Watching the guests finally arrive for Tiller's wedding, Stephen began to suspect that massive weddings were the one thing that united all of Panem. But where in Thirteen, everyone had crowded into an auditorium to cheer and play games, here, there would be two things absent from festivities back home - an extraordinary amount of food and presents. And universal lateness. Stephen had arrived five minutes early two hours ago, only to be confronted, ten minutes later, by confused staff just starting to set up the tables.

Stephen had gifted Tiller a book on leadership he had found in a pile outside a recycling bin. It was an excellent book; whoever had thrown it out had made a big mistake. He had wrapped it up in bits of newsprint and left it on the table in the cavernous hall where what looked like hundreds of people were arriving. How did Tiller know so many people?

Tiller was standing next to him, looking quite dashing in her dress uniform and medal ribbons. Linus was standing at the other entrance with his own witnesses and father - Capitol custom, to have them enter separately. Tiller's mother, a short dark woman with a facial structure identical to that of her daughter, was gazing around nervously.

"How was your trip?" Stephen asked her.

"Oh, it was alright," she said with an accent much deeper than that of her daughter - Tiller's had softened over the months. "Bit of a headache, but nothing we couldn't manage."

Stephen suspected she was understating it. "Transport is a headache and a half now, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes." She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. "Sorry. I just can't believe my eldest is finally getting married." Tiller cringed. "You know, I always thought she'd wear the same dress that I wore - it's a family heirloom from my grandmother. But my baby girl is an officer! I still can't believe we've got an army we can be proud of now."

Tiller's mother continued to ramble, alternately singing Tiller's praises and reminiscing. Tiller herself looked slightly exasperated. If Stephen's father acted the same way at his wedding, which he definitely would, she would get her revenge.

Stephen kicked himself for thinking about his wedding when they hadn't even decided on getting married yet.

Finally, about two hours and forty-five minutes late, the ceremony could begin. Stephen went inside the hall and stood at a large table with an old friend of Tiller's who coincidentally happened to also be stationed in the Capitol. At the other side of the table were two young men, Linus' witnesses, and in the middle was a pastor.

Music began to play, and Tiller and Linus walked down the aisles. Stephen felt himself tear up a bit at how happy they looked. Linus was a handsome man a year younger than her, with an average build, dark skin, round eyes, and short wavy hair. He wore a suit he had borrowed somewhere and was grinning widely. Tiller seemed to be in a trance. The two of them reached the table, Tiller standing close to Stephen. Her mother and Linus' father were crying openly into handkerchiefs.

The pastor made a brief speech - yet another thing they didn't have in Thirteen. Noticing how Tiller and Linus were practically shaking with anticipation, Stephen decided to not include that in his own wedding. No need to stretch it out with monologues about the sanctity of marriage, just get in and sign the paper.

Finally, the official turned to Tiller. "Do you, Blossom Tiller, take Linus Fayemu as your lawfully wedded husband?"

"I do," she squeaked.

"Do you, Linus Fayemu, take Blossom Tiller as your lawfully wedded wife?"

"I do." His voice was even higher-pitched than Tiller's.

"Exchange rings."

By some miracle, they managed to get each other's ring on without dropping them, which was quite an achievement with how much their hands were shaking.

"Sign here."

They signed.

"I pronounce you married. You may now kiss."

Stephen had to wipe away a tear when he saw the pure joy in their faces as they embraced. The cheering and applause of the crowd was deafening - that, at least, was the same here. How long ago had it been unthinkable that a farmhand from Eleven would marry a professor's assistant in the Capitol?

Everyone began to relocate to the banquet hall. It wouldn't be much of a banquet by Capitol standards, where it wasn't a wedding unless there was enough food for a small army, but most people had managed to scrounge up something or other on the black market. Stephen could only shake his head at the selfishness, but he had agreed to be Tiller's witness, which meant he couldn't go around complaining. He took his seat at the front table next to Tiller's father, who was still crying.

"What a lovely ceremony," the small middle-aged man said, looking around the table with confusion evident on his face. "I didn't think it'd be the same as where we're from."

"Well, we're one country, aren't we?" Linus' mother said. "Makes sense we've got the same customs. Though it's a shame the meal has to be so small."

Stephen didn't think it was small. Neither did the bride's family. "Last time I saw such a meal, the manager's assistant was getting married."

"I daresay a professor and an engineer earn more than some estate manager's assistant," Linus' father said. Tiller's parents cringed slightly at this reminder of how much they were inferior to their in-laws socially. To them, the manager's assistant had been practically God's second-in-command, and here was someone acting as if they were a bug on the ground. "Besides, it's a wedding. You need to show off your family's income at a wedding, not… the guests' black-market skills." He sighed. "At least it's something."

The conversation got a little bit less awkward from there as the two families got to know each other. Stephen observed the guests. For the most part, they were quite shabbily dressed, aside from the uniforms on Tiller's side. It was interesting how Tiller was both superior to Linus, because she was an officer and he - a civilian, and inferior, because she was a farmhand and he - a professor's assistant. Some of the soldiers couldn't believe their eyes at seeing Stephen. Others were eyeing the food with more enthusiasm than the servers, which said a lot about the situation. To Stephen, the food looked truly excellent. His musings on what that dish in front of him was were cut off by Linus' father making a brief emotional speech, followed by Tiller's mother. That done, they clinked glasses (Stephen was drinking only water) and dug into the food.

