by Victoria Lee
He glanced at Noam, who swallowed and nodded once.
“That was a bad idea,” Lehrer said. “You caused building-wide panic. It would have been better to let the alarm keep going.”
No shit. But why was Lehrer going on about that, of all things, when he’d just read what he had? He held evidence of treason in his hands, and he was telling Noam how the crime could’ve been performed better?
Lehrer shut off the holoreader and passed it back to Noam, who gripped it so hard his hands cramped. He was never letting this computer out of his sight again, not without destroying the cell drive beyond recognition, and Lehrer and his order not to use technopathy could both go fuck themselves.
“I can’t cover for you like this again,” Lehrer said. “You’re going to have to do a better job hiding yourself in the future.”
“I—what?”
Lehrer picked up a cup of tea from an end table. The drink had been cold a moment before, but by the time he lifted it to his lips, it was steaming hot. Lehrer took a sip, then smiled, as if amused.
“I really don’t care that you broke into the government complex,” Lehrer went on, swirling the tea round in his cup. “But really, Noam, a cadet’s uniform? You couldn’t be bothered to change into your civvies?”
Noam flushed. The truth was, the only “civvies” he had were the ones he wore back from the hospital—and after three months, they’d fallen apart.
His mind was muddled with new information, blown expectations whirling like watercolors.
“I didn’t have anything better, sir.”
Lehrer gave him a faintly incredulous look. “Improvise.”
The way he said it made Noam want to shrivel up with embarrassment. “Yes, sir.”
“Then,” Lehrer said, completely unmoved by Noam’s anxiety, “there’s the matter of your digital trespassing.”
Anger resurfaced like a monster from the deep, surging up into the shallows of Noam’s mind and subsuming the anxiety of a moment before.
“You read that email,” Noam burst out. “You heard what he said. Sacha’s evil, sir. He’s crazy, or he’s stupid, or—people die in those refugee camps. They’re overcrowded, and people get sick, and they never come back. And we all know Atlantia’s a death trap.”
“I did read the email,” Lehrer confirmed. He sat down in his usual chair, perching an elbow on the armrest and cupping his tea between both hands. “And I agree with you, Noam. Sacha’s behavior is reprehensible.”
“But you aren’t going to do anything about it.” Noam’s voice hurt, like broken glass in his throat. “That makes you just as bad as he is.”
Lehrer’s oddly transparent eyes did not blink. “I wouldn’t say I’m doing nothing.”
The words hung in the air between them. They grew there, transformed, spread long limbs into the empty corners and twined around Noam’s heart.
“What, then?” he said, when he couldn’t stand the silence anymore. “What are you doing? Because as far as I can see, you’re full of sympathy and promises but not much else.” The last word cracked on its way out, Noam’s chest seizing painfully.
Lehrer put down his tea and leaned forward, bracing his forearms against his knees and clasping his hands between them. The smile was gone.
“Listen to me, Noam,” Lehrer said. “This has happened before. My grandparents were so-called foreigners in their own land. Their German countrymen locked them away in prison camps for the crime of being Jews. And then, in the 2000s, the United States rounded up all witchings and their families and had them killed, allegedly for the safety of the uninfected. I survived not because I was spared, but because I was powerful enough to be studied before I was killed. What Sacha is trying to do now is no different. He’s afraid of the virus, but fear is just as infectious. This country is paralyzed by it. Sacha believes he is protecting the people from disease by taking a hard line on immigration, but he is wrong.”
Lehrer said the last part so forcefully that Noam felt it like a blow to the gut. Something shattered on the other side of the room; Noam leaped to his feet before he could stop himself.
The decanter had fallen off the table, heavy crystal in pieces all over the floor and scotch dripping onto the rug.
“My apologies,” Lehrer said. “I forget myself.”
The decanter repaired itself before Noam’s eyes, and the spilled liquor vanished.
Slowly, slowly, Noam sat down.
His heart still raced.
