The Fever King (Feverwake #1)(10)

And all this was Lehrer’s creation, of course. He and his brother built Carolinia from the ashes of the catastrophe, a nation cut from what used to be three states, now sewn together and made whole. It was lovely because it was loved—because it was alive.

“Yes,” Noam said, a little surprised with himself for saying so. For being sincere.

They turned one last corner and stopped in front of an unlabeled door. Noam tried to memorize its featureless face, its location in the hallway, to recall how they got here so he could do it again on his own, but all the seconds leading up to this moment were just a blur. And at the center, like the focus point of an old film: Lehrer.

Lehrer delivered him to a steely-haired woman named Dr. Howard, who was in charge of supervising Level IV cadets. She gave him a cursory tour of the barracks, not that Noam remembered much by the time he was ushered to the boys’ bedroom and left alone in the dark. He lay awake for hours, feeling like he’d swallowed a storm. The other boys’ breathing rustled out from the shadows, too loud. It reminded him of the noises that hid around corners in the bookshop: his father’s soft snores, the pad of his mother’s feet on the floor when she got up for a glass of water, neighbors bickering downstairs.

All of them were dead now.

It was too large, too terrible, to comprehend: that a fever could wipe his world clean like a dishcloth scrubbing a dirty countertop. Heat burned his throat. Noam turned his face into the pillow, squeezing his eyes shut even tighter. Don’t cry.

Don’t think about those little details: The way Carly laughed when she had a secret, the cut of his father’s grin that time Noam managed to get an illegal stream of the Colombia-Argentina game on his holoreader. Noam’s mother, asleep with a book draped over her face.

His grief was a grim specter on the other side of a shut door. And if he opened that door, he’d be consumed. He’d go fevermad, like the raving cretins scurrying pestlike through the gutters, ranting about evolution and viral gods.

No. He was finally where he needed to be. Where he could use whatever powers the witchings taught him to undermine the foundations of their world and rebuild it into something new. Something better.

He couldn’t break.

He wondered if Brennan was still alive. If he knew that Noam had survived. If he also lay awake on the other side of the city—had texted Noam, not realizing Noam’s phone burned with all the other contaminated artifacts of his old life.

Noam rolled onto his stomach and sucked in a mouthful of air. It tasted like detergent.

Brennan was like Noam. He didn’t have anyone else either. His kids died in Atlantia, and he’d never married. It was just him and Noam’s dad and Noam himself, the crooked edges of their broken families fitting together imperfectly but right.

Noam had to believe Brennan survived. Brennan didn’t live in the same neighborhood as Noam, so he might not have been blocked in by the military perimeter set up to stop the infection. Anyway, magic was transmitted by contact with infected body fluids, right? Noam hadn’t coughed on him or anything. (Or kissed him, like he kissed Elliott—Elliott who was most definitely dead.)

Only the virus wasn’t just transmitted through fluids. Noam remembered reading something, insomniac at four in the morning with his holoreader propped on his knees: a research study suggesting magic might transfer through physical contact as well. Noam had always thought it was just paranoia and poor science education, people worrying about catching the virus when witchings used magic around them.

But what if it was true?

When Noam went to the Migrant Center, when he fell asleep over the keyboard Brennan would keep using, when Brennan touched his shoulder and Noam jerked awake—was he already contagious then? Did magic seep through Noam’s skin, between the fibers of his sweater, and poison Brennan’s fingertips?

Stop it, Noam ordered himself. Stop thinking like this. Go to sleep.

Eventually he must have, because he woke hours later to an empty room.

Shit. Was he supposed to be up early? No one said anything about classes or early training. Noam fumbled out of bed and hastily made up the sheets. He’d slept in his clothes, so being dressed was just a matter of pushing his feet into his shoes and dragging his fingers back through his hair—not that it helped.

But when he emerged from the bedroom, the apartment was eerily quiet. People could have been there moments before: dishes stacked on the rack next to the sink to dry, someone’s book left open on the table with a clean fork tucked between the pages to mark the spot. It was impossible to guess anything about the people who lived here. From the state of the kitchen—all gleaming chrome and a bowl of fruit sitting on the counter—someone clearly tidied up the place every night. Everything had its purpose, down to the bland mass-produced artwork hanging on the walls. None of it felt like a home, though it was far nicer than anywhere Noam had lived before.

He wandered through the other rooms branching off from the hall: a gym, a classroom, an office for Howard, another bedroom that must belong to the girls. These rooms were equally as neat, all sharp edges and military precision.

There was no phone that Noam could see. No way to ring up the Migrant Center and ask if Brennan was around. Eventually Noam returned to the kitchen and sat at the table, staring across at the open book. The letters bled together as Noam’s eyes unfocused. Maybe everyone had gone to school. But then why hadn’t Howard left a note? Annoyed, Noam shifted in his seat to tuck one foot under his thighs and reached for the book, pulling it closer. The fork clattered onto the tabletop.