The Fever King

by Lee, Victoria

  “Don’t look at me like that, Calix. Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

  “It’s very late, Chancellor.”

  Sacha chuckled. “And you’ve been trying to catch me alone for weeks now. Surely you won’t pass up this opportunity.”

  Silence stretched out. Then at last: “Please. Come in.”

  Two pairs of footsteps headed down the hall this time. Sacha was wearing that crown of his; Noam sensed it. This time he let his power skim the curve of what felt to be a steel-and-copper circlet. There was magic there, too, oddly enough, green and glimmering.

  Probably to keep the metal shiny.

  Lehrer and Sacha headed for the sitting room. Lehrer’s power sparked gold in the darkness behind Noam’s shut eyelids as he conjured a flame.

  “Cigarette?” said Lehrer.

  “I don’t smoke. As you know.”

  “Ah, that’s right. Well, please, have a seat. Shall I offer you a drink?”

  “How considerate of you. Gin and tonic.”

  Noam’s own glass was slippery in his grasp; he caught it with telekinesis instead and sent it floating off somewhere into the room behind him. Did Lehrer know Noam could hear everything they were saying from here?

  Heat flared from the other room, Lehrer taking a drag from his cigarette. “To what do I owe this rare pleasure?”

  “I’m here on business, I’m afraid,” Sacha said. “We were just informed that Atlantian workers are protesting the power outages, beginning tomorrow at eight. Apparently there’s been some . . . incitement.”

  The pamphlets.

  Noam’s power hovered over Sacha’s phone. How much trouble would Lehrer give him, he wondered, if he just wiped Sacha’s data? Fused all the circuits, turned his phone into an expensive mess of metal?

  He opened his eyes, but the darkness in the room was as heavy as ever.

  “That’s a problem for the Ministry of Labor,” Lehrer said, milk-mild.

  “Well, it’s about to be your problem,” Sacha said. “I’ve told your man Brennan that we’ll have zero tolerance for further violence. If these strikes lead to any kind of problem, which I’m sure they will, I’ll see the law enforced.”

  “And what does that entail?”

  “I want a Ministry of Defense presence at all protests and assemblies. These people aren’t citizens—if they disturb Carolinian peace, we can deport them to Atlantia. I’ll institute a curfew, if necessary.”

  “Hmm. Imposing martial law over a few disgruntled refugees? Surely the situation isn’t yet so dire.”

  “No more weakness, Calix. You’ve been trying to undermine my administration for years, but that ends now.” Sacha made a harsh noise, like air being forced through a tight space. Uncharacteristic—he’d always struck Noam as the consummate politician, but now . . . “You can’t control me anymore.”

  Lehrer crushed his cigarette coal into a metal tray and laughed. “That’s right. You have a crown now, don’t you?”

  Sacha didn’t respond to that. Noam’s magic seethed just under the surface of his skin, and he clenched his hands, worried the static might escape into the ambient air. That Sacha might feel it.

  After a moment, Lehrer said, “I believe some of my orders should still be in effect. You do remember them, don’t you?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Not with this.”

  Lehrer’s sigh was audible even from the bedroom. Noam twisted round in the dark and held out his hand for the scotch glass, finishing what was left of it in a single hard swallow.

  This could only be a good thing. If Sacha started making mass arrests, it wouldn’t be long before Brennan’s restraint over the refugees fractured. Last time that happened, rioters burned a path halfway down Broad Street. Even the university shut down temporarily, all those bourgeois parents afraid to let their kids go to school near such hooliganism. Noam had been too young to join the protesters, but his father went.

  “It’s beautiful craftsmanship,” Lehrer said at last, and for a moment, Noam didn’t know what he was talking about. But then he felt fingertips—likely Sacha’s, as he couldn’t imagine the chancellor letting Lehrer get so close—touching the steel rim of the circlet. Noam could picture the look on Lehrer’s face so clearly, the small smile and the emotionless eyes. “I recognize the handiwork.”

  The sofa shifted: Sacha, standing up. Noam felt him put down his glass on the end table as well, the click of crystal on wood. His voice, when he spoke, was incredibly calm, such a departure from just a few moments ago that Noam got mental whiplash.

