THE ELECTRIC HEIR

by Lee, Victoria

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  DARA

  Noam kept his end of the bargain, even all the way from Texas.

  Priya showed up every morning at eight with a plastic grocery bag of food and a pack of cigarettes. She’d stay an hour or so, pitying Dara enough to give him that small amount of human contact—but she always left, off to do whatever it was the Black Magnolia had her doing, and Dara was alone for the day to pace his narrow apartment and try to absorb himself in a new book before Claire arrived for the evening shift.

  But not even Crime and Punishment could hold Dara’s attention for long. His mind kept circling back to Noam and Ames—Bethany and Taye—all down in Texas fighting one of Lehrer’s wars. Possibly dying for it.

  Dara had never been claustrophobic before now. He used to love small spaces, in fact—had filled his room in Lehrer’s apartment with dozens of houseplants with wide frond-like leaves, vines that dangled down from the ceiling like Spanish moss. It had made his bedroom feel like it was blocked off from the rest of the world . . . and Dara liked the way Lehrer had to navigate around all those plants every time he came in, an invader in unfamiliar territory.

  This was different. This felt like being trapped in that same room—barren now of plants, of Dara’s telescope, his books, and his ceiling stars—caught there with a line in his vein and his magic tamped down and bound. The rising panic of knowing he’d die between those four walls.

  “War’s on hold,” Claire told him on the fifth night, the both of them perched on chairs shoved up against the window, blowing cigarette smoke out into the icy air. “Apparently Lehrer’s got Houston in a stranglehold, and the Texans want to talk treaties. All action is suspended until there’s word one way or the other.”

  “That’s a good thing,” Dara said, making Claire glance over at him in surprise. He tapped ash against the windowsill and shrugged. “If the war went on much longer, Lehrer might not make it back in time for Independence Day. We’d lose our shot.”

  Not to mention, the longer Noam was in Texas, the fewer chances he’d have to discover where Lehrer kept the vaccine.

  “I suppose,” Claire said after a moment. She stabbed her cigarette out and flicked it into the night air, then pushed herself up, dusting both hands on her jeans. “Either way, I’m still doing damage control with Texas for their spy’s death in east Durham. Try explaining to a bunch of paranoid antiwitching freaks that random muggings happen in Carolinia just like they do anywhere else.” She shook her head. “Fucking nightmare.”

  “Right,” Dara said and swallowed down the truth.

  “Anyway. We’re meeting on Monday, as usual. I’ll have Priya come get you beforehand. And Dara . . . maybe take a bath first?”

  She left. Dara lifted an arm to sniff himself; he couldn’t smell anything.

  But now that he thought about it, he couldn’t remember the last time he took a shower. Before Noam and Ames went to Texas, for sure—all the days following that blurred together, indistinguishable except for whether Dara managed to make himself eat.

  So he made a point of cleaning off and changing into a fresh set of clothes before Priya showed up to escort him down to Leo’s bar.

  “Hey, where the hell’ve you been?” Leo asked, passing over a glass of club soda when Dara sat himself down at his usual stool. He’d added a twist of lemon this time; it bobbed up and down in the bubbles like a tiny yellow ship at sea.

  “House arrest,” Dara muttered. “Álvaro put wards on my apartment. He thought Lehrer might send someone after me.”

  “Wasn’t that already a risk?”

  “I suppose. But you don’t know Álvaro.” Once Noam got it into his head that someone he cared about was in danger, he stopped caring about anything else.

  Unless that person was Ames, of course. Guilt still twinged in Dara’s chest when she walked in, stripping off her parka and dumping it over the back of a wooden chair. Looking at her, all he could imagine was Lehrer’s golden magic tangled up inside her skull like so much metal wire.

  But if Ames was back, then that meant—

  “Where’s Noam?” he asked when she sat on the stool next to his.

  “Texas,” she said, raising a finger to get Leo’s attention. “Can I get a whiskey sour?”

  “What do you mean Texas?”

  “I mean Dallas,” she said, twisting round to look at him properly. “Lehrer had him flown in. Some business about him being Atlantian liaison—I don’t know. Guess Lehrer wants him to reassure the Texans that Lehrer doesn’t plan to annex them the way he did Atlantia.”

