THE ELECTRIC HEIR

by Lee, Victoria

  When they were together, it didn’t matter what the rest of the world thought—if they saw Noam as a victim or a traitor, if they even deigned to consider Dara at all. Noam didn’t want them to be defined by the worst things they’d survived. He wanted this: the jungle of houseplants in their living room, college applications on the counter, Dara singing along to Queen on vinyl—he wanted Shabbat candles, the smell of fresh paint and Dara’s mouth tasting like coffee and long lazy mornings in bed.

  He wanted what they built together: a new life.

  “Telepathy or not, Dara is definitely still cheating,” Ames declared as she lost another round of Saturday-night poker, Dara’s grin bladelike as he leaned over the table to sweep the chips into his corner.

  “Want me to watch his cards?” Noam offered, resting his hands on the back of Dara’s chair. Dara made a face, and Noam swooped down to peck his cheek and steal one of the cheese cubes off Dara’s plate.

  Cheese cubes that were, he noticed, half-gone. Dara had been doing better about eating more, if begrudgingly—and Noam was trying to be patient. Ashleigh had said it might take a while before Dara was willing to gain real weight.

  So Noam would take what he could get.

  Bethany dealt out the next hand, and when Taye glanced down at his, he shook his head and sighed. “I fold. Y’all are a tough crowd.”

  Leo won the next round, and Dara finally excused himself from the table. “Let someone else win for a change,” he added airily, earning himself a pelting of chocolate-covered raisins from Ames.

  “How’s the new house?” Bethany asked later, when the game was finally abandoned and they’d all drifted into their own separate knots of conversation. She was perched on the edge of Ames’s kitchen counter, heels knocking against the cabinets below.

  “Really big,” Noam said, at the same time as Dara said, “Minuscule.”

  They exchanged glances, and Noam broke first. “Big enough for Wolf at least,” he allowed. “Plenty of spots to claim as territory. No one is allowed to sit on the far right end of the sofa anymore, for example. It’s just piled up with dog toys.”

  “Not enough closet space,” Dara said.

  “Maybe you should donate some of your clothes.”

  “I like my clothes.”

  Noam suppressed an eye roll and made himself turn back to Bethany. “It’s a nice house,” he said with a note of finality. “You should come over sometime. Dara cooks now.”

  “Our Dara?”

  “Why does everyone always act so surprised?” Dara said, but he was grinning all the same, and when Noam slid an arm around his waist, he leaned into the touch.

  “Hey,” Ames said, breaking into the conversation with her mouth full of sugar cookies and someone’s pink lipstick blotched against her cheek. She had a glass of water in hand; she’d stayed sober since getting out of rehab a month ago. “Not to like, interrupt or anything, but don’t you two have somewhere to be?”

  Noam glanced down at his watch—it was already past nine. “Oh—right. Thanks. We’ll see you tomorrow at graduation, right?”

  “Yep. Can’t wait to see you in that stupid hat, Álvaro. Now get out of here.”

  They made their rounds, waving goodbye to Leo and Taye in the living room before heading down the steps and out into the warm early-summer night. The car took them south, past the suburbs and into the open wilderness—away from the glittering city lights and the glow of so many human lives intersecting and intertwining behind lit windows and under streetlamps.

  Dara carried the blanket and basket; Noam took the rest, the pair of them hiking down a short curving path through the woods, then breaking out onto the rocky lakeshore.

  “Conditions are perfect,” Dara said, setting down his load and gazing out across the still-glass water. “It’s so clear tonight.”

  Noam unrolled the quilt and weighed down the corners with stones. He opened his mouth to say something—come here or sit down or help me with this—but Dara was silhouetted against the indigo horizon, moonlight a low sheen on his hair and skin, and Noam stayed silent for a moment. Just watched him.

  He was everything Noam wanted. Had always been.

  At last Dara turned, gaze lighting on the unopened aluminum case Noam’d set down next to the picnic basket. “Want me to show you how to put it together?”

  “Sure.”

  Dara constructed the telescope piece by piece, positioning the tripod and identifying true north, mounting the optical tube and attaching the finder scope and its mount. He made it look so easy, all smooth, quick movements of his hands. And when he peered through the lens, the wind picking up over the lake and ruffling through his hair, Noam thought Dara had never been so beautiful.

  “There,” Dara murmured, sitting back and trading Noam a tiny smile. “Look now.”

  Noam leaned forward, pressing his brow against the scope and squinting one eye.

  And what had been a black sky transformed into a sea of glittering lights, a galaxy bursting from the fabric of space in vermilion and violet, all those stars and planets spinning inexorably inward toward a brilliant core.

  Noam’s breath went still in his lungs, the rest of the world falling away until in that moment it was just him and Dara and the infinite universe.

  “What is that?”

  “Messier 31,” Dara said from near his shoulder. His chilly hand slid along Noam’s forearm, laced their fingers together. “Better known by its Greek name: Andromeda. After the myth.”

  “It’s . . .”

  Words seemed insufficient to describe it. Noam stared a beat longer before drawing back, his gaze flickering over to focus on Dara’s face instead.

  Dara’s eyes were wide, mouth parted, his weight drawn up on his knees as if to lean in closer—like he wanted nothing more than to see as Noam saw, to wind their thoughts together and share the same mind.

  Noam touched his face, fingertips slipping back into Dara’s hair. “Thank you,” he said. “It’s . . . incredible.”

