Adamant (5 page)

I smiled, but it felt suddenly like a sharp object caught in my chest. I had no idea why Nell hadn’t told Jeth and Alber what I really was, especially considering I knew everything about them. I knew Jeth’s world, Karthos, was the only world to have ever been kicked out of the Alliance for human rights breaches after a bloodbath. He’d been five when someone had smuggled him to the transition point, and Nell had taken to him immediately. Alber was from Enzar, like me, and Nell had adopted him at three from another shelter. But he was mageblood. He didn’t know I was related to the Royals, the ruling nonmages who’d wrested power from the magebloods on Enzar, forced them into servitude, or killed them outright. He didn’t know Nell had been the Royals’ servant, that she’d risked her own life smuggling me away as the magebloods and Royals alike were swept into a massacre.

That was all she’d told me. I’d only been a year old when I’d left, after all, so I had no memories of Enzar. My blood family might still be alive for all I knew. From the little I’d heard from the survivors brave enough to share their stories, I didn’t want to know their fate.

But I wouldn’t have minded knowing why I had the same magic level as a mageblood when I was supposed to have none at all.

I whiled away the hours until sundown practicing throwing knives and going through self-defence exercises, while Alber lounged on the side-lines, skimming one of my paperbacks. Reading about other worlds might seem a poor substitute for the real thing, but it was all we had and they were good stories besides. Personally, I thought Earth people did a great job compensating for the lack of magic in their own world. Tolkien had the right idea.

Early evening, I decked myself out in standard breaking-and-entering gear, black from head to toe, long black trench coat and combat boots. This summer had been unusually damp and gloomy, and it was cold outside. Mist pressed against the window and a chill seeped through the thin walls. We didn’t have the most reliable heating system and with no money to fix it, winters weren’t fun. Still, it was the best we could get and we were lucky to have it. As I knew all too well. Sure, we might joke around, but it was that or live in a permanent state of despair. Nell always said she’d spent so many years living in fear, she was damned if she let the horrors of what was happening on our homeworld take away our happiness, too. We were the epitome of hope for everyone we helped.

I checked my reflection, slipping my phone into the inner pocket of my coat. My dark red hair was a little conspicuous, but at least it ensured that I’d never in a million years be taken for a refugee from Enzar. None of us went as far as to use bloodrock to hide our appearances—there were others who needed it more than we did—but you could never be too careful.

“Snazzy,” said Alber, appearing from the gloomy hallway. “You’re going for the Alliance guard look? What is it with those guys and tight leather?”

“Technically, it’s not leather,” I said, following him out into the hall. “The guards’ uniform’s made of some kind of magicproof material, isn’t it?”

“Don’t ask me. You’re the one who spends all your time spying on them.”

“I do
not.”
Okay, I’d followed a patrol… once. A couple of times, then. How else was I supposed to know their patrol routes?

“Uh-huh.”

“Have you got Jeth’s Chameleons?”

“Got it,” he said, tossing one of the small, metal objects to me. I caught it in one hand, checking it was switched on. Jeth, technological genius, had created a set of devices coated in powdered bloodrock, which had once belonged to the Alliance. I had no idea which world it was from, but it was like pure, powdered magical energy—or “fairy dust”, as Jeth sometimes called it—and if you developed it in the right formula, it could change the appearance of anything. Object, person, whatever. In its purest form, it could also be used to create a chameleon effect. Hence the name. Hit a button and they went invisible, and so did anything that came into contact with them, including us. Plus, he’d also developed a set of three-way-communication earpieces, also coated in bloodrock. Alber passed me one of those, too.

I clipped the Bluetooth-style earpiece on, slid the device into my pocket and grinned at my foster brother. “Ready for a little law-breaking?”

“You,” said Nell, appearing at the top of the stairs, “are a terrible influence.”

“Wonder where I get it from? Come on. You said we need the bloodrock. ASAP.”

“Yeah, it’s gathering dust at Central,” said Alber. “What do they even use it for?”

