“What?”
“Noam!”
Noam shoved a stranger out of the way and tugged Dara closer, until they were pressed chest to chest by the seething mob, Dara’s breath hot on Noam’s neck and his hair a tangled mess.
“What is it?”
“We have to run!”
“Wearerunning.”
But Dara pulled back against Noam’s grip on his wrist. When Noam got a proper look at his face this time, it was... changed. Paler than before, if such a thing were even possible.
“No, we have to—into the quarantined zone,” Dara said. “I can... there are people. I can find people. But I’m not going back.”
The mob washed round them like a writhing sea.
“Dara—no. You’re sick.”
“But Lehrer—”
“We’ll figure out what to do about Lehrer later. Right now he’s our best chance at staying alive.”
Noam pulled Dara’s arm again, and this time Dara tipped off-balance, knocking against Noam. He was weak, so weak.
“Quarantined zone,” Dara murmured against Noam’s collarbone, audible only because he was so near. “Go there. I’ll go. Safe. They have a vaccine.”
But he wasn’t fighting Noam’s grip on his waist either. Noam hitched his grasp a little higher, under Dara’s arms, and took an experimental step forward. Dara stumbled along with him.
“Noam,” Dara said. His voice was oddly urgent. Tight, like violin wire.
“It’s okay,” Noam said.
But Dara jerked his arm hard enough that Noam was the one who nearly toppled off-balance this time. Noam looked at him. It was astonishing that Dara was still standing on his own two feet, for all he clung to Noam with both hands.
“I have to go now.”
“Dara, don’t—”
Dara glanced over his shoulder, wild and jumpy as cornered prey. “Listen,” Dara said. “Listen, you have to—listen, now, believe me.”
“No, you listen. You’re sick,” Noam told Dara, clasping his face between both hands so he could hold Dara’s gaze. Dara’s pupils were shot wide. “You don’t know what you’re saying. You can’t go into the quarantined zone—for fuck’s sake, Dara. You’d die there.”
Dara made an agonized noise in the back of his throat, inhuman. His fingers dug into Noam’s arms.
“It’s Lehrer, he, listen—are you? Listening? Noam. Lehrer, he... the virus. Do you understand?”
What the hell was Dara going on about? He was starting to wish Dara had never broken free of Lehrer’s apartment. Yeah, Noam would still be under arrest, but at least Dara would be safe: a steroid drip in his arm, a doctor on call.
“There’s a... they have... vaccine. In the quarantined zone. Understand? Lehrer doesn’t want... he said, told me,witching state.”
Dara twisted his fingers into Noam’s hair and yanked him down again, hard enough Noam had to bite back a yelp of pain. Dara held him there with impossible strength. His eyes were so bright, like something feral, something hungry.
Dara said, “Lehrer did it. The virus. Released it. Himself. On his own people. Infected, to makewitchings.”
The way he said it was... not what Noam expected, somehow. It was low and intense, Dara enunciating every syllable so carefully, like he worried his words would get away from him if he didn’t say them deliberately.
An uneasy wave pitched in Noam’s stomach. “What... Dara, what are you saying?”
