Page 67 of The Sixth Fraction

Too bad it’s not real, I remind myself. I’m only learning this to become a Fox, and I only want to become a Fox to find out who stole the gun that killed Robert . . . and why.

But maybe it can be both. Real and not real. True and false.

“Let’s see it again,” Colin says, holding out another dart.

One week until the contest.

Six days later is a Feast Day, as some of the others have taken to calling it—a day when all the occupants of the Rookery eat at the same time, usually for some celebratory reason. No one has told us what the reason is yet.

“—just supposed to jump off,” Christina is saying. We’re at the big table in the dining room, and she’s telling Colin about Dauntless initiation.

“Jump off,” Colin says. “You jumped off a building into a big hole? That’s how you got to Dauntless headquarters?”

Christina nods and then bites the apple in her hand. “There’s a net at the bottom, obviously, but none of us knew that for sure. I was pretty sure they weren’t going to get us all killed, though, so I went for it.”

“Sort of glad I missed that,” Colin says.

“It wasn’t that bad. But the part where I had to share a room with Peter, also known as the devil in human form . . .”

“You mean the guy who stabbed you in the face?” Rory asks, her mouth full of bread. Then she looks from Christina to Colin to me.

We’re all staring at her.

“What? Too blunt?”

“A little,” I say.

“A lot,” Colin says.

Christina just says, “Actually, it was pretty sharp.”

A laugh bubbles out of me before I can stop it. I clap a hand over my mouth. Christina looks at me out of the corner of her eye, then winks at me.

“Dark,” Rory says. “I like it.”

Someone taps a glass to get our attention from the atrium. We all crowd around the doorway as Jove climbs to the top step and clears her throat.

“A couple weeks ago, some spiteful Dauntless shorted us an entire crate of toilet paper for no apparent reason,” Jove says, and all around me, people start booing.

Jove raises her hands for silence, looking grave.

“Our friends at the Museum were kind enough to loan us some of theirs, which is why we haven’t erupted into full-scale chaos,” Jove says. “But the Rookery is the meeting place of the Foxes Guild, and the Foxes Guild doesn’t like to be bested by petty Dauntless.”

The doors on the far side of the atrium open, and four people walk in carrying something hidden beneath a sheet. One of them is Boots; another is Gretchen. Whatever they’re carrying is large and square.

They set it down in the middle of the atrium, and then Boots rips the sheet away from their cargo with a flourish. I recognize the paper rolls immediately.

“Courtesy of Dauntless headquarters. We took it right out from under their noses,” Gretchen says.

“Don’t you mean ‘right out from under their asses’?” Boots says, and everyone cheers.

People start carrying chairs to the edges of the room to clear a space for dancing. I notice that Evelyn, who was meeting with Jove at the start of the meal, is now climbing the stairs to the second level. She hasn’t been back here since the day I recited the factionless rules at her behest. My time as her little errand girl is over, I guess. Becoming a Fox is the only idea I have for getting her attention.

I pick up the chair I’m sitting in and put it in line with the others, then perch on the edge of it as I watch the musicians tune up. Rory points out each instrument and gives me the name of it.

“Guitar,” she says.

I say, “Yeah, I know that one.”