Midnight

  Unless he did something about it.

  His stomach in knots, Omen went over what he was going to say once more in his head. He’d practised this conversation again and again, planning for all possible contingencies. A part of him wondered about the grade he would have got in the test if he’d devoted as much time to it as he had to rehearsing how he’d ask out Axelia Lukt, but he easily swatted such thoughts from his mind. He had more important things to worry about.

  Axelia sat in the common room, chatting and laughing with her friends. She was so nice, so smart, so pretty, and she had the loveliest accent and the happiest laugh Omen had ever heard. He could have listened to her laugh all day, as weird as that would have been.

  Omen stood up, took a deep breath, and walked over.

  He bumped into October Klein and mumbled an apology, turned round and went back to his corner.

  He took another deep breath, and another. And another. He went light-headed, and collapsed back into his chair.

  When he felt certain he wasn’t going to faint or fall over, he got back to his feet. Focusing on breathing normally, he made his way across the common room without bumping into anyone, and was about to open his mouth when a firm hand gripped his elbow and steered him away.

  “Hey,” said Auger, all smiles today. “How’d you get on in the test?”

  “Um,” said Omen.

  Auger nodded and then, in that casual tone he always used when he was hiding something, said, “That’s cool, that’s cool. Hey, have you seen Mahala around?”

  “I saw her right before breakfast,” said Omen. “Everything all right?”

  Auger’s voice dipped. “Yeah, yeah, just, when you saw her, did you notice anything different about her? Anything unusual?”

  “Like what?”

  Auger shrugged. “Like was she acting any different? Was she talking any different? Did she have glowing green eyes? Did she appear confused …?”

  “It’s funny,” said Omen, “out of everything you just said, it was the glowing green eyes thing that stood out.”

  “She’s, kind of, slightly possessed right now,” Auger said. “If you see her again, let me know. Stay away from her, but let me know.”

  “You need any help? I could help.”

  “No, really, it’s fine. I’ve got Kase. We’ll sort it out. If it gets too much for us, though, I promise I’ll give you the nod.”

  “Sure,” said Omen. “That sounds good.”

  “Anyway, sorry for interrupting. You looked like you were talking with Axelia.” He steered Omen back, depositing him in front of the most beautiful girl in the school and her friends.

  “Hey, girls,” he said.

  “Hi, Auger,” they chorused.

  Auger nodded to Omen, and walked quickly away, and Omen froze.

  Axelia looked at him and smiled. “Hi, Omen.”

  “Hi,” he said. His mouth was suddenly so ridiculously dry. “Could I talk to you for a moment?” he managed to say. “Maybe go for a short walk?”

  Axelia’s friends widened their eyes, like Omen had just dumped a dead bird at their feet, but Axelia had the grace to keep her smile.

  “Sure,” she said.

  Omen smiled back and they walked out of the room side by side. This was good. She hadn’t yet said the word no, and neither had she laughed at him. If he could keep that going, he was in with a chance.

  “What do you think of all those refugees?” she asked as they walked.

  “Yeah,” Omen said. “Aw, it’s really … It really makes you think, doesn’t it? Like, who … who are they?”

  “Um, we know who they are.”

  “Well, yes, but what I’m asking is … uh …”

  “You haven’t heard about them, have you?”

  “I’m not really sure what you’re talking about, no.”

  Her beautiful blue eyes widened a little in surprise. “You didn’t hear about the portal that opened up yesterday, right outside the city walls? It’s literally just over the west wall, Omen. It’s been on the Network all day. It’s all anyone is talking about.”

  “A portal to where?”

  “To the dimension where Mevolent still rules.”

  “Seriously?”

  “How have you missed this?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “We spent all of last class talking about it. You were there.”

  “I was daydreaming. And there are people coming through?”

  “Thousands of them, all mortals.”

  “Do we know why?”

  “They’re slaves over there. Wouldn’t you want to get away from that if you could? I mean, it’s Mevolent.”

