Page 77 of The Sixth Fraction

“You mean . . . I’m plain,” I say.

“I mean that if you want to disappear, you can,” she says. “And if you want to stand out, you can do that, too. Not everyone is so flexible.”

She pauses, and the way she looks at me then reminds me of my mother.

“Beauty is a tool,” she says. “But it’s not the only tool that matters, Tris.”

I think of Christina, crying because she’ll always be the one-eyed girl. And I think of Rory, odd-looking and unconcerned about it. And me, longing for something I can’t have . . . and now, wondering if I really need it.

It’s a kind thing for Evelyn to say to me. Not what I expect from the woman who once held me—however briefly—at gunpoint, or who tested my factionless resolve in that abandoned church. Maybe she’s warming up to me.

Or maybe she’s as manipulative as Four seems to think she is.

She asks, “You’re ready for the Foxes’ contest tomorrow?”

“I think so,” I say. “I know the banners are usually at each faction’s headquarters, as well as a few other places. So we’ll start there.”

She zips up the bag she pulled out of the wall compartment and stuffs it in, then pushes the metal panel back in place.

“We?” she says, without looking up.

“Christina and I are doing it together. One flag for each of us.”

I brace myself for her to say something about Christina’s missing eye, but she doesn’t. She just nods and buttons up her shirt. In black pants she could pass as Dauntless or Candor. I wonder where she’s going from here.

“My mom says Mae is at Candor headquarters,” I say. “That’s where the hearing will be. It’s a . . . recent policy, I guess. She promised to send my father to talk to Jack Kang about Mae’s mother.”

Evelyn looks skeptical. “No offense to your father, but I’m not sure he has the kind of status to demand an impromptu meeting with the representative of Candor.”

“My dad has to pick up the council leader to ride home with him, and he’s meeting with Representative Kang tomorrow.” I realize, too late, that the council leader in question is Evelyn’s ex-husband.

Her brow furrows. “I see.”

The train pounds against the tracks on the north-south straightaway, churning toward the city’s center. Tall buildings crowd us on either side.

Evelyn says, “I appreciate this, Tris. If you hadn’t talked to her, John would have showed up at Abnegation headquarters tomorrow and missed the hearing entirely. They love to do that to us—fail to inform us of where we’re supposed to be, then sentence us without us being present. I myself have about a dozen outstanding judgments hanging over my head.”

She rolls her eyes like a dozen reasons for her to be locked away in a Dauntless holding cell is just annoying rather than threatening.

“Do you think Representative Kang will listen to my father?”

I can’t read her expression. “I don’t know. But we’re in a better position than we were this morning.”

Evelyn leans out of the train car, one leg on firm ground and the other dangling in open air, to see where we are. I’m surprised to discover that I already know. In a few seconds the buildings will open up around us, and we’ll be in the city’s center, walking distance from Erudite headquarters and the Hall of Factions.

I’m not going to get this kind of opportunity again. To connect with her. To make her start to trust me.

“I know who Four is,” I say.

She pulls herself back into the car. “I thought you’d figure it out sooner.”

“Yeah, well,” I say. “I didn’t know there was anything to figure out.”

Evelyn looks down.

“He can barely speak to me without spitting fire,” she says. “I was relieved when you offered to speak to him on my behalf, because I thought he would like you. And I was right.”

“He’s got a funny way of showing it.”