  “You know, Lehrer,” Sacha said, “if you treated your toys better, maybe they wouldn’t break so badly.”

  The silence that followed was lethal.

  “You should leave.”

  “Yes, I think perhaps you’re right. Thanks for the drink.”

  Noam didn’t breathe until he heard Sacha’s footsteps retreat down the other hall and the study door open—then shut—behind him. Even then he didn’t move. In the sitting room, Lehrer stood. The nails in the soles of his shoes paced toward the window, then back again. Stopped.

  Noam clutched the empty glass between both hands and shut his eyes.

  “You can come out,” Lehrer’s voice said.

  Noam sucked in a breath and opened the door with his power. His gaze met Lehrer’s as he stepped out into the hall, Lehrer silhouetted against the sitting room with his hands in his pockets.

  Words tumbled in the back of Noam’s throat, but none felt right enough to say aloud. He put his glass down the first chance he got, Lehrer turning to allow Noam to move past him into the room.

  “Sir,” Noam said, when he couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “It won’t be long now,” Lehrer said. The tips of his fingers pressed against Noam’s back, right between his shoulder blades, propelling him the last few feet farther into the sitting room. Even that small contact was a rush akin to standing on a high peak, looking down. Noam shivered and hoped to god Lehrer didn’t notice. “We need to be prepared.”

  “Brennan won’t let them riot,” Noam said.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Lehrer’s hand fell away. In the absence of his touch, Noam felt both relieved and strangely bereft.

  Noam turned to look at him, and Lehrer nodded. “Go on back to the barracks. I’ve kept you very late already, and you have basic in the morning.”

  He said it like an apology. For that, Noam gave him a smile. “All right. Good night, then, sir.”

  Dara was still awake when Noam got back. He sat alone in the den by the window, the book on his knee tilted toward the light. He looked up when Noam came in, folding down the corner of his page and slipping his feet off the seat cushion.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey.” Noam toed off his shoes by the door. “You’re up late for a weeknight.”

  “Couldn’t sleep.”

  Noam edged around the coffee table so he could sit on the arm of the sofa nearest Dara’s chair. The corner of Dara’s lower lip was flushed, like he’d been chewing on it. “You have this problem a lot,” he said. “You should talk to Howard. She could get you some kind of prescription.”

  “I have one,” Dara said dryly. “But thanks for the suggestion.”

  Noam couldn’t stop looking at that spot on Dara’s lip. He wanted to lean over and kiss it, find out for himself if the flesh was as warm and swollen as it looked.

  Concentrate.

  Dara glanced away from him, turning his face toward the window. “I don’t mind being up,” he said. “It’s a nice night. No clouds. You can even see Mars—look.”

  There was no way to look without sliding off his armrest and moving into Dara’s space. But Dara seemed to want that. His hand caught Noam’s wrist and tugged him closer, until Noam was leaning over him with his free hand braced against the windowsill, Dara’s left thigh perilously close to Noam’s groin, and, fuck.

  Dara shifted in his seat, perhaps oblivious—but then again, perhaps not.
His shoulder bumped Noam’s, Dara squirming in the narrow space left between Noam’s body and the armchair to face the window properly. Only then did he let go of Noam’s hand.

  Noam wanted to place it right there, at the small of Dara’s back where his shirt rode up to expose a slice of naked skin.

  “Do you see it?” Dara said.

  Noam put his hand on the back of the chair instead. Just behind Dara’s head, close enough that one of Dara’s curls grazed the underside of Noam’s wrist.

  “No. Where?”

  “East of the Lucky Strike tower. The reddish-looking star.”

  That wasn’t what Noam wanted to look at. He looked anyway. And there it was—tiny, only slightly ruddier than its fellows, glinting like a dropped garnet in a field of diamonds.

  “Now?”

  “I see it,” Noam said. His voice came out rougher than usual.

  Dara smiled. The book slid off the seat of his chair and fell on the floor, and neither he nor Noam moved to retrieve it.

