The Fever King

by Lee, Victoria

  But he wasn’t fighting Noam’s grip on his waist either. Noam hitched his grasp a little higher, under Dara’s arms, and took an experimental step forward. Dara stumbled along with him.

  “Noam,” Dara said. His voice was oddly urgent. Tight, like violin wire.

  “It’s okay,” Noam said.

  But Dara jerked his arm hard enough that Noam was the one who nearly toppled off-balance this time. Noam looked at him. It was astonishing that Dara was still standing on his own two feet, for all he clung to Noam with both hands.

  “I have to go now.”

  “Dara, don’t—”

  Dara glanced over his shoulder, wild and jumpy as cornered prey. “Listen,” Dara said. “Listen, you have to—listen, now, believe me.”

  “No, you listen. You’re sick,” Noam told Dara, clasping his face between both hands so he could hold Dara’s gaze. Dara’s pupils were shot wide. “You don’t know what you’re saying. You can’t go into the quarantined zone—for fuck’s sake, Dara. You’d die there.”

  Dara made an agonized noise in the back of his throat, inhuman. His fingers dug into Noam’s arms.

  “It’s Lehrer, he, listen—are you? Listening? Noam. Lehrer, he . . . the virus. Do you understand?”

  What the hell was Dara going on about? He was starting to wish Dara had never broken free of Lehrer’s apartment. Yeah, Noam would still be under arrest, but at least Dara would be safe: a steroid drip in his arm, a doctor on call.

  “There’s a . . . they have . . . vaccine. In the quarantined zone. Understand? Lehrer doesn’t want . . . he said, told me, witching state.”

  Dara twisted his fingers into Noam’s hair and yanked him down again, hard enough Noam had to bite back a yelp of pain. Dara held him there with impossible strength. His eyes were so bright, like something feral, something hungry.

  Dara said, “Lehrer did it. The virus. Released it. Himself. On his own people. Infected, to make witchings.”

  The way he said it was . . . not what Noam expected, somehow. It was low and intense, Dara enunciating every syllable so carefully, like he worried his words would get away from him if he didn’t say them deliberately.

  An uneasy wave pitched in Noam’s stomach. “What . . . Dara, what are you saying?”

  “Lehrer . . . causes, he causes them. The outbreaks.”

  Fevermadness. Wasn’t it?

  “He’s a—telepath. Noam. Reads your mind.” Dara gestured violently toward his own temple. He was talking faster now, all of it pouring out of him at once. His cheeks glowed with fever. “Learned it. But only if—only if he—knows you, or something . . . I don’t. Listen to me. He’ll kill me. He, already, he . . .” Dara’s voice cracked.

  “It’s okay,” Noam said, but he wasn’t sure he even believed that anymore. His voice sounded like it was coming from very far away, blood moving too fast beneath his skin. Where was Lehrer now? How close? Noam imagined the glittering threads of Lehrer’s magic twining through his every thought, tightening in a hundred impossible knots.

  “No, no, now you listen—you—this whole time. The bruises—it was Lehrer. Not Gordon. Lehrer. He—I was fourteen, Noam! I was . . . but he . . . and I couldn’t tell anyone because, god, didn’t even need his power!” Dara laughed, a mad sound, and he wasn’t touching Noam anymore, had both hands pressed up against his own skull. “No one believed me.”

  Those words caught between them, butterflies pinned on velvet. There, where Noam had no choice but to look at them. To really look, to see—

  All this time. All of it. Everyone Noam knew had burned up in fever because of Lehrer. This whole damn country. And Dara, clutching that secret, afraid to tell Noam in case Lehrer could read his mind and know. Dara’s hatred, which had never been hate at all.

  It had been fear.

  Oh god.

  Noam had trusted him. Noam had trusted this man, the same one who had murdered all those millions of people. Noam’s own father.

  There were words for what Lehrer did to Dara too.

  Noam’s stomach knotted in on itself. Dara was still laughing bizarrely. Or maybe he was crying.

  Noam made the decision between one half-choked breath and the next. He reached for Dara, hand faltering in the moment before it touched Dara’s arm—all those times Dara flinched away—before he pressed just the tips of his fingers against flesh. Dara didn’t look like he was breathing, shoulders quivering with the effort of holding in his air.

