Chapter 7: The Interview — What Maren Does Not Say

The dress is gray.

Not indigo, not linen, not the deep considered fabric of the parade — gray, because Voss said the interview requires something different from the parade, requires the specific quality of a surface that absorbs light rather than deflects it. The cut is simple to the point of severity. A column. No embellishment. The only remarkable thing about it is the seams, which Maren checked first, as instructed, and found to be perfect.

She sits in the staging area beneath the stage and listens to the tributes ahead of her.