“Nothing. It’s an illegal offworld substance,” said Nell, her eyes narrowing as they always did when someone mentioned the Alliance. So, about twenty times a day.

“See? We have to go there,” I said. There were people who needed our help
right now.
This was more important than the Alliance’s petty laws.

“Just be careful,” said Nell.

“Always am,” I said.

This time, Alber and I didn’t take the alley to the Passages, but the regular normal-person route to the tube station. Lights from the pubs and twenty-four-hour convenience stores spilled onto the roads, making me feel even more like we were spies or criminals, sneaking through the shadows. A world apart, almost literally.

Thankfully, the public transport system wasn’t too crowded at this time of night. I wished the Passages could transport us right there, but the doors only led to certain points. There were five registered in the UK, two of which were in the London area. Central had, in fact, been constructed near Earth’s main Passage, which had been around longer than London—longer even than humans had walked the Earth. It meant that they’d had to put in a back gate, right by the entrance to their stores, I assumed for a quicker route to the Passages. Prime target for breaking and entering.

The Alliance’s Central Headquarters was visible the instant we exited the tube station at London Bridge. It towered over the Thames, a colossal three-sided skyscraper of gleaming black glass piercing the cloudy sky like a knife. Sleek, but ultimately for show. For all the money they’d invested in their fancy headquarters, I was willing to bet they hadn’t spared a penny to help Enzar. Hypocrites.

Alber and I parted at the gates. He’d keep a lookout and tell me if anything changed, and I was the best at stealth. I crept around the outskirts of the fence.

Magic waited for me, thrumming under my skin. I could feel it pulsing from the fence, too, and I knew that if I as much as put my hand on it, I’d get zapped. The Alliance had ways of harnessing magic like electricity using offworld technology, less damaging than an actual electric fence, but just as much of a deterrent.

Except for me. I reached the back of Central, where the fence gave way to the back gate, and waited in the shadows, checking my watch. Sure enough, a group of four shadowy figures came out of the gate and headed down the back road to where I knew the Alliance’s official entrance to the Passages was located. Few people lived on this road, but the handful of parked cars told me that it wasn’t totally deserted. Some people would risk anything for cheap rent. Not that monsters tended to escape onto Earth. Most of the time. Claw marks on the side of one of the more run-down apartment buildings told me it had happened at least once.

I’d come here before to watch patrols leaving, and to figure out how things operated. Including how to unlock the gate. Turned out it wasn’t magic at all—they never expected anyone to sneak around this way. Complacence at its finest. As for the padlock, I had a small lock pick ready. Nothing fancy, but it worked. I’d had enough practise that it took only a few seconds to open the gate.

Not that I was relaxing. Now I had to get
inside
the building. The front door was key card operated, not to mention guarded, but at the back, there was always a changeover between patrols. I’d timed it to the minute—and I had to, because the Chameleons had limited battery life. The guards would notice an open door, but a window, I could get away with. Especially one I’d used before, and had wedged a folded piece of paper into it in such a way that it looked closed from the outside. It wasn’t like anyone checked close up; the guards were more focused on potential intruders than a small ground-floor window nobody ever opened. It wouldn’t have surprised me if most guards didn’t even know it was there.

I reached beneath the visible world for the buzz of magic and pushed at the air, hard but carefully. The tiniest crack spiderwebbed across the pavement, but the momentum had already knocked open the window. I shook my hands to stop the buzzing as the adamantine walls of the building objected to the level-one hit and then climbed onto the windowsill and pulled myself inside. I pushed the window enough that it looked like it was closed, from a distance, again. No one on patrols had ever come close enough to check. But my heart thudded in my ears all the same. If I failed, I’d cost us everything.

I trod lightly down the corridor, pressing myself flat to the wall when I came in range of the security camera. I reached for the Chameleon and hit the button for cloaking, clipping it to the inside of my sleeve. Its effect depended on skin contact.

