One week before Reaping Day.


The Chairman of Commerce has never conversated directly with any region above Satin's neckline, but that's hardly a problem. She wouldn't be conversating with him without the Commerce.

Warm chestnut hair flows all the way to her ass, and her dress doesn't go much farther. The stylists did her nails in long, lucent silver. They always want to remind people about the daggers. Dangerous. Not dangerous enough to keep them away. Her scent and her voice are crystallized honey and they beg to choke on her. Some of them inordinately.

"I have got to go, Decius- I wish I could stay. My train is coming. Decius, stop that. You're appalling." She giggles and tugs at his hand, loosing him from her arm. She knows how to break every finger in one motion. She knows how she could angle it to any of the station's security cameras overhead. But she's perfectly gentle. She only made a mistake in her first year out.

"The train's not going to leave without you," he's chuckling. Another squeeze. Finally, a huff of surrender, and he steps back, hands raised. His bone-white cowlick settles like snow on a tomato complexion. The air conditioning is wobbling the peak of it. "Ah, well. I can't keep a Victor from her appointments. You tell me you'll have space for lunch before game day."

"One lunch. One." She crosses her heart. A tiny pout accentuates the second heart of her mouth. "You're buying, Dec. I have got to save for my tribute. You don't know how much this dress put me down."

"All eight inches of it? You're outpacing that allowance, kitten."

"Please, Mr. Fring, my tribute."

"You're a whiner, you know that? You're a little whiner." He's still laughing. The cowlick twitches. Satin Chanay looks up, up from under. Wet eyes. Her tongue touches her top lip.

Decius swallows.

"My tribute," she pleads. "I have a feeling about this year. I know that sounds silly. But I haven't- not since…"

"Hey. Hey, no. Don't think about that." His thumb lifts her chin. "Why don't I- tell you what. We're gonna sign a little preliminary. A little conditional...how's this? I'll sign for it right now. A hundred k, conditionally, for when, uh, the munchkin makes the fifth day. That's easy, right? All right, come on. One more. Can't let you miss that train."

One more kiss on the cheek from tiptoe. She leaves a tear on the bridge of his nose like a crystal. A shiver goes through his shoulders. "My knight in shining houndstooth."

"That's me." With a genial, outdone sigh, the Chairman draws up the contract on his mobile, taps in the number, and signs, reversing the screen for her confirmation. "Get something special with that."

"I promise. I've got to go, it's already pulling in. Thank you, Dec- and lunch! I won't forget. You'll see me when they play the Reapings. Keep your channel tuned!"

"You'll be the death of me, woman." He clutches his chest. She really is hurrying now, heels clacking on marble, and he's forced to raise his voice over the incoming whirr of the train. "May the odds!"

"Ever in my favor." She blows a dry-eyed kiss. One more smile as she boards, an attendant helping her onto the stairs. Decius's cowlick is billowing in the wind. She thinks she would be able to part it with a knife from here. It's not for certain. But she is only fourteen years out, and her arms are still as steady as they are dainty. She was only fourteen when she made it through an Academy cull missing four fingernails and all the skin off her palms. They still have the recording of it somewhere in the files, her refusal to cry out, to even gasp. The Academy remembers everything.

There are no cameras in the second washroom. With the smile slipping off her face like cold oatmeal, Satin goes straight to it. She washes her face and her arms until the skin glows raspberry pink.

An avox knocks on the door with her tonic water. She takes it, rinses, and tosses it back, reaching for her cosmetics next. "A hundred k on the first day is enough for a jar of pears, a rack of lamb, a firestarting kit, and an all-weather sleeping bag." She reapplies foundation, rapidly dotting the brush in an even pattern across her cheeks. Powder puffs copiously into the mirror and sink. "A hundred k on the fifth day is enough for the firestarters."

The avox bows her head in apology.

"He's a tight-fisted mutt. I've had him around my finger since the fiftieth. Now he's mostly onto Lindell. He's too distractible. Wake me an hour before we're in the District."

The avox nods, and takes the tonic glass away.

Satin heads to her quarters, peeling off her dress and shoes at the door. She burrows under the heavy blanket and rests her eyes for ten minutes, counting off the seconds. The Academy teaches you to do that so you can time your private training sessions. She won't forget.

So Decius is slipping. It's not her fault- she hasn't gained a pound or a wrinkle since seventeen. It's simply that she's familiar. She's decade-old news. So much for brand loyalty. She kneads a pillow in her fists. It's...not as though she's starving for sponsors. You can't prance ten feet in the Capitol without running into a roving ad for Chanay Hair Products or Body Glitter. Two baking shows are fighting over her famous Strawberry Bloodbath Bombs, and her face has been digitally pasted to enough cheap X-holos to muster a league of horny teenage boys with their parents' pocket money.

She just...needs this year. She needs to get this one. She needs another chance.

Working alongside Rowella this year is going to be another formidable pain in the neck, and she'll need resources. She's going to get Amber Lindell on the line and work something over. She'll get the Governor of Tesserae's wife to return the favor for that appearance at her kid's birthday party. The discounted garden supplies voiceover is barely thirty k, but that's a third of a firestarting kit on the fifth day. Let's not be wasteful here. If you're not all in, you're telling your tribute they aren't worth it.

After 600 seconds, Satin rolls over, and reaches for the mobile on her nightstand so she can call her father. She needs one shot of good luck today. Just one.


