The Dauntless play the Choosing Ceremony live on the giant screen in the cafeteria. It's Erudite's turn to host the ceremony this year, but Jeanine isn't the one standing behind the bowls. Instead it's a man wearing a blue shirt and a darker blue tie.

I don't know him, but I know the speech he's going to give will be just like all the other Choosing speeches I've heard. Instead of listening to it, I scan the crowd of soon-to-be faction initiates. I recognize most of the Abnegation and a few of the Dauntless. One girl stands out; I can't pick out her faction. She's wearing a gray shirt that's huge on her, obviously Abnegation expect that it shows far too much skin. Her pants are black, they could be Dauntless or Candor. She doesn't have any tattoos or piercings that I can see, although that isn't too strange for the younger Dauntless, but she doesn't have extremely short spiky hair that some girls sport here. Finally, I notice that she has a piece of blue cloth tied around one wrist. Eurdite rules say they only need one piece of blue clothing, but she's pushing the limit on that rule. Most of them go with head-to-toe blue.

The camera focuses on the bowls for a moment before panning around to the initiates again. I don't even remember a camera at the Ceremony last year, but I was so lost and confused the building could have caught on fire and I would have just kept on staring at that light. That's what the possibly Eurdite girl is doing now: staring blankly at the wall opposite her as if she'll vomit if she moves or even glances at something else. A weird sense of certainty fills me.

Behind me, Bud is shouting out "First jumper, place your bets!"

I turn to walk out of the room, and I stop. He grins up at me and says, last year you lost a lot of people a lot of money. I grin at him, and I cockily say, "60 credits on her to jump first". I point.

"She hasn't even picked yet, Tris."

"I know," and I walk away, heading to the net.

Tobias is already there, standing with Lauren and Zeke. Uriah went to the ceremony, so he'll be among the crowd that brings the new Dauntless in. Zeke grins at me, "Did you get your bets in on the first jumper?" He's joking, he probably thinks the Stiff in me would prevent me from betting.

"I did," I say. Tobias wraps his arm around me while Zeke splutters.

"Four, you're a bad influence on this girl," he announces finally.

I'm still the only person who calls him Tobias, and then only in private. He kisses me on the cheek and says, "I don't know, Six can be bad all by herself."

"Cheesey," I tell him. But I kiss him back. Lauren chimes in, "Who'd you put your money on? Another Abnegation transfer? They aren't all like you, you know." Lauren speaks her mind so bluntly that I have no trouble picturing her in Candor black and white.

"An Eurdite. I think."

"You think?" her voice is incredulous.

"You'll see what I mean when she jumps," Zeke gives me a questioning look, but I just smile. Dauntless energy is filling the compound this morning, and Dauntless cockiness is filling me. Out of the corner of my eye I see Christina and Will wander in holding hands. Christina's other hand is holding a bottle of beer.

They join our little circle just in time to hear Lauren say, "I hope it's a Dauntless-born this year. The first jumper hasn't been since our initiate class."

Zeke rolls his eyes, "It was her. She's trying to brag, but she's not doing it right."

Christina laughs a little louder than usual, and Tobias frowns. "Christina, it's not even noon yet. How many have you had?"

Will smiles, "Don't worry, it's only her second. She just a lightweight."

"I am," Christina agrees happily, "But at least I'm not as bad as Tris."

"Six. Remember, she's Six to the newbies," Lauren points out.

"Ooookay," Christina draws out slowly. "I'll remember."

The hallway around us fills up with nearly all of the Dauntless who didn't go into the city. The ceremony must be over.

"New initiates inbound in fifteen minutes," shouts an older man I only vaguely recognize as the guy who sharpens knives in the Pit. We had to haul all of the training knives to him last week because Eric felt they weren't lethal enough.

We stand and talk for the next fifteen minutes, until the train thunders by overhead. Four and Lauren move to the net to help the initiates off, and the chamber goes quiet enough to hear Max's voice. At this distance his words aren't clear, but everyone holds their breath when he finishes.

