“Maybe some company, then?”
The next shallow breath burned in his lungs, Dara opening his mouth to say no—but he ended up nodding instead, both hands fisting up against his knees.
Leo shifted his position, stretching his legs out along the floor to get comfortable. “Y’all were pretty close, weren’t you?” he asked. “Have you been friends a long time?”
“We hated each other,” Dara said with a low laugh. “For most of the time we’ve known each other, we ... I couldn’t stand him, actually.”
He could imagine the look on Leo’s face without having to see it.
“Really? Why?”
“I don’t remember now.” Dara sank lower in his chair. “Well. That’s a lie. I do. It’s ... well, it makes me sound horrible to say it out loud.”
“There’s no judgment here.”
Dara turned his head enough to catch Leo’s gaze. Leo flashed him a small smile, and Dara sighed.
“He showed up during a ... well, I don’t want to say it was agoodpoint for me and Lehrer. But it was ... fine. It was okay. I was working with Sacha by then, and I ... I’d convinced myself I had everything under control—”
I have everything under control,Noam had said in that alley, scant hours before Lehrer nearly killed him. Dara shoved the memory away and shut his eyes, long enough to focus on the rough fabric of the upholstery of the chair he sat on, the way his clothes fell against his own body.
“Anyway,” Dara said, making himself keep going. “Then Lehrer told me one night there was a new student coming to Level IV. A recent survivor, someone with magic dynamics high enough to rival both mine and Lehrer’s—someone clever enough, perhaps, to use it. And Lehrer wouldn’t say a word about him when I asked. He just gave me this pitying smile, like he already knew I was damaged goods.”
“That’s ...”
“That’s Lehrer,” Dara finished, opening his eyes again and tossing Leo a self-deprecating look. “Nothing new there. But then Lehrer canceled a dinner reservation he’d made for us—I never got to spend time with him, you understand, notpropertime where we could actually ...talk, instead of lessons, or ... and he canceled it. To meet Álvaro.”
“Doesn’t sound like that’s Álvaro’s fault.”
“Oh, none of this was Álvaro’s fault. Maybe you haven’t realized it yet, but I’m not a very good person.”
Leo didn’t say anything to that, just kept watching Dara until Dara continued.
“Lehrer started bringing Álvaro to our meetings. Our private lessons. And—I’ve had a lot of time to think about why that bothered me as much as it did. I’ve pretty much decided it’s because I was afraid of what Álvaro might notice between me and Lehrer. That he might take one look and realize that I was ...”
Desperate.
Only that was Lehrer’s word. Dara refused to own it.
Not anymore.
“I thought Álvaro would realize what Lehrer did to me. I was so self-conscious of everything that happened in that room. I hated Álvaro for witnessing it. I hated him for stealing Lehrer’s affection from me. I hated him for adoring Lehrer so completely—for trusting him more than he’d ever trust me.”
“It was a difficult situation.”
Dara laughed bitterly. “Well. What made it worse, of course, was that I was madly in love with Álvaro from the moment I met him.”
Leo arched a brow.
“Notat first sightthe way you’re thinking,” Dara said before Leo could get worse ideas. “I used to have telepathy. That was my presenting power. So from the moment I was in Noam’s mind, Iknewhim—and it didn’t take long until I knew him better than anyone else could ever hope to. Better than he knew himself, in some ways; most people have shockingly poor insight into their own thoughts and desires.”
“Oh,” Leo said, but it was in a tone that made Dara think he understood, perhaps, what Dara meant.
How overwhelming it had been to encounter a mind like that.
Noam had been equal parts fascinating and infuriating—brilliant but stubborn, passionate but misguided, full of so much emotion and intensity and vibrance that it ... scared Dara.
Still did sometimes.
