+ Thanks for another kind review, Dancing-Souls! There is a big source doc I made that keeps everything straight for me, haha. Gotta make sure I don't accidently conflict with things I wrote earlier. Given that I'm shooting for six books in this "series", there are a lot of names and faces.

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I didn't know whether or not to believe this Arrian de Lange, but come ten o'clock on the following night, I made my way to the square. If he was telling the truth, I had an answer to my family's problem – but I wanted to see his work for myself. If he wasn't telling the truth, then I'd find out shortly – and I'd have to keep my eyes open for traps.

To counter that possibility, I'd brought backup.

"Still don't see why you're so quiet about what you're doing," Daud grumbled. He trudged along behind me in the darkness, with only the milky glow from a crescent moon light up our path towards the square. "Don't see why you really need me, either."

"I told you. It's late and you're a big guy," I said.

"Like anyone's really going to rape a victor. They'd be gutted by a Peacekeeper in ten minutes."

"It's dark. No one would see."

"Ha! As if eyes are the only way they see. Stupid excuse."

"You can always go home and cry to Finch about it."

"Hm. Nah."

Lights flickered off one by one in the buildings around us as workers prepared for the next day's work. The flame atop the Church of the Triad's belltower defied the night, casting twitching shadows along the dusty road. It was quiet at this hour of the night as the hum of the still night air replaced the usual din of the crowded inner town. An owl's hoot, echoing along the canyon walls, was deafening.

Daud grumbled, "Is this going to take all night?"

"No. Just stay quiet."

"Why? Are you robbing someone? Like you need the money."

I shushed Daud as the buildings of the town square loomed up before us. They looked so much different at night, so dark, so imposing even though they were barely ant hills compared to the Capitol's skyscrapers. These buildings weren't new and shiny, but old, full of dust and ghosts. Behind them towered the dam, great, white, and harder than steel. It looked insurmountable against the dark sky above, all two hundred meters of it. The whole scene made me feel small, notwithstanding the nerves I felt about what could happen next.

A small alcove beside a tailor along the square's outer rim beckoned as a good waiting spot. It was dark and out of the way, and the four Peacekeepers I saw standing around the front of the courthouse wouldn't so much as notice Daud and me in here. I'd remembered standing up in front of that building just a week ago as I'd returned from the Capitol, seeing all the faces below, indifferent to whatever speech I'd give, eager to go about their business and return to tending to the gears that made District 5 churn. The place was a veritable graveyard now, as only the Peacekeepers stirred in the square. An early night in for the shopkeepers, I guessed.

"You picked a right terrible location," Daud muttered as he squeezed into the alcove with me. It wasn't much of a fit: The hole was more of a ditch than anything. Perhaps it had led to a shed or something one day in the past, but now it was little more than a bored-out gutter in the dirt with a slight wooden overhang littered with splinters. At least it was dark.

"I just don't want to be seen," I said.

"You could actually tell me why, you know."

I said nothing. I hadn't wanted to get Daud involved in the first place, and the less he knew about any of this, the better.

It didn't take long before the square heated up. With a loud bang! the doors to the courthouse burst open. A man dressed in plain white clothes stumbled out, tumbling past the Peacekeeper sentries and falling into the dust. Two Peacekeepers walked out from inside, guns at their sides, clad in full body armor aside from their helmets. I recognized the one to the right as Evla, the burly captain of the district's garrison, a woman known for her strange lax attitude towards the district while maintaining a rigid hierarchy amongst the men under her command. Given the guns, I figured whoever was clawing in the dirt wasn't just some random thief.

"The hell are we watching?" asked Daud, but his tone had changed. He wasn't grumbling so much, and when I looked over, I caught him squinting to catch the action in the square.

Evla strolled up to her victim, a loose grip on her rifle but a tight sneer on her face. "You little bastard. I actually trusted you. All that, and you do this?"

The man in the dirt tried to scamper away, but he didn't make it more than a few paces before Evla's boot connected with his face. He spat up something gooey into the dust, turned over, and said, "I dunno what this's all about. I didn't do nothing!"

"Don't give me that crap, Pavo," Evla spat. "I've got all the data on you. One of your little contacts apparently had a change of heart. Files, cash transactions, dates. I was happy to take it. You're not just shitting on your uniform, you're doing it in the stupidest way possible."

"I don't know –"

"Before we get to the good stuff, I have to ask. What even tempts you to join a racketeering ring? Are you bored? Do you think you're underpaid, or something? Because you're about to get far less where you end up."