"The graduating class is one of our record-setters. Numbers across the board are high in dexterity, loyalty, and magnetism. Of course, our washouts were also at a high."

Rowella slides a thumb over the handler's spotless console. Every surface is white or golden chrome in here. You can't tell night from day in the enclosure. They're really amping up this aesthetic, and she's not sure she's fond of it. "Five graduates, correct?"

"Two females, three males." The handler smiles with teeth that could channel solar power. Rowella glances at the nametag. 'Ruby.' Miner's kid. One of a passel, most likely. They get some of the most loyal ones out of there. They've lived hard enough to be grateful. "Miss Chanay will be commencing her Volunteer tomorrow, as coordinated. May I give you a brief showing of our current work before commencement?"

Rowella nods brusquely. "Accelerate it."

She starts down the corridor before Ruby can trot along with her clipboard. She should know the structure of it, anyway, besides the odd expanded facility or dorm block. She founded the place nigh on fifty years ago.

White, and gold, and silent. Windows overlook the tranquil inner courtyard. They pass the dormitories without comment. A week before the Games, training is easing off for everyone but the graduates, and many will be at recreation, or for the first time in months, sleeping in. Ruby checks her schedule and pauses outside a frosted glass door to swipe her card. Humid air washes out.

"Just a quick stop," she beams. Rowella raises an eyebrow. "Currently the ten year olds have the slot. We've recently implemented a full aquatic course."

A cluster of boys in short white trunks is grouped against the tile wall at the far end of a massive pool. Their quiet chattering cinches off instantly. Ruby claps her hands for them to line up. "Two laps."

"Decent coordination." Rowella crosses her broad arms as the boys streak through the warm water. She points with a pinky, low-voiced. "Cut number sixteen."

Ruby blinks, off-guard. That'd be points docked in interview prep, and a handler in her face with a brighter light, shouting her down. But she makes the note.

"He's too cautious. He doesn't power into it. He's saving his energy for later. If you don't throw yourself in, you won't get a later. He doesn't want the Games. He's wasting our time." The tall, hard-jawed woman points another knuckle. "And number seven," she indicates, as the children boost themselves onto the far end again. "Facial structure's too weak. I don't want it on Capitol screens."

Ruby makes an X on the list and orders ten further laps. Rowella points her chin once more. "Number two...restrict the protein. He's built for bulk. Needs to stay smooth."

Rowella is built with biceps and triceps to rival any Two, quadriceps like rebar. Her cropped hair is still dark. The Capitol engineers formulas and surgeries in a desperate race to beat advanced age, but the Victor maintains herself with the discipline of a new Volunteer. Only, they don't build Ones like her anymore. It's not the brand. The Capitol wants soft, pliable, shimmering young things who can kill like it's easy and promise the audience everything they ever wanted without saying a word. Rowella can sell that. The market is always changing.

They return to the hallway. Another quick stop turns out to be the gymnasium, occupied by a smaller group of fourteen year olds, lanky and golden. They perform against each other, proving themselves for the handler and Victor, all without acknowledging the presence of another person in the spacious room. The white athletic uniform is form-fitting. Number six, tall and curly-haired, jogs to the sidelines for a towel after his handsprings. As he passes, he casually strips off his shirt, slinging the towel over his brass-shiny shoulder. A darker-haired boy, number ten, tightens his jaw. Making the same move would only be copying now.

Rowella smirks. "Unsubtle, but I like six. Give him something for the initiative. And push number ten harder into image training or he'll be out before winter."

And they move to the final white room for the commencement.

Her hand slides over the frosted glass. There's a silhouette behind it of the boy. She's been waiting to see him in here for a long time.

"Everything's ready?" she checks. It's the oddest moment to stall. All of this she's done before.

"Everything's perfect."

Rowella leaves her behind, slides a card and enters this room that she's entered before, so many times. Pulled a couple of Victors. Lost too many of them. She stills her face, remote as the mountain caps. She'll get this one out.

The way he looks back at her, straight-backed and cold-eyed- he learned that from her. Small-framed and deadly quiet. A pale blond to her deep mahogany, with electric green eyes like a blow to the chest.

They're alone in the room, on either side of the pedestal, the crystal mock-Reaping bowl. He moves before she does, and she forces her feet to follow. Almost fumbles her hand to close over his. She can feel her heart. Stephenson's palm is cool and steady.

"The Academy of District One selects you for its highest appointment, Stephenson Coller," she tells her son. "Out of our graduates, we commence you."

He bows his head.

"Reach into the bowl for your token."

Stephenson sifts through the multicolored powder and closes his hand around a small shape. Draws out a synthesized ruby. She closes her other hand around it, linking them doubly.

"Should you achieve victory, you will keep your jewel. Should you fail your appointment, it will return to us." To the bowl of colors shimmering like dead eyes. Jewels ground into sand.

"Do you accept your appointment as Volunteer?"

Yes, she thinks, at the same time as no.

"Yes," he says dispassionately. As if he has somewhere else to go. Something to do. What has he ever done for himself?

Their hands are locked, ringed around the bowl of sand. Her fingers are larger than his. Neither of them makes the move to break free. Rowella is filled with a pride and unease and aching that sinks all the way to the core of her.


(Hi! I apologise for the wait- I went through a frustrating number of drafts for the end of this chapter, and probably will edit it again. I would deeply appreciate your reviews, criticism, and any submissions you could throw my way. Thank you for reading!)