  Dara tilted forward, and their lips met. His nose was cold against Noam’s cheek, but where their bodies pressed together, he was warm.

  Noam wanted to live in this moment over and over—again, and again, until it was written in his memory and bone.

  When the kiss broke, Dara was smiling, a true broad smile that split across his face and was impossible not to match.

  They lay back, facing the sky that curved overhead with their heads tilted side by side, and together they watched the night deepen toward dawn.

  CONTENT NOTES

  This book contains depictions of sexual assault and child abuse. It also contains domestic violence, references to suicide, and depictions of eating disorders and substance abuse. For more detailed information, please see the author’s website: http://victorialeewrites.com.

  RESOURCES

  National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673

  National Drug Hotline: 1-888-633-3239

  National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233

  National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

  National Eating Disorders Association Helpline: 1-800-931-2237

  Many of these resources also have online webchat programs available for people living outside the US.

  To learn more about . . .

  . . . sexual assault and abuse: www.rainn.org.

  . . . drug and alcohol addiction: www.abovetheinfluence.com.

  . . . posttraumatic stress disorder: www.ptsd.va.gov.

  . . . intimate partner violence: www.thehotline.org.

  . . . suicide and suicide prevention: www.afsp.org.

  . . . eating disorders: www.nationaleatingdisorders.org.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  When I wrote the acknowledgments for The Fever King, I listed my dog last. So it is only right and proper that for the sequel, my dog is listed first. Aska: you are a very good boye.

  I wrote this series for survivors. I wrote Noam and Dara for anyone who has been forced to q
uestion their own perceptions of reality—who doesn’t fit the stereotype of what a victim “should” look like or act like, who fears they won’t be believed. This was my story for so many years, and if this book makes even one survivor feel seen and understood, then it will all have been worth it. You are so much stronger than you know.

  Thank you so much to my agents, Holly Root and Taylor Haggerty, for championing this story from the very beginning. I remember I was so nervous to describe the sequel’s plot to you both. But when I did, y’all just responded “sounds about right” and told me that you trusted me. That meant everything to me. I still hope we can go to aerial yoga someday!

  Thank you to my incredible editors at Skyscape, Jason Kirk and Clarence Haynes, without whose herculean efforts this book would not exist. Thank you for your thoughtful comments and for understanding the heart of the story I was trying to tell. To the rest of the incredible team who worked on this series—my publicists, Brittany Russell and Megan Beatie; cover designer, David Curtis; art director Rosanna Brockley; marketers Kelsey Snyder and Leonard Sampson; production managers Le Pan and Laura Barrett; copyeditor Stephanie Chou; proofreader Susan Stokes; and Kristin King—I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done. I’m also very lucky to have seen The Fever King made into a webcomic—thank you, Quinn Sosna-Spear and David Lee, for seeing the promise in this idea, and to Sara Deek for bringing it to life with your art.

  Emily Martin, my Pitch Wars mentor and best friend: Hey, remember when we were sitting in your kitchen and I was trying to convince you that Something was a good idea and you were so against it and we talked for like ten more hours and now it’s your favorite concept in the entire universe? Yep. Also, one day I will move back to Boston and we will essentially live at Aeronaut, and I promise you will get so, so sick of me.

  I know I’ve been a nightmare to be around for the past year while working on this book and slowly dying, so thank you to Ben, to my parents, to my sister Ashlyn. Thanks also, again, to Aska—and to our new cat, Squid. I promise I will try to cut down on the sleeping pills now.

  The writing community has been so welcoming, and I really feel like I’ve found a home here. I’m so deeply appreciative of all the writing sprints, the BookCon meetups, the fancy whisky and late-night texts and big queer energy. There are far too many names to list here, but to start with: Marina Liu, Brittney Morris, Zoraida Córdova, Victoria Schwab, Natasha Ngan, Mason Deaver, Casey McQuiston, Tracy Deonn Walker, Kaitlyn Sage Patterson, Ashley Poston, June Tan, Emily Duncan, Rebecca Kuang, Tes Medovich, Rory Power, Grace Li, Christine Herman, Andrea Tang, and Jeremy West. Thank you to all the bloggers and bookstagrammers who loved this book—I’m so honored by your support. Specifically thank you to Ashleigh B., Camille S., Lily H., Vicky C., Felicia K., and Grace T. P.—y’all killed it.

  Thanks to everyone who read The Fever King and everyone who preordered The Electric Heir. I hope this book lives up to your expectations.

  I also somehow managed to survive doing a PhD while writing this series, and for that I have to thank my adviser, Daryl; the whole rest of the department; and my friends Katie, Mary, Julian, Jon, Nathaniel, Bethany, Ellie, and literally everyone from Café Lemont (but particularly Seth, Natalie, and Bagmi).

  If I forgot anyone in this list, I promise I didn’t forget you in my heart.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Victoria Lee grew up in Durham, North Carolina, where she spent twelve ascetic years as a vegetarian before discovering that spicy chicken wings are, in fact, a delicacy. She’s been a state finalist competitive pianist, a hitchhiker, a pizza connoisseur, an EMT, an expat in China and Sweden, and a science doctoral student. She’s also a bit of a snob about fancy whiskey. Lee writes early in the morning and then spends the rest of the day trying to impress her border collie puppy and make her experiments work. She currently lives in Pennsylvania with her partner.