Divided: The Alliance Series Book Four (8 page)

“Enough,” I said quietly. “Don’t think for a minute I don’t regret what happened. And don’t think for a minute I won’t try to save her.”

Silence. Ms Weston looked at me with… I couldn’t tell what emotion she was trying to keep out of her eyes.

“You’re in shock,” she said, quietly. “I can’t control your choices, Kay, but I have a responsibility towards all my employees. I thought you of all people would understand the futility of throwing your life towards a lost cause.”

A thousand knives stabbed me at once.

She knows.
In the forefront of my mind, Ada’s face was replaced by another, one I’d tried to forget.

Elizabeth Walker. Alliance Ambassador, who’d given her life for what Ms Weston called a lost cause.

Goddammit, I didn’t come here to talk about that.
Like it would help save Ada to know I was doing the same as my mother had done, thirteen years ago, when she’d tried to rescue a world the Alliance had labelled as beyond help. An idiotic suicide mission, as my father put it. It made no difference—suicide mission or not, she was dead.

And Ms Weston thought I’d do the same, given the chance.

“I’m glad you think so highly of me,” I said, icy-cold. “I have no intention of involving anyone else in this. And I have absolutely no intention of throwing away my life in the name of a hopeless cause. Ada is alive. Those creatures are a legitimate threat both to the Alliance and to the Balance. And if no one else will do anything, then yes, I’m going to break Alliance code.”

And I turned heel and left.

***

I’d pay later. I had no doubt. But there was something more important I had to do, and I refused to think about the rest until I had to.

“Kay.” Markos crossed my path, looking unusually concerned. “Ada’s missing?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know. I’m going to talk to her family.”

The centaur’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you sure?”

“Her brother works in tech. He’ll be—” I checked the time. It was early afternoon; I’d been knocked out for hours. But if he’d heard the news, he’d have gone home. They’d be… planning to leave? To mount their own rescue initiative using their old contacts? I didn’t know her family, not really. Except one thing: they’d die to protect her, and they would never forgive the Alliance.

“You’re going after her.”

“I have to,” I said, and all but ran into the corridor before he could respond. From the shouting coming from Ms Weston’s office, someone was in trouble. Hopefully not Ada’s family. I backed up, and walked into Amanda.

“Shit. Sorry.”

“I heard.” She brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. “I was looking for you.”

Oh, shit. She and Ada had been friends, for the brief time Ada had been at the Alliance.

“Sorry,” I said, like that made a blind bit of difference.

“I know it wasn’t your fault,” she said. Her concerned expression ought to have been a relief after the crap I’d faced, but it wasn’t. It
was
my fault Ada had been in the Passages in the first place.

“You’re the only person who seems to think so.” I edged past her. “I have to go and talk to her family.”

“Kay…” Her voice followed me. “Was there really no trace? From the tracker?”

How much did she know? She was Ms Weston’s sister, so she was more aware than others in the Alliance about certain things. Like…

Sources.

“None.” I turned back to face her. “Did your sister tell you what they were made of? The people who took her? They weren’t human. But apparently I’m not in my right mind.”

“She said you were raving about adamantine.”

Something inside me clenched at the word. “Yeah. That’s what they were made out of, like solid unbreakable rock. They beat the hell out of me and took her through a doorway.” I ran a hand through my hair. “If you know anywhere I can get more information, it might stop me from getting killed when I go after them.”

“You’ll die,” said Markos from the office doorway, unhelpfully.

“Yeah, already did,” I said. “Hell didn’t care for me, so here I am. And there has to be a way. For those creatures to even exist…” The only adamantine on Earth was the outside of this building, and parts of the inside, too. And the other Alliance branches. And…

I automatically reached into the pocket of my coat, before remembering my dagger had shattered when it made contact with the Stoneskin.

“What’s stronger than adamantine?” I said, aware both Markos and Amanda were staring at me like I was crazy. Again. “My dagger’s made of the same material as them, it shouldn’t have broken so easily.”

