The Fever King (Feverwake #1)(63)

If Noam stole one of those candlesticks, he’d feed a whole tenement for three months.

Maybe he was morally obligated to do just that.

General Ames met them in the sitting room along with three other guests—Major General Amelia García, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; a handsome black man Noam recognized as James Attwood, a famous actor; and a blonde woman who was probably Attwood’s wife. Noam saluted on reflex; Major General García smiled and told him “at ease,” but Ames Sr. just laughed.

Noam realized why a second later as Dara swept past him, all smiles, to shake the general’s hand like they were equals.

And maybe they were. Lehrer was General Ames’s commanding officer, and Dara was Lehrer’s ward. Perhaps in the home secretary’s eyes, Dara wasn’t a cadet—he was political royalty.

“So glad you could make it, Dara,” General Ames said, tugging Dara in by the shoulder for a one-armed embrace. “And you brought your friend, too, I see—that’s good. Very good.”

Ames had joined Noam in the doorway; she pressed two fingers to Noam’s spine, nudging him forward. Noam went, feeling too aware now of his ill-fitting sweater and battered old shoes creaking against the floorboards. All gazes lingered on the bruise at Noam’s eye.

“Nice to meet you again, sir,” Noam said, trying to be careful of the way he said it, to emphasize the right syllables and drawl the right vowels. Great. Here he was, worried about whether he sounded Carolinian enough to impress a rich white man.

The general paused, clearly not remembering having met Noam before, and Dara said, “This is Noam álvaro. Lehrer’s new student.”

“Ah!” General Ames’s affect brightened considerably at that. “Yes, I remember Calix saying something to that effect. You do some mess with computers, isn’t that right?”

“Yes, sir. Technopathy.”

“Impressive,” García said, shaking Noam’s hand as well. “Minister Lehrer has many good things to say about your abilities, Cadet.”

“Really?” Noam said, hoping she’d elaborate, but General Ames barreled on before García could answer.

“If we’re lucky, Calix will join us later on. He’s stuck in some meeting or another, but I told him I wasn’t going to tolerate any more excuses.” He laughed. “They’re fixin’ to serve dinner, at any rate. Shall we get started?”

As it turned out, rich people didn’t just eat one dinner. They ate several. One course was even beef—real beef, not synthetic. It wasn’t until the dessert course that the general turned his attention to Noam, swirling his wine in his glass. “Who were your parents, my boy? I don’t believe Carter said.”

Wait, was Ames’s first name Carter?

Noam had just put his fork in his mouth, which meant he had to sit there and finish chewing while the home secretary looked on with his watery eyes, his daughter tapping the tabletop the way she did when she craved a cigarette. Next to him, Dara was carefully disassembling his dessert into its component parts and eating none of it; no one but Noam seemed to notice.

“Um,” Noam said at last, once he’d forced down a bite and chased it with a sip of water. Attwood watched with polite interest; even García seemed to await Noam’s answer. He got the sense they weren’t expecting Jaime álvaro and Rivka Mendel.

“Noam’s father died three months ago,” Dara said before Noam had to figure out what to say, looking up from his deconstructed cake. “I don’t think he wants to talk about it.”

Noam didn’t know how to thank Dara, not right now. He settled for nudging Dara’s ankle with the side of his foot and received a tiny smile in response.

“Minister Lehrer has arrived, sir,” a footman announced, half a breath before Lehrer stepped into the room.

Everyone present immediately rose to their feet—everyone except Noam, who fumbled out of his chair a beat too late, and Dara, who was busy examining his fork prongs.

Lehrer was in a suit, not his military uniform, but that did little to undermine the way all these powerful people stared at him, like his presence sucked all the air from the room.

“Please,” Lehrer said with a small smile. “Continue.”

“I’m glad you could make it, Minister,” Attwood said as they all resumed their seats. “I know it’s a nightmare right now.”

General Ames snorted. “You don’t know the half of it. This whole scandal with the leaks, with the whole damn network being posted online bit by bit, for the world to see . . .”

“Can’t you just shut down the site?” Attwood’s wife asked. “Call the domain provider?”

Lehrer didn’t look at Noam. It felt like a calculated decision. “The domain is registered in Texas.”

Noam took a hasty swallow of water, hiding his smile behind the glass.

“Twice the treason, if you ask me,” Ames Sr. muttered. “Texans hate witchings more than anyone. This is a matter of national security.”

Yeah. That was the whole point. Governments didn’t have to listen to the people until the people made it hurt not to listen. Right now, or so Lehrer had told him earlier that afternoon during their lesson, after sending Dara home—right now, everyone in the Ministry of Defense was terrified that Texas or England or York or another enemy nation would glean some precious detail from something Noam had leaked and use it to demolish Carolinian defenses.