XXXII

That night I planned to talk to Oona, but she wasn’t in her room. I stopped by Ravi’s room to see if she might be there, but none of the boys had seen her. Except for Sherlock, probably, because he was also missing.

“They’re totally screwing,” said Brighton. He was sitting on the kitchen countertop, eating a sandwich and nude except for his boxers. Unlike me, he was completely shameless.

Ravi nodded. He was sipping a soda and a little more clothed, wearing at least his binder. “Sherlock’s brushing his teeth after every meal,” he observed. “Like, I know the dude wears a retainer, but that’s obsessive.”

“You only do that for real reasons,” Brighton agreed.

I couldn’t help that my cheeks were hot. “But they never said that they’re—you know?”

“They don’t need to,” Ravi said. “It’s obvious.”

“But—they’re not here. Where’s—um—where are they getting a bed?”

Brighton raised his hand. “There’s really cheap rooms in the basement of the Acropolis Club, if you know who to ask, and you don’t care about not having windows or air conditioning. Me an’ Katie used to do it all the time, back a few months ago when she got curious about foo—”

“Ooooooookay, that’s enough,” said Ravi loudly.

“Just being honest,” Brighton shrugged.

“There’s honesty and there’s oversharing.”

I quietly excused myself after that. I didn’t know how to feel about the fact that Sherlock and Oona were romantically involved—I didn’t mind the news itself, but I thought that Oona might be the one to give it to me. How long had it been going on? If they were already at the level of...well... intercourse, then it had to be serious. I was beginning to feel a certain way that I did not like. Chilly. Uncomfortable. Jealous? Lonely? I couldn’t be either. I had Ace.

That night, after she clocked out, I took my dinner up to the roof to eat with her. I was going to talk about Oona, but when I opened the door and stepped outside, I did a double take.

Ace was standing there with two of the last people I expected to see. The first was Miriam, wearing pants. I had only ever seen her in her drab brown maid dress. Now she wore a battered aviator’s jacket and ripped jeans, and she leaned on a heavy metal cane. When she turned, her frown was so unlike the Miriam that I had grown to know that I almost didn’t recognize her.

The second person was a girl my age. She was dressed all in black and grey, a mix of Candor, Dauntless, and Abnegation fashion, her head and face covered in a silky black scarf. She flinched back when she saw me until Ace held out a hand, reassuring her.

“Close the door, Phoebe,” said Ace.

I locked it for good measure. This seemed like one of those things that needed a little more subterfuge.

Hearing my name, the girl stepped forward. I met her eyes above the scarf. Now I knew. Slowly, she lowered the scarf and exposed her brown face, the face that I had always thought of as so, so beautiful in the drapes of her scarf—more so than mine.

“Sajida,” I said.

Sajida smiled wanly. “Hey,” she said. “So, this is weird.”

I couldn’t help myself—I laughed. “Yeah, I guess it is,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck.

“I like your hair.”

“Thank you. I like that...you kept your scarf.”

“Eh, maybe I left the factions; at least I don’t have to leave the faith.”

She shrugged. Up close, I realized we were the same height, which was small.

“You know,” she said, “there’s some joke to be made about us basically switching places, you to Candor, me to Abnegation, and both of us becoming some kind of hot-head revolutionary.”

I winced. “I wouldn’t say I’m a revolutionary—”

“But she is a hot-head,” said Ace.

Yeah, fair.

“Okay,” Ace continued, clapping her hands, “you two can gossip about hairstyles and anarchy later, alright? Sajida, say what you gotta say, we need to leave.”

“Leave where?” I asked. I was ignored.

“Right.” Sajida nodded.

She reached into her pocket, pulled out an envelope, and gave it to me carefully, folding my hands over it as if afraid of it blowing away in the evening wind.

“Give this to my mother tomorrow,” she said. “But after class, please. She’s very emotional and might not be able to teach if she sees it before class.”

“I will.”

“Also, I tried to write it in classical Arabic in case someone else gets their hands on it, so it might take her a while to read. My Arabic letters are really terrible.”

I cracked a smile at that. “You know, she gave me hell about my handwriting once, I thought she was going to kick me out of the faction.”

