THE ELECTRIC HEIR

by Lee, Victoria

  That made two of them.

  “You know I grew up with him,” Dara said, tugging his sweater sleeve down over his knuckles to start picking at a loose thread; when he tugged it taut, the weave bunched up, torqued around his wrist. Not for the first time, he was grateful Lehrer was notorious enough to be referenced by pronoun alone. “Álvaro doesn’t understand what he’s capable of.”

  “And what is he capable of?”

  Dara gripped the thread tighter until it cut into his skin. He should have known Priya would ask. She was blunt enough it was practically a character flaw.

  “Genocide,” he said. “Among other things.”

  Priya’s bird wobbled on her knee and tipped off, dropping to the floor. She retrieved it, straightened a bent wing with thumb and forefinger, and returned it to its perch. “I’m sure Álvaro is well aware.”

  “He thinks he is.” Dara’s mouth twisted, a sour taste on his tongue. “But he doesn’t understand how personal Lehrer can make pain . . . of course, maybe he wouldn’t care. God forbid Noam plays any role besides the hero.”

  “Has a complex, does he?”

  “Just a bit.” Dara made himself abandon his sweater sleeve, bracing both hands flat against his thighs instead. “Well. It doesn’t matter. He’ll survive, or he’ll realize he can’t, and we extract him.”

  “Right,” Priya said. There was a gentleness to her voice now that hadn’t been there before. She even smiled at him, the expression small and almost sympathetic.

  But it wasn’t pity, at least. Dara couldn’t stand pity.

  “Okay. Magic.” He beat the heels of his hands against his knees once, punctuating the change in subject. “Surprise, surprise: just like everything else, understanding how magic works makes you better able to see it and manipulate it—to create wards, that kind of thing.”

  Priya shifted. “So magic is its own thing, then. Independent of the virus.”

  “No. Well—yes. It’s both. People spend so much time talking about the scientific aspects of magic that it’s easy to forget sometimes that it still is magic. It’s still a little bit . . . ineffable. That’s why in the quarantined zone we can see things like talking trees and three-headed rabbits and glow-in-the-dark rocks. Trees and rabbits and rocks can’t use magic the way witchings do, intentionally, but they can still be affected by it. When magic isn’t directed by a witching’s knowledge and intention, it’s wild. Unpredictable.”

  “Like in Narnia.”

  “Not really. But close enough. Think about—okay. Children. Young children who survive the virus and develop their first ability. Yours was pyromancy. Mine was telepathy.” Dara arched a brow. “Of course, I was four years old—it wasn’t like I was so well versed in neural firing patterns that I could decode them on instinct and develop telepathic ability that way. I was so young I’d only just started storing long-term memory. Tabula rasa: a blank slate. And yet I could read minds. Why?”

  Priya opened her mouth, probably preparing to say something packaged and rote—natural affinity or genetics—but then she clamped her lips shut. “I don’t know.”

  “No one does,” Dara said. “After all, you can’t test it empirically. Just correlations. And if I’m an insightful adult—or like Lehrer, a manipulative one—who’s to say if that’s because I was born that way, or my abilities made me that way? There have been some studies. We know probability of surviving the virus runs in families, although it’s not clear if that’s genetic or driven by class differences since wealthy families can afford better medical care. Our best theory right now is random chance. It’s arbitrary. A child is infected with magic, and however they first use that magic is what they get used to. It becomes a reflex. If they’re older, maybe they use magic to do something they’re familiar with, like Álvaro and his technopathy. But presenting powers can be anything.”

  “So you’re telling me that magic is magic.”

  Dara’s lips quirked up. “Essentially, yes.”

  Priya flicked the bird off her knee; the construction flew about four inches before nosediving toward the floor. “All right, what else?”

  “Every time someone uses magic, it releases energy. Kind of like how when you move your arm, that’s kinetic energy. Do you follow?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, magic has its own energy signature. Only it isn’t kinetic, or thermal, or radiant, or any other energy type you’ve heard of. But if you can start to recognize it, you can see it. You’ll know when someone is using magic in your presence.” He hesitated. “Of course, there are drawbacks. If you’re observing Lehrer, for example—and he constantly uses magic to repair his own body cells—it can get hard to tell the difference between that latent magic use and him using magic to back up a persuasive order.”

