THE ELECTRIC HEIR

by Lee, Victoria

  If people still thought of him that way, at least he didn’t know it. But these weren’t the social-climbing, prestige-obsessed sycophants of Carolinian high society. These were the anarchist terrorist motherfuckers who would tear that whole hegemony to the ground. If Dara knew Lehrer, well, that was an unfortunate piece of background information to be politely ignored, like having a parent who’d been convicted of murder.

  And once Dara had shuddered and vomited and hallucinated his way through the worst of alcohol withdrawal, it had been easier not to drink. No booze in the quarantined zone, as Claire had reminded him so astutely. Not since forever.

  No temptation.

  Unlike here, where Dara quite literally lived right over a bar. Leo had taken a habit of going straight for the club soda whenever Dara walked in, sliding it across the counter and ignoring the way Dara’s gaze inevitably drifted toward his top shelf. He somehow managed to be both a twelve-step program and a judgmental parent all rolled into one convenient package.

  Today, he was cutting Dara’s hair.

  “I don’t understand how you managed to screw it up this badly,” Leo said, dragging his fingers through Dara’s uneven curls and tugging his head to one side. Dara could see Leo’s expression reflected in the mirror over his dresser: baffled but amused. “Were you using a hatchet?”

  Dara hated the way he looked when he blushed, which wasn’t often. Blushing always made him look younger. “Just scissors. Those scissors.”

  “Those are kitchen shears, Dara.”

  “Well, that’s what I could find on short notice, considering I’m not allowed to leave this building.”

  “I would have gone out and got you something better, if you’d asked.” Leo tugged one of Dara’s curls almost straight, then let go, watching it bounce back toward his head.

  Dara made a face at him in the mirror. “Stop playing with my hair.”

  “Sorry. It’s just really bad, you know.”

  Dara did know. He had eyes. He could see how he looked, hair longer on one side of his head, cut far too close in other patches. But he’d woken up this morning and looked at his reflection and decided he couldn’t live one more day like this. His hair was too long, messy—and not in a good way—sweater overlarge with a hole in the sleeve, designer but two seasons out of date. He didn’t recognize himself. The boy in the mirror lived in a tiny one-room apartment off Geer Street, uneaten takeout rotting in the sink, his magic decayed and blown away with the last of his dignity. The boy in the mirror wasn’t killing Calix Lehrer anytime soon.

  “Can you fix it?”

  Leo picked up the kitchen shears, snapping the blades together twice. “Think so. It’s probably still not going to look good, though—I’ll be honest. This isn’t exactly my wheelhouse.”

  He went slowly, at least, considering for several seconds before he clipped. Dara had his teeth gritted so hard his jaw hurt, almost flinching each time the shears snapped shut.

  “I used to go to a specialist,” Dara said a few minutes in, as Leo frowned at the side of his head. “Someone who knew how to do curly hair. They used some new fancy technique from France. I don’t know how much it cost—I always put it on the card—but it was a lot.”

  He held his breath, braced for the inevitable reaction: for Leo to look up or stiffen with anticipation, waiting for Lehrer’s name. Not the card. His card. But Leo just clipped another lock of hair and didn’t even glance away from his scissors.

  “Lucky you, then,” Leo said. “I’ll give you the friends-and-family discount.”

  Dara clasped his hands together in his lap, digging the edge of one thumbnail into flesh. He wished he had telepathy. He wanted to dip his fingers into Leo’s mind and trail them through all those thoughts, opaque now and hidden behind Leo’s skull. It used to be so easy to know what people wanted. To give them what they wanted.

  He’d thought he’d known, with Leo. He’d tried. And he’d been mistaken.

  Now, there was no way of telling if Leo was thinking about what Dara said—thinking about Dara using Lehrer’s card, Dara having the kind of life that meant he could use Lehrer’s card.

  And maybe Leo didn’t want to hear any of this . . . but the confession rose in Dara’s throat all the same. Like bile.

  A black apprehension rippled through the pit of Dara’s stomach. He gripped his fists tighter and held the words on the tip of his tongue, heavy as coins. Leo snipped another curl and ran his fingers through Dara’s hair, mussing it enough to check his progress.

