Adamant (35 page)

Of course I did. The old dream hadn’t died, even if I’d felt like it had when I’d woken from that coma. The nightmares would stop, eventually. I had to believe that. Somehow.

Magic was the more addictive for the long absence. I could feel it pulling at me, tempting me, and I wondered for the first time if Kay could feel it, too. He was the same as I was, after all.

I recognised the route we took as the one we’d been chased down by the wyvern, through the maze of underground corridors and up the hidden stair to the first level. I guessed the Alliance would map out this part of the Passages now. Kay seemed to know where he was going, anyway. But he didn’t stop, didn’t even look back. Despite everything, a twisting sensation caught at my chest. After everything… did he not even want to talk to me? Hadn’t he been the slightest bit concerned about my being in hospital, in a coma? Nell and my brothers hadn’t mentioned him asking after me, but I supposed they’d made their opinions quite clear. Kay was a Walker, and even if I worked for the Alliance, Nell would never forgive him.

The twisting sense deepened. It wasn’t fair to judge him on that. Even for arresting me. Not now he’d done something we’d never managed to achieve in a lifetime of trying to help people from Enzar. This was actually happening. For real.

I didn’t know whether to skip down the Passages or burst into tears. After this hellish month, I finally dared to hope that things might start to look up.

When we caught up to Kay, we found him at a junction in the maze of endless corridors, talking to a tall blond guy I assumed must be Simon.

“Hey there,” said Simon. “You must be Ada.”

“Hey. These are my brothers, Jeth and Alber,” I said.

Jeth nodded, while Alber muttered, “Hi.” That was about as friendly as I expected, considering.

“Right,” said Simon. “Well, this is the centre junction where you’ll need to direct anyone passing through. That way leads to the upper levels—but you know that, don’t you? Kay said you know the Passages pretty well.”

I nodded, but couldn’t help wondering what else he’d told Simon about me. Not that it was any of my business.

“Anyway, we have guards down this path here. They’ll direct them the right way.”

“Maybe they should signpost it?” Alber suggested.

“They tried,” said Simon, grinning at Kay. “But jokers kept rearranging the signs to point the other way. Sounds like something we’d have done, to be honest.”

“Yeah,” said Kay. “Direct people to Monsterville. I’m hearing there’s a disappointing lack of Cethraxian vermin in here these days.”

“You’ve not been back?” I asked. I couldn’t help it. “Wait—your hands.”

Kay looked at me, hands held palm up. Barely marked, aside from a handful of crescent-shaped scars, fading already. “No harm done.”

Simon snorted. “You’d say that, you lunatic. Hell, you’ll probably say it on your deathbed.”

Kay smirked. “If you outlive me, ask that they write it on my grave.”

“Can we not talk about death in this place?” Alber said, glancing behind us.

“I second that,” said Jeth. “Are we done here?”

Kay was still looking at me. “Why don’t you show Ada the shelter, Simon?”

“Sure,” he said, sounding a little surprised. “Ada? I can bring one non-Alliance person. Sorry, guys,” he added to the others.

“I—sure! I’ve always wanted to go to New York.” I turned to Alber and Jeth. “You two can find your way back?”

Jeth nodded. “Sure can. See you later, Ada, okay?”

“Yeah, I won’t be long. Bye.”

“You owe us for this!” Alber called over his shoulder, as he and Jeth departed. Kay had already headed down another pathway, Simon on his heels.

“Hey—wait!” I hurried to catch up. “For God’s sake, stop charging off like that.”

“Terrible, isn’t he?” said Simon. “He’s always running off when you’re trying to talk to him. It’s the most bloody annoying–”

“I can hear you, you know,” said Kay, over his shoulder. But he slowed enough to let us catch up.

“I meant you to,” said Simon. “Seriously. I’d be impressed to hear if you’d found a way to get him to stop chasing after monsters for five minutes.”