“If they had a higher concentration of antimagic in their skin than the dagger, then it’s possible,” said Amanda. “Novices have shattered those blades when fighting in the Passages. It’s why we have so many in storage.”

“Fighting Cethrax,” I said, another possibility striking me. “The vox-kind have magicproof armour, but it isn’t adamantine. What is it?”

“Kay, if you’re thinking of recruiting a wyvern to go after Ada, you’re digging yourself an early grave,” said Markos.

“No,” I said. “Adamantine isn’t unbreakable—evidently. And there are ways to enhance it.” Like the coat I wore. It had antimagic woven into the fabric. Not that it made any difference when faced with extra-powered magic, like a boost…

A power-boost.

I looked at Amanda. “I don’t suppose you happen to know what Klathica puts into those super-strength enhancer implants?”

When the magic level had gone up, people had even caused damage in the Passages with those temporary magic-boosts. With some kind of
magic source
.

“I… I don’t know. I’ll look it up.” Ignoring Markos’s snorts, she turned back to the elevators. Two of them were out of order courtesy of a griffin which had got loose in here a few days ago. And to think I’d thought
that
was as messed-up as Central could get.

“You’ll have better luck searching in here than the archives,” said the centaur. “Your sister’s got me re-organising half of them, looking for obscure information.”

So that was why the office was in such a mess. It had been in the same state for a week. Not that I particularly cared what Ms Weston was preoccupied with at the moment.

“I’ll have to talk to Ada’s family,” I said. “But if you find anything, can you message me? If there’s a source that can match adamantine…”

“I’ll try,” said Amanda.

“Dragon incoming,” said Markos, as Ms Weston’s office door opened. Amanda stepped past me and I carried on downstairs, hoping she hadn’t overheard. Everyone stayed out of my way in the entrance hall. I wasn’t sure if Carl, Ms Weston or Saki had told everyone I was a lunatic, or if I looked like one anyway.

I didn’t have my motorcycle with me, so I walked to Ada’s house as fast as possible. The crowded roads were even more alien than the Passages. The roar of traffic echoed as if from a distance, and the crowds grated on my nerves even more than usual. I was on the verge of using magic to shove people out of my way, but I couldn’t use it on Earth anymore now the levels were stable again. Plus that would definitely get me listed under
unhinged.

Ada’s family might have left already. I had to make a plan. I had all the Alliance’s information on sources already on my communicator, from when I’d been trying to figure out what lustre could do. But Earth wasn’t exactly the first stop for information on magic. I could gain access to all Alliance branches across the Multiverse as an Ambassador and logically, that should have been my first step. Except Carl wasn’t allowed to let me into the Passages anymore, and to be honest, I didn’t even know what I was looking for. I could steal another world-key, but I’d lost Ada’s signal, and even if I did find her, there might be a million of those stone monsters guarding her. Every idea I contemplated was a dead end.

I stopped short as I reached Ada’s house. The curtains were drawn. Had they left already?

Get on with it, Kay.
I knocked, twice, and the door opened. I had a glimpse of a short figure through the gap before a fist slammed into the side of my face. I could have blocked it but I didn’t, letting the pain ring through me.

Nell’s elbow caught me in the ribs, right on the bruises.
Damn.
I clenched my teeth together, fighting the instinct to hit back. I held still, hands clenched, as she hammered strike after strike at me. My head snapped back as her fist connected with my jaw. She could have knocked me out or even killed me if she’d wanted. My vision clouded, sudden weakness threatening to drag me to the ground and leave me there.

Another kick knocked the breath from my lungs and sent me sideways into the fence, my head striking the wood. I leaned on it, blinking at her furious face. Blood dripped into my eyes from a cut on my forehead.

“What’s going on? Nell?”

Great, Ada’s older brother had arrived to join in the fun.

“You’ll have to get in line,” I said.

“Holy crap,” said Jeth. “Nell, that’s enough.”