  Priya exhaled roughly. “Then what’s the point? That’s what we need to identify. Lehrer’s our ultimate enemy. If he’s using magic all the time, we’re screwed.”

  “I said it could be hard to tell. Not impossible. You just have to practice . . . a lot.”

  But even as he said it, he knew she was right. Learning to see Lehrer’s persuasive magic was an uphill battle. Dara could, but he’d also lived with Lehrer his whole life. Noam couldn’t, not unless Lehrer wanted him to. And Priya certainly wouldn’t be capable of catching the subtle spark of gold that betrayed Lehrer’s true intentions.

  Only if Dara didn’t do this—if he didn’t at least try—then what good was he?

  They’d been practicing for a couple hours, Priya doing odd bits of magic—making her origami bird flap around the room, turning the lights on and off—and trying to sense her own energy signature each time. She never could. And it felt like there was nothing Dara could tell her to change that. She’d either ultimately grasp what he meant, how magic is magic, or she wouldn’t.

  A part of him wondered if that was a side effect of growing up in the QZ like Priya had. In the QZ, everyone was a witching—except, of course, a few infants born in the past few months who were vaccinated at birth. To Priya, magic wasn’t magical the way it was to, say, Noam Álvaro. Or even to Dara, who’d had Lehrer drill the concept into his head over and over until he couldn’t forget it.

  To Priya, magic was just mundane.

  Maybe Dara would have felt the same way if he’d grown up there.

  Dara got tired of the exercise early on, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to invent a reason to send Priya away. He wanted her here. He liked having her here. Having anyone here. The longer he spent in this apartment, the more it felt like the walls were slowly crumbling in on him, threatening to bury him under a mountain of plaster and brick. Priya’s presence kept them at bay. If she left . . .

  If she left, he’d be alone again.

  Still, he was considering asking her to take a break and come back up in a few hours, when Priya’s phone rang.

  She glanced at him, and he waved a permissive hand. She picked up.

  “Yes?”

  Dara couldn’t make out what was said on the other end of the line, but he did mark how Priya’s face settled like the still surface of a lake, her hand curled loose in her lap. Whatever it was . . . it wasn’t good.

  “What?” he said the moment she lowered the phone—although she didn’t put it down, just gripped it with tight fingers.

  She took in a shallow breath and shook her head, and for a moment he thought she wouldn’t be able to speak at all. But then:

  “It’s Lehrer,” she said. “He did it. He declared war against Texas.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  NOAM

  The bar was one of those places you could only find if you already knew where it was. There was no sign, no recorded address—just a black door on the back side of a strip of restaurants and shops along Main Street, nestled between the dumpsters and loading zones, the sidewalk underfoot practically soft with cigarette butts. A man checked Noam’s fake ID at the door and barely even looked at his face before letting him in. Noam descended the narrow steps into
the basement, the bass throbbing in the walls and up through the soles of his feet to pulse in his bones. Noam chose this bar for that reason: it was hard to find, it only had one exit, and because tonight—instead of the usual acoustic singer-songwriter or piano man—they’d signed a DJ. The flyers plastered on the black-painted walls said Thursday Night Pride Party!

  Yeah, that was the other plus. Texans fucking hated gay people.

  Maybe Claire would’ve had something to say about Noam intentionally antagonizing her Texas contact, but it was good policy as far as clandestine terrorist meetings went. Noam needed the upper hand, but he had to get it without scaring the contact off. The guy was bound to be on edge already, considering he was meeting a Level IV witching in the capital of Carolinia.

  Anger was better than fear. It made people just as predictable, without making them liable to run.

  Being here, under these circumstances, was . . . strange. This was exactly the kind of place Noam might’ve come on his own accord, back before Level IV—underground, tarot themed, queer friendly, with an Atlantian flag hanging behind the bar right next to a painting of a pentacle. Only Noam wasn’t here for himself. He was here for Lehrer.