  “I want it short,” Dara said at last, because it was now or never. Now, or he didn’t think he’d ever muster the nerve to say it. He lifted a hand and touched one of the longer ends of his hair, twisting the strands around his knuckle.

  “How short?”

  Now or never. And Dara was tired of staying silent.

  Dara wet his lips. “When I was fifteen, I started getting drunk early. I’d open my first bottle around three in the afternoon. It meant I was wasted by the time he got home.”

  Leo’s gaze caught his in the mirror, his hands frozen with scissors still in grasp. Dara looked back at him.

  “Well. Eventually, he got sick of waiting for me to sober up. So one night he grabbed me by the hair”—Dara tugged at that lock twisted round his finger, tugged until it hurt—“and he dragged me into the bathroom, and he held my head under in a sink of cold water until I couldn’t breathe. Until I was choking. He only let go after I stopped fighting, that moment right before I would’ve passed out.” Dara lifted one shoulder, dropped it down. “But I guess it worked. I wasn’t drunk anymore.”

  Leo was still staring at him. He didn’t say anything. Dara’s lips curled in a bitter smile.

  “Cut it short enough he couldn’t do that again.”

  He heard Leo inhale, deeply enough his shoulders visibly shifted. His knuckles had gone white around the handle of the scissors. The current running through Dara’s body felt lethal—but he stayed where he was, sat there in the chair, holding Leo’s gaze, until Leo looked away first.

  Dara shut his eyes, just for a moment. And for once, the black undersides of his eyelids weren’t painted with images from old memories. It was soft and quiet. When he opened them again, this small room didn’t feel quite as suffocating as before.

  At last, Leo lifted the scissors. Said, “I’ll cut it short.”

  Afterward, Dara ran his hand over his close-cropped hair and stared at his reflection. He wasn’t recognizable. Without the fall of curls to soften them, his features were sharp and dangerous looking, the line of his mouth like the first fine cut from a scalpel. This wasn’t the foolish child so desperate for affection he’d almost killed himself seeking it. This wasn’t the fragile boy who broke so easily under Lehrer’s touch.

  No.

  The boy in this mirror was steel and frost and a bloodied knife. And he wasn’t afraid of anything.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  NOAM

  They formally annexed Atlantia on January 31. The change in power was immediate and absolute. After all, the Carolinian military already dominated the region; what was left of the Atlantian government was in shambles, decentralized and impotent. The headlines ran in all Carolinian papers, big block letters framed in past tense, a fait accompli.

  The reaction from the Atlantian diaspora was just as immediate.

  Pamphlets went up in Little Atlantia, posted on all the same walls and windows as the ones Noam had printed the previous year. Protests spilled into the streets, people shouting at faceless and silent soldiers, the red star that had once represented Atlantia as a nation now representing nothing more than a movement: Atlantian nationalism. Atlantian anger.

  And this time, there was no Tom Brennan to quell the outrage.

  The whole process was planned out in conference rooms and offices: Noam and Maxim Holloway plotting contrasting speech points from leather armchairs, Lehrer frowning at Noam in the foyer of his apartment before a rally, reaching out to untuck Noam’s des
igner shirt: Dictatorship of the proletariat, remember.

  It was for the greater good. Noam kept telling himself that, the whole time he stood on an overturned shipping crate in front of the Migrant Center, yelling to be heard over the raucous crowd. It was for the greater good.

  And so for every speech Holloway gave, flatly opposed to the Atlantian annexation, Noam was there to remind Atlantians of their real enemy: Holloway, and Sacha, and people like them—people who would have rather Atlantia burned into dust, a thousand square miles of corpses and quarantined zone. He stirred that anger, directed it—and by the time Lehrer spoke on the subject, all ultimate goal of Atlantian independence and temporary measures, the people were too busy calling for Holloway’s resignation to question Lehrer’s motives.

  After all . . . if Maxim Holloway wanted something, it was evil by default. Opposing him—opposing Sacha’s party—was more important than principle.