Sajida rolled her eyes. “That’s Mom for you. Just...tell her I’m safe. Tell her to stay where she is. And—”

She hesitated, then looked at Ace. A silent question. Ace nodded. A silent answer. Slowly, Sajida inhaled.

“I couldn’t even write this down, because if anyone finds the letter, it’ll be taken to him,” said Sajida quietly. “Tell her—don’t trust Lysander Morris.”

My eyes widened. “What?”

“It’s not for you to worry about. It’s just for her.”

“Saying ‘it’s not for you to worry about’ is a great way to get me worrying,” I said worriedly, with a worried expression, while worrying my hands.

“Sajida,” said Miriam, speaking up for the first time.

“Right. Sorry,” said Sajida quickly.

She put her hand on my shoulder, a strong grip. She looked at me like the Candor-born did—knowing, understanding, an eye trained to analyze. I wonder if she saw that I was scared. Not scared of any one thing in particular, definitely heightened by the ominous warning about Judge Morris. But I realized for the first time that I was nervous all the time. A cold undercurrent, pulling at my ankles, threatening to drag me under. And I realized it only because I could see it in Sajida too.

“Everything is about to change, Phoebe,” she said. “Be careful who you trust. And good luck.”

She turned and strode away, a loose end of her scarf flapping in the wind. When she climbed up onto the roof ledge, she helped Miriam up, and Ace followed.

“Where are you going?” I called over the wind.

“If I told you, you’d have to come with,” replied Sajida. Then she jumped.

I looked to Miriam and Ace, but Miriam only gave me a cold look. Briefly, I wondered how she would follow Sajida across the rooftops, but then she slid her cane into a sheath on her back and jumped as easily as Sajida had. When she landed and stood again, I saw that one of her legs was remarkably shorter than the other. That explained the limp. Apparently, she was still very strong.

“Sajida’s a drama queen, but she’s a good kid,” said Ace. “And—sorry for skipping out on dinner.”

I felt dazed. Dizzy. “It’s fine. It’s fine.”

“Thanks.”

She hesitated. Then, impulsively, she jumped back down from the ledge, came to me, and kissed me. “I’ll make it up to you. Anything you want.”

“Anything,” I repeated.

“Don’t make me regret it,” said Ace with a grin. Then she left.

I sat on the rooftop for a long time, the wind around me changing, again and again and again.

+ + +

The next morning was Sunday. Legal Procedure. I woke up at my alarm, inhaled, and started to plan what I would tell Judge Touma.

What I didn’t know was that I would never tell her anything.

When I walked into class ten minutes early, no one was at the podium. Which was strange. Most of the seats were full, since attendance shot up after the midterms, but there was no Judge Touma. If it was another class, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it. But Touma was an early bird. If class started at 9, she would be in the lecture hall at 8:40 to set up and answer questions. Oftentimes, she’d just chat with the people in the front row until the clock struck 9.

But the front row people—namely, Oona, Sherlock, Brighton, and most of the Erudite transfers—were quiet and waiting. I ducked into my back-row seat, where Ravi was flipping through a giant stack of notecards.

“Where’s Judge Touma?” I whispered, the room too quiet for comfort.

“Told you,” Ravi murmured. “She’s impossible nowadays.”

I gave him a look. “Her daughter failed initiation, you know,” I scolded. I knew I wasn’t supposed to say anything about that, but Ravi’s flippancy was a little annoying. “She’s going through a lot.”

“Yeah, well, I’m going through a lot, and I’m going to fail initiation too because of her. This place isn’t big on sympathy.”

The door opened and someone strode in. We all turned. But instead of Judge Touma’s flowing black abaya and fluffy white cravat, our eyes were met by a very different sight. A slim black suit and colorless hair. A pressed frown.

“Good morning,” said Judge Morris, striding up to the podium. “Madullah Touma is no longer teaching at the Institute. I will be taking her place for the remainder of initiation. Please open your textbooks to the discussion questions of Chapter 5, Introduction to Civil Procedure, Section 4—”

“Wait! Wait, what?!” a dozen voices shouted at once. The entire front row stood up.

“Touma’s gone?” Oona demanded. “Why? What do you mean?”

