Hello, I've been busy, and I'll remain so for a while. I'll try to squeeze in some writing, but it's been difficult. Thank you all for your reviews and support. This concludes the Tenth Hunger Games.

Year 10, August. One day after Mordred's victory.

Mags' hand went to her ears, as if she could chase away the buzz of a thousand voices like she would an insistent fly. Her green eyes gazed unseeingly before her, sliding over the sea of exhilarated Capitolites.

Her surroundings made no sense.

The soft glittering lights of the overhead projectors were harsh and aggressive on eyes focused too long on a tactile screen. The curtain had risen but she was still trapped in the play.

So many lives snuffed out. Why was she hearing laughter?

It was as if Time had changed its mind and elected to rewind. Mags turned her head to the side, half-expecting to see Petrel come in, a young Poseidon in all his glory.

There was no Petrel, no Sable, no reminder of the luckless teenagers who had stood on this very stage less than a week before.

Laughter.

Wiped away, secondary characters of a play that would swiftly fall out of fashion.

All save one.

It was Mordred's turn to make an entry.

Not even a child would fail to see the unconditional devotion escort Roman had for his sculpted body, but those long hours of worship were not enough to capture the crowds' attention. The finest crafted clay could not compete with a statue carved in stone.

The stage shook with each of Mordred's steps. He towered over his escort and Flickerman, bronze sun-hardened skin hugging his fearsome muscles. Mags instinctively dropped her gaze, afraid an open stare would be interpreted as a challenge.

"They seriously oiled his body?" Mattock muttered, dispelling the solemn atmosphere. "What's wrong with Capitol men's sense of pride?"

"How can you joke at a time like this?" Mags marveled. Her mood had plummeted even further when she'd learned that this year the mentors would be on stage during the post-Games interview. She just wanted to go home.

"Experience. Survival," Mattock grimly replied. "Shift your eyes, twist your mind around, whatever you do, look at reality from another angle. Staring at it front on, eye to eye, that will burn you until only ashes are left."

"Just don't twist it the way they do," Mags thought aloud, her eyes stinging from the unceasing camera flashes.

"Drinking works, and there's no need to pull a Rye," Bianca said with a muted snicker, her eyes bright from alcohol.

Marcus Flickerman's voice boomed in the theater. "A miner's boy, destined to break marble, gravel and clay every day until his back was bent and his lungs clogged with dust."

Charming, Mags thought, disgusted the host didn't even need to put on a pretense on national television. Capitolites would never see them as human.

"A boy with a dream. How does it feel to fulfill one's greatest ambitions, Mordred?"

"Fulfilled?" Mordred said, frowning. Behind the artful makeup, Mags could glimpse the exhaustion digging his face. "No, it's just beginning."

Flickerman smiled and leaned back attentively. "What would you say was your proudest accomplishment?"

"Staying in control," Mordred replied immediately, this time looking squarely at the host.

"Your less proud?"

"Killing Dove. The girl was out of her mind with fear long before we found her, and I should have made it quicker."

"Not running away from that little girl, Skye?"

Mordred's cheeks flushed red. He squared his jaw as he struggled to formulate an appropriate answer. "She would have killed me. Skye from Five was no hapless girl but a woman who craved victory as fiercely as I did. I played to win, there is no handshake with the losers in this game. She tried to goad me into a trap, I didn't let her." His eyes flickered to Mags, and a ghost of a smile twitched his lips. "I was taught better."

Mags returned his gaze this time and forced a smile on her face. Her advice to Mordred before the Games had been genuine despite his brusqueness, and while she'd rather have been standing where Roman was, holding Petrel's hand, she was glad she had helped someone survive, someone who was grateful for it.

"When did you know you would win?"

Mordred crossed his arms across his glistening chest, "I never doubted it."

Circe, he was a dreadful liar. But the Capitol saw only what it wanted to see and the cheers were as deafening as they were revolting.

"I told him to let the others think they had a chance out of fair play," Roman said, flushed with pride. "Mordred's a great learner," he added, clapping Mordred on the shoulders.

Mags' breath hitched. All the mentors stiffened as one.

To touch a victor like this, so soon after his victory.

Oxygen rushed to Mags' brain as Mordred's arm shot out and wrapped itself around the reckless escort's neck.

There would not be twenty-four dead.

Mags couldn't remember crossing the five yards separating her from the Career. She brought her palm up against Mordred's elbow, her back to the crowd in the hope they would not understand the whole import of her actions. Victors had to appear unbroken.

