Free Collision: The Alliance Series Book Three by Emma L. Adams

anyway?”
    “Unstable means it’s barely hanging onto a connection with the Alliance,” I said. “The level above that is ‘dangerous’.”
    “Like Enzar,” she said.
    “Yeah.”
    A wave of noise hit us before we reached the entrance hall. Crowds swarmed in, and a large number of people headed in the direction of the Complaints Division. Most didn’t look like they worked here, given the high number of offworlders amongst them. Central must have opened to public complaints now. Someone was going to have their work cut out. At least we were going to do something useful, rather than answering queries or rounding up escaped unicorns. We skirted around the crowd to the doors.
    “I’ve never heard of Vey-Xanetha,” said Ada. “But Door 11… I think I’ve seen it before.” From the flash of guilt in her expression, I guessed she’d been near that door when using the Passages illegally before she’d joined the Alliance.
    “I think I’ve heard the name,” said Iriel, “but I didn’t know anything about them until today.”
    “Me neither,” said Raj. “But I can’t pretend I know every non-Alliance world.”
    “Nor me,” I admitted. They must have worked hard to keep themselves secret from the Alliance. “Living deities?”
    “Forces of nature, according to the file,” said Iriel. “I’ve heard of that kind of thing happening when magic and nature mix. Seems like a recipe for disaster if I ever saw one.”
    “Magic usually is,” I said.
    ***
    Vey-Xanetha had definitely done a good job hiding their door in the most labyrinthine part of the Passages, and if not for my knowing every inch of the place, we’d have been lost for longer. The door itself was at the back of a dead-ending corridor near one of the staircases to the second floor.
    “About bloody time!” said Ada, as I pushed the door open. Before she followed, her gaze darted to a corner, where a faint shimmer showed a hidden stair to the lower levels. One of the routes to the hidden Passage she used to take, probably. Now the Alliance knew the Passage’s location, we didn’t use it anymore, but they hadn’t closed it, for some reason. I supposed it might work in their favour to have an extra doorway into London.
    “Yeah,” I said, deciding not to bring that up in front of the others. “Okay. Someone’s meeting us on the other side.” The door opened onto the side of a mountain, on a steep path barely a metre wide. I stepped out carefully, testing the ground first. The path wrapped around the cliff with no railing between us and a steep drop. Below lay a forest, masked by low-hanging white clouds. The sky above gleamed purplish-red, which was usually a sign of the level of magic in the atmosphere. This mountain was part of the range dividing the one continent on Vey-Xanetha. It was one large landmass, apparently, the one place all the inhabitants had migrated to after leaving their old world. We did have a map logged into our communicators, but it was most likely out of date. Still, they’d have up-to-date information at the base.
    I sensed the magic here, like on Aglaia–subtle, right now, which didn’t fit in right with the description Ms Weston had given us of this being a high-magic, unstable world. Maybe the levels fluctuated. I’d be on guard, anyway. I didn’t trust magic as far as I could throw it–and I sure as hell wouldn’t be doing that here. Magic shots weren’t illegal, actually, even third level, but that meant encountering magic-wielders here might put us in a world of trouble.
    The base itself sat higher up the mountain; they’d built it next to the one Passage entrance. The others groaned when they saw we’d have to climb a steep stone staircase cut into the mountain itself.
    “What,” said Raj, “is the point in using Passages for convenience if we have to climb a bloody mountain?”
    “Could be worse,” I said, indicating the forest. “We might have ended up down there in the jungle.”
    The