"So, Lieutenant, you're Blossom's direct superior?" Tiller's father asked. He ate with small, neat bites, but with none of the elegance of Linus and his parents.

"I am," Stephen said, "though she's long overdue for a promotion, with how many people she commands - and how well." The soup was probably made from anything that could be scrounged up and tossed into a pot but still tasted excellent.

Tiller was too busy kissing her husband to notice Stephen's words.

"I'm glad. I was so worried when she went into the woods, you know. She was never a fighter before. And then, the next thing I hear, she's an officer liberating some big city I've never heard of before!" In the agrarian Eleven, fifty thousand people counted as a big city. "And then this. You know, we never really thought about politics. We'd whisper about how the overseers licked the manager's boots and the manager licked the landowner, but that was just how it was for us." He shrugged. "The boss was the boss and the owner was the owner. And now my daughter can read and write! Crazy."

What was crazy was that this neat and intelligent man had to sign with a cross. How many people were there like him? How many children who would never be able to do anything besides menial labour? Stephen was supposed to be celebrating, but all he could think about was the problems that still had to be solved.

"Did you read that article about the murder in Eight?" Linus' father asked everyone.

Stephen had. As far as he could tell, opinions were split along class lines - middle-class people sympathized with Arjun Sharma and his accomplices and workers thought them spoiled rich kids who didn't know how to deal with adversity.

"Awful," one of Linus' friends declared. "I know my classmates and I would have done the same thing in their place. Hell, I had a friend who killed himself after failing out of university. I can't believe the cruelty of the teacher. To string grade twelve students along for an entire year and then drop it on them at the last second? An experienced teacher should have known that would backfire."

"You think it's the teacher's fault?" Mr. Tiller asked, baffled.

"Yes. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Rule with violence and fear, be ready to be brought down by terrified violent people." Mr. Tiller looked like he disagreed. "Look, this isn't your nice village teacher teaching adults how to read and write in the evenings. This is a cruel person who knew very well he was dealing with kids who had known their entire life that if they do not get into university, their lives are not worth living."

"Exactly," Linus' other friend said. "I saw the interview with Sharma. He thought that his only options were university and suicide, and he didn't want to die. I feel so bad for him. He was seventeen, he didn't want to die, and he didn't see any other option."

Stephen wasn't sure he was willing to go that far, but from living in the big country for so long, he knew that there was nothing more volatile than a middle-class teenager who was at risk of not doing as well in school as they needed.

Stepping off the train was a massive relief, even if Rye still had work to do over the break. The station had been moderately cleaned up, and Rye was hit by a sudden feeling of relief when she saw the familiar buildings. She was home.

The town was much quieter than Lodgepole, which made sense, given that it had about forty thousand inhabitants - perhaps a few thousand less after the fighting, nobody had done a count yet. As she walked home, she noticed that the streets were in much better repair than when she had left. Bundled up as she was against the freezing wind, nobody recognized her.

Rye reached her building and unlocked the door. She walked to their floor and approached the apartment, jittery with anticipation. Before she could reach for her keys, the door opened.

"I saw you from the window," Barrow said, smiling widely. "Also, the kids are with your brother until the evening." Behind him, Spot jumped up and down barking. Bao was perched on top of the bookcase.

Rye pulled down her scarf and kissed him. "I missed you," she said once they broke apart.

"I missed you, too." He shut the door behind her and took her hat off her. "Billie just got back, she's with Vadim and Delilah."

Billie had had her last exam the other day. She, too, was on break now. Mitch and Flora still had some time left. "When will they be back?" she asked, taking off her boots and putting them on the rug.

"Maybe eighteen, nineteen. You want to eat lunch?"

"Not until I'm done with you," Rye said, pulling him in for another kiss.

There was no heating in the archives. Leon had to wear his overcoat and boots as he stood scanning and photocopying, blowing on his hands every so often to warm them up. At least this would be the last day until the New Year. In an unexpected act of generosity, all trial staff would get a long break, except for those directly involved with the jail's day-to-day operations.

Leon scanned a single-page document. Now, the affirmative response to a recommendation that 'unruly' patients in a specialized Community Home in Eight be deprived of food as punishment was digitized. Anyone would be able to find it, and the Community Home staff would hopefully answer for starving disabled children to death. Most likely, they were still working in the same place with the same children and still starving them to pocket the food budget because there weren't enough resources to watch over all such facilities.

For some reason, Leon was amused by the mental image of staff looking over their shoulders to make sure nobody was there before telling the children that they wouldn't get any food today. Turning the atrocities into a dark joke was the only way to deal with them every day and not be emotionally affected, but it made it almost impossible to talk about them with anyone who wasn't also using such a coping strategy. The sort of people he agreed with otherwise would have accused him of not taking it seriously, and those he didn't agree with? They'd have refused to bring up the topic of atrocities in the first place.

A few days ago, Leon had gone to visit his family. His parents were as always, but Marcellus was visibly miserable and refused to talk about what was wrong. Leon had called Marcellus' girlfriend, but Rashida had no idea what was wrong, either. She had begun trying to get Marcellus to see a doctor, but getting him to admit something was wrong was not an easy task.

Leon had mentioned inviting those of his friends and roommates who had no family here over for New Year's, and the first thing Marcellus had done was inquire where they were from. Leon had gotten up and left at that. When he had called Mom and Dad later, they had, true to themselves, avoided the topic and simply said they'd be thrilled to have his friends over but couldn't promise anything special. Leon had explained that these were people who were impressed with the soups he made from rations and thus would find anything Dad made to be special, Dad had muttered something half-hearted about Leon being a better cook than he gave himself credit for, and that was the end of it.

