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“Whole lot of stuffy research,” Victoria says, “but even I can admit it’s a useful path.”

“And a cushy life behind London’s walls,” I remind her. “Just ask your father.”

It makes her smile falter. She seems to think for a moment, and I hope she remembers our earlier conversation, and what it will mean for us. “Perhaps I should declare Hunter,” she whispers, before I wave her down. “Hunter might be best for you lot, too.”

I silently curse. I don’t want the xenos to know this vulnerability.

Leo picks up on it. “Why?”

No one answers him.

“Fine by me,” Fred says. “You can put me down for Hunter. There’s nothing else I’d rather do.”

I jump to do as she instructs, if only to move the conversation on. “And your brother?”

“Hunter,” Fred answers for him. “Or Healer.”

“Artificer.”

Fred’s expression freezes. I clock her stopping herself from spinning on her heel. Silas looks up at his sister from the floor, then up at Victoria. “Unless there’s a reason I should stick to Hunter?”

Victoria hesitates. She turns to me like I’m the man holding all the answers.

“No,” I lie. “Ignore her.”

I doubt anyone believes me.

Fred lays a steadying hand on her brother’s shoulder. “Then let’s sleep. Tomorrow will come a lot quicker that way.”

Silas hands the flask back to Leo. The silence continues as the siblings walk out of the sitting room and it stays until the soft clicks of their doors are heard down the corridor. Leo drinks from the flask and offers it to the room. Bellamy grabs it off him.

“Christ,” he complains after a swig. “Conversation with them is like pulling teeth. At least you’re tolerable, Mr Shaw.”

Leo frowns yet again. “Thank you?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bellamy says. He taps the ground with the tip of his foot again. “What were you going on about here, Cass?”

“Well.” I stub the cigarette on the window pane. “I was trying to show there was a balance. That if it came down to it, we’d be a group of people with a variety of useful skills.”

“God,” Bellamy sounds exhausted. “I thought it would be something useful.”

Victoria looks between us. “We shouldn’t be making plans for something that may not come to pass.”

I send her a look, but she ignores me.

“Trying to game the University is a sure-fire way for us to be eliminated.”

“There’s no game,” I say. I can tell she’s scared, but truly, I am not trying to outsmart the institution. Just stay alive. “There’s logic, and reasoning, and the morsels of information this damn institution deigns to tell us. I am working with what I have.”

Victoria stands and gestures for the flask. I think she’ll take a tentative sip, but then she’s gulping half of it down.

She sticks it against my chest when she’s done. “You’re trying to get ahead of something we don’t even know the rules to. I get it: you’re a planner, Cassius Jones. You don’t like surprises. But you can’t do a damn thing more than pray at this point, and I have better things to do.”

“Do you?” I say. My voice sounds strained, because she’s right. I am trying to get a handle on a group of people, and I don’t even know why. I have already bargained with their lives just to get to my brother’s stash. Why should I care whether they all come together?

“Yes,” she says, and she grabs Bellamy by the front of his shirt and leads him away.

That answers my question: they are certainly fucking.