“There’s nowhere to run,” Lehrer said. “Dara can’t protect you now. The rest of your team is ... impotent. Weak.” A thin smile cut across his lips. “And as for Minister Holloway ...”
Another crack of magic split against Noam’s face, a laceration opening along his brow, slicing down toward his mouth. Blood splattered the carpet underfoot.
“He’s been mine since the beginning.”
And then there was pain.
It seared through Noam’s nerves like a nest of lightning, rocking him back on his heels—only Noam’s magnetic anchor kept him upright. He heard screaming, echoes of someone yelling in his ears.
The same trick Lehrer used in sparring. It burned a path down to his core, unstoppable wildfire.
Distantly Noam was aware of Lehrer drawing closer. He didn’t realize how close until Lehrer’s fist slammed into his stomach, sending him lurching back and heaving air from his lungs. Lehrer’s grip on his shoulder held him in place for a second blow.
“I wish I could say I’d make it quick ...,” Lehrer murmured in his ear.
He pressed a chaste kiss to Noam’s temple.
“But I want it to hurt.”
Lehrer’s grip found Noam’s wrist and tightened until the bone cracked. Kept squeezing, grinding it to dust.
Noam couldn’t think, couldn’t see. Could barely even feel the pain anymore. It was too much, all encompassing, an ever-expanding universe and his mind floating free in black space.
No.
No, he couldn’t give up.
If Lehrer left this room alive, he’d go straight to Dara.
Noam dragged up the dregs of his magic and focused again—as ever—on magnetism. On electricity. On finding the frequency of Lehrer’s magic as it seethed through his nerve endings and playing the opposite tone.
All at once, the pain vanished.
Not all of it, not the agony of broken bones and something deep in his gut that felt as if it had split open.
... But enough.
Noam flung the rest of that magic against Lehrer, screaming with the effort of it—every ounce of power he could bring to bear, until all he had left was agony and exhaustion and the dull throb of fever in his skull.
Lehrer fell, and Noam bound him down with an impossible gravity.
It wouldn’t last.
But it might last just long enough.
He staggered down the hall toward the study door, legs weak and shaking under his own weight. Behind him he felt the cords of his magic snap, Lehrer struggling against the tide holding him back and escaping.
Noam left a trail of blood in his wake, magic leaking from the soles of his feet and the palms of his hands in a spray of silver-blue light.
He shoved open the door with his shoulder. Lehrer was right behind him, rightthere—
His hand brushed Noam’s shoulder, injecting pain like venom into vein, before Noam slammed the door shut between them. And in the same gesture he yanked Lehrer’s wards out of the way like old curtains and threw up his own in their place—the same wards he’d constructed around Dara’s apartment, tight and bled-through with technopathy.
Noam was out of breath, his lungs screaming with the agony of taking in air. Every inhale was like puncturing them with his own broken ribs—and maybe that’s exactly what was happening, Noam thought dizzily as he faltered toward the next door—maybe he was collapsing inside.
He didn’t have much time. The technopathy might baffle Lehrer for a minute or two, but he’d get past it quickly.
Lehrer was too clever to be restrained for long.
