A wave of heat lit Noam’s cheeks. He shouldn’t be so thrilled by Lehrer’s attention. Lehrer was the means to an end, nothing more.
And then there was the matter of whatever Lehrer had planned for Noam, those secrets he kept cryptically hinting at. Was it connected to Dara and what Dara had been up to in the government complex? Only it hadn’t seemed like Lehrer and Dara were working together.
But then there was the way Lehrer watched Dara beg earlier today, Lehrer’s expression as placid as calm water. As if Dara’s pain was a moderately interesting academic observation.
“I won’t disappoint you,” Noam said. “But I need to know why I’m here. Why are you training me?”
Lehrer turned them onto a fresh path, crossing the stream that cut through the courtyard. For a moment, Noam thought he wasn’t going to answer. But then—
“You and I have a lot in common,” Lehrer said again. “More than just being Jewish and uneducated, I think. But it appears patience is not one of those shared virtues.”
Noam flushed, but he didn’t get a chance to respond.
Lehrer’s hand caught Noam’s for the briefest moment, long fingers curving in against Noam’s and pressing something into his palm. Noam grasped it on reflex, and Lehrer withdrew, shifting Wolf’s leash over to that hand as if nothing happened. Noam’s heart pounded in his throat, and Lehrer glanced toward the sky like he could divine the time from the orientation of stars and said, “Let’s head back.”
The note was folded four times over. Later, when Noam was alone in the barracks, he unfolded it by the light of his phone screen and read the single word written there in Lehrer’s neat, slanted script:
Faraday.
Brief audio recording, stolen from C. Lehrer’s personal collection.
MAN 1: Okay, it’s recording.
MAN 2 (a softer voice): This is stupid.
MAN 1: You don’t know till you try, Calix. Come on.
MAN 2/CALIX: It doesn’t work this way. Turn it off, Wolf, we’re going to be late.
MAN 1/ADALWOLF: They can’t start the meeting without us. Pretty please?
CALIX: I said no. Stop asking.
ADALWOLF: Don’t you dare—
CALIX: I didn’t!
ADALWOLF: Okay. Okay, but, just once. For me.
CALIX: Fine. Turn this thing off.
ADALWOLF:Thankyou.
[The recording ends.]
CHAPTERTEN
Faraday.
There was only one thing that could mean, of course—Faraday, as in Faraday shield, as in a conductive material that blocked electromagnetic waves.
Why Lehrer was passing him notes about this was harder to understand.
Noam stayed up late thinking about it almost every night that week, turning the word over and over in his mind until it lost all meaning.
Faraday.
How was that supposed to help the refugees? Was Sacha planning some kind of electromagnetic attack against them? Was Noam meant to use his newfound power over electromagnetism to build a Faraday shield and protect them?