The young man gasped. His glazed eyes flew open in panicked realization.

"You're safe, you won, let go, now," Mags urged through clenched teeth. She moved away as soon as he dropped his arm.

Pale and trembling, it dawned on Roman how close he had come to a very public death. Mordred's grin was so forced Mags was certain she'd heard his skin crack.

"Tough love's the word in District Two, you don't want your peacekeepers to be sissies," he exclaimed, concealing his terror behind a forced joking tone.

All things considered, the audience had a very easy sense of humor, Mags thought cynically. Some men were slapping their thighs hard enough to bruise.

"Nice job, Roman, but now, he's ours," Vicuña said, wearing her black suit like a peacekeeper uniform. She saluted to the crowd, eliciting a roar of appreciation before locking eyes with Mordred and gesturing towards the exit, unmindful of the host's pointed glare.

"You're learning fast," she told Mags with a smile as Flickerman was forced to cheerfully announce the early end of the interview and the beginning of the last all-night party of the Games.

Mordred briefly pressed his forehead against the wall as soon as he was out of the camera's sight.

"Oil, Man?" Mattock said, staring at Mordred's sleeveless open jacket. "You should have told your stylist that self-esteem is actually still a word in the districts."

"I don't think we speak the same language. The words sound the same but they don't get things," Mordred muttered, wiping sweat off his shaved head. Everything in his movements was slow and stilted, betraying his unease. Mags knew he was seeing the tributes in each mentor's stead, just like she had a year before.

"Next time, say you're allergic and will get horrid red welts if they put it on. It worked for the latex bra," Bianca pointed out helpfully. "I'm calling this a night," she added with a delighted grin, "and tomorrow, I'll be home."

"Latex bra? On her?" Mordred whispered with a grimace as the oldest female victor disappeared with a smiling Mattock.

"She looks much better than last year," Vicuña said with a shrug. "She's still skinny and puffy and her hair's gross, but she's smiling instead of shrieking about the Fool, the Devil, the Leper…" Vicuña rolled her eyes. "It's a blessing, if I'd known she just needed to sleep with a girl to grow tolerable, I'd not have waited for Mags to come around."

Mordred's eyebrows shot upwards. He stared at Mags as if he'd never seen her before.

Mags shook her head, mystified by this middle-school version of Vicuña. "Okay, so you don't feel totally lost," she began, maybe a little snappishly, "the other victors do not like Vicuña, because they resent anything that has to do with the Games, find the concept of Careers morally wrong and consider that Vicuña has the empathy of an oyster."

Vicuña shot her a dark glare. Mags countered it was a thin smile. "But now that you won, Mordred, there are two of you, so Vicuña is going to be your very best friend. And no, it's not a trap to lure you into a false sense of safety and then avenge Onyx," she added when she saw Mordred's expression. His sudden pallor told her she had guessed right.

"I didn't touch Onyx, or Sable," he quickly added, "or Petrel, or –" Mordred winced as his voice trailed off.

"Valentia, her name was Valencia Gar," Mags supplied tightly.

"Are you happy you won?" Vicuña asked, a palpable urgency in her tone.

Mordred seemed to deflate. He sank on the sofa as soon as they reached Vicuña's quarters. "You have no idea," he said weakly, letting his thick arm fall to his sides. "It didn't go like I'd hoped, it was both less and more…"

"I know," Vicuña said with a strained smile. "Onyx was a good man, but I do not begrudge you your victory. I will lose many tributes, it's unavoidable, I simply want the victors to be whole or the Games mean nothing."

Mags' face softened as she spotted tears in the woman's blue eyes.

Whole. Such a noble ambition, and yet so frightening. Had they a right to be whole after this? But being broken helped no one.

Mordred nodded, a frown creasing his brow as he thought. For the first time, he really looked eighteen. "Why did you send me medicine, Mags?"

Because not doing so would have been cruel.

"There would have been questions had people seen your broken fingers. Avoxes might have been executed for letting you out of sight, or a trainer flogged."

"A Capitol trainer."

Mags glowered. What a ridiculous rationale. "So? Getting them flogged will make the world a better place?"

Mordred cracked a genuine smile. "No." He sighed, stretching his arms. "I'm so happy I won."

Vicuña grinned and seeing the two of them like this almost made Mags forget all the dead bodies Mordred had left in his wake. Almost.

