Divided: The Alliance Series Book Four (15 page)

I considered this. “And bloodrock…” But I wasn’t sure even bloodrock solution would work on creatures made out of pure antimagic.

“Is strictly reserved for those of us operating the shelter network,” said Nell, eyes flaring. “At least, it was until your people confiscated it.”

“All right,” I said. “So how do you know what’s happening on Enzar? Does the Alliance have access to that information?” It was the first I’d heard, but then again, I hadn’t been involved with the Offworld Aid division lately.

“I wouldn’t know,” said Nell. “They’ve certainly interrogated my colleagues and me enough times. The transition points keep a close watch on the worlds they deal with—even Enzar.”

“Okay,” I said. “So, what’s the latest?”

“The Royals are missing,” said Nell, her voice flat—but not so much I couldn’t sense a hint of some unidentifiable emotion beneath it. “And have been for some time.”

“Presumed dead?”

“Yes,” Nell said. “The magebloods outnumber the nonmages three to one, even if you count the outside worlds they dragged into their war. The Royals are the only nonmages with power, and with them gone, the direction of the war has turned.”

“So if Ada goes to Enzar…” Both sides would want her.

“They’ll know who she is,” said Nell. “Or
what
she is. There’s no disguising it on Enzar, not even with bloodrock.”

“And you think her… blood parents will be after her?”

“They’re dead,” said Nell, bluntly. “They were killed when the palace fell, not long after we escaped.”

I stared at her, mildly shocked. “She… she doesn’t know, does she?”

Nell shook her head. “I found out later, and the less I tell her about what her family did, the better.”

“That won’t make it better,” I said, quietly. Better to have the truth, just for finality’s sake. But what did I know?

As Nell’s eyes narrowed dangerously, I said, “So you’re in contact with the transition point. Is it directly linked to the war zone?”

“The war isn’t on Enzar anymore,” said Nell. “Most of the fighting is offworld now. There’s nothing
of Enzar left to defend now the Royals are dead. Our operation only started when it became clear the Royals and magebloods intended to bring all the worlds they could find under their own control. When our last doorway was closed by the Alliance…” Her expression hardened, and a sense of dread stirred inside me—Lawrence Walker had closed those doorways. Cut Enzar out of the Multiverse for good.

I’d never heard what it looked like on the other side.

“When the doorway was closed,” Nell went on, “an underground initiative went into motion to help people out of the capital after the magebloods destroyed it. They built secret tunnels for the purpose.”

“And who directs them to the Passages?” I asked.

“Why do
you
need to know that?”

“I’m an Ambassador,” I said, evenly. “And something is wrong in the Passages. Those Stoneskin creatures shouldn’t have been able to get in in the first place. Cethrax, the hidden Passage—it shouldn’t be possible for that place to even exist. I talked to someone today who told me the good reasons it’s not possible to build a doorway directly between two worlds without using the Passages. But if the Passages are all under Alliance control, how are the Stoneskins getting around without being seen? They must be using the hidden Passage.” Which linked with Enzar.

“They can’t be from Enzar,” said Nell, “because there are only two ways out, and one is buried underground. That’s the way Ada and I escaped, but nobody has had reason to go back to the capital since then. It’s caved in, as far as I know. And the other Enzar transit point is at the far edge of the continent, underground, and disguised using bloodrock solution. We put it there ourselves.”

“And it leads to the second floor of the Passages?” I asked.

“Yes, and it’s under Alliance control, as your people like to remind me on a regular basis. There has certainly never been talk of these
Stoneskins.
”

“Right,” I said. “So Enzar never used soldiers made of pure adamantine?” It’d be a hell of an advantage in magical warfare if they did.

A pause, in which the last word hung like a weight. I’d had to say it. There was no other way to get the answer.

“No,” said Nell. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. I wouldn’t have thought it even possible…”

“I’m hazarding a guess they’re artificial. Someone made them.” Or they did it to themselves. But I was inclined to believe the former.

The experiments… no. Adamantine was a precious commodity within the allied worlds because it was so hard to get hold of. Worlds with adamantine were worlds of high magic, and most had burned themselves out fighting over it. Including…

I looked sharply at Nell. “Enzar didn’t have links with Thairon, did it?”

If Ms Weston and Mr Helm hadn’t brought it up, I probably wouldn’t have thought of it. But the last world where adamantine had been mined was the world that had blacklisted itself against the Alliance by having an entire team of Ambassadors executed for trying to win freedom for the people enslaved under its government. I didn’t know the specifics. I
did
know my mother had died there thirteen years ago. Maybe it was paranoid to think it might be linked at all. But the change in Thairon’s government had started the same time as Enzar had been cut off. And both were high-magic.

Nell shook her head. “I have no idea. I’ve never met anyone from that world.”

No. Because whatever the governing class had done, they’d made it impossible for anyone to escape.

I had good reason to hate the place. It didn’t mean Thairon had anything to do with the Stoneskins.

“There’s a loophole somewhere. Wherever they came from, they must be using Cethrax to transit between worlds.” I couldn’t track Ada’s signal. But if I got into the Alliance’s records, surely someone would have noted down which worlds Cethrax had been involved with. And someone had to watch the hidden Passage constantly, to see if they came back.

I checked the time. I had a few hours before Central closed.

Alber came back into the room. “Jeth wants to know if you’re going to amplify that signal now.”

“Sure,” I said. “I can’t promise it’ll work, but I’ll try.”

Jeth waited outside the kitchen, eyes red with tiredness, hair standing on end like he’d been running his hands through it. “I can project the signal across five worlds at the moment—the standard reach for a communicator. How do the council contact distant worlds for meetings, anyway? They can’t always send people, right?”

