Immediately after the Treaty of Treason has been read and the last triumphant notes of the anthem of Panem fade, a squad of Peacekeepers lead Chrome and me out of the Amphitheater to the District Justice Building. I am so eager to go that I am almost leading them. I have always wanted to see the inside of the Justice Building. It stands gleaming and white over the drab gray of the avenues that surround it. I could see the sculpted metal roof with its weathered patina from the Academy, on days when I had permission to be outside. I wondered what went on inside such a beautiful place.
We are ushered into separate rooms. I sink into the softest, most padded chair I have ever seen in my entire seventeen years. It is so large that I can curl up on the seat with my knees bent and my feet beside me. The nap of the suede is finer than any I can recall seeing, even from my family's leather shop. There is a knock at the door. I quickly straighten myself out and sit properly, with dignity, as I have been taught to do. My family comes inside, to spend the hour I have been granted to say farewell. I have not seen them since last Reaping Day, and I am shocked. Father and Mother look much sicker than they did last year, although their smiles practically glow with pride. Shine and Satin, my younger sisters, are both pasty and owlish, with dark circles around their eyes. Only Lapis, my baby brother, still looks completely well. I rise to greet them, and without thinking, I check my feet to see if I am standing on something, maybe a swell of uneven floor? Then I notice that it's just because I am now considerably taller than Father. Mother reaches to hug me, and while I am glad of it, it feels strange. "The medicine isn't working?" I ask lamely.
Father shrugs. He never complains, even when he has bad headaches. Mother strokes my hair. "We started on a new one a week or so ago. I'm feeling better, and I think the girls are too."
Lapis has been staring at me. I'm not sure he remembers me, but the rest of the family is obviously happy to see me. "I work in Father's shop soon," he blurts out, then puts his finger in his mouth.
"You'll make the nicest leather ever," I say, smiling at him. He looks like he wants to smile back, but hides behind Mother instead.
My sisters give me a bracelet. "It's the first thing we ever made all by ourselves," Shine tells me. It is about an inch wide with neat stitching along the edges and elaborate tooling in a floral pattern. Parts of the design have been etched and polished to reveal the natural yellowish color beneath the brown stain. "It's beautiful," I say, latching the gilt buckle around my wrist. "You are both true craftsmen."
Both of them beam under my sincere praise. "True craftsman" is a high compliment. The people of District 1 take immense pride in the things they make, and for just a moment I feel a pang of sorrow that I never learned how to work leather into useful and beautiful things like my sisters have. If I win the Games this year, maybe I'll ask them to teach me when I return to the District.
Mother wipes her nose, and I see a smear of pink on her handkerchief. She quickly stuffs it into her pocket. "We are going to go now," she says. "We don't want to worry you too much before you have to leave."
"I'll see you when I come back," I say. My stomach lurches as I suddenly think that even if I survive the arena, I might never see her or Father again. They are both too sick. But I put that idea out of my mind. I have to win. I will win. The money and prizes will be enough to send them to the best doctors, perhaps even one from the Capitol. We'll have a big house on the edge of the District, away from the stinging haze that hangs over the Fabricators' Strip. There will be lots of room and fresh air, and plenty of clean water, and they will all be well again. I want to hug my sisters, but they look so fragile that I content myself by kissing them each on the forehead instead.
Father is the last to leave. He lingers in the doorway for a moment. I think he is also weighing the chances that we'll ever see each other again, just as I did, but he draws a different conclusion. He wets his cracked lips. "You just do what you have to do. We'll be fine."
Then they are gone. I sprawl out in the overstuffed chair again, but I am not quite as comfortable as I was. I concentrate on winning the Hunger Games, as I absently spin the leather bracelet around my wrist. No one else comes to see me.