  “But he does,” Dara said.

  “Probably. But anyway, point is Noam’s with Lehrer. So. It’s just me.”

  A cold hand closed around Dara’s heart. Never mind not having time to look for the vaccine. In close quarters with Lehrer, with tensions running high . . .

  Dara had gone on trips with Lehrer before. When he was fourteen, Lehrer even took him to Paris on a diplomatic trip. They’d stayed at a beautiful historic hotel in the eighth arrondissement. The balcony had a perfect view of the Eiffel Tower, framed by the crimson flowers that grew thick and fierce in the window boxes. Dara had found a little used bookshop a few blocks away, would hole up there while Lehrer was in meetings and work his way through every book he could find, reading the entirety of Les Misérables in the original French. It was one of those rare early days, when Dara still saw this new arrangement with Lehrer through rose-colored lenses. Everything seemed bright and special. And Dara had felt so very adult drinking the glass of champagne Lehrer passed him, when Lehrer trailed his hand down Dara’s spine, when Lehrer took him to bed.

  But it didn’t end well. A meeting didn’t go Lehrer’s way, and the glittering postcard-perfect façade shattered like mirror glass. They’d left early, Dara’s bruises covered with an unseasonable sweater, and Dara never read Les Mis again.

  “Lehrer will catch him,” Dara whispered, clutching his club soda in one numb hand. “He’ll—Noam can’t fool him, he’ll—”

  Dara managed to cut himself off just in time, tipping forward to take a big swallow of his soda to wash down the words he so nearly let slip. Lehrer will use persuasion, and Noam won’t obey. And then he’ll know.

  But anything he said in front of Ames, he might as well be saying to Lehrer’s face.

  “He’ll be okay,” Ames said, more gently this time. She reached over and found Dara’s free hand, squeezing once. “Noam’s smart. He’ll figure it out. He’s lasted this long, hasn’t he?”

  “Texas will be different,” Dara said. And he couldn’t explain how he knew that was true, just that it was. He knew that down to the marrow of his bones.

  “Let’s get started,” Claire said after the last of them—Holloway—had finally shown up, unwinding his black scarf and settling in at an empty table. “Priya’s got an update from Texas.”

  “Well, they aren’t happy,” Priya said, perching on one of the barstools and twirling her straw between her fingers. “But I think they’re going to drop the murder accusation for now. They’re blaming Lehrer, not us—that’s the good news. The better news is that they might be able to get us a prototype of the vaccine.”

  Oh thank god.

  A vaccine. If that was true—if Texas came through on their promise—Noam wouldn’t have to stay with Lehrer. They could just take care of it, end all of this now before—

  “Will they have it ready in time for Independence Day?” Leo asked, an innocent question, and dread plunged black into the pit of Dara’s stomach.

  Shit.

  Ames.

  He caught Claire’s gaze across the room; even her black skin had gone visibly pale. Silence hung over the room, sharp-toothed and vicious.

  “What?” Leo said, glancing between them all. “What did I say?”

  “Nothing,” Dara interjected swiftly and slid his empty glass across the bar. “Can I get a refill?”

  Leo grabbed the glass and filled it up, stealing a couple looks at Da
ra like he thought more information might be forthcoming. Next to Dara, Ames kept kicking the toes of her shoes against the underside of the bar—she knew what had just happened. Her cheeks were flushed a dull red.

  Behind her back, Dara gestured toward Priya. She drained the rest of her drink and got up, moving forward like she was headed to the bar to get a refill of her own.

  Dara’s blood was frozen in his veins as she set the glass down on the bar top. Ames lifted her head—and Dara met Priya’s gaze right as Priya stabbed the syringe needle into the side of Ames’s neck.

  “What the fuck?” Ames leaped up, her barstool toppling over and her hand slapping against her neck. But it was too late; Priya had already pushed the plunger.

  Dara caught Ames’s wrist. “It’s okay,” he said quickly. Her eyes were wide and wild when she reared around to face him instead, a thin trickle of blood cutting down the side of her neck to stain her shirt collar. “It’s okay. It’s just suppressant.”

