Page 65 of The Teras Trials

Silence swamps the room, and it’s awful, because I don’t know what he’s thinking. I feel the urge to defend myself bubbling up; I’ve just woken up from a fever dream, my gut near torn to shreds, and I must explain why I’m not as bad as the other Londoners, not as bad as everyone who accepts the terrors that happen to other people, so long as their own hide is safe. I grapple for a reason why I deserve Leo’s pity more than he deserves mine. Which is bollocks, obviously. I am, perhaps necessarily, uncomfortable by his questions. I look down at my hands again. So free of callouses. Of scars.

“I got lucky,” I whisper. “It’s all about luck, in the end.”

“It is,” he agrees, “and also the machinations of an institution hellbent on maintaining its importance. But that’s a conversation for another day.”

He mutely gestures for the cigarette. I don’t question him, not when he breathes it in and holds it so long I know it must be scorching him. Not when he splutters and coughs and shakily hands it back.

“Do we know anything about the next trial?” I ask.

He makes a face and shakes his head. “We have a few days.” He won’t elaborate. When I push the covers back to stand, he appears at my side and lays me back down. His palm is on my shoulder. I can feel the roughness of it; a flash of him in my mind, above me, head lolling, sweat on his brow. I shiver and glance away.

“Well?” I prompt. “Aren’t you going to tell me about your life?”

Leo stares at me.

“No,” he says, rather firmly. Misery cracks through his near even tone. Then he pushes to standing, hesitates, and kisses me very gently on the forehead. “Rest,” he says, and then is gone.

* * *

I wake again near sunset, and when I stumble out towards the sitting room, I hear only the Lins. I do a Very Bad Thing, and press myself up against the frame to listen to them. They are still a mystery to me, and they never talk freely. I fancy that if they’re speaking to one another, I might learn something useful. Which should you tell you something about myself: I am not as good as Leo thinks. I do want to protect my hide. I have been willing to let the rest of the world suffer whilst I get a good night’s rest. I’ve been doing it for years.

So what will it matter if I eavesdrop?

“Because you’re wrong, that’s why,” Silas mutters. I hear a book slam shut, and Fred sighs. She murmurs something indistinct back.

Silas goes, “What?”

And Fred laughs in that tired, overwhelmed way, when you’re suddenly sick of an argument and would rather implode than continue it. I hear the strain in her voice when she says, “Go on, then. Tell me why I’m wrong.”

The floorboards creak. “Apart from the fact that coming here was your idea in the first place, Fred, they have Blood Hunters. And they’re real, and they’re thorough, and frankly they are better than us. Than you. Whether we like it or not, that manticore nearly killed me, and I’m barely holding on as it is. You try and leave with me in tow, and I’ll be the thing that kills you. I won’t have that.”

“That’s what you’re worried about? No. We’ll figure it out, we’ll—”

“I’m not bloody done,” Silas says in the smallest, fiercest voice I’ve ever heard. The window seat groans as someone sits in it. “Listen. This has been years in the making. Us getting here, I mean. And you cannot tell me that it’s really worse than out there. What are you hoping to do, Fred? We go back, and we’re still working for the bastards. Toiling everyday, handing over most of what we grow for these people—only we’re massively less safe than if we stay put.”

“All this,” Fred says, voice high, “everything that has led us here was because we were operating under the assumption that things were better behind the wards. But it’s the fucking same, Silas. There are still teras. And the people—this institution!”

“Listen to yourself!” Silas yells. It’s the first time I’ve heard his voice go high, gain such volume. “And then think about me. For one second. I know that’s selfish of me to ask, but Fred, you’re brilliant. You’re a fighter. You’re physical. If you think you can spend your days on that God-awful farm without going insane, then I am jealous. But I’m not like that. I want the books. I want the knowledge. I want to be something, and I can only do that if I’m here. But even then, if you choose to go alone, I know you’ll regret it. Not because you’ve left me behind, not because you’ll be hunted until they kill you, but because I know you want it, too. You want to be more than their farmer.”

“I want,” she says, “to live happily.”

“Well, that’s nice. But it’s a pipe dream. The closest you’ll get to that is here.”

Fred makes a noise. “If we stay, we’ll only be their fodder. You ever seen an old Hunter?”

Frustrated, Silas groans out, “Then declare something else!”

“But it’s the only thing I’m good at!”

For a moment, they’re both silent. Someone sighs, there’s an ambient creaking of the boards, and the wind tapping against the window.

“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” Silas says gently. “We haven’t even passed yet.”

“No. I mean. . .” another sigh. “I know. I know. You’re right. I just thought, once we were here. . .” she trails off, and no one says anything more for a time.

Having waited long enough, I creep back to my room, and make a very loud show of grunting and swearing and slamming my door closed so they know I’m coming, because I’m a bit pathetic and embarrassing, and I’m trying to offset the guilt of eavesdropping.

As I round the corner into the sitting room, the entire scene is peaceful, as if the siblings have been reading in silence for hours.

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