Christina bounces on the balls of her feet next to me and we wait. After what might have been twelve seconds or twelve hours a grayish blur suddenly hits the net. I can see from this angle how close the net sags to the ground when someone jumps, and my heart hammers. Tobias leans over to the blur, that I can now recognize as the girl I bet on, and pulls her onto her feet on the platform. I see him ask for her name, and she gives it without hesitation.

"First jumper: Kylie!"

We all cheer and clap and stomp our feet. I like her already, this girl.

Once all of the initiates have jumped, some of the older members take the leap too. The Dauntless idea of fun still hasn't ceased to amaze me.

Lunch finds Will and I nearly dragging an inebriated Christina to a table in the cafeteria. "I'll get her get something to soak up the booze, and then you and I can go, okay?" Will asks.

I nod. Christina giggles in my ear, "I hate to see him go, but I looooove to watch him leave." She's openly ogling Will, and I blush. Once a Stiff, always a Stiff apparently. "Will is really great," she says. When she doesn't follow that up with 'in the sack' I respond.

"I know. You tell me every time you drink. And frequently when you're sober."

"I'm gonna marry him," Christina nods vehemently. I glance around, but he's still scooping a massive serving of rice into a bowl. I smile at her, and Christina asks, "Do you think you'll marry Four? It would be so cuuuuute! You'll have little babies and you can name the first one Ten. Haha, Four and Six make Ten."

Four has just led the transfers into the room. He waves, but he sits down with his initiates. They all stare wide-eyed at the Dauntless compound and the Dauntless themselves. Will arrives with the rice, a pile of chicken wings, and a bottle of the nasty brown sauce that Christina likes on rice.

"You are sooo sweet!" Christina trills.

I pat her on the head as I stand up, "Are you okay with her?" Will nods and scarfs down a wing. I am amazed he doesn't eat the bone by accident.

I grab myself a plate of grilled cheese and broccoli on my way to Four. He looks up as I arrive and he introduces me to the transfers, "This is Six."

Immediately a Candor boy with dark skin and hair calls out, "What's with all the number names here?"

Tobias and I exchange a look, "Should we tell them?" I joke.

"Nah, let them be confused for a while. It won't hurt them."

"You'll find out soon enough," I tell the Candor boy. I swing my leg over the bench and join them. Kylie is seated across from me. "First jumper," I nod at her.

The Candor boy jumps in again, "What faction did you come from?"

Kylie runs her hand through her short, black hair. "Eurdite."

"You're wearing black and grey," points out the only Amity transfer, a short boy with a shaggy mop of blonde hair.

"I know," Kylie sighs, "but I was never going to stay in Eurdite, I've known that for years, so I figured I might as well dress like it." The blue bracelet that was on her arm has already disappeared.

The Candor boy is about to ask more questions when I turn to him, "What's your name?"

He stops short of whatever he was going to say and answers, "Dave."

"Dave," I say affecting the scary instructor voice that Four used when I was a transfer, "no one likes a Candor smart-mouth here. And the rest of you would do well to remember that Dauntless is your faction now, the past doesn't matter."

Four puts his arm around my waist and we finish lunch quickly and quietly. Max enters the room with Eric and Melissa, another of the Dauntless leaders. He gestures to us, and Lauren to join them. He speaks quickly, never one to waste time, "We have an unexpected large pool of initiates this year, so we will be keeping twelve of them instead of ten."

Lauren grins, and Four relaxes slightly. I haven't counted the initiates, but I know from some of the meetings that I've been in that this change is probably motivated more by the dwindling size of Dauntless than by the size of the initiate pool. All of the factions are growing except Dauntless and Abnegation. "Okay," I tell him. He doesn't like me much, even though we've been working together for a year now. I doubt he would have agreed to let me work with the leadership at all if I hadn't been ranked number one by a mile.

He nods and that concludes our little meeting. The Dauntless aren't big on pleasantries. I sigh, "time to scare some initiates."

I lead them to the dorm where Edward got stabbed. All the blood is gone, and the Stiff that was painted on my old bedframe has been scrubbed off, but it still holds bad memories for me. I turn to face them and give them roughly the same speech that Eric gave last year. They all seem to balk when they hear they might get cut, except Kylie. She doesn't even look surprised.