Only then the door opened, and Lehrer was there—not wearing his uniform or a suit. Just trousers and a cable-knit sweater, looking more like he belonged in someone’s private library than in the Ministry of Defense.
“Noam,” he said, and it was perhaps the first time Noam had ever seen Lehrer caught off guard. “What are you doing here? Is everything all right?”
“Sort of. Can I come in?”
A part of him wondered if Lehrer was still angry after last night—he still cringed every time he remembered the softness with which Lehrer had spoken in the car, words like ice in his veins.
But Lehrer just stepped aside, gesturing Noam into the darkened study. “Of course. Please.”
This late at night, the room was lit only by a few odd lamps, elongated shadows stretching out on the floor and obscuring Lehrer’s face. He moved through those shadows with the ease of someone who’d had a hundred years to learn the topography of the room. This time Noam paid attention when Lehrer unlocked the wards to his apartment, watching the glitter-gold threads quaver beneath Lehrer’s touch and then dissolve. Even now Noam couldn’t make sense of it. What type of scientific knowledge allowed someone to construct something like this? The ward seemed like it was crafted out of raw magic, not theory.
“How did you do that?” Noam asked. It came out more accusatory than he’d intended. “That, and the antitechnopathy... I’m sorry, sir, but—I can’t figure it out.”
Lehrer stepped through the door to his apartment, Noam following bemusedly and trailing his own magic against the withdrawn wards as if that could tell him how they were built. It was only once he was past the doorway, toeing off his shoes in Lehrer’s foyer, that he realized he forgot to touch the mezuzah.
“Telling you would defeat the purpose of having wards, don’t you think?”
You told Dara.Noam bit his cheek over that one.
“In theory,” he insisted.
“In theory,” Lehrer said, “you could build a ward of your own. Imagine an electromagnetic field you maintained around your person like an invisible shield to deflect bullets. Creating it takes magic, but so does releasing it. When you get very good, you can release one part of such a shield while maintaining the rest.”
Wolf scampered out from the other room, skidding a little when he leaped off the rug and onto the hardwood floor. Noam crouched to scratch behind his ears. “That wasn’t electromagnetism, though,” he said, glancing up toward Lehrer.
“No. But you must let me keepsomesecrets.”
Although Noam had been in Lehrer’s apartment once before, it felt different now that he was here with the intent of staying longer than a few seconds. He drank in the shapes and colors as he followed Lehrer into a sitting room. The whole place was surprisingly simple; what furniture Lehrer did have was clearly antique, the exposed floorboards half-covered with Persian carpets worn along what must be familiar paths. Noam didn’t have to be an expert to know quality when he saw it, even when that quality was likely older than Noam and Lehrer put together.
Lehrer turned to face him, standing there with one hand resting on the back of a sofa. “Now, tell me what’s going on.”
“Noam?” Dara emerged from the hallway, sleep tousled and tugging a sweater down over his short-sleeved shirt. He scowled, arms folding over his chest. His gaze flicked from Noam to Lehrer, then back.
“Hey, Dara,” Noam said and tried to look casual.
“Hey, yourself. Why are you here?”
“Dara, you shouldn’t be out of bed,” Lehrer said. “You need to rest.”
Noam frowned. “Are you sick?”
“I’m fine. I’ll ask again. Why are youhere?”
“Let’s not be rude,” Lehrer chided. He touched Noam’s arm instead, just below the elbow. “Please, Noam, make yourself at home. Can I get you something to drink?”
“I’ll take hot tea,” Dara said before Noam could answer.
Lehrer just kept looking at Noam, though, until at last Noam shrugged and said, “Sure. Thanks. Um. Tea for me too.”
Lehrer allowed them both a cursory smile, then disappeared through a door into a room where Noam sensed metal cutlery and saucepans. There weren’t, he noticed, any tiny hidden circuit boards. If Sacha had bugged Lehrer’s apartment, as Lehrer suspected, he did it without using technology.
“Areyou sick?” he asked Dara, moving closer.
Dara shrugged one shoulder. “Not really. Just tired.” His fingers kept picking at the cuffs of his sweater sleeves, pulling at loose threads.
“Have you eaten anything today?” Noam asked suspiciously, but Dara made a face at him.
“Doesn’t matter. You haven’t answered my question.”
