Prodigy

have you.”
    And just like that, we’re officially bound to them. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing, either—maybe I never should’ve argued with Day about this in the first place. Kaede motions for us to follow her into an adjoining hall in the apartment and guides us to a spacious bathroom, complete with marble tiles and porcelain sinks, mirror and toilet, bathtub and shower with frosted glass walls. I can’t help admiring it all. This is wealth beyond even what I had in my Ruby sector apartment.
    “Don’t be all night about it,” she says. “Take turns—or get cozy and shower together, if that’s faster. Just be back out there in a half hour.” Kaede grins at me (although the smile doesn’t touch her eyes), then gives Day a thumbs-up as he leans heavily on my shoulder. She turns away and disappears back down the hall before I can reply. I don’t think she’s forgiven me entirely for breaking her arm.
    Day slouches the instant Kaede’s gone. “Can you help me sit down?” he whispers.
    I put the toilet cover down and ease him gently onto it. He stretches out his good leg, then tenses his jaw as he tries to straighten out the injured one. A moan escapes his lips. “I’ve gotta admit,” he mutters, “I’ve had better days.”
    “At least Tess is safe,” I reply.
    This eases some of the pain in his eyes. “Yes,” he echoes, sighing deeply. “At least Tess is safe.” I feel an unexpected twinge of guilt. Tess’s face had looked so sweet, so wholly
good.
And the two of them were separated because of
me.
    Am
I
good? I don’t really know.
    I help Day take off his jacket and cap. His long hair drapes in strings across my arms. “Let me see that leg.” I kneel, then pull a knife from my belt. I slice the fabric of his pant leg up to the middle of his thigh. His leg muscles are lean and tense, and my hands tremble as they brush up along his skin. Gingerly, I pull the fabric apart to expose his bandaged wound. We both suck in our breath. The cloth has a massive circle of dark, wet blood, and underneath it, the wound is oozing and swelling. “That Medic better get here soon,” I say. “Are you sure you can shower on your own?”
    Day jerks his eyes away, and his cheeks turn red. “Of course I can.”
    I raise an eyebrow at him. “You can’t even stand.”
    “Fine.” He hesitates, then blushes. “I guess I could use some help.”
    I swallow. “Well. A bath instead, then. Let’s do what we have to do.”
    I start filling up the bathtub with warm water. Then, I take the knife and slowly cut through the blood-soaked bandages wrapped around Day’s wound. We sit there in silence, neither of us meeting the other’s eyes. The wound itself is as bad as ever, a fist-size mass of pulped flesh that Day avoids looking at.
    “Youdon’t have to do this,” he mutters, rolling his shoulders in an attempt to relax.
    “Right.” I give him a wry smile. “I’ll just wait outside the bathroom door and come help after you slip and knock yourself out.”
    “No,” Day replies. “I mean, you don’t have to join the Patriots.”
    My smile dies. “Well, we don’t have much of a choice, do we? Razor wants both of us on board, or he’s not going to help us at all.”
    Day’s hand touches my arm for a second, stopping me in the middle of untying his boots. “What do you think of their plan?”
    “Assassinating the new Elector?” I turn away, concentrating on unlacing, then loosening each of his boots as carefully as I can. It’s a question I haven’t figured out yet, so I deflect it. “Well, what do you think? I mean, you go out of your way to avoid hurting people. This must be kind of a shock.”
    I’m startled when Day just shrugs. “There’s a time and place for everything.” His voice is cold, harsher than usual. “I never saw the point of killing Republic soldiers. I mean, I hate them, but they’re not the
source.
They just obey their superiors. The Elector, though? I don’t know. Getting rid of the person in charge of this whole goddy system seems like a small price to pay for starting a revolution. Don’t you think?”
    I can’t help feeling some admiration for Day’s attitude. What he says makes perfect sense. Still, I wonder if he would’ve said the same thing a few weeks ago, before everything that had happened to his family. I don’t dare mention the time I’d been introduced to Anden at the celebratory ball. It’s harder to reconcile yourself to killing someone who