XXXVIII

I had one week to prepare for the Full Unveiling and three days to study for my exams. I was scared, I couldn’t sleep, I had lost my appetite, my friends weren’t talking to me, and I wasn’t allowed to do anything fun.

All in all, it could have been worse.

Saturday was spent in the law library with Irene. She wanted to take me to her office, but I now had to be careful not to trip the alarm of the ankle bracelet. It didn’t matter anyhow. Secrecy was out the window. If people in the library gave us weird looks because I was openly discussing my relationship with a Dauntless soldier or the experience of being stabbed, then so be it.

The conditions for my house arrest were as follows:

I could stay in my room, attend class, eat in the dining hall, and go out into the courtyard. That was it. No Antigone’s, no Merciless Mart, no roof. I could not be in contact with Aletheia or Ace. Ace was easy to avoid because she had been given an assignment back in Dauntless, whatever that meant. Aletheia was moved out of my apartment and into a temporary room, so she was also easy to avoid.

But I was not, by any stretch of the imagination, alone. Oona was the last one left in the apartment, and she was given a special job—the job of the prison warden. Her class schedule was modified so that she could attend class with me. She was given a pager to call the Dauntless guards if I did anything suspicious. I wasn’t even allowed to go to the bathroom without telling her, lest she file a report. Every night, she had to check that I was in bed and my ankle bracelet was still on. Then she would lock me in. I was allowed to come out in the morning when she woke up. The only time I could be separated from her was if I was with Irene, talking about my case.

This wouldn’t be a problem if we were still on speaking terms. Initially, I had even had hopes for the arrangement. Perhaps we could put our little fight behind us. Surely, she couldn’t like this any more than I did; we could bond about that.

But I was wrong. A change had come over Oona, something unnamable that chilled me to the bone. She didn’t joke about things. She was always clutching a little package of flash cards, covered with notes and definitions. She took so much medication and drank so much coffee that her body trembled constantly. And every time I tried to talk to her, she wouldn’t engage me, giving only a terse response or silence.

It made meals agonizing.

On Sunday night, the table more resembled a study group than a dinner. Everyone had papers, books, and laptops strewn out in front of them. It wasn’t just the initiates, either; the 1Ls and 2Ls had their semester exams next week and the 3Ls had the bar exam in two weeks. After that, we would all be free for two months, our summer break, before rejoining the vicious cycle of academia.

“They don’t have as much to worry about, though,” Ravi pointed out. He had become inseparable from his headphones; he liked to multitask and listened to the class lectures while doing practice problems. “If they fail, they just gotta repeat the year, and they can try over and over until they pass. We only have this one chance.”

“But our exams aren’t as hard,” said Brighton. “We’ll be fine.”

“Lie,” said three people at once.

“The way I see it,” said Leanne, nibbling on a salad leaf by leaf, “these exams aren’t so much to filter out unworthy initiates as they are a filter for unworthy future lawyers. I’m tired of academia, guys. I have no intention of going through law school. I am getting a paralegal’s certificate, settling down at a low-level office job, and that is it. No more classes, no more exams.”

“Those don’t pay as well, though,” Zac pointed out.

“A small apartment and cats,” Leanne sighed. “That’s all I want.”

Ravi sniffed. “Never thought I’d see the day when Leanne wants to leave school as fast as possible.”

“Never thought I’d see the day when Ravi wants to stay in school as long as possible,” she replied, raising an eyebrow.

We all looked at him. He gave an awkward laugh and leaned on his elbows. “I mean, what can I say? You learn stuff about yourself during initiation. Assuming I pass—which is a grand assumption in its own right—I don’t think I’d make a bad detective. So yeah, law school’s my plan, but only the law enforcement sequence, no bar exam.”

“Every time I hear the words ‘bar exam’, I throw up a little in my mouth,” said Brighton.

“Hey, you wanted to be a lawyer,” said Ravi.

“Yeah. Exactly.”

A few people chuckled at that. “Least I’ll have Sherlock with me,” Brighton grinned, slinging his arm over Sherlock’s thin shoulders.

Sherlock seemed almost alarmed at the sudden movement. He was like that nowadays, jumpy and quiet, always following around in Oona’s shadow. Or at least, he had, until she became my warden. Now he just stared at us strangely from across rooms.

“Oh. Uh, yeah,” said Sherlock.

“He’s still stuck on the defense attorney thing,” said Brighton.

Sherlock looked askance and cleared his throat. “Actually... I was thinking of changing to prosecution. There’s so much trouble with the factionless nowadays, I...um...I want to help punish the people responsible.”

I had been eating a spoonful of peas at the time and it was all I could do to keep my mouth shut, lest they all roll out. I swallowed.

“What? Why?” I asked.

The whole table fell silent. Oops. I hadn’t spoken much since Friday’s incident, and here I was, calling attention to myself.

“I was just asking a question,” I said sullenly.

“Um...no, no, that’s alright,” Sherlock laughed airily. “Nothing against you, Phoebe. I know the topic of, uh, criminal prosecution might be a little sensitive, since you’re, um—”

“A future jailbird,” I supplied.

