It's hours after sunset, and Mags is tracking her favorite student through the streets. He's very bright, but he's only nine, and now that she knows what he's up to, she has no trouble following him away from her house, out of the Victors' Village, and into town. He heads toward the old warehouse that serves as District Four's training academy for the Hunger Games, but he doesn't go inside.
From around the corner, she watches Finnick walk slowly and silently down the alley. He hugs the near wall, stepping lightly over the scattered junk with experienced movements. Then he slides down under a pile of discarded nets and wrapping paper for fish. Mags raises her eyebrows, impressed. Both camouflage and warmth.
For this is where he intends to spend the night.
Mags knows why he doesn't want to spend the night at home. She stands here in the darkness shaking her head affectionately at this boy, because in sixty-five years she's seen a lot of children reluctant to go home, but never for this reason.
She's recently become aware that Finnick's parents are opposed to his training. Even this much is unusual. Parents are sometimes proud, sometimes indifferent. Some put pressure on their children to perform well. Others have mixed feelings. But almost everyone is at least a little relieved to know their kid has a better-than-average chance of coming home.
Finnick's parents, though, are so extreme in their views that that Mags has had to call over trainers to stop them from physically retrieving their son. After the two failed invasions of the academy, they haven't come back, but Finnick's home life has become correspondingly more difficult. He hides the marks of discipline well, and it hasn't stopped him from throwing everything he has into the physical aspects of training. Meanwhile, his ever-ready laughter has become louder and more abrasive, and the intensity in his eyes borders on the feverish.
If he's not going home, it's not because his parents are hurting him. It's because they're keeping him from training.
Finnick, only Finnick. She was wondering what to do about this situation, when he approached her one day after the strategy lesson she gave. Prepared to give him what little support she can to kids in his position, Mags was caught off guard when Finnick didn't even broach the subject. No, he was there to ask for more training. Strategy lessons aren't challenging enough for him, and he wants to go over the tapes of every previous year with her, so he can pick her brain for all the commentary she can come up with.
Telling him she doesn't want to make the other students jealous, Mags started giving him surreptitious lessons in her living room, where she can keep a closer eye on him.
She's not supposed to play favorites, but Finnick knows the way to her heart. Most of the boys who are good at weapons aren't interested in more than the bare minimum requirements of her arena strategy class. Most go in wielding their spears brashly and die within a few days, if not minutes. Her students are usually the girls and smaller boys who know they're going to need their brains if they're to survive.
Finnick's special, and Mags can't walk away. She's been watching him, without saying anything, for signs of burnout, but she's seen none. Instead, she's found signs that he sleeps out of doors, which is what brings her to this alley tonight.
The disadvantage of his chosen hiding place is that it has no exit when she starts walking up the alley. It terminates in a blind brick wall that he can't scale. She'll have to talk to him about that.
He chooses instead to lie perfectly still as she approaches. Mags guesses approvingly that he's breathing shallowly, hoping to go unnoticed.
She kneels on the hard cement beside him, ignoring the twinge in her knees. A slow drizzle is beginning, and her joints are always stiffer in the rain.
"Finnick," she whispers. "It's just me. Mags."
"Go away," is his predictable response. "You're ruining it."
Mags just as predictably ignores him. "I found you first," she warns. "The Peacekeepers will find you next. If they find you next to the academy, and they know you're in training, they'll figure out why you're out past curfew. We're breaking a rule they don't care about by having training in the first place, but if we start violating curfew to practice sleeping in the elements, they'll start caring about the no-training rule."
"Did you notice I missed training the last two nights?" Finnick demands.
"I noticed," Mags says mildly. Training is wholly voluntary, and few of the children come every day. Especially at his age, when he can't be reaped. Only in the last year or two do most of them get freaked out enough to want to wring every drop out of the academy.
"My parents locked me inside. Again. I keep going home to see if sleeping here has convinced them they can't keep me away, but they're very stubborn."
Ever careful of his pride, Mags keeps a firm clamp on her laughter. 'They're very stubborn' indeed. Says the boy who's sleeping beneath a pile of junk in an alley in the rain.
"I can't risk them shutting down the academy," Mags says.
"I can't risk not being prepared," Finnick rejoins.
"I know. So if you come back to my place for another strategy lesson, we'll break out the tapes and you can stay till morning. Get whatever sleep you need on the couch, and then you can go straight to school in the morning."
Finnick will never accept pity, but she can hear him thinking about this. "More training instead of less?"
"Exactly," Mags assures him. "I've never had a student as dedicated as you."
He may be studying strategy from her, but he doesn't know enough yet to detect when her strategies are working on him. Without further argument, Finnick follows Mags home, and she breathes more easily. She wasn't lying about her fears of the academy being shut down, or she'd be having all her students sleep out of doors. But she carefully made no part of her arguments about her fears of him growing up alone and hardened by his conflicts with his parents.
Understanding his need to play tough, Mags doesn't react to his defensiveness when he gets home and starts complaining that he doesn't want to be here.
"You have the right idea," she agrees with him that night when he resentfully pulls the blanket she gave him up over his head. "I've been trying to get the authorities to let the trainees do that for years, but they've been adamant."
Mags turns off the floor lamp and turns to go upstairs.
"Do they want us to die?" Finnick mutters angrily, and, he thinks, rhetorically. The Peacekeepers at least usually want a victor from the district they're assigned to. That's one reason everyone overlooks training.
"Yes, Finnick, they do," Mags says bluntly. She can't see his face, but the form under the blanket stiffens. "You need to get used to that idea. I want you to survive, and I will do everything in my power to help prepare you."
"You're the only one." Still angry, but it's an opening.
Mags and Finnick try to keep his presence at her house under wraps. The other victors are going to notice, of course. But it's best not to flaunt it.
Despite what she's told Finnick, Mags isn't really concerned about the other trainees. Children go to school and work if they're under twelve, and work all day if they're over twelve. Either way, they show up to the academy late in the evening or early in the morning, then train until they can't take it any more. No one wants even more lessons than the program provides. Only Finnick, passionate to the point where everyone thinks he's insane.
She's more concerned about losing the battle to his parents. Obviously, it would be much better for Finnick if they took him back and let him continue training. She's not trying to keep him from his family. But she does worry about the lengths Finnick might go to if he were forced back into his parents' care and not allowed to return to the academy. Much better that he grow up with her to look out for him, than whatever his nine-year-old brain comes up with as a solution.
His parents can't make it past the gate to the Village, but Mags has a lot of arguments with them at the academy that year. Finnick keeps alternating sleeping at her place with going home, trying to wear them down, but his disappearing act doesn't sway them any more than beating him or locking him in sways him. The impasse continues unabated.
Mags tries and tries, and most of all she tries to shield Finnick. She's careful never to express even frustration with his parents in front of him, much less anything stronger. But nothing she says or does makes a dent in their conviction that training to kill other children is unforgivable.
The Sixtieth Hunger Games are approaching when Mags admits defeat. One evening, Finnick comes over and freezes at the sight of the empty couch where a pillow should be sitting atop a folded blanket.
Mags follows his gaze. "I can't keep you on my couch forever."
"I can't go home," Finnick insists, readying himself for another fight. Knowing him, he probably has another sleeping spot picked out.
"Unfortunately, I agree with you." Smiling slightly, she gestures up the stairs. "I fixed you up a room this morning. This is your home now."
A complicated look crosses the boy's face, but he nods briskly, as though it means nothing. How much it means shows when she leads Finnick to his new room after their lesson, and he folds his arms tightly across his chest, turning his face away from her. "I'll be just down the hall," Mags says. She closes the door behind him, leaving him to his privacy.
Then she wonders what on earth she's going to do now.
With relief, Mags opens the door to Pearleye, formerly her student, now Director of Finance in District Four. Together they're planning for District Four to secede from Panem, many years from now. But today it's not for political machinations that Mags has invited her ally and friend over. She needs advice on a more personal matter.
They settle on the couch together with drinks, and Pearleye opens with politics, as usual.
"I'm thinking of applying for mayor when Grebe's term expires next year," Pearleye tells Mags. "I think I've got a good shot at getting it."
Mags hmms to herself. Pros and cons, pros and cons. "You don't think it's too soon?" she finally ventures. It would be nice to have Pearleye as mayor when the time for secession comes, and the time isn't coming in the next five years.
"Too soon?" Pearleye shrugs. "Maybe so. But I'm not getting any younger."
That's the problem with planning a revolution that takes decades. Nobody wants to spend their lives in service of a war that they may never live to see break out. But Four doesn't have the military resources to challenge the Capitol yet, which is what the Career academy is intended to produce. It's not the victors, but the Careers who don't end up in the arena, who are going to make the difference between a district with a militia and a district without a chance.
Mags is always walking thin lines between twofold dangers. Letting the revolution peter out. Rushing into it unprepared and being bombed into the ground. Sending all their best people into the arena to die. Getting no victors, no winnings, and, eventually, no reason for the Capitol to permit the illicit academy to exist at all.
