THE ELECTRIC HEIR

by Lee, Victoria

  Noam saw it coming a blink before Lehrer moved. He threw up an arm, blocking Lehrer’s hook before it could crack against his cheekbone. Adrenaline reared up in the back of his mind, all animalistic reflex—fight, flight—but too slow; Lehrer was faster than reflex. Faster than any human should be.

  Lehrer’s magic barreled into him with the force of a hurricane, blasting Noam off his feet and sending him flying across the room. He smashed into the wall hard enough he cried out, pain searing through his vision bright as a magnesium flare. His body dropped broken to the floor, Noam’s breath shallow and shuddering against his shattered ribs. The pain was too much. It had chased his magic away, electricity just a flicker at his fingertips, sparks from a frayed wire.

  Lehrer approached on silent feet, steps surer now than they had been when Noam was all power and euphoria and impossible strength. When he crouched down in front of Noam, the sweat on his skin had evaporated, his hair already slicked back and his shirt collar rebuttoned like he’d just come from his office: chancellor of Carolinia again.

  He reached out a hand and healed Noam’s broken ribs.

  But he left the bruises. He always did. Cause and effect, act and consequence.

  “You’re right,” Lehrer said at last, pushing to his feet. He glanced at his wristwatch. “I think that’s enough for today.”

  He held out a hand to help Noam up, his grip firm and forceful. The exhaustion, the way Lehrer’s magic seemed to falter in his grasp—it was as if Noam had imagined it all. Instead Noam, heavy-limbed and dizzy, was the one who felt as if all the life had drained from him over the course of several seconds.

  Noam let Lehrer pull him to his feet, once more the fond mentor, always in control, always alert. Noam swayed on his feet, and Lehrer carded his fingers through Noam’s hair, a flicker of gold magic against Noam’s spine keeping him upright as Noam laughed, said, “Guess I should have paced myself.”

  It was only later, as Noam was washing the sweat off in Lehrer’s shower and rubbing his thumb against the burns on his wrist, that he knew.

  He hadn’t imagined it.

  On that sparring floor, Lehrer had been weak. Noam could have killed him. But he hadn’t. He’d chosen not to.

  And that choice said far more about Noam Álvaro than he’d like to admit.

  It wasn’t enough.

  The next day, when Noam woke up sore from sparring and Lehrer was still there, still alive—the protests in response to Lehrer’s annexation of Atlantia all over the front page of the Herald—Noam called in sick to class and took the bus back to the high school.

  It was a Thursday afternoon. The campus teemed with students migrating from one class to the next, all of them in knots of friends or staring at their cell phones or listening to music. Noam mingled unseen among them.

  The basement hallway was crowded now; even so, with Noam’s power they didn’t notice him shouldering open a small door at the end of the hall and slipping inside. The room was as dusty as he remembered—the mannequin still peering eerily out from the shadows, the age-spotted mirror reflecting a yellow glow from the narrow windows high on the walls and the misshapen edges of rotting cardboard boxes.

  Noam resumed his search per the grid he’d laid out earlier. This time, without classes to worry about—Lehrer, if he heard Noam was missing, would assume he was in the barracks; the teachers would all assume he’d gone to Lehrer’s—he was able to take his time. It didn’t look like anyone who worked at the school actually came down here, after all. That meant Noam wouldn’t be interrupted . . . by Ames or anyone else.

  He had no idea where the school got half the things he found in these boxes—ancient ballet shoes, about seven thousand copies of a printed-out script of The Lottery, outdated textbooks, art supplies—but none of it resembled a vaccine. None of it seemed like it had Lehrer’s fingerprints stamped all over it.

  Noam was on the last grid, had just finished digging through a carton of old theater costumes and shoved the box aside, when he saw it. The black leather bag he’d taken off Michael, the dead man in the quarantined zone—still speckled with Michael’s blood, the strap gone stiff with it.

  Noam’s chest abruptly tightened. All he could hear was the roar of his own blood in his ears, louder and louder, his hands shaking as he undid the buckled front.