Pavo paused. The night froze. "I don't know what you're talking about!" he pleaded. "But forget about me, how many other criminals are in this district that you're ignoring?"

"I don't give a hump what they do to each other!" Evla said. "They can stab each other for all I care, as long as they meet their quotas. But when you do it, then it's my problem. Then this happens. At least I don't have to deal with the fallout. We got someone from the Capitol in to do that. Just arrived a few hours ago."

"Wha – no, please."

Evla snapped her fingers. From the darkness of the courthouse's interior walked another figure, a short man with low, sloping shoulders and a mountainous chest that dwarfed his small head. Two beady eyes glistened in the moonlight, and when I squinted for a closer look, I could see him smiling. His wiry blonde hair looked toxic.

Daud exhaled. "What in the names of the Shadow and the Night am I watching, girl?"

"Well!" the new man said, his voice cheerful and chipper as he strolled down the courthouse steps. "It's Pavo, right? I hear you're in a bit of trouble."

Pavo's reaction told the whole story. He gasped and scampered back, slipping on a stray rock before Evla stomped on his chest to keep him still. "You really think there's a lot of places to go?" the short man laughed, strutting up on Pavo's right. He cracked his knuckles. In the still night, the sound was like a gunshot. "You could hide out in the tunnels, I guess, in which case we could just pump in water and flush you out. Or you could run towards the canyon end and we could see how far you get before you die of exposure or a river lamprey gets you. A mite tempting, huh? I do like a little bit of fun before we get to the nasty bit."

"No – no –"

"So much squealing! You're like a pig. When we get back to the Capitol, I should look into your archives and change up some things. Goodbye Pavo the Peacekeeper, hello Pig the Peacekeeper. Of course, where you're going, you'll be making a little more disturbing sounds, hm? Bit hard to say much without a tongue."

The man leaned back as Pavo whimpered. "Sorry. Bit morbid of me. I kind of get carried away. You understand, yea? Sometimes I wonder if Avoxes sound out things in their head and try to say them, and just end up sounding like brain-dead farm animals because they've no tongue. Or do they make strange noises because they like the sound of them? Or is it like echolocation? Guess you'll find out, lucky man. Take him off to the airship. The dust is making my throat all scratchy."

Pavo moaned as Evla and the other Peacekeeper grabbed him around the arms and dragged him off. I was frozen in the alcove. By this time I had no doubt that this Arrian was telling the truth: He'd dealt with my Peacekeeper problem, and in a far more gruesome way that I'd imagined. I'd told him not to kill the man. He'd certainly done that.

I only remembered Daud was there when he breathed out and said, "Two hells. You knew this was going to happen, didn't you? You're caught up in this?"

"No!" I pleaded as the Peacekeepers shut the doors of the courthouse. Darkness and silence returned to the square. "I mean, I didn't mean for this to happen!"

Daud's expression hardened. "Yes you did. What, did that man offend you? Gods know why you brought me here. Expecting a betrayal? You have their ear, don't you?"

"No!"

"They have you already. You should have listened to Finch, kept your head down, smiled and stayed as neutral as possible. Now you're a player in their game, and I know just as well as anybody that you can't quit once you've started."

He stepped out of the alcove, glanced around to make sure we weren't noticed, and turned towards me with a frown. "You're turning out just like me. You can find your own way home."

His words stuck in my head as I made my way back to the Village. What game was Daud familiar in? I'd always seen him as a down-on-his-luck victor shying away from the spotlight, but he clearly had experience in the Capitol circles – something Elan had brought up back during my Games, when my escort had told me of Daud's importance to my chances at victory. What was I getting myself into?

Predictably, my house's lights were on when I stumbled back home. I had a feeling who would be visiting, and when I opened my door and trudged into my kitchen, I wasn't disappointed. Arrian de Lange sat in one of my chairs with his feet up on my kitchen table, drinking a glass of water and staring out the window. "Was it to your liking?" he said as I walked in.

"What did you do?" I blurted out.

"I did not kill him, that is for sure. I listen to requests."

"That…that man from the Capitol is going to make him into an Avox!"

"Ixion? Probably worse than an Avox. He is well-known in the Capitol's worst circles. Spymaster Lucrezia Bierce's fist. To be sure, Pavo will give you no more trouble."

Arrian turned back to me. He smiled, his mouth just twitching up enough to get the point across without looking happy. "And now we find out if you are a woman of honor, no? I completed a task, ahead of schedule, too. Now I ask you for something."

"Hang on. What are you?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You're not from this district."

"I believe I told you that already."

"Then what? Are you spying on me? Did the president send you?"