Mags takes a deep breath. "Go for it, then."
Pearleye looks at her old mentor intently. "If you think it's a bad idea, tell me."
"Everything is a bad idea," Mags says wearily. "Go for it. Will you continue to volunteer at the academy?"
Pearleye raises her eyebrows. "Hadn't thought of that." The deal at the academy is that they feed you and give you training as a child, and if you don't get reaped or volunteer, you come back as an adult and help teach. This not only makes the academy self-sustaining, it keeps everyone's skills sharp into adulthood.
Having a figure as public as a mayor putting in time at the academy may force the Capitol to legitimize the institution instead of merely looking the other way, or it may be considered flaunting disobedience and trigger the shutting down of the academy.
"If it won't jeopardize my position," Pearleye decides, and Mags nods. If it won't jeopardize her position as mayor or the existence of the academy, she means. "Speaking of, I wanted to talk arena strategy with you."
Mags leans back and rests her feet on the footstool, trying to find a comfortable position for her knees. "That's what I'm here for."
Pearleye starts ticking off points on her fingers. "I've finally gotten old enough to start seeing some patterns. Here's one. We get in the Career pack, and then we hesitate to betray our allies. One and Two keep winning in large part because they strike first. Not so much last year, because I don't think we were ever winning in a desert, but I saw it again this year. And look at our last two victors. Rudder, who took out half the Career pack before they noticed, and finished off with with his own partner. Or Brine, who left his partner to die early on when he could easily have rescued her at no risk to himself."
It's true. District Four has only put out six victors in sixty years. District One has twice that and Two three times. District Four is losing the Hunger Games because they're playing a different game. They're learning to fight together and protect each other, without realizing they're being formed into a militia.
Mags is glad Pearleye has noticed the patterns, but she can't give the real reason in her living room, not with all the surveillance. She wishes Pearleye had figured it out on her own, but one day, when they're not in a place that they know is bugged, she'll explain. Meanwhile, she has to think fast and come up with a plausible alternate reason.
"The problem is that districts One and Two have full-time academies," Mags begins, delaying by stating the obvious while she tries to make up an explanation. "They have a lot more weapons training. What we have is survival skills." Okay, that's it. This'll sound good if caught on tape. "So it's in our best interests not to start a bloodbath with superior enemies. Instead, wait and let the arena kill them off."
Pearleye is nodding her understanding. "I remember Brine's year, when they lost the Cornucopia, and he was better at finding food in the ponds than any of them, and he kept the lion's share. No one knew how to find food anywhere else."
Always the teacher, Mags quizzes her, "When was the last time we had a victor who had access to the Cornucopia in the end?"
Pearleye thinks, going back in time. Not Brine...not Rudder...not Octavius...not Donn...not Apollonia...not Mags. "We haven't!" she says in surprise. "You're right, we have survival skills. Our kids may go in and grab weapons at the beginning, but by the time they've won, they have the upper hand because the pack has lost the Cornucopia."
"We may not be able to compete with Two," Mags concludes, "but we don't have the money to do that anyway. We're doing respectably, and I think we should stick to a working strategy."
Not only a working strategy, but one Mags can live with, compared to the strategies that work better. District One sells sex appeal in return for sponsors, and Mags isn't so naive as to think it's only the appeal they're selling. Two is known for putting out the tributes with a taste for blood. Mags suspects a combination of selecting children with violent tendencies and then teaching them that it's their duty to put on a good show for the Capitol. She's not one of those who thinks that the tributes themselves start out inherently evil. She's certain that Finnick, in Two, could be taught a complete disregard for human life outside his own district. Which reminds her...
"A bit of legal advice, if you don't mind?"
Pearleye looks surprised, not because it's unusual from Mags but because it's unusual in her living room, where they assume their every word is being recorded. "Sure." She's not a legal expert, but she's the closest to one Mags is going to find that she trusts.
"What's your legal status if you're raising a child who has two living parents? Do you have a leg to stand on if you want to adopt them?"
"No blood relation?" is the first thing Pearleye asks.
Mags shakes her head.
"Hm. Was the kid abandoned?"
Mags makes a not really face. "Is there a point after which, if the parents don't make any further efforts to reclaim the child, their rights expire?" It's a long shot, but she'll try any loophole she can find.
"Birth parents? I doubt it." Pearleye shrugs. "Unless there was a lot of abuse?"
"I suppose a case for abuse could be made," Mags says hesitantly. The line between physical discipline and abuse is a fuzzy one, but the marks didn't start showing up until after Finnick started running away. By any standard, he's the one who started it.
Pearleye's eyes narrow. "We're not talking kidnapping here, are we?"
"Runaway," Mags explains.
"How old?"
Mags shifts uncomfortably under Pearleye's professional grilling even as she respects it. She's not used to being on the receiving end of questions she doesn't have good answers for. "Nine when they ran away, ten now."
"That's on the young side for making your own decisions about who you want to raise you," Pearleye says dubiously. "Are the parents pressing claims?"
"No, and I don't think they will." Finnick's parents are so vehement in their opposition to the state that it looks like they would consider it a violation of their principles to use the state to get their child back. Nor are they raising complaints about the existence of the academy to the same state. The situation is so full of irony within irony that Mags can't begin to untangle the layers.
"After a year? And they know where the kid is?" Pearleye is impressed. "Well, in that case that's probably something the adoptive parent could use to contest kidnapping claims, if the birth parents finally decided to make a move. But I wouldn't press the issue for adoption rights. I'd keep it like the academy as long as it was in my interests to. Keep hoping everyone looks the other way."
Mags accepts this. It's no worse news than she'd been expecting, though she'd dared to hope for better.
"I understand if you're sworn to secrecy," Pearleye begins, "but now I'm curious. Is this anyone I know?"
Mags has trusted Pearleye with her deepest secrets for years, secrets that could get her and everyone she knows killed and her district crushed. But she still has to consider for a minute before she surrenders the deniability that she's always hung on to. To anyone aware that Finnick spends nights at Mags' house, she could always claim that she's merely giving him extra work with his parents' knowledge (and permission implied).
"You actually would know him, from the academy," Mags says. She hadn't thought of that. "Finnick Odair."
"Oh, really?" Pearleye reaches in her memory to match a face to the name. "The obnoxious, precocious one?"
"That's him." Mags smiles tenderly. "My boy."
Pearleye goggles. "You? But, Mags, after all these years..." She doesn't finish her sentence, because it's not a good idea to go around saying aloud that victors' families are singled out for Capitol attention.
"I know." Mags sighs. "I keep asking myself what I'm thinking, bringing a child into this house after all these years."
In her mind, the years fly by.
She refused to mentor at the Eleventh Hunger Games. Those were early days. Who could know refusal came with such high penalties?
Her father, living under a pardon for his role in the rebellion one day, executed for treason the next. No one refuses mentoring any more, not even if they have to make sure they're self-medicated to the point of incapacitation when their tributes are dying. The Sixtieth Hunger Games are around the corner. That means she's been mentoring for...forty-eight years.
Forced to mentor, Mags started teaching her students what her father taught her about fighting back. She founded the first Career academy here.
Her baby stepsister, a thriving six-year-old running around one day, dead of an undiagnosable illness the next.
Almost worse because not long after, the powers that be realized that the Capitol citizens loved watching kids who knew what they were doing in a fight. No one wanted to lose face by retracting the rule, but the authorities started looking the other way.
Almost made up for by the fact that training tributes meant turning out victors, and victors meant more money for the district. Everyone benefited. Tesserae became safer. Not safe, never that. But safer.
Mags' stepmother was a smart woman. After watching her husband and her daughter die, she quietly distanced herself from Mags without a word of explanation. Mags understood, and she cried herself to sleep in her now empty house in the Village.
Empty now for over forty years.
Pearleye is looking at her with sympathy.
Mags says helplessly, "The only child I can afford is one who's going to end up in the arena anyway." It's a weak explanation that fails to address all her complicated feelings for Finnick, but it's all she can even begin to put into words. And again, Pearleye knows, without needing the details spelled out, that Mags is thinking of Donn.
Four children, two reaped. His son was saved by a volunteer. Not much later, that same son died in an accident, his head hit by a swinging boom on a ship. When his sister was reaped a few years later, Donn asked Mags to talk the girls out of volunteering. Mags understood his reasoning. At least in the arena, his daughter would stand a chance.
But a chance didn't mean she came home. Donn has two living children now, two fewer than he started with. Mags, one. One more than she intended; maybe one more than she'll have in a few years.
"If he doesn't burn out first," Pearleye says. What a world they live in, where this is the best hope she can offer Mags. "How old was he when he started? Six?"
"About that," Mags answers. "Seven, I think." Most children don't get serious about training until they're ten or eleven, when their first eligible Reaping starts to loom large. Finnick's not the only one to have started young, but he's in a minority. What few small children there are at the academy are there for food, not training. Only Finnick.
