They ran up the stairs, twisting down corridors, turning abruptly whenever they heard footsteps or voices. Lights flashed by them, the sparkle of glass, and the scent of flowers that speared from towering urns.
It was so much like that first time, when he'd led her down the alleys, through the streets, the scents and sounds of One following them as they went. She should have always known they'd end up here.
He swung them past a large marble statue of a king from long ago, pressed her against the wall just before two guards walked out of one of the side corridors. His breath was warm and hot against her ear, his heart thundering against her chest.
"Is there...is there any reason we're running?" Katniss whispered, as soon as the two men were out of earshot.
Peeta pulled his head back slightly, grinned. "Adds to the fun, doesn't it? Remind you a little of the first night we met?" She rolled her eyes at him - wouldn't admit that it was exactly what she'd just been thinking - and pushed away slightly from the wall. He didn't budge, causing her to lodge herself more firmly against him. He raised an eyebrow cheekily.
"Oh, so now you're not rushing," she grumbled, and he chuckled.
"Just wait, Katniss," he told her, leant them back into the shadows again.
The same two guards were back, repeating their previous walk, their footsteps heavy and in sync with each other, and she sighed inwardly. Of course. He lived here - he'd know the patterns of the guards routines better than anyone. He probably had them memorised, after a lifetime of people following his every step.
Once the echoes of their footsteps had disappeared, he stepped back, ran a hand through his hair, ruining whatever was left of the meticulous styling. "I didn't want them to see us, to send us back downstairs," he explained to her, reaching down and threading his fingers through hers. The intimacy of the touch still felt odd, but not unwelcome. And she couldn't deny that she liked it - she'd admitted that much to Peeta already, simply by admitting that she felt something for him.
And she knew she should take advantage of his touch while she still could, before proprietary and societal matches could intervene.
"Let's go then, before they come back," she replied, and he tugged on her hand with a grin.
She followed him, clutching the length of her skirt in her hand so as it didn't get tangled between her legs. She was glad that Cinna had given her the smallest heels possible, allowing her to keep up with Peeta without having to kick off the shoes. And she was surprised when the small laugh fell from her lips.
Even in the middle of everything going on, Peeta had still managed to find a way for her to laugh.
She finally saw the two mahogany doors that led to the room she'd been appointed at the end of the corridor, and they ran towards them, Peeta spinning and locking the doors behind him once they'd run through. He leant against the gleaming wood, laughing as he tried to catch his breath.
"I'm incredibly unfit," he grinned at her. "Running isn't my strongest suit."
"Or it could also just be all that fancy palace food you eat," she countered with a smirk, dropping onto a small chaise and tugging her shoes off. He laughed at her again, shook his head, then crossed to the sofa across from her, falling down on it in a heap with a sigh.
Katniss was thankful, more than anything, that their jaunt through the palace had somewhat broken the tension that had fallen upon them as they'd danced. Things had felt so serious - the way Snow had seemed so threatening towards her, when Peeta had told her about his desire not to be King, the way he'd kissed her and told her he wanted to be alone with her.
Even now it twisted her stomach in knots, and she forced herself not to think about it.
"Do you think the Queen will come looking for us?" she asked, tugging her legs up until they were curled under her.
Peeta turned his head to look at her, and a lock of hair fell across his forehead before he pushed it away impatiently. "Likely," he shrugged. "They'll go to my room first if they do. And I locked the doors here, anyway, so they can't get in." He grinned, wide and cheekily. "Guards will probably tell her we weren't in my room, and that the doors were locked to yours - she'll be so scandalised she'll pretend it never happened."
"What, she thinks all her little boys are innocent?" Katniss tossed back, dropping her head until she felt the back of the lounge bump against it. She stared blindly up at the ceiling.
Peeta smiled. "The Queen doesn't take lightly to physical representations of feelings, or the implication of them. I'm not certain I've ever even seen her kiss my Father. And she'd probably have preferred it if Ethen, Aaran and I had all just appeared in the palace nursery one day," he replied wryly.