Nell breathed in and out, but the rage left her eyes. Beating the hell out of me wouldn’t bring her daughter back.

I pushed back from the fence, ignoring the pain of a dozen new bruises, and faced Jeth. “She’s not dead,” I said, my voice hoarse. “I need your help.”

The Fletcher family stared at me. As I expected.

“I have a tracker.” I coughed, my ribs aching. “I can trace her even if the Alliance can’t. They… won’t help me. I need your help.”

A long pause. I mentally braced myself for another blow. Nell watched me for a moment.

“If you’re lying,” she said. “I’ll kill you next time.” And she turned her back and went into the house.

Jeth blinked a couple of times.

“Guess that wasn’t an invite?” I said, coughing again. I wiped blood from my eyes with my left hand.

“Come on in, you need to clean up,” said Jeth, turning his back.

I was acutely aware of intruding in their home, even as I pressed a damp cloth to my forehead to stem the bleeding. Ada’s family were my last hope, short of involving others at the Alliance in illegal activity—but I was on my way to doing that already. I braced one hand on the kitchen table. Maybe Ms Weston was right, maybe I was in shock. But no way would I sit on the side lines while the Alliance ignored Ada’s plight.

I looked up as a person entered my peripheral vision. Jeth watched me from the doorway. Wary, like he expected me to light the house on fire.

“You have computers with offworld tech, right?” I pulled the tracker from my pocket, which was crusted in dried blood.

Jeth stared at it. “That’s a tracker, right? Whose blood is that?”

“Mine.”

“Jesus Christ.”

I’d forgotten about that. I wiped the tracker on the outside of my coat as Ada’s brother shook his head.

“Was it the same people who took Ada?” he asked.

“Yeah. Someone saved me. But the door closed.” I pressed the cloth to my temples, and told him about our final fight on Vey-Xanetha, the Vox, and the stone-skinned people who’d attacked us and taken Ada. “I was stranded there,” I said. “The world-key is back at Central, and it was only linked to one world.”

Not that it would do any good if I had no idea which world she was on. Each world required a certain symbol. I knew the base set, but not the individual ones for each world—except Vey-Xanetha, seeing as I’d been there. And I was willing to bet even Ambassadors weren’t allowed to see all of them. The council probably had even the darkest corners of the Multiverse on record. Just in case.

Nell and Alber both stood behind Jeth. They’d come to listen in.

“You know how to find her?” asked Alber. He and Ada could easily have been blood relations. Nell, too. They had the same soft facial features, the same shade of tan. Alber’s eyes were purple, with the tell-tale glint of a magic-wielder. Nell’s were blue, but they might have been contacts. Like Ada’s.

I couldn’t say,
I don’t know.
“I think so.”

“Whoa, slow down,” said Alber. “You took her into the Passages, right?” I didn’t miss the accusation in his voice.

“Ada and I decided to check out the hidden Passage after the mission. On Vey-Xanetha, we found out someone was creating doorways to Cethrax, and we realised the hidden Passage was the one place we hadn’t checked. And we found a doorway that shouldn’t be there. Those Stoneskin creatures were using it as a shortcut. I don’t know if they’re on Cethrax or where, and anyway, it’s swarming with vox-kind and wyverns—I can’t go there unarmed and alone, without knowing her location.” I looked at Jeth, who nodded, slowly. “I need to make another world-key. And I need to hack into the offworld communications to send out a signal to her, let her know I’m coming. Most worlds have some kind of base point.” Even Cethrax did, from the days before missions into the swamp had been stopped on the basis of safety. And bases were close to the Passages.

“I’ve no clue about world-keys,” said Jeth. “But cross-world communications—maybe. I’ll have to think. She has a standard communicator, right?”

“Yeah. We didn’t think. The earpieces are back at Central. They ran out of battery. I have the tracker, and I lost her trace when they closed the doorway.” But a trace would be here, in Ada’s house. It had to be.