“I didn’t know,” Noam said, when he could talk without the words coming out raw and bloody. “About your family, that is. I didn’t . . .” But then something else occurred to him, and he said, “You’re Jewish?”
Lehrer lifted a brow. “Do they leave that part out of the history books?” he said, and Noam laughed, surprising himself.
“No, it’s not that. But. My mom is—was. Jewish. I’m Jewish.”
A moment ago Noam had been so—he’d been furious, and he wished he could go back to that feeling, because it felt wrong to just move on after what he’d read in Holloway’s office, but right now his mind had short-circuited on this one fact, this tiny common thread tied between him and Lehrer. He wanted to weave that thread into a ribbon, a rope. He grinned, and after a moment, Lehrer smiled back. It was a small smile, a quiet smile, but worth so much more for that.
Lehrer’s grandparents had survived the Holocaust—had survived a genocide that shipped millions of Jews and other undesirables off to camps to be brutally, efficiently exterminated—only to die sixty-some years later. This time at the ends of a different nation’s guns, killed not for being Jewish but for daring to have magic. For having children who had magic. Noam couldn’t fathom trauma like that.
But he couldn’t forget what he’d read today either.
The same magic that gave Lehrer his power would kill the population of an entire country if Sacha forced Atlantians back down south.
“What can we do?” Noam said. He kept his voice low; no one was there to overhear, but speaking the words felt dangerous. “About Sacha. You’ve tried to talk him out of it. But you have to do more than that.”
Lehrer took in a shallow, audible breath. “These things are . . . complicated. Right now, you will just have to believe me when I tell you I haven’t forgotten the refugees. I am on your side, Noam—I promise you that much.”
A politician’s answer. Noam wasn’t sure what else he expected.
But then Lehrer’s expression softened further. He reached over to place a hand on Noam’s wrist, fingertips pressing in against the pulse point.
A strange bird fluttered its wings against the cage of Noam’s ribs.
“I won’t ask you to stop fighting,” Lehrer said, very quietly. “I would never ask you that.”
I’ll never stop, Noam thought, but thinking wasn’t speaking. So at last, he made himself nod, and Lehrer—who seemed to have been waiting for just that—squeezed his wrist and drew away.
“Can I keep the emails?”
“I don’t see why not.”
Noam blinked. “Wait. Seriously?”
Lehrer leaned back in his chair and reached for his tea. “I meant what I said, didn’t I?” His voice was dry, but his lips, when they touched his cup, curved up.
“I would’ve thought you’d tell me it was illegally obtained evidence or something.”
“Ah, yes. Your record. Twelve months in juvenile detention for criminal trespass.” His eyes, as they met Noam’s over the rim of his teacup, glittered too bright. “I should have known you’d recidivate.”
It took Noam a second to realize Lehrer was joking.
When he did, though, relief poured like ice water through his veins. Lehrer, joking—the idea was almost obscene, and yet . . .
“They caught me plugged in to the server room at the immigration office,” Noam admitted. “Totally red-handed.”
“Well then, I’m thrilled to be working alongside such a criminal prodigy,” Lehrer said dryly.
It f
elt like a wall crumbling between them. Like Noam was seeing the real Lehrer for the first time, behind the mask and uniform of defense minister. Like Lehrer could still be the boy who loved his parents and went to shul on Fridays, who probably hated charoset and read novels when he was supposed to be praying.
A boy a lot like Noam, maybe.
Lehrer helped him pack his things back into his satchel, Lehrer’s magic floating the notebooks in alongside Noam’s holoreader. He offered Noam tea, and Noam declined, still queasy from before. Then Lehrer escorted him to the front door with a hand placed between his shoulder blades. A small gesture, but it knotted warm in Noam’s chest.
“One more thing,” Lehrer said, standing there with fingers poised above the knob. “Be careful with Mr. Shirazi, Noam. Don’t share this conversation with him. He may be clever and charming, but he’s . . . troubled. I don’t say this as a slight against him, of course; I raised him like my own son. But he will not see things our way. Do you understand?”