Half-heartedly, Leon continued to scan and photocopy, mentally already on vacation. Two weeks of doing nothing stretched tantalizingly out in front of him. How many adults would be getting a vacation this year? Not very many, that was for sure. Maybe now, loyalists would envy the trial staff instead of calling them boot-lickers.

His thoughts drifted to the Charlotte case. When Marcellus had been applying to college, he had repeatedly threatened to kill himself if he didn't get in, and Mom and Dad had always said it didn't matter if he got in or not. From Leon's vantage point, the worries of a person with a highschool diploma seemed very petty, but he had some sympathy for a person raised by the principle aut Caesar, aut nihil - or rather, aut doctor, aut nihil. He would never have been able to do it. He had had unreasonable teachers himself, had had Marcellus do impossible homework he himself found difficult, and he could understand the desperation of someone who needed a good mark in such a crazy course to get into university.

Still, it was strange to imagine Dr. Lee at the walk-in clinic - a practically godlike and all-powerful figure with the world's knowledge at her fingertips - as a panicking youth thinking her life would be over if she didn't get into medical school. Even rich people were people, it seemed. Even if they had no instinct of self-preservation.

When Antonius got back from talking with Dr. Shaw, the radio was explaining the importance of trust-busting. He tried to pick up a book and read, but the discussion on why monopolies needed to be destroyed grated his ears.

"What is this Communist nonsense?" Antonius asked the guard, not expecting to get an answer. He was simply irritated over his upcoming testimony at the Steelworks trial.

The guard shook his head. "Communists are against private ownership of enterprises. Healthy competition is a Liberal value. Though I suppose the Social Democrats also support small businesses."

Oh, so now a farmhand was an expert in macroeconomics. Antonius set aside the book and ran a hand over his hair, trying to calm down. Shaw had explained to him that since the judge had granted the subpoena request, there was nothing he could do but appear in court and respectfully answer the questions posed. He now had three options - take the blame for everything, push all the blame on the defendants, or be ambiguous and say nothing of value. The first option was out of the question, he was not one of those task force commanders who materialized in the courtroom to announce their responsibility for thousands of deaths. The second? It was worth thinking about.

Just as Antonius reached for paper and pencil to brainstorm, the channel was changed. Music played for a few seconds before fading out. Antonius recognized it - this was the Culture channel, and the weekly 'Path' program. At least it was not that murder case from Eight again. The guards had nothing but mockery for the ten people who had once killed their teacher, and for once, Antonius was in agreement with the guards. How could you raise your hand against your teacher, and for such a reason to boot? If they had not wanted to get their acceptances revoked, they should not have cheated.

"Welcome to our listeners on the Culture channel," a woman's voice said in the standard broadcast accent. "Today, we will visit the village Rocky Hill in Nueces County, District One."

Usually, the introduction was followed with a choir of mostly elderly people launching into song. Today, however, only two young voices began to sing in an unfamiliar language. It was odd to hear such melancholy from people so young.

The song ended. "And now, let us meet the singers of Rocky Hill."

"My name is Dennis Lacalle."

"And I'm Karen Lacalle. We're twins, and we're fifteen years old."

"Our grandmother was the last speaker of-" Antonius did not catch the name of the language, it was too unfamiliar for him to grasp. "But when we were little, we asked her to teach us a few words so we had a secret language of our own," Dennis said. "She was already dying by then, but I think this gave her something to live for. She's still alive now, but she can't sing anymore, or speak."

"She's only happy when she hears us singing," Karen said.

Karen began to sing, Dennis joining her for the chorus. Antonius was struck by how weak the chorus sounded. Where there should have been a crowd of voices bursting into song, there was only a single fifteen-year-old boy. Unexpectedly, Antonius felt saddened by that. Two days without the trial, and already he was becoming unhinged from sitting in the cell all day.

"Our grandmother said that when she was little, only the elders could speak our language," Karen said. "A few children were taught it, but all of them besides her forgot it at some point, or died without passing it on. A long time ago, dictionaries were compiled, so it's possible to learn the language from books, which we partially did - we couldn't ask our grandmother to tell us every single word in the world."

"Some countries support minority cultures and languages," the host said. "In Panem, they withered away and died. Centuries of repression proved too much for the poverty-stricken communities."

Antonius had no idea how to feel. He had to admit that that had been an awful policy. He had read about the deaths of such traditional communities, and it always made him feel sad. The wisdom of the elders needed to be respected and passed on, not forgotten like a worn-out paper bag lying on the road.

Two songs later, Dennis spoke again. "This song is a hundred and fifty years old. It's a duet we never rehearsed together. We only sang the parts on our own. It's a love song, and we have nobody to sing it with."

Antonius burst into tears. He took deep breaths and wiped his eyes with his sleeve, willing himself to calm down. The song began, and yes, this was not a duet. This was two people both singing into the void and hoping to hear an answer back. Antonius reached over and grabbed a clean undershirt to wipe his face with, as he could not stop crying.

"All of the songs we know are memorized," Karen said. "Grandmother taught us how to read sheet music, but nobody in the village can read and write."

