by Jasmine Walt
“Well, I don’t want you to waste your life away. You can’t save everyone.”
Her face clouded. She never really talked much about her life before she’d moved to Earth. All I knew was that she’d taken me to the transition point to be assigned to a new world and was coached on language and customs. I could never wrap my head around the idea that Nell had known nothing about Earth until she’d been there, and had learned English from scratch. Within a couple of years, she’d been able to pass as an Earth native, and nobody had ever doubted the same of me. When I’d asked why she’d never taught me Enzarian, she’d said, We’re never going back. We have to let the past go. She never spoke about how hard it must have been to accept that.
“Duly noted,” I said. “Look, I’ll… find a better job. Honestly, I didn’t plan on spending my whole life stacking shelves.” Pity even a degree wouldn’t qualify me for more. The exception, of course, being the Alliance. They’d interview anyone for an entry-level position, provided they passed their entrance exams. I probably had more practical experience in the Passages than most of their novices, at least, the ones who hadn’t been to the Academy, and could speak three offworld languages to boot.
The one job I might be qualified for was the one Nell despised more than anything in the Multiverse. That figured.
“What’s happening with that family?” I asked. “Do you have their papers sorted out? Need me to get anything?”
“Actually… you’re changing the subject,” Nell said, sternly. “But yes, we’re out of powdered bloodrock.”
I frowned. “I thought you had a ton of the stuff?”
“We burned through most of it three weeks ago.”
Ah. That had been the biggest job of the summer, when a huge group of people from the collapsing world of Zanthar had come through the Passages at once. There was absolutely no way a Zanthan could pass as someone from Earth—they had gills, for one thing—so Nell’s friends, the Knight family, must have used all the bloodrock to make the concealment concoction using Nell’s recipe, a delightful combination of pure bloodrock and human skin tissue. It worked like magic—ha—to completely change a person’s appearance. Permanently, if you kept applying it every year or so. I’d never used it, but it seemed to be some kind of hi-tech illusion – you only needed to dip your hand in it, and the effect would transfer to your entire body. Pretty ingenious. Except there was only one place bloodrock, a highly classified illegal offworld substance, was available.
“I get to break into Central’s stores?” I said, cracking a grin.
Nell turned, hands on her hips. “I never said you had to do it. You’ve been reckless enough this week already.”
“Might as well keep it up,” I said. “Come on, I’m not working. There’s less risk in it for me than the others.”
At that moment, Alber came into the kitchen, yawning. “I’m dead,” he announced.
“You’re walking,” I pointed out.
“This is my reanimated corpse,” he said, opening a cupboard. The door fell off. “This house is literally falling apart,” he announced, propping the door back in place.
“It is a bit,” I admitted, glancing up at the cracked ceiling. The house had been “lived-in”, as Nell put it, when we’d moved here fifteen years ago. Now, it seemed like something broke every day. The kitchen light flickered constantly, shelves fell down with little warning, and the dripping tap was a permanent fixture.
“Well, when you’ve found the universe where money grows on trees, let me know,” said Nell. “I’m going to check on the others upstairs.”
“Sure,” I said. “Enjoy last night, Alber?”
“Never speak of it again,” he muttered, running a hand through his blond, spiky hair and downing a glass of water. “Why is there no food in this house?”
“Because you and Jeth ate it all,” I said. “I have good news, though. I’m breaking into Central tonight.”
Alber’s eyebrows shot up. “You serious?”
“Yeah, Nell’s out of powdered bloodrock. You want in?” Hey, I never said I was a good influence on impressionable teenagers.
“Hell, yeah.” He set the glass down, grinning.
“Great. Today’s Monday, so patrols are every hour until eight, then every two. I think we should set out at ten, to be on the safe side. They’ll be in the Passages when we get there, so there’ll be fewer guards at Central.”
“You know all their patrols by heart?” said Alber. “Wow. That’s dedication to law-breaking, right there. And shouldn’t you be at work?”
“Shouldn’t you be at school?”
“School finished a week ago,” said Alber, rolling his eyes. “Which universe have you been in?”
“Ha ha.” I pushed back from the table. If I had a few hours to kill, might as well do something productive. Like practicing throwing knives in the garden.
Alber followed me out the back door, having swiped the remains of the stack of toast from the table. “Nell’s being a neglectful parent again,” he said, perching on the garden wall. Weeds grew between the cracked paving stones and from the back, the house looked run-down and abandoned. Nell had let the ivy grow out of hand to block the windows, not that anyone ever came back here anyway. A chain-link fence and an alley separated us from the neighbouring house.
“She’s just busy.”
Running both the shelter and a home business was no joke, even if the business was basically all online, selling disguises to offworlders who wanted to build new lives on Earth. Nell might have wanted a normal life for me, but she could never escape her own roots.
The magic still zinged through my veins as I lifted a knife in my right hand, focusing on the target. Usually, I wouldn’t be able to do this, but today magic was on my side.
I gripped the knife and sent a jolt of power into it, letting go as I did so. It struck the target dead centre, and then rebounded. I jumped into the air and caught it by the hilt, exhilaration mingling with the power still surging through me. Nell had lectured me half to death about throwing away my weapon during a fight, seeing as one time I’d done that, I’d ended up missing and almost getting speared through the eye with my own weapon. But using magic’s backlash rule, I could get my dagger back to my hand without the enemy grabbing it. Admittedly, I’d got just as many lectures from Nell for all the times I’d misjudged the recoil and ended up breaking things—messing with magic was like hitting a punch bag at close range. You couldn’t just hope it wouldn’t swing back and hit you in the face. You had to know what you were doing.
Luckily, I knew what I was doing. I caught the dagger again after another throw, this time from a side-angle. Magic was almost invisible here, compared to the Passages, where I had a better chance of judging the recoil because I could actually see where the backlash would hit. Like a sixth sense. But I’d had enough practise.
“Show-off,” said Alber, his violet eyes flashing. He wasn’t wearing his contacts. He jumped back as the knife whizzed past and stuck point first in the target. “And you wonder why Gary was scared of you.”
“Did you have to bring that up?” I said, shuddering at the reference to my ex. “It’s not like I brought knives to our dates. Wait. Okay, there was that one time.”
“I rest my case,” said Alber.
“Oh, don’t you start,” I said. “Thank God Nell’s not the type to want me to settle down and get married. Ugh.”
“No.” He smirked. “Can you imagine her dating anyone? I’m pretty sure she sleeps with three knives under her pillow.”
“See? Makes me look almost normal.”
I handed the knife over to Alber. He was right-handed, but landed a perfect hit with his left hand. Again, the knife soared back at him and he caught it in his right hand, grinning.
“I know all your tricks, Ada,” he said. “You’re not the only mageblood here.”
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 re
ally 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.
