“You’ve had enough.”
Dara sneered like he was about to actually argue with Lehrer on that point—but he didn’t, thank god. Maybe this was why he and Ames both wanted Noam to come along so badly—to stop them all from killing each other.
“You know what,” Dara said. Lehrer still stood there, near enough to touch, but Dara hadn’t flinched. Noam couldn’t name the look on his face, Dara’s eyes glittering like black basalt and his chin pointed toward Lehrer. “I have, actually.”
Noam swore he tasted magic in the air, sharp as spilled blood.
Lehrer set the scotch glass on the mantel above the fireplace. “It’s late. We should be getting home.”
Thank fuck, thank fuck,thank fuck.
Noam tried to steady himself from the tequila haze, wishing he had Dara close enough again to keep himself upright.
“You boys can stay here if you like,” General Ames said without getting up. Smoke puffed out from his mouth as he spoke. “We have plenty of guest rooms. What do you say, Dara?”
“Dara will be coming home with me tonight, I think,” Lehrer interrupted smoothly. He put out his cigarette on an ashtray and raised a brow in Dara’s direction.
“Actually...” Dara said, but Lehrer shook his head.
“It’s been a while since we’ve spent time together. I feel I’ve been remiss in my duties as your guardian. You’ll spend the weekend.”
Dara looked like he would rather break each of his fingers individually than spend any alone time with Lehrer, but he didn’t argue. A muscle twitched in his cheek as he glanced at Noam instead. “Well, you’ll still ride with us, right, Noam? No point wasting taxi fare.”
“Sure,” Noam said, because the alternative was loitering around here with the general until his car came, and yeah,no.
Dara and Lehrer were both silent on the ride back to the government complex, Dara sitting to Noam’s right and twisted so he could look out the window and not at either of them, Lehrer opposite them reading emails on his phone.
Eventually, and without looking up from his phone, Lehrer spoke. “You will not embarrass me again.”
Something in the pit of Noam’s stomach shriveled, his cheeks going hot. Lehrer couldn’t just be talking to Dara; he had to mean Noam too.
Noam kept staring at them both, waiting for one or the other to speak again, but Lehrer appeared to have said his piece. Dara had his brow pressed against the window now, both hands fisted in his lap.
Noam shut his eyes and tried very hard to concentrate on not puking.
He did eventually, anyway, once he made it back to the barracks—when he had an empty bathroom and what felt like years’ worth of disgust and anger to vomit up.
The general, with all those medals glittering on his uniform.
Ames’s face when she saidhe killed my mother.
He kept telling himself this was Sacha’s Carolinia, this was what Lehrer’s coup would overthrow.
It didn’t make him feel any better.
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
The day following the dinner party dragged past like molasses. Everything Noam wanted to say about the general stuck in his throat like wet sugar when he met Ames’s gaze. If he told Lehrer, Ames would kill him. But how the hell was Noam supposed to ally with Lehrer, plotting Sacha’s downfall and Lehrer’s subsequent rise to power, when Lehrer’s rule came with a man likethatat his side?
Noam walked himself through each option Saturday afternoon, sitting behind the store counter. He chewed his way through three moon pies before he remembered they were coming out of his paycheck and made himself do a round of price stickering instead.
He had to tell Lehrer.
At least Dara will be there, he thought as he headed across the atrium late that night. Dara could back him up.
He evaded the antitechnopathy wards easily this time, letting himself into the west wing as deftly as if he’d had a pass card of his very own. Not that anyone was around to appreciate the feat—it was past ten o’clock. The halls were empty of anyone who might look twice at a young cadet wandering the government complex alone.
He knocked at the door to Lehrer’s study, then hung back, waiting. Could Lehrer hear knocks at the study door from inside his apartment? Maybe Noam should text him or something. Or text Dara.