The twins began to hum. Antonius was confused for a few seconds before realizing the significance of Karen's words. Someone, perhaps a local, perhaps an ethnographer, had written down the lyrics and sheet music at some point. Since Karen and Dennis could read only the music, they had to hum it, as they had no way of finding out what the lyrics were.

"There's going to be a school established in the village in a few months,"/em Dennis said eagerly once the song ended. "We'll finally be able to find out what all these songs are. Most of them are completely unfamiliar to us. I hope more people decide to learn our language, too."

That made Antonius cry even harder and hate Brack. It was the fault of her and her ilk that these children had been deprived of their ancestral knowledge. It was the fault of the Minister of Culture, that lucky bastard residing in the other wing, that nobody had stepped in to save these cultures from dying for the better part of a century. It was unfair that Grandma had been able to teach him so much when Karen and Dennis' grandmother had not even known most of what should have been passed down through the ages.

"Er, Chaterhan? What's wrong? Should I get someone?"

Antonius tried to find a patch on his undershirt that was not sodden with tears to wipe his face. "You should," he said in a croaking voice.

"I think Dr. Aurelius is on duty now."

"That sounds good."

Miroslav entered Chaterhan's cell and fell down on the stool. Chaterhan's eyes were red and puffy from crying. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Did you hear that radio program just now, on the Culture channel?"

If the prisoners wanted to discuss the radio already now, they needed more diversions before their mental health was completely destroyed. "I did." Mallow loved to listen to 'Path' - her grandfather was the accordionist in a musical circle.

Chaterhan's face reddened. "Many of my workers were just like them. There were choirs and musical clubs all over the country. Have you noticed that nearly all of the singers on the program are old?"

"I did."

"And they are overwhelmingly rural. You do not see much in the way of traditional singing in big cities. I feel guilty for that. I should have done something to let those traditions thrive."

Miroslav realized what was going on. Chaterhan was feeling guilty for his crimes, but since he could not admit to atrocities, he channelled those feelings into something he could stand admitting - the fact that two teenagers had nobody to sing a duet with.

"That's a remarkable thing to say."

Chaterhan shrugged and tossed a damp undershirt onto his small pile of dirty laundry. "I learned so much from my grandmother. It is an outrage that so many were deprived of this chance."

"I need a nap now," Rye muttered, snuggling against Barrow. He was slightly damp from the shower, which had taken far longer than expected. "You-" She realized that her husband was already fast asleep. "Ugh." Rye put her head on his chest, using him as a pillow, and fell asleep as well.

She woke up some time later, feeling slightly undead. Barrow was still dead to the world, it was freezing cold in the apartment because of the open windows but at least it was nice and fresh, and Rye felt very sore, but in a good way. Outside, it was already dark. Bao was curled up on the windowsill. They really should have closed the bedroom door.

"Wake up," she said, shaking his shoulder.

"What?" Barrow muttered.

Rye kissed him lightly on the mouth. "Everyone should be here soon."

"Oh." He sat up, hair adorably tousled. "Can you pass the water?"

Rye took a gulp from the glass and handed it to him. "Here you go."

"You're the best." He drank some water. "Ugh. I need to sleep now." Barrow flopped back against the pillows. "I don't want to get up. It's too nice here."

"You want Flora to ask why we decided to sleep in the afternoon?" Rye leaned over the side of the bed and tried to find her clothes.

"Point taken, though I'm more worried about Mitch dying of mortification." With a sad sigh, he tossed back the blanket and stood up.

Rye rubbed her eyes and stood up as well, getting dressed bit by bit. "Where's my other sock?"

"No idea."

Rye gave that one up as a loss and took another pair of socks from the drawer. "You know, whatever you got me as a welcome-back present won't be able to compare now," she joked.

"How do you know that wasn't the welcome-back present?" Barrow's grin was positively evil.

"Well, that would be quite a gift," Rye said, finding the sock. She tossed it into the laundry bin. "You, wrapped up in ribbons."

"Only ribbons and nothing else?"

"Of course." Rye walked over to the window and closed it. "Do you know when they'll be here?"

Barrow looked at the clock. "Maybe half an hour? I was planning on us eating lunch, but I guess we'll just eat dinner now."

Forty-five minutes later, the table was set for dinner (rations and black-market tea; good thing she had brought goodies) and the kids and her siblings were back.

"Hi!" Flora exclaimed and darted over to hug her. Rye nearly fell over when the frizzy-haired missile hit her in the stomach.

"You've gotten so much taller!" Rye said inanely, as if Flora didn't know that already.

"I did. I almost caught up to Mitch but then he started growing." Mitch, who at fourteen considered himself too old to run over for a hug, was taller than Rye and Barrow by now. Her son resembled nothing as much as a telephone pole. She had noticed his growth over videocalls, but only now could Rye see just how tall and thin he was. He must have taken after Barrow's mother, who had also been very tall.

"I can see that," Rye said. To Mitch, she added, "You must be taller than everyone now!"

Mitch nodded, smiling, and loomed over Vadim. "I am," he said proudly. "I even outgrew Uncle Vadim!" His voice cracked, making his pitch jump all over the register. It was hard to believe how much her two youngest had changed in this past year. Billie hadn't changed nearly as much, but she now had a worldly air beyond that which she had acquired in the fighting. She stood on one knee, petting Spot.

"Well, then, why don't we sit down?" Barrow offered.

"Wait a second - Vadim, Delilah, I have gifts for you, Gina, Demar, and the kids."

"Maybe later - I think that's the smell of dinner getting cold," Delilah said, eyes on the table.

