XXXI

The next morning I was silly and light. Every time I pushed the smile from my face, it fought its way back. Eventually, as I rode the train back to Candor with Ace, I stopped suppressing it. We were both tired, so we were quiet, but I lay my head against her shoulder and it was all I needed to say. When we parted ways on the roof, she wiped a soot smudge off my cheek.

“Your buttons are messed up,” she said, pointing to the Candor shirt I’d thrown on over my Dauntless tank top.

I darted up to kiss her again. “So’s your hair,” I said.

“What’s wrong with my—”

I stuck my hand in it and ruffled it up. Then I skipped away, laughing.

“You’re infuriating, you know that?” Ace called.

It was Saturday. No classes. I went back to my room and resolved to sleep, since I had been too excited last night to do much of anything but tease Ace while she tried to get rest (instead of sleeping on the floor, like she had before, I invited her to share the bed with me. I got clingy fast, what could I say?). But still, I was too excited to sleep. I pulled out my journal and started drawing, humming a song called “Roundabout” under my breath.

At a little before noon I went looking for Oona, wanting to go out to lunch with her and talk—maybe I could give her an abridged version of why I was gone and she would forgive me. But she was nowhere in the apartment. On my way out, I crossed paths with Aletheia, who was waiting at the elevator. I looked at her gingerly and cleared my throat.

“What?” she muttered, not even returning the look.

“Have you seen Oona?” I asked.

“No.” She paused to pick her fingernails. “Because I don’t care.”

Well. Not helpful. Not that I had expected Aletheia to be, but still. I wasn’t sure what our relationship was anymore. I wasn’t mad at her like before. Something had changed about her, something...hidden; a lot of people felt like that to me nowadays. The things Aletheia said—and by extension, what many other Candor said—might have been true. Blunt, hard, brutal honesty. It was the things they didn’t say that were tricky.

I awkwardly followed Aletheia to the cafeteria, not wanting to go to Antigone’s alone. It wasn’t like I could go with Ace, though the thought was appealing. Antigone’s wasn’t the kind of place for a Dauntless. And after all, Ace was on the clock; she had a job to do.

To my surprise, Oona was in the cafeteria. So were all of the other initiates. Most of them had textbooks or laptops with them, eating as they read or typed, talking quietly amongst themselves. Oona was surrounded, talking with Sherlock on her right, Jed on her left, so I got my sandwich and salad from the lunch buffet and settled down across the table, next to Ravi.

“Uh, hey guys,” I said.

Sherlock and Jed said hi, but Oona just gave me a look before turning back to Sherlock.

“I think Oona’s mad,” I said in a low voice.

Ravi pulled out a headphone. “What gave it away? The glaring?”

“I bailed on you guys for studying. I tried to tell her that I didn’t want to, but...I haven’t spoken to her for days.”

“She’s just stressed, ‘sall.” He shrugged. “Worried about the exams.”

“She almost passed the midterm, why is she worried?”

Ravi made a weird “mrmmrm” noise that I took to mean “I don’t know.”

“How are you, by the way?” I asked cautiously.

“Oh, I should be okay,” he said. “I filed for accommodations on the logic and procedure exams, because, like, the dyslexia.”

“That’s good!”

“Administration was kind of a bitch about it, and Judge Touma hasn’t gotten back to my emails all weekend, but at least I got the documentation in.”

“Hasn’t gotten back to you?” I echoed. Touma was religious about responding to emails. Once, I sent a question about an assignment at one in the morning. She responded within the minute.

“Worst case scenario, they don’t give me the time extensions, I fail, and maybe I can appeal.”

“Well—I hope you don’t fail—but what do you mean, Touma hasn’t gotten back to you?”

Ravi frowned, as if he didn’t understand why I was suspicious. I hoped he wouldn’t get too curious. Sajida’s disappearance, Judge Touma’s asking me to find her, Ace getting in contact with Sajida—it was a lot to explain. Judge Touma going radio silent, too? I didn’t know if I could handle that.

Before Ravi could say anything, the grandfather clock at the front of the cafeteria chimed. All of the initiates, as one, got up and started gathering their things.

“Maybe she’s doing what normal people do on a weekend,” Ravi said. “Ignoring school.”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

He frowned. “Where do you think?”

I hadn’t even finished my lunch. I shoved a huge bite of sandwich into my mouth and tagged along with the group of initiates, trailing at the back with Ravi.

“Uh, you guys don’t typically all get up to go somewhere at the same time, is this a new thing, or…?”

“Oh, Morris made an announcement yesterday. I think you were zoned out.”

Yes, I had been zoning out a lot lately. Mostly thinking about Ace.

“It’s an info session about the Full Unveiling, or something,” said Ravi. “That cool blind lady with the sunglasses, she’s filling us in.”

Irene.

I tried to play it smooth. “Oh, awesome,” I said. “I love her sunglasses.”

Wow, Phoebe, real smooth.

We filed into one of the lecture halls, where Irene was waiting at the podium. I wondered if she had some way of knowing when I walked in the room, because as I passed her, she frowned. But she said nothing to me, just leaned over to her assistant and said something in a low voice.

