Divided: The Alliance Series Book Four Read Online Free PDF

Cethrax.”
    For crying out loud. “Fine, I’ll tell Ms Weston and get a report to the council. And you guys watch your backs in here,” I added to the novices, who looked more terrified than ever.
    Once in a corridor alone, I paused. This was my last chance to find Ada’s signal again. I pulled out the tracker, which wasn’t broken—unlike my communicator. Noise drifted down from the corridor on my right, which led to the main Passage.
    The last thing I needed was to get arrested. If anyone saw me covered in blood, in a place I wasn’t supposed to be, I’d be in even more trouble than I already was. At least I had my Alliance ID as proof I wasn’t a random drunk wandering in off the streets, not that it would be any consolation to anyone who saw me like this. But I couldn’t worry about that now.
    I took the tracker instead, and tapped into the amplifier. Ada. I need to find Ada. I’d been vaguely aware of her trace as I’d been in the lower Passage… but it had disappeared.
    No way. I’d kept the amplifier on. I should be able to sense her, even if she was on a different universe. Perhaps I’d been wrong in my assumption. But we’d used it before, following her brother’s magic-trace to rescue him from the Conner family on Valeria. And that had been a far weaker signal. Ada’s blazed like a torchlight. But there was no trace of it. Not even a whisper, even though we’d walked down the same corridor not two hours ago. At least, I didn’t think it had been that long…
    I hadn’t been unconscious all day, had I? Maybe something was blocking the signal. Something on a distant world. I took the Passage fragment instead, but even amplifying it didn’t work. It was dead. A lump of useless metal. I threw it at the wall, where it bounced off rather than shattering.
    I left. There was nothing else I could do. This was God-awful timing of the highest order—right after I’d ditched a bunch of rules to find out what was happening on Vey-Xanetha, including sneaking off alone, using a world-key without backup, confronting an angry god without any kind of preparation. I’d expected backlash from what I’d done, but I never could have known this would happen less than twenty-four hours later. I didn’t have an excuse, least of all for taking Ada with me. We’d run into danger without a plan and she’d paid the price for it.
    People stared at me in the entrance hall to Central. My reflection in the glass doors told me why. I looked like a madman even without the blood all over my face, not to mention the Cethraxian swamp water and blood dripping from my clothes. I met wide eyes wherever I walked, including from the offworlders hanging around the door to the Complaints Division. They’d been here to gripe about the issues Earth’s fluctuating magic levels had drawn up, forcing half the Alliance guards to abandon their normal duties and go chasing after griffins. Even now, a flock of rainbow-coloured birds zoomed around the entrance hall. I’d been too out of it to pay attention, but Earth’s magic levels had gone back to normal. So our actions on Vey-Xanetha had been of some use. Not that it would in any way help me now.
    Someone blocked my path. “Kay—I’m told you’re injured.” It was Saki, the nurse, and she looked about as happy to see me as a guard faced with a wyvern.
    Dammit. “I’m fine.” I glanced down at my feet, where a trail of blood dripped from my sopping wet clothes. “Might need a change of uniform. I have to see Ms Weston. Now.”
    “ Not in that state.”
    Seriously? Sure, I should probably make sure that blasted chalder vox hadn’t broken any ribs when it hit me. I wouldn’t be able to walk so fast if it had, but having a high pain threshold didn’t help judgment at the best of times, especially after I’d technically died. Or close enough.
    “Kay, what in the world are you doing?”
    Crap. I turned slowly to face Ms Weston, who stared for a moment, then her eyes narrowed