The six of them sat down around the table. Neither Rye nor Barrow had ever been great cooks, and having terrible ingredients just made it worse. The soup was alright, but Rye would not have eaten it if there were any other options. "So, Billie, how was the trip back?"

"Alright," Billie said with a shrug. "My exams finished early, so I got out as fast as I can, and the delays weren't too bad in any case."

"Have you gotten your marks back yet?"

Billie shook her head. "Only the ones for the oral exams." In oral exams, you were told your mark immediately after finishing. "I left before the others were posted. I have a friend who's staying there over break, he'll telephone me."

"How did you do in the oral exams?"

"Two As and one B-plus."

"That's great," Barrow said. "Though in your place, I'd be paranoid that your friend would get something mixed up."

Billie spread her hands. "It was either that or waiting until I got back and looking at my transcript. Honestly, I don't mind not having to search through that list for my student number and trying to not get crushed by the crowd."

"You know," Vadim said, "your parents had to do that with you in their arms."

"Ah, so that's why I'm so good at it," Billie deadpanned.

"People usually stepped aside when they saw you," Rye reminisced. "They'd joke about how you had gotten an A-plus in tax law."

"I'm just annoyed I missed out on that," Vadim said. Being eight years older than her, by the time Billie had made her appearance, he had finished law school and moved to Gina's hometown, which he had only been able to leave once a year or so.

"Moral of the story." Billie picked up the last bits of soup from her bowl. "Don't have kids in uni. Or rather, do have kids in uni, because that obviously isn't an absolutely insane thing to do." Mitch and Flora giggled.

"Well, it all worked out in the end," Barrow said. He took a piece of bread from a plate and chewed on it.

"How was the trip for you?" Delilah asked Rye.

"Good enough. Could have been worse - Briscoe's stuck in the Capitol because his wife found out about his cheating and divorced him."

"Who's Briscoe?" Flora asked, torn between curiosity and disapproval.

Rye realized that there were people out there who weren't aware of the latest development of Goran Briscoe's attempted wooing of Fern Qiu, which made her feel much better about the state of the universe in general. "He's a good man," she said - Briscoe was more than the potted gnetophytes he gifted to the secretary. Where did he even get these plants? "He's the chief prosecutor of Six. He used to live in a working-class neighbourhood and work pro bono, surviving off the little his clients voluntarily paid him and teaching evening classes. Once, he volunteered for forced labour in place of someone else."

"And he chases after locals?" Mitch asked.

"Sometimes. He's going after a secretary from Seven now."

"Are they pretty?" Flora asked. Her soup was only half-eaten.

"Well, no."

Vadim's eyebrows went halfway up his forehead. "Are they-" Mitch giggled, but Flora just looked confused.

Rye quickly explained the situation. Barrow knew it already, but the others didn't.

"How can you be so bad at flirting?" Billie asked, throwing her hands in the air. "And here I am thinking it was cringy when my friend told her crush that he has nice veins."

"Is she going to be applying to medical school?"

"Yes."

Anatomy class did strange things to people.

"I don't know," Mitch said. "I think that was so romantic, how Briscoe compared Qiu to a fern. How many people even know that ferns are non-flowering plants?"

Rye had to tell Briscoe that her fourteen-year-old son approved of his flirting strategy, perhaps that would convince him to stop.

Vadim nearly dropped his fork into his salad. "Yes, but the way he did it? I can't believe this idiot is my age."

"Oh, so-" Delilah began.

"That doesn't count," Vadim said hurriedly. "I wasn't even twenty then."

"Wait," Flora said. "So instead of telling her she's as pretty as a flower, he said she's as pretty as a fern?"

"As pretty as a liverwort," Rye said sarcastically.

"What's a liverwort?"

Unfortunately, every single IDC prosecutor knew that one. "It's a plant similar to a moss."

Flora made a face. "Moss isn't pretty. It's soft, though."

"Can we not discuss my colleagues at the dinner table?" Rye asked. "Vadim, how's life for you?"

"Same old, same old," her brother said, eating his salad half-heartedly. "Did you hear about that murder in Eight? Me, all I can think about is how Sharma's entire town is standing up for him because he's the only doctor there. I can't imagine doing that."

Rye could. Their town was blessed with a pediatrician, and she would have done anything to prevent her from leaving.

"I heard about it," Barrow said. "Not going to lie, we had a professor in undergrad who was so bad, we threw a party when she died of cancer."

"Which one was that?" Rye asked.

"Second-year statistics with Smith."

"Oh, right, I remember my roommate was very devout and she went to church to pray for a better professor."

"I can't imagine wanting to kill your teacher." Mitch placed another portion of salad on his plate. "You gotta be messed up to do that."

"They were messed up - by unreasonably demanding parents," Rye gently retorted. "I know when I was studying for the bar, my parents called every day to imply that if I failed, they'd disown me." And then they had wondered why Rye never told them anything about her life.

"Right, some of my friends have parents like that," Mitch said. "I have a friend whose parents beat him when he gets anything below 95%." That was beyond the pale. Rye and Barrow had only ever spanked their children for Cs and below, and even that - only if they were certain that that had been caused by laziness, not bad instruction or some outside stressor. And they stopped using corporal punishment once the kids were older. Rye had given up on hitting Mitch or twisting his ear shortly before her departure, as he had gotten big enough to just shrug it off.

"That's awful," Delilah declared. "Ninety-five?"

