Page 41 of The Sixth Fraction

Mae looks up from her reading, her eyes wide. The Mender points at the book and walks away, leaving me with the rack of clothes.

The jackets in front of me are from all different factions. Some of them, I can’t even tell where they were originally from. There’s a patchwork one that’s pieced together from all different fabrics. A purple blazer with stiff shoulders that I’m guessing is from Erudite, dyed a new color. A chore coat from Amity, stained streaky green. But my eye goes, as ever, to Dauntless black.

With a glance over my shoulder to make sure they aren’t watching, I shrug off my Abnegation jacket and pull the black one on. It’s a sturdy material, with a zipper instead of buttons. The sleeves are too long for me, but the rest of it seems to fit.

“Go on,” the Mender says, nodding to a mirror attached to the pillar behind me.

I turn to see myself. The jacket’s reinforced shoulders make me look stronger. I fold up the sleeves and zip it up. It compresses my gray shirt, giving me a waist.

Before I can second-guess it, I’m reaching up to the pins in my hair and tugging them loose, one by one. I unwind my hair from its knot and then shake it loose over my shoulders.

“Good,” the Mender says briskly. “Now try a different one.”

“Why?” Mae whines. “It’s perfect on her.”

“She’s never tried anything but gray,” the Mender says. “She doesn’t know what she likes best.”

I’m reluctant to take off the black jacket, but he makes a good point. I’ve only ever seen myself one way. This is my chance to experiment.

I put on an Erudite jacket. The shoulders are sharp, the lines of the garment clean. On an impulse, I twist my hair the way I’ve seen Erudite women do and pin it again. I stand up straight and try to give my reflection the same imperious look that Jeanine Matthews gave everyone at the Choosing Ceremony.

“Now this one!” Mae’s book is face down on the table, forgotten. She grabs a red shawl from the rack. It’s not something I would ever wear, but I decide to humor her; I wrap it around my shoulders the way I’ve seen Amity women do on the bus, when it’s cold outside.

Mae gives a pointed look to my hair, so I roll my eyes a little and take it down from its Erudite twist. I braid it over one shoulder instead.

Then I meet the Mender’s eyes in the mirror. He’s holding a stack of clothes against his chest and frowning, but not like he’s unhappy—more like he’s trying to puzzle something out.

“I’ll be right back,” he says. “Don’t move.”

He ducks out of the workshop. I give Mae a questioning look, and she just shrugs. A few seconds later the Mender appears in the doorway again, this time with a tall, broad-shouldered woman.

“All right, Gretchen,” the Mender says from the doorway. “Guess which faction she’s from.”

Gretchen looks unimpressed. “Judging by the gray shoes, I’m going to say Abnegation.”

The Mender rolls his eyes. “Tris—turn into an Erudite again.”

I don’t know why he wants me to play faction dress-up for this woman, but Mae looks eager, and I’d like to fit in here, if I can. Heat rushes into my cheeks as I unwrap the shawl and take the Erudite jacket from Mae. I’m not used to changing clothes in front of people.

I shrug the jacket on, shake out my hair, and put it back in its twist, pinning it at the top so it’ll stay in place.

“It’s not exactly a shock that the two uptight factions, Abnegation and Erudite, resemble each other,” Gretchen says.

“You’re the one who told me to look out for good intuition. Then, whenever I point someone out to you, you try to make me feel silly.”

Gretchen sighs. “All right. Tris, is it? Mind doing one more?”

“One more,” I say. “Faction, you mean?”

She nods. I put on the black jacket I started with and take the pins out of my hair. I look at the Mender and Gretchen in the mirror.

“If you were Dauntless, how would you stand?” she asks me.

“What?”

“It’s not a hard question.” She meets my eyes. “Just give it a try.”

I think of the Dauntless girls I used to watch at school. Jumping off the train and stumbling into each other. Laughing loudly. In line for food at the cafeteria, relaxed.