"It's possible," Katniss shrugged her shoulders, enjoyed the feeling of the smooth velvet of the seat against the bare skin of her back. "From what I've seen, it doesn't seem like you and your brothers are very much like her at all. And with ancient scrolls, and magic and genies floating around? These days, I guess I'd believe anything."
"Like being whisked off your feet by a Prince?"
Katniss snorted, closed her eyes. "You might have helped me, Peeta, but there certainly wasn't any whisking of feet."
"But you thought I was cute," he teased.
"Yeah, yeah," she replied. "But in that moment, anyone helping me would have looked cute."
She heard him smother a laugh. "Well I thought you looked magical in the moonlight."
If her eyes had been open, she would have rolled them. "Have you been reading poetry?"
"Effie - my tutor - gets me to read a whole lot of shit, but poetry isn't one of them. No, I'm just...telling the truth."
She felt the colour slowly creep into her cheeks, and didn't know what to say. Similarly, Peeta seemed at a loss for words, and the room fell silent until she heard the slight thud of shoes hitting the ground. It suddenly felt like there was no air in the room. "You felt something from that very first moment, didn't you, Katniss? Just like I did. It was like lightning. After, I couldn't couldn't get you out of my head."
Katniss chewed on her lower lip, forced her eyes to stay closed. Somehow, talking about this was so much easier when she wasn't looking at him. "I thought about you a lot," she admitted. "But I tried not to. You're the future King. And I'm...I'm from the poorest part of the poorest District."
"That shouldn't matter," Peeta said forcefully. "You know I don't care about that. I don't know how many more times we have to have this conversation."
"You might not, but others do," she said quietly.
"I care about you more than any of that. It's stupid and ridiculous and I know I've hardly known you for long at all. But I don't even care about that - only you."
"It is ridiculous," Katniss reiterated.
"And I don't care. I just...I just want to spend every possible moment with you while I still can."
Katniss swallowed heavily at the tone of his voice. It had slowly lost all the playfulness that had been there since their escape from the ballroom, and had taken on the same timbre that he'd had when they'd been dancing.
"So do I," she finally whispered, and she heard his sharp intake of breath.
"Katniss?"
"Yes?"
"Will you come here, please?"
She slowly lifted her head, opened her eyes and looked at him. He'd moved so that he was sitting on the edge of his sofa, jacket strewn on the floor and the tie around his neck loosened. He rested his elbows on his thighs, his fingers looped together casually. If was only his eyes that gave any indication as to how he was feeling.
"Why?"
The corner of his mouth turned up slightly. "Because I want to kiss you again."
"Oh." Her heart hammered in her chest as she took in his words. His kisses did ridiculous things to her.
Instead of waiting, he rose to his feet, crossed to her and held out his hand. Looking up into his eyes, she took it.
Peeta pulled her to her feet, tugged her into his arms so quickly she practically tumbled into them. And then he was kissing her again, and she didn't have time to think anymore.
His mouth was hot on hers, much, much needier than the kiss down in the ballroom. His fingers clenched around hers like a vice, and his other hand snaked around her waist, his palm splaying against her hip. She slipped her own free arm around his neck, drawing him closer.
She forgot about everyone and everything except for Peeta.
The pain lanced through his skull, shooting down his spine. He wanted to clasp his hands to his head, tried to close his eyes in the hope that blocking out the light boring into them would help the pain.
But whatever they'd injected into him made his body useless, nothing but his mind and his eyes alert and functioning to recognise what was happening.
Dammit. They'd caught him.
He'd been so focused on Katniss, making sure that she was safe, that she was going to be ok, that he'd brushed aside any thought that they'd come after him. It looked like he'd severely miscalculated the lengths that Snow would go to to get to the bottom of what was going on.
Haymitch's eyes darted from side to side, tried to make out what was in the room with him. It was stark, white, almost blinding in its brightness. A single silver chair was situated in front of him, where he was strung up by the wrists to the ceiling. His legs hung like limp spaghetti towards the floor, where they were shackled with strong silver chains, and he knew his eyes were somehow clamped open, could feel it from the way his skin was stretched, taut and strained across his forehead.
He didn't know how long he'd been like this for - it could have been minutes, hours, days. He'd already had shocks of electricity shot into his chest, already had a blunt object jammed into his belly repeatedly, and he'd been in too much pain to even worry about the time.