"Well, yeah. Everyone's parents hit them for not doing as well as they'd like or being lazy. His parents are just weird about it."

"But there's a difference between swatting Flora on the bum for refusing to do homework and beating a teenager for ninety-four on a test," Barrow said. Flora stuck out her tongue at him. "Flo, careful a fly doesn't land on it." Flora rolled her eyes and closed her mouth.

"That should be illegal." Vadim nearly dropped his bread while buttering it. "Discipline is one thing, but they're torturing the boy."

"Any beatings are technically illegal," Rye pointed out. "It's just that I don't know what a parent or teacher would have to do to a child for them to get prosecuted."

"Not even that," Delilah said. "Good luck getting anyone to care about spousal beatings. We had a case a few days ago when someone was beaten to death by her husband and he wasn't even detained. It was just - whoops, he accidentally hit too hard and she should have fought back anyway."

"But women are smaller than men," Flora pointed out.

"She could have hit him with something heavy, or stabbed him. There was a case like that last month. A woman stabbed her husband to death for beating her. Nothing happened to her, either." 'Might makes right' had been the rule not only for government structures.

"Can we discuss something cheerier, please?" Mitch asked. "No murder, no anything."

"Why don't you tell your aunt and uncle how your term went?" Barrow suggested.

Mitch sighed. "Can we talk about murder instead?"

Not having any trials to go to, Thumeka was left pretty much to her own devices for the break. It was as if the boss had forgotten about her, which was definitely an option. She tried to go to parties, but it was too overwhelming, and so she ended up spending most of her time either videocalling Yemurai or playing video games with her friends.

"How was that?" Thumeka asked Jiao, who walked into the lounge, flopped down onto the couch, and picked up a controller.

"Parents," Jiao said. "They're alright. Thumeka, they read your article and are shocked."

"Truly, this is the fame and fortune I always dreamt of," Thumeka said sarcastically.

"What? It's an absolutely insane story." Mikola started the game. "Me, I think murder's always wrong, but people in a society like this one don't have the same morality."

"That's going too far," Thumeka said, trying to focus on the game at the same time.

"Alright. Not the same standards of what is acceptable. I mean, these are kids who were beaten in school, that's crazy from our perspective. And honestly, the teacher is the least sympathetic kind of victim." He added some gibberish.

"What was that?" Jiao asked.

"The one who began their reign with - um, by making light of a tragedy, will end by mounting the gallows. It's a rhyming couplet I found in a book about the last Russian emperor. Who ended up shot."

"Sounds like he was an unpleasant sort," Thumeka said.

"He was. He was also antisemitic, so not the most likeable person." There was a pause. "Jiao, did your parents say anything else?"

"They still think I might be blown up at any moment, but that's how it goes."

"Especially when your previous assignment involved actually being shot," Thumeka said.

"Ouch," said Mikola, who had spent his entire career in North America.

Jiao nodded. "If every civil war could end with people pretending they had always been friends, life would have been much better. Did I ever tell you how I covered a pogrom right from the middle of things?"

"In Europe?" Mikola asked.

"Where else?"

"But you look so obviously different!"

"I wore dark glasses."

"Smart," Thumeka said. In England, the harder it was for people to notice she was foreign, the more they were willing to be open with her.

"Not very smart of me to be at ground zero of a pogrom with my handheld camera, but the pictures netted the agency a tidy sum, so I guess it all worked out in the end." Jiao started a new game. "Either of you have any plans for the New Year?"

"Not really," Mikola said. "A Ukrainian is planning an Eastern European get-together, so I'll probably attend."

"Unless the Israelis kidnap you?" Thumeka joked, losing the game yet again and tossing the controller aside.

Mikola spread out his hands. "Given that I'm invited to light candles today again- who knows. They're really good at guilt-tripping. 'Oh, but you have to, look at the great community we have, do you really want to miss out on that?' I mean, I don't. I love spending time with my co-religionists. But I'm also a Belarusian and love Belarusian culture and traditions."

"I wouldn't know," Jiao said sympathetically.

"Me neither," Thumeka said. Back home, loyalty to one's tribe was more of a joke than something serious.

"I'll ask Esther. Honestly, this is all so strange. If my parents weren't so terrified about me covering the aftermath of a civil war, they'd have thought I'm going crazy."

Thumeka shuffled around to sit with her legs folded against her chest. "To be fair, back when I was in England, it was hard to tell the aftermath of the war from the war itself. All of us joked about Tanaka Kenryo's favourite bar being blown up, but it really wasn't funny. There, a year after the peace was signed, I got hit by shrapnel and had to stay in some basement because a sniper was terrorizing the entire street." Granted, the shrapnel had been quite small. "Here, we're lounging around some palace and strolling around the black market not worrying that someone will take aim at the reflective vest."

"Not to mention the government on trial," Jiao said. "I hardly expected a country like Panem to try politicians for corruption, let alone war crimes."

"And this isn't the usual war crimes trials," Mikola added. "Usually, it's a country trying its own low-ranked soldiers for shooting a civilian or something and giving them a small sentence to appease the electorate."

"Crazy place," Thumeka said. "Do you guys want to play something else?"

Stephen was not very happy about having been commed in the middle of a date and told to report to the Justice Building. "What is it?" he asked the sergeant who had served as the messenger.

"Lieutenant, I was told to get you for an interrogation."

That would have been welcome news, if not for the timing. "Thank you, Sergeant. Are the materials in my office?"