  This is it. Noam would take those vials, fit them to a syringe—fit the syringe’s needle in Lehrer’s neck. Flood his veins with something far more powerful than suppressant.

  And then he’d kill him.

  The strap slipped free, and Noam shoved open the bag, blinking against the dim light—

  The bag was empty.

  Empty—except for a single vial shattered at the bottom, spilled blood. Lehrer had been here already. He’d taken the vaccine, and he’d left the bag behind because he knew Noam would come, wanted Noam to know that Lehrer knew—

  Maybe he just moves the vaccines often, Noam told himself, trying to believe it was paranoia, but . . .

  Noam was gripping that bag in both hands now. Why would Lehrer leave the bag if he was moving the samples to keep them from being found by a curious student or teacher? Surely bringing the bag with him would make transport easier.

  He knows.

  Noam’s technopathy felt clumsy, but he managed to send a text to Dara all the same. Found where Lehrer’s been hiding the vaccines, but he’s already moved them.

  He paused a moment—could already imagine Dara’s response. So he sent another message on the heels of the first:

  I’ll just have to figure out his next hiding spot. If I can find one, I can find the others.

  I hope.

  Because now that the adrenaline of the initial shock was wearing off, it was obvious Lehrer hadn’t discovered Noam’s game. Couldn’t have. Why would he have let Noam live—let him keep going to those meetings—if he suspected?

  Noam dropped the bag back where he found it, under all those piles of petticoats. Wiped sweaty palms against his thighs. The air seemed thicker in here now as he made his way back across the basement room, nearly stumbling over the boxes he’d dislodged during his search. He pulled open the narrow door and edged back out into the hall, tugging the door shut and locking it telekinetically in his wake.

  “You’re not supposed to be in there,” a voice said over his left shoulder.

  Noam spun around and found himself face to face with a thin-lipped woman wearing a security guard’s uniform. She was standing too close, arms folded over her chest.

  Dry mouthed, Noam managed to push aside the initial panic—what if she recognizes me from the papers, that article with Lehrer—what if she tries the lock, I used telekinesis, can’t unlock it again—she’ll hear—know I’m a witching—did Lehrer send her?—in favor of forcing a weak smile onto his lips. “Sorry,” he said. “I was just . . . curious.”

  “Get to class,” she said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder, and Noam didn’t wait to be told twice.

  By the time he burst out onto the sidewalk in front of the school building, breathless in the icy air, all that brief comfort had vanished, because he remembered what Lehrer had said when he first realized Dara was involved with the resistance:

  I need to tear this little rebellion out by the root, not simply trim the weeds.

  If Lehrer knew Noam betrayed him, he wouldn’t kill him. He’d leave Noam in place. He’d let Noam go to those meetings, let Noam prove what a traitor he really was.

  Then . . . and only then . . . would he crush them all.

  Recovered from digital archives.

  THE DURHAM HERALD

  April 23, 2020

  NEW ADALWOLF LEHRER STATUE UNVEILED AT CATASTROPHE MEMORIAL

  Durham, Carolinia—A statue of catastrophe war hero Adalwolf Lehrer was revealed today at the catastrophe memorial, located in the square between Chapel Hill Street and Main Street. King Calix Lehrer was present at the unveiling, although he did not make a statement.

  The catastrophe memorial was er
ected in winter last year as a symbol recognizing the deaths of innocent witchings who lost their lives during the former United States’ genocide. The addition of the statue acknowledges the unique contribution of one of those witchings—Adalwolf Lehrer—to the end of the genocide and the establishment of the Carolinian state.

  The statue was designed by renowned artist Emily Martin. The monument represents the first Carolinian historical figure to be thus memorialized.

  [Attached: a photograph of Calix Lehrer at the statue’s unveiling. He wears a gray suit and stands with his head tipped down and one hand lifted as if to block the camera’s view of his face.]

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  DARA

  “We’re going to have to meet more often than this,” Claire muttered to Dara that next Monday night, sitting at the bar with her leg jiggling up and down and her gaze flicking toward the door every three seconds. It was ten minutes past start time, and neither Noam nor Holloway had shown up yet.