  Omen nodded. “He’s pretty bad, all right. Do you think he’ll come after them?”

  Axelia hugged herself. “I don’t want to think about that. We got rid of our Mevolent – we shouldn’t have to deal with someone else’s. Anyway, that’s all I know. You really should start paying attention in class, Omen. Especially after the result you got in the test.”

  “You, um, you know about that?”

  “I sit behind you. I saw your mark. Sorry.”

  “But I’m not the only one who failed, right? Like, there were a few of us. That was a hard test.”

  “Was it?”

  “Not for you, maybe, because you’re really smart and stuff. But for us ordinary people it was hard.”

  “I’m not that smart.”

  “Yes, you are,” Omen said. “You’re dead brainy.”

  She laughed. “What did you want to talk about, Omen?”

  They stopped walking. There was no one around. It was all suddenly very still and very quiet. Omen nodded again. He was aware of how much he was nodding. It was a lot.

  “Well,” he said, trying his best to keep his head still, “in the last few months, um, I’m really glad about how we’ve become friends. You know, with our little jokes and things.”

  Axelia’s brow furrowed a smidge. “We have little jokes?”

  “Yes. Don’t we? The little jokes? The little …” his mouth was dry again, “jokes? That we have. You don’t notice them?”

  “I’m afraid not, Omen.”

  His laugh sounded panicked. “That’s OK. It’s not important. Basically, what I wanted to say was: we’re friends. Aren’t we?”

  “Of course.”

  “And that’s so good,” he said, both hands covering his heart. “It’s so good to have friends. Real friends, you know? And I, I think you’re great. I think you’re funny, and smart, and, like, so cool.”

  “Aww, thank you.”

  “You’re way cooler than me.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You so are.”

  “You’re cool, too.”

  “Well, I’m not, but thank you for saying so.” He laughed, and so did she. This was going well. Omen felt the time was right for the part he’d rehearsed in the mirror. “I’m really glad you’re my friend – that means so much to me, you have no idea. And I don’t want to ruin that, I really don’t, and what I’m about to say … well, it’s risky. But I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least try.”

  Axelia nodded. “OK.”

  “You’re probably going to say no,” he said, veering away from his script. “And that’s fine. Saying no is absolutely fine. It’s expected, actually. I’d be, to be honest, I’d be stunned if you said, you know … yes. So I realise that that’s not going to happen. So please, please don’t feel bad. The last thing I want is to make you feel bad.”

  “Thank you, Omen.”

  He laughed, even as the pit in his stomach opened wider. “No problem,” he said. “But, again, I have to, you know, at least try.”

  “Of course.”

  “So … um … The thing I was wondering was maybe, and, not expecting a yes to this at all, in the slightest, but the thing I was wondering was maybe you would, um, like to, you know …”

  “Yes.”

  His heart burst into fireworks in his ches
t. “Yes?” he repeated, laughing. “Really?”

  Axelia reached out, touched his arm, a look of grave concern on her face. “What? No, I was just … I said ‘yes?’”

  His laughter died instantly. “Right.”

  “I didn’t say ‘yes’,” she said, “I said ‘yes?’, you know? Although it may have come out as ‘yes’, without the question mark after it. I’m sorry, Omen, English is not my first language.”

  “You’re really good at it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You know so many words.”

  “I interrupted you,” she said. “I’m sorry. Please say what you need to say.”

  Omen chewed his lip and nodded. “Uh-huh,” he said. “Right. Uh … I think we both know how it’s going to go, though, don’t we? I think we … I think we do.”

  “Probably,” Axelia said. “We could stop, if you like?”

  Omen nodded, doing his best to consider it even though his brain appeared to be broken. Then he shook his head. “Actually, I feel I have to try. If I don’t at least say the words, then … then it’ll be hanging over me. Are you OK with that?”

  “Of course. Go ahead.”

  He forced a laugh. “Hey, Axelia, will you go out with me?”

