“I’m glad you exist,” he said.
Dara smiled. Looking at that mouth didn’t help Noam’s cause.
Noam forced himself to turn back to the window, staring at Mars glimmering from so very far away and not—not—at Dara.
“I’d better go to bed,” he said, still looking out. He could see Dara, though, a blurry figure in his peripheral vision. “If I don’t now, I never will.”
“Go on, then,” Dara said, not unkindly, and nudged Noam off the chair.
The room felt much colder than it had earlier, now that Dara wasn’t pressed up against him.
Dara’s legs unfolded into the space Noam had opened up, and he leaned forward to pick his book up off the floor, tucking it between his thigh and the armrest. When he met Noam’s eyes, his face was perfectly unreadable.
“I’ll still be here,” Dara said, “if you change your mind.”
Noam didn’t—for better or worse.
CHAPTERSIXTEEN
From time to time, Lehrer brought Noam to his official office for lessons instead of the study. Those days, Dara wasn’t invited, and they didn’t spar—though Noam still had bruises from all the times Lehrer’s magic threw him to the ground like it was nothing. Lehrer worked on business of state and Noam sat with his holoreader open atop crossed legs, uploading everything he could reach from Sacha’s computer two offices down. He didn’t bother sending them to Brennan anymore.
“People are angry,” Linda told Noam as they scooped shepherd’s pie onto dinner trays one Monday. “It’s not in the papers, obviously, but people are furious about Sacha declaring martial law.”
“How angry?” Noam murmured back. “Angry enough to fight back?”
“They do, sugar. We have protests every day now. But it’s hard to protest properly when Sacha’s got his soldiers out on the street keeping the peace and enforcing curfew.” She slapped another dollop of shepherd’s pie onto a plate. “I declare, I don’t know what got into those kids last week, attacking a cop like that. It was supposed to be a peaceful demonstration.”
Good thing they did, though, or else they might’ve been waiting forever for Sacha to find an excuse to declare martial law. Noam was sick of waiting. If they didn’t do something, and soon, people would get complacent.
And it would be Brennan’s goddamn fault when they died for it.
“Speaking of martial law,” Noam said as he shoved his spoon back into the casserole dish. “Does Brennan have some kind of plan, or is he enjoying his cushy new job as government liaison too much to risk losing it?”
Linda shot him a look of disapproval. “Don’t you start with that sass, Noam Álvaro. All of us have our roles to play.”
And Noam’s, apparently, was to take all the risks.
Linda’s sharp elbow bumped against his ribs. “I think you have a visitor,” she said and winked.
Noam looked up. Dara stood by the entrance, leaning back against the wall with his hands in his pockets, eyes fixed on Noam. Dara wore his cadet uniform, and the refugees gave him a wide berth—as if he might demand to see papers. After a moment, Dara drew one hand out of his pocket and waved.
“Friend of yours?” Linda asked.
“Sort of.”
For Noam, seeing Dara here, outside the context of Level IV and firmly in Noam’s world, was like suddenly losing balance. When he ladled the next serving of pie onto a plate, his hand shook.
Linda nudged him again. “He’s cute.”
Dara was too far away to see Noam’s cheeks flush. But he nodded his head in Noam’s direction before slipping out the door.
“I have to go,” Noam muttered, and Linda didn’t fight him on it as he stripped his apron off and ran out onto the street. He expected to find Dara leaning against the brick wall, cigarette in hand and something sharp to say, but he wasn’t. Noam floundered for a moment, looking up the road past the bums with their change cups and the kids chasing a deflated soccer ball down the snowy gutter. And—there, a glimpse of Dara’s uniform turning the corner up ahead.
Noam started after him, half jogging, and he broke onto the main street just in time to see Dara’s head disappear into a cab. The car peeled away from the curb and left Noam standing there right as it started raining. The water soaked through Noam’s shirt and crystallized cold in Noam’s bones. He hugged his arms around his waist.
Why was Dara here?
Had he come to see Noam? If so, why hadn’t he stayed or said something? Had Lehrer sent Dara to find him? Or was this something to do with whatever Dara got up to those nights he didn’t come back to the barracks? Noam had always assumed he was out, in bed with some gorgeous stranger. But lately he’d started imagining Dara sitting in Sacha’s office far past midnight, the pair of them plotting just as Noam and Lehrer did, Dara leaning over Sacha’s desk with pen in hand, sketching the outline of Lehrer’s demise.
