The Fever King (Feverwake #1)(29)

What Lehrer had gone through was far worse than anything people alive today could even imagine. Probably . . . probably Lehrer only said that to make Noam feel better. And yet . . .

Lehrer stepped around the back of the sofa and sat as well, angled toward Noam—close enough their knees bumped together.

“I understand,” Lehrer said. When Noam dared to glance up, Lehrer was watching, those strange eyes like clear lake water. Impossible, then, to look away. “I lost my family too.”

Noam didn’t want to think about his parents. He didn’t want to think about his father’s body, what they might’ve done to it after he died. Burned, probably.

Atlantian tradition was to bury the dead.

He tried to focus instead on the places he and Lehrer touched, small points of heat. On the way Lehrer smelled, like single malt and fabric starch. It was as if, just by asking, Lehrer had ripped off the flimsy bandages Noam had wrapped around his grief.

Lehrer’s hand fell away from his shoulder. Noam felt cold in its absence, somehow. He watched as Lehrer folded his fingers together in his lap, staring at the black X tattooed on Lehrer’s left hand.

“I sensed your strength the moment we met,” Lehrer said eventually. “Raw ability isn’t something that can be taught. Colonel Swensson tells me you’re making fast progress in your lessons with him, and you’ve learned curriculum far more quickly than expected.”

Noam snorted. “I sleep about three hours a night.”

“Be careful with that; magic is not an inexhaustible resource. Have you heard of viral intoxication?”

“Going fevermad, you mean.”

“That’s one word for it. Magic can be addictive, and if used too much, the viral load rises in your blood—and your body produces more antibodies against magic. The inflammation in your brain can make you go quite . . . well, fevermad. Yes.” Lehrer paused, gaze skipping toward the window for a moment like he was distracted, although Noam had never thought Lehrer was the sort. Then Lehrer’s attention snapped back to Noam with such keen intensity it was jarring. “That’s the first sign. But it can get much worse. If the syndrome isn’t treated, your body’s immune system starts to attack its own tissue. Fevers, fatigue, joint pain, kidney failure—death, if left unchecked.”

“I’ll be careful, sir.”

Fevermadness was incredibly rare, though. Noam couldn’t fathom the amount of magic he’d have to expend to get to that point.

“See that you are. I’ve invested too much in you already to see your talents wasted on insanity.” The words came out sharp enough that Noam nearly flinched—but then Lehrer sighed and shook his head. His marked hand curled in a fist against his thigh. “My brother was ill.”

Noam startled before he could stop himself. Surely Lehrer didn’t mean—

“We had no idea what fevermadness was at the time, of course.” Lehrer’s expression did not change. “That was Raphael’s discovery—one of the doctors in Wolf’s militia. It was shocking at the time, of course, to think magic could eat away at a witching, bit by bit, until they lost the very core of who they were. Such a death is not pleasant, to experience or to witness.”

No, Noam didn’t imagine it was.

But Adalwolf Lehrer died in the final push against DC, the day the United States fell and new nations rose in its stead. Not of madness.

Even Lehrer wasn’t powerful enough to rewrite history.

Right?

The look Lehrer gave him then was softer. Considering. He tapped his fingers against the armrest.

“Your presenting power was technopathy, and you’ve shown strength using electricity as well, which makes sense. The two often go hand in hand. But you haven’t mastered telekinesis. Why?”

He said it as if learning telekinesis was as easy as learning multiplication tables.

“I don’t know. Colonel Swensson seemed to think I wasn’t ready for anything past electricity.”

“Electricity,” Lehrer echoed. “But you know physics, Noam, don’t you? You read the book I gave you and did well on the problem sets. So you know electricity is just one form of electromagnetism. The other form being . . .” He trailed off meaningfully, watching Noam until Noam finished the thought.

“Magnetism.”

“Exactly,” Lehrer said. “It should be easy for you to manipulate ferromagnetic metals if you’ve accomplished electricity. And then, once you’ve mastered that, it’s a short step to telekinesis and moving nonmagnetic objects. It merely becomes a matter of force and inertia rather than magnetic fields.” He gestured, and a coin floated out of his pocket to hover in the air between them. As it rotated, sunlight glinted off the face of Gemma Yaxley, first chancellor of Carolinia after Lehrer surrendered power. “Try to move this coin toward yourself. Even an inch will do.”

Noam fought the urge to give Lehrer a dubious look. Electricity was easy; he felt the static in the air sparking between objects, a force as constant as gravity. Moving the coin was a different matter entirely.

Okay. Think.

He knew how magnetism worked. Opposites attract—simple. If he knew the charge of the coin, he could charge some attracting object, or the air in front of his hand, maybe, to be the opposite charge. And that was just shifting electrons around. Was he capable of that?