Nemesis (3 page)

“What?” I said, more snappishly than I intended. Having to defend my life decisions to my foster mother didn’t help all the doubts buzzing around my head like a swarm of mosquitoes. Unfortunately, Nell hated the Alliance for letting Enzar tear itself apart in war without intervening, and had blamed them for all of our problems. Even more unfortunately, she knew the name of the eminent council member who’d ruled that the Alliance would have no part in the Enzar conflict even to save the millions of innocents caught in the crossfire. Lawrence Walker, Kay’s father.

It went without saying that a certain kiss shared in New York City had gone unmentioned in this house. No one else knew except for Simon, Kay’s friend from the Academy, but Nell had the uncanny ability to sense disobedience. I was twenty-one and more than capable of taking care of myself, but I’d put her through so much stress over the past month that she’d reverted into overprotective mode.

“Don’t you ‘What?’ me, Ada Fletcher,” said Nell. “You still haven’t emptied the dishwasher.”

“Slave driver,” I said, with an attempt to rekindle our usual family banter.

Nell followed me into the kitchen. “The Knights were asking after you,” she said.

“Oh.” They’d been Skyla’s adoptive family. My heart sank.

“It turns out Skyla kept a diary. She wrote about experiments performed by the Alliance, at Central, on children. Did you know anything about that?”

The breath stopped in my throat. Crap. I’d managed to skate over that part of the story until now, but it had only been a matter of time before she’d run into the reason Skyla had betrayed us.

“Uh…” Delta had told me. But I couldn’t name him. My former friend, who I’d killed.

“And you didn’t think to mention it?”

Stop looking at me like that.
“No, because it’s the same thing that happened to me!” My voice shook, much as I tried to stop it. “Don’t you think I’d rather forget about it?”

For an instant, sympathy warred with the sternness in her gaze. Then she shook her head. “Despicable,” she said. “Experimenting on children.”

“It wasn’t all of them,” I said, to no effect. Only a handful of people had been involved. It hadn’t even been Alliance-approved, but because the council member in charge had been so important, it had been covered up and hardly anyone knew about it now. I only knew that much because…

The faces of two identical twins, boy and girl, flashed before my eyes, and the room momentarily swayed.

“Ada?”

I pushed the image of a warehouse from my head. “Yeah?”

“The Alliance’s West Branch confiscated the Knight family’s entire supply of bloodrock solution.”

So much for her actually noticing I’d zoned out. Nell lived in her own head these days.

“Nell… the refugees will be fine now. They have somewhere to go.” Before, Nell had made disguises for them using bloodrock stolen from Central’s stores.

“We can’t sell anything else from the house. The only place
we’re
going is bankrupt,” she said. “The Knights, too.”

Again with the guilt-tripping.
“Jeth and I will take care of things. It’s not like I’m working for nothing.” Actually, the Alliance paid through the freaking
roof
, compared to the crappy part-time jobs I’d worked before. I’d have more money than I knew what to do with–something totally foreign to me. I supposed there had to be some incentive to risking my life in the Passages as an Alliance guard.

Nell tutted. “You’d better pass their tests, then.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘good luck’,” I said, returning to the dishwasher.

As Nell departed without another word, Jeth came into the kitchen. “Don’t worry about her. She’ll come around.”

I sighed, following him out into the hallway. “Guess I shouldn’t have expected her to take this lying down.”

“Nell doesn’t take anything lying down. She’d tear the Multiverse apart for you, you know that, right? Same with all of us.”

“Of course,” Alber said from outside the door. “You’re gonna rock it tomorrow. I won’t be awake, but good luck, sis, okay?”

“Cheers,” I said. “Not to worry. I’ve got this.”

“Yeah, you have,” said Jeth. “I’ll knock on your door in the morning, all right?”

“Sure.” I smiled at my brother. “You’re both still first priority with me, right?”

“Always,” said Alber, retreating to his room.

“Sure we are,” he said. “Don’t stay up too late, Ada.”

“Now you’re the parent?” I waved goodnight and went into my room. On the ceiling, the stars glittered. I’d painted them when I was younger, to represent the Multiverse. It would be mine to explore, at long last.

Everything else, I could handle.
I think.

Sitting down on the bed, I picked up the communicator and scrolled through until I found the employee contacts section. One number leaped out. Kay.

Stop being a wimp, Ada,
I told myself.
You were the one who kissed him.

Yes, and he’d kissed me back, and just thinking about it made heat rush to my face. Holy. Freaking.
Hot.

So why did the thought of seeing him tomorrow scare the living daylights out of me? I wasn’t a teenager anticipating her first date. Those days were long gone.

I typed a “see you tomorrow” message and hit the button before I lost my nerve.

Message delivery failed.
No signal? Was he offworld? He was an Ambassador now. It was what he wanted. That was one of the few things I knew about him.

But it was a long time before I found sleep.

***

A warehouse. Lights flashed on and off, reflected in the gleaming metal floor and ceiling. Laughter echoed, abruptly cut off when a body slammed into the wall. A girl screamed.

I’d watched this scene a hundred times. Maybe more. When I’d been in the coma, it had played on an endless loop. My subconscious was kind of a bitch.

Even though I knew what was going to happen, I wished I could tear my gaze away.

“Eddie!” screamed the girl.

I stood frozen, the breath caught in my lungs. Like someone held me in a chokehold, cutting off my oxygen supply. The heartbroken sobbing rang in my ears. I had to use magic–

I couldn’t use it. Never again.

“Ada!” Hands grabbed my wrists, and I found my voice. I screamed, thrashing. A muffled
thump,
and a gasp of pain. The world righted itself. Jeth backed away from me, rubbing his arm. I must have kicked him.