  “I . . .” The word broke as it fell out of Noam’s lips.

  The next ones, still in his mouth, were as jagged as shattered glass. He didn’t want to think about it—didn’t want it to be true, but Dara was here, right now, looking at him like Noam had plunged his hand into Dara’s chest, past ribs and muscle and sinew to close his fingers around Dara’s still-beating heart.

  “I believe you, Dara.”

  Dara made a strange, animalistic sound. “I tried to tell you.”

  “I know. I . . .” What could he even say? There was nothing that would make this better. Nothing to undo what Lehrer had done: to his own people, his own child.

  And if they didn’t leave now, Lehrer would be the one who found them here. He’d lock Dara up again, and it would be Noam’s fault for being so damn naive.

  “I’m so sorry, Dara.” And that was grotesquely insufficient, of course. Noam felt sick with himself for it. “But you’re right, we have to—we need to go. Now, before Lehrer manages to quell the riot.”

  “The . . . QZ?” Dara’s voice was only slightly unsteady.

  Noam still hated the idea. If Dara really was fevermad, how could he survive out there, with magic in the soil and water and air? Only—only Lehrer could have lied about that too. He could have made Dara sick somehow, called him fevermad just to make sure Noam would never believe anything Dara told him—

  “Yeah,” Noam said. “Yeah. If we can get past the barricade, if we move fast . . .”

  Dara clenched his jaw, a muscle visibly tensing in his cheek, and nodded.

  Lehrer’d had men on the street ever since Sacha’s martial law order—Sacha hadn’t seen the coup coming. The barricades must be Lehrer’s men. But that meant Dara’s name would be twice as useful, just so long as no one tried calling it in.

  Then again, if Lehrer was listening to Noam’s thoughts right now, they were fucked either way.

  Noam tried to keep Dara close as they started pushing toward the barricade. The crowds were crammed in so close Noam had to turn sideways to press between them—but they made it.

  The barricade was just barbed wire, roll upon roll of it stacked chest high over a metal blockade. Still, few seemed willing to go within five feet of it. Those who did were quickly shocked back by the soldiers’ magic.

  Soldiers wearing blue ribbons.

  Noam broke free of the mob and dashed toward the barricade, half dragging Dara in tow. He didn’t dare let go of Dara, just held his free arm up in the air: surrender. He knew what they looked like: two kids in civvies running out of a riot and right at the barricade. The soldiers on the other hand: monolithic, well armed, glaring with flat eyes, resentment setting their jaws. And Noam might pass for white, but Dara sure as hell didn’t, which, yeah. We’re gonna get shot.

  Noam opened his mouth to speak, and one of the soldiers lashed out with his power instantly. Noam felt the snap of burning magic in the air a split second before he reacted, dashing it aside with a shield. It sparked and flared against the asphalt, a white firecracker quickly extinguished.

  “Don’t shoot,” Noam shouted, power latching on to the guns before the soldiers could point them at their heads. Noam held his ground. “Don’t shoot—just let us through.”

  Let me handle this, he thought toward Dara as loudly as he could. Dara’s silence was answer enough.

  Noam didn’t let himself entertain other reasons Dara might be incapable of speech.

  The two soldiers nearest Noam glanced at each other. One of them spat dip, strings of brown juice dr
ibbling down his chin. “You’re a threat, and I’m authorized to shoot threats.”

  “Yeah? Just try it.” Noam had jammed the bullets in their chambers.

  He stepped forward again, fighting back nausea and the pounding in his head. One man pulled his trigger, then swore when nothing happened and tossed his gun aside, lifting a hand to use his power instead.

  But it was too late. Noam grabbed his wrist, and the electricity buzzing around the man’s fingertips blinked out. It was grimly satisfying to watch fear bloom in the soldiers’ eyes.

  “Who the fuck are you?” said the man whose wristbone was in danger of being crushed under Noam’s superpotent grip, struggling and failing to pull away.

  “We’re Level IV. Lehrer’s students. Where is he?”

  The man gestured mutely over his shoulder. Noam glanced toward Dara, who was too dazed to notice.

