The Fever King (Feverwake #1)(17)

“I suppose Lehrer must think I can catch up,” he mused aloud. “Otherwise he wouldn’t tutor me.”

That got their attention.

“Lehrer’s tutoring you?” Taye asked through a mouthful of candy; he’d moved on from picking through his sweets to devouring them.

“You are talking about Minister Lehrer, right?” Ames said dryly.

Noam shrugged. Taye and Ames exchanged looks. Taye lifted an eyebrow, and Ames shook her head ever so slightly.

Bethany set down her fork. “I guess that means you’ll be sharing lessons with Dara. I can’t imagine Lehrer has time to teach both of you separately.”

Right. The mysterious Dara.

“I suppose. Howard said Dara’s getting tutoring from Lehrer too.”

At least Noam wasn’t the only one so far behind.

Taye waved a dismissive hand. “Dara’s a special case. He’s top of our class. Lehrer raised him since he was four.”

Oh.

“Yeah, I heard he’s a prodigy,” Ames said, and both she and Taye snickered at some indiscernible inside joke. Even Bethany smiled.

Noam sat in silence, at the same table as the rest yet not there at all.

He wished he had an excuse to get up and go back to the bedroom. Maybe sit on the floor of the shower and pretend for a while that he was back home in the bookstore. That any second now a neighbor would rap at the door, demanding he hurry up. That his father waited back in their apartment, gazing out the window across his city.

“How long’s Lehrer keeping him, anyway?” Bethany said eventually. It took Noam a moment to realize she was still talking about Dara. She looked at Ames. “He’s been gone three days.”

“Why’re you asking me?” Ames said. “I already said he didn’t leave a note or anything.” She dumped more salt on her plate. “He’s liable to show up soon enough. Lehrer probably has him off doing fancy training for people with fancy powers. It’s fine.”

Something about the way Ames said it made Noam think maybe it wasn’t fine.

“Listen, don’t stress out, okay?” Taye nudged Noam with his elbow. “You’ll catch up in no time. Just do a lot of reading.”

“I grew up in a bookstore,” Noam said, but Taye was still looking at him with that same expectancy, Ames stirring the salt mound into her potatoes, Bethany smiling. “Yeah,” Noam said and sighed. “Lots of reading.”

That night, as Noam sat in the common room with an algebra textbook—he figured he could get a bit of that remedial education done early and maybe not look so stupid in front of Lehrer and Lehrer’s clever protégé—he looked at Bethany reading with a pencil in her mouth and wondered what his father would say if he could see him now.

None of these people, Dad would tell him, give a shit about you or anybody you know.

His father had said just that at the dinner table, brandishing his fork like a spear. His mother rolled her eyes, but Brennan—who’d come over for Shabbat dinner—had agreed. Don’t trust anyone in a suit, Brennan had said. Especially ones bearing government insignia.

Government ran screeching through the halls wearing only wet towels. Government watched bad detective movies and ate only the red candies and sketched out new tattoo ideas by the window light.

Noam hated the government, or so he reminded himself as Taye gave him a dramatic tour of the barracks and when Ames let him borrow shampoo and Bethany made sure he had a set of drabs to wear tomorrow. He hated the government. He was here to tear their castle to the ground.

That night he barely slept, and come morning, his alarm went off at five. He choked down a few sickly bites of porridge, and then it was out to a field and the care of an eagle-eyed sadist named Sergeant Li, who put the cadets through the steps of basic training.

Noam used to run track, back when he’d still gone to school, but that was a long time ago and before the fever wasted his strength. Trying to run a seven-minute mile was grueling, the air bone cold in November and the frosty ground crunching underfoot. Noam barely managed to finish the mile under nine. Noam thought it was over, but no, then it was fartleks, and hurdles, and an obstacle course. Finally, after so many crunches and push-ups that Noam suspected he might throw up all over the icy lawn, Li blew her whistle and sent the cadets in to shower. The others headed off to their lessons afterward, leaving Noam alone in the Level IV common room to wait.

Howard showed up around nine, the sound of the front door startling Noam from where he’d fallen back asleep on the sofa. But he refused to leap up like a scolded child, even when Howard gave him a pointed look. He just stretched his arms up overhead, arching his back, and smiled. “Hey, again. Time for class?”

“Minister Lehrer won’t like to be kept waiting.”

“Let’s go, then.” Noam swung his legs off the sofa and stood, tugging the hem of his uniform shirt to make it appear a little less wrinkled.

Howard frowned. “Where’s your satchel?”

“My . . . what?”

She sighed, tapping the countertop. “Your satchel, Mr. álvaro. There was a satchel provided for you, containing notebooks and pens and other school supplies. It should be in your bedroom.”

“Oh. Right. Hold on.”

Noam remembered the bag from this morning. It hadn’t been labeled with his name or placed anywhere near his dresser, so he’d just assumed the bag belonged to someone else. But there it was, leaning against the wall, a practical brown leather satchel with a strap and handle on top. Much nicer quality than anything Noam had owned before—and they were just giving it to him. To a cadet.