Noam didn’t know how put it in a way that didn’t sound awful. Are you still going to resist?
“I’m okay,” Dara said, but it came out almost like a question. He exhaled sharply. “I think . . . I think I’m okay.”
Noam drew back the superstrength but didn’t let go—not yet. “Are you sure?”
Dara shuddered beneath him, lashes fluttering briefly against his cheeks. “I don’t know. I think . . . let me up?”
It could be a trick. It could be Dara, in Lehrer’s power, trying a new tactic to get himself back across that threshold and into the dubious safety of the foyer. But Lehrer himself was on the stairs, taking them two at once, and they were out of time.
Noam let go.
Dara pushed himself up onto his elbows. He looked haggard. Sick. But he didn’t try to fight again. So Noam slid off his lap, climbing to his feet and offering Dara a hand to pull him up. Dara wavered on his feet, clinging to Noam’s shirt, then stabilized.
“Lehrer will be here any second,” Noam said.
Dara took in a short breath and nodded.
Dara really was free. He’d fought, and he was free.
A question surfaced from beneath murky waters: Lehrer claimed he’d never used his power on Noam, but Noam didn’t believe that was true.
Lehrer had told him to kill Brennan, and Noam had done it.
Maybe that had been his own decision, but what if . . .
What if Noam fought harder, resisted more? Would the idea have snapped in his mind like a taut cord, the way it had for Dara? Without Lehrer’s voice whispering shadows in his ear, would he have killed Brennan at all?
“We have an hour until the suppressant wears off,” Dara said as they darted across the unlit study and through the door out into the hall. Still empty—Noam had checked. “Until then, I don’t have telepathy. Lehrer and I might still be close enough, he might be able to . . . or we might not. I don’t know. We’re going to have to think fast—no plans, nothing predictable. Do you understand?”
Noam didn’t, really, but this wasn’t exactly the time to argue with a fevermadman. Lehrer was one floor below.
“Yep, got it. Left. Let’s go. Right now.”
They took the fastest route out of the building, down the stairs and through the atrium and onto the street. Not that they were safe now. None of the guards stopped them—Lehrer tried calling it in, of course, but Noam had blocked the transmission. Lehrer was a lot of things, but as far as Noam could tell, he still wasn’t a technopath. Once Lehrer got to the atrium, he’d tell the guards in person—nothing Noam could do about that—but by then he and Dara would’ve lost themselves in the city crowds.
They ran up Blackwell toward Main, dodging cyclists bearing carts piled high with fresh summer fruit and barking dogs on frayed ropes, commuters heading to work, angry men in cars, a pickup ball game near the memorial.
“I called a friend of mine on the way over,” Noam said, breathless and squeezing Dara’s hand—Dara hadn’t let go since they left the government complex. His palm was clammy. Noam didn’t care. “He kind of owes me one. Sam. He’ll get you anywhere you need to go—”
“No,” Dara said, stopping abruptly. Noam stumbled on an uneven bit of concrete, power catching a streetlamp to keep from falling. “I told you. No plans. You think Lehrer won’t find out about that? He knows everything. Everything you’ve thought of, he’s thought of. Something else. Something new.”
Jesus. Dara . . . Dara might be crazy, but he was right. If this was the obvious solution to Noam, it would be obvious to Lehrer as well. Lehrer had been there when Noam was arrested after the protests. He knew about Sam and DeShawn and all the others, had gotten their records wiped. He’d know everyone black bloc.
“Shit. Um. Okay.” Noam scrubbed a hand over his jaw. Then: “Okay. New idea. Let’s—”
“Don’t tell me. Don’t even think it. Just do it.”
Dara shoved at his arm; Noam nodded. “Yeah. Come on.”
It was a well-worn route, a sprint Noam’s feet had learned from eight months of tracking it again and again. His mind was the white noise of adrenaline and blood pumping through his skull, Dara’s fingers digging into the back of his hand, and this. This was perfect. They could keep running, just like this, all through Durham, into the neighboring towns, all the way out over the wall and into the quarantined zone.
They could disappear.
Noam’s shirt was sweat soaked by the time they stumbled through the door of the Migrant Center, Dara’s hair plastered to his forehead and the summer humidity hanging over their shoulders like a wet blanket. Linda startled to see them, nearly dropping the potted plant she’d been carrying to a windowsill.
“Noam,” she started. “Sugar . . . are you—”
“No time,” Noam gasped, chest aching every time he sucked in air. Fuck. He could’ve sworn he was in better shape than this after all that basic training. “Listen. Linda. You helped Brennan get people out of Atlantia, right? Refugees. You sneaked people over the Carolinian border.”
Linda’s gaze slid from his face to Dara’s.
“You can trust him,” Noam said.