  Dara squeezed his lemon slice into his club soda and nodded and didn’t say anything. He didn’t think he could open his mouth without his fear spilling out, black and tarry all over the floor. The radiator had broken in the bar two hours ago, and it was starting to get cold, the tips of Dara’s fingers numb no matter how close he stood to the space heater.

  Three weeks. It had been three weeks since Noam showed up at that first meeting and said he was staying with Lehrer, undercover. Three weeks since Noam told them he could last four weeks under Lehrer’s gaze.

  Even right now, Noam could be lying dead or dying in that apartment, his blood seeping into the antique carpet and that beautiful mind of his gone silent forever.

  Leo kept pacing back and forth behind the counter with a gray dishrag in hand, occasionally scrubbing at an invisible spot only to start pacing again. Priya watched him with shuttered eyes, her vodka tonic left untouched.

  At last the door opened again and Noam entered the bar, pink cheeked and scrubbing gloved hands together. But he wasn’t alone.

  Dara leaped to his feet, heart surging up into his mouth; beside him, Priya’s hand was already on her gun.

  “Shit,” Ames said, eyes wide when they met Dara’s. “Shit, you really are—”

  Dara put his soda down and was at her side a beat later, wrapping both arms around her body and tugging her in tight. She smelled like smoke and snow, her fingertips digging into the nape of his neck and his brow buried against her hair. She’d grown it out since he saw her last. It was almost chin length now.

  After a moment she pushed him back, holding him by the shoulders as her gaze traversed his face, like she was checking to make sure he really was himself and not some kind of clever simulacrum. It took him a second to recognize that expression she was making—the same look she used to get when she was thinking something really loud in his general direction that usually meant she wanted him to read her mind.

  “I can’t anymore,” he said, and his pulse still skipped a beat every time he said that. “I took the vaccine.”

  “So it’s true. You don’t . . . you’re not . . .”

  “A witching? No. Not anymore.”

  Noam hovered at Ames’s side, both arms crossed over his chest now with a muscle twitching in his cheek. “She kind of made me let her come,” he said, more to Claire and Priya than to Dara. “Ames—she’s an old friend.”

  “Wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Ames said, but it wasn’t in the tone she’d usually take. No levity, no edge of self-deprecation. All flat vowels and clipped consonants. “I’d have followed him if he hadn’t given in.”

  “I guess we have open membership now,” Priya said dryly.

  Ames snorted. “Yeah, well. Hi. I’m Carter Ames. And I’ve been hating Lehrer since some of y’all were in primary school.”

  It was true. She’d hated Lehrer even before Dara did. Back when Dara still made excuses for him, still covered the bruises and told himself pride was a small price to pay for Lehrer’s affection. The first time he confessed to Ames that he and Lehrer had slept together, grinning, cupping that secret close like it could keep him warm—she was so repulsed. And he’d been angry with her. Thought she didn’t understand, didn’t get it. Wouldn’t speak to her for months.

  But when that paper castle burned to the ground, she’d been there. She didn’t care he’d pushed her away. She just hugged him tight and said, We’ll fucking destroy him.

  Dara didn’t see that now. When she looked at him, he could see her flinch every time—if not outwardly, then inside. Invisibly. He didn’t need telepathy to know her. He’d always known her.

  “Come on,” he said quietly, reaching for her hand and tugging her deeper into the bar. “It’s okay. Sit wherever. Leo will make you a drink.”

  He led her to the counter, made her take the stool by him. She showed Leo her ID and ordered a beer, but her hand lingered on Dara’s wrist, fingertips brushing right over the pulse point.

  “You look thin,” she murmured.

  He met her gaze, but there wasn’t a right answer to that. It wasn’t even a question. He shook his head, very minutely, and drew his hand out of reach under the guise of drinking his soda.

  Noam was watching them both. Dara felt his eyes burning like twin coals at the nape of his neck. He dragged a self-conscious hand through his hair, but it was too short now, the gesture not nearly as satisfying as it once was. He kept forgetting.

  “Let’s go ahead and get started,” Claire said, clearly making the executive decision to let Ames stay. Maybe it was the combined endorsement of both Noam and Dara—or maybe it was just impatience.

