Divided: The Alliance Series Book Four (34 page)

If anyone hadn’t known I was from Enzar before, they sure as hell knew it now. I was too tired, too drained to think what that would mean for the Alliance.

The Stoneskins were gone. Those who hadn’t been pushed into the abyss stood blankly staring into space, surrounded by Valeria’s law enforcement guards. Most of them seemed lost without their leader. Apparently, the research lab had a bunch of adamantine-reinforced cages waiting for occupants.

While they were taking care of that, and attention was momentarily deflected from me, I asked Kay, “What about the others? The Stoneskins’ prisoners? Gervene… there was a woman. I think the Stoneskins… they killed her. They threw her into the swamp. But not all of them died.”

“The Alliance sent people to search for survivors,” said Kay. “Once they’d dealt with those giants.”

“I’m guessing Cethrax isn’t too happy.”

“Are they ever?”

“Let me at my daughter!” Nell had been pushed back by the guards, but her arguing wore them down and they finally parted to let her through to me.

“You’re not hurt?” She wrapped an arm around me, relief etched on her face.

I shook my head. I could hardly believe it. I was… I was alive. Kay had pulled me back from the abyss. I hadn’t destroyed Enzar. I hadn’t killed anyone.

But I’d put our family in the headlights. I’d put my
homeworld
at the centre of the Alliance’s attention. There’d be repercussions. For a heart-stopping minute, I’d thought they’d arrest me for almost destroying the Multiverse. Valeria’s media had started swarming around once it was clear the city was no longer in danger from invincible monsters or out of control magic. I didn’t have the source, either—I’d dropped it into the abyss, but it had been too late to stop the magic then, anyway.

The magicproof coating on my uniform had stopped Kay from getting hit by the magic, too, when he’d pulled me back from the edge. Had he known how close we’d both come to death?

I turned to him. He watched the police marching the last of the Stoneskins out of sight.

“That was close,” I whispered, lamely. “Too close.”

“I know.”

Nell, thankfully, nodded to me and fell behind to let me talk to him.

“You could have died when you grabbed me before the abyss closed,” I said.

“Yeah.” He shook his head. “Guess Ms Weston was right. She’ll have a hell of a lecture saved for both of us,” he said, with a half-smile. “You threw yourself off a cliff. That’s worrying.”

“Er, you know I was trying to save the Multiverse, don’t you?”

“Of course,” he said. “And I did have protection, as it happens.” He held up the palm of his hand, the one he’d grabbed me with. It was coated in black dust.

“What…?”

“It was on the ground. I picked it up.”

“The StoneKing. I killed him and he kind of fell to pieces. I think.”

“So much for him being unbreakable,” said Kay, wiping his hand on his jacket.

Unbreakable. Adamantine. I turned to Nell as we walked along the pavement. “Why did you not just name me Ada?”

“I did,” she said, not blinking. “It’s on your official documents.”

Well, that was news to me.

“You didn’t think I’d put
Adamantine
down, did you?”

“Seeing as it’s my name?”

Nell tutted. “It was a terrible idea.”

“I’ve been telling you that for years,” I said, smiling despite myself. “Are Jeth and Alber okay?”

“I messaged them, let them know you’re alive,” she said. “Jeth’s in the Passages but they won’t let him through—they’ll probably send him back to Central. And Alber’s managed not to destroy the house even though Jeth left him in control of his computers.”

“Ha,” I said. “Don’t suppose they’re going to let us go home anytime soon?”

Another voice shouted, “I do work at Central, you bleeding idiot.”

Holy hell. I’d forgotten Aric, who was surrounded by several enforcement officers, walking in the middle of the road. They’d cleared the area of hover-traffic and taped off the parts of the road covered in broken glass.

“Jesus,” said Kay. “He wasn’t a hallucination. The idiot’s really alive.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know, right? Must have had the sense to run after all.”