And all the while, he'd wondered how the hell this was even happening.
Never, in all the time he'd been a genie, had he heard of one being able to be contained in this way. He supposed, of course, that was simply because none of them had been tortured before, and he was the lucky first. But damn, he wish he had a guidebook for this. Then at least he'd be able to-
His heart somersaulted in his chest.
Book.
Shit.
He knew, even without reaching into his pocket, that the book was gone, that they'd taken it. And if they'd taken it, it only meant one thing.
They'd read it.
A door he hadn't even seen on his quick study of the room suddenly opened, and with it the bright light shut off, replaced instead by a dim glow. He wasn't surprised when it was Snow who walked in, and rather than lowering himself to the seat, he stood directly in front of Haymitch - so close, he could feel the man's cool, wintry breath on his face.
"I'm not going to waste time, Mr Abernathy," he began without preamble. "I read your book. A very...interesting read. It explains a lot."
Haymitch opened his mouth to speak - only to find nothing came out. Zip. Nada. He was mute.
The smile - evil and cold and bitter - slid across Snow's face as he caught what Haymitch could only imagine was abject horror in his eyes. "Don't worry. It's not permanent, your...ailments. In fact, there's a good chance it will all wear off in about ten minutes. And I think you know why."
He did. And all Haymitch could do was move his eyes up and down in silent agreement.
"Good, I'm glad you understand." Snow steepled his fingers together, pressed the tips of his fingers to the underside of his chin. "I never would have guessed, you know. A genie. How utterly fantastical and...unbelieveable. But I suppose for a country that stupidly guides itself from a set of paper scrolls, I shouldn't be surprised. I wonder, I wonder what it was that made Katniss Everdeen worthy of wishes." He paused, and his dark eyes danced with excitement. "Though that doesn't matter in the slightest anymore. The wishes are mine now, and you're going to help me, Mr Abernathy. You really have no choice in the matter."
It burned in Haymitch's gut, because he knew he was right. The book stated it, clear as day, on the second page.
In the event that this history is viewed by someone other than a current Wishee, that person will automatically be granted three wishes of their choosing.
Snow pulled the book from his pocket, brandished it like a trophy."Now, once you're able to move, Mr Abernathy, you'll grant me my first wish. It's been something that I aspired to, for a very long time, but due to birthright, was beyond my reach. I wish to be King."
Haymitch felt his stomach roll and his blood boil - he could hardly think of anything worse. But the rules demanded it; he really didn't have a choice in the matter. So while he waited for his body to get its shit together and start working again, he thought. And thought hard. He wouldn't let the old man win, not on his watch.
He'd do whatever it took.
Awareness came first - the feeling of silky strands of hair strewn across his chest, a hand resting limply on his abdomen, a foot pressing comfortably against his calf from the leg that was flung over his own.
And he remembered.
Katniss.
They'd kissed for what had felt like hours during the night, until his lips had been swollen and his breath had come short. He'd shivered every time her fingernails had trailed underneath his shirt and across his stomach; he'd returned the favour by playing his fingers down her bare spine. And in the end, they'd simply twined themselves around each other and whispered in the dark, talking about their lives before they knew each other, told secrets they never would have told anyone else. For them, it had felt right to share them, knowing they may never get a chance like this again.
And while the teenage boy in Peeta may have ached for Katniss, may have wanted to take things further than they had, the responsible future King in him knew it wasn't the right thing to do. Not now, not when so much was going on, and Katniss' safety from Snow still wasn't assured.
Lifting a hand to trail his fingers through her hair, he stretched slightly, and the sheet beneath him scratched at his back. His brow furrowed, and his eyes flickered open sleepily, gazed at the gilded ceiling above him.
Except it wasn't gilded. It was nothing but plain wooden rafters, similar to those in the servants quarters.
What the hell?
Rising carefully on his elbow, so as to not disturb Katniss, he looked in surprise around the room. It was definitely not the one they'd fallen asleep in the night before, definitely not the one where he'd kissed her senseless as he'd pressed his body against hers. Plain wooden furniture, a simple blue bedspread over the double bed, and a small window that let in a few rays of early morning light, basic grey drapes blocking out the rest.
