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You need to stop challenging those things.”
    “I couldn’t let it run around in there. It might have attacked someone. Or got through one of the doors.”
    “Then it’s a problem for the Alliance. Not for us.”
    The old argument. “Thought you said the Alliance were blind to what’s in front of them,” I said.
    “Tell me the three principles of magic.”
    I rolled my eyes. “Do we really have to go through this again? Can’t I just go to bed?” I was bone-tired after the fight, though using magic often left me restless and irritable. Like it called to the part of me that belonged to Enzar, my homeworld, even here on Earth.
    “Just tell me.”
    “Magic is a force which either acts on a person or an object. Every use of magic has an equal backlash effect, and there are three levels of increasing severity. All is tied into the Balance.”
    “Good.”
    “You know I’m not going to forget,” I said, with a sigh. “Look, I didn’t have a choice. I only used a little.”
    “Someone might have seen,” said Nell, pressing her mouth into a thin line. “Magic creates a ripple effect. You know that.”
    She was right, of course. But I’d only used level one. It barely registered. It wouldn’t affect the Balance. Only a major magical disturbance would cause the levels of magic across the universes to tip. A major disturbance. It had never happened, not as far as the Alliance knew, and from what Nell had told me, their records went back over a thousand years. Hell, the Alliance guards themselves used magic-based weapons in the Passages. I was careful.
    “Yes, I know,” I said. “Can I go and get some sleep now? I’ve got an early morning shift.”
    “Make sure you don’t sleep in, then.”
    Nell didn’t even like my job—well, there wasn’t much to like about a part-time stint in a supermarket, but it was more than most graduates could get these days, and it had stopped her giving me grief for not going to university. It hadn’t seemed worth adding to our debts with a mile-high stack of student loans I’d never be able to pay back.
    I wanted to keep doing what I did: helping people. But I couldn’t live at home forever. Nor did I want to. There was more to the world than this. More to the Multiverse.
    Delta had said I should join the Alliance. But I knew better than to mention that aloud to Nell. It’d only set her off again. Yes, I knew that the Alliance’s council had ruled against interference in the war, but sometimes it felt like Nell held them single-handedly responsible for every problem in our lives.
    “Night, Nell,” I said instead, and headed to my room.
     

     

CHAPTER TWO
    KAY
     
    “Watch out for wyverns.” The text message came through on my brand-new, Alliance-issued communicator as I waited, not-so-patiently, at a red light. Rolling my eyes, I took one hand off the wheel and typed a response to Simon’s version of a Good luck at the new job message: “Watch out for giant rats.”
    I could already see the Central Headquarters of the Alliance towering over the surrounding buildings, three sides of obsidian-coloured glass gleaming under the barely-risen sun, as I manoeuvred my car through the narrow streets of south-east London. No wyverns here. At least, I hoped not. It wouldn’t be out of line with my usual luck. Though getting mired in early-morning traffic was torture enough. With all the technology of the Multiverse at their fingertips, you’d think the Alliance would have come up with a way around that.
    Simon’s profanity-ridden reply came a minute later. He didn’t appreciate the reminder of our memorable encounter with giant swamp rats in the Passages during the Academy’s final-year test two weeks ago. I grinned, recalling Simon’s exasperation when I’d said, “You haven’t lived if you’ve never taken a wrong turn into Cethrax’s swamp.” I’d decided not to mention that it wasn’t a wrong turn—it was just the better alternative to being eaten by the