Page 26

“Well, sure. But universities take smarts. I can muddle my way through Latin, and apparently I can hold a conversation, but when it comes to the trials—”

“I wouldn’t worry about that.” My reply is abrupt and sharp. “They change constantly. There’s no real preparation for them.”

Leo pauses to consider me. “But you clearly think you’ll benefit from a team.”

I don’t know what to say to that. I truly don’t know.

Leo gets on his feet and comes towards me. He’s prodding. He thinks he’s cornered me, made me slip up.

Leo crosses his arms. “The trials are group work?”

“I am telling you the truth when I say I have no idea. But I can’t imagine it will hurt to bind together. Xenos and Londoners. Two walks of life. Two sets of experience. Surely that can only serve us.”

He stares at me. He isn’t fully buying it. I feel a pang of something close to disappointment, and don’t know what to do with it. I am exhausted. I am still grieving. But I can’t let factions form in my own team, and I already know they exist. The xenos are one. Victoria and Bellamy another. I am the lone wolf, and without establishing myself as integral to this team, if it ever comes down to it, they will choose each other over me.

“Hold on,” I tell Leo, and don’t wait to see if he obeys. I go and gather the others. They stagger into the sitting room with cautious disinterest.

“Sit,” I say. Victoria and Bellamy beeline for the window seat. Silas slowly lowers himself to the ground. His sister pulls a face and leans against the wall, arms crossed tightly over her chest. Leo does the same.

I pull the flask from my coat and hand it to Leo before I go and crack a window. Cold, crisp air and the smell of incoming rain breezes into the stuffy sitting room.

“Cigarette?” I ask, lighting it.

Fred pushes herself off the wall. “Go on,” she says, holding her hand out for one. I grin and delicately place my lit cigarette in between her fingers. I light another one and rest my arm against my side.

“Alright,” I say, “let’s talk shop. We all want to get into the University. I’m not asking you for your reasons, but I want to know your desired field.” I glance between Leo and the siblings. “You know what the University offers, don’t you?”

Studying at the University meant choosing a vocation, taking up a mantle in the fight against the teras.

Silas makes a low, non-committal noise, which is enough for me to dart out of the room, fumble some yellow paper from the desk in my room, and return to spread a row of it onto the floor.

“Right,” I say. A bottle of ink clinks on the ground. I place a quill next to it.

Bellamy clears his throat and slips a fountain pen out of his pocket, waving it in my direction. He’s trying to get me to flush.

“That’s beautiful,” Leo says, in a voice that sounds nothing like him. I see him regret it instantly. He flushes hard, blood rushing to his face. Bellamy gives him a pitying look. Smug bastard. I leap up and snatch the pen from Bellamy’s hand before lobbying it over to Leo.

Leo catches it mid-air between forefinger and thumb.

“Hey!” Bellamy starts, but I wave him away, resuming my squat in the centre of the room.

“Lay off, you have plenty,” I remind him. He grumbles but doesn’t push it.

I uncork the bottle of ink and write a word on each slip of paper.

When I’m done, I stand. “The Mantles of the University. Assuming we all make it through the trials, we have to choose this role before we enter. And there’s no switching majors. This is a commitment.”

The Mantles written out are: Hunter, Artificer, Healer, Scholar.

Leo asks me the question he already knows the answer to. “Will you be a Hunter?”

“Yes,” I tell him, writing my name underneath the title. I put it in ink before he can make another quip about how I should declare Scholar. He might be right, but I won’t show him that.

“Victoria?” I ask with a flourish.

She smiles, makes her eyes larger to me, nibbles at the corner of her lips. She always flirts with me, for the fun of it, I think—because there is no way I will take her to bed again, for obvious reasons.

“Healer,” she says. “Obviously.”