  Sort of.

  “Good,” Lehrer had said when Noam told him the meeting was arranged. “Get the schematics from Jackson’s contact. Bring them to me first—I’ll make some changes—and then you can forward the altered files to the insurgents.”

  Lehrer’d been pleased, a twitch at the corner of his mouth that he couldn’t quite suppress. Noam had hated the part of himself that still craved that, needed it like vital medicine. Lehrer touched his cheek with light fingers, touch trailing down toward Noam’s jaw.

  “When you’re done,” Lehrer said softly, those achromatic eyes holding Noam’s gaze, his magic a faint swell of glittering gold—layering persuasion beneath the words? Impossible to say—“kill him.”

  Noam had gotten used to the weight of the Beretta by now, tucked into the back waistband of his jeans and concealed by the fall of his flannel shirt. The cold shape of that metal was almost comforting to his magic’s senses, like a familiar friend.

  He ordered a water at the bar—he couldn’t get Lehrer’s words out of his head, End up like Dara—and chose a spot away from the crowd, claiming one half of an antique love seat. A fortune-teller held court at a table a few feet to the left, but she and her clients were so absorbed in her reading of the cards they wouldn’t pay attention to Noam. It was the closest thing to privacy you could get in Carolinia. Noam pulled out his phone and pretended to text, technopathy reaching into the feed from the security camera at the door—the camera he’d made sure missed his arrival—and watched the faces of each new person the bouncer let past.

  It wasn’t that he’d recognize Priya’s contact, obviously. But he could record their faces for later—for Lehrer. Even if he checked the guy’s ID after he killed him, there was no guarantee it was real. Lehrer would want a name.

  are you okay?

  He typed the message out twice, deleted it. Typed it again. And then he made himself hit send before he could think better of it, the tiny data packet zooming off through cyberspace toward Dara’s burner phone.

  Noam stared down at his phone, those three words hovering in a green bubble on the right side of the screen. Stupid. Shouldn’t have fucking done it. Dara wasn’t gonna text him back.

  He closed out of the app and shoved his phone into his back pocket, out of sight.

  “You got a light?”

  Noam lifted his head. The speaker was a burly-looking guy in a robin’s-egg-blue shirt and—Noam’s gaze dipped down—cowboy boots. Consistent with what they’d asked Claire’s guy to wear, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d come in flip-flops—the M1911 Noam sensed holstered under the guy’s jacket would’ve given him away.

  Texans sure did love their Browning pistols.

  “Depends,” Noam said. “Tobacco or clove?”

  “Carolina bright leaf. What else?”

  Noam’s lighter leaped into his hand with a tug of telekinesis, and he offered it up to the Texan, who only grimaced a little before taking it. Noam smiled. “Take a seat.”

  The man didn’t have another choice. A part of Noam expected him to perch on the very edge of the cushion, just to signal how ungay he was, but it turned out the Texan was a professional—he sat normally, one arm slung over the back of the sofa and both feet flat on the floor.

  Noam held out a hand for a cigarette, even though he didn’t smoke; the man passed one over, along with Noam’s lighter. Noam lit the end, inhaling deep.

  “Rules of engagement said no weapons,” he commented, blowing his smoke out toward the dance floor.

  The man gazed back at him with a flat expression. “If you’ve got your magic, I’ve got my .45.”

  “Fair enough.” Noam shrugged. “I’m Noam. Don’t know if Claire told you.”

  “Yeah, I know who you are,” the guy said, gesturing with his cigarette toward Noam’s face. “There’s a whole dossier on you back in Dallas.”

  Noam grinned again. “Wow, I’m flattered.”

  “I gotta say, though,” the man went on, his accent a steady low drawl, “you’re about the last person I’d expect to turn traitor on Lehrer. Ain’t you his main mouthpiece on the whole Atlantian annexation thing?”

  “Sure. And I fuck him too.” Noam arched a brow. “Don’t know if your dossier mentioned that.”