  “It’s strange,” Dara murmured. He was still looking up at the sky, eyes overbright. “Any one of those stars could be dead now. And we’d never know.”

  Noam followed his gaze back out into the night. “Wouldn’t we?”

  “No. Not until it was too late. It takes thousands of years for light to travel from those stars to Earth.” He exhaled softly, breath fogging the window glass. He looked so . . . happy, as if he’d swallowed one of those stars and it illuminated him from within. Noam was struck with the urge to capture this moment somehow, so Dara could relive it.

  Noam slid one knee onto the seat cushion next to Dara’s, half expecting Dara to push him away. He didn’t. His hip was feverish hot against Noam’s leg; his throat shifted as he swallowed—but he didn’t move.

  “Do you ever think about . . .” Dara started, then broke off. His hand tightened on the armrest, fingertips digging into the upholstery. “All of it—it’s all random chance. The universe. Us. An infinite cascade of chaos. A series of impossible accidents is the only reason we even exist.”

  Noam hadn’t thought about it. That was the sort of thing he’d known, on some level, but never felt. Not before Dara said it to him, like that, soft as a secret.

  Dara had a way of making even the mundane extraordinary.

  If he spoke, the moment might break. In the window light, Dara’s face was glazed with silver. Juxtaposed with the amber lamplight on his hair, he was . . .

  Noam had thought Dara was beautiful that night on the beach. That was nothing compared to this.

  Dara looked at him, turning his head just enough that Noam could see the curve of his opposite cheek, the glint of both eyes.

  If Noam kissed him right now, Dara would think Noam was just like everyone else.

  And maybe Noam wasn’t special, but he wanted to be. He had to be more than the next in line of a hundred men who wanted to have sex with Dara Shirazi.

  “I’m glad you exist,” he said.

  Dara smiled. Looking at that mouth didn’t help Noam’s cause.

  Noam forced himself to turn back to the window, staring at Mars glimmering from so very far away and not—not—at Dara.

  “I’d better go to bed,” he said, still looking out. He could see Dara, though, a blurry figure in his peripheral vision. “If I don’t now, I never will.”

  “Go on, then,” Dara said, not unkindly, and nudged Noam off the chair.

  The room felt much colder than it had earlier, now that Dara wasn’t pressed up against him.

  Dara’s legs unfolded into the space Noam had opened up, and he leaned forward to pick his book up off the floor, tucking it between his thigh and the armrest. When he met Noam’s eyes, his face was perfectly unreadable.

  “I’ll still be here,” Dara said, “if you change your mind.”

  Noam didn’t—for better or worse.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  From time to time, Lehrer brought Noam to his official office for lessons instead of the study. Those days, Dara wasn’t invited, and they didn’t spar—though Noam still had bruises from all the times Lehrer’s magic threw him to the ground like it was nothing. Lehrer worked on business of state and Noam sat with his holoreader open atop crossed legs, uploading everything he could reach from Sacha’s computer two offices down. He didn’t bother sending them to Brennan anymore.

  “People are angry,” Linda told Noam as they scooped shepherd’s pie onto dinner trays one Monday. “It’s not in the papers, obviously, but people are furious about Sacha declaring martial law.”

  “How angry?” Noam murmured back. “Angry enough to fight back?”

  “They do, sugar. We have protests every day now. But it’s hard to protest properly when Sacha’s got his soldiers out on the street keeping the peace and enforcing curfew.” She slapped another dollop of shepherd’s pie onto a plate. “I declare, I don’t know what got into those kids last week, attacking a cop like that. It was supposed to be a peaceful demonstration.”

  Good thing they did, though, or else they might’ve been waiting forever for Sacha to find an excuse to declare martial law. Noam was sick of waiting. If they didn’t do something, and soon, people would get complacent.

  And it would be Brennan’s goddamn fault when they died for it.

  “Speaking of martial law,” Noam said as he shoved his spoon back into the casserole dish. “Does Brennan have some kind of plan, or is he enjoying his cushy new job as government liaison too much to risk losing it?”