"I'm keeping an eye on him," Mags promises. "I worry less about him whether he'll burn out and more about how he'll turn out."
"Obnoxious?" Pearleye supplies.
Mags makes a noncommittal sound. "Sort of. I worry about him developing a sense of entitlement. He should get praised for his hard work, and he'll have all the support I can give him, but I don't want him thinking the world owes him anything or that other people don't matter. So I've been planning the Raise Finnick Campaign."
Pearleye laughs. "Does it have diagrams?" she teases. "Battle plans? A budget? I expect only the most thorough of plans from you."
"Yes," Mags says, laughing with her. "Well, it has outlines, and it's divided into stages. And of course it has a budget. Come on, I'll show you." She leads Pearleye upstairs to her bedroom, where she pulls a well-hidden notebook out of a drawer and hands it to her.
Pearleye flips through it, still standing. "You weren't kidding about the stages."
Mags elaborates. "I've been working on breaking through the tough-boy-doesn't-care shell." She can understand where it came from, while he was fighting to break all ties to his parents. "But I couldn't press him for affection directly. So stage one was just being the slave-driving mentor that he came here for in the first place. He wanted more training, you know."
"Crazy boy," Pearleye says admiringly, staring at the page with the outline.
"Once I was sure he valued my praise over anyone's, I started giving him a pat on the shoulder when he accomplished something. Answered a tough question, out-sprinted the older boys, whatever."
She'd started out doing it on the couch at the beginning of their sessions, but then she realized that if he comes through the door excited, it means he has something he wants to share. So Mags now meets him at the door when she hears him coming up the stairs at a run, and favors him with a hug when he tells her about his day.
At first she was careful to keep it brief, no cuddling, no coddling. Finnick was nine years old and he'd shown himself capable of taking care of himself, at least for a couple of weeks. She respected that, and she let him see that respect.
Without realizing it, Finnick started expecting this treatment, and Mags' heart clenched when his body unconsciously presented itself for a hug one day when he arrived and told her how he was the first to reach the ceiling on the rope-scaling exercise. She gave him the hug, of course, and things were free and easy between them after that.
"It didn't take long before he started seeing affection as something he gets when he's done well. Then came the stage we're currently on. I want him to value the praise he gets for being helpful. If he's talented, that's great, but he can use some of his impressive array of skills to solve other people's problems."
Pearleye nods approvingly. "And not just make them feel bad."
"Exactly. So I get him running errands for me because he's faster on foot than anyone, that sort of thing. He eats it right up. I know what I'm doing."
"Haha." Pearleye reads out loud, "F second in class in weight-lifting. V. disappointed in himself. Praised anyway! Claimed that apple is heaviest thing I can lift. Still won Games. Made him laugh.
"Good one," Pearleye observes. "F did not rub eyes when sprayed with soap. Kind of glad no academy in my day. Yeah, pain training was tough.
"Make him eat fresh fruit while we talk. Not enough of that in his diet. Two weeks later, entry reading, Raspberries expensive but worth it. Do not tell him how cute he was when he discovered them. I take it this is where the budget comes in."
Mags laughs. "Please don't tell him I said that. I'll tell him when he's thirty, or has kids of his own, whichever comes first."
"Mags, this is hilarious. F can keep districts 9 – 11 straight. Somehow. Come on." Pearleye rolls her eyes. "It's not that hard. What kind of strategist are you?"
"I'll never be mayor, that's for sure," Mags acknowledges. She doesn't bother explaining the joke to Pearleye, but the truth is that she now knows them better than anyone, having screwed it up on her Victory Tour. Of course, no one remembers her Victory Tour now. Only Finnick, who watched it with her during one of their sessions. Being Finnick, he gave her a hard time, and being Mags, she indulged him by joking that keeping them straight at age nine is certainly impressive. And then told him to have more respect for his elders.
"Good practice interview. Am no Caesar Flickerman, however. Good, good. And no, you're not, but to be fair, neither am I. We should find someone to handle practice interviews at the academy.
"Let F skip school in favor of arena strategy. Sent him to work at noon. Next day, Called school and made sure F was there. Six weeks later, Called school, got receptionist with sense of humor. Claimed F is former acquaintance of school, never seen any more. Must talk with him." Pearleye looks up at Mags. "More academy, less school, then? But he's still working?"
"I'm trying to keep a balance. He doesn't need the money, but fishing is getting him skills that will be both useful in the arena and here, if he doesn't end up in the arena. As for school, I want him to know my highest priority is him staying alive, but I don't want him growing up completely ignorant either. My plan is that once he comes home from the Games, we'll make up for lost time."
No need to say, And if he doesn't come home, the point is moot.
"Wow, you're terrifying, Mags." Pearleye chuckles and closes the book, handing it back to Mags. "I can't decide whether to be relieved or disappointed that you didn't raise me." Pearleye lifts an imaginary glass in salute. "Well, here's to raising difficult children."
Difficult? I guess he's that. He's also remarkably easy. Maybe precocious children are like that.
Part of Mags' campaign to teach Finnick to be there for other people involves agreeing to let him stay home alone while she goes to the Capitol for the Sixtieth Hunger Games. "I know you'll go to work, you'll go to school at least sometimes-"
Mags gives him a look of Right? and Finnick looks abashed. "At least sometimes," he promises.
"And I know they'll see you at the academy every day. In return, I'm going to teach you to make waffles before I leave, which you're going to make for me when I get back. Mentoring tributes is exhausting, and watching them die is depressing. So I'll be in bed for a couple days, you'll bring me waffles in bed, and then everything will go back to normal." He's still not good enough at deciphering her strategies to realize that this is the point, and entrusting him with the responsibility of staying home alone is just the means to the end.
Nor does she tell him that Rudder, who lives a few houses down, has promised to be at the academy every evening and at home every morning in case Finnick needs to find him. Mags believes in plans and backup plans.
A few weeks later, Mags comes home, minus two tributes. She takes to her bed as she does every year, but she can't afford to be disengaged this time. However unusually self-sufficient Finnick may be, he still needs her, and more than that, he needs to know she's all right.
So she smiles through her exhaustion when accepting the tray. "I'm fine, honey, just tired. This happens every year."
Sitting back in bed against her pillows, she chats with more liveliness than she feels while she eats her waffles with fresh blueberries and cream. Finnick sits on the edge of the bed and tells her all about how he spent his time while she was gone. Then, when Mags has finished and set her tray on the bedside table, Finnick looks at her curiously.
"How tired is tired? Do I have to wait for my next strategy lesson?" Finnick skipped going to the academy tonight in favor of coming home to see her—and make her waffles—on her first night home.
"Not at all. In fact, scoot over and get comfortable. I'll be quizzing you. We've been over every tape, but I want to see how well you remember games you've only seen the once. Then you can ask me any questions you have, but it'll be easier when I have the tape."
There's a lot of editing that goes into even the full-length replays, which are never uncensored. As a result, tapes are usually not made available until after the candidate's interview, where the official highlights are first exhibited. This year's victor, Gloss, is still receiving medical treatment, in no kind of condition to be giving an interview.
Mags' breath catches briefly in her throat. That'll be Finnick in a few years. Sometimes the realization strikes home harder than others.
Best prepare him well, then.
It's still dark when Mags springs up in bed at the sound of her name and the feel of a hand shaking her shoulder. "Mags!"
Mags sits up in bed and looks wildly around. "What? What! Is the house on fire?" She's past jumping out of bed with her heart racing when she's woken up suddenly, but it's still not pleasant.
"Mags!" It's Finnick, leaning over her bed and calling her name frantically. "Mags, Donn's kids were reaped."
Groggy, Mags starts pulling herself together as fast as she can. "Yes..." They've watched all the reapings together.
Finnick is speaking almost too fast to follow. "And I was talking to Donn, asking him about his time in the arena, and then I found out that his son, the one that someone volunteered for, died in an accident. He was only sixteen, Mags. It started me thinking about all the other reapings, where victors' children were reaped. No one talks about it, but everyone knows. And I'm living with you!"
No trace of sleepiness remains. Mags sits up straight, motioning at the edge of the bed. "Come here." When Finnick sits down beside her, Mags puts her hand on his shoulder. "Yes, there's a chance. But you're planning to volunteer anyway, aren't you? And you're a Career. No disrespect to any of Donn's children, but you're more serious about training than any of them ever were. And you might not get reaped anyway. I think what they'd love to have is a parent-child victor pair. That would make a great story. Like they got with Cashmere and Gloss last year. And even if I train you, they won't get that from us. So you might not."
"But, Mags." Finnick faces Mags forebodingly. In the light coming in from the doorway, she can just make out his widened eyes. "You were fifteen."
Yes. No. A chill paralyzes Mags. Fifteen when she won the Tenth Hunger Games. Sixteen when her father died. Seventeen when she started mentoring tributes. Fifty-six when this boy was born. Seventy-one when she watches him die?
"No."
"They're going to reap me when I'm fifteen." Finnick sounds certain.