“I sent the Alliance a message for you, you ungrateful little shit,” he shouted at me.

“Oops,” I said, as the officers dragged him away—well, he
did
have several arrest warrants on his head. “Yeah. Forgot about that. I threw him my communicator when I was trapped,” I added in explanation, as both Kay and Nell looked at me like I’d announced I was moving to the swamp. “He was a dick, but he was the only person from Earth there, and he wanted to get away. I mean, he was stupid enough to almost get us killed a few times… I’ll have to tell Central he helped. It’s only fair.”

Kay shook his head. “Now I’ve seen everything. You actually worked with him?”

“I nearly killed him once,” I said. “But he did kind of help… God, that might be the weirdest part of all the insanity.”

“Tell me about it,” said Kay. “And I spoke to a Vox and crashed an invisible car.”

“Invisible car?”

“Valeria’s prototype. Not sure the guy who invented it will be happy with me.”

We formed an odd group, and everyone stared so much I was tempted to ask Kay for a loan of his Chameleon. Even the world looked strange without my eyes covered up by lenses. Kay, though, didn’t stare—not explicitly at my eyes, anyway.

I was too tired and out of it to really take anything in, until we were all gathered in the lab, inside the building the Stoneskins had demolished. There, an unfamiliar machine made of gleaming blue metal not unlike the Passages had opened, and the magic humming from it was enough to make me stare around, wondering why no one was panicking.

“What in the world is that thing?” I asked.

“It’s okay,” said Kay. “It’s a link between the Alliance branches. Guess this qualifies as an emergency.”

Walking into the machine took us across the city, directly into a meeting room at Valeria’s Alliance. I collapsed into a chair, inwardly groaning when the council started asking for my story. Not just Valeria’s council. The doorway port—as Kay said it was called—apparently led to other worlds, too, and I watched in total astonishment as representatives from Alliance branches across the Multiverse came through the doorway, including Ms Weston of all people, along with Earth’s council.

Once I’d told the story of my time with the Stoneskins in full, they lapsed into a debate about both Cethrax and Enzar. Kay was dragged into the discussion, given that he’d been the one to talk to the Vox.

War
turned from a whisper into a shout as debates raged. Nobody could ignore Enzar any longer, not now a doorway had opened directly there. There’d be consequences.

But I only had eyes for the man who’d risked everything to save me—and the Multiverse. I was too tired to discuss offworld relations, and despite being at the centre of everything, the council didn’t seem to want my opinion on Alliance matters. Although Kay didn’t let anything show on his face, our eyes met at least half a dozen times. That look was for me alone, and it reflected my own relief, my own gratitude that he’d made it through alive.

Oddly, it was Ms Weston who put her foot down. “Enough,” she said, to the arguing council members. “If you aren’t going to question my staff, I think Ada should be allowed to return to her family, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Valeria’s council head, a woman called Alexis Greene. “Of course.”

And, mercifully, they let us go. Kay, too, seeing as everyone had listened to his account already. I had no doubt Ms Weston would bombard us with paperwork as soon as we got back to the office, but that was a matter for another day.

Another day. If we hadn’t stopped the StoneKing, there might not have been any days left. The shock was palpable, and it was only just sinking in for some people that the Alliance had come a hair’s breadth from destruction, and the Multiverse along with it. But we’d escaped. We were both alive. Sweet relief made my knees go weak as I walked alongside Kay, and I wanted nothing more than to fall into his arms right now and let the world slip away.

If it wasn’t for Nell on my other side. And I was glad to see her, too. She hugged me again, and I spoke to Alber through her phone as we walked past the guards on the road to the Passage entrance.

“Whereabouts is Jeth?” I asked. “I’ll bet they didn’t let him in through the doorway.”

“Last I saw, he was explaining the sciras booster,” said Kay. “I reckon he’s either in the main Passage or at Central, but the guards had everyone under questioning.”

