“Can’t you just shut down the site?” Attwood’s wife asked. “Call the domain provider?”
Lehrer didn’t look at Noam. It felt like a calculated decision. “The domain is registered in Texas.”
Noam took a hasty swallow of water, hiding his smile behind the glass.
“Twice the treason, if you ask me,” Ames Sr. muttered. “Texans hate witchings more than anyone. This is a matter of national security.”
Yeah. That was the whole point. Governments didn’t have to listen to the people until the people made it hurtnotto listen. Right now, or so Lehrer had told him earlier that afternoon during their lesson, after sending Dara home—right now, everyone in the Ministry of Defense was terrified that Texas or England or York or another enemy nation would glean some precious detail from something Noam had leaked and use it to demolish Carolinian defenses.
That wouldn’t happen, of course. Lehrer had gone over the data Noam drained from the networks. They weren’t releasing anything that might cost lives. Only enough to make it clear that Sacha wasn’t just too incompetent to prevent the leak—he was actually evil. In a few days, Lehrer would miraculously discover the responsible party and shore up the leak, and all would be well. They were framing one of Sacha’s most trusted advisers, someone known to be antithetical to Lehrer on almost every single policy issue. All the better to position Lehrer in opposition to both Sacha and the hack.
All the better to make Lehrer electable.
Of course, to General Ames, the hack was just punk kids trying to make a statement and a public relations nightmare.
“And I’m sure,” Ames Sr. went on, gesturing with his wine, “you’ve all seen that mess Sacha’s wearing on his head these days.”
“What’s that?” Noam said, sitting straighter.
“Looks like a damn crown,” the general went on. “Tasteless. Utterly tasteless. You should talk to him, Calix.”
The weak light here made Lehrer’s face look smooth as polished stone. “I would, but I’m afraid Harold doesn’t find my company appealing of late.”
Dara, next to Noam, seemed far too pleased with himself.
The general muttered, “Should tell him he’s no king. Damn disrespectful, if you ask me.”
Lehrer nodded once, his expression shuttered, no doubt making comparisons to the gold circlet he’d worn before abdicating as king. All those speeches he’d made about the corruption of power.
The footman drifted forward to refill Lehrer’s scotch. Bowing, even, like he thought Lehrer was still royal.
There was enough power in this room to turn the tide for the refugees, but with the exception of Lehrer, everyone here used that power to make things worse. Perhaps they did it on Sacha’s orders, perhaps not. Noam didn’t care. Major General García helped organize the military intervention in Atlantia. General Ames was responsible for writing immigration policy, including the policies restricting how many legal refugees Carolinia accepted from Atlantia. The Attwoods were socialites whose money fed into the system, buying campaigns, votes, laws.
What would they do, he wondered,if they knew I was Atlantian?
He was dying to just say it, the words weighing on his tongue as the guests finished dinner and went into a new room, one the general calledthe drawing room.
Everything about the general rubbed Noam the wrong way—how he smacked his lips after he sipped his wine, the oddly paternal way he squeezed Dara’s shoulder as he pushed him down into an armchair, how he didn’t make eye contact with the footman who served his coffee.
Yeah, Noam needed to take a break.
He joined Ames on the sofa. She’d gotten out a new cigarette, though she hadn’t lit it yet.
“Hey,” Noam said.
“Hey.”
“So, where’s the bathroom?”
After a pause, one corner of her mouth quirked up. “I’ll show you.”
She abandoned the cigarette on the end table and got to her feet, tugging Noam up after her with one hand around his wrist. The general scarcely seemed to notice them go, too invested in his conversation with Dara—but Dara caught Noam’s eye just as he and Ames slipped out the door. He looked awful jealous for someone who at least had a whiskey in hand.
Ames and Noam headed down a dim hall, lit only by lamplight glowing odd colors from behind stained-glass shades. The shadows it cast beneath her vertebrae made her neck look thin and vulnerable.
“How do you not get lost in this house?” Noam murmured after what felt like the fifth turn into a new corridor and a set of stairs.
“My presenting power is a keen navigational sense.”