"You broke his fingers?" Vicuña then said, her smile broadening. "Mags, for someone who is very careful not to be branded a Career, you sure don't do things by halves."

When had Career become the only alternative to victim?

"Someone needs to keep the victors united," Mags said, "no one will fix us if we don't fix each other. The tributes are doomed from the start, spending more time on them than on helping those who have a life to live and the potential to do so much with the money they have is ridiculous."

Vicuña slowly nodded, looking torn. A wry smile then drew itself on her lips. "Believe it or not, Mordred, but young Mags here is our own self-appointed mother."

Mags flushed. "I'm -"

"It was a compliment," Vicuña cut in, her smirk almost reaching her ears. "When I won, I received frosty glares as only greeting. Mattock and Bianca actually spoke kindly to Mordred, and it's because of you."

Mags lowered her eyes, remembering Petrel's smile the first time he received a package of food.

She wasn't feeling well.

She didn't want to ruin Vicuña's and Mordred's night. There was enough misery in the world without her adding to it.

"Every victor here has survived the tributes mentored by the previous ones," she said softly as she stood up, "just find your place, Mordred, and find it in your home district. Don't fool yourself, you're not all powerful, but play by the rules and you'll be fine."

The young man nodded, "Screwing up now would be like spitting on all the others graves. I won for a reason, I promise I won't forget."

Mags spared them a last glance. Careers. She didn't know what to make of them.

"I won't."

"Aw Mags, don't be –"

Mags spun on herself. "No, absolutely not. I will not be wearing that, Myia. I'd rather don a bikini than these -"

There were no words to qualify the vulgar rags Myia was trying to pass off as fashionable.

"You can't wear the same dress for two weeks straight," the Capitol woman exclaimed.

"I can and I will. It's clean, comfortable and more elegant and feminine than all those jaggedly cut pieces of cloth a tramp would be ashamed to wear."

Myia gasped, hurt filling her huge violet eyes. "A homeless woman? Do you have any idea how expensive those clothes are?"

What Mags had was no idea as to how the shop owners managed to sell their stock.

"Keep them then," Mags said, grabbing the coat hangers and shoving them in Myia's arms. "Wear them. If you feel beautiful in them, wonderful. I probably am not evolved enough to appreciate the sophistication of such abused clothing," she said, her voice oozing sarcasm.

People, children, were dead, whole families were mourning. Mags' ability to compromise had died with Petrel. She could not even pretend to tolerate this superficial nonsense. How could lavish parties put on par with the monstrosity of the Hunger Games? She would put on a cordial face and attend, period.

Her aide put a concerned hand on her shoulder. "Mags," she said warily, "are you on your period? Do you want a hormonal treatment? It's light and very helpful."

Mags' lips parted open in shock. Premenstrual, was she?

Lucian saved her from answering by knocking sharply on the door. "Cut down on the hysterics, ladies," he pointed to the living room. "The phone, for you."

"She's busy," Myia snapped.

Lucian gave her a condescending smile. "Mags won the Games, Miss Starr, she will have you weeping before she folds. Let her blue dress be her trademark look, no one wants a victor to be mistaken for a Capitolite."

"The phone?" Mags reminded him, eager for an escape. She hoped Myia would listen to Lucian on this.

"Yes," Lucian said, a shadow replacing his mocking expression. "It's the father of your favorite sponsor."

Plutarch's dad? Mags heart plummeted. She now felt very petty for making a scene about something as stupid as clothes.

She hurried to pick up. "Mr. Heavensbee? It's Mags."

A deep strained voice answered. "Mags, I apologize for the inconvenience, but you must come to talk to Plutarch tonight."

Tonight?

"I –"

"Miss, you can't possibly be that busy. My son hasn't eaten since Petrel died. He's barricaded himself in his room, he will not come out unless the President accepts to change the rules of the Hunger Games," the man's tone was thick with helpless fury. "We have tried everything, everything. He will listen to you, he must. He's never reacted like this to the Games."

He shouldn't even have been watching… Mags guessed that crushing a young child's fledgling sensitivity was easier than convincing a sensitive teenager of the fun in such bloody games.

The party-goers would have to start without her.

"I'll be there at seven," she promised.

"What?" Myia exclaimed. "Can't it wait for tomorrow? You can't leave, we have -."

"I'll be back by eleven at most, they'll cope," the victor snapped, her back to Myia as she searched for the Heavensbees' address on the screen.