“They use videoconferencing,” I said. “I’ve never been in a cross-world meeting, but I think they have to send people to worlds further out than the main Passage because the signals won’t reach that far.”

“Huh,” said Alber. “Thought you knew the council. Did you tell
them
about Ada?”

“My boss said she did, but they aren’t prioritising it. They’re busy dealing with the repercussions of what happened in Vey-Xanetha, and apparently they need more proof.” I drew in a breath, frustration rising again. “What about the computer?”

“It’s ready.”

I followed him into the darkened hallway. This was a new house, I remembered; Ada had only been living here a couple of weeks. Her bedroom was the attic, and when we’d once spoken on the phone, she’d been lying on the roof…

I shook the memory away.

Ada’s older brother’s room was more like a cave. Computers on every wall, wires criss-crossing the floor. In the centre, one computer had an odd string of symbols on the screen. The code.

“That’s our message,” said Jeth. “I can send a signal across the worlds, and if she has her communicator switched on, we’ll be able to talk.”

“Would it work in reverse?” I asked. “If she was offworld, would she be able to warn the Alliance? I need to find some way to prove to the council the Stoneskins are out there, and they’re a legitimate threat. They won’t take my word alone. But they know Ada’s a powerful magic-wielder, and once they know the truth, they’ll prioritise rescuing her.”

Either way, I’m going after her.

“Hmm. I suppose, if I linked this device to Central, her message would go through to our computers in the tech department, too. But I’d have to go to Central to set it up. I thought our priority was to get Ada out.”

“It is,” I said. “But imagine a whole race of invincible monsters that hate the Alliance. If there’s anything we can do to warn them—if we prove it, we might be able to get their approval to go after Ada.”

“There is that,” said Jeth. “They said I didn’t have to come in tomorrow… I think they knew something was up.” His face tightened. “Okay. What are you planning to do if she does pick up the signal? It won’t help you track her, if you need her magic signal or whatever.”

“I know,” I said. “But if she sends me a description or a picture of where she is, I’ll be able to match it with our files. I need a new communicator, though.”

Which was problem enough in itself.

“Get one,” he said. “You can go to the guard office without getting your boss involved, right?”

“Technically,” I said. “Carl knows there’s a threat in the hidden Passage now, and I’ve asked Simon to talk to the senior staff at New York’s Alliance, too. But there’s something about the Passage I don’t like, aside from the obvious.” I glanced over my shoulder, but Nell wasn’t around. “Look—when you helped the refugees. Did you only use the hidden Passage to get from first level to Earth?”

Jeth blinked. “I only went there a few times. Ada and Nell were always the ones who used that Passage. I was never the best fighter.” His fist clenched. “You’d better save her, Kay.”

“I’m trying to find out about this Passage. The Stoneskins opened a doorway. They dragged us through Vey-Xanetha and then took Ada through the door again—not to the Passages, I don’t think. It doesn’t add up. I know they’d linked Cethrax to Vey-Xanetha before, but it doesn’t explain how they did that.” I hadn’t asked Mr Helm either. There were too many goddamned mysteries surrounding the whole scenario
without
getting into who the Stoneskins actually were, and where they’d come from.

“If it helps us find her…” Jeth tapped the keyboard. “Want to try the amplifier? You said it takes skin contact, right?”

“I think so,” I said. “You’re using your communicator?” It lay on the desk, connected up to the computer via a series of wires.

“Yeah.” He held it out to me and I took it, careful not to knock the wires out.

“Wait, what did you do to it?” I said, flipping it over. “Those aren’t Earth power cables. Did you turn it into a battery using
Klathican
tech?”

“How’d you know?” Jeth asked.

I shrugged. “I’ve read theory books. If we had time, I’d ask how you made it compatible with Earth tech without blowing it up. Someone tried to sell me a hover-battery for an Earth motorcycle once and I’m pretty sure that’d end badly.”

“Depends how you wire it,” said Jeth. “I’ve worked with this crap for years.”

“Is it turned on? I can’t trace a signal. Not sure this is something I can amplify.”

“Might as well try it.” Jeth tapped the keyboard. “Okay. We’re set.”

My fist clenched around the communicator. The power bar didn’t look any brighter. I frowned at it. “Guess not. I can try the tracker, but it only works for magic.” I took it from my pocket with my other hand. Traces of a familiar magic lingered in the air, but it was from Ada’s younger brother, not Ada herself. Her signal had disappeared even from her own house.

Dammit.
“Okay. Clearly, I can’t amplify just anything.” I checked the communicator screen. “It’s at the highest level, though, those extra batteries must be working.”

“The message is on a loop,” said Jeth. “All I can do is keep sending it out.”

He watched the screen in silence for a moment.

I put the communicator down. “What now?”

“I’ll keep watching this,” he said. “I’ll tell the tech department—not about Ada, but I’m sure I can come up with an excuse to try long-distance communicators. They won’t need an explanation.”

I nodded. Damn it to hell. I didn’t have an excuse in line for where I’d been all day, but Ms Weston had insinuated I wouldn’t be welcome at the office anyway. Now it was too late to head back in without running into the evening guard. I resigned myself to another night sneaking in and out of the Passages.

Wait. The ladder to Ada’s room was right there in the landing. If anywhere might contain a trace of her magic…

Before I could question whether this was a good idea, I’d climbed the ladder into Ada’s room.

The dust hadn’t even settled. Though she’d moved in recently, there were no boxes—just shelves stacked with books, martial art trophies, a dusty set of folders. Folded, ironed clothes on the bed. A well-worn copy of a fantasy paperback on the bedside table, beside her old mobile phone, the one I’d given her back after Central had confiscated it. A laptop—also an old model, ten years old or more. Probably second hand.

I didn’t know what I’d expected to find. No magic signal, but it smelled like her.