"You don't know that," Mags insists, but the pieces he's putting together make far too much sense. He's brighter than she thought if he's made it to the same conclusion that she and Pearleye have come to, and he may be right about this part too.
"I have to be ready." Finnick tugs at her hand. "Come on, we need to go over the tapes." He's agitated and pouring his panic into activity. "Come on!"
Mags has no control over whether he's reaped. All she has influence over is Finnick. She doesn't budge. "You're already getting the best training possible." Her voice is as calm as she's ever made it. "Running yourself into the ground is only going to hurt your odds. Trust our plans and get some sleep."
"I can't sleep," Finnick confesses.
Mags doesn't relent. "You're going to have to sleep in worse situations than this, in the arena. This is good practice."
At the word "practice," some of the tight hold the panic has on Finnick slackens, and so Mags persists.
"Remember what we're always telling you at the academy. Eat when you can, and sleep when you can, because you don't know when you'll get your next chance." Mags swings her legs over the bed and puts her feet on the floor. "Come on. We're going back to your room, and we're going to practice."
She's never tucked Finnick in before, but as long as she calls it practice, she can get away with trading places with him, sitting on the edge of his bed and holding his hand while he lays his head on his pillow and tries to calm his breathing. "This is better practice than the other tributes will get. They'll just panic. You'll know what to do about the panic. You're doing everything you need to prepare. Either you trust the process, or you don't."
"I thought I'd have more time," Finnick whispers.
"You probably do," Mags soothes. "It doesn't matter. When the day comes, you'll be ready. Sleep now, while you can. Don't let your emotions get in the way."
In the morning, Mags is prepared to deal with the matter further, but all Finnick does is give her his most sanguine grin over breakfast. "I'm going to win, Mags. Don't worry about it." Then he goes straight to grilling her as always.
If he's more intense about training, it's hard to tell. He was already doing as much as an eleven-year-old prodigy is capable of, and Mags has a knack for noticing when he's on the verge of burning out and diverting him. Finnick trusts her.
The only clear difference she sees is more behavioral problems at the academy, and it's hard to say how much of that would have happened anyway, as he heads into adolescence.
She doesn't tell him about the weekly meetings the trainers have. Sometimes they meet in a group, sometimes one on one. Mags, whose class is in lower demand, is usually the only strategy teacher. She has a couple backups if she's not feeling well or is otherwise occupied, but most of the time, it's her interacting directly with the students.
Someone like Rudder, Forty-Fifth victor and in charge of weapons, has any number of under-teachers who never ended up in the arena and who come back to volunteer. So he meets regularly with his subordinates, and summarizes their reports to Mags.
Donn, among the first tributes to attend Mags' academy, and winner of the Twenty-Sixth Games, rarely comes to meetings unless he has something specific to say. He's mostly retired, leaving the teaching to the younger generations, but occasionally he still participates in survival skills training. That's also a popular class, especially among the younger kids or the ones with qualms about killing.
Today it becomes immediately clear why he's here: to complain about Finnick showing off. "We'll have a mutiny if this keeps up."
Rudder's not impressed. "Tell 'em to step up their game. I keep my students too busy to talk."
I see why Finnick likes you, Mags thinks. He's always complaining Donn's class is too slow.
Donn shakes his head emphatically. "Not happening. How many of these kids are here because we provide free food? Which is another thing they resent. Everyone knows he's getting enough to eat at home. Of course he's performing better."
Mags says nothing, but she remembers Finnick's time on the streets, eating one sparse meal a day at the academy. Yes, it makes a difference if it's only a few weeks of privation rather than a lifetime, but he's not exactly the coddled rich kid of the district either. Even now. She can understand the resentment, but he earned whatever she gives him. He wasn't born into luxury, and she didn't pull him off the streets because she felt sorry for him. No one else sought her out for more challenges. Only Finnick.
"He works for it," is all Mags says about the food situation. She still hasn't admitted that Finnick's living with her, but in this group it's an open secret.
"Yeah, that I can believe," Donn says, partially appeased.
"If you want him to cut down on the showing off," Mags advises, "my recommendation is to make him work harder. Not busy work, but tasks he can almost do if he gives them his full concentration. That's what he needs."
"You're the strategist," Donn says graciously. "I'll give it a shot."
Mags has to laugh behind her hand when she has to have the same conversation from the opposite side that selfsame evening.
"Donn told me I need to stop making the other trainees feel bad!" Finnick erupts on his way in, before he's even got the front door even fully open. "Can you believe it?"
Mags has a straight face by the time he confronts her in the living room, though she has to fight to keep it as he throws himself dramatically on the couch beside her, giving her an aggrieved look.
She's sitting in her usual spot, with bowls of bananas and raspberries on the table, ready to start going over the tapes with him. But first she has to decide how to handle this. She knows she's supposed to agree with Donn, just by virtue of being the adult responsible for him. Instead, she's assessing the long run consequences.
No, being an incorrigible show-off with no regard for the feelings of others isn't winning him any friends. But friends aren't going to keep him alive in the arena. Superficial charm is better for grabbing the attention of sponsors, and that he has in abundance.
After the arena...he can't afford to make so many enemies that he never accomplishes anything again. But Mags decides she's willing to take the gamble that this problem is temporary.
Because he's young yet. Being the best is still new and exciting. She can't blame him for reveling in it. The novelty will wear off eventually. When he starts feeling the lack of friends, she thinks he'll have what it takes to form closer bonds. She can't bring herself to worry too much, when he's so proud of himself whenever she asks him for help. When Finnick cares, he cares.
Meanwhile, being better than everyone his age is part of what motivates him to work harder than anyone his age. That hard work is what's going to pay off someday, and Mags doesn't want to mess with anything that might reduce his drive.
She doesn't tell him all this, of course. She just looks at her boy, who's waiting expectantly for sympathy or a lecture, and says calmly, "I've been treating you like an adult in many ways. One of those ways is that I don't punish you. I just explain consequences. If you show off, you'll alienate anyone who's bothered by it. If you're willing to accept that consequence, then that's your choice."
"I don't want to be friends with anyone who's bothered by me being the best," Finnick complains, still outraged.
For that much, Mags is glad. Goals will always come first with him. But that doesn't mean he's being any more mature about it than she'd expect from an eleven-year-old.
"I don't think you should ever hold back just to placate others," Mags explains. "What I'm saying is that there are ways of being the best without going out of your way to make other people feel bad about it. But again, there are no punishments from me, only consequences."
"I'm fine with that," Finnick says firmly. "And another thing. That's why I like living with you better. My parents cared about so many things that I was always getting punished for. Like sitting on the couch! I would not have been allowed to sit on the couch and talk to them like this. 'No shoes on furniture,'" he mimics, in a sing-song voice that borders on nasty. He's sitting back on his feet, a position he naturally falls into.
Mags sighs internally. She actually can't blame his parents. She's been picking her battles very carefully with Finnick, constantly reminding herself that he came here for Hunger Games mentorship. As long as she offers that, she has a world of influence with him, provided that she employs that influence strategically.
If she were raising a child of her own, or this child in a world without the Hunger Games, she'd do a lot of things differently, but with the specter of doom looming over them, she bites her tongue when Finnick does something she doesn't like that isn't life-or-death. It's the same reason she's been letting him skip some school in favor of the academy.
A good strategist never shows all her cards, so Mags only shrugs. "I don't care about the couch. I care about your survival. Would you sit like that in the arena?"
Finnick frowns, trying to understand the question, while she waits patiently. Then his face clears of confusion, immediately replaced by unhappiness. "No, I wouldn't be able to get up quickly if I had to run, and my legs would be likely to cramp up, or my feet go numb...I guess I shouldn't be in the habit of sitting like this, should I?"
"It's the kind of thing I want you to keep in mind. We're training you to be ready in every possible way."
"Right," Finnick says and unfolds his legs so his feet are on the ground. "But that's not why my parents had these rules!" he defends himself.
"No, and I adopted you because we share the same priority, keeping you alive. If I ask you to do something, it's important."
"I know." Finnick's defensiveness has melted under the lack of scolding for antagonizing the other students or for his cavalier treatment of the couch. "Are you going to adopt me?" he asks tentatively. "Formally, I mean?"
Mags hadn't realized this was on his mind too, but she can understand why he might want the security. And she's touched beyond belief that it's from her that he wants it.
That just makes it hurt more that she has to say no. "I'm not, and I'll tell you why. It's because I'm a strategist, and I'm always saying that you can't let your feelings interfere with a mission."
Finnick nods, having heard this line a million times.
"My mission is to get you prepared for the Hunger Games. And so far, everyone's been letting me do that. But if I start making a fuss about legal rights, and you have two living parents, the state might intervene to return you to them. So I'm not going to risk rocking the boat when we have everything we need right now." Mags is glad she'd thought of this before he did and has a definite answer ready.
Finnick can understand that reasoning. If he's disappointed, he doesn't let it show. Mags isn't sure if that's his own toughness, or an attempt to show her that he's not letting his feelings rule.