Blessedly, the Capitol woman kept quiet.

"I won," Lucian muttered before taking his leave.

Mags turned around, only to see that Myia was crying silently.

Something deflated in her. "Take a break Myia," she said in soft tones, "I'll see you late tonight. Have fun, don't worry about me or my opinions, just go have fun."

"I'm useless aren't I," sobbed Myia. "I'm thirty-one, I can't keep a job, I'm single, Aunt Evadne assigned me to you out of pity, and just because it's so obvious you don't need anyone. I'll never make her proud and I've managed to make you hate me too."

Where did that come from? Did Myia really think that making Mags have to comfort her in a moment like this would make her treat her more like an adult? She put her arm around the slender woman, not sure if it was from compassion or utter resignation.

"I don't hate you. I'm in a foul mood because Petrel and Valentia are dead," she said, because they're all dead, and for nothing, not believing she had to spell it out. "Make a list of all the sponsors we had so we know who to contact next Games. That would be extremely useful, Myia. And also call me a cab, please."

The Capitol streets didn't feel safe anymore.

"Really? You're not just giving me this task to get me out of your feet?" Myia said, her hands twisting at her long azure hair like a nervous child.

Mags bit back a groan. "You think I don't take the Capitol's interest in the kids I hope to bring home seriously? Come on, Myia, this aide job is what you'll make of it. You can be a friendly distraction, or you can make yourself essential. You may get later a job organizing events if you learn to do it properly for me."

Unbelievable. Myia had never lacked of anything and yet her ditzy mind had managed to fabricate more insecurities and fears than any self-respecting woman in Four would ever admit to.

A wet smile greeted her proclamation. "That'd be terrific," Myia said, picking herself up. "Sorry, you must think I'm so silly."

Oh yes, but there were much worse things than to be silly.

A pale woman with blue highlights and a frayed sleeveless dress opened the door before Mags had even left the elevator.

"Mrs. Heavensbee?" She guessed. The woman looked too young to be the mother of a nine years old, but the shimmering net of opal jewelry holding her hair up and adorning her bare shoulders was no servant's garb.

Mags was soon engulfed in suffocating hug. "Bless you, this is utterly mortifying but we've tried everything." The woman's voice broke. "We haven't seen him in two days. We were considering to call the homeguard to break the door."

Mags winced, hating to imagine Plutarch so distressed. "Must he not come out to use the facilities?"

Plutarch's mother painted eyebrows furrowed in confusion. She sniffed and shook her head. "He has an en-suite bathroom, toilets of his own attached to his room. He's an active and boisterous child, but never has he thrown a fit like this before."

About time he started being upset about senseless murder, a pitiless voice whispered at the back of Mags' mind.

"He refuses to leave his room until we accept to send his letter to president Achlys," Lamprias Heavensbee said, heavy bags under his eyes. "If it were anything else, I'd destroy the letter and lie, saying I had, but this…"

The heavyset man wrapped his arms around his wife as Mags unfolded the note.

Most esteemed and honorable President Achlys,

The Games are evil. Petrel was strong and brave and deserved to win. Mordred is a big bully. I hate him. I hate the Games. I hate that everyone thinks they're great and makes a celebration. Petrel should have won. Please stop the Hunger Games and do something else. Something where children don't die and brave people like Petrel can win.

Your servant,

Plutarch Heavensbee

Mags shook her head as she finished reading. She was astounded by the lack of spelling mistakes and quite satisfied by the content. Unfortunately, she also saw the problem.

"I'll talk to him," she said. She lifted a hand when Lamprias made a move towards Plutarch's room. "Alone first, it will be better."

She would get Plutarch to eat and go back to school, but not in the way they wanted it, not at the cost of his empathy, not when it was so rare in the fortress city.

She stepped up a wooden flight of stairs into an illuminated corridor. A white door barred her left side.

Mags couldn't help a wry smile at the inscription surrounded by drawings of swords and monsters.

Plutarch's Very Private Property. Knock before entering and then wait for permission or die a slow and excruciatingly painful death!

Her knuckles rapped against the door, met only by silence. She tried opening the handle, but something blocked it from the other side.

"I don't want to see anyone until you send the letter," Plutarch called. "I'm not hungry."

Mags winced at the exhaustion in that stubborn voice. Far from disapproving of Plutarch's one-man rebellion, she had to convince him his energy could be better spent.

She knocked once more. "Plutarch? It's Mags."

A silence. "Mags?"