Morris turned to her, unfazed by the shouting. “I mean,” he said, “that she has chosen to leave. I am not authorized to tell you why.”

“Not authorized?”

“Please sit down, Miss Posner.”

“That’s bullshit,” said Oona. “Not authorized—that’s a lie, that’s not telling the truth at all.”

“Yeah,” Brighton agreed. “Why can’t you tell us?”

“Because Madullah Touma broke the law,” said Morris calmly. “Now. As I said, I am not authorized to tell you anything more. Please open your textbooks and complete discussion question 1.”

The room went quiet. My stomach was sour. But it wasn’t because our questions had been answered. If there was anything we had learned in Candor so far, it was that honesty took precedence over everything—except an ongoing legal dispute. Judge Touma had taught us that. She was the last person any of us had expected to break the law, so by-the-book with everything, so clear and straightforward, it would make anyone sick to hear an accusation like that. But if she really broke the law, then we would need to wait for the authorities presiding over the case to release the information before we we heard even a whisper more. No amount of harassing Morris would hasten this.

For a faction that valued openness, they sure knew how to screw a tight lid.

Swallowing, I pressed my lips together. All around me, people were typing the answers to the discussion question, albeit hesitantly. At least half of them were probably typing messages to each other, wondering the same things that I was. But eventually, everyone’s discussion questions were finished and answers sent in, popping up on the front board for the whole class to see. An acceptance. This was how things were here. People disappeared. Doors were closed. Cases tucked away. Nobody asked why, because there was no reason to distrust anyone. If there was a secret, there must’ve been a good reason.

Not for me. It wasn’t good enough for me.

After class, I didn’t even get lunch. I passed Judge Touma’s office on my way out—door locked, windows covered. I left the Institute and ran across the street to the Merciless Mart. The front security was surprised to see me, but they were getting to know my red hair well and let me right in without questions. I thought myself lucky at the time.

Now I wish they’d stopped me. If they had, I might’ve noticed what was off about the crowds today—more blue than usual. Erudite. They were everywhere. And I barely saw.

When I reached the Department of Academic Integrity, it was quiet. The secretary was there, but something wasn’t right. When he looked up, his eyes were like a deer in headlights.

“Irene’s not here,” he said quickly. “Come back later.”

“I have to speak to her,” I said.

“I said she’s not here,” the secretary repeated.

“When will she be back?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where is she?”

“I—don’t know.”

“You’re lying.” I knew it immediately. The little dart of the eyes. The jerk of his hands. It was becoming like knowing when to breathe. “Tell me where she is.”

I’d never thought of myself as an intimidating person. I resembled what a child’s beloved teddy bear might look like in the body of a teenage girl, soft and brown and maybe a little raggedy. Ace was the intimidating one. But something on my face—maybe the Dauntless rubbing off on me—must have scared the secretary, because he actually winced.

“She’s in the distillery,” he gasped. “Where they have the truth serum. Basement. But—but you don’t have access, you’re not allowed in there—”

“Sounds like someone else’s problem,” I said tersely, and left.

The elevators were too slow. I took the stairs down. Sajida’s letter was hidden inside my computer bag, in the hidden pocket with my journal and lockpicks, but my gut instinct told me it wasn’t safe there. I took it out, slipped it under my shirt and tucked it into my belt, its corner pressing into my back. I also took out the lockpicks to deal with the door. I was getting better—I’d long since figured out the new roof lock, and sometimes if I couldn’t sleep I would slip into the Institute and practice unlocking different lecture halls. Ace will claim that once, on one of her sporadic night shifts, she mistook me for an intruder and wrestled me to the ground before realizing it was just me. I don’t know what she’s talking about. It probably didn’t happen. And if it did, there were only two witnesses, me and her, so it’s my word against hers.

The door was soon open, and I strode right through.

When the secretary had described the distillery as in the basement, I had not envisioned the thing that I saw. My eyes were dazzled by flood lamps and I had exited onto a metal walkway, overlooking a vast white storeroom that seemed big enough to swallow the Merciless Mart above it.