"They are."

In the office, there was a folder on his desk and Tiller lounging behind hers, feet on the desk. "Hope you weren't interrupted doing anything too important," she said airily.

"Just giving the cat a bath. He can do it alone if needed." Stephen couldn't wait for Feather to finally lose enough weight to be able to clean himself.

"How domestic."

Stephen had told the truth, but he wasn't going to add that ten minutes before that, he and Angelo had been having sex.

He picked up the folder and leafed through it. Onyx Sinclair, fifty-five years old, brigadier general - she wouldn't be happy to be interrogated by a lieutenant, that was for sure. Born and raised in the Capitol, enlisted at nineteen, military college, various postings throughout the country, including the last one in Nine, where in just a few months, her forces had razed tens of villages to the ground. Nothing else - she had refused to speak to anyone since her arrest and subordinates didn't have much to add, though there were some noteworthy things there.

Stephen went to the basement, where the interrogating rooms were. "Go to the cafeteria and bring lunch for both of us," he told the sergeant leading him. "Five minutes."

"Yes, lieutenant." He went back down the corridor, and Stephen walked into the room, where the general was cuffed to the desk. She had that typical Peacekeeper officer facial expression, as if she had been placed into a mould as a child and allowed to grow into it.

"Good day," Stephen said.

Sinclair said nothing.

"Are you being treated well?"

Nothing.

"Are you hungry?"

No vocal reaction, but Stephen noticed that she was, in fact, hungry. He leaned towards the desk lamp and said, "Sergeant, could you please bring us lunch in, oh, four minutes or so?"

Sinclair raised her eyebrows but did not open her mouth. She wasn't unwilling to communicate, she was unwilling to speak.

Stephen sat silently, watching the clock tick. Four minutes later, the door opened, and the sergeant walked in. "Right on time," he said, holding out two trays.

Sinclair's eyes widened. She stared at the sergeant, then at Stephen, then at the lamp, then back at the sergeant, who put the trays on the table and stood waiting to be dismissed. Clearly, she hadn't heard that joke about the NCIA and the pizza delivery.

"Let's eat," Stephen said. "Oh, would you like some tea?"

Still looking shocked, Sinclair nodded, shooting suspicious glances at the lamp.

"Excellent. Sergeant, please ask for someone to bring tea to Room 101?" There was no reaction from Sinclair, unfortunately. Stephen had given up on hoping someone would get the reference.

The lunch was good. Sinclair ate her portion with an astonishing rapidity. "Where were you held before this?" Stephen asked.

Nothing. Stephen made a decision - if he could not get her to talk today, she would be moved to total solitary confinement and interrogated every day until she got desperate enough for human contact to speak.

"Were you treated well?"

A shrug. Aha, now that was something.

"Were you fed well?"

Nothing. Sinclair realized she had slipped up and did not twitch.

"Would you like to shower?"

Nothing.

"Alright, I'll take that as a 'yes'."

Nothing.

"Did you know that Singh told me about your order of June 23?" He had explained the verbal order to shoot anyone suspected of Rebel activity on sight with their families to a different interrogator, but that was an unnecessary detail.

Sinclair sat silently, but Stephen saw her worry.

"He did. Publicly hanging infants - that's a new low."

That was incorrect. The families had been publicly shot. Stephen could see Sinclair's irritation at being unable to correct him.

"Should I write that in your file together with what everyone else said about you?" Stephen asked, waking up the laptop. "Your subordinates told me many interesting things, and without you to confirm or deny, I will have to take them at their word," he lied. Sinclair looked very irritated now. "Four different officers who do not know each other separately testified that you pardoned attractive young men if they slept with you."

Sinclair twitched but said nothing.

"Alright, I'll take note of that. Did not deny the allegations."

And there, her lack of understanding of how a fair judicial proceeding worked screwed her over. "That's nonsense," Sinclair said. "I deny these allegations. Filthy lies."

"Elaborate?"

No reaction, but now he knew that she could be easily manipulated into speaking. Excellent. The tea then arrived, and Stephen gladly poured himself a cup. "Would you like some tea?" No reaction. "I'm going to take that as a yes."

Sinclair looked at her tea as if she expected it to be poisoned.

"Good, isn't it?" Stephen asked after taking a sip. "Would you like some peanut paste?"

Nothing.

"I'll take that as a yes," he said, and gave her the packet.

Sinclair drank the tea in silence. So did Stephen. He thought about what to do next. Take her outside? The weather was terrible. Sit here until she got bored? Sinclair wasn't like some others who cracked completely after saying the first word, she'd just sit here like a stone. Tell her some outrageous gossip to get her to at least talk with the others in her detention camp? So many options, none of them good. Stephen thought very hard about Sinclair and who and what she was, and then an idea hit him.

"How are you feeling?" he asked. "I know you needed new clothes and bedding again last night."

The reference to her hot flashes worked. Like most socially isolated people her age, Sinclair went on a lengthy monologue about the state of her health at the slightest suggestion, as she did now.

"Alright," Stephen said eventually. "Why don't we go for a little walk? I promise we won't spend too long in the cold."

The veiled threat worked. Sinclair was once again looking completely terrified as she complied. They walked out of the room and to the door to the yard, Stephen not cuffing her. He gave her a long coat, hat, and scarf from the large closet, which she put on, looking confused.

