The Fever King (Feverwake #1)(9)

“I’m not very patriotic.”

“Not for Carolinia as it is,” Lehrer said. “But perhaps for what it could be.”

The chilly wood dug in against Noam’s palms where he gripped the edge of their seat. He kept seeing Lehrer’s hand draped over the back of the bench, too aware of how near it was to his shoulder, of how he could tip slightly to the right and Lehrer would be touching him. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I wouldn’t ask you to join Level IV if I didn’t think you could make a real difference in this country. I’m trying to convince you to stay.”

“Carolinia needs witchings. When the doctor said I was joining Level IV, he didn’t make it sound like a choice.”

Lehrer smiled, but it seemed incomplete. “There’s always a choice.” A moment’s pause. “Of course, I would like you to make my preferred choice.”

Always a choice? Not unless Lehrer meant enlisting in the military as disposable cannon fodder or being commissioned as an officer. Witchings weren’t exactly in heavy supply these days, and everyone who was anyone in this country graduated from Level IV. The signing bonus they gave witchings who joined the military could make a huge difference if Noam donated it to the Migrant Center. And at least this way Noam could do something worthwhile.

The thing was . . .

The thing was, Noam was nobody. To date, his greatest accomplishment was hacking immigration records and getting thrown in juvie for it.

Needless to say, he hadn’t exactly changed the world from inside a jail cell. Instead he’d watched four friends get deported to Atlantia. All of them had caught the virus within a week.

All of them died.

Ever since feverwake, he’d seen the world through a haze of shock and grief. Now, possibility glimmered just out of reach. Lehrer was here, Lehrer was sitting right here, the most magically powerful man alive, even though he worked under Sacha—and he wanted Noam to be part of his world.

He wanted to give Noam power.

If Noam gave this up, he’d be giving up a chance to do something real. To amount to more than his parents had.

Of course, just thinking that was enough to make him sick with himself. There was nothing wrong with being a refugee. But could he walk away from this? From Lehrer, with his incredible abilities and immortality and the faded mark on his hand that suggested he—if no one else—might understand what it was really like in Carolinia today?

“I understand,” Noam said. The promises—to trust Lehrer, to be a good soldier—should have come pouring out of his mouth, but they congealed there instead. Whatever Lehrer might say about information and consent, people like Noam didn’t have other options.

Perhaps Lehrer recognized that, too, because he said, “I’ll push you harder than you think you can go. Some days you might wish you’d said no to me here. Or that you’d died in fever, like your father.”

That cut deeper than Noam was willing to admit.

He wanted Lehrer to trust him, though, even if Lehrer shouldn’t. So he smiled, making himself the frail, nervous little thing Lehrer must expect him to be. “There’s nowhere else for me to go. But I’m stronger than I look.”

“I’m relieved to hear it,” Lehrer said. He reached out that same marked hand to clap Noam on the shoulder. “We need strong men and women to protect the ones who are weak. If you make it through training, you won’t just be powerful, Noam, you’ll be able to use that power to help people. That’s far more important than a little pain.”

Lehrer got to his feet and reached out to help Noam up. Noam felt dwarfed next to him, even though he’d always been the tallest in his class. Or maybe Noam was now small, shrunken by the virus into something fragile and easily subsumed.

Noam met Lehrer’s gaze and smiled again.

After 123 years, that was one thing Lehrer might appreciate.

Everyone else might be dead, but Noam was still fucking here.

And as long as he was, he had a war to win.

Level IV was housed in the east wing of the government complex, a building attached to the administrative west wing by a series of now-empty halls. Lehrer seemed oblivious to the silence. The nails in the soles of his fine leather shoes clicked off the hardwood floor, echoing toward high ceilings, his presence leaving no room for intruders. Even so, the shadows seemed to move in the corner of Noam’s eye, though every time he looked they stood still. This place was beautiful, Noam decided, but there was something about these walls that he didn’t like—walls that closed in on him, that had teeth.

“You grew up near here, didn’t you?”

Noam startled, and when he met Lehrer’s gaze he almost flinched. How long had Lehrer been watching?

“Yes,” Noam said. After a moment he dragged his gaze away, toward the windows and the few skyscrapers peppering the downtown skyline, the banks and office buildings visible through the evening fog. “Ninth Street.”

“You know your way around, then. Have you been to this part of town before?”

“Some. Mostly on field trips.”

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?”

Noam wasn’t sure he’d use that word. When Noam thought about lovely places, he thought of faraway cities in books. New York, before it was destroyed. Berlin and Kyoto. Places people had visited before Carolinia closed its borders but were now elusive as daydreams. Still, he thought he understood what Lehrer meant. If he could look at Durham for the first time, he might find beauty in the brick warehouses, the oddly crenelated roofs, the ancient and crumbling smokestacks.