Conform

A man who shouldn't exist visits her underground office

Emeline works alone underground in the Archives, her job to delete ancient art on the Illum's orders.

A man who shouldn't exist visits her underground office

Emeline works alone underground in the Archives, her job to delete ancient art on the Illum's orders. She is twenty-seven, marked since birth by heterochromia—one blue eye, one brown—a visual defect that got her cast from her Elite birth family into the Minor Defect population. That morning, her chip declared her approved for procreation, meaning she will be matched with an Elite male to breed. Then a stranger appears in her doorway. Hal wears the dark blue of a Major Defect—the lowest caste, supposedly monstrous. But he asks about art with genuine curiosity, calls her mismatched gaze striking, and leaves her reeling. She invites him to come back. He says he might. Nobody has visited her office in ten years.

Her proposed Mate isn't Elite—he's one of the Illum

Two stylists called the Starlings scrub, wax, and paint Emeline until she becomes someone the Elite might accept. A contact lens covers her blue eye, making both brown. Dressed in liquid gold, she enters a garden restaurant suspended in the clouds and meets her proposed Mate. Collin is devastatingly handsome, disarmingly kind, and unlike any Elite she was taught to expect. He apologizes for her birth family's cruelty. He does not flinch at her status. Then he reveals why: he is not Elite at all. He is the youngest member of the Illum—the ruling body that controls the entire city. He offers a full public Courting with cohabitation, the best contract possible, and warns that the Elite will be watching everything.

Collin kisses Emeline before the Elite and begs forgiveness

Their second date unfolds inside a glass sphere floating above the clouds, where intimate alcoves drift like lanterns. Collin feeds her chocolate, breaks etiquette rules for her pleasure, and lets slip that the Press—controlled by the Illum—publishes whatever suits them. When her sheer gown slips, he adjusts it without touching her skin, his restraint trembling. On the landing afterward, Emeline's birth family arrives uninvited. Collin dismisses them with cold authority, telling them they will regret their unkindness. Then, with every Elite in the Sphere watching, he cups her face and kisses her—gentle at first, then deeper when she pulls him closer. He breaks away abruptly, whispering for her forgiveness. The photo appears in the Press the next morning, perfectly timed.

Her birth father asks if she'd have herself eliminated Someone impersonating the Illum sends Emeline a gown in Major Defect blue—a color that marks the wearer as trash. Collin cancels the dinner with her birth family…