  “No,” she said sadly.

  His world crashed down and he said, “Yeah.”

  “I do like you,” she said, “and I don’t want to say ‘as a friend’, but …”

  “As a friend,” Omen said, and nodded again. “That’s fine. I expected it, I really did. I hope this doesn’t make things weird between us. Does it?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Because it means a lot to me that we’re friends.”

  “I know. It means a lot to me, too.”

  “Well, um … I suppose I’ll see you around.”

  “I suppose so.” Axelia smiled, gave his arm a squeeze, and walked away. Omen went round the corner, sat on a bench and was sad.

  5

  They came through, three abreast, the adults laden down with bulging bags and the children clutching raggedy dolls and carved wooden animals. Their footsteps were heavy, their shoulders stooped, their spines curved with exhaustion.

  They weren’t too tired to look scared, however. Their eyes flickered over everything, trying to spot the differences between this reality and theirs, but avoided the gaze of Valkyrie or anyone who stood watching. This was a battered people. All they wanted was to stop walking, to lay down their packs, to get some sense of a journey completed, but that wasn’t about to happen just yet. As they came through the portal, the doorway sliced from their universe to this one, they were directed to follow a trail of flags to the makeshift town of tents that had sprung up along the outside of Roarhaven’s west wall. Shrinking away from the grey-suited Cleavers on either side, the mortals trudged onwards in a broad, unbroken line.

  “Thirteen thousand in thirty-six hours,” Skulduggery said.

  “What are we going to do with them?” Valkyrie asked. “China wouldn’t send them back to their own reality, would she? We send them back and Mevolent’s army will either execute them or use them as slaves. Maybe they could stay in Roarhaven. There are plenty of uninhabited districts. Loads of empty houses.”

  “Roarhaven is a city for sorcerers,” Skulduggery said. “I don’t know how welcoming its citizens would be to mortal families moving in beside them.”

  “What’s wrong with them moving in? We’re supposed to live in peace, aren’t we? That’s why Sanctuaries exist.”

  “Roarhaven has a Sanctuary,” Skulduggery pointed out. “It isn’t itself a Sanctuary.”

  “I don’t think we have a choice,” she said. “It’s not like we can send them to live in Dublin or London or anything. They’re mortals, but they’re not like our mortals. They’ve lived their entire lives in a reality ruled by sorcerers.”

  Skulduggery nodded. “It would definitely require a period of adjustment.”

  “I think China’s going to do the right thing. She knows she has to set an example as the Supreme Mage, so I reckon she’ll hand over all those empty houses to these nice people from Dimension X.”

  “That’s not what it’s called.”

  “We can’t call it the Leibniz Universe. It’s boring, and nobody knows who Leibniz is.”

  “He was a German philosopher and physicist back in the late seventeenth—”

  “Exactly,” said Valkyrie. “No one’s ever heard of him. And I think I should be the one to name it because I’m the one who discovered it.”

  “You didn’t discover it.”

  “Well, OK, maybe not discovered it, but I found it.”

  “It wasn’t lost, Valkyrie. It had billions of people living in it.”

  “And I found them, too.”

  He shook his head. “Silas Nadir shunted you over there. By your rationale, he should be the one naming it.”

  “He’s a serial killer. He’d pick a stupid name.”

  Temper Fray walked through the portal, saw Skulduggery and Valkyrie and immediately started over. One of the Cleavers moved to block his way, but he flashed his City Guard badge and the Cleaver backed down.

  “What did you find out?” Skulduggery asked.

  Temper frowned. “No hug?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” said Skulduggery. “Valkyrie, hug him.”

  “I’m hugging him with my mind.”

  “You two are weird,” Temper said. “It’s telling that I get back from a twelve-hour trip to an alternate dimension and you two are the strangest things I’ve seen all morning. How was your little jaunt to the mountains, by the way? Meet anyone interesting? And by interesting I mean anyone tall, green and ugly?”