“Not likely,” I said, with a sideways glance at Kay. His half-smile didn’t reach his eyes, which now I saw up close, were shadowed.
Haunted,
I thought, and suddenly wished Simon would leave us to talk alone. The idea made my pulse drum nervously.

“Did you find out what happened to Cethrax, by the way?” Kay asked Simon. “I’ve been asking around, no one seems to know.”

“They’ve been fined a hundred million credits for aiding the Campbell family,” said Simon. “Their Vox leaders aren’t too thrilled about it.”

“Good,” said Kay.

“Yeah. They deserved it.” And worse. Twenty Alliance guards had been killed in the fighting, apparently, not to mention the people Skyla had murdered at Central. I still couldn’t get my head around that. And Delta, too. The two people I’d trusted outside my family. I didn’t think I’d ever get used to it. My life before the Alliance had caught me felt like it belonged to a different person. Someone I didn’t know.

I’d spent years helping people who’d been through hell. But none of that had in any way prepared me for dealing with this crushing, overwhelming guilt. The screaming nightmares. The panic attacks. Even my brothers didn’t know the half of it. And Nell fluctuated between paranoid and distant, depending on her mood. I was used to keeping quiet, the refugees’ problems taking precedence over my own. But now…

I glanced at Kay again. I swore he’d looked in my direction then turned away just as quickly.

Was he avoiding my eyes? Why? Because I hadn’t called? I didn’t think so, somehow. Things like that seemed to bounce right off him.

“Here we are,” said Simon, breaking the silence. “Welcome to the NYC Alliance.” He pushed open the door.

“Do all Passages lead to alleyways?” I asked. It was still daytime here, the midday sun blinding over the glittering skyscrapers piercing the skyline. I could see a street at the end of the alley, and Simon headed that way.

“The Alliance often uses the ones which are easily concealed,” said Simon. “There are five here in the Big Apple. I’d show you the sights, only we’ve got maybe an hour before the next patrol goes into the Passages. And I’m supposed to be on that patrol, so…”

“Dammit,” I said. “I always wanted to come here.”

“Come on, you got to go to
Valeria
,” said Simon. “And Kay said something about stolen hover boots?”

“One hover boot,” I said. Admittedly, that had been the one fun part of that whole fiasco. I didn’t mind discussing that. “I’d have preferred two. It was a bit lopsided.”

“I wanted to try out one of those hover bikes,” said Kay. “Next time, I’m hiring one.”

“You think the Alliance will let you go back there after you violated half their traffic laws?”

“Considering I just got promoted to Ambassador? I hope so.”

“Shit, Kay. You kept
that
quiet!” said Simon.

“Only happened today,” he said, with a shrug. “They lost a couple of Ambassadors in the fighting so there was an opening.”

“Wow,” I said. “Guess you get to see the Multiverse?”

“I could kill you right now,” said Simon.

“Well, you already know what to put on my grave.” Now his smile definitely didn’t reach his eyes.

“Damn,” Simon muttered. “That is
not
fair. Tell me you rubbed it in Aric’s face? Just a little?”

“I’ll send him a postcard.”

“I could send Nell a postcard from here,” I said, making a sweeping gesture at the towering skyscrapers. “It’d probably get there in a week.”

“Ha. You should do that,” said Simon. “Nell’s your foster mother, right?”

“Uh-huh.” I glanced at Kay again, but he didn’t seem to notice. “He told you everything about me?”

“Don’t worry. Your secrets are safe with me,” said Simon. “We’re here,” he added, leading us down a side road.

The apartment building was unremarkable, the same as its neighbours. I could see people inside. Offworlders—even some from Enzar. Children running around. I smiled. Dammit. I would not start crying in the middle of the street.

“Pretty cool, right?” said Simon. “Kay—oh, for God’s sake, he’s off again.”

Kay hadn’t come up to the house with us. He’d wandered down the road instead, looking up at the skyline.

“What’s up with him?” I asked, safe in the knowledge that he couldn’t hear us. “He’s acting… I don’t know.”