  “The hell, Dara!”

  She must have reached for her magic, then, because Dara watched the color drain from her face from one breath to the next. And Lehrer must’ve ordered her not to let herself get caught, because she instantly broke to the right—but Dara was faster, hooking his arm around her neck to catch her in a clinch.

  Either Ames was stronger than he remembered, or Dara had gotten weak these past months. She thrust her elbow back into his ribs, hard enough he wheezed and only just managed to keep his grip.

  “Help me!” he managed to get out.

  Priya tried to go for Ames’s middle, but she couldn’t get past Ames’s knees. Ames had always been good at physical sparring, vicious and efficient.

  “Dara!”

  Dara ducked, and Leo broke an empty bourbon bottle over Ames’s head. She slumped in Dara’s arms and he staggered, struggling to hold up her deadweight. Leo dropped what was left of the shattered bottle in the sink behind the bar, and Dara and Priya heaved Ames’s body between them, slinging one of her arms around each of their necks.

  “What was all that?” Leo said, as Claire swept up the broken glass with a flicker of telekinesis.

  “She’s under Lehrer’s persuasion,” Dara explained, shifting to get a better grip on Ames’s waist; her sweater was thick and made her hard to hold on to. “She didn’t know about the Independence Day plot—that was our one secret from him, but now she knows, so . . .”

  “So now he’d know,” Priya finished grimly. “Or he would, if we let her go back there. Not that we have anything better to do with her. I don’t suppose you’d let us stash a hostage behind your bar for the next several weeks?”

  Dara shook his head. “Not that long. Just a few more days—Noam can do to her what he did to himself.” He said it like he was way more confident than he felt. It must take substantial magical effort to sustain a shield like the one Noam had on his mind. Dara wasn’t even sure Noam could manage to hold two at once. “We just need to wait for him to get back from Texas. We can keep her in my apartment.”

  Claire and Priya exchanged looks. It really was the best plan, even if Dara felt a little guilty suggesting the obvious selfish option. But at least if Ames was with him, he wouldn’t be alone anymore.

  “Sounds good,” Claire said at last. “C’mere, let us help you get her upstairs . . .”

  Lugging Ames’s unconscious body to the second floor was a surprisingly rigorous undertaking. The stairs were narrow and uneven, and Ames’s body had a habit of slipping too far one way or another, like she had weights shifting from limb to limb.

  “You sure she isn’t boneless?” Claire said through gritted teeth as they dragged her up the last step, Ames’s head lolling uselessly back toward the floor.

  Claire entered the code on Noam’s wards, and Dara shouldered open the door to his apartment.

  “Here,” he said, hooking his foot round the leg of his sturdiest chair and dragging it over.

  They dumped Ames on the chair. Priya had scrounged up some zip ties from the emergency kit she brought to every meeting; she used them to bind Ames’s wrists and ankles to the chair.

  “Every hour,” Priya said, passing over the kit with all its syringes of suppressant. “You have enough for six hours—I’ll be back in a few with a fresh supply.”

  None of them voiced the obvious: it might take far more hours for Noam to return home than there was suppressant on the black market.

  Dara took the bag and nodded. After a beat Priya reached over and clapped her hand on his shoulder, allowing him a soft and almost understanding smile.

  “We’ll check in,” she said.

  They left, and although Dara couldn’t sense the magical wards locking again in their wake, he could imagine them. He envisioned a silver-blue electric curtain falling around the apartment, a stage at the end of an act.

  Dara turned toward Ames, still unconscious, and wiped away the trickle of blood running down from her temple.

  “Just you and me,” he said. “Again.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  NOAM

  The Texan president’s residence was a massive construction in white marble, obviously modeled after the relics of the former United States—all grecian columns and broad, smooth steps. But they didn’t enter from the front. The motorcade took them round to the west side, to the more subdued private entrance meant for the presidential family themselves.

  Noam rode in a separate car from Lehrer—for appearance’s sake, he presumed, although a tiny twist in the pit of his stomach suggested that maybe, maybe . . . it was personal.

  Maybe Lehrer didn’t want to be alone with him now.