I knew, generally, how veritarbital was produced. It was a blend of complex chemical compounds designed to interact with the memory and emotion centers of the human brain. These compounds were produced raw, then carefully ratioed and mixed with solvent. The problem was that this process could not simply be done once. Veritarbital needed to be “broken in”—mixed with small samples of serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine, and other chemicals found in the brain until the more powerful chemical reactions had already occurred. The original solute would be taken out and remixed with more solvent. Repeat, repeat, repeat. After a few rounds it would be safe to use without destroying the recipient’s brain on the spot.

This was where it happened, in a grand white room with huge glass tanks bubbling with silvery-clear solution. Candor chemists in pristine white coats—most of them had been Erudite transfers, back in the day—walked slowly through the aisles of tanks, taking note of temperature and pressure readings. Huge, deafeningly loud fans on every wall kept the airflow circulating.

But what shocked me most was the blue.

A small group of Erudite stood just below my feet. They surrounded a large computer screen and a few Candor whose faces I couldn’t see, but I recognized the neat black hair and white suit of Irene. She seemed to be arguing emphatically with a blond Erudite woman and another Candor. They hadn’t heard me come in, but over the noise of the fans, I couldn’t hear them either.

Gripping my computer bag, I stepped away from the railing. There was a small stairwell and I moved close to the wall as I walked down it. When I reached the bottom, I could hear the voices more clearly, but I couldn’t leave the stairwell without being seen. I stayed close to the wall, crouching down behind a metal I-beam. Irene was shouting.

“...The answer is no! What about this is not absolutely clear? You’ll wait your turn like everyone else, or you get out of my faction and leave me the hell alone!”

“There’s no need for profanity,” someone replied. A female voice; cold and familiar, but familiar like a dream, not a real person. “It’s a simple question.”

“It’s not a simple question,” Irene retorted. “All you said was that you wanted to collect data on veritarbital production, you froth at the mouth about how well I run this place, and now you’re asking to cut in line. Your flattery is vile, and I won’t stand for it—”

“We both know that you’re not angry about the flattery,” said the woman.

“I am very angry about the flattery! I’m angry about your blatant disdain for due process of law! I’m angry about your accusations that I haven’t done my job correctly—”

“But you haven’t,” said a man’s voice.

My blood froze. I knew that voice. Judge Morris.

“Pardon?” Irene spat.

“What happened with Madullah was very much your fault, Irene,” said Morris. “Your department has full jurisdiction over the conduct of Institute professors, the Touma family has shown repeated signs of deviant behavior, and you somehow never saw this coming. Any reasonable person would allow for this intervention. In fact, if you had made a genuine mistake, as you claimed in your testimony, you would be grateful that the investigation is being taken out of your hands.”

“I beg your pardon?” Irene repeated, her pitch rising.

“Jeanine is making a very gracious offer. Is there something wrong with it?”

Jeanine.

The leader of Erudite. My father’s greatest enemy. Though Morris said it while clearly defending her, in my mind, the very name was supercharged with vitriol. I knew by now that I didn’t completely agree with the way my parents had taught me to think about different factions’ leaders. But I still didn’t know what to think about Jeanine. I thought of all the journalists who seemed to change their minds overnight, the men like Thomas Beauregard whose public images were polished to a shine. Something still wasn’t right about Jeanine.

The whole distillery was quiet. But I could almost hear the rage seething from Irene in that moment.

“Well?” said Morris. “Is there a reason you can’t answer?”

“Are you accusing me of lying?” Her voice was now dangerously low.

“I’m only asking a question.”

“I refuse to answer without senior counsel present.”

“She wants a lawyer?” Jeanine put in dryly. “Oh—isn’t that a tell? She’s backed into a corner, isn’t she?”

“We’re taking this upstairs,” Irene snapped. “You have overstayed your welcome, Jeanine. And Lysander, you and Jack will be having quite the talk.”

Her shoes and cane rapped against the floor. I backed up. It was time for me to get out of here. I turned to go, but I was rushing; I wasn’t careful. The strap of my computer bag snagged on a wall switch, and I stumbled, gasping. My shoulder hit the metal steps with a loud CLANG.

The arguing voices went quiet. I froze.

“Oh, fuck ,” I said, a second before two Erudite men appeared at the bottom of the stairwell.