Free Prodigy by Marie Lu Page B

national broadcast to tell the
     country I’m still alive. I’m supposed to stir up trouble, right? Work the people into
     a frenzy?” Day laughs dryly, but his face doesn’t look amused. “Whatever gets me to
     Eden, I guess.”
    “I guess,” I say.
    He pulls me upright then, so that I face him. “I don’t know if they’ll let us communicate
     with each other,” he says. His voice drops so low I can barely hear it. “The plan
sounds
good, but if something goes wrong—”
    “They’ll keep a close eye on me, I’m sure,” I interrupt him. “Razor’s a Republic officer.
     He can find a way to get me out if it starts falling apart. As for communications . . .”
     I bite my lip, thinking. “I’ll come up with something.”
    Day touches my chin, bringing me closer until his nose brushes mine. “If anything
     goes wrong, if you change your mind, if you need help, you send a signal, you hear
     me?”
    His words send shivers down my neck. “Okay,” I whisper.
    Day gives me a subtle nod, then pulls away and leans back against his pillows. I let
     out my breath. “Are you ready?” he asks. There’s more to his sentence, I can tell,
     but he doesn’t say it.
Are you ready to kill the Elector?
    I give him a forced grin. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
    We stay like that for a long time, until the light filtering in from the windows is
     bright and we hear the morning pledge blaring out across the city. Finally, I hear
     the front door swing open and close, and then Razor’s voice. Footsteps approach the
     bedroom, and Razor peeks in right as I straighten and sit up.
    “How’s that leg of yours?” he asks Day. His face is as calm as ever, his eyes expressionless
     behind his glasses.
    Day nods. “Good.”
    “Excellent.” Razor smiles sympathetically. “I hope you’ve had enough time with your
     boy, Ms. Iparis. We’re moving out in an hour.”
    “I thought the Medic wanted me to rest it for—” Day starts to say.
    “Sorry,” Razor replies as he turns away. “We have an airship to catch. Don’t push
     that leg too hard just yet.”

THE PATRIOTS DISGUISE ME BEFORE WE HEAD OUT.
    Kaede cuts my hair so it stops right below my shoulders, then she tints the white-blond
     strands a dark brownish red. She uses some sort of spray to do it, something they
     can remove with a special cleanser if they need to strip the color out. Razor gives
     me a pair of brown contact lenses that completely hide the bright blue of my eyes.
     Only I can tell that it’s artificial; I can still see the tiny, tiny specks of deep
     purple dotting my irises. These contacts are a luxury in themselves—rich trots use
     them to change their eye color—for
fun.
They would’ve come in handy for me on the streets if I’d had access to them. Kaede
     adds a synthetic scar to my cheek, then finishes off my disguise with a first-year
     air force uniform; a full black suit with red stripes running along each pant leg.
    Finally, she equips me with a tiny flesh-colored earpiece and mike—the first embedded
     discreetly in my ear, the second inside my cheek.
    Razor himself is decked out in a custom Republic officer uniform. Kaede wears a flawless
     flight outfit—a black jumpsuit with silver wing stripes wrapped around both sleeves,
     matching white condor gloves, and wing goggles. She’s not a Pilot in the Patriots
     for nothing—according to Razor, she can pull off a split-S in the air better than
     anyone he’s ever seen. Kaede should have no trouble posing as a Republic fighter pilot.
    Tess is already gone, whisked away half an hour ago by a soldier who Razor says is
     another Patriot. Tess is too young to pass as a soldier of any level, so getting her
     onto the RS
Dynasty
means dressing her in a simple brown collar shirt and trousers, the outfit of workers
     who operate the airship’s hundreds of stoves.
    And then there’s June.
    June quietly watches my transformation from the couch. She hasn’t said much since
     our