"But I promise you," Mags continues passionately, "if anyone ever tries to take you away from me, I will go through legal channels to adopt you if that's what it takes. I will use every bit of clout I have as a victor, I will fight to the last drop of blood in my body to keep you, and I will not let them take you."
Finnick smiles. He's heard what he needed to hear. "We'll win," he assures her arrogantly. "You're smart, and I'm stubborn."
Mags wears her heart on her sleeve when it comes to this boy. "I don't need to adopt you—you already adopted me."
Finnick's face lights up. "It's true! I'm the one who started coming here. That's because you answered all my questions after class and put up with me dominating the discussion and not letting anyone else get a word in edgewise."
Mags could never turn anyone away who was that invested in learning everything she had to teach. Then she took him in, and she was surprised to see her arena strategies getting sharper. She's as grateful to Finnick for the endless questions as he is to her for the answers. No, not for the questions, though they are helping her detect patterns she'd never seen before. For the shared interests. The shared passion.
"You were asking good questions. Speaking of which, time for today's lesson."
She drives him as hard as ever that evening, but before he goes up to bed, she gives him a good night hug. "Thank you for adopting me, boy."
"Any time, old lady," Finnick promises cheekily. Then he slips off upstairs, with another long day ahead of him tomorrow.
"Mags, I've been thinking."
In four years of living with Finnick, Mags has learned to fear those words. She sits up carefully where she's been reclining with her feet on a stool, and prepares herself to talk circles around him.
Finnick comes and sits down beside her, still covered with dirt and sweat from the academy. "If we suspect I'm going to be reaped anyway, I might as well take the record."
Mags' heart speeds up. If she could teach her students one thing, one thing, it would be that there is no such thing as being prepared for the arena. Unfortunately, there's only one way to learn that lesson, and no way to use it afterward. With an effort, she calms herself. Hunger Games mentorship is the one area where she has the most influence with her boy. "And what record did you have in mind?" she asks with the same casualness. Now she's wondering if she's given him too much reassurance over the years. She wants him cool and collected in the arena, not overconfident.
"Youngest ever. Fourteen instead of fifteen." When her eyes go wide in fright, Finnick argues, "There is not one class in which I'm at my age level."
"Being thirteen and competing with fifteen, sixteen-year-olds is not the same thing as killing four eighteen-year-olds from One and Two trying to kill you. Their programs are full time. Total immersion. We can't afford anything like that."
"But I'm ready. I could take Hatchet Face's advanced class this year, I know I could."
Mags' cheek twitches. She wonders if they call her anything like what they call Rudder.
"Never mind what I did," she says sternly. "There haven't been any fifteen-year-old victors since the Careers came along. If you volunteer at fourteen, they will kill you in the bloodbath for your arrogance."
Finnick is unfazed. "I know, I was thinking about that too. I could make sure I'm reaped, like Donn's boy, and we could not have a male volunteer that year, like we sometimes don't. And then they'd just ignore me."
Mags shakes her head. "Finnick, I know the commentators like to talk stats, kills, and so forth, but there's only one record that matters, and one tribute per year sets it. You don't get a second chance when you decide fourteen was too young after all, try again next year."
"Look, I know you think I'm being overconfident, because you see your overconfident tributes die all the time. But you trained me, and I won't do anything reckless. I'll be one hundred percent careful and keep my head low until I'm the last one standing."
You won't do anything reckless?! You're talking about being a fourteen-year-old tribute! But quizzing, not panicking, is the way to win against Finnick. Poke holes in the weak spots of his arguments. "What is the advantage of winning at fourteen? You get treated like every other victor afterward, except you have a much lower chance of making it to victor at all."
Mags should have known he'd have an answer ready for this too. They've worked together too closely for too long for him not to expect a grilling. "Nah, I'll be a celebrity, everyone will be talking about me, and I can work that to our advantage. It'll look good for our sponsorship numbers. We can make a case that One and Two may put out the most victors, but we put out the best victors. The most interesting ones. Then with more sponsors, we're bound to get more victors. Which adds to the prosperity of the district, as you're always saying."
Finnick looks at Mags smugly and dares her to challenge that.
"How very selfless of you, my boy," she marvels sardonically. "That's why you want to risk your life at fourteen?"
Finnick sticks out his tongue. "Never mind why I want to, that's why you should let me."
She can guess why he wants to. If he's convinced he'll be reaped at fifteen, he'd rather decide it was his own idea than live in fear of the Sixty-Sixth Reaping. "Oh, 'let' you," she echoes. "What do you want me to do? Write to the Capitol, ask them to make sure you're reaped? Start dropping hints that I'm a victor with a child who thinks he's ready? The Gamemakers will kill you for that if the Careers don't."
"No, I'm not stupid. I'd never make a plan that depended on you doing that. I asked around at the Justice Building. They said they're not authorized to remove any existing slips, but they can put my name in any time anyone takes a tessera this year, and if I don't like the results come Reaping Day, I can always volunteer."
Mags needs every ounce of willpower to stop from grabbing him by the collar and shaking him. "Did you tell them to do it?"
"No, I wanted to talk to you first, see if you had a better idea." Finnick holds up a hand to forestall her protest. "I realize that you and I are visible enough that they may do it anyway. I decided I was okay with that. I'm ready."
Finnick's gaze is steady, calm, and sure, everything that Mags is not right now. It could be worse, she tries to tell herself. He is thinking. And maybe he can be careful, not rush in and get himself killed on day one.
None of that alleviates her sense of helplessness. This is the boy who ran away from home. He'll rig a draw. There's no way to stop him.
Finnick gives her his blinding smile and a reassuring hug. "I'm going to win, Mags. Remember? I promised you."
You don't get a second chance.
Mags never let her feelings interfere with his training, and she keeps her oath not to let them interfere when she sends him into the arena at fourteen. She lets him go with a smile that hides her doubts, not sure how she'll ever come back home if he isn't there to come with her.
Only on the train ride back to District Four, dizzy with relief, does she realize that he won't go home with her after all. There's a camera crew waiting to escort him to his own house in the Victors' Village. Of course. But somehow she'd forgotten that would apply to Finnick.
She wonders if it's occurred to him yet. Rationally, yes, he should still be living with her. That's out of the question, though. No way can he afford the loss of face that would come with her implying he's too much of a baby to make it on his own.
All she can do is have his back. Not many days ago, she watched him, wounded and hungry, facing down a girl ready to shoot him. This is the easy part, Mags tells herself, and tries to believe it.
She's barely even begun to prepare him for life as a victor. But she has an outline divided into stages. Of course.
It starts the moment the train pulls into the station. Before they get off, Mags nods meaningfully to Rudder, and Rudder holds Four's Capitol escort back when Finnick goes bounding out to the district that's welcoming him home.
"But I'm supposed to-" Candy protests, struggling, "-present him!"
Mags smiles. "Finnick's a natural on camera. Let him do his thing." It'll make him happy. And he needs to practice manipulating his public image under constant scrutiny. If he ever puts one foot wrong, now that he's a victor, he'll no longer have a life worth living.
Rudder says nothing, just holds a firm grip. They watch Finnick waving gleefully, pumping his fist, and working the crowd into a frenzy. Everyone in Four who could be gathered at the train station is eating it up, and so is anyone watching on television. Having no modesty and no self-consciousness is made for moments like this.
Once Finnick has been swept up onto the shoulders of his roaring audience, Mags gives Rudder another nod. He releases Candy, and the three of them step onto the platform. All the way to the Victors' Village, Finnick is carried. Mags hangs back, Rudder copies her example, and Candy tries talking to the cameras, but they're only interested in Finnick.
Inside his new house, Candy gives Finnick a tour. She tries to be miffed at being sidelined, but he's making her laugh too much. Rudder and Donn have to work crowd control, because otherwise the house will be too full for anyone to move. Finnick expresses delight in everything he sees. Mags knows he's partly faking, because he's spent the last five years in a house just like this, a few doors down, and partly genuinely excited, because now it's his house.
Carefully, Mags keeps to the edges, not speaking, but follows Finnick with her eyes, so whenever he seeks her out in the crowd, he finds her beaming her pride at him. She can sense the tension that underlies his excitement. She does absolutely nothing to draw attention to it, or herself, and instead she leaves her presence as the only reassurance he needs right now.
Well into the night, the party comes to an end and the crowd starts to disperse to meet the eleven o'clock curfew. Finnick is alone in this house now, which may be what he worked for and wanted more than anything, but at the same time, he's only fourteen, and he needs everything not to change overnight. There's a reason he has no one he wants to stay tonight, no one who's moving in with him.
Mags gives him that touch of the familiar when she comes to say good night. "I'll expect waffles in the morning."
Finnick laughs to hide his relief. "Waffles—but you're not supposed to be depressed this year!"
"I'm not depressed," Mags informs him with dignity, "I'm tired. I was more invested this year than ever before. When you were in pain, I was in pain. When you were triumphant, I was triumphant."
