He took a half step forward and stopped.
It was Lehrer who closed the rest of the distance between them, Lehrer whose hands found Noam’s hips and pushed him back against the shut door, Lehrer’s body hot and firm where it pressed against his.
And it only occurred to Noam later that Lehrer wasn’t drunk the first time, or the second. And he hadn’t hesitated.
It was a little weird, but at the time it’d been reassuring in its own way. Especially in those intervening weeks, when Lehrer barely acknowledged what had happened. They still had their lessons every day, but Lehrer scarcely seemed to glance twice at him. Lehrer’s apparent disinterest threw Noam’s own desire into sharper relief: every time Lehrer had touched him—their fingers grazing when Lehrer handed him a book, the paternalistic pressure of Lehrer’s hand on Noam’s shoulder when he introduced him to another politician—Noam had tallied up the contact in a sort of mental reckoning. Those touches were suddenly imbued with meaning: He wants me, he wants me not.
So when Lehrer’s restraint finally broke, three weeks later, Noam didn’t hesitate. He threw himself into the affair with all he had.
Third sin.
After Faraday—after all Noam’s memories had come rushing back, blood welling to fill the wound—Noam had wondered if Dara had craved Lehrer’s affection the same way Noam had. As if Lehrer was the most intoxicating drug in the world and everyone else just addicts scrambling for another fix. And every time Lehrer pulled away, you wanted him more, and more, until you would happily strip your dignity down to the bone if it meant Lehrer wanted you back.
Now look where we are, Noam thought as they both got dressed for the Keatses’ gala—in the same room, wordless, the only sound that of rustling cloth and the spritz of aftershave.
But whatever other lies Lehrer might have told, his grief was real.
The two of them built this hell together, and together they were damned to it.
CHAPTER FOUR
DARA
They’d bought the suit secondhand in west Durham, untailored and sewed from cheap cotton, but it fit surprisingly well. Well enough, at least, that the man in charge of checking invitations didn’t give him the once-over the old Dara would have given someone walking up to a high-society gala in anything short of bespoke.
Then again, the invitation was a very good fake.
So good a fake, in fact, that it wasn’t a fake at all. Lehrer really should have done a better job sniffing out Sacha loyalists in his new administration. Not that being Grayson Heath, Minister Holloway’s nephew, was going to get him very far at a party full of people who’d known him since he was a terrifyingly telepathic four-year-old.
Dara smiled at the invitation checker all the same and let the footman take his coat.
The last time he’d visited the Keatses’ home, he’d been thirteen. Their daughter, Eleanor, took him up to her bedroom and tried to kiss him against the floral wallpaper. He’d spent the rest of the evening avoiding her and reading trashy novels in the toilet while pretending to have food poisoning.
Eleanor wouldn’t be here, of course. She’d been a year older, and last he heard, she’d graduated Level II and promptly married the Norwegian ambassador to avoid military service. She lived in Oslo now.
He didn’t miss Eleanor, but he missed a lot more than he’d have thought about being thirteen. For one, the ability to go hide in a bathroom.
If Dara still had magic, he could have draped an illusion over himself like a cloak and looked like anyone. A grizzled old war vet, maybe, dripping with medals of honor and scowling at the world through filmy cataracts. Someone no one would mess with. If Dara still had magic, he’d have every thought in this room at his fingertips. He could dip his hands into the mind of the minister of finance, sifting through emotions like glittering jewels, and sense the precise moment Kurt Langley recognized him.
“If it isn’t Dara Shirazi,” Langley said, clearly delighted with himself for having spotted Dara first. He reached forward with both hands, and Dara had no choice but to let him clasp one of his between them. Langley’s palms were moist with lotion. “My dear, dear boy . . . I thought . . .”
Dara smiled back at him, waiting as Langley fumbled for the correct words.
“Weren’t you,” Langley managed at last with a delicate little cough, “missing?”
Dara patted his hand. “Hardly. And as you can see, I’m back now. Didn’t Calix tell you?” He detached himself before Langley could answer, drifting toward the refreshment table and leaving the man to wonder why, in fact, Lehrer hadn’t told him.
Although something about the way Langley had said missing kept itching at him. Dara rather suspected Lehrer hadn’t said he was missing at all, but hidden away in some clinic in a foreign allied nation, kept comfortable as fevermadness ate away his brain and his life.
Even Dara had to admit it was a deft move. No one would expect Lehrer to lie about such a thing, as Dara’s behavior reflected upon his own reputation. The story was just embarrassing enough to be believed. And that explanation would cast in new light anything Dara had ever said to suggest he was less than enamored with Lehrer. The promiscuity. The drugs.
What a shame, they all used to think—always with that mental note of comingling disappointment and delight, pleased that their own children, at least, were not so fundamentally broken as Lehrer’s. What a waste of talent.
Dara might have chosen to take on this mission, but he hated being here. He hated that this was that kind of party, filled with the kinds of high-society people who would recognize Dara Shirazi even if Lehrer had kept Dara’s face hidden from the rest of the world.
Still, he was glad he’d be the one holding the gun when its bullet tore through Lehrer’s brain.
Now that Langley had recognized him, though, it was only a matter of time before that knowledge made the rounds. Dara had to find Lehrer before Lehrer heard that Dara was here.
Lehrer was taller than anyone had any right to be, but in this crowd picking him out was impossible. Too many military uniforms, too many fine suits and fair-haired heads. After watching a moment, though, Dara noticed a pattern to the way people moved through the room. It was as if they were all asteroids in orbit around a knot of people at the far end, by the fireplace. And—
Yes. There. Just a glimpse was enough, just the sharp line of a cheekbone and the neat part of Lehrer’s hair, and god, but Dara would recognize him anywhere.
He wanted to reach for the gun strapped to his right hip. He wanted to start shooting right now, damn the consequences. He was nauseated down to the marrow of his bones, sickness seeping like venom into his blood. Even breathing was difficult, like his rib cage was constricting round his lungs and squeezing all the air out.
He couldn’t do it. He—he couldn’t, he couldn’t walk over there and look Lehrer in the eye again, hear that soft voice twisting reality with every syllable he spoke. Not even to shoot him.
You have to. Think about Noam, still in Carolinia, still trusting Lehrer and blind to what Lehrer really was. Maybe Lehrer’s persuasion would break when Lehrer died, every thread of that lethal magic snapping at once and freeing the nation from its bonds. Maybe Dara would miraculously manage to get out of here alive. And Noam would remember.
That only happened if Lehrer died. Which only happened if he drank the suppressant first.