Sherlock’s face was burning red. The awkwardness at the table was thick enough to be smelled.

“Well, I wouldn’t put it that way,” said Sherlock.

“Don’t sugarcoat it,” said Oona.

I looked at her in surprise. She wasn’t looking up and was bent over her notebook, writing so hard that her pen threatened to rip the paper.

“I just think we need more good prosecutors nowadays, that’s all,” Sherlock finished hastily.

“Maybe we do, but why the change of heart?” I asked.

Sherlock’s dark eyes grew cold. “I was in Beauregard’s attic too, Phoebe. We can’t be soft on criminals anymore or worse tragedies will happen.”

“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” I said.

“Then what about you?” asked Oona, putting down her pen.

“I’m sorry?”

“What did you want to do here in Candor? Assuming you ever wanted to do anything legal or ethical. We’re all going through with this for a reason, what was yours?”

I met her eyes. I couldn’t read hers beyond the malice. She was testing me, I knew, but why, I couldn’t say. Deep down, I wanted to turn the question on her and demand to know why she was doing this to me, but I didn’t. The Abnegation in me didn’t want to make a scene. I swallowed and stirred my peas.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “After Beauregard, I thought I might want to do detective work, but I don’t know anymore. I’m not smart enough to be a lawyer. I considered becoming some sort of faction ambassador; being a transfer would help...but four of the five factions are mad at me now, so not good tidings for a career.”

I laughed, trying to turn it into a joke, but nobody else laughed.

If this all went pear-shaped, maybe jail was the best option for me. You didn’t have to strive to become anything in jail. You only had to survive it.

After dinner, I was allowed to meet with Irene in the library to study and write my testimony. Oona sat several tables away, her head in a snowdrift of legal briefs. While Irene rambled on about types of motions of dismissal, I watched Oona, wondering what she might have said if I had turned the question on her. What did she want out of her presence here? Contentment? Clarity? The further she got in initiation, the further she seemed to draw from either ideal. I wish I had more time to solve her mystery. Her father was here in Candor, perhaps he held answers. Perhaps she was trying to make him proud. Was this dark mood just an attempt at erasing the last Amity parts of her?

“Irene, I have a question,” I said, cutting off her lecture.

“Questions at the end,” replied Irene. “Motion 12b6 now. ‘Failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted’. It’s a relic from archaic civil procedure, but it’s still quite useful.”

I asked my question anyway. “What do you do when your friends are mad at you?”

Irene frowned. “I don’t have friends. Now, as I was saying—”

“Oona’s angry with me, and I don’t know why,” I said. “I’ve tried to ask her, but she won’t talk to me. She’s not lying, but she is hiding something, and nothing I do can make her tell me.”

Across the room, Oona looked up and glared at me, as if hearing her name. Though that was impossible, because she was wearing headphones...unless there was no sound on and she was eavesdropping, like I did on occasion.

“Well,” Irene sighed, “I would accept it and move on. No good Candor bottles up their feelings for long, so it’ll come out eventually.”

I turned to Irene and lowered my voice. “But that’s the thing. She’s not fully Candor. She’s Amity, too, she likes peace—whatever she’s holding back, it’ll destroy our relationship.”

“Is it not already destroyed?”

“I mean...okay.”

“Don’t worry about her. Worry about you. 12b6 will be mentioned on the Procedure exam, I can assure you that.”

She rapped my forehead with the eraser end of a pencil, impeccable aim for a blind woman.

“Ow,” I said, then gave in.

Irene was at least partially right—I had a lot to worry about. My practice tests for Logical Reasoning were all coming back in the mid- to low-nineties and Judge Bandele assured me that I would do fine in the Arguments exam.

But Legal Procedure and Investigations were both taught by Judge Morris. Of course, he couldn’t singlehandedly destroy my score; the tests were graded by a panel of multiple Institute professors. But he did write the exams. Irene and I were both particularly worried about the Legal Procedure exam. Sixty percent multiple choice questions, fifteen percent short answer, twenty-five percent essay. The essay was supposed to be written as an opinion piece, and if the opinion wasn’t valid enough, Judge Morris might just strike the whole section from my exam. I would fail it and potentially sink my average score.

There wasn’t anything I could do about that. Investigations, Arguments, and the Procedure essay were all up to the luck of the draw.

So Sunday and Monday were mile after mile of true-false, black-and-white, multiple-choice questions. Irene tested me in Logic until my practice tests came back flawless. She taught me mnemonics and quirky songs to remember every little corollary that might show up in the Procedure multiple choice. In my bedroom, I tore down my wall of conspiracy notes and replaced it with a thousand notecards about moral arguments, and on Monday morning, I found myself curled up on the floor and wrapped like a burrito in my bisexual flag. For the hell of it, I wore it to class, tied around my neck like a cape. I got some looks and one older professor yelling at me for breaking the dress code. I didn’t care.

On Monday night, I met with Irene one last time. As part of the conditions for my house arrest, she was not allowed to contact me from Tuesday until Saturday, the morning of the Full Unveiling. I would face my exams alone. Before bed, I had one cup of honey chamomile tea and two milligrams of melatonin.

