“Lehrer... causes, he causes them. The outbreaks.”
Fevermadness. Wasn’t it?
“He’s a—telepath. Noam. Reads your mind.” Dara gestured violently toward his own temple. He was talking faster now, all of it pouring out of him at once. His cheeks glowed with fever. “Learned it. But only if—only if he—knows you, or something... I don’t.Listen to me.He’ll kill me. He, already, he...” Dara’s voice cracked.
“It’s okay,” Noam said, but he wasn’t sure he even believed that anymore. His voice sounded like it was coming from very far away, blood moving too fast beneath his skin. Where was Lehrer now? How close? Noam imagined the glittering threads of Lehrer’s magic twining through his every thought, tightening in a hundred impossible knots.
“No, no, now youlisten—you—thiswhole time. The bruises—it was Lehrer. Not Gordon. Lehrer. He—I was fourteen, Noam! I was... but he... and I couldn’ttellanyone because, god, didn’t even need his power!” Dara laughed, a mad sound, and he wasn’t touching Noam anymore, had both hands pressed up against his own skull. “No onebelievedme.”
Those words caught between them, butterflies pinned on velvet. There, where Noam had no choice but to look at them. Toreallylook, to see—
All this time. All of it. Everyone Noam knew had burned up in fever because of Lehrer. This whole damn country. And Dara, clutching that secret, afraid to tell Noam in case Lehrer could read his mind andknow. Dara’s hatred, which had never been hate at all.
It had been fear.
Oh god.
Noam had trusted him. Noam had trusted this man, the same one who had murdered all those millions of people. Noam’s own father.
There were words for what Lehrer did to Dara too.
Noam’s stomach knotted in on itself. Dara was still laughing bizarrely. Or maybe he was crying.
Noam made the decision between one half-choked breath and the next. He reached for Dara, hand faltering in the moment before it touched Dara’s arm—all those times Dara flinched away—before he pressed just the tips of his fingers against flesh. Dara didn’t look like he was breathing, shoulders quivering with the effort of holding in his air.
“I...” The word broke as it fell out of Noam’s lips.
The next ones, still in his mouth, were as jagged as shattered glass. He didn’t want to think about it—didn’t want it to be true, but Dara was here, right now, looking at him like Noam had plunged his hand into Dara’s chest, past ribs and muscle and sinew to close his fingers around Dara’s still-beating heart.
“I believe you, Dara.”
Dara made a strange, animalistic sound. “I tried to tell you.”
“I know. I...” What could he even say? There was nothing that would make this better. Nothing to undo what Lehrer had done: to his own people, his ownchild.
And if they didn’t leave now, Lehrer would be the one who found them here. He’d lock Dara up again, and it would be Noam’s fault for being so damn naive.
“I’m so sorry, Dara.” And that was grotesquely insufficient, of course. Noam felt sick with himself for it. “But you’re right, we have to—we need to go. Now, before Lehrer manages to quell the riot.”
“The... QZ?” Dara’s voice was only slightly unsteady.
Noam still hated the idea. If Dara really was fevermad, how could he survive out there, with magic in the soil and water and air? Only—only Lehrer could have lied about that too. He could have made Dara sick somehow, called him fevermad just to make sure Noam would never believe anything Dara told him—
“Yeah,” Noam said. “Yeah. If we can get past the barricade, if we move fast...”
Dara clenched his jaw, a muscle visibly tensing in his cheek, and nodded.
Lehrer’d had men on the street ever since Sacha’s martial law order—Sacha hadn’t seen the coup coming. The barricades must be Lehrer’s men. But that meant Dara’s name would be twice as useful, just so long as no one tried calling it in.
Then again, if Lehrer was listening to Noam’s thoughts right now, they were fucked either way.
Noam tried to keep Dara close as they started pushing toward the barricade. The crowds were crammed in so close Noam had to turn sideways to press between them—but they made it.
The barricade was just barbed wire, roll upon roll of it stacked chest high over a metal blockade. Still, few seemed willing to go within five feet of it. Those who did were quickly shocked back by the soldiers’ magic.
Soldiers wearing blue ribbons.
Noam broke free of the mob and dashed toward the barricade, half dragging Dara in tow. He didn’t dare let go of Dara, just held his free arm up in the air: surrender. He knew what they looked like: two kids in civvies running out of a riot and right at the barricade. The soldiers on the other hand: monolithic, well armed, glaring with flat eyes, resentment setting their jaws. And Noam might pass for white, but Dara sure as hell didn’t, which, yeah.We’re gonna get shot.