"When I was kicking ass-" Finnick prompts, grinning.
"Thank you for that." Mags winks. "I've never had that experience before."
"All right," Finnick concedes graciously, "waffles tomorrow. And then I'm going to grill you on life as a victor."
"I expect nothing less." Then Mags smiles and takes his hands in hers. "Welcome home, my boy."
The first emergency Finnick meeting is held two months after his return home. All the living victors convene to glare at Mags.
Donn opens. "Your boy is out of control."
Mags meets the accusation mildly. "I agree."
Donn's caught wrong-footed by her easy concession, giving Brine time to jump in. "He never shuts up! Yes, you were fourteen. Yes, you had the most sponsors. Yes, you gave your interview the day you came out of the arena. The whole country knows this. Shut the fuck up!" Brine concludes with a strangling gesture.
What Mags knows and Finnick doesn't is that a presidential order went into his same-day appearance on Flickerman, after painkillers instead of proper medical treatment. The Capitol was panting after the golden boy, and they will eat him alive if she doesn't prepare him before his victory tour. He's already got more cameras on him in the district than any victor who's ever come home to Four.
"I woke up and found him walking the ridge of his roof!" Donn again. "Then the next day I got a call because he was out after curfew halfway to the southern border, and you weren't at home."
Mags made sure she was at home every night after that.
"And you can't even say anything," Brine rants, "because he's surrounded by cameras making love to his face, and you have to pretend like you're proud of the district's latest record-setting victor."
Mags lets them vent. She could add her own examples, with a list that's longer than anyone else's. Most recently, swimming out past the point where boats are allowed to sail unsupervised and getting a Peacekeeper escort back to land. Complaining that he could have swum there and back again without tiring, and what do they think danger is, anyway? Danger is someone trying to kill you. And so on.
But Mags doesn't enumerate her recent experiences. She's just waiting for the right moment to make her move.
Octavius chuckles. "At least he's not boring. And I think we all know what it means when a victor starts climbing the walls."
"Well, we've all been there," Donn says with the first sympathy he's shown today, "but he needs to get a grip before he gets us killed."
That's what Mags is worried about. That's why they're having this meeting. And that's why she's less worried about everyone's feelings than about her strategy for solving this.
"I was more mature," Brine complains, indignant.
Rudder breaks his stone-faced silence to point out, "You were a bit older, to be fair."
The room erupts in groans, and even Mags finds herself laughing. She looks at Rudder's utterly straight face with surprised respect. It's impossible to tell he even made a joke. Man, that is taking deadpan to new heights.
"If I have to hear that one more time-!" Brine and Donn are speaking at the same time, and Brine finishes, "He'll be the youngest to die strangled by his fellow victors."
Mags can understand why Brine's so put out. He was the newest and most popular victor in Four until Finnick came along and stole the spotlight Brine had been enjoying for the last several years.
"Well." Donn faces Mags. "This is your problem. What are you planning to do about it?"
"Oh, is it time to solve the problem?" Mags asks. She looks at each one individually. "Got it out of your system?"
Slowly, everyone nods, some more reluctantly than others.
"All right." Mags begins. "Finnick is bored and restless. He needs to be kept busy with work he finds challenging and worth his time. That means, for starters, I need him back at the academy."
Rudder shakes his head. He's already kicked Finnick out of the weapons class. "He has nothing to contribute but disruption. If he grows up, he'll be welcome back. For now, I have to focus on my current students."
"He's having a seriously negative impact on morale," Donn adds. "I mean, we're victors, so if he wants to make us feel bad, he's welcome to try. But there are kids in there who are older than he is and can't perform as well, and while he's been pointing that out for years, he can't be ignored any more. Not with the whole country dazzled."
Mags ignores Donn for the time being and focuses on Rudder, one of the only other people Finnick actually looks up to. The one who picked out the trident to send him in the arena. "What makes you think," she says softly, looking Rudder in the eye, "that our next two tributes are going to survive the bloodbath?" Rudder mouth tightens as he takes her point, but she spells it out for the others. "One and Two will not overlook Finnick appearing young, pretty, and harmless, and then setting two records in one year."
The room explodes in outrage, but Mags continues holding Rudder's gaze. "I'm not saying to write them off. Do your best. But while under any other circumstances I would never endorse rewarding Finnick's behavior with more attention, right now Finnick is the one with the power, as Donn so plainly put it, to get us all killed. He is the one we need to focus on."
Rudder looks unhappy, but he's just the weapons instructor. Mags is the strategist. "I'll give him one on one, then," he concedes.
"You can still kick his ass, can't you?" Octavius smirks from his wheelchair.
Brine looks uncomfortable. Without the excuse of arena wounds, he's been letting himself go. Too much good food, too much good alcohol, not enough reason to work. He may still be physically stronger than Finnick, but Finnick's a lot faster and more motivated.
Rudder says nothing. Of course he can still take Finnick.
"Every day, then," Mags tells Rudder, "and make sure he's learning something. Donn, Brine, the same goes for you. I don't care if you do it in person or delegate it, but keep him challenged."
"Have you had the victor talk with him yet?" Donn demands.
"Part of it," Mags answers. "He knows he can get himself killed, and I gave him a list of don'ts to be getting started with. So far he's managed to avoid everything on that list."
He's been very creative with loopholes, but the fact that he is taking her advice seriously is encouraging.
"But he doesn't know he can get us killed?" Brine presses.
"Believe me," Mags says, "you'll be very bottom on the list of people who can be used against him. I'm at the top, and I'm doing this my way."
"Your way is awful slow," Donn points out.
I didn't adopt Finnick so he could waste his life as a playboy. She can't say this aloud, not in the hearing of Brine, whom she specifically encouraged to waste his life as a playboy so he didn't get himself or anyone else killed. Finnick's mine, and I want him for the revolution. The revolution that only half the other victors know about: Donn and Rudder. The other two she still doesn't feel she can trust. Loyalty, yes; reliability, no.
"Right now, he's restless," Mags says instead. "I'm waiting for him to get bored of running around. Then he'll be open to outside suggestions. Leave it to me. I'm going to time this perfectly," she promises.
Finnick may not know about all the dangers of surviving the Hunger Games, nor of the rebellion Mags is planning, but he has gotten the message that there are certain expectations of victors in Four, and since he wants to be the best victor ever (thank god), he's been willing to go along with her plan of frequent trips out to the ocean.
"I'm too old to sail a boat," she says for the benefits of bugs and the rumor mill, "but not too old to miss the feel of the waves, so the least you can do in return for all those years of mentoring is take me out."
Finnick loves the water, and sailing keeps him just busy enough that he's not fidgeting while she talks, but not so distracted that he can't focus on important issues.
Mags is less upset than most of the victors at her boy running wild. It's not only understandable as post-Games jitters, as Octavius pointed out, it fits in with the public persona they chose to keep him safe. If Finnick's young, impulsive, and concerned only with the pleasure of the moment, he's no threat to the government, as long as he neither publicly flouts rules nor encourages others to do so. That went on the long list of don'ts that Mags gave him on day one and is constantly refining.
He's doing a good job of staying within the boundaries she sets explicitly, even if he's exhausting her and driving everyone else crazy with his antics. It forces her to wonder how much of his running wild really represents a lack of self-control, versus an outlet for his energy that fits into the plan they came up with. She wonders, but she isn't ready to trust him with anything critical until she's sure.
For today, Mags is entrusting him with stories of the past, pieced together for him. Her father's death when she refused to mentor. Her sister's death when she started turning tributes into Careers. Donn's children getting reaped. For no reason that she knows of, other than the drama value, but perhaps Donn knows of a reason. Rudder's family being wiped out one by one when he defied President Snow. Octavius flying under the radar because he came back broken and raving, and still mentally unstable even thirty years later. Brine being 'encouraged' by Mags to have fun and enjoy his new life as a victor, and to do absolutely everything President Snow says to demonstrate his undying gratitude for the life of luxury.
"I'm catching on," Mags says. "I thought it was just me, at first, that he just punished defiance. But what he really wants is to neutralize you. Even if you haven't done anything wrong, he wants to bring you to your knees. If you're already on your knees, I think—think—he leaves you alone."
Finnick, for once, has nothing to say. He works the tiller to yield right of way to a fishing schooner, while he bites his lip.
They've long since agreed that Finnick will never be able to use her tactic of being forgettable. That's both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, Snow will never be able to kill him without enraging the citizens of the Capitol, who wouldn't even notice if an elderly lady who displeased the President happened to die in her sleep. On the other, Finnick will be under a great deal more scrutiny than Mags has ever been.
"Snow will come to visit you before your Victory Tour. Act like you're surprised and flattered, because he doesn't visit everyone. Just the ones who present a credible threat. Be young, enthusiastic, grateful, and willing to do your part to pay back the system that has given you so much. Whatever he says, agree to it. Instantly, without hesitation. If it's not something you feel you can live with, talk to me about it later."
