I hate him.The thought was almost like a realization in some ways. Dara had said it before, thought it a thousand times. But it had never been entirely true. There was always that part of Dara that still hoped Lehrer would change his mind. That he’d find some room in his blackened heart for his adopted son, after all—that Dara might arrive at some nebulous future point where Lehrer decided he was, finally, a peer.
All that was gone, dried up and blown away in the wake of these past eight months.
Dara never imagined losing hope would feel so ...liberating.
“ ... with a grave and cautious heart that I am announcing the temporary suspension of term limits for all elected federal positions,” Lehrer’s voice said. “Until such a time as we can be assured of this country’s safety from Texas’s heinous War on Witchings.”
Dara and Noam exchanged looks, Noam’s mouth twisting in a furious knot. Dara could have told him this was coming. Dara had told him a dozen times that Lehrer’s seizing tyrannical power should come as no surprise.
Not that it mattered. Not if they finished what they came here to do.
A shiver ran through the crowd at that. It seemed they weren’t the only ones who were unhappy with such a declaration—although it seemed like there were just as many people shouting their support.
What if everything Noam released isn’t enough? What if we defeat Lehrer, but no one believes us about what he’s done?
The fear dropped like acid into Dara’s stomach and roiled there. He dug his short nails in against the back of Noam’s hand.
They had to believe. Theymust.
Dara couldn’t keep screaming the truth again and again, and never being heard.
He barely paid attention to the rest of the speech. All he could do was stare over the heads of all the people gathered here as dusk dropped like a slow curtain, transforming gold light into silver. Near the end Noam pressed a hand to the small of Dara’s back and said, “You should get out of range. You don’t want to get caught up in this.”
He was right. But Dara didn’t move.
“I’m staying with you,” Dara said. “Until the end.”
Noam bit down on his lower lip, but eventually he nodded and used that pressure on Dara’s spine to draw him along as Noam started trying to shift his way back to the front line.
“Excuse me,” Noam said, raising his voice to be heard. “Excuse—press, let us through—”
Only the crowd closed ranks, shifting tighter as if to hold them back on purpose. As if making room might mean giving up their own vantage point.
“Shit!”Noam’s cheeks were already coloring as he looked back toward Dara—flushing dark enough that some part of Dara reflexively twinged toward concern. Noam was too close to fevermadness already.
Dara glanced around, trying to find an easier route forward; there was none. All he could see was an ocean of unfamiliar faces, speckled with the gleaming screens of cameras and phones.
Dara nudged Noam’s elbow. “Can you watch through someone’s tech?”
Noam didn’t look any less angry, but he nodded once and turned his face upward—as if staring at the darkening sky would help him focus. He had the first syringe of suppressant in hand, thumb poised on the plunger.
The crowd’s cheers were almost as perfect a signal of when the chapel doors opened again. Dara caught a glimpse of what was happening on the phone screen of someone in front of him—of Lehrer standing there on the steps, his hand raised in a diplomatic wave.
And Dara heard the sharp intake of Noam’s breath as he drew on magic, Dara tasting blood on his own tongue—a beat before the stone cathedral tower of Duke Chapel collapsed.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-SIX
DARA
Panic erupted.
It took what felt like minutes for the entire tower to crumble, although Dara knew it must have been mere seconds—the stone cavedinward, the demolition restricted to as narrow a space as Dara’s calculations could manage given the sheer height of the thing. Because there was no time for Noam’s telekinesis to force the wreckage down on Lehrer alone.
Noam’s wide eyes met Dara’s as he lifted the syringe of suppressant to inject himself.
He never got the chance.
The crowd was already reeling, stampeding. Someone slammed into Noam too hard, and the syringe fell from his hand.