  Well, that makes two of us, Noam thought as nastily as he could, and smiled and nodded as the Carolinian ambassador to Texas kept talking on and on about the winter weather like Noam gave a shit about whatever El Niño was supposed to mean.

  “Ah, here we are,” the ambassador said as their car rolled to a stop behind Lehrer’s, as if Noam hadn’t noticed. “It’s a magnificent house. You’re very lucky to have the chance to see it. There’s nothing quite like it in Carolinia.”

  Noam was starting to think the ambassador liked Texas better than his own home country.

  One of the Chancellarian Guard opened the door, and the ambassador emerged first, Noam following in his wake. The drive was composed of what must have been ten tons’ worth of small white pebbles; they crunched and rolled under his feet as they walked up toward the house.

  Lehrer preceded them all, a slim figure in navy blue trailed at great distance by two guards. Lehrer had told Noam once that he loathed the way the presence of the Chancellarian Guard undermined his power. They should never forget how capable I am of defending myself, he’d said.

  And true to form, he eschewed bodyguards in Carolinia; the only time Noam ever saw them at all was in the wake of that assassination attempt.

  But here they were. A muted presence to be sure, far back and armed only with handguns holstered at their hips, but here.

  Lehrer must be worried.

  Only, of course he was, Noam realized. Texas had the vaccine—that was the whole reason Lehrer had declared war in the first place. If the Texans found a way to inject him with it, they would win the war in a single stroke. Lehrer would be trapped here, impotent and in Texan power. Carolinian armies would be trapped within Texan borders.

  Every country in the goddamn world would ally themselves with Texas. They’d crush the life out of whatever was left of Carolinia in the wake of Lehrer’s neutralization.

  We shouldn’t be here. Adrenaline bolted up Noam’s spine like a shot of lethal poison. Why hadn’t someone warned Lehrer? Why didn’t—

  But they did. They did warn Lehrer. And if they didn’t, Lehrer would’ve known anyway, would’ve figured it out the same way Noam had.

  And he came anyway.

  He brought Noam with him, anyway.

  Because even with both their lives in the balance, finding that back door past Texan antiwitching shield
s was worth the risk.

  Sickness crawled up the back of Noam’s throat. They all stood there on the front drive, wide open to snipers, as the Texan president and his wife greeted Lehrer in the foyer. All smiles, that baseline man’s hand gripping Lehrer’s gloved one: So very glad you could make it.

  Noam stretched out his magic, searching. He couldn’t sense any sniper rifles, but that didn’t mean anything in the country that invented antiwitching shields.

  Lehrer and the president had finished their pleasantries. As they walked deeper into the residence, Noam and the ambassador followed through the front door.

  The Chancellarian Guard stayed on the front lawn. Apparently Lehrer’s ego was still too big to let them follow him in to dinner.

  The ambassador was right about one thing, at least. The house really was one of the most impressive pieces of architecture Noam’d ever witnessed—second only, perhaps, to Duke Chapel. Nothing else in Carolinia was like this. The high ceiling almost seemed to float overhead, the herringbone parquet floor draped with plush imported rugs and all the furniture polished to a gleaming finish. It was an understated kind of beauty; in comparison, their hotel gave the impression of trying too hard for opulence.

  It was annoying, because Noam actually liked it.

  Discussions continued in the sitting room prior to dinner, tuxedoed servers supplying aperitifs from tiny pewter trays. Noam sipped his, a fizzy pomegranate-red drink garnished with a perfect round of orange.

  “Harvey, this is Noam Álvaro, my student and the interim liaison for Atlantian affairs,” Lehrer said, placing a hand lightly on Noam’s back as he introduced him to the Texan president. The man had a slim bronze circlet resting atop his head—just like Sacha’s, designed to keep Lehrer from influencing them with his persuasion. Come to that, everyone else here was wearing a similar crown, including the staff. “Noam, this is President Harvey Méndez.”

  “What a pleasure, Mr. Álvaro,” Méndez said, shaking Noam’s hand. He had a thick, drawling accent like sugar syrup. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. I was quite fond of your predecessor. We were all very sad to hear of his passing.”