She's got Finnick's attention, she can tell. He's staring not at her, but out at the horizon in the west, like he's wondering if he can sail this boat fast enough and far enough to get out of Panem's reach. Mags could tell him the answer is no.
"Okay," he says in a still disbelieving voice, "I screw up. They kill you. Then what do they have to use against me?"
Mags shrugs. "You want the Career academy shut down?"
Finnick blinks. No, he doesn't.
"You want quotas raised? You want to live in the Capitol forever? You want to be kept too drugged to remember that you ever had a mind that could be used against them? I can't possibly tell you what they would do to you, but I can tell you that they can do whatever they want, and they will not run out of options."
"Even if I cooperate, though, right?"
Again, all Mags can do is shrug. "They won't be nice to you if you cooperate, but they probably won't kill me."
"And you knew all this when you adopted me," Finnick says flatly. He hauls on the line to adjust the jib. "Well? What can they ask me to do that you think I'll balk at? I've already killed children."
"Raping them?"
Finnick retorts, "Not as bad as killing them. Not if it keeps you alive."
"Losing a fight? Publicly?" That's what Rudder, one-time holder of the record for number of kills, refused to do.
She can see only the briefest indication on Finnick's face that he wouldn't like it, before he smiles broadly. "Best to keep them underestimating me, right? I passed as half-trained in the arena, and I'm trying to pass as half-brained now."
"Admitting that you only won because of the favor of your sponsors? No fourteen-year-old could make it out alive on his own, after all."
"I've pretty much said something to that effect, based on the hints you gave me during my media blitz, and now that you've been more explicit, I'll say it right out if you want during my Victory Tour."
"Good." Mags wishes with all her being she'd had any kind of influence over Rudder twenty years ago. "Marrying someone you can't stand and pretending to be madly in love?" Finnick's already prepared for the fact that he, like Brine, is going to have to appear shallow and pleasure-seeking in public, with casual fling after casual fling to disguise his intense focus on his goals. But she's been around the block a few more times and knows he isn't imagining even a fraction of the possibilities.
"That's what affairs are for, right?"
Mags frowns. It's good that he's preparing himself for the worst, but this blasé conviction that he can handle whatever comes his way is veering into dangerous territory of overconfidence. "Killing someone you've worked with out on the water and making it look like an accident?"
Finnick's mouth twists. "The second part will be new."
"Cutting my tongue out because you said something on camera that they didn't like?"
He doesn't have a quick answer for that one.
"They don't have to kill me right away," Mags points out. "And they can make you do their dirty work. Either you cut out my tongue with your clever killer hands or they kill me and make you watch."
Finnick stares at her. All the liveliness is gone from his face. "Then I'll just have to make sure they're pleased with me at all times, won't I."
"You will," Mags agrees. "Just don't ever be confident that they are, or that it's enough. You're a threat just by virtue of existing. Everything you do for the rest of your life will be a struggle to offset that. You're starting out in the red, and the best you can do is break even."
The rest of the morning cruise is silent. Mags misses his laughter, and she'll hate herself if she's killed it forever, but not telling him would be crueler.
Finnick turns them around to bring them back in when the sea starts to get too crowded, and they can't go out any further without being accosted by Peacekeepers. As they're coming in, Mags takes advantage of a moment when his hands aren't busy to put her arms around him and whisper in his ear. "Remember this forever: no matter what happens, it's not your fault. They can punish you if you do nothing wrong, and they can tell you you were wrong even if you were right. It's not your fault. Never forget that."
Finnick doesn't hug her back, or answer, but today she feels like her every word is making an impression on him.
"We'll come out here again to talk, right?" is the only thing he asks, right before they're about to pass into the press of boats and people on the docks. As soon as they're within visual range, Finnick puts on his camera smile.
"Yes, but it has to be my idea. You have to pretend you're just paying back a favor." Finnick knows about the surveillance in the victors' houses, but he hasn't yet developed Mags' finely honed sense of timing, of what looks suspicious and what doesn't. Because boats can be bugged too.
But that doesn't mean he doesn't have ways of signaling her that he wants to talk, which she answers with a minuscule nod, then picks a day and time she thinks is safe.
He's vibrant once again, not the subdued boy she brought back to shore last time. He sails like he's one with the boat. Watching him, Mags thinks that, whatever crazy stunts he's been pulling lately, Finnick is still on track to be the hero this district needs.
"I've been thinking about what you said," Finnick begins as soon as they have the privacy. "Last time. You knew all this when you adopted me. When you sent me into the arena. And you never said. So you must have trusted me."
He should be smirking with pride, and maybe he will before the day is out, but right now he looks older than fourteen, like he knows that trust is not just praise, but responsibility.
"So I decided." Finnick faces Mags and turns his laser-like intensity on her. "I'm not going to screw this up, Mags." The beginnings of a smile play at the corners of his mouth. "I've got this."
Finnick's giving her the same look he gave her when he announced his intention to rig the draw, or when he was about to get on the hovercraft to the arena.
Not overconfident after all. Not casual, like he thinks it'll be easy. Like he knows it'll be hard, but his entire life has been building up to this, and his whole being is united in pursuit of one goal. I'm ready, his body promises, even more than his words.
Mags believes him. She can't do otherwise. He's proven himself too many times. Helpless to resist, she feels her hand drift up and watches it cover his cheek. This is what happens when you don't have children. You get to pick the one who's just like you.
Then she chuckles, because they couldn't be more different.
Everything after that is just details, her advising him on what she thinks the Capitol wants from him, and him brainstorming with her the best way to give it to them in a way that leaves him with elbow room. This is her boy, meeting a goal that's worthy of him.
Finnick proves he's on the same wavelength with Mags when he grins after navigating them safely through a choppy patch of water. "You know me, Mags. I like a challenge."
"I've inducted Finnick," Mags announces at a meeting of key revolutionaries. Her, Donn, Pearleye. She'll pass on the news to Rudder and the others on another occasion. They can't meet in too large a group at once.
Pearleye shakes her head forebodingly. "That crazy fourteen-year-old? You've doomed us all."
"Fifteen," Donn corrects automatically, then makes an impatient face at himself for stooping to trivia when there are important matters at stake.
"Oh, right, how could I miss the media storm?" Pearleye rolls her eyes. Finnick's birthday was a scarce few weeks after the Victory Tour that had only whetted the country's appetite for him. Victors get a lot of coverage in their first year, but Mags has never seen anything to match the cameras' love affair with Finnick Odair.
"You're sure about this?" Donn asks, more willing to give Mags the benefit of the doubt. "He did handle his tour well, I'll grant him that."
Pearleye says with condescension, "Screwing up a victory tour, that takes talent. All that stuff is scripted."
But she's never been on one, so she doesn't know the pressures, nor the behind-the-scenes machinations. Pearleye went through the Career academy, but Mags talked her out of volunteering, because she needs her good strategy protégées for leadership in the revolution.
Finnick did do a good job, and Mags was pleased. "I'm doling out information to him in dribs and drabs as he proves himself. He doesn't know about the secession or open warfare yet, just that I'm trying to change things to make life easier on us in the districts. I'm not trusting him with more than he can handle, and there will be a lot of testing over the next few years, believe me. But the thing about Finnick is that he'll go crazy if he isn't pushed to his limits. Mentoring tributes and training Careers is not going to be enough for him. It's too routine, even if it's painful for those of us who do it."
"And an utterly secret, painfully slow revolution, in which nothing visible happens for years and years except planning and preparing, is going to be enough for him?" Pearleye questions. "He's not going to rush it into breaking out prematurely and getting us all killed?"
Mags smiles knowingly at Donn, who looks uncomfortable. "Well, I've had that problem with all my victors. But we're lucky: he likes acting. He actually likes being underestimated."
Donn is skeptical. "Dangerous to bank on, for someone who likes his ego trips as much as that. Yes, he lasted a week in the arena before they started to catch on. We need him to last a lot longer than a week."
Mags is expecting to live and die before the preparations for open warfare are deemed ready. It makes her sad, but also relieved. She's lived through war and then oppression, and while she believes war is right, she has no reason to believe it'll be easier than the status quo.
"He'll last. If it makes you feel any better, he doesn't know you're involved. In fact, he doesn't know anyone else is involved. As far as he's concerned, it's just me and what I want from him."
Pearleye takes a deep breath. "That does make me feel better, in fact."
Donn nods his agreement. "What do you want from him, out of curiosity?"
"Diversions. I want him to be the lapdog of the Capitol, to convince Snow that we're as loyal a district as Two. That every child in the district wants to grow up to be Finnick, living it large. When he gets older, maybe I'll want more. But for now, that's enough to be getting on with."
"That could be useful," Donn concedes. "No one's wanted to be me for a while now."
Finnick broke her heart by agreeing cheerfully to her proposal. Sometimes Mags is confident she knows him inside and out, while at other times she runs up against a wall of certainty that she has no idea what goes on inside his head. Every time he's presented with a devastating turn of events, he gathers himself together, rises to the occasion, and laughs it off. If he secretly hates this playacting, she can't tell any more than if he secretly hated the Hunger Games.
