Free Prodigy by Marie Lu

screen again and walk away.
Don’t dwell too deeply on who Anden is.
I can’t think about him as if he were a real person—a person I have to kill.
    Finally, as the first rays of dawn start spilling into the room, Tess comes out of the bedroom with the news that Day is awake and alert. “He’s in good shape,” she says to Kaede. “Right now he’s sitting up, and he should be able to walk around in a few hours.” Then she sees me and her smile fades. “Um. You can see him if you want.”
    Kaede cracks open an eye, shrugs, and goes back to sleep. I give Tess the friendliest smile I can manage, then take a deep breath and head for the bedroom.
    Day is propped up with pillows and covered up to his chest with a thick blanket. He must be tired, but he still winks when he sees me walk in, a gesture that makes my heart skip a beat. His hair spills around him in a shining circle. A few bent paper clips lie in his lap (taken from the supply boxes in the corner—I guess he
did
get up). Apparently he was in the middle of making something out of them. I let out a sigh of relief when I can tell that he’s not in any pain. “Hey,” I say to him. “Glad to see you’re alive.”
    “Glad to see I’m alive too,” he replies. His eyes follow me as I sit down next to him on the bed. “Did I miss anything while I was out?”
    “Yeah. You missed listening to Kaede snore on the couch. For someone always ducking the law, that girl sure sleeps soundly.”
    Day laughs a little. I marvel again at his high spirits, something I haven’t seen much of over the last few weeks. My gaze wanders to where the blanket covers his healing leg. “How is it?”
    Day scoots the blanket aside. Underneath, there are plates of smooth metal (steel and titanium) where his wound had been. The Medic also replaced his bad knee with an artificial one, and now a good third of his leg is metallic. He reminds me of the soldiers who come back from the warfront, with their synthetic hands and arms and legs, metal where skin used to be. The Medic must be very familiar with war injuries. No doubt Razor’s officer connections helped her obtain something as expensive as the healing salves she must have used on Day. I put out my open palm, and he puts his hand in mine.
    “How does it feel?”
    Day shakes his head incredulously. “It feels like nothing. Completely light and painless.” A mischievous grin crosses his face. “Now you’ll get to see how I can
really
run a building, darling. Not even a cracked knee to hold me back, yeah? What a nice birthday present.”
    “Birthday? I didn’t know. Happy belated,” I say with a smile. My eyes go to the paper clips strewn across his lap. “What are you doing?”
    “Oh.” Day picks up one of the things he’s making, something that looks like a metal circle. “Just passing the time.” He holds the circle up to the light, and then takes my hand. He presses it into my palm. “A gift for you.”
    I study it more closely. It’s made of four unfurled paper clips carefully entwined around one another in a spiral, and pulled together end to end so they form a tiny ring. Simple and neat. Artistic, even. I can see love and care in the twists of metal, the little bends where Day’s fingers worked on the wire over and over until it formed the right curves.
He
made
it for me.
I push it onto my finger and it slides effortlessly into place. Gorgeous. I’m bashful, flattered into complete silence. Can’t remember the last time anyone actually
made
something for me on his own.
    Day seems disappointed by my reaction, but hides it behind a careless laugh. “I know you rich folks have all your fancy traditions, but in the poor sectors, engagements and gestures of affection usually go like this.”
    Engagements? My heart flutters in my chest. I can’t help smiling. “With paper clip rings?”
    Oh no.
I’d meant it as an honest question of curiosity, but don’t realize I sound sarcastic until the words are already out