It was a bizarre experience to watch my hand fade away, then my arm, then the rest of my body. A shiver ran through me as I looked right through my own body, even though I knew it was still there. Invisibility cloaks, eat your heart out.

Time to go. I moved faster now I couldn’t be seen, racing through the dark corridors until I found the door I was searching for. It was harder to manipulate an invisible lock pick and I fumbled it a couple of times, but within less than a minute, I was inside the store room.

The Alliance kept everything in crates. As usual, it was hard to resist opening some of the others and seeing what mysterious offworld substances they didn’t want the public to know about, but I had ten minutes, tops, before the invisibility wore off. Here on Earth, you could only put a small amount of a magic-based energy source into a device like the Chameleon without risking it backfiring on you. Sadly, no exploring time for me. I opened the crate labelled ‘bloodrock’ and pulled out a handful of small bags, then rearranged the rest so it didn’t look like anything was missing. I backed out of the room, and retraced my steps back to the window I’d come in by.

A group of guards stood a few feet away, engaged in urgent conversation. I went completely still, my heart thudding. Sweat beaded on my forehead. I had to get out silently. Why were so many of them close to the back entrance?

Relax. You’re invisible.
And yet, for once, that didn’t reassure me. I quickly pushed the window wider, pulled myself out, and tiptoed around the group, ready to run.

“Hey! YOU!”

Voices. Shouts, echoing in the night. Shock surged through me, and this time I ran for real, coat flaring behind me. I pelted for the gate, which was open, but there were people outside. Too late to slow down. I shot right past the group—was that a
centaur?
—No time to stop. I didn’t even pause to draw in a breath until I’d reached the street’s end, and then I kicked up speed again. I paid no attention to where I ran, to the ground hitting my feet, the cold nipping through my coat, the sharp pain of my own breath—

I ran smack into someone, who stumbled back. “Jesus, Ada!”

I gasped out, “Alber—thank God—need to go.”

“What happened?” He stared at me, the whites of his eyes bright in the lamplight.

“I’ll tell you on the way back.” Panting, I glanced over my shoulder. I’d lost my pursuers, but the sense of danger persisted. I’d never been spotted before, never messed up.

Only when we stood on the train, alone, did I let the tension seep out of my limbs. I collapsed into a seat, shaking all over. “Crap. Crap.”

“Okay, Ada, you’re really starting to worry me now. Did someone see you?”

I swallowed. “Yeah. There were people outside Central…lots of people. I don’t know what they were doing. The Chameleon just stopped working.” I removed the earpiece and unclipped the Chameleon from my sleeve. Dead battery.

“I swear I charged both of them,” said Alber, frowning. “Did you get the bloodrock, at least?”

“Yeah,” I said, slumping farther back. I didn’t want to mention that they probably knew I’d taken something. I’d done enough damage already.

“I’m going to kill Jeth,” said Alber. “Him and his bloody contraptions.”

“Never mind that,” I said. “I don’t want to end up on the Alliance’s hit list.” For more than one reason. Who else would help the refugees?

“Yeah…I think you should lie low for a bit.”

I gave him an eye roll. I felt a little better. But that didn’t mean I looked forward to Nell’s reaction when we got back.

KAY

“Isn’t this fun?” said Markos, smiling around at the group. “I can tell we’re going to make a superb team.”

Yeah, right.
The four of us—me, Markos, Aric and a guy named Lenny—stood in the entrance hall of Central, dressed in standard patrol gear made of a material that looked like leather but was magicproof fabric manufactured offworld, designed to protect from both magic and nonmagic damage. Right now, it looked like the damage would most likely come from a fistfight between me and Aric, if he didn’t quit being a smug bastard and sucking up to the supervisors, then making snide comments to the youngest of our patrol. Lenny, a skinny redheaded kid barely out of his teens, stood as far away from the rest of us as possible as though afraid he’d get speared by the intense glaring contest between Aric and me. I figured he was here on an apprenticeship and hadn’t been to the Passages before. If Aric mentioned wyverns one more time…