Noam felt like they were talking about two totally different people. Dara being an asshole was unsurprising. Dara losing his grip on that perfect self-control for even a second, on the other hand, struck Noam as less characteristic.
Ames and Taye departed for their separate bedrooms, leaving Noam in the common room still clutching his math book. Any hope of sleeping tonight had evaporated; Noam got up and made himself coffee instead of following Taye to bed. No point in wishing he’d gone to Raleigh, too, when he could barely summon an electric charge. Better to focus on p-sets. Better not to be such an embarrassment to Level IV. And then maybe one day Lehrer would say,I’m impressed, Noam—you learned this so quickly, and Noam would perform feats of magic far more magnificent than eating a goddamn apple.
He wasn’t worthless. Hewasn’t.
The door finally opened again around five in the morning. It was still dark out, the world blanketed in a midwinter silence broken only by the click of Noam’s keyboard and the turn of the latch. Dara slipped inside. He didn’t see Noam at first, too focused on pulling the door softly shut and glancing down at the glowing white screen of his phone. His hair was messy, like someone had been dragging their fingers through it over and over, party glitter caught in the curls and dusting the line of a cheekbone.
“Ames and Taye got back ages ago,” Noam said, just to watch Dara startle. A dark twist of schadenfreude coiled up through his gut. He smiled. “Where’ve you been?”
Dara stuck his phone in the back pocket of his jeans, which were tight—really tight. “At the library,” he said.
Noam arched a brow and sank back against the sofa, coffee cupped between both hands. He was exhausted, and he’d held his tongue for weeks now—so he said, in a light tone that was very nearly teasing, “Oh yeah? Those jeans’re so tight I can see your religion. Does the librarian make you bend over to get the good books?”
His words didn’t quite garner the reaction Noam anticipated. Dara, usually so cold and dispassionate, turned a delicate shade of red. It was fascinating, a sea change that sent little shock waves of anger radiating between them. Or it would’ve been, if Noam didn’t suddenly taste magic crackling in the air.
I’ve gone too far.
Dara looked like he wanted to reach for that magic and fashion it into a weapon. Like he might be far more dangerous than Noam anticipated.
“I don’t need to pull all-nighters to do well,” Dara said at last, voice laced with frost but steady—too steady. He started off past the common room toward the bedrooms, but he paused right by Noam’s sofa. Noam could smell the alcohol on him.
Dara’s gaze dragged over the books Noam had scattered across the coffee table and seat cushions, the discarded eraser nubs and scribbled notes. It lingered on the cover ofA Physics Primer, then lifted to Noam’s face. Dara’s eyes were black wells, pupils bleeding into iris.
“You can study all you want,” he said softly. “It isn’t going to make a difference.”
And then he vanished down the hall, leaving Noam to clutch his coffee and stare at those same notes, wishing Dara hadn’t carved out the guts of what Noam already feared was true.
Noam couldn’t get Dara out of his head. He’d set up shop there right alongside Brennan, the imaginary pair of them watching Noam and judging him every time he fumbled when trying to learn electrical magic or went to bed at the end of another day without making himself useful to the cause. It was all well and good swearing to Brennan that his magic would save them all, but so far Noam had only managed to glare at Chancellor Sacha’s photograph in the papers and think nasty thoughts.
Brennan didn’t answer when Noam called his cell, and when Noam did manage to get hold of Linda, Brennan had always conveniently “just stepped out.”
Fine. Noam hacked the Central News Bureau all on his own. He could find a way into the government complex servers without help too.
The next several times he went to the west wing for lessons with Lehrer, Noam paid attention. He noticed tech whenever he could, everything from traffic control to people’s texts. It didn’t count as snooping when he spied on people he didn’t know, or so he’d decided—although that meant he now knew way more about strangers’ hemorrhoids and marital problems than he’d have liked.
He tried to notice, too, the inner workings of the biometric security system between the training wing and the government complex. But when he dipped his magic into the circuits, it slid right off like oil on water. He tried a second time, and a third, fumbling with the wires and pins and failing to comprehend the engineering at all.
The problem wasn’t his magic; he knew that much. He could easily fiddle with people’s holoreaders or the electrical system. But trying to influence the biometric reader was like chasing a vanishing horizon. Some kind of antitechnopathy ward, maybe?
He should’ve known. Why had he assumed the government would be stupid enough to leave its system open to powers like Noam’s? That would’ve been an egregious oversight, considering Noam’s ability was on record with Level IV.
He pushed his power into the next biometric reader he passed, trying to sense the shape and structure of the magic blocking his access, but it was impossible. He wasn’t that good.
When he reached Lehrer’s study, Dara was there—outside, in the hall, leaning against the wall with a book perched in hand. He didn’t look up when Noam approached. With his head tilted over the pages, chewing on the inside of one lip, Dara seemed too absorbed to notice his presence at all. But then when Noam reached for the doorknob, Dara spoke.
“Don’t go in there.”
“Why not?”
Dara didn’t answer.
It was so goddamn tempting to ignore him. But if Dara was just trying to make Noam late, well, he was making himself late too. So Noam found a spot on the opposite wall and sat on the floor, pulling out his phone and pretending to read something on-screen. He prodded his technopathy against the wards on the government servers once more, that hard kernel of frustration in his chest winding tighter as his power slid right off the shields.Again.
No wonder Brennan didn’t trust Noam. Noam had no real power—just magic-contaminated blood and a cadet uniform. A uniform that was, apparently, made by some famous fashion designer and tailored to the cadets’ personal measurements, because of fucking course that was a thing. Noam couldn’t call himself an anarchist when every single thing he owned was bought and paid for with federal blood money.
Being here, in the government complex, trusting Lehrer, was probably one of the stupider things Noam had done of late. Working with Lehrer would buy him nothing. If Noam was going to save the world, he’d have to do it alone.
The study door opened, jolting Noam back to the present. But it wasn’t Lehrer’s imposing figure that stepped out into the hall.
