Those starburst eyes danced with mirth. “Tell me, Emeline, how do I look?”
“I think you know the answer to that,” I muttered, glancing down once more as my cheeks burned, giving me away.
“Maybe, but it would sound better coming from your lips.” He chuckled, and the sound danced along my skin.
“I—I didn’t mean . . . I simply meant you don’t seem as terrible as the Illum say.”
“Right, that’s all you meant.” His eyes ran over me. “And do you believe everything the blessed Illum tell you?”
“Doesn’t everyone?” I might be brave enough to discuss art, but I wasn’t dumb enough to question the Illum with a man I did not know.
“Perhaps,” Hal drawled, stepping back as he looked toward the hologram of the grieving man. “Perhaps not.”
“The Illum’s rules aren’t to be taken lightly. The Illum are the reason we are all here,” I told him, hating how I sounded.
“They certainly are,” Hal agreed.
“I only meant, why keep you hidden?” I confessed. The Illum valued things of beauty, the world above a glittering display of it. The spaces and the people. The man before me fit in their world.
“Are you implying you like looking at me?” Hal asked, his gaze seeking mine.
My cheeks grew warmer. “I did not say that.”
“You didn’t have to. It’s written all over your face,” he said smugly. “If it makes you feel better, the feeling is mutual.”
My heart fluttered. He liked looking at me. I tried to brush it off—he was in blue, I should keep my distance—but no one had ever told me I was worthy of being seen, let alone enjoyable to look at. I couldn’t stop the warmth that grew in my chest, regardless of the source.
“So, are you here because you like looking at me?” I asked.
“And what if I was?” Hal stepped toward me, and I sank farther into the wall. Raking a hand through his hair, he scoffed. “Right. It’s the blue, isn’t it?”
I shook my head, pulse hammering against my skin. Was it the blue? My approved status? My conditioning? Hal nodded at whatever he found on my face, turning toward the door.
“It isn’t,” I confessed, halting him. I trembled but held his gaze. “It isn’t the blue, not entirely. I’ve never had a visitor here. Ever.”
“How long have you worked down here?” Hal asked.
“Ten years,” I admitted.
Something shifted in his eyes. He blew out a breath. “That’s a long time to be alone. But I should get going; the sun’s up. I should be beneath.”
“Beneath? Don’t you mean Low Town?”
Hal grinned. “Like I said, I can’t give you all our secrets.”
“If you ever—” I pushed off the wall, my blood pounding at my daring. “If you ever want to come back and talk about art . . . I’m always here.”
The corner of his mouth pulled up, a dimple appearing. “I might do that. See you around, Emeline.”
He left.
I stared at the empty doorway as if it were one of the ancient art pieces, filling me with more questions than answers. What secrets did he have? Hal had saidbeneath,notLow Town. It didn’t measure up to what I had been told about the Major Defects who wore blue.
I glanced at the man in blue in the painting and his eternal struggle. I hesitated, then hitdelete,and he disappeared.
I worked through the remaining twenty-two items on the list and found myself staring at the empty doorway as much as the art. Many of the pieces were landscapes, bursting with colorful flowers, lush trees, and sparkling bodies of water. I cherished these glimpses of the world the ancient humans felt compelled to capture, one that looked completely unlike ours. The city the Illum had built was shiny and paved, at least within the city limits. Was that why there was no new art? Nothing left to inspire new art? In all my time down here, I had never seen a piece of art dated post– Last War.
The final painting was of a woman holding an offspring. A third figure, cloaked in white, bowed toward the offspring. I don’t know how long I stared at it before hittingdeletewithout checking where it was meant to go. I would have to come up with a reason in my report for why I deleted it. We were all given a report log in the Archives—a running record of any unusual findings. I didn’t know how to encapsulate that every detail was unusual, extraordinary. My reports morphing into elegies. Lo claimed she turned hers in empty most days.