They were most definitely in the servants quarters.
He turned to look down at Katniss' sleeping form, hated having to wake her. But he needed to know how they'd gotten here. Had he drunk more at the Gala than he'd thought? Had they been banished here during the night by his mother and he couldn't even remember?
"Katniss," he whispered, nudging her shoulder carefully. She scrunched up her nose and turned her head in response. And while that probably would have endeared her to him at any other time, right now a panic was rising in his chest that he needed to clamp down. "Katniss," he said louder, a little more firmer.
"What?" She demanded, though her eyes remained closed. "I'm tired."
"Yeah, well, I'm a little concerned right now."
At his words, her eyes blinked open, then widened as she took in their surroundings, abruptly sitting upright. "Peeta, what are we doing in here? Where the hell are we?"
He shook his head. "I don't know. It looks like we're in the servants quarters - and I was hoping you may have been able to shed some light on how we got here."
"I don't have a clue," she replied, rubbing her eyes, before glancing around the room again. "I remember falling asleep in my room and then..."
"Were we drunk?"
"No," Katniss snapped indignantly.
"Maybe my Mom..."
Peeta watched as Katniss dragged herself out of bed with a huff, straightened the now wrinkled dress from the night before. She threw his shirt at him that he'd strewn across the foot of the bed. "Here, put this on. Maybe she did. And rather than trying to figure it out here like idiots, let's just ask."
"Ok," he nodded, slipping the shirt over his shoulders, and quickly buttoning it up. He still couldn't shift the worry that was slowly but surely engulfing him.
They opened the door, stepped out into the hall, made their way down to the entry to the servants corridor. He'd run through these corridors enough as a kid to know exactly where they led, with their myriad of hidden entrances to rooms, to ensure they were 'neither seen nor heard as little as possible' as his mother had always preferred. So when Peeta took the corridor he knew would lead to his Father's study, and opened the concealed door into the room, he was confused.
To say the least.
Where his father had favored relatively clean lines and a nod to his past with his own Father's desk, the study was now a sea of opulence that not even Peeta was used to. The simple mahogany desk had been replaced by a much more ornate version, one with gold piped into the trim. The chair behind it was burgundy, overstuffed, and reminiscent of furniture he'd seen in art history books from centuries before. Even the inkwell on the desk - which had been brass and a little worn - gleamed with the sheen of pure gold and winked with diamonds. Something twisted, sharp and fierce, in his belly.
"Uh...Katniss, you didn't happen to wish anything overnight, did you?" He asked hesitantly. He watched as she opened her mouth, then closed it again, her fingers reaching up to massage her temple.
"I don't think so. I don't remember doing it."
"You're right, Miss Everdeen, you didn't. But I did." Both Peeta and Katniss whirled at the sound of the voice, found Master Advisor Snow standing in the open doorway, Crane close by his side - and Haymitch bringing up the rear, his eyes lowered in deference. His hands were bound by a thick silver chain, and even from the other side of the room, Peeta could see the stains of dried blood on his lip and on his forehead.
"Oh no," he heard Katniss whisper suddenly, and turned to see her face pale and her eyes wide. "You read the book."
Snow pressed his hands together in a slow, mocking clap. "Of course, Miss Everdeen. Last night, after it was clear the Prince - or should I say kitchen hand - wasn't going to leave your side, we had to change tactics. Turned out, of course, it should have been Mr Abernathy we were after all along." He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small, tattered book - the one Haymitch had told Peeta couldn't be read by anyone but the wisher, at the result of 'dire consequences'.
He couldn't think of anything more dire than what he was hearing right now.
"Hold on," Peeta said authoritatively. "Please explain to me what is going on."
"What's going on?" Snow smirked. "Oh dear boy, you are in the dark, aren't you? I read the book; I get three wishes - it states it explicitly. And my first wish...well, let's just say I'm the ruler of this country now. Not your father, and most certainly not you. Nor that bitch you call a mother." He sighed. "All those years I spent having her on side, trying to determine how to best usurp this throne. And all along all I needed was a stupid book and a genie."
