The Fever King (Feverwake #1)(38)

“My apologies,” Lehrer said. “I forget myself.”

The decanter repaired itself before Noam’s eyes, and the spilled liquor vanished.

Slowly, slowly, Noam sat down.

His heart still raced.

“I didn’t know,” Noam said, when he could talk without the words coming out raw and bloody. “About your family, that is. I didn’t . . .” But then something else occurred to him, and he said, “You’re Jewish?”

Lehrer lifted a brow. “Do they leave that part out of the history books?” he said, and Noam laughed, surprising himself.

“No, it’s not that. But. My mom is—was. Jewish. I’m Jewish.”

A moment ago Noam had been so—he’d been furious, and he wished he could go back to that feeling, because it felt wrong to just move on after what he’d read in Holloway’s office, but right now his mind had short-circuited on this one fact, this tiny common thread tied between him and Lehrer. He wanted to weave that thread into a ribbon, a rope. He grinned, and after a moment, Lehrer smiled back. It was a small smile, a quiet smile, but worth so much more for that.

Lehrer’s grandparents had survived the Holocaust—had survived a genocide that shipped millions of Jews and other undesirables off to camps to be brutally, efficiently exterminated—only to die sixty-some years later. This time at the ends of a different nation’s guns, killed not for being Jewish but for daring to have magic. For having children who had magic. Noam couldn’t fathom trauma like that.

But he couldn’t forget what he’d read today either.

The same magic that gave Lehrer his power would kill the population of an entire country if Sacha forced Atlantians back down south.

“What can we do?” Noam said. He kept his voice low; no one was there to overhear, but speaking the words felt dangerous. “About Sacha. You’ve tried to talk him out of it. But you have to do more than that.”

Lehrer took in a shallow, audible breath. “These things are . . . complicated. Right now, you will just have to believe me when I tell you I haven’t forgotten the refugees. I am on your side, Noam—I promise you that much.”

A politician’s answer. Noam wasn’t sure what else he expected.

But then Lehrer’s expression softened further. He reached over to place a hand on Noam’s wrist, fingertips pressing in against the pulse point.

A strange bird fluttered its wings against the cage of Noam’s ribs.

“I won’t ask you to stop fighting,” Lehrer said, very quietly. “I would never ask you that.”

I’ll never stop, Noam thought, but thinking wasn’t speaking. So at last, he made himself nod, and Lehrer—who seemed to have been waiting for just that—squeezed his wrist and drew away.

“Can I keep the emails?”

“I don’t see why not.”

Noam blinked. “Wait. Seriously?”

Lehrer leaned back in his chair and reached for his tea. “I meant what I said, didn’t I?” His voice was dry, but his lips, when they touched his cup, curved up.

“I would’ve thought you’d tell me it was illegally obtained evidence or something.”

“Ah, yes. Your record. Twelve months in juvenile detention for criminal trespass.” His eyes, as they met Noam’s over the rim of his teacup, glittered too bright. “I should have known you’d recidivate.”

It took Noam a second to realize Lehrer was joking.

When he did, though, relief poured like ice water through his veins. Lehrer, joking—the idea was almost obscene, and yet . . .

“They caught me plugged in to the server room at the immigration office,” Noam admitted. “Totally red-handed.”

“Well then, I’m thrilled to be working alongside such a criminal prodigy,” Lehrer said dryly.

It felt like a wall crumbling between them. Like Noam was seeing the real Lehrer for the first time, behind the mask and uniform of defense minister. Like Lehrer could still be the boy who loved his parents and went to shul on Fridays, who probably hated charoset and read novels when he was supposed to be praying.

A boy a lot like Noam, maybe.

Lehrer helped him pack his things back into his satchel, Lehrer’s magic floating the notebooks in alongside Noam’s holoreader. He offered Noam tea, and Noam declined, still queasy from before. Then Lehrer escorted him to the front door with a hand placed between his shoulder blades. A small gesture, but it knotted warm in Noam’s chest.

“One more thing,” Lehrer said, standing there with fingers poised above the knob. “Be careful with Mr. Shirazi, Noam. Don’t share this conversation with him. He may be clever and charming, but he’s . . . troubled. I don’t say this as a slight against him, of course; I raised him like my own son. But he will not see things our way. Do you understand?”

No shit. Dara hadn’t been checking his social media accounts on the MoD servers, after all.

Did Lehrer know Dara was working against him? If so, why hadn’t Lehrer stopped him? Noam couldn’t believe Lehrer was oblivious.

But if Dara was against Lehrer, and Lehrer was willing to let Noam hold on to sensitive information that could unravel Sacha’s government . . .

Was Lehrer against Sacha?

If so, did that mean Dara wasn’t?

It was too much to try to hold on to, too many threads tangling worse the more he tried to unravel them.