  “Not quite so tall or so green any more,” Valkyrie said, “but Nye is still as ugly as I remember. We chatted, yes. We have a lead, a man named Quidnunc.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Neither have we,” Skulduggery said. “We’re hoping once we get to him, he’ll lead us to Abyssinia and then we’ll be able to stop her from doing whatever it is she’s planning on doing.”

  “You still haven’t found out what that is, huh?”

  “Not even close,” Skulduggery said, “but I’ve known her a long time, and, whatever her master plan is, it will not be good news for the rest of us.”

  Temper frowned, and looked at Valkyrie. “Is he downplaying it?”

  “I think he’s downplaying it.”

  Temper nodded. “There’s definitely some downplaying going on. Come on, Skulduggery – you had a thing with her. There’s no need to be embarrassed.”

  “I’m not embarrassed.”

  “She’s a very good-looking lady – you know, once she grew her body back and all. I’ve always found that ex-girlfriends with bodies are better than ex-girlfriends who are just internal organs locked away in a box somewhere. But I’m old-fashioned like that.”

  Skulduggery sighed. “Can we stop talking about this?”

  “We can,” Temper said, “once you accept that there is no shame in dating a murderous psychic who sucks the life out of people. No shame at all.”

  “Thank you, Temper.”

  “There’s a bit of shame in losing her to someone like Lord Vile, though. I mean, that dude was evil.”

  “Are you finished?”

  Temper grinned. “Not even close. But for right now? Yeah, I’m finished.”

  “Thank you,” said Skulduggery. “We just got back into the country a few hours ago and we were going to follow up on this Quidnunc person, but decided to take a little detour here instead. Correct me if I’m wrong, Temper, but this portal wasn’t here when we left, was it?”

  “It was not,” Temper said, and clapped his hands. “OK then, first things first: that is one messed-up reality they have back there. Seriously. Why anyone would venture into it, I have no idea.”

  “You ventured,” Valkyrie said.

  “I’m a City Guard now – I have my orders.”

  “I heard you vol
unteered.”

  “It’s a portal to another dimension,” Temper said. “What, am I not gonna go through? Anyway, there are thousands of people lining up on the other side of that thing. More coming every hour. With anyone else, I’d be expecting a stampede, but these folks are just so beaten down I doubt they could muster the energy to panic.”

  “Did you see any of Mevolent’s men?” Skulduggery asked.

  Temper shook his head. “Not a one.”

  “We were told there’s a device that’s sustaining the portal. Is that true?”

  Temper scratched his jaw. “Never seen anything like it. It’s a metal box, roughly the size of a car battery, with all these sigils carved into it. I don’t know if the device did it all, or if a Shunter opened the rift and this device is just keeping it open. I don’t know how it works, and no one knows how to shut it down, but then I guess the sorcerers in the Leibniz Universe have gadgets we don’t understand yet.”

  “We’re calling it Dimension X now,” Valkyrie told him.

  “No, we’re not,” Skulduggery said quickly. “Have you spoken to the people? Have they said anything about the Resistance?”

  “They won’t talk to me,” Temper answered. “You’ve got to understand, these folks are almost as afraid of the Resistance as they are of Mevolent’s army. To them, all sorcerers are super-powered psychopaths who topple buildings on to innocent mortals.”

  “Then hopefully we can show them a new, warmer kind of sorcerer,” Skulduggery said, as a child dropped her doll. He stepped forward, using the air to lift the doll into his hand, and presented it to the little girl. She looked up at him and screamed, and her parents pulled her away.

  “Sometimes I forget that being a skeleton is unusual,” Skulduggery murmured. He tossed the doll to the girl’s father and returned to Valkyrie’s side. “Do you have any idea what the best course of action might be?” he asked Temper.

  “For me, the best course of action is a shower and bed,” Temper answered. “For the situation, I’d send a squadron of Cleavers through to make sure the mortals are protected while they wait. I heard stories of bandits closing in.”