The latch clicked on the door:1, binary code. Entrance approved. An awed Noam trailed after Howard into the next hall, now blind to the people around them. He was too focused on the things they carried.
Cell phones and tablets. Medical implants. Tracking devices. Holoreaders tucked away in padded cases. Now that he was paying attention, they gleamed in Noam’s awareness like beacons, information content washing over him in tiny humming waves. He tried to translate the data, but no luck.
Soon, he told himself in giddy anticipation. After Lehrer, after he knew magic.
Soon, he’d make sure this place had no secrets left.
They went up two flights of stairs and through a new maze of corridors. When they stopped in front of a plain, unmarked door, Noam realized he hadn’t paid the slightest bit of attention to where they were going. And now they stood in front of what must be Lehrer’s office, no sign or security panel in sight.
Howard didn’t knock. She just turned the knob and let them in.
The room was relatively small, for one—no more than half the size of the common room back in the barracks. The best word for it wascozy. The walls were painted deep blue, the furniture upholstered in a soft burgundy fabric that appeared again in the patterning on the worn Persian carpets draping the floor. Everything here seemed at least a hundred years old and well loved, as if the decorator had stubbornly refused to acknowledge the passage of time and trend in favor of staying locked in a familiar microcosm.
And there was no technology whatsoever. Noam’s power just hung there uselessly, somehow a strange sensation, although he’d only learned to notice tech the day before.
“I imagine Minister Lehrer will be along soon enough, so I’ll leave you two be,” Howard said.
Noam frowned, because there was no one else here, but then Howard stepped back out into the hall and pulled the door shut. There was another chair in the far-left corner that had been obscured by Howard’s body and the open door, and someone sat in it.
He was older, seventeen or eighteen, brown skinned with unruly dark hair that fell in tousled curls around a perfectly symmetrical face. He had one leg drawn up onto the seat and an open book perched against his knee, the sleeves of his uniform rolled up to his elbows as if he’d decided to wear his drabs for fashion purposes rather than practical. He looked up over the pages of his book at Noam, a small frown tugging down the corners of his mouth, and Noam realized he was staring. It was hard not to. The boy looked like he belonged in a magazine.
As if he could tell what Noam was thinking, the boy raised an eyebrow.
“Hello,” Noam said, trying to cover awkwardness with false bravado. “I’m Noam. I take it you’re Dara, then?”
“I must be.”
Noam waited for him to keep going, to say whatever else polite people usually said when meeting someone new, but that appeared to be all Dara had in him. He’d already turned his attention back down to his book, disinterested. Fighting a twinge in his stomach that felt suspiciously like embarrassment, Noam cast his gaze around the room. Was he supposed to sit down? How late was Lehrer going to be?
He looked back at Dara, lifting his satchel. “Is there somewhere I ought to put this?”
Dara glanced up. “Hmm? Oh.” He tilted his head toward one of the other armchairs, the one nearest the window. “Right there’s fine.”
“Thanks.” Noam carried the bag over and dumped it on the seat. He hovered there a moment, trying to figure out if it would be rude to go examine the bookshelves. Lehrer had a broad collection, it seemed, everything from glossy new titles to tomes so old the binding had worn away to expose hand-sewn pages.
Noam settled for sitting instead, choosing the chair nearest Dara. He stole a glance at the spine of Dara’s book.Ava.Another Nabokov, just like the one he’d left on the table back at the dorm. Noam seriously doubted that was assigned material. He thought about saying something else,That’s a good book, maybe, to try to draw Dara back into conversation, but that was probably pointless.
This close, barely a foot between their chairs, Noam thought he detected the shadow of a bruise on Dara’s brow, only just obscured by the fall of his hair.
The door opened. Noam’s gaze jerked away from Dara as he leaped to his feet, wondering if he ought to salute. He was glad he didn’t, because Dara hadn’t moved from his spot in the armchair, still looking at his book as if he hadn’t noticed his commanding officer walk in.
Lehrer, for his part, didn’t correct either of them. He smiled when he saw Noam, the door falling shut and cutting off the brief noise that had filtered in through the hall. “Good,” he said. “I see you found the place all right, Mr. Álvaro.”
Noam nodded, the back of his throat dry. Once again, that uniform made Lehrer look far too tall, like he wasn’t built to exist in such small spaces. “Yes, sir.”
Lehrer’s gaze slid away from him to Dara, who was still reading. Then he looked away without saying anything, moving toward the armchair by the window. He made as if to sit, then paused, brows raised. He pointed to the satchel. “Whose things are these?”
“Mine,” Noam said at the same time as Dara said, “His.”
The nape of Noam’s neck burned as he moved to retrieve the bag from the chair—from Lehrer’s chair, Dara had him put his bag inLehrer’schair—unable to look Lehrer in the eye as he retreated back over to his spot in the corner, his hands white knuckled around the satchel’s strap.
Lehrer sat down in that chair, long legs crossed at the knees and his hands folded in his lap. His expression was impassive. “I gather the two of you made acquaintance,” he said. His tone was as dry as dead leaves.
Noam nodded. Dara did nothing.
“Very well. Noam, you’ll just be reading today. I put a book on the table there. Read through chapter four, do all the practice problems, and check them against the answer key. Let me know when you’re done. Dara, you’re with me.”
Noam and Dara both got up, Dara finally abandoning his book in the chair and crossing the room to Lehrer. That left Noam to grab what was on the coffee table:Algebra and Trigonometry, Book 2. He sat on the sofa and tugged the book into his lap, opening up his satchel for a spare pencil.