It was too much for Peeta to take in - he reached out a hand to the fireplace, gripped onto its mantel like a lifeline. "Where is my family?" He demanded.
Snow shrugged. "I suspect the servants quarters, much like where you were. I believe your new roles will suit you all considerably."
Peeta looked at the man in front of him - someone he'd known all along he should never trust - at the bearded man by his side gazing at Snow in adoration, and at Haymitch. Everything on Haymitch's face conveyed exactly what he felt - a combination of anger, guilt, reluctance, shame - but Peeta knew he couldn't blame him. He was as bound by his own rules and regulations as Peeta was.
Or, at least, had been.
"You won't get away with this," Peeta said firmly.
"I already have," Snow shrugged. "And there's really nothing you can do about it."
"I'll find a way, I promise you."
"Oh dear boy...run along. Before I get bored of you." And while his tone was light, the look in Snow's eyes was anything but.
Grabbing Katniss' hand, Peeta dragged her back into the passageway, towards the servants quarters, with the ringing of Snow's laughter in his ears.
It had been one thing to see Snow settled in his fathers study.
It was another entirely to see the King himself kneading dough in the kitchen, hands dusted in flour and tears pouring down his cheeks.
"I don't know what's happened," he was muttering, his voice breaking. "I got woken up by a banging on my door telling me I was late to my shift, and I saw the room, and I just...I don't know what's happening, Peeta." He looked up, his eyes swimming. "How has Snow done this? And how does no one except our family remember who we are, that we're the royal family?"
Peeta shook his head. "I don't think you'd believe me if I told you."
"But..." the King looked back down at his hands, smooth from years of menial tasks. But there was a noticeable burn mark on the back of his hand, fresh and marring the pale skin. "How can Snow be King? The head cook practically laughed at me when I asked if I could go to my study. 'Your study? You mean King Coriolanus's study?' And everything inside me wondered how things had gone to hell while I'd been asleep."
"Father, trust me-"
Nolan turned to him impatiently, the tears quickly drying as frustration set in. "Peeta, this country has been turned on its head the last month. First it was the goings on in Twelve-" he gestured towards Katniss, who stood silently at Peeta's side -"And now this? The scrolls never warned us of these happenings, but it's the end. Of everything. I can feel it."
"The end?" Peeta echoed. "Of everything?"
"I'm not King anymore and Snow is," Nolan said bitterly. "Of course it's the end of everything." He began working the dough again, punching his fists into it harder than he should have. "And I'm a baker, for crying out loud! I've never baked in my life. How do I know how to do this?" He gestured to the loaves of bread already cooling on a rack.
"I...I don't know," Peeta admitted, and he felt Katniss' hand slip into his, squeezing it gently in support.
Nolan shook his head, sighed, kneaded the dough for a few moments in silence. "You warned me for so long, Peeta. You warned me against Master Advis- King Snow, and I just blindly ignored you. You have better instincts than I do."
"That's not true, Father," Peeta protested. "I just...had more of an opportunity to observe from afar. And there's nothing we can do about it now."
A commotion behind them caused them all to turn in time to see Aaran stumble into the room, grass in his hair and dirt on his face. "Sw-sw-switch on the screen," he gasped out, pointing towards the small projector unit in the corner of the kitchen. Peeta looked at him curiously, while Katniss moved over to turn the system on. It flickered to life, and the image of Caesar Flickerman, the host of the top rating morning news and entertainment program, was gesticulating wildly. Katniss leant over to push a few more buttons, and suddenly his exuberant voice boomed through the speakers.
"We just couldn't believe the word from the palace this morning, folks! But I can definitely, 100%, undoubtedly confirm that the Hunger Games are back!"
Peeta felt his jaw drop, heard Katniss' sharp intake of breath. They looked at each other in horror.
"I guess that's wish number two," she murmured, and his stomach pitched.
Not only had he taken over the throne, but Snow had brought back the most despicable part of Panem's history. On purpose.
He could only imagine what his third wish would be.
A/N - Only one chapter to go after this! Thank you so much for reading, for your follows, favourites and reviews :)