  Less than two months left until Independence Day.

  “We need to talk about Texas,” Noam said immediately, voice gone flat. “That’s the real threat. If they attack before we’re ready to make our move, Lehrer won’t hesitate to use war as an excuse to consolidate his power. And then even if we leak all this info me and Dara have been collecting from Lehrer’s apartment, it won’t matter—fighting Texas will make Lehrer look even better. Between Texas and Atlantia, public fear will be strong enough everyone will be only too happy to sacrifice liberty in the name of national security.”

  “That’s why Lehrer was made king in the first place,” Dara said. “When Carolinia was founded. In uncertainty, people want centralized power—even if it’s dictatorship.”

  Noam nodded, visibly relieved to have Dara agree with him about something. He shifted in his chair, facing Dara a little more fully. “He hasn’t said so explicitly, but I know him well enough for that. It’s the same play he made last year during the coup.” Noam shrugged. “At least he’s predictable.”

  Only Lehrer wasn’t predictable. Dara frowned, gaze drifting toward Ames—who still watched Noam, as fixated on him as if he were the only person in the room. If Lehrer seemed predictable, that just meant they weren’t paying attention to the right things.

  “What’s his plan for Texas?” Leo asked, grabbing Noam’s empty glass to refill it at the sink. “Invade first, ask questions later?”

  “I don’t know.” Noam shrugged. “I asked him last night. That’s what he said.”

  “He’s lying,” Dara said.

  “Oh, you think?” Noam snorted. “Of course he’s lying. But he does have reason to worry. Texan antiwitching tech is really fucking good. If we aren’t prepared when they come for us, then Calix is right—we’re screwed.”

  That name shot through Dara’s chest like a bullet. He saw the exact moment Noam realized what he’d said: the color drained from his face, and their gazes met, Noam’s wild and wide as a trapped deer’s.

  Dara’s mouth twisted in a macabre grin, and he put out his cigarette with one sharp jab into the ashtray.

  “We need those antiwitching tech schematics,” Claire said, and if she noticed the sudden tension in the room, she barreled right past it. “I’m an engineer; I can probably build a prototype. Of course, maybe we won’t have time to use it before—” She broke off, gaze fli
cking over to Ames; even with Noam’s endorsement, Ames clearly hadn’t yet passed the test. “Anyway,” Claire said after a beat. “Enemy of our enemy is our friend. We gotta talk to Texas.”

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Leo said, “but all of you are witchings. Except me. Any envoy Texas sends us is gonna come with six bullets—one for each of us.”

  “Then we control the terms of engagement,” Noam interjected, finally tearing his gaze away from Dara. “Meet somewhere public. It doesn’t even matter if they trust us or not—if I can get ahold of a Texan phone, one connected to Texan servers, I can figure out how to hack them the old-fashioned way.”

  “Hopefully it won’t come to that,” Priya said—it was the first time she’d spoken all night since Ames came in. “Claire was born in Texas; she has contacts down South. We’ll get in touch, see if we can arrange a friendly rendezvous. They know us. They’ll take it serious.”

  “Too right,” said Claire with a short nod. “Okay, that’s settled. Noam—we’ll be in touch once something’s planned.”

  Ames turned back to Dara almost immediately, finishing off her beer in one long swallow. “So,” she said. “You gonna show me where you’re staying now, or what?”

  A small, weak smile flickered across Dara’s mouth. “You don’t want to see it. Trust me.”

  “It can’t be any worse than mine. Every time I go back home, I’m just rattling around in this massive fucking house by myself. If you thought that place was depressing when my dad was alive, well, somehow it got worse.”

  Dara shook his head and slid off his barstool. “I need to talk to Noam.”

  Ames let out a low laugh. “What,” she said, “haven’t you heard? Noam has a new boyfriend these days.”

  “He told you?”

  “No. But I’m pretty good at recognizing patterns lately. And Lehrer obviously has a type.”

  “Excuse me?”

  She arched a brow. “Young, powerful, desperate for a father figure. Or am I missing something?”