Arrian smirked. "You would not have seen the president's man if he spied on you. I do not represent Creon Snow. I have a different backer."

"Then what's your game?"

"The game everyone of importance in the Capitol plays, Terra Pike. The Gilded Game. The unspoken but understood way of life among the Capitol's highest."

Here we go. Whatever Daud was getting at, whatever Elan had hinted at so many times, this man finally had put a label on. "And what is this?"

Arrian took a long swig of water. "Do you wonder why so many in the Capitol look so strange? I can see it. So can all of you in the districts. Their makeup, their clothes, their surgical adjustments. Colorful, gaudy even. Inhuman."

"Culture, I guess."

"No. Wrong. Well, not entirely wrong, but mostly. They are not expressions of individuality but the opposite, masks to confuse and disorient. They are velvet veils to camouflage the intentions of even the most famous in the most opulent of settings. Lime green hair is in this winter. A businesswoman with such hair may shout to the world that she is in tune with fashion trends, but in reality, she seeks to blend in with a certain audience in order to gain their favor. Perhaps a man from politics implants an adjustment to his face and wears a certain style robe to fit in with the merchants, gaining vital information that he passes to a man with more need for it. In turn, he is handsomely rewarded, and uses those rewards to better his own station and weaken his rivals. Everything in the Capitol's highest circles – and in District 1's, even, as the Capitol is its spawn – has a purpose, from grand overtures to the minutest greetings."

"So how does Pavo fit into this?"

"That anyone thinks Pavo is a key figure in the Game is laughable," Arrian said, swishing the contents of his glass around. "You. Are a player in the Game. The Hunger Games are a big part of the Game, as players vie for the favor of victors and influence on those close to the annual event. It just so happens that I, and the one I work for, play. I know what Creon Snow has asked from you. I know what Lucrezia Bierce and Taurus Sharpe and the others want from you. Above all, I have a better idea of what you want out of all this. A better idea than they have, at least."

"And what's that?"

He smiled. "You cared for Ember, no? For Glenn, and even for Tethys from District 4. You barely knew these people during your time in the arena, but you cared nonetheless."

I folded my arms, frowned, and said, "So?"

"You do not want deaths on your conscience. You did not want Pavo's."

"So? No one does."

"Not true. But even if it were, you will have deaths coming. It is the nature of the Hunger Games, and to minimize that blow, you will want victors. Less children dying because you could not save them. I can give you that. For a price."

"Bullshit."

"You think the Hunger Games random?"

"No, but – "

"Then…"

"You can't do that. You can't just pluck people to win."

"You saw what I just did to Pavo."

"I'm still not buying it. If you're playing some game, you have an angle. You just said you all have masks."

Arrian sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Very well. You may regret not taking up my offer if your children die this year. But I will always be around should you change your mind. Now we see whether you are worth offering, no?"

He stood up and laid an envelope on the table. It was thin and covered in dirt, its edges wrinkled with one singed. "There is a man," Arrian said, his gaze hardening. "Pyre York. He is the high priest of the Church here, its leader and most reverent. The followers look up to him. You may usually find him in the church itself, but I do not what you to go to there. This man, York, spends much of his time in the tunnels of the canyon walls, specifically in a precinct called Redhammer. I wish for you to take this message to him. That is all I ask."

The longer I looked at the envelope, the more sinister it appeared. Arrian clearly had motives beyond just bartering with me. What was inside? "Why?"

"He is an interesting man," Arrian said and shrugged, downing the last of his water. "A corrupt one who collects the donations of his churchgoers and uses them to furnish his own lifestyle, yes, but interesting. That letter contains information that would make him more interesting in the long run."

"How am I supposed to find him? The canyon tunnels go on for a while into the rock, and I've barely been in them much. I grew up out here. Besides, everyone says Redhammer's home to a lot of thieves and black market types."

"They are not incorrect. But you know people too, hm?" Arrian said. "Go as Terra Pike and someone is bound to attack you and try to rob you, I think, if not worse. But camouflage yourself, conceal yourself as you will have to do in the Capitol, and…you have a better chance. As for finding the man, I believe you know someone who can find him. A boy named Blaze, yes? He is not devoutly religious, but he is much more than you think he is. Perhaps asking for help is your best bet."

Arrian stood up, wiped dust off of his jacket, and said, "Before I go. Perhaps it is best if you keep your mentors out of your dealings. At least your two fellow victors here in District 5. You may bring Daud Mosely along with you tonight, but he is played by the Game. He is not one to play it. Should you wish to thrive, you should seek to avoid his example."