  It was for the greater good. And yet Noam went to bed sick with himself every night, lying awake and listening to the soft susurration of Lehrer’s breath an arm’s reach away. A sickness that swelled again every time Lehrer reassured him: “In two years, when we have repaired the damaged infrastructure and restored Atlantian independence, they’ll understand. History will write us as heroes.”

  Only Lehrer had no intention of restoring Atlantian independence. This was just another crime Noam would have to reckon with after Lehrer was dead.

  “Texas is going to be a problem,” Lehrer murmured one evening, presiding from his favorite chair in the apartment, papers spread over his bent knee and the accent table at his side. “I predict they’ll pull their ambassador any day now. They see the Atlantian annexation as a threat.”

  Noam glanced up from Wolf, who’d sprawled across the sofa to let Noam scratch him behind the ears. “Really? They would have invaded Atlantia, too, if you hadn’t gotten there first.”

  Lehrer’s mouth twitched. “Good, you’re paying attention. However, you’ll find would-haves matter very little in foreign affairs.”

  Wolf twisted his head in Noam’s lap, pushing his nose against Noam’s hip bone, clearly peeved by the shift in Noam’s attention. He let his hand drop back to the top of the dog’s skull.

  “This might be a stupid question,” Noam said, “but how much does it really matter what Texas thinks? Our military outstrips theirs, any day. They can’t threaten us.”

  Lehrer put down the memo he’d been skimming and stacked it together with the other papers in his lap, setting them all aside on the end table. His gaze lifted to Noam’s, and he propped his head against the heel of one hand. “It matters,” he said, “because the rest of the world will sympathize with them, not us. They might be wary of declaring outright war—but they can impose trade sanctions that could be crippling. Carolinia is a small country. We rely extensively on foreign trade for oil, certain metals . . . not to mention that scotch you’re drinking.”

  So. Definitely a stupid question, then.

  At least Lehrer was being indulgent about it—which, actually, that was a bit strange. Lehrer never had much patience for naivete.

  “Besides,” Lehrer went on, “Texas has advanced antiwitching technology. Even if our military is generally stronger thanks to our witching soldiers, Texas has their own defenses in that regard. All the Level IV–trained assassins in the world will be little good against Texan science, if it comes to that. And that same technology makes their servers impenetrable even to your power, Noam. I will admit it worries me.”

  Noam picked up his glass of expensive imported whisky, took a small sip. Lehrer was right, of course. If Texan tech was as good as Lehrer suspected, even Lehrer’s many abilities would be rendered useless.

  And Texas wanted nothing more than a witchingless world.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked after a moment.

  Lehrer was silent for a beat, one crossed leg swinging idly and his quartz-like gaze fixed on Noam’s. Then, at last, he looked away—picked up the memo again, and a pen. “I don’t know yet.”

  After Lehrer had gone to bed, Noam slipped out and back down the hall to the sitting room. He flicked on a lamp with electromagnetism, casting the empty room in shades of amber and gold. The memos had been put away, stacked in the top drawer of Lehrer’s desk with all the other artifacts of a head of state. Noam arranged them on the desk surface and used his phone to take photos of every page.

  He shuffled them back into the drawer quickly, glancing over his shoulder toward the dark hall leading back to Lehrer’s bedroom. Empty. Some part of him had expected Lehrer to be standing there watching—Lehrer was a light sleeper, after all; he frequently woke just from Noam rolling over in bed.

  He shut the drawer with his hip and glanced through his phone with technopathy. Noam doubted these pictures were anything they could use . . . but it was better than doing nothing.

  Nothing had become a slow poison in Noam’s veins. The kind of poison that would eat away at his organs and soft tissue until there was no part of Noam Álvaro left to fight.

  Noam’s fist collided with Lehrer’s shoulder, the lead jab quick and forceful enough to make contact before Lehrer could block it. Lehrer didn’t reel back—he’d increased his own weight, the vinyl floor cracking underfoot like thin ice—and when he returned the blow, it was with enough strength Noam staggered, power dragging against metal pipes in the walls to keep from falling over.

  “Too low,” Lehrer said. “Aim for my face.”

