Saminsa set her jaw and sat down on her mat by the door without saying a word.
I stared at her a moment longer than I should have. Could Xona be right? Did Saminsa secretly hate us and want to hurt us? I didn’t want to believe it, but then I remembered the flesh melting off Eli’s face. I knew we’d all be keeping a closer eye on Saminsa. Then I shook my head. No, I wouldn’t accuse someone without any clear evidence again. Xona was probably just seeing enemies where there were none again, like she always did with the ex-Regs.
Chapter 21
THE PROFESSOR BROUGHT OUT new art supplies in Humanities. There were little pots of shocking colored paints and brushes. I picked one up and looked at it dubiously. I ran the bristles across my hand. It tickled.
It seemed like a very impractical instrument for making pictures—how could you be precise with tons of little flopping bristles? The sharp-tipped markers I’d always used before seemed like a far better idea.
I sat in front of one of the large blank pieces of canvas the Professor had set up at stations throughout the room. He gave brief instructions and set out a bowl of vegetables, but he said we could paint whatever we wanted. City was laughing and joking with Rand, who was quickly making a mess on his canvas. Cole immediately began working quietly in the corner, glancing around the room occasionally. Adrien had skipped class. Again.
I swallowed and dabbed the tip of my brush into the red, but stopped before it touched the canvas. The paint was globbed on the bristles. I’d picked up too much. I didn’t know how to do this. I tried wiping some of the red off on the edge of the pot, but it still looked like too much on the brush. If I put it to the canvas now, it’d just be a mess. I screwed the tops back on the pots, feeling an embarrassed heat flush my neck. I was supposed to be the artist.
But then, I was supposed to be so many things.
I dropped the paint brush into the cleaning solution and moved my chair away from the canvas. I pulled out a piece of paper from a stack in the corner and a marker. There, that was better. I started sketching the room and the people in it. City and Rand kept moving around, and I wished I could tell them to stand still. I tried to get their proportions as correctly as I could. I almost wished I was connected to the Link so I could see the technical schematics laid across my vision. I could be so much more exact that way.
Professor Henry called me to stay after class. The heat in my neck returned.
“May I?” he asked, gesturing to the paper I’d been drawing on. I handed it over and watched him eye it critically.
“It’s very…” he paused, “accurate.”
“Is that good?” I asked in a small voice.
The Professor laughed. “Zoe, art isn’t about good or bad.” He handed the paper back to me. “It’s about letting yourself feel things, and then trying to communicate those feelings. Here, let me show you something.” He led me over to the canvas in the corner where Cole had been working. The canvas had been pointed at the wall, so it wasn’t until we walked around that I could see it.
Tears immediately pricked my eyes. “It’s beautiful.”
There wasn’t any clear image or figures in the picture. Instead, it was a wash of color, vibrant red spreading into shocking blue, with dabs of white and yellow throughout.
It looked like delight. Or maybe that’s just what looking at it made me feel.
“But he’s an ex-Reg,” I turned to the Professor.
“It’s harder for them than it was for the rest of you glitchers,” the Professor said, “but Cole’s living proof that no matter how much metal you put in a person, you can’t take away their humanity. Cole just has to fight harder for it.”
I immediately thought of how I always felt a rush of relief right before I clicked into the Link each night. It felt like a free pass. For a while I didn’t have to try to sort out the emotions, I could just let them dull to gray. But here Cole was, fighting to keep them.
“But why?” I whispered. “Why does he try so hard?”
“Oh, Zoe,” the Professor said with a smile, “look at the canvas. Can’t you see why?”
I couldn’t stop thinking about the canvas as I walked out of the class and down the empty hallway. I wanted to be like Cole and paint in color. I wanted to feel things, I was just tired of feeling bad things. I’d had enough of bad things. But I’d also felt the emotions Cole had captured in the painting before—beauty, color, delight. I’d felt them with Adrien.
My wrist com buzzed with a message:
I’m waiting for you at your dorm.
It was as if Adrien had read my thoughts. I felt a flush of warmth and smiled. I hurried down the hallway to my dorm. He was waiting outside the door for me, his face dark and intense.
“I’m sorry,” he said as soon as I got close. He pulled me into a tight embrace. His words were a whisper against my neck. “I’ve been an idiot. I let this project I was working on distract me from what’s really important. So tonight,” he pulled back and brought my hands to his lips. He kissed my fingertips. “We are going on a date.”
“What’s that?” I asked, my heart fluttering erratically at his touch.
“It’s what they used to call them in the Old World,” he grinned. “Just two people going out to dinner. And not at the Caf.”
I scrunched up my face, confused. “Why not? We’ve repaired most of the fire damage. Everyone’s been eating there all week.”
“Because,” he laughed, then leaned in to kiss my nose. “The whole point is that it’s just the two of us together. Alone.” His voice dropped on the last word in a way that sent a quick shiver up my spine.
He’d been so distant the past few weeks, but here he was, grinning genuinely like there wasn’t a thing to worry about.
I shook away the confusion and smiled back at him. A night of forgetting about everything and simply being together sounded perfect.
“A date,” I said. “Will I eat my gruel out of a fancy cup?”
“Don’t ruin the surprise,” he smiled. “I already know you’re going to love it.”
I started. “Wait, you’ve had a vision of our date? No fair!”
He winked at me. “Let’s just say I have a good feeling about it. I’ll come back by your dorm room at seven so I can escort you to dinner.”
“This is so romantic,” Ginni squealed, and for once, Xona didn’t even bother to roll her eyes.
Ginni had pulled me in front of the mirror for the last half hour and was curling and pinning my hair up in intricate ways.
“I wish I had a boy who would ask me on dates. We’d talk about the books I love and he wouldn’t mind that I talk so much. In fact, that’s what he’d like about me most. We’d talk for hours and…” She paused. I looked at her in the mirror and her face held a puzzled frown.
“What?”
“Oh,” she giggled, shaking her head. “I just had the weirdest sense that I had met someone. But that’s impossible.”
“All those romantic books are giving you hallucinations. I knew reading that much couldn’t be healthy,” Xona said.
Ginni swatted at Xona with a spare piece of cloth from the sewing table. A knock sounded at the door.
I jumped up to open it. Adrien was wearing clothes I’d never seen before. His shirt was dark and fitted, and it slimmed into pants that hung a little off his hips. He’d even done something to tame his curls. My stomach did a little flip-flop.
He stared at me, his mouth dropping open a little. “You’re so beautiful.”