  Noam turned back toward the soldiers. “Well? Are you going to let us in?”

  “ID first,” one of them said, not the one whose wrist Noam nearly broke.

  Noam reached back into Dara’s pocket and dug around until he found a wallet. Dara’s name must’ve done the trick because the soldiers let them through, someone’s magnetic power pulling back the barbed wire far enough to let Noam and Dara step over the knee-high steel blockade.

  “Two blocks north of here,” one of the soldiers told them. “They’re holding against the loyalists near the old theater. Watch your backs.”

  They walked away from the riot but in the opposite direction from where the soldiers had gestured—away from Lehrer, away from the screams and gunshots that felt like they followed Noam a half step behind. He didn’t like the way the soldiers looked at them, even behind this barricade. Their gazes lingered too long, fingers on triggers.

  Without rioters, the street felt too empty, trash scattered across the sidewalk from an overturned garbage bin and tumbling along in the breeze. Noam hung on to Dara’s arm like that was going to make a difference. Broken glass crunched underfoot. Noam kicked an empty tear gas canister out of the way, and Dara jumped.

  “Sorry,” Noam muttered.

  “We can’t,” Dara said. He came to a sudden stop, yanking Noam to a halt with him.

  At first Noam thought he was going to start up on the quarantined zone shit again, but then he followed Dara’s glassy stare. A platoon marched this way, blue-ribboned soldiers with machine guns trained on a line of loyalist prisoners. Noam opened his mouth to say, It’s fine—they don’t care about us, but then there was a break in the line, and he saw the bodies slumped against the ground. Blood splattered against brick wall.

  A fresh group of five facing the firing squad.

  “Okay,” Noam said, pushing Dara ahead of him toward the other side of the street. “Okay. Keep walking. Just keep walking.”

  His head buzzed with white noise. He kept taking in shallow gulps of air that never seemed to reach his lungs, heat pouring into his veins.

  Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.

  Noam tripped over a loose brick on the sidewalk, and Dara heaved him up by the elbow. Their eyes met, and as if by silent agreement, they broke into a run.

  Someone shouted behind them, but Noam couldn’t make out the words. Run. Everything condensed to that. He barely felt the bullets bouncing off his electromagnetic shield.

  “Just go!” Noam shouted at Dara when he turned around to look, shoving his hands against Dara’s back. “Go!”

  They sprinted down the next alley, both tapping superstrength to make each stride count. Bullets were one thing, but Noam didn’t want to find out if that platoon had witchings. He sensed more soldiers up ahead, a tank.

  “No—no, not this way,” he said, and they changed direction again, up a lengthy street. Without cars and cabs and carts full of fruit and flowers, the road reminded Noam of a long black scar carved into the city’s flesh.

  They careened onto the parallel street, Noam on Dara’s heels, and yes, yes—that was traffic far ahead at the intersection. They could lose themselves in the city, catch a bus to the Southpoint suburbs. Then maybe, maybe they’d steal a car, drive until they hit the fence that barred out the quarantined zone. After that, Noam didn’t know, but they’d figure it out. They’d walk all the way to York if they had to.

  “Freeze!”

  Noam and Dara stumbled to a stop, the air cracking like thin ice under the weight of that shout. Noam spun around, hands up, not sure if he was ready to fight or surrender.

  Soldiers, blue-ribboned ones, guns up. But no antiwitching armor.

  No Lehrer either.

  “We’re Level IV,” Noam said, because it worked last time. Only last time, his voice didn’t shake. Last time, his mouth didn’t feel like it was stuffed with gauze.

  “Yeah,” the lieutenant said, his slow smile unsheathing like a knife. “I know.”

  And Noam understood. He understood without looking, certainty shooting him like a lethal arrow—but he looked anyway, turning his back on the raised guns to face a worse threat.

  For a split second, Noam reached for his magic, that silver-blue spark answering easily now. But what could he possibly do against 123 years of power? Lehrer would quench him like a struck match.

  It was too late to run. Too late for anything now.

  To his left, Dara was still—so very still.

