Page 16

The aesthetic of this room is markedly different from that of the great hall, which had still felt like part of the University, a great entrance to a new life. But now we are funnelled into a much smaller, windowless room. The ceiling is squashed. Claustrophobia is like an ant in my shoe, making itself known through the smallest of bites. This new vestibule is made entirely of sandstone, and I can’t imagine any other purpose to it beyond funnelling us into the University itself. I ignore the other curious bodies, and even Leo, who is apparently a mosquito. A handsome one—really, quite dazzling—but he means to suck me dry, and not in a fun way. So as soon as I cross the threshold, I decide not to speak to him again.

Instead, I look to the centre of the room where a squat marble repository sits. A young woman, a prospective student, holds her forearm over it. She is broad nosed, has a calm look about her even as a knife comes towards her. Someone cuts across the girl’s arm. They’re dressed entirely in white and wearing a black mask — some priest?

The young woman bleeds a little into the receptacle, and then a small glass vial is pressed against her skin until that, too, fills with blood. It is taken very carefully and labelled at a short table in the corner. The young woman presses on her arm and waits until the vial is handed back to her. She walks with it around the corner and out of sight.

The line moves forward. No one bats an eye.

My heart is racing. I can see Leo staring at me for an explanation I do not have. I try to relax my shoulders, appear as calm as everyone else apparently is. But I am seeing snippets of things drenched in ritual, the markers of re-enactment. Not Greek, nor Roman — this is Celtic. I freeze at that. Most of Britain’s native creatures have been driven back, overcome by the more powerful and abundant Greco-Roman teras. There is no explanation for that, or at least, none given to the public. To see remnants of an ancient faith here unnerves me, because it suggests some relevance for the ritual, as if those other teras are re-emerging and require propitiation of a kind. I don’t think I could stand that, though—the Greco-Romance variety of teras are already too overwhelming.

As for the ritual itself, I only know a handful of stories, things I found in books. Priests in white, a sickle, the blood of sacrifice.

And this is a sacrifice—not of life, but a bond of sorts I am to make with the institution. A covenant.

I think of all of this and say none of it. I think of Thaddeus, and everything he sacrificed. What is a bit of blood against my brother’s life, or my family’s?

I know I have to move but it’s like there’s an anchor in my shoes. Leo is watching me. I feel his eyes and the weight in them, and he is analysing me, searching for answers. London is not his domain. It’s mine. If I can lead, I’ll have an ally. But if he sees me for what I am (pathetic, and fragile, and not built for this) I may have an enemy.

There’s nothing else to be done. I step forward.

A bright, young voice curls from beneath the mask. “Name?”

They wear a theatre mask, though not a design I’ve ever seen before. Certainly nothing that’s actually in the archaeological record, but maybe a bastardised version. The mask’s expression is eerily neutral, mouth in a horizontal gape. I thought it was made from wood, but it’s nearly black, flecked with a green-like rusted bronze.

A sigh. “Name?”

“Sorry,” I startle. “Cassius Jones.”

The masked priest pauses, tilting their head as if to appraise me. I see in that open maw everything from apology to disappointment. Then, shortly, “Of course. Roll up your sleeve, Mr Jones.”

I waste no time. I shuck the coat and I know my way around buttons, so it’s only a few moments before I have the sleeve rolled up.

I hold my arm over the marble receptacle. It’s better not to look, but I look anyway. The open vat is filled with all this bright red, newly oxygenated blood. The blood of hopeful students mixed. Is this strange conglomerate part of the ritual? Some light trauma bonding before the stress of exams?

The blade slices across my arm. It is one sharp moment of agitated violence. Body tensing, I squeeze my eyes shut against the flare of pain.

There’s a solid few seconds before I manage to collect my runaway breath, and another few as the logical part of me calms down that animal instinct telling me to bolt. I’ve stumbled into something dangerous, it’s telling me.

This is magic, or an attempt at it. An ancient magic that isn’t understood but has been emulated anyway. Now the consequences fall on me. I start to think, to truly think: why do they need our blood? But once that thought surfaces, the priest returns and presses the warm vial of my blood against my palm.

I step back to the line. Behind me I hear, “Name?”

“Leo Shaw.”

I shuffle down the hall slowly until Leo is beside me. I tell myself I am waiting because Fred and Silas Lin expect him to follow me, for whatever reason—to learn what I know about this place, most likely. But even I can’t hold up my half-hearted vow of silence: I know I am waiting because I like the company.

He stops when he sees me.

“You waited,” he says. Not a question, but he sounds surprised.

“Should I not have?” I ask with a smile, and he gives me a flippant shrug. I wipe the smile from my face. Fine. I can’t get a read on him. He’s always shifting. I’m never quite sure where I stand in his presence.

We shuffle forward, this new vestibule tight and dimly lit. That catastrophic sense fills me again, but I stamp it down. I decide if Leo is playing a game, I should do the same, so I ask, “Are you regretting it? Coming here?”

I don’t know why I say it. It’s not like either of us have many choices. Leo speaks without looking at me, “Why do you ask?”

While he’s not looking, I stare at his shoulders. He’s broad. Strong. I think myself too soft. For a dizzying moment, I am thinking about my body, and its lack of beauty next to Leo Shaw, and my brother is not dead, and this world is not filled with monsters. But then I remember Leo is waiting for me to speak, and I break my spell.

“Well,” I fumble for a cigarette and wave a hand around the place. “This is a whole other world for you, isn’t it? The taking of blood, the University — both the building and the institution. The magic of it. You see people in masks playing at the ancients. I’m sure you can’t help but ask yourself why you came.”