All she can do is try to guess what he needs. And the only reassurance she has that she's getting anything at all right is that he keeps coming back to her for advice.
The Sixty-sixth Victory Tour, with its new, not nearly as exciting victor, is only a brief distraction from the ongoing media obsession with Finnick Odair. A month shy of his sixteenth birthday, he's declared an adult, and he starts being publicly courted. Mags wonders if it was harder for him to wait this long, or to start this young. Like the Hunger Games, maybe: he wanted more time, so he jumped in feet first. Who can know?
It disturbs her that Finnick won't tell her, but he's had to grow up too fast. She's half relieved that she can't wheedle the information out of him. Finnick has an abundance of practice deflecting questions and revealing only what he intends to. The fact that he can use these interview skills even on her gives Mags mounting confidence in his ability to keep her secrets.
As often as she can get away with, Mags drags him out on the water. Once or twice, she becomes convinced that he's annoyed at her cutting into his free time. Frustrated, she immediately starts working on backup plans to make sure he still gets the mentorship he doesn't think he needs any more. But then the moment they have any kind of privacy, he lets his relief show.
Her mouth trembles. You're getting good enough to fool me, boy. Finnick's been working the Capitol for over a year now, with whatever guidance she can give him, but no actual help. No wonder he's trying to handle as much as he can on his own.
He only ever asks for feedback on the public aspects of his performances, and from his questions Mags tries to fill in the blanks to get at what he's really thinking.
Not until he's seventeen, back from his latest Capitol visit, does Finnick open up about his emotions to her, and then only just enough to tantalize.
"Do you ever worry that all this pretend will actually turn me into a playboy?" Finnick teases, his eyes laughing at her. He can still look fourteen when they doll him up in the Capitol to look like the victor they all fell in love with, but out here in the water with his mask off, she can see him carrying the weight of years that no one should have to carry at seventeen.
Mags returns the smile politely, but goes for the jugular. "Do you want it to? I let Brine, after all."
For once, Finnick answers her seriously. "I never wanted to be Brine. I wanted you to be proud of me."
Only years of practice at concealing her thoughts allow Mags to hide her dismay. Is that why you're not talking to me? Do you think I wouldn't be proud of you if I knew? "Oh, honey, I am." She touches his cheek with her hand and tries to think how to tell him that in a way he'll believe. "You're doing what I asked you to?"
"Keeping the Capitol happy with District Four?" Finnick nods. "I'm doing my best, and as far as I know, it's working."
"I haven't heard otherwise," Mags assures him. "You're giving me what I need that I have no one else to count on for. I do my best to keep Brine safe personally, but I've never asked him for anything. He's not reliable like you. So whatever you have to do to make that happen, it's okay, it really is. Whatever compromises, whatever wouldn't be acceptable at home—it's a different world in the Capitol, isn't it?"
Finnick barely nods. From his muted reaction, she can see him trying not to let on that moving in that world has been difficult.
"Of course. Whatever you do to survive in it is to your credit as far as I'm concerned. And I have no one else who can navigate it as well as you're doing."
As always, this is what Finnick needs to hear. "I kept them from threatening you," he reminds her. "President Snow and I are on very amicable terms."
Finnick's never told her what the President wanted from him that day, only that he did as Mags suggested and agreed immediately to it. "Nothing I can't live with," is all he'll say on the subject.
"I'm proud of you," Mags repeats, and her hand drops from Finnick's cheek to his shoulder. "But I meant it when I told you to come to me if there's anything you can't stand. We may or may not be able to eliminate it, but we can find elbow room. There's always elbow room if you play your cards carefully. I don't want you to hate what you're doing. We can find some other way."
I don't want you to hate me.
"I keep wondering if I shouldn't hate it more," Finnick confides. "If hating it wouldn't make me a better person."
"How so?" Mags asks. This is not what she imagines when she lies awake fretting over her boy.
"Well." Finnick spreads his hands. "I haven't lost any sleep over my kills. Aren't you supposed to? And now I'm sailing around the Capitol cashing in on my celebrity. With...like you said, all the things that wouldn't be acceptable at home." Mags lets out the breath she's been holding, hoping. That's as close as he'll come to giving her the details. "Meanwhile everyone here is working their fingers to the bone trying to meet the quotas without overfishing so we—they—can still meet quotas next season..."
Her baby's grown up. He's starting to see the world other than in terms of how it affects him. She kept telling herself this would happen, but now that it is happening, she's never been so proud.
"Of course you should hate your job more," Mags says tenderly. "That would solve everything. Quotas would go down, no one here would be hungry, my arthritis would go away...all if you hated your life."
Finnick smiles involuntarily. "Okay. I get it. I've been going back and forth, you know. Sometimes I tell myself, why spend the energy hating something you can't change? And then I feel better about it. But other times, it's more...you're not supposed to be the kind of person who can enjoy what I do. Not if you want to respect yourself."
"You can hate the idea that you have to do it," Mags tells him. "I do. I'm trying to change that, and you're helping. If you can live with the fact that it's going to take a long time?"
Finnick makes a face. "I can't imagine how it can change at all. So if you say it can...then what I'm doing is worth it."
"It may take longer than you've been alive," Mags says. "Hopefully not as long as I've been alive. But I do believe it can be changed. It hasn't always been like this, and it won't always be. Are you afraid that enjoying yourself is going to turn you into what you're pretending?"
"I worry about it sometimes. But I think I can keep the act and the reality straight. I think you're right, hating the idea of it will be enough." Finnick pauses, winds the end of the rope he's holding around his fingers, and asks with slow emphasis, "It is important? It is making a difference?"
"I've promised you before that if I ask you to do something, it's important."
Finnick nods, looking reassured.
"But you can tell me about the difficult parts," Mags urges. "We'll do what we can. There isn't anything you can't tell me, honey."
Finnick disappoints but doesn't surprise her when he shakes his head. "Better not. I've seen the ones who do let themselves hate it, and you can tell. Snow can tell. I can't risk anyone seeing through my act. The only reason no one's been threatened is because my acting is good enough. It's fine. I told you, nothing I can't live with."
Mags resigns herself with a sigh. "As long as you know you never have anything to be ashamed of. It may look on the surface like you're just having a good time, but the reality is that together you and I are shaping the future. You'll get more tasks from me as time goes on, I promise. Some will be easier. Some may be harder."
She could give him sympathy. She can see it's hard on him beneath the bravado. All the more so if he can't admit to what's going on. But sympathy isn't going to see him through the years he's facing. A sense of purpose will. Empowerment is the greatest gift she can give him.
"I feel like I'm already getting some." Finnick gives her a triumphant I'm on to you look. "I feel like the amount of training I'm getting on reading fast, upside down, out of the corner of my eye, is suspiciously out of proportion to what I need in order to make up for all those missed days of school."
Mags raises her eyebrows neutrally. "Do you?"
"I do." Finnick is smug. "I couldn't figure it out until I was in the Capitol this time. And then I realized I could read things without letting on that I'm reading them. So I started giving myself practice. Innocent stuff, mostly. And I practiced always having a cover story if I was caught." He lifts his chin proudly. "But I wasn't."
Mags stops suppressing the smile that's spreading across her face. "Sounds like you're ready for the next task, then. I've only waited this long because I've been trying to make sure you have time to fully master one task before I add another. I want you to have all the challenges you thrive on, but I need you to respect your limits as well."
"That's what Rudder's always saying when he's training us," Finnick says.
"Of course. There are a few things he and I agree on, you know." Mags steers the conversation back to the point she's trying to hammer home. "And that's why it's important that you come to me before you hit your limits in the Capitol. You can enjoy it all you want, it doesn't mean it's easy." Let him know he's not fooling her on this, at least. "I can't have you ending up one of the victors who can't handle facing yet another day."
"I won't!" Finnick looks insulted.
"It can happen to anyone," Mags warns. "So I'll keep giving you difficult assignments, and I'll trust you to use your best judgment to make all the accommodations you need in order to keep handling these assignments as long as possible." There's only one way to get Finnick to ask for help, and that's to cast it as a sign of good judgment.
"I promise." Finnick hesitates, and Mags waits. Her heart leaps, because maybe this is it, the moment she got through to him. "Mags? I believe you that anything you ask me to do is important. And I trust you that it's making a difference. I'll keep doing whatever you ask, I promise. But maybe it would help if I could see that more clearly for myself. I don't mean I'm not willing to wait," he hastens to add. "I understand changes like this take years, decades. But if the connection were more obvious..."
"It'll be more obvious the more deeply involved you are in my plans," Mags tells him. "Which, based on what you've told me today, starts now. Settle in. I'm putting you to work." Half promise, half threat.
Finnick glows with pride. "I'm going to be the best thing that's ever happened to you," he boasts.
Mags lets the love in her eyes show. "You only think you're joking, boy."