On Tuesday morning, I took my Legal Procedure and Logical Reasoning exams.

On Tuesday night, I had three cups of tea and five milligrams of melatonin.

On Wednesday morning, I took my Arguments and Investigations exams.

On Wednesday night, I had several shots of vodka. At the encouragement of Ravi, the only person left who would hang out with me on miserable Wednesday nights, I tried cigarettes for the first time. I didn’t like them. Ravi said that was okay and that now there were more for him. He said, “Might as well pretend this is a celebration.”

Thursday I spent hungover. I didn’t like that either. I slept and cried some, and to top off the day I sat in the bathtub for an hour or so.

Friday I prayed. I prayed a lot. I wanted to go back to the Gathering Place and find the priest—even the rabbi or the imam would be good enough, so long as they were okay with it—but security wouldn’t let me. Before bed, I forced myself not to touch the bottle of vodka and drink tea instead. The melatonin didn’t help tonight. The only thing that helped was crying myself to sleep.

On Saturday morning, I woke up at seven. Oona was in the doorway, wrapped in a white robe.

“Hurry up,” she said tersely.

I didn’t argue. Once she left, I closed the door and inhaled, long and slow. I found the outfit that I had laid out last night and folded it carefully into my bag. At the advice of Irene, I had prepared for the worst; in the event that my Full Unveiling testimony wasn’t taken so well, I might be taken immediately to trial. I packed my finest outfit, black pants and white boots, a black capelet fastened by a silver chain and pin. The pin was a gift from Irene, engraved with the scales of justice. It would send a good message, she had said. On top of the clothes I set my little black journal, its last pages filled. Then I undressed.

Hanging in the closet was an outfit that I had never touched. It had appeared there on Wednesday night, after finishing my final exam, and stared at me all week. Every initiate had gotten this uniform and they were all identical, indiscriminate to gender identity or comfort level. A white modesty skirt that fell halfway down the thigh. A long white robe and white linen shoes. It wasn’t cold in the room, but as I tied on the skirt, my chest bare, I shivered.

I touched the cotton wraps on my forearms. It had been one week since I had gotten my new tattoos, so they were long since healed. But the Candor didn’t know that. If I wasn’t wearing long sleeves, I continued to wrap them with new cotton, wanting to keep them hidden until today—the big day, the Full Unveiling. Slowly I unwrapped the cotton, letting it fall to the ground by my bare feet.

I straightened my back and met my own eyes in the full-length closet mirror. Every red hair, every freckle, every healing scrape, every drop of ink exposed.

Six weeks ago, another girl stood where I did, cloaked head to toe in indifferent grey, hidden in self-absorbed shame, asking herself if she had the right to call herself something new. What a creature she had become. I couldn’t have known what would happen when I chose Candor, and I still couldn’t say that it was the right choice. But I saw something impossible in the silver before me. Call it chance, call it destiny, call it divine intervention, but something had moved to bring me here.

If I didn’t speak, nobody would.

+ + +

Oona accompanied me as far as the main lobby, where seventeen other initiates in identical white robes milled and chattered nervously. The low grumble of hunger ran underneath the hum of small talk. We weren’t supposed to eat for at least twelve hours before taking the truth serum. Those of us who were going closer to the end were allowed to eat last night’s dinner; the rest were only allowed to have lunch. Few of us had eaten dinner anyway.

At seven thirty, a man entered the lobby with two Candor bailiffs and took roll call. I recognized him as Ben, the other Candor proctor from the aptitude tests. He worked with Irene. As we filed out of the Institute, he stopped me in the door. I was the last one in line.

“Check her,” he said to the bailiffs.

They dug through my bag and patted me down over my robe. Both were women, which I wasn’t sure was better or worse. As they took off my ankle bracelet with a special tool, I watched as the rest of the initiates went ahead, crossing over to the Merciless Mart. Then one bailiff fastened handcuffs around my wrists.

I looked at Ben. “Is this really necessary?”

“I don’t know, was it necessary to interrupt my date with Irene?” Ben retorted.

I frowned. For a while, I hadn’t the slightest idea what he was talking about.

“Since when does she date men?” I asked.

“She went on a date with me,” said Ben. “I mean, it wasn’t strictly a date. Lunch between colleagues. But it could have become one, if not for you.”

Opening my mouth, I prepared to launch into my list of reasons why I really didn’t like how Ben said that and, also, I was pretty positive that Irene was a lesbian, but then remembered. “Oh,” I said. “That thing about me breaking into the aptitude testing room…I thought she kept that a secret.”

“Until yesterday. God, sometimes I wish we could keep some things secret. That, on top of her involvement with you and the Jeanine Matthews controversy, has made her the single biggest problem for the Ethics Committee, which I had the misfortune of being the spokesman for. She hates me now. You’ve ruined everything.”

I thought about that last part for a while. Had I ruined everything? Huffing, Ben followed after the initiates and beckoned for the bailiffs to escort me along. As we passed the statue of Themis, I picked out the places where graffiti had been scrubbed off a hundred times.

“No,” I said finally. “Not yet.”