Page 29

I plop myself down on the window seat and lean on the sill, staring out at the grounds. There’s already an itch me for another cigarette, but I ignore the feeling. I’m already too dependent, and I can’t be letting my nerves run me down tomorrow. Leo is staring at me—I can feel his eyes boring into the back of my skull—but I don’t turn around. I stare at the moon, half hidden by clouds, and let the freezing wind cut across my face. In the shadows and the muted moonlight, the University gates glimmer black.

Everything I do here is for my life out there. I must secure a spot in this University, or there will be no point to living. My mother will die from the shock alone. My father can’t defend himself. So I have to be the one to graduate. To kill the teras. To kill the beast that took my brother. To keep the rest of my family safe.

It takes me a while to realise Leo hasn’t left.

“What is it?” I ask. “Want a cigarette?”

“God, you’ll have another?” Leo says in surprise. He sounds like Thad. I could scream.

“You try living in my head,” I say. I don’t light another one, and I don’t offer him one.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Leo comes and sits down next to me. “It doesn’t seem so bad in there.”

Now I can’t help myself. I look at him, but I bury half my face in my shoulder so I can pretend I’m braver than I am.

“I would tell you flirting would get you nowhere,” I whisper, “but I’d be lying.”

Leo’s breath audibly catches. But he doesn’t look away. Something passes between the two of us. Something more than an acknowledgement, and closer to a promise.

Though what we are promising, I can’t be sure. And I’m too scared to do anything about it. If he tipped forward, I would let him kiss me.

Whatever is brave in me says I should do it. How can we be sure what tomorrow brings? But it is too much of a risk, knowing Mr Leo Shaw might pull away. And it wouldn’t be the rejection itself that hurt, but the look in his eyes. The disgust. I don’t think I can stand it.

My interests aren’t so very illegal in a world infested with monsters, but I know people see monstrosity in it. A wrongness.

I clear my throat. “You sure you don’t want a cigarette?”

“Tobacco’s fairly rare,” Leo says, changing conversations easily. “Never really had a chance to warm to it.”

I give him an awkward smile, feeling chastised. How quickly I forgot what life outside these wards is really like.

“What did you want to talk about, Mr Shaw? You sat down here for a reason, did you not? Or are you here for more things to report back to the Lins?”

Leo face shifts, and gone is that sweet, inquisitive expression of his. He looks out at the room. “Acta deos numquam mortalia fallunt.”

I scoff. “I am no god, Mr Shaw—and I’m not sure flattery will save you this time.”

“You noticed,” he says, clarifying. “And you let us play you.”

“Or perhaps I was playing you all along—and before you ask, it’s for nothing nefarious. I truly think whatever these trials are, we all might benefit from each other’s experiences.”

He doesn’t believe me. I don’t need him to. I drum my fingers on the windowsill. A fine rain has started up and I breathe it in. In the distance, there’s a screech, a faint cackling horror. Somewhere to the west I hear a chittering reply. I shiver. It doesn’t matter how safe I am. It never feels it.

“Why are you still here?” I whisper when Leo doesn’t move.

“I hope you don’t think I sat here for them. The Lins, I mean. They helped me get to London, and I helped them back, but there’s no loyalty beyond that.” I don’t reply, because it’s exactly the kind of thing he’s expected to say, and for some reason, I feel the brunt of my grief at that moment. I am my father’s queer son. I am not the one he wanted. Their golden boy is dead, and I am all that is left, and here is a pretty boy showing me attention, and that is all it takes for me to want him.

Has there ever been anyone so pathetic?

“I think I should go to bed, Mr Shaw,” I whisper. I decouple myself from the sill and from his gaze. Then he reaches out and grabs me by the wrist. My heart jolts. Heat rushes to my cheeks.

Leo stands slowly. He is so close I feel the warmth of his body, and my own flesh reacts. Some haunting teras screams in the background, a horrible background orchestra giving voice to my internal scream. What is he doing? What am I doing?

Leo leans in. I do not move. But he doesn’t kiss me.

“Do you want to go to bed with me, Mr Jones?”

I flinch out of habit, expecting to hear the floorboards creak behind me, expecting to be caught. The act of speaking alone is not carnal, but it feels like it. Heat rushes through me. Leo says it openly. Not in Latin, or Greek, or some other language that might be able to mask the true intent of his question.