten notes. There’s no title. No author. Meléti opens the manuscript with speed to a particular page.

Botanical notes adorn the page. Green stems, fern-like leaves with toothed edges. Flowers like a cluster of white-headed acne on a cheek, curved and umbrella-shaped.

Hemlock.

“What are we meant to do with this information?” Victoria whispers beside me.

I shrug at her and take the book from Meléti’s hands. “I don’t suppose we are allowed to browse at our own leisure?” I ask it.

“You are not initiated,” it says, as expected. “I am unable to leave you alone.”

Part of me wants to tear this damn page out, but Thad’s letter said we’d need the library for the fourth trial—let alone the years of study I’ll have to endure should I make it in at all.

Which is still, surprisingly, something I want.

I hastily read the notes. It describes hemlock in great detail, and then its effects on humans. Respiratory failure, nervous system attacks, causing tremors, paralysis, muscle damage. The page gives me a fatal dosage—for humans. . .

And for teras.

I slam my finger onto the page. “There. Silas, Fred. You ever heard about this?”

I wonder if there are farms across England, generating gallons of the stuff. But the siblings just look at me like I’m mad and shake their heads.

“Would’ve been mighty useful to know that,” Fred whispers. “But I’ve never heard of London farming this. Maybe somewhere else. Further north, or. . . “ She trails off. Her fingers glide across the page and land upon its fatal dose. She glances back to Silas, then to me. “But does it work for all of them?”

Meléti acts like we aren’t speaking, so I turn the next page and read thoroughly. The book uses the University’s classing system of the teras, which was generated by an early University Scholar, Stefan Albitz.

Teras are ranked in tiers, from F to S, where F denotes the lowest rank—make no mistake, though, these beasts can still kill. The cerastes that hid from the manticore was this rank. The manticore itself would be an S tier. Incredibly deadly. Incredibly fast.

There are a few crosses next to affected teras. Of course, the manticore is not amongst them. But hemlock can apparently destroy the gastrointestinal tract of a cerastes, so there’s that.

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