Linda put the plant down on the table. It was several seconds before she said, “Yeah. Yeah, I helped.”
“Can you take people the other way?”
“What?”
“Can you get people out of Carolinia?”
Linda stepped closer, wiping both palms against her skirt. “Honey, are you in some kind of trouble?”
“Not him. Me.” Dara managed a grim sort of smile and shrugged. “I need to disappear. Fast.”
“Is he . . .” Linda started.
“Please,” Noam said. He was ready to beg if he had to. No telling where Lehrer was now, not without checking all the cameras from here to the government complex. He could be right outside. “Linda, please, just trust me. Will you do it?”
“Right now?”
“Yeah. Right now.”
For a moment, he was so sure she was going to say no. That she might look at him and see what he had done to Brennan. Might realize he had no right asking her—or them—for anything at all.
But then she exhaled and said, “I have a car out back.”
“Perfect,” Noam said. It felt like all the blood drained from him at once. He could have lain down on the floor right there and slept for ten years. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Linda’s car was an ancient black sedan, not even driverless, covered in a thin layer of road dust with smashed bugs on the windshield.
It looked incredibly generic. It was perfect.
Noam tossed the pack into the back seat and then turned to face Dara, who stood there with the door held open and an expectant look on his face.
Just looking at him hurt more than Noam had thought it would. Right now, Dara seemed almost healthy. The brightness in his eyes wasn’t mania but adrenaline. The color in his cheeks wasn’t fever, but exertion. He could have been the same boy Noam had held in his arms in the barracks bedroom, the same boy he’d kissed and touched and wanted so badly it ate him alive.
He was getting better. Lehrer’s treatment was working.
If Noam sent Dara into the quarantined zone, where magic ran rabid in the water and ground, how long would he last?
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Dara said slowly. “Noam, get in the car. We have to go.”
Noam’s mouth tasted like copper. “Dara . . .”
“Noam. Get in the goddamn car.”
“I’m not going with you, Dara.” Noam stepped around the front of the car, toward the other side where Dara stood, staring at him with his hand still on the open door. “I can’t.”
“What are you talking about?” Dara’s voice had its own blade to it now, pitch rising on the final words: both a question and a demand. “You—”
“I have to stay here. I started this.” He gestured vaguely, encompassing the Migrant Center, Durham, Carolinia—all of it. All the things he’d done, the people h
e’d hurt. The one he’d killed. All those sacrifices, all for the greater good. “I have to finish it. The Atlantians are finally—Lehrer gave them citizenship. Did you know that? We won, Dara. I have to be a part of that. I can’t leave now.”
Dara’s face was a mask of uninterpretable emotion, wide eyed and thin mouthed, his shoulders rising and falling in rapid, shallow motion. For one heat-seared moment, Noam thought Dara might actually attack him—but he didn’t.
“You . . .” Dara wet his lips. “You don’t . . . do you? Noam . . .”
“Dara, you have to go. Lehrer will be here any second.”
“God. You—Noam, I have to tell you something, please—”
Lehrer was here. Lehrer was here—that was him, the angles of his face and slim lines of his suit captured on the security cam a block away.
Fuck.
“I know,” Noam said. He tried to grin, but it felt weak. He said, “I love you too.” And he grasped Dara’s face between both hands and kissed him on his shocked mouth. Dara didn’t resist. Dara didn’t say a word, even when Noam pushed him back and into the car and slammed the door shut behind him.
“I’ll take care of him,” Linda promised. She patted Noam on the shoulder and gave him a sad little smile. Then she got in the car, and they drove away.
Noam stood there and watched the sedan vanish into the city traffic, watched until it turned the corner at the far end of the street and disappeared.
Lehrer found him still standing like that a minute later, watching the far traffic light change from yellow to red. Noam’s pulse beat in his throat like a second heart, but he didn’t run.
Lehrer didn’t speak at first. And then he rested his hand on Noam’s back, high up between his shoulder blades. It wasn’t the anger Noam had been anticipating. It wasn’t like that at all.
“I’m sorry,” Noam said and didn’t look at him. He shut his eyes instead.
“He’ll die out there.”
It hurt when Noam swallowed, like splinters cutting his throat. “Maybe. It was what he wanted.”
Lehrer sighed and didn’t say anything to that.
The distant streetlight went back to green. The color, through the heat waves, looked blurry and surreal.
At last, Lehrer’s hand fell away from Noam’s back.
“Promise me you won’t go after Dara,” Noam said.
“You’re asking me to kill my own child.”
“I’m asking you to let him make that decision for himself.”
Noam turned toward him, squinting against the sunlight. Lehrer’s expression was blank, unreadable. He could have been a still frame from a propaganda film.
Then the façade cracked, and Lehrer nodded. The lines of his face were sharper than ever as he said, “I promise.”
