He settled himself back down again, a low moan escaping from between clenched teeth. Dara’s hand tightened on his.
“I didn’t fuck him,” Noam said, once he was sure he could speak without vomiting from the pain. “For the record.”
“I wasn’t going to ask,” Dara’s words were low and cautious, like he thought Noam might flinch if he spoke too loud. “But ... I’m glad. Not for my own sake, but—”
He didn’t finish that sentence, but he didn’t need to. They understood each other.
“You had a lot of injuries,” Dara said, when it became clear Noam wasn’t going to say anything else. “The broken ribs and wrist—a burst spleen. Punctured lung too. Holloway’s physician came and fixed you up, mostly. We’re hoping Bethany will come over this afternoon to heal the rest. Holloway’s working on making that happen without Lehrer wising up.”
“Good,” Noam said, a little breathlessly now; the pain was rising up faster as the dull weight of the opiates began to fade.
“I was able to be useful for once, you know,” Dara told him. “I gave you a blood transfusion. I’m type O negative—a universal donor ... in fact, it was the one time my not being a witching anymore will ever come in handy, I suspect.”
“What do you mean?”
“Witchings can’t donate blood to baselines, of course—the infection risk—but we can’t donate to each other either.” Dara cocked a brow. “As long as the other witching’s blood stays in your system, you can use their magic. People havediedbecause a recipient was draining their magic and they didn’t realize it.”
A sudden hollow feeling bloomed in Noam’s chest. “They go fevermad?”
“So I’ve heard.”
Shit.Shit.
Noam shoved himself upright again, ignoring the way the room pitched as vertigo swam black into his vision. Suddenly he found it impossible to catch his breath, ruined lung straining against his bandaged ribs.
“What is it?” Dara asked, already on his feet. “Are you—should I get someone?”
God, Noam was such—such a fucking idiot, how could he have ... he ...
Noam fixed Dara in his gaze and made himself just ...sayit. “Dara. Lehrer’s fevermad. He’s ... he’sfevermad, I told you. I—I was right, and he—”
Dara was looking at him with those ink-black eyes, confusion still traced in his expression. Noam’s stomach pitched.
“I gave him a blood transfusion.”
“Youwhat?”
Noam swallowed hard. “I know. I know, it ... terrible fucking idea, it—”
“When?”
“Right after the assassination attempt. I—I’m—it was stupid, I never should have done it, and I regretted it immediately afterward, but now. He.”
“Shit,” Dara said on a thin exhale. He tangled a hand up in his hair and spun on his heel, pacing toward the dresser and back again. “Shit, Noam.”
“I know.”
“He’s probably draining your magicas we speak. How are you supposed to fight him when he can end you, when he can just—justburn you outin a single—”
“I don’t think he can,” Noam said. “In ... yesterday, at his apartment, he said he was going to kill me. But he didn’t try that. Not that I could tell, anyway, and—”
“Not that you could tellbeing the operative phrase, Noam!”
Dara was right. Lehrer was dragging this out on purpose. There was no good reason to think he wasn’t capable of snuffing Noam out like a quenched candle with a single massive burst of magic. Just because he hadn’t tried it last night didn’t mean he wouldn’t try it in the future.
And—and, in all likelihood, that was what Lehrer had done to Dara as well. He’d gotten his hands on Dara’s blood somehow—Dara was O negative; Dara’s dynamics had been strong enough to rival Lehrer’s—and he must have been injecting himself with Dara’s blood for months. Perhaps even years. Lehrer had drained Dara’s magic bit by bit until all that was left was a rotting husk, days from death.
“Fuck.”
