The Fever King (Feverwake #1)(32)

Noam pulled the steel doors shut. The security cameras watched from overhead, but these weren’t warded like the network—Noam had checked. He made sure they saw empty air where he stood. And that . . . that was a rush. Today Noam wasn’t just another student but something greater, stronger and smarter than everyone else.

This same rush always got him into trouble, of course, but damn was it addictive.

Riding that thrill, Noam moved forward. He did his best not to creep like someone with something to hide, tempting as it was to cling to the walls and peer around corners. The plan only worked if he looked like he belonged here, or at least had a good reason to be in this part of the building. That meant shoulders back, head high, act cool.

He turned a corner and practically ran into a woman with a clipboard. Noam nearly froze, his blood running to ice when their eyes met. But if he froze he’d get caught, he’d be expelled, never allowed back here again—

Noam smiled instead, bright and cheery. “Heya!”

Heya?

The woman looked startled, but just said good morning and brushed past.

Holy shit, that actually worked.

Unbelievable. He had a cadet star right there on his sleeve.

Dizzy off his own success, Noam took the next flight of stairs up one floor. This hall was busier, lined with offices and conference rooms. Noam pulled out his phone and pretended to be absorbed by something on the screen—everyone else was doing the same, after all, with their phones and tablets and holoreaders. And all of it, all of it, any information not secured by the ward, was there at Noam’s fingertips. A tempest of data battered the boundaries of his mind: someone sending an email, an internet search for hair salon durham main st, someone flicking through saved photos depicting a happily drooling dog.

This must be what power felt like.

According to the map of the complex posted near the elevators, the executive offices were on the third floor. That’s where he’d find Sacha. Lehrer’s office wasn’t far either, though nowhere near the study where they usually met. How many offices did Lehrer have?

Noam was still scanning the map when the elevator arrived. Two men in suits loitered behind him, arguing about “deliverables.” Noam followed them onto the elevator. They, like everyone else in this place, apparently had no desire to confront him—and it was hard to stay afraid when people’s eyes skimmed past him like he was inconvenient furniture. This all seemed so . . . easy. Too easy.

But when he got to Sacha’s office, it was occupied; he sensed someone’s warded cell phone.

Maybe he could try to find Lehrer’s office instead. Noam could play off being Lehrer’s new student, use that as an excuse to get in and wait for him—only, no, because then Lehrer would figure out Noam snuck into the building with a fake ID.

Of course, standing here would draw the wrong kind of attention. One step at a time: first, an empty office. If he could just get himself in front of a computer, maybe he could hack in the old-fashioned way.

All the other offices on this floor were out. Too many people, judging by the number of phones and wristwatches glinting in his awareness. Upstairs, maybe? But when Noam got to the fifth floor, it was just more offices. He hesitated outside the one located directly above Sacha’s. It felt empty. He could just trip the latch and let himself in, the same way he let himself in downstairs, the whole this-fingerprint-totally-matches-your-databases trick. He reached for the flopcell.

“Can I help you?”

Noam spun around, his heart lurching up into his throat. The speaker was a severe-looking white woman, her arms full of folders. She was nearly as tall as Noam.

Shit shit shit shit.

“Um . . .”

“Minister Holloway is in a meeting,” the woman went on, clearly disapproving. “He won’t be back for two hours at least. Did you have an appointment?” Her gaze dropped down to the cadet star on Noam’s sleeve, and her frown deepened. Noam’s fist was clenched tight around the flopcell, but she hadn’t asked to see what he was holding, hadn’t noticed. Not yet.

Noam’s mouth was faster than his brain.

“I can wait,” he said, giving her a sunny smile. “I brought homework.”

“Name?”

Stupid. Stupid, stupid. “Dara Shirazi.”

The second he spoke, he worried she might recognize him—or not recognize him, more like. But despite that sharp breath sucked into her lipsticked mouth, she didn’t immediately yell for security. Instead she glanced at her watch. If she hoped to reach for her phone, perhaps to text Holloway and ask if he was expecting Lehrer’s ward, it was impossible with all the folders she juggled.

“Very well,” she said after a sigh. “You can sit in the anteroom.”

Hardly believing his luck, Noam trailed after her as she opened the door with her thumbprint and let him into the office. The anteroom was beautiful, elegantly decorated in forest green and mahogany. The woman sat him down on a luxurious chaise and then took her own chair behind the wooden secretary’s desk before the door to Holloway’s office.

Noam dumped his bag onto the sofa by his hip and dug out his holoreader. Well. He’d made it to an office. But with a chaperone giving him suspicious looks from ten feet away, he wasn’t getting on Holloway’s computer anytime soon.

He opened up a text editor and started typing, just to have something to do with his hands. The secretary’s phone was in her pocket, sleepy pulses of electrical noise . . .