She picked up the untouched juice bottle and bowl of biscuits besides the door. "Open up, we'll talk, alone. Your parents are downstairs."

The creak of wood against wood reached Mags ears and soon a mop of raven hair and a single blue eye appeared behind the ajar door.

"Come in," Plutarch whispered before pushing his bed back against the door. His eyes lit up at the sight of the food. He grabbed the bowl with both hands and stuffed a cookie in his mouth. "I knew it was there," he said, "but I knew they were waiting for me to grab it to force me out." He gestured at his full mouth in apology as crumbs spilled from it.

"M'so hungwy," he mumbled.

"Finish calmly, we've got time," Mags said, her eyes roaming curiously over his room.

Books and toys alike lay across the floor and the sofa, but their considerable number was not enough to fill the spacious bedroom. Majestic predators of all kinds covered the walls, their prideful eyes burning into any watcher's. A lone black and white tiger roamed silently on the muted ten-foot television screen. Mags winced when she saw a picture of herself right next to Plutarch's bed.

Right next to Petrel's sponsor portrait.

Plutarch followed her sad gaze.

He let himself fall on the bundled covers. "What did you buy with my money?" he said, embracing a ram toy worn raw by too many hugs.

Mags sat next to him, her arm around his shoulders. She swallowed when he put his head in her lap. "Remember the long dagger?

Plutarch nodded fractionally. "He didn't get to use it much, but at least it looked cool… I paid for that?"

Mags hesitated. "In part," she admitted, "it took also some other sponsors."

"My money was only a part of a small thing?" Plutarch's strangled words twisted at Mags' heart. "All my money?" He whispered.

Mags felt terrible as she stroked his hair. She should have refused to let him sponsor. "You helped more than many adult sponsors," she lied. "Everything is more expensive in the Games."

Plutarch jumped to his feet, his cheeks flushed as he grimaced to keep his tears in. "So spending all my money was even more useless that I thought?" He exclaimed, his voice trembling. "Why couldn't you save Petrel? Is Mordred's mentor a big bully too? Do you want me to call the homeguard? I know some, they'll protect you."

A small bitter smile cracked Mags' lips. She was about to destroy a childhood in order to save a man, to save a potential the Capitol would be so eager to squash.

"Plutarch, speaking out against the Games will get you punished and so will your parents, and maybe even me. The Games keep the districts tame, and saying you don't like the Games is saying you want Capitolites to die killed by barbarian district dwellers."

Plutarch's face grew a deep shade of purple. "You're not a barbarian. That's why you won, because you were good! Petrel was good! He should have won! The Gamemakers are so crap, they should be thrown to the crocodiles and eaten!"

Mags' hooded green eyes crinkled despite herself. Esperanza threatened to throw her enemies to the sharks when she'd been Plutarch's age.

The child seemed unable to stop, kicking the nearest toys in rage. "Mordred's escort cheated. The rocket was cheating! He's a cheat, he should be banned. People like him can't be allowed in the Games, it's not fair." Plutarch froze, his face set in furious concentration. He lowered his voice. "They don't like it, the tributes. Petrel didn't look happy at all during the interviews. I don't know why people don't see it."

Because those who aren't vengeful veterans are not looking for it, because everyone is quick to correct those who start suspecting something is wrong until the illusion is perfect again.

Mags grasped Plutarch tightly and pulled him on her lap before he hurt himself.

"Plutarch, stop shouting and listen to me, it's important," she said, her lips inches from his face. Circe he was heavy. Heavier and broader than Petrel had been.

Plutarch sniffed but straightened attentively.

"You're allowed to be angry to have lost your money, but never publicly say that the Games should be abolished or that they're wrong. The President, the peacekeepers, the homeguard, they wouldn't like that at all. Your friends could speak to their parents, and you could be severely punished. Even if they mean well, you can't say things like that, even to children you like."

"They could think I'm an enemy of the people?" Plutarch said, his lips trembling.

The eighteen year old nodded, wondering for the first time how punishment and censorship affected those most privileged. The terror in Plutarch's blue eyes was too real for it to be just the conviction in Mags' tone.

"People become stupid when they're afraid. They could hate you, hurt you. It's important, Plutarch." Mags cradled him more tightly. "It's also important not to forget Petrel," she whispered, painfully aware she was playing with fire and that she was not the only one who could get burned, but she couldn't allow Plutarch's conscience to shrivel like so many Capitolites' had.