No shit. Dara hadn’t been checking his social media accounts on the MoD servers, after all.
Did Lehrer know Dara was working against him? If so, why hadn’t Lehrer stopped him? Noam couldn’t believe Lehrer was oblivious.
But if Dara was against Lehrer, and Lehrer was willing to let Noam hold on to sensitive information that could unravel Sacha’s government . . .
Was Lehrer against Sacha?
If so, did that mean Dara wasn’t?
It was too much to try to hold on to, too many threads tangling worse the more he tried to unravel them.
So Noam just nodded.
Lehrer looked relieved. He opened the door.
“Good. Then I’ll see you Monday, at our regular time. Do try not to damage any more government property on your way out, will you?”
He hadn’t called for Howard to escort Noam from the study back to the training wing. Impossible not to take note of that, after what Lehrer had just told him. Even so, Noam didn’t take any detours—just went straight to the barracks before the others could return from class, where he set himself up in the common room with his books, like he’d been there all along.
Dara didn’t get back until late. He let himself into the barracks sometime around eleven. He’d taken the fake lieutenant stripes off his uniform. Such a small thing, but without them Dara looked younger, a quiet shadow with a lowered gaze.
“Hey,” Noam said, moving his textbook off his lap and onto the end table. Dara glanced up, their eyes meeting across the common room. “Are you all right? What happened?”
Dara turned the latch. “I’m fine. Lehrer was angry, but I expected that.”
“Does he know you . . .”
But when Dara looked at him again, the question died in Noam’s throat. Instead he shoved the other books and papers off the sofa, tapped the cushion. He was a little surprised when Dara took the invitation and settled himself down on the other end of the sofa. He drew his legs up onto the seat, like he was trying to make himself small.
“You didn’t have to lie for me,” Dara said.
“You didn’t have to drop your illusion to help me escape.”
Dara glanced at Noam out of the corner of his eye, a tiny smile flickering across his face. “You’re cleverer than I thought.”
“Not like that was a high bar to begin with,” Noam said, but Dara shook his head.
“I knew you were smart. That’s not the same thing as liking you.”
“And why don’t you?” Noam asked before he could stop himself. Dara arched a brow, but Noam barreled on regardless. “What did I ever do to you?”
Dara twisted around, draping one arm along the back of the sofa and tilting his head against his own shoulder. “I don’t like naïveté, I suppose.”
“You really think I’m naive?”
“You trust Lehrer.”
Noam fought not to roll his eyes. “He hasn’t given me any reason not to. I’m sure you know more than I do, considering he raised you or whatever, but I have to make my own opinions about people. That’s not naïveté. That’s critical thinking.”
Dara laughed, but it wasn’t cruel. He looked otherworldly like this, watching Noam with steady black eyes and messy hair falling into his face. “Something tells me critical thinking isn’t your strong suit, Álvaro.”
“I suppose not, if you equate being cynical with being logical.”
“Mmm.” Dara closed his eyes, and for a moment Noam thought he was going to go to sleep right here in the common room, with his fingertips so nearly brushing Noam’s arm. When he opened his eyes again, they were half-lidded, lashes low and dark. “What did Lehrer tell you?”
“He said you were troubled and that I should stay away from you.”
“I bet he did.” Dara’s smile was bladed. He had Noam captured there as thoroughly as if he’d tied him down, because Noam couldn’t imagine moving when Dara was looking at him like that. He was sure that if he did, he wouldn’t escape unscathed. “And since you’re such a rebel now, do you plan on obeying?”
“It’s like I told you. I make my own opinions.”
Noam didn’t flinch, and when Dara exhaled, Noam felt the gust of air against his own brow.
“Look at that,” Dara murmured. “Noam Álvaro, interesting after all.”
“Don’t think I’ve forgotten you were there, too, Shirazi,” Noam said and refused to break Dara’s gaze—not even when it sharpened. “Feel like offering some kind of explanation?”
