THE ELECTRIC HEIR

by Lee, Victoria

  Even with Noam’s face healed, Lehrer’s hand lingered—slid farther back, fingers tracing the shell of Noam’s ear. Lehrer took in a shallow breath—but then he shook his head, said, “Let me get you a drink.”

  It felt bizarrely familiar, watching Lehrer pour the scotch from the bar cart—that faceted crystal decanter poised over the tulip glass, Lehrer lifting the dram and carrying it back to press the drink into Noam’s limp hand.

  Lehrer took a sip of his own whisky while watching Noam—and after several seconds Noam made himself drink as well. This time he barely felt the burn on the way down.

  “I was afraid you wouldn’t come back,” Lehrer said in a quiet tone. He was still so close. His gaze flickered between Noam’s eyes, like he couldn’t quite read him. “I didn’t . . . when I told you to be here at ten . . . I didn’t use persuasion.” His mouth twitched up, however briefly. “I admit I hoped you’d return. But I was equally certain you’d run.”

  Say something.

  Noam had to say something. He swallowed against the taste of liquor in the back of his throat.

  “I thought about it,” he said. His grasp felt slick around the tulip glass. He shifted his fingers closer to the base for a better hold. “But. I just . . . I guess I couldn’t, in the end.”

  Lehrer let out a soft breath, one Noam felt whispering through his own hair. “You have no idea how much of a relief that is to hear,” he said. His hands were on Noam, skimming light along his ribs—those, he hadn’t healed. Noam stayed very still, so still he thought Lehrer might feel Noam’s heartbeat pounding against his chest as his touch wandered down Noam’s sternum. Lehrer’s fingers caught on one of Noam’s buttons, and he rubbed the pad of his thumb against the mother-of-pearl.

  But he didn’t push it through its hole. For all Lehrer had made himself clear this afternoon—after everything—he didn’t move to undress Noam. Not yet.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, Noam,” Lehrer murmured. “You’re . . . important to me. And perhaps I’ve not done the best job of showing that lately.”

  Noam’s hand lifted—he wasn’t sure if he was moving to push Lehrer away or draw him closer, and in the end he just grasped Lehrer’s wrist and did neither. Just kept him there, held in space, the backs of Lehrer’s fingers still brushing Noam’s stomach.

  Lehrer’s cut-glass gaze traversed Noam’s face like he’d never seen him before. Like he couldn’t get enough of him. “After my brother died . . . I didn’t think I’d ever care about anyone again. I didn’t want to need anyone, or anything. And I didn’t think I’d ever meet someone else who could be my equal.”

  The words felt like water in cupped hands—powerful, lifesaving, but impermanent. Trickling away.

  Lehrer touched Noam’s cheek, his mouth. “Tell me you won’t leave me,” he whispered, lips a scant inch from skin.

  And as hard as Noam searched, he couldn’t sense Lehrer’s magic.

  It wasn’t persuasion.

  Now or never. Noam had to make a decision.

  The hand on Lehrer’s wrist shifted, knocking Lehrer’s touch from his shirt. But it was just so Noam could move into the space left behind, rising up on the balls of his feet to press his mouth to Lehrer’s.

  Lehrer’s inhale was quick, audible. He kissed Noam back without hesitation, grasping his hips with both hands and keeping him in place as he leaned closer, pressing their bodies together. And for a second it felt like it used to, both of them impatient and desperate for more; Lehrer’s teeth dragged along Noam’s lower lip, and dizziness answered in Noam’s mind, spun-sugar euphoria.

  Lehrer pushed him back, driving them both down the hall toward his bedroom with Lehrer’s telekinesis already tugging his tie off from around his own neck, Noam’s hands lifting to draw the silk free and toss it aside.

  The back room was pitch dark, although when Lehrer’s magic flared, the lamp answered—a dawn of golden light. Lehrer was breathless when he drew back, gaze drifting down the length of Noam’s body. He held Noam like he was fragile, like Lehrer had never realized how precious he was before now.

  When he kissed Noam again, it was gentler, uncharacteristically so. Lehrer’s hands slid down to Noam’s hips and untucked his shirt, palms sliding up and along Noam’s bare skin.