Nell made an impatient noise. “They’re not detaining him. I’m going to find him. Ada, you get yourself home before anyone else can interfere.”

“Sure thing,” I said.

“And
you,”
Nell added to Kay, with startling venom.

Kay’s only response was to wrap an arm around me. “I’ll take care of her,” he said.

“You’d better do that,” she said. “Or I won’t let you off easy next time.”

“Huh?” I said, looking up at Kay. “What’s she mean by that?”

He shook his head. “Come on. We’d better get through here before we get ambushed. Pity I don’t have another car to distract them with.”

As it turned out, one invisible car had caused enough of a distraction in the main corridor. The Alliance had cleared the Passage, and I remembered belatedly that most of Valeria’s guards would have been called through to clean up the mess in the city. As for the others, the doorways were closed. Probably a security measure, considering the ruckus. Lucky the Stoneskins’ doorway had only crashed into one world.

Lucky. Once again, we’d been at the centre of a cross-world event. When we stepped out into London, I ducked my head, knowing my eyes would attract even more stares here. I might as well have “outsider” tattooed on my forehead.

“Watch it,” said Carl, stepping in front of us. “Oh, it’s you two.” He looked a little battered, but alive.

“Damn,” said Kay. “I thought—things looked pretty bad where you were.”

“Even a bomb couldn’t take care of me,” he said, with a hint of a smile. “Guess you were right all along, Kay.”

“Didn’t the council give you permission to leave?” asked Kay.

“Apparently, nearly getting blown up isn’t big enough a deal for him to take the night off,” said Raj, who also stood near the gate. “We’ve got everyone looking out for trouble here, but seeing as you two just came through, I’m guessing it’s passed. Unless you have invisible goblins on your tail.”

“Nah,” said Kay. “Show’s over.”

Raj shook his head. “Crazy, the lot of you.”

“We’re going home,” I said. “Before Ms Weston makes me write a ten-thousand-word essay on what it’s like to be kidnapped.”

We walked fast, back to my house. I kept my gaze on my feet. A stupid idea in London’s crowded streets, but then again, my real eyes might have caused a traffic accident.

Finally, we reached my street, and the relief sank into my heart again. I leaned my head against Kay’s chest as we stopped in front of the door.
Home.

“I realise this is the lamest line ever,” I said, “but I missed you. Even though, you know, I was running for my life and everything. When I thought they’d killed you, I—I had to tell myself you were alive. It was all I could do.” I swallowed, turned to face him.

“Ada.” He spoke so quietly, and there was so much feeling packed into that one word, it almost reduced me to tears. “I had to come after you. Any way I could.”

I smiled a watery smile. “You robbed Central, trespassed in the dangerous parts of the Passages alone, repeatedly defied the council, went offworld when on probation…”

“Sounds crazy to me,” he said. “Saki already marked me as ‘unhinged’.”

“Oops,” I said. “Well, the whole Multiverse knows I have freakish glowing eyes.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “They suit you.”

“Ha. Now you’re being ridiculous. Come on. I look like a walking lamp.”

“That is
not
a description I’d use,” he said, smirking at me now. I lightly hit him in the arm.

“Ow,” he said.

“Crap. Did I leave the sciras on?”

“I’m joking.”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course you are.”

I dug in my jacket pocket. Wonder of wonders, my key had survived the craziness—I always kept it zipped in the small pocket inside my jacket.

“My kingdom for a shower and a change of clothes,” I said. “Please. I’ve got to give props to whoever designed my uniform, seeing as it’s survived so much of a beating, but I’ve Cethraxian swamp water in places you really don’t want to know about.”

“Hmm,” said Kay. “Not sure there’s any part of you I don’t want to know…”

“Ha ha,” I said. Which meant,
God, I’ve missed you.
“I’m serious, though. I want out of this uniform.”

His hand trailed down the side of my face, fingertips lightly brushing my cheekbones. “I wouldn’t object to that.”