“Not tonight,” Dara said. He closed his eyes again, and when Dara wasn’t glaring, it was easier to see how unwell he looked—too thin, exhausted, like he hadn’t slept in days.
Noam chewed the inside of his cheek. He couldn’t just let this go, no matter how pathetic Dara looked. He had to know what Dara was up to, whether it was going to cause problems for Noam’s own plans.
But perhaps it could wait. At least until tomorrow.
Dara unfolded himself from the sofa, rising to his feet. Noam was still frozen in place, watching him move.
“I’m going to take a shower,” Dara said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I expect.”
It felt like a question. Noam nodded.
“Good.”
Dara left, and Noam—Noam was drawn up on tenterhooks, poised on edge until he heard the bedroom door shut behind Dara, and the spell broke.
He still stayed away from the bedroom for another hour, staring at his books, until he was sure Dara was asleep.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Noam kept expecting Lehrer to change his mind. But no men in antiwitching armor showed up at midnight to demand Noam hand over his flopcell. No MoD soldiers reached for him as he left the government complex that morning and dragged him back behind bars. He stepped out into the snowy December streets with treason burning a hole in his pocket, and Lehrer just let him.
Lehrer was playing some kind of game; that much was clear. He’d all but admitted it that night in the courtyard when Noam first joined Level IV—and again, when he taught Noam magnetism.
But what were Lehrer’s plans for Noam?
If Lehrer was manipulating him, then Noam was really screwed. He had no idea how the hell he was supposed to outwit the smartest man alive.
True to promise, Noam was allowed to keep his job at the convenience store, which had been spared the firebomb postoutbreak by a scant four hundred yards and opened back up again last week. If anything, Larry, the owner, was desperate for staff since half his people died in fever, and though he must’ve known that Noam survived the virus—that Noam was a witching now—he didn’t ask too many questions.
Noam was dying to go straight to Brennan and hand over the data and watch the look on Brennan’s face transform from disgust to delight. Would have, if not for the early shift. He might not have his dad to support anymore, but going to work felt more important than ever. Another way to prove Noam wasn’t one of those government soldiers, not really, that his blood still belonged to the west side. To Atlantia.
Level IV covered taxi fare, but Noam took the bus. He liked that better: sitting on a hard plastic seat next to someone’s grandmother holding that week’s groceries in her lap, the kid in the back blasting music from his phone, the man in a secondhand suit on his way to a job interview. He tipped his head toward the window and watched the familiar buildings slide past. Still his city, even with an empty scar where Ninth used to be. Still his, even if—had he come here wearing his cadet uniform instead of the ill-fitting civvies Howard gave him—his city wouldn’t want him anymore.
The thought stuck in his chest like a swallowed chicken bone, scratching against the inside of his sternum the rest of the way across town.
Noam sat behind the counter at his corner-store job and rubbed his thumb against the flopcell’s outer shell. He found he could actually read the data off it without a computer, just like this. He went over that email so many times he memorized it, every dirty word.
What next? That was the question he kept coming back to. Lehrer wouldn’t intervene—he had some mysterious unspecified plan—but that meant it was up to Noam to change things in Carolinia.
This was a start. Atlantians had no voice in government, but Noam could be their ears.
So Noam went straight to the Migrant Center when he got off work.
“He’s not here,” Linda said when he asked to see Brennan, which was an obvious lie—but at least she didn’t try to stop him when he shouldered into the building anyway, heading down the narrow hall to the back rooms.
“Hi,” Noam said when he pushed open Brennan’s door.
Brennan, at his desk, jerked his head up too quickly to disguise the flicker of guilt that passed over his face. Only then his expression twisted toward anger instead.
“I told you—”
“Yeah, I remember. But you’re gonna want to see this.”
Noam plunked himself down in the chair opposite Brennan’s and slid the flopcell across the desk.
“What’s this?”
“Stick it in your computer and find out.”
Brennan’s eyes narrowed. “Is it malware?”
Noam glared at him, just long enough for Brennan to sigh and take the flopcell.