  “We’re so good together,” Lehrer said against Noam’s mouth as he tipped him back onto the bed. His weight on Noam’s chest made it hard to breathe; panic reared its ugly head and clawed at Noam’s insides as Lehrer kissed his cheek, his neck. “We belong together.”

  No.

  No, they didn’t.

  Something in Noam snapped, a horrible tension and a worse release. He shoved Lehrer back with both hands, and Lehrer went easily, confusion shifting into his expression as Noam pitched upright, Noam’s knees drawing defensively toward his chest.

  “What is it?” Lehrer said, concern creasing his brow as Noam struggled to take in a fresh breath. His nails dug in against his own shins, and suddenly everything in this room was a threat—the heaving shadows and soft mattress beneath him, the smell of cigarette smoke and the bladed lines of Lehrer’s face.

  “I can’t,” Noam said.

  He tasted salt. His lungs felt shredded and bloody.

  Lehrer moved back, off the bed. Noam crawled forward after him, limbs weak and shaking as he pushed off the bed and onto his feet. Lehrer hadn’t moved—hadn’t said a word, the lamplight glinting off the whites of his eyes.

  Noam dragged a hand back through his own hair.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, voice wavering. “I can’t do this anymore.”

  Lehrer’s voice was low, barely audible but laced through with ice. “What did you say?”

  He was so close, a slim cut of darkness silhouetted against the dim light. Noam took a reflexive step back—toward the door.

  Lehrer moved in his wake, slow but inevitable.

  “I don’t want this.” Another step. Noam’s veins were burning, and when he dug his fingers into his palms, his skin felt thin as paper. “I don’t want you, Calix. It’s over.”

  “It’s not over.”

  Noam’s breath fluttered in his throat. Suddenly his Faraday shield felt heavy in a way it never had before, like it took effort to maintain. Lehrer’s persuasion was a weight leaning against his mind, threatening to break through.

  Noam was in the hall now, the living room to his back and Lehrer standing in the bedroom doorway, tall enough he consumed the whole length of the frame. Backlit, Noam couldn’t make out Lehrer’s face. Couldn’t see him at all.

  “Come back here, Noam.” No mistaking the magic that ignited the air between them. “You aren’t going anywhere.”

  Noam was frozen in place, feet grown roots into the floor. Only it couldn’t be persuasion—he had Faraday, Lehrer couldn’t—

  No. This was fear.

  Lehrer held out his hand for Noam to take. “Don’t test my patience.”

  This was the moment. If Noam disobeyed him now . . .

  Noam drew his magic to the tips of his fingers, the surface of his skin.

  “I said no.”

  Silence fell. For a terrible second they were both locked in place, Lehrer dark and unreadable, Noam’s very blood on edge as the realization sank in.

  As Lehrer knew, all at once, that Noam was no longer his.

  Hadn’t been, for months.

  Lehrer broke first.

  He surged forward, inhumanly fast; his touch grazed Noam’s throat for one reeling beat before Noam recoiled out of reach. Noam’s magic surged out from him all at once, seething with electricity to slam into Lehrer’s hastily erected defenses.

  And suddenly all Noam could think about was the way it felt when he was on the floor of the sparring room, broken and screaming—how easy it would be for Lehrer to bring him down again.

  “I knew it,” Lehrer rasped. He sent something white hot and deadly lashing across the space between them; Noam stumbled back and slammed himself against the wall just in time. The conflagrat
ion lit into the floor, flames arcing toward the ceiling in the brief moment before Lehrer quenched it. “You think I didn’t know, Noam? You think I didn’t figure it out?”

  Noam shot magic back toward Lehrer like a dozen poisoned darts; none of them struck home. Lehrer was a force of nature, a storm bearing down; Noam barely had time to distinguish one attack from the next, every defense hurled into place at the last second. His mind buzzed, static roaring in his ears. He was distantly aware of Wolf scurrying down the hall to hide in the bedroom, an odd thing to notice at a time like this, and yet—

  He couldn’t keep this up. Couldn’t focus hard enough for long enough. Soon he’d break, and Lehrer’s magic would swarm through the cracks to devour him.

  “You’re transparent,” Lehrer said. “That Faraday shield on your mind—who gave you that idea? Who fed it to you like honey on a spoon?”