  Linda shot him a look of disapproval. “Don’t you start with that sass, Noam Álvaro. All of us have our roles to play.”

  And Noam’s, apparently, was to take all the risks.

  Linda’s sharp elbow bumped against his ribs. “I think you have a visitor,” she said and winked.

  Noam looked up. Dara stood by the entrance, leaning back against the wall with his hands in his pockets, eyes fixed on Noam. Dara wore his cadet uniform, and the refugees gave him a wide berth—as if he might demand to see papers. After a moment, Dara drew one hand out of his pocket and waved.

  “Friend of yours?” Linda asked.

  “Sort of.”

  For Noam, seeing Dara here, outside the context of Level IV and firmly in Noam’s world, was like suddenly losing balance. When he ladled the next serving of pie onto a plate, his hand shook.

  Linda nudged him again. “He’s cute.”

  Dara was too far away to see Noam’s cheeks flush. But he nodded his head in Noam’s direction before slipping out the door.

  “I have to go,” Noam muttered, and Linda didn’t fight him on it as he stripped his apron off and ran out onto the street. He expected to find Dara leaning against the brick wall, cigarette in hand and something sharp to say, but he wasn’t. Noam floundered for a moment, looking up the road past the bums with their change cups and the kids chasing a deflated soccer ball down the snowy gutter. And—there, a glimpse of Dara’s uniform turning the corner up ahead.

  Noam started after him, half jogging, and he broke onto the main street just in time to see Dara’s head disappear into a cab. The car peeled away from the curb and left Noam standing there right as it started raining. The water soaked through Noam’s shirt and crystallized cold in Noam’s bones. He hugged his arms around his waist.

  Why was Dara here?

  Had he come to see Noam? If so, why hadn’t he stayed or said something? Had Lehrer sent Dara to find him? Or was this something to do with whatever Dara got up to those nights he didn’t come back to the barracks? Noam had always assumed he was out, in bed with some gorgeous stranger. But lately he’d started imagining Dara sitting in Sacha’s office far past midnight, the pair of them plotting just as Noam and Lehrer did, Dara leaning over Sacha’s desk with pen in hand, sketching the outline of Lehrer’s demise.

  It was a cold, wet walk back to the government complex; back in the barracks, Bethany and Taye and Ames were watching some old movie.

  “Where’s Dara?”

  “I think he
went up to the roof,” Bethany mumbled through a mouth full of popcorn.

  It’s too wet to be on the roof, Noam almost said. Didn’t, though, because then they’d all get caught up debating the merits of drowning to death, and he wasn’t going to let Dara run off again.

  The rain was falling more heavily by the time Noam got to the roof, as if the storm had been waiting for dusk to fall before it really hit.

  Dara stood at the far end, leaning against the black iron railing, a dark smudge against the gray landscape. He wasn’t wearing a raincoat. With his back to Noam he was a slim figure frozen in time, storm whirling around him unseen. He didn’t look back when Noam started across the roof toward him.

  The stone was perilously slippery beneath Noam’s boots. He hugged his jacket tight around him, tugging the hood up to keep out the rain—for what little good it did. The market lights strung over the courtyard looked like blurry fireflies caught in a thunderstorm.

  It was only when he reached Dara’s side that Dara looked at him.

  “Don’t you think the weather’s a little bad to be out here like this?” Noam said.

  Dara was soaked through, hair plastered against his forehead and rainwater slick on his skin.

  “I don’t mind it,” Dara said. His voice was soft, barely audible even though they were close. “We can go inside, if you’d rather.”

  Noam shrugged and grasped the railing, the steel cold beneath his palms as he looked out over the courtyard below. Four stories down, the stream cut through the flagstones, running faster with all the extra water. A lone soldier made his rounds, hunched over against the elements.

  “You came to the Migrant Center today.”

  “Yes.”

  “You left pretty quickly.” Noam glanced at Dara. “I don’t suppose you were looking for a volunteer position.”

  Silence for a moment. Then: “No.”

  Noam waited, but more information didn’t seem to be forthcoming. At last he gave up. “Well? Why were you there?”