Outside, there was nobody but a couple of guards patrolling the empty field. Everyone had opted to go back inside early, as the wind was brutal. Stephen went to check the alcove, just in case, and found a guard sitting on the ground and crying. He was one of the fifteen-year-olds. By now, every underage soldier who had a family somewhere had been demobbed, but the High Command refused to let the orphans go for fear of them getting into trouble. Stephen hated the High Command. Children weren't supposed to wear uniforms.

"What is it, Soldier?" Stephen asked.

The boy stood to attention. He glanced at Sinclair, most likely realizing that she was an officer. "Nothing, Lieutenant."

"Go report to Second Lieutenant Tiller." Stephen had no illusions - none of his guards trusted him as a person. They trusted Tiller, at least. Hopefully whatever problem the boy had was fixable - and hopefully this wasn't yet another case of HIV being diagnosed when it was already AIDS.

"Yes, sir." He walked off. Stephen stood by the wall in the corner, where he was mostly protected from the wind. He motioned Sinclair over. She stood in the mud, seemingly untouched by the cold.

"You must have had child soldiers serving under you," Stephen said. "You didn't spend all your time behind a desk, you inspected your troops from time to time. Aren't they just tiny?"

Most career officers that age would have reacted to that, but not Sinclair - perhaps, had she not joined the armed forces, she wouldn't have had children.

"Did you know that I am being accused of leading a Communist conspiracy?" Stephen asked, deciding to try the 'absurd gossip' angle. Sinclair's eyebrows went up. "Yes, really. A surprising amount of people think that trying the industrialists for horrific working conditions is Communism. Perhaps they don't think that slave labour in prisons or brutal discipline in factories is something worth worrying about." He paused. "Your parents were office workers, so I doubt you think it's something worth worrying about. Either way, I get bombarded with letters telling me that a businessperson can't be a murderer."

Sinclair said nothing. Stephen prepared to continue blathering on and on.

"On top of that, 'The Red Banner' has a rubric exclusively dedicated to the Steelworks trial, and they're going to add more for the other business cases. I read it - with friends like those, I don't need enemies, though I concede that cartoon of me putting up a New Year's tree in the cell block and decorating it with indictments was funny. For the record, I did not put up any trees anywhere, that was one of the guards, and she has been disciplined and the trees - removed. But the news got out, and you know how gossip spreads - I'd have been surprised had nobody come up with something like that cartoon. And all those white-collar employees for corporations that are being antitrusted right now are perfect soil for the seeds of those conspiracy theories to fall into."

Still nothing. Perhaps he should mention Angelo? But that was the sort of thing that could only be used once, as he was infamous throughout the country for being a stuck-up unfeeling martinet, and an admission of actually being a human being would spread like wildfire.

"Though 'The Red Flag' is hardly better - one of the judges at the Electrical Works trial is an actual socialist and spent the past decade in prison, sentenced to life for some sort of political misdeed. You should see how that paper carries on about her! Granted, she deserves adulation. She's an exceptionally courageous person. Oh, and did the guards sneak you today's copy of 'The Star'?" Yes, yes they had, that was clear from her facial expression. "I didn't think they'd be willing to publish an article from the Association of Avoxes - good for them, that they did, it's an outrage that these people are being cast aside and forgotten. First they did something to displease the government, whether on purpose or completely by accident, then they debased themselves by admitting guilt and begging for clemency, and now nobody wants to think about them. You're from here, you must have heard so much gossip about Avoxes growing up."

Sinclair turned around, not wanting to give anything away. Not a problem - Stephen's plan right now was to let her breathe some fresh air and listen to him going on and on about sensitive topics.

"I used to share a dorm with a defector Avox once," Stephen reminisced. "Not a brave man or anything of the sort. Told a particularly spicy joke on a streetcar right during that purge ten years back. Arrested, Talvian ordered he be made an example of, supreme penalty, quite literally begged on his knees for mercy - supreme penalty got downgraded to the Avox condition. Sent to do sewer maintenance, assigned to a crew of civilian workers who had connections to abroad. They all defected together in a little inflatable boat to Venezuela. All the civilians stayed there - I think a couple returned this past year- but he moved to Thirteen since he only knew English, and they gave defectors automatic citizenship to boot. He was quite young back then, maybe twenty or twenty-one. So was I. We dated for a while."

Now that got her attention. Sinclair's back stiffened and Stephen could tell she was curious. In all the detention camps, the prisoners whispered about the dreaded Lieutenant Vance, the Lodgepole Monster. This would give them something new to gossip about.

"Everyone cracked jokes - his tongue was removed at the base, so you can imagine what kind. No, I will not explain the details, give the poor man his privacy, even if it was twenty years ago. Anyway, we dated for maybe half a year. Amicable split - we got on well, but a romantic relationship just didn't work out. Then he finished his apprenticeship and moved to the other end of Thirteen to work in a bread factory, and we only saw each other a few times since then."

"I'm cold," Sinclair said in a challenging voice.

"Let's go back inside, then. Oh, and did you ever hear about Hannah Bronstein? She swam to South America, you know. She was still a girl, but she still crossed the channel with only a lifejacket and flasks of sugar water. Says a lot about Panem that someone did that."

A/N: The couplet Mikola paraphrases is 'One who began his rule with Khodynka/will end by mounting the gallows', a reference to how during the coronation of Nikolai II, there was a large crowd that got out of control and a lot of people died in the crush, but the festivities continued as planned. I always think of the couplet whenever someone really unsympathetic gets screwed over.