Noam wasn’t sure if he believed him. But for now he had no other choice.
“I almost went with him,” Noam confessed.
“I know. I’m glad you didn’t.” Lehrer tugged at his sleeves. Noam felt it in the metal when his touch grazed the silver cuff links. Lehrer said, almost wryly, “I also know you aren’t staying for me.”
Of course Noam wasn’t staying for him. Lehrer was every single reason for Noam to leave—to start running as far and fast as he could.
In all likelihood, by staying, Noam had signed his own death warrant. He knew about Lehrer’s persuasion; Lehrer knew that he knew. In the best possible scenario, Noam risked becoming Lehrer’s puppet even more than he already was. In another version of events, Noam wouldn’t live long enough to learn if Dara survived.
But how else could this end?
Noam wasn’t hiding. Not anymore.
“It’s not over just because you granted Atlantians citizenship,” Noam said.
Lehrer shook his head. “Far from it. I’d like to suggest you apply for Brennan’s position, as liaison. And in time . . . you graduate in two years. As chancellor, I’ll need people in my administration I can trust.”
A small smile creased Noam’s lips.
Good.
He wanted to be close to Lehrer, now more than ever. He had to make sure everything went smoothly. He had to be sure Lehrer, in his victory, didn’t forget who’d helped him achieve it.
Everything worth doing had its risks.
And sometimes you had to do the wrong thing to achieve something better.
Noam was willing to gamble with Lehrer’s persuasion if it meant securing a future for Atlantians. What kind of person would he be if he didn’t? He could take precautions.
Brennan’s blood on the wall.
He’d make sure Lehrer never forgot how useful Noam could be.
Lehrer’s hand found Noam’s back again, nudging him until he turned away from that horizon—until they faced the city again, the smokestack rising over the government complex in the near distance.
Dara was gone, but Noam was still here.
The war was over.
It was time to build something new.
BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS
Was Noam justified in his actions against injustice, even when he broke the law?
What hints were there early on that Lehrer was not all he seemed?
How did Dara’s traumatic experiences shape his interactions with other people?
In the book, the characters sometimes chose to do terrible things in the name of the greater good. Where would you have drawn the line? What actions would have been “too far” for you?
Why do you think Noam chose to stay in Carolinia, with Lehrer, at the end of the book?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I used to think writing was such a solitary pursuit. Ideas came to you when you were alone, emerging in bits and pieces on your commute, unfolding from a line of music or a half-remembered dream. Then you wrote those ideas down, sitting by yourself in a café or sprawled across your bed with only your very bored dog for company. Now I know that isn’t true. The Fever King is the product of so many people working together to sculpt a rough blob of clay into a finished piece—and without these friends and colleagues, writing would be very lonely indeed.
First, thank you to my incredible agents, Holly Root and Taylor Haggerty, for believing in this story and for helping me find it the perfect home at Skyscape. Your guidance and insight have been such an anchor. Thank you to my APub team: to my fearless editor, Jason Kirk, and to everyone at Skyscape who has labored tirelessly to bring this book to shelves—Clarence Haynes, Rosanna Brockley, Kelsey Snyder, Haley Reinke, Brittany Russell, Christina Troup, and many others. Thank you to my sensitivity readers; your work is invaluable, and I appreciate it so much.
I’d be incredibly remiss if I didn’t levy about a thousand thanks on Pitch Wars and my mentor, Emily Martin, who helped me write and rewrite and revise and polish this book over the course of just a few months. All our long-ass phone calls and writers’ retreats (which are really just excuses to set our dogs up on dates and go back to Durham, let’s be real) paid off—our unfortunate faves now have their own real live book.
Thank you to my parents, who always supported my love of writing. To Amy, who’s been there since my fandom days and who probably read early drafts of this book eighty billion times. To Ben. Ben, when I first let you read the beginning of this book, it was a baby draft four chapters long, and you were practically a stranger. Sharing this story with you was like exposing my heart, and it was the best decision I ever made. I love you.
Thank you, grad school colleagues, for putting up with my moodiness and bouts of self-isolation and for still wanting to go to Indigo with me even after all that. To Daryl, my PhD adviser, as well as the rest of the faculty in our department, for being understanding and supportive of my side gig.
All of my writer friends—there are far too many of you to list here, and you know who you are. You made it fun. You made me feel at home. Thank you for your support. Thank you for crashing parties with me, for soup dumplings and headcanons and tequila, for gifs and novel aesthetics and our favorite bartender Quinnbrook
Ford, and for every text that read how are revisions? or this guy on my bus looks like Noam. Never change. #JusticeForDara
Aska, sweet doggo: Sit. Good boy.
Finally, to those of you who survived, who are still surviving: I am you. I love you. And I see you.
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 whisky. 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.
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