Plutarch nodded, looking wiser than his nine years. "I promise. Can you tell me about him? He was your tribute, you knew him right?"

Mags dropped her eyes, unable to hold the boy's pleading stare. She remembered another time, one where she'd been the one craving stories to escape. She wondered if her cousin Freya, so brave and strong in her memories and yet younger when she had died on the reefs than Mags was now, had felt so helpless in the face of such naked trust and desperate need.

"Of course," she lied.

It wasn't so hard to invent a story about the youngest members of a cargo vessel, an elfin little boy and his blue eyed best friend, to spin a tale of storms and saving people lost at sea. She was certain Petrel was the kind of boy who would have snuck up to the tallest mast to glimpse the dolphins swimming in the clean waters. She added a loving but misguided brother and a widowed father grown old from too hard work out of respect for Petrel's living relatives, but mostly it was Petrel and his friend, braving the ocean, two noble spirits in a hostile world.

Plutarch's eyes were glued to her lips, like a man dying of thirst brought next to a waterfall.

Mags had then been too young to suspect that the girl with golden-brown hair in each of her cousin's 'true stories' was a ploy to make her feel safe and heroic during the harsh rebellion. Freya Peregrine. So many people Mags had never had the chance to truly know and appreciate.

She stood up when Plutarch had once more promised to hide his hate of the Games, even from his best friend. He agreed to unblock his door when she had signed the picture of her on the wall.

"He ate all the cookies. He'll come out soon and has understood the letter cannot be sent. Let him grieve at his pace, he's a smart kid."

Plutarch's mother looked like she would faint. "Thank you so much, Sweetheart. We are in your debt, don't hesitate to ever ask."

"I'll remember," Mags said curtly. She would indeed. "Take care of him."

Myia was waiting in the victor's quarters. "Auntie wants to see you." She hiccuped and blushed. "I had fun," she said, hiding her mouth with her manicured hand. "I shouldn't have drunk, but it was fun. You were right."

Mags flashed her a grin. "I'm happy for you. I'll better not make the President wait."

Achlys wouldn't punish her for a missed party. The party wasn't even over, she could go afterwards. The thought played a loop in Mags' mind, losing some of its conviction with every passing second.

"You were missed at the festivities," the President said in greeting, her voice mild.

"I apologize for the inconvenience, I had to deal with one of my younger sponsors," Mags clasped her hands before her, trying not to fidget. 'I would suggest not to let children sponsor, Madam President. They're sensitive and some may not be as reasonable as young Plutarch."

Mags started as a sharp breath exited the President's mouth.

"Of course children cannot sponsor," Achlys exclaimed lifting her arms skywards. "Degenerate parents… I placed the limit at ten for a reason. No minor should be able to place official bets either." Achlys shook her head. "They all do it, it's endemic. I can't lock them all up," she said, the tightness in her eyes revealing that she may yet try to prove herself wrong. "We'll have to organize activities for children during Games viewing hours," she decided.

Mags stared, too stunned by the sheer common sense behind this decision to be able to conceal her shock. She sometimes forgot that the President prized order over cruelty and that they didn't always go hand in hand.

Achlys' face relaxed and she gave Mags a small smile. "New rules… The sponsoring ones themselves will fill a book." She turned her eyes to the city beyond the large windows. "Disabled teenagers who are mentally younger than ten years of age are not eligible for the Games or tesserae anymore. Peacekeepers will confirm the doctor's diagnosis. Attempted fraud will see the family of the child, the child and the doctor either flogged, avoxed or executed."

Mags blinked. "It sounds appropriate," she said, freezing her muscles into what she hoped was an appraising expression. She had practiced lying though her teeth often enough with her mother in the past six months to be confident that she wasn't too far off mark.

No tesserae for the mentally disabled? The young woman from Four fought the urge to grit her teeth. Maris' orphanage would soon foster even more of those unlucky children. Even parents with big hearts would not endanger their healthy offspring to feed those that would never be productive.

"Good." A soft sigh escaped Achlys' lips. "Mags…"

Mags hated how her chest constricted and her throat dried whenever that woman spoke to her, how that voice of steel reduced her to a trembling child, unprepared and unarmed, all too eager to follow orders. It was even worse when Achlys simply stared. Her golden eyes seemed to see through her carefully crafted mask and leaf through her darkest secrets.

Had the Capitol found a way to read thoughts? Sweat pearled on Mags' forehead. She itched to push sticky hair out of her eyes, to move and shift her balance, but she was rooted on the spot.