  The man was disappointingly unfazed. “They left your personal life off the record. So you’re with the Black Magnolia now. Why?”

  “I have the same problem with Lehrer that Texas does. Well. Not the witching bit. Just the genocide.”

  The Texan took another drag off his cigarette and tapped his ash into an empty glass on the side table. “Fair enough. Anyway, if Claire trusts you, I guess I do too. She’s a pretty good judge of character.”

  Noam doubted character had much to do with Claire’s judgment. Just utility.

  “So,” Noam said. “These schematics . . .”

  “Yeah, I’ve got ’em,” the guy said. He tilted his hip up to tug a flopcell out of his back pocket. “I gotta say it was a pain in the ass converting these files for y’all’s ancient tech. Carolinia planning on joining the rest of the world in 2124 anytime soon?”

  “Not as far as I know,” Noam said, holding out his hand for the flopcell.

  And that was when his gaze caught movement over the Texan’s shoulder, a figure descending the stairs into the bar, backlit but recognizable all the same. Noam’s breath seized in his chest, tension drawing a sudden wire up his spine.

  Dara met his gaze across the room. He still had snow in his hair as he ran his fingers back through the curls, lips quirking in half a smile.

  Shit.

  “What is it?” the Texan said, head swiveling to look—and if he recognized Noam on sight, then he definitely knew Dara Shirazi.

  “Someone who’ll go home with me tonight, hopefully,” Noam said, and that was sufficient to make the Texan’s attention snap back to him on reflex. Long enough, at least, for Dara to slip into the crowd and vanish beneath the strobe lights.

  The man shook his head slowly and stabbed his cigarette out in the abandoned glass. “Y’all really do think we’re all backward-ass hicks down in Texas, don’t you?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “I was best man in my sister’s wedding to a lady named Wanda.” He snorted. “But I guess Carolinian propaganda’s a helluva drug.”

  Noam discarded his own cigarette, even though he’d only taken the one drag. “All that antiwitching legislation y’all keep pushing through isn’t propaganda. So you’ll forgive me if I’m still a bit prejudiced.”

  “That’s your prerogative,” the man said, and when Noam held out his hand again, he finally passed over the flopcell.

  Noam’s heart was beating too fast, overly aware of Dara’s presence as if he’d somehow gotten specially tuned to it.

  “I’m sure
Claire’ll be in touch,” the Texan said, rising from his seat and extending a hand toward Noam, who shook it.

  Fuck. This was all so fucked.

  Dara was here, which meant Dara was out in public, only a ten-minute walk from the goddamn government complex like a fucking idiot fixing to get arrested, and the Texan guy was heading out the door, and Noam’s gun was cold against the small of his back and fuck fuck fuck.

  Noam threw out his technopathy in a desperate net, and—thank god, Texan guy had a burner phone in his back pocket. Carolinian make, so no Texan wards against Noam’s power. Who knew if he’d hang on to it long enough for Noam to actually track him down. But.

  Making sure Dara didn’t get himself killed was more important right now.

  He shoved the flopcell into his back pocket and made his way into the crowd, pressing between the roiling bodies and keeping his magic extended, locked onto the tech of Dara’s burner phone.

  He couldn’t help noticing Dara had gotten his text. Had read it, too; he’d just decided not to reply.

  Because why reply when you can just show up in the middle of a goddamn drop?

  Noam found Dara at the bar, perched on a stool and sipping a club soda, like he had every right to be here.

  “Pay your bill—we’re going,” Noam said without prelude, and when Dara hesitated, he pulled a handful of argents out of his own pocket and slapped them onto the bar. “Dara.”

  “He’s underage, you know,” Dara informed the bartender, gesturing toward Noam with his thumb. “Seventeen. He shouldn’t be in here.”

  “We’re leaving,” Noam said, both to Dara and the bartender, who’d narrowed a suspicious gaze at Noam’s face. It took everything Noam had not to grab Dara’s arm and physically drag him off that stool.

  Dara sighed and put down his soda, sliding off his seat and waving one hand toward the exit as if to say lead the way.