“You’re not what I expected,” said Simon, disregarding the question. “Kay said you were… look, I promise I won’t tell anyone this.” He drew in a breath, while I blinked, slightly confused. “I know you’re from Enzar. I know the Walker family gave your world a shitty deal. But Kay had nothing to do with that.”

Huh?
Was that the problem? “I know. His father did, right? Did you ever meet him?” I checked again that Kay wasn’t within hearing distance. He wasn’t.

“No.” Simon shook his head. “Got the impression he cleared offworld before Kay came to the Academy. He never said, and I didn’t like to ask. Well, Walker’s reputation precedes him. But Kay, well, he might have been a total overachiever at the Academy, but he never used the Walker name if he could help it. I mean, his family owns properties across three universes, they were amongst the original founders of Earth’s Alliance. They’re billionaires several times over. Everyone at the Academy knew that. But in five years, he never brought it up once. Not a word.”

I stared. “He told me he’d never been offworld,” I said, because I had to say
something
.

“He hadn’t, until now, I guess,” said Simon. “It’s difficult to get answers out of him.”

“Tell me about it,” I said. “I asked what happened to his parents. He said they were
dead or otherwise absent.”

“I thought his mother died. He never talked about that, either,” said Simon. “Nor his life before the Academy. He only ever talked about the future. The Multiverse, and the Alliance.”

Given that his father had volunteered him as a human experiment, I could put two and two together and get a hell of a painful answer. Maybe I didn’t
want
to know.

“Has he ever mentioned the wyvern incident?” asked Simon.

“Mentioned it,” I said. “What happened there?”

“He saved my life.”

“He did?” I asked, startled.

Simon nodded. “We were kind of idiots. Third year at the Academy, we got bored and decided to explore the Passages. Started out as a competition with Aric and his friends. Sneaking into the Passages, picking fights with offworld creatures. Then, well, it got complicated. Ended up with a wyvern getting loose in there. We never did manage to prove it was Aric who did it, but it must have been. Only Kay would throw himself into the path of a rampaging wyvern. He damn near died, and you know, the first thing the lunatic said when he woke up in the hospital was ask if everyone else was all right. I mean, how many people would do that?”

And now I wanted to cry. I’d been awful to him. The things I’d said—I couldn’t take them back.

“I saw the scars,” I said, instead.

“Wait, you’ve seen?” Simon whistled.

“It’s—it’s not like that.”

“Hmm.”

“Quit it,” I said feebly. “We’re probably going to be colleagues at Central. I’m not going to screw things up before I even start.”

“How do you know you’ll screw it up?”

“I have a terrible track record with relationships.”
Why the hell did I tell him that?
I couldn’t stop shouting my mouth off lately, apparently. “And an overprotective guardian who hates the Walkers.”

“Well, you’re the first girl he’s paid attention to for longer than a week since the wyvern incident, so that’s a start.” He paused, and I had the feeling that he’d been about to say something else, but had held back. “If I were you, I’d go after him before he gets lost.”

“Is that likely to happen?”

“God, no. Guy has a photographic memory.”

“I thought so,” I said. “All right.”

And I ran after him. I caught up before I reached the street’s end, though the crowded path had slowed him down. Kay stood apart from the crowd, gaze still fixed on the sky—until he saw me and turned his head. And, to my own total surprise, I wrapped my arms around him, tight. I felt him stiffen in shock.

“Ada—what?”

Dammit. I blinked back tears. “I’m sorry.”

I couldn’t seem to let go. The world disappeared around us, reduced to the sound of his fast-beating heart against mine, to the seconds as I tilted my head and our lips met in a surge of electricity infinitely better than magic. And I felt him smile, and I didn’t care that we were blocking the path and people were having to step around us, annoyed. Because I wouldn’t miss this for anything in the Multiverse.

“I think we should get out the way,” Kay said, breaking off the kiss.

“Spoilsport.” But I drew back. The question
what now?
hovered between us like a tangible presence. I drew in a deep breath. “Yeah. I’m joining the Alliance.” I grinned. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”