When we were all seated and quiet, she cleared her throat.

“Thank you all for being here,” said Irene. “I am sure none of you enjoy coming to class on your day off, because I don’t either. Let’s make this quick. In two weeks, you will all be taking the four-part Candor initiation exam, consisting of tests in Logical Reasoning, Legal Procedure, Investigative Technique, and Argumentative Technique. In order to receive your scores and accept your place as a member of Candor, you must consent to a ritual known as the Full Unveiling.”

The room had been quiet before. Now, it was like Irene was speaking to only herself. I wasn’t even sure if I could breathe.

“The Unveiling will take place in the Grand Courtroom of the Merciless Mart, from eight o’clock on Saturday morning to…however long it might take. It will proceed as such: Your witnesses will be every adult member of Candor, as well as your fellow initiates. You shall stand before the faction naked, except for the ritual uniform, a waist covering—don’t laugh, you’re not children. You shall accept a dose of 46% concentrated veritarbital, also known as truth serum, for those of you who haven’t paid attention in Legal Procedure.”

There were a few nervous chuckles at that. I was not one of them. I had kind of paid attention in Legal Procedure. I knew that the standard concentration of veritarbital used in legal proceedings was 38%. The closer you got to 50%, the closer you inched towards actual brain damage. 46% was strong. I hoped Irene had plans for me, because spending a few minutes in Ace’s fear landscape didn’t sound like enough preparation anymore.

“Once under the serum, you have two options. The first is the traditional line of questioning. Our faction leader, Mr. Jack Kang, will ask you a series of questions related to the eight vices, and you shall respond to each question in turn.

“As you should know, Candor tradition holds that there are not merely seven capital vices, but eight—lust, gluttony, sloth, greed, envy, wrath, pride, and deceit. Such vices can be defined as any thought, word, or action which disrespects ourselves, our peers, or our society. For the purpose of the Full Unveiling, we shall define the vices as any area of our life where we may harbor secrets. Some secrets might vacillate upon more than one category of vice. That is fine; the questioning is rarely neat and orderly. Our only hope is that by the time we have covered each category, you will have nothing more to tell.”

My shoulders relaxed minutely. None of those, except the last one, sounded like they might ask about my aptitude test. Maybe that was how Irene planned on helping me lie.

“But don’t get cocky,” Judge Morris cut in. “The dose is high enough that if you have a secret that somehow lies outside any of the vices, you’ll tell it anyway. There’s no fighting it.”

Well.

I waited for Irene to correct him, but she just nodded gravely. “There are indeed many secrets of things that are not morally wrong, and sometimes a vice can be done in such a way not to be wrong. Your professor is right. You will not have a choice as to which secrets get spilled. They will all come out eventually. Sometimes they are things that you don’t even know about yourself.”

In the front row, Dauntless transfer Altagracia raised a hand. Irene kept talking until her assistant tapped her on the shoulder, then she frowned.

“Does someone have a question?” she asked.

Altagracia stood up and cleared her throat. “Yeah, sorry,” she said. “What do you mean, things you don’t even know about yourself?”

Irene gave a grim smile. “The sort of thing that would be better to forget. When I was three years old, I fell off my bunk bed and hit my head. The trauma caused internal bleeding that led into a gradual loss of vision over the next week—eventually ending in double retinal detachment. But I didn’t know that. I also didn’t know that when I went to church the next morning, I got lost on the bus and left with the wrong family. I spent three days living with an Amity family and their thirteen children before someone realized I didn’t belong. I forgot all about it until the truth serum dug it back up again.”

“It can do that?” asked Altagracia.

“The mind is a vast, winding place,” said Irene. “Which brings us to our second option for the Full Unveiling. If you believe you know yourself well enough to answer these questions without the help of truth serum, you may write your own testimony of secrets and read it aloud.”

A low murmur spread across the room. My shoulders relaxed a second time.

“Keep in mind—if you attempt to read something that is not true, things will become very painful for you. If you choose not to put something in, it will come out after you are done. This option is equally as revealing as traditional questioning, but some initiates find it preferable, as you have more control of when secrets come out.”

That had to be how Irene planned to help me. We would just write a script and I’d resist the pain when I tried to read a lie…

“However,” said Irene.

(I groaned internally, already knowing that she was about to hit me with something that slaughtered my hopes again. Candor really liked to give the good news first and the devastating news next.)

“If you choose to prepare your testimony in advance, you are required to send the manuscript to the Department of Academic Integrity. A panel of five judges will compare your testimony to your Full Unveiling. Whenever the two accounts differ, the judges will determine whether or not you were attempting to lie. If too many attempts are made, the judges may vote to fail you out of initiation.”

“How many is too many?” asked Sherlock.

Irene shrugged. “That’s up to the judges.”

Along with most of the class, Sherlock seemed aghast before saying, “That sucks.”

“Yes, it does,” agreed Irene. “Oh, cheer up, I can literally smell the fear from all of you. Think of it this way—as many secrets as you have, there’s someone in this room with more.”

She paused. And in that strange way, like the hairs standing on the back of your neck, I knew who she was talking about.

“It could be worse, after all,” said Irene. “You could be on trial.”