“Ah–sorry.” I flopped onto the pillow. Once again, I’d probably woken the whole house. The sky outside was still dark. “Jeth, I’m fine. Go back to bed.”

“Ada, you really shouldn’t be coming to Central tomorrow.”

I groaned. “Not fair. Don’t argue with me when I’m half asleep.”

Jeth headed towards the door. “You should talk to someone about it.”

“About what?”

He raised his eyebrows. “I know you felt obliged to say yes, but it’s obviously too soon after what happened.”

“I didn’t feel obliged to do anything,” I said. “I wanted it. I’ve always wanted it.”

Jeth sighed. “Have you even spoken to… Kay? He offered you the job, right?”

“I can’t reach him.”

“Typical,” said Jeth. “Just like those Alliance types. They only appear when they want a favour.”

“You sure were quick to say yes when he offered
you
a job,” I muttered. “Double standards?”

“We need the money.” He sighed. “If they make me do anything I don’t agree with, I’m out. But you, Ada, you’re not ready for something like this. And I’m not trying to be a dick,” he added. “I know you feel like you have to prove yourself to these people. But… you’re not sleeping. Is it worse?”

“Same old,” I said. “Just nightmares. Guilt. The occasional good old-fashioned panic attack.” I tapped my head. “It’s all rainbows and fluffy bunnies in here.”

“It’s not funny,” said Jeth. “And–well, you know what Nell’s like, but maybe you want to talk to someone about it? If you’re suffering post-traumatic stress–”

“Like I can tell anyone the truth?” I said. “I almost killed the world. I murdered five people. I’m an unnatural magic-wielder–” I choked off.

“Seriously. At least just think about it.”

“Right now,” I said, “I need
structure.
This job is exactly what I need. A purpose. I can quit any time.”

“Right.” He didn’t look convinced. “Try and get a bit more sleep, anyway.”

He left the room, and I grabbed my communicator instead, checking through the various files for new Alliance members. The nerves kicked in again as I scanned the list of things I was supposed to know if I ever wanted to be promoted to an Ambassador. Okay, Nell had brought me up on awareness of the worlds beyond Earth, but looking at the list of worlds logged into the newsfeed, what I knew felt like a drop in the ocean. Every single world had its own laws, customs, outlook, and political alliances both within and without the Alliance itself. It made my head spin trying to make sense of it all.

You’re just nervous,
I told myself. Nervous. Yeah. I wasn’t broken. I was fine. Relatively.

KAY

There really was nothing quite as alarming as the sight of angry centaurs first thing in the morning. Even more so when they were yelling at each other in Aglaian, which sounded unfriendly at the best of times. I couldn’t make out all the words, but I got the gist. They were
not
happy to be dragged into the Alliance’s Headquarters.

There were only four of them, but they made enough noise for an entire herd. People had gathered in the entrance hall and on the balconies above to see what all the fuss was about. In the centre of the chaos was Markos, who made more of a racket than the rest of them put together. All four wore poncho-like coats that looked like leaves knitted together, and horned crowns–as if they didn’t look intimidating enough already–and no one else dared step within a metre of them.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked Raj, the other Ambassador, who overlooked the chaos from a safe distance. “Who brought them to Earth?”

“Markos’s idea,” he said. “They need to speak to a council member before we let our people go to Aglaia. It’s not stable.”

“Neither is that noise,” I pointed out. “And I wouldn’t mention stables. Who are they, Aglaia’s council representatives?”

“Unfortunately,” said Raj. “There was a misunderstanding about who the king’s heir is, and they got into an argument in the Passages. Scared the hell out of the night guards, and you know those guys don’t scare easy.”

“They don’t know who the heir is?” I said. “Really?”

“Well, they do, but he’s not being very cooperative.” Raj pointed to Markos.

“You’re joking.
Markos
is the heir?”

“He seems to have kept a few things quiet. Doesn’t get on with his family.”

I stared at the centaur. Well, damn.

“Wait–what are you doing?” said Raj, as I approached the group. After all, it was generally considered inadvisable for a human to walk towards a group of angry centaurs as opposed to running for their life.

About normal for me, then.

“Markos,” I shouted over the noise. He didn’t even hear, so I shouted, in Aglaian, “Would you all
be quiet
?”

Thankfully, that got through. And four angry centaurs were now glaring at me.

“This is no concern of yours, human,” said the one Markos had been yelling at, who I figured was some close relation to Markos. They looked almost identical. Might have been an inch different in height, but it wasn’t easy to tell with seven-foot-high horse-men.

“You’re causing a scene.” I met Markos’s eyes with a glare. “If you could all stop shouting for one second–”

“Let me talk to my colleague,” said Markos, moving away from the group. In the sudden silence, his hoof-steps echoed on the glossy adamantine floor of the entrance hall.

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “You’re the heir. But you don’t want to go back. Right?”

“Who told you that?” Markos sighed. “There I was, hoping I could keep the lot of you in happy ignorance. So inconvenient of my father to get himself killed.”

So they hadn’t parted on friendly terms. Markos must have exiled himself if he was royalty. He’d never talked about his homeworld. Couldn’t say I blamed him.

“I know Aglaian laws don’t leave much room for negotiation,” I said. “But there’s no reason that can’t change. Screaming the place down will do nothing but annoy everyone at Central. Why did you bring them here?”

“I didn’t have a choice. We were
supposed
to be meeting with the council, but they want to drag me back to Aglaia immediately. I am aware that reinstating an heir is the quickest way to resolve the conflict, but that won’t solve the issue of the assassination–by the
gods,
I despise politics. That’s why I left in the first place.”