  Lehrer’s next blow caught Noam in the knee, and he fell, crashing to the floor heavy enough the ricochet sent a vase flying to shatter against the fine rug. And Lehrer was there before Noam could recover, his knee bearing down against Noam’s sternum and his hand at Noam’s neck, crushing the air from his windpipe.

  Noam choked and scrabbled at Lehrer’s arm with both hands as Lehrer leaned in close, closer, until a fallen strand of his hair grazed Noam’s brow. Lehrer’s face was contorted with fury, eyes pale fire.

  “You gave them to me. Every one of your . . . compatriots. You betrayed them—and yourself. For nothing.”

  Noam jabbed his knee up, slamming it in against Lehrer’s ribs. Lehrer didn’t move, wasn’t even fazed.

  Lehrer pressed down with the heel of his hand, and Noam’s vision flared to white.

  “We could have been great,” Lehrer whispered. His breath was fast and shallow, air bursting in beats against Noam’s skin. “We could have changed the world, you and I.”

  Noam’s mind had gone lax and liquid, unconsciousness seeping up like groundwater. He fumbled for his magic; it slid and slipped through his fingers.

  Last chance.

  He hurled as much power as he could muster into Lehrer’s gut. Lehrer flew back, slamming into the opposite wall.

  Noam didn’t wait for his gaze to clear or for Lehrer to rise. He scrambled to his feet and dashed toward the living room, panic blinding him to the corner of the rug he tripped over, the end table he banged his hip against.

  Lehrer’s magic caught up with him halfway across the den.

  Pain exploded in Noam’s chest, three sharp snaps splitting the air as his ribs broke. Noam cried out and threw forward a lash of electromagnetism to anchor himself in place. His telekinesis flung a chair at Lehrer—a table—a lamp. They crashed against him like waves breaking upon a rock.

  Lehrer progressed through the wreckage without misstep.

  “There’s nowhere to run,” Lehrer said. “Dara can’t protect you now. The rest of your team is . . . impotent. Weak.” A thin smile cut across his lips. “And as for Minister Holloway . . .”

  Another crack of magic split against Noam’s face, a laceration opening along his brow, slicing down toward his mouth. Blood splattered the carpet underfoot.

  “He’s been mine since the beginning.”

  And then there was pain.

  It seared through Noam’s nerves like a nest of lightning, rocking him back on his heels—only Noam’s magnetic anchor kept him upright. He heard screaming, echoes of someone yelling in his ears.

  The same trick Lehrer used in sparring. It burned a path down to his core, unstoppable wildfire.

  Distantly Noam was aware of Lehrer drawing closer. He didn’t realize how close until Lehrer’s fist slammed into his stomach, sending him lurching back and heaving air from his lungs. Lehrer’s grip on his shoulder held him in place for a second blow.

  “I wish I could say I’d make it quick . . . ,” Lehrer murmured in his ear.

  He pressed a chaste kiss to Noam’s temple.

  “But I want it to hurt.”

  Lehrer’s grip found Noam’s wrist and tightened until the bone cracked. Kept squeezing, grinding it to dust.

  Noam couldn’t think, couldn’t see. Could barely even feel the pain anymore. It was too much, all encompassing, an ever-expanding universe and his mind floating free in black space.

  No.

  No, he couldn’t give up.

  If Lehrer left this room alive, he’d go straight to Dara.

  Noam dragged up the dregs of his magic and focused again—as ever—on magnetism. On electricity. On finding the frequency of Lehrer’s magic as it seethed through his nerve endings and playing the opposite tone.

  All at once, the pain vanished.

  Not all of it, not the agony of broken bones and something deep in his gut that felt as if it had split open.

  . . . But enough.

  Noam flung the rest of that magic against Lehrer, screaming with the effort of it—every ounce of power he could bring to bear, until all he had left was agony and exhaustion and the dull throb of fever in his skull.

  Lehrer fell, and Noam bound him down with an impossible gravity.

  It wouldn’t last.

  But it might last just long enough.

  He staggered down the hall toward the study door, legs weak and shaking under his own weight. Behind him he felt the cords of his magic snap, Lehrer struggling against the tide holding him back and escaping.