"Why are you so afraid of me?" The woman asked in soft tones. "Everything you have done has benefited the Capitol and your District. You've even managed to tolerate my niece. I do not understand."

Mags couldn't help it. She laughed. A choked, weak chuckle followed by hysterical giggles, bursting from her lips until her lungs screamed for air.

This was surreal, it had to be a trap.

"Madam, you can order my execution, the death of anyone I care about, on a whim. You would not punish on a whim," Mags hastily added, painfully aware she was digging a snug hole for herself and yet that she had to answer something, "but there are considerations that surpass individuals when ruling a country, and if you decide that my money and skills are needed in District Twelve rather than Four or if the Capitol decides they want to see the victors' siblings reaped in the Games and are disposed to all sponsor huge sums for it–" Mags clamped her mouth shut, suddenly furious at herself.

She'd vowed not to go to see Achlys when she was tired. Plutarch had exhausted her. What was she doing here? She would blab to her death.

Seconds passed and the white-haired woman seemed content to let Mags order her thoughts in case she had more to add, unawares that the oppressive silence lead Mags' treacherous mind to beg for the illusory shield given by a river of words. Unable to hold Achlys' burning gaze, Mags' eyes focused on the President's elaborate earrings, determined not to give in.

Regal and terrifying, the absolute ruler of Panem finally spoke. "I appreciate people who know their place."

Mags almost wept in relief.

"Child, as long as you are one of the main pacifying forces in Four, even in the preposterous event that I would foster the city's primal thirst for blood and drama with such a distasteful twist, it would not be your sibling."

Such charming logic, and the woman wondered why Mags was terrified?

The victor forced a wan smile. "I'll be useful," she promised. Part of Achlys' answer was much too loaded to ignore. "The primal thirst for blood and drama…" Mags tentatively said.

Achlys' lips twisted in scorn. "The Games initially had nothing to do with the Capitol and all to do with the Districts. The rest is collateral effects we must exploit for the good of Panem. Human nature is what it is."

Mags frowned, a chilling suspicion entering her mind. Reaping siblings of victors would be a distasteful twist because District families would be safe and would stop thinking about the Games and focus on other problems?

With Evadne Achlys, Mags never knew if she was being paranoid or much too confident.

"You'll be leaving tomorrow at dawn."

Mags perked up, but her sudden good mood was dampened by a burst of suspicion. "There's a catch," she blurted.

Her outburst earned her a tight nod. "Unrest in Creneis, directly related to your Academy's building."

Mags paled, remembering Valentia's foreboding words on Genny and Calder.

"Mags, I don't know. I just know something's on.." Valentia shrugged. "I don't think they can do much, but..."

What had happened? Had someone been hurt? Were the peacekeepers involved? Was Marquise alright?

"I do not want to break Four's working population to get the minority of hooligans to fall in line, but evidently what works in other districts is not working there. Terror is bad for productivity, but the facts reveal I am being too lenient in District Four."

"A peacekeeper training center will soon open in Galene, and the population is thrilled," Mags hastily said, wanting to show it was not all bad.

She needed more time.

Like a satiated cat magnanimously letting a mouse scurry before its eyes, the white-haired woman granted Mags a small smile. "Indeed, and your actions there were exactly why I extended your victory tour. Either you get the rest of Four to cooperate or I will. I'm getting too old for such stupidity." The President's face softened. "I know you're doing your best, Mags, but intention is worth little if the results are unsatisfactory. I sometimes fear I work with greater idiots that the illiterate peasants you must compose with, and my people go to university."

Mags blinked, unable to comprehend why the woman was telling her that. Was she trying to comfort her? To allieviate some of the pressure? But why? The possible reason was so baffling that the victor's mind came to a halt. "Do you actually enjoy working with me?"

Achlys' golden eyes flew open and she laughed. A genuine open laugh. "Why shouldn't I?" She said with a smile. "Go get ready for tomorrow, you'll need your wits." The President's red lips twisted. "You're one of the very few victors with wits left…"

Mags still couldn't believe her ears as she politely took her leave.

Something was terribly wrong with this universe. Achlys liked her. It was just... too human. They weren't supposed to get along.

Mags let out a tense breath. At least she wouldn't have to attend that accursed party.

I hope you enjoyed my not so subtle foreshadowing of Plutarch becoming a rebel.^^ Please review.