  “I can’t reach your fucking face,” Noam got out through gritted teeth. Sweat dripped down his brow, stinging in his eyes as he blinked it away. His rotator cuff ached—not torn, not yet, but agonized from throwing off Lehrer’s clinch.

  “Then play to your strengths. I’m much taller than you. How can you use that?”

  Noam sucked in another breath, lungs straining with the effort. Then he lunged forward with a rear kick, aiming for low on Lehrer’s stomach, under his center of gravity. This time it was Lehrer’s turn to stumble, magic glittering in waves over his torso as his cells repaired themselves.

  Noam had been feeling sick for two weeks, ever since the assassination attempt, the subsequent annexation—stress, he didn’t doubt. But this morning he woke up alert again, alive, adrenaline hot in his veins like magic. And it felt good to fight.

  It felt good to fight Lehrer, in particular.

  A grin cut across Lehrer’s mouth. “Better. But what—”

  Noam didn’t let him finish. He’d pushed forward into Lehrer’s space, drawn close enough he could smell Lehrer’s cologne even over his own perspiration. His right fist punched upward, under Lehrer’s jaw; he felt the snap of bone on bone reverberating against his knuckles as Lehrer’s teeth crashed together. He’d used superstrength, enough to break Lehrer’s mandible.

  Healed instantaneously, of course, but it was still immensely satisfying to imagine the bolt of pain that would have shot through Lehrer’s nerves in that split second.

  As far as Noam was concerned, Lehrer didn’t feel nearly enough pain.

  This time, Lehrer dispensed with the instructional remarks. He just retaliated, several strikes with his magic in quick succession; Noam blocked them all and gave up none of the ground he’d gained. He could practically taste all that magic buzzing in the air, vibrant and humming with danger. Only Noam wasn’t afraid. That was reckless, probably—foolish, even, with Lehrer standing opposite him with errant strands of his tawny hair fallen over his brow and the first buttons of his shirt undone, power burning under his skin.

  But Lehrer’s cheeks were flushed, and there was a faint sheen of perspiration along the exposed line of his neck. Noam was so used to seeing him as Calix Lehrer—legendary, effortlessly omniscient. But this . . . it was intoxicating. Noam wanted to push more, harder, until he fractured Lehrer’s defenses the same way Lehrer’s magic had cracked the floor. Until Lehrer paid for everything he’d done. Until Noam stopped seeing Atlantian faces—stopped seeing Dara’s face—
every time he shut his eyes.

  He looped his power into the hum of the earth’s geomagnetic field and used it as leverage to lift his whole body off the floor, to propel himself forward so both feet collided with Lehrer’s sternum. Lehrer’s body absorbed the shock, bones breaking and healing all in the same instant. Which, fuck, was probably how Lehrer survived the bullet wound. If whatever part of his brain that controlled his magic hadn’t been destroyed, it would have repaired the rest on reflex.

  They needed that vaccine. Of course, Lehrer would never let them find it.

  Electricity came next—easily, because Noam was already using magnetism. It struck out from his body like lightning, white hot and blinding in the small room. Lehrer’s responding blow missed, skirting off the edge of Noam’s shields and exploding uselessly against the far wall in a crash of smoke and light.

  Maybe Lehrer had gotten back into sparring too quickly after the assassination attempt. Right now . . . right now, Noam felt like it would be only too easy to tear Lehrer’s defenses apart like paper and burn them into ash. Lehrer felt it too. Noam saw it in his eyes, when they were close, in that second before Lehrer parried Noam’s next punch: pupils dilated, sweat beading on his temples.

  Noam drew back, magic still held at the ready but putting space between them. Lehrer pressed the heel of one hand against his brow, wiping away the blood from an injury he’d already healed.

  “We can stop,” Noam offered, his own breath coming in uneven little gasps. But for once he wasn’t dizzy with exertion—he was illuminated by it, ebullient. “If you’re tired. We can just end it.”

  Lehrer exhaled again, and when he stepped forward, Noam saw something else in his eyes—not exhaustion this time. A shadow, dropping like a curtain onstage.