  Noam left a trail of blood in his wake, magic leaking from the soles of his feet and the palms of his hands in a spray of silver-blue light.

  He shoved open the door with his shoulder. Lehrer was right behind him, right there—

  His hand brushed Noam’s shoulder, injecting pain like venom into vein, before Noam slammed the door shut between them. And in the same gesture he yanked Lehrer’s wards out of the way like old curtains and threw up his own in their place—the same wards he’d constructed around Dara’s apartment, tight and bled-through with technopathy.

  Noam was out of breath, his lungs screaming with the agony of taking in air. Every inhale was like puncturing them with his own broken ribs—and maybe that’s exactly what was happening, Noam thought dizzily as he faltered toward the next door—maybe he was collapsing inside.

  He didn’t have much time. The technopathy might baffle Lehrer for a minute or two, but he’d get past it quickly.

  Lehrer was too clever to be restrained for long.

  Noam had to get out of here. Had to get somewhere public, somewhere with . . . witnesses.

  He couldn’t make it down the stairs on his own. The hardwood was slippery underfoot, each lurch down its own exquisite torture.

  Noam grabbed onto the railing with one sweaty hand and heaved himself up, bracing his heel against metal. The stairwell weaved before him, his vision just oil paints running together.

  He hissed in a breath and heaved himself over the ledge and into free fall.

  Noam mustered enough magnetism to catch himself mere feet from the ground floor, slowing his fall enough to keep the collision from being lethal. Even still, judging from the wretched scream that tore from his throat and the sharp-split pain in his side, he’d broken another several ribs.

  His head was on fire. Noam crawled across the landing to the door, hand slipping on the handle once, twice, before he managed to drag himself back up onto his feet and pull down.

  Very distantly, he sensed the wards on Lehrer’s apartment crumble and fall.

  Noam stumbled into the atrium. At this hour the crowds were thin, most of the tourists and government employees having gone home for the day. But there were still enough people weaving between the separate wings of the complex that Noam felt—

  Not safe. But.

  He was so close.

  He kept his gaze locked on the doors to the back street, dragging himself step by step across the marble floor with his broken wrist clutched to his chest. Already people had started to stare. Noam gritted his teeth and tried to lift his head, to walk a steady gait. It was all but impossible.


  A familiar glint of magic cut into Noam’s awareness right as he made it to the far side, the guards pushing open the doors. He looked back, over one shoulder.

  Across the atrium, Lehrer was a still figure in a gray suit, a solitary pillar around which the hubbub of evening traffic swirled and eddied and passed by. Their gazes met as Noam stepped out onto the street.

  Lehrer lifted a hand—not farewell.

  A promise.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  DARA

  After Noam left Dara—left, on purpose, left for good—Dara had gone back into the bar and slapped a handful of argents onto the table for Leo and taken a bottle of bourbon in trade.

  Ames at least knew to leave well enough alone.

  Dara paced the short length of his apartment, that bottle waiting on his dresser and his shirt buttons torn half-open—it was too hot in here, too hot for midwinter, for all snow still fell outside the window and the radiator spat useless steam against the plaster wall. Dara circled his thumb and forefinger around his wrist and dragged it up his forearm, checking how far he could get.

  Not far enough. He’d gained weight.

  Dara wished he could strip off his skin, his life. Shed it like spent currency and fade into oblivion.

  Oblivion was what that bottle would buy him, when he finally gave in.

  And he would give in. He knew it. The bottle knew it. It stood there on the dresser and reveled in that knowledge, mocking him.

  Damn it.

  Dara broke pace, crossing to the dresser and tearing the foil from around the bottle’s neck, yanking the cork free. He poured himself a sloppy dram and stared down at the whiskey that spilled over the rim of his glass and wet his fingers. He’d played a terrible game and won an even worse prize.

  This was Álvaro’s fault. So much in the ruins of Dara’s life was Álvaro’s fault.

  He left the bourbon there and spun on his heel to pace another lap.

  Outside the snow blanketed the city inch by inch, silencing it under so many layers of cold and ice. Dara pressed his brow to the frigid windowpane and stared down at the grim street, darting like a sooty line toward downtown.