  Lehrer’s hand fell to Noam’s shoulder. In the bright summer sunlight, he looked like a hero straight ou legend, tall and fair haired with a streak of someone else’s blood on his cheek. Like the revolutionary of the twenty-first century, stepped from the pages of a history book.

  “What did he tell you?” Lehrer asked. His colorless gaze lingered on Noam’s just a beat too long—then he lifted his hand.

  Noam couldn’t move. His feet had grown roots into the concrete, into the center of the earth.

  Lehrer’s fingertips grazed Noam’s temple. It wasn’t the touch Noam expected. It was light, delicate, like a caress.

  Lehrer sighed. “I see.”

  His touch dropped again, this time to curve round Noam’s neck, the edge of his thumb pressed against a knobby vertebra. Noam didn’t dare breathe.

  I won’t be the reason you die, Dara told him, and Noam should have listened.

  He should have listened.

  “No,” Dara said. “Please—don’t . . .”

  This was it. This was it, after all this—after all this time, this was how Noam died after all: the June heat seeping through Noam’s skin, Lehrer wound tight into his mind like so many golden threads, Brennan’s blood on his hands.

  He looked at Dara—the last person he wanted to see. Dara’s face, twisted with anguish and slick with feversweat.

  “Don’t what?” Lehrer asked. His fingertips slipped into Noam’s hair. Noam couldn’t have moved even if he wanted to. Lehrer was too strong. He kept him in place with barely any effort at all. “Kill him? My dear boy, there’s an easier way. Pay attention. This lesson should be well learned. Now . . . Noam.”

  Lehrer leaned closer.

  He smelled like iron. His words were soft.

  “Forget everything Dara just told you.”

  And Noam did.

  The moments that followed would return in fractured pieces, later, like images shot in a darkroom, the flash of a bulb illuminating still frames and freezing them in time.

  Dara, sick with fevermadness, his hands on Noam’s face. Saying, “You have to listen to me.”

  Over and over.

  Lehrer, pulling Dara away like it was easy.

  Dara screaming, Don’t let them and Please and Noam’s name, like someone praying the Shema.

  The sickness in Noam’s stomach.

  Knowing he did the right thing. Hating himself anyway.

  Gold-glitter magic.

  The moment they won the day, Carolinia’s blue banner unfurling anew over the government complex.

  The crowd chanting Lehrer’s name.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  It was three days afte
r the coup—three days after the military junta seized control, two days after the Atlantian refugees were granted citizenship by executive order, one day after Brennan’s body was put in the ground—before Noam saw Lehrer again.

  They lit fireworks in west Durham, dazzling bursts of color lighting up the sky, visible even from the courtyard of the government complex. Noam sat on a bench with Dara’s flask of bourbon between his knees, face lifted starward.

  He ought to be happy. They won.

  He wasn’t happy. His blood sludged through his veins, breath stale in his lungs and stomach swollen with something rotten.

  Guilt, of course. He knew that. It was natural. Of course it was. He killed a man. He killed Brennan.

  That’s all he saw every time he shut his eyes. Brennan’s dead gaze and the flare of blood on the wall behind his desk, red and vibrant as one of those fireworks.

  Sometimes he saw Dara instead. Those times were worse, somehow, because he deserved to feel guilty over Brennan. He deserved worse than guilt. But Dara? There, at least, he’d done the right thing. Dara would be okay. Dara would be safe. Dara might not realize it yet, but soon he’d be healthy and happy and back to his old self.

  If he survived these next few months, that is.

  The last thing Dara shouted—the last thing Noam understood, anyway, before Lehrer’s men took him away—was kill me.

  “I thought I might find you here.”

  Noam looked up.

  Lehrer had discarded his military uniform in favor of a plain suit. Understated. Political.

  “Is everything all right?” Lehrer said.

  He must have noticed the bourbon but pretended not to.

  “I’m fine,” Noam said. “Just . . . thinking.”

  Lehrer gestured toward the bench. “Do you mind if I join you?”

  Noam nodded. After a beat, he even thought to pick up the bottle cap and screw it back on the flask.

  Even sitting, Lehrer’s body took up far more room than Noam’s. He rested an arm along the back of the bench and shifted to face Noam properly. He looked at Noam like Noam was the only person in the world.