+ Big thanks again for the consistent reviews, FoxfaceFan1! Really means a lot to know people are reading and liking the story. Critiques always appreciated! The newest chapter, in which I spend an inordinate amount of time on Lucrezia and Terra's relationship. And a short little jaunt through District 4, featuring our favorite crazy victor. And if you're careful, you might see a little Creon Snow peeping through Terra's thoughts.

/ / / / /

"I hope you're not planning to attend church looking like that."

Lucrezia stood in my front doorway, her arms folded, the shadowy morning light making her look dark and intimidating against the dusty backdrop of the Victor's Village. She didn't need her blue body paint to look recognizable, even though it was the first thing that came to mind when I thought of her. Even looking "normal," she still stood tall and haughty, and strangely, had a sort of seductive, aggressive air about her. It all made me want to shrink away into the depths of my house.

"What's wrong with my clothes?" I sniffed. It wasn't as if I wore anything out of the ordinary. Brown trousers, a white shirt, run-of-the-mill stuff for District 5.

She scoffed, "They make you look exactly like Terra Pike."

"Uh – I am Terra Pike."

"Not today you're not. You're not going to church to worship some idols. Can you infer anything?" When I stared at her, mouth slightly agape, she sighed. "Fine. I'm to do all the work."

"What work? I thought you just wanted me to go to the church service this morning and listen to the preacher people?"

"Listen, yes. Broadcast to the entire district that their victor spontaneously has embraced eternal salvation, no. Come with me."

"Where?"

"Now. If you do it, you'll find out."

District 5 was already bustling as people took advantage of the cooler early morning hours, but most were too busy with errands or otherwise to notice their victor trudging along behind a woman from the Capitol – or a woman from the Capitol who looked like everyone else on the streets. I wondered what I'd say if I ran into Finch and she asked me about my company.

Hi Finch! This is a condescending woman from the Capitol who usually looks much different! Don't mind.

Fortunately, we didn't run into Finch. Maybe Lucrezia had planned it in advance, but we didn't run into anybody as she led me to a rickety wooden staircase behind one of the butcher shops surrounding the town square.

I was confused. "Are we buying a pig first?"

"We're not going shopping. Up the stairs."

Each wooden plank creaked with every step. I felt like I was about to see something horrible, some evidence of Lucrezia's work in action. Dead bodies? Some poor District 5 conspirator left hanging by his wrists over a fire? Some other punishment Lucrezia wanted to threaten me with?

Instead, I opened a splinter-covered wooden door to a bland, boring bedroom. Fading yellow paint peeled off of the walls like jaundiced skin retreating from old, brittle bones. A thin, dismal white rug covered the floor, curling on one side where it jammed against the wall. Ratty, brown woolen blankets covered a thin mattress that lay directly on the floor, no bed frame needed. On the far side of the room, a door ajar led into what looked like a depressing gray bathroom, dark and spotted with mildew here and there.

Maybe I would find a body here.

"What is this?" I asked, testing the floor with one foot and taking a deep sniff. It smelled like an old warehouse, like the storage rooms topside where the solar power workers kept tools and gear.

Lucrezia pushed me in and closed the door behind her. She flicked a switch, lighting up a lone bulb above that flickered and protested as it came to life. Sad white light crawled across the sorry bed and lonely rug. "My room."

"Your room?"

"Yes. Do I have to explain what a room is?"

"No, but – how'd you get it?"

"I rented it."

"What?"

"How do you think people get housing in other people's establishments? I made an offer to the butcher to pay him a certain amount each month. In return, he leased me the third floor here."

Whatever Lucrezia had said before, this easily was the most ludicrous thing I'd heard spill out of her mouth. "So you just…you went to the butcher, told him you work with the president, and asked to rent a room?"

Lucrezia scowled, as if preparing to lecture a student. "Of course not. Lucrezia Bierce isn't renting the room. Jessamine Saban is."

"Jessa-who?"

"Jessamine Saban. She is the widow of a gear operator on the dam who died tragically in a workplace accident. Now, she works as a personal assistant to a Peacekeeper commander named Seth. The same Peacekeeper, incidentally, who she'd been seeing intimately for years behind her late husband's back. She had a bastard daughter from him named Misty, who Jessamine had told the butcher would be coming by now and then to visit. Coincidentally, this Misty feels remorse for her upbringing and her mother's lustful tastes, enough remorse to push her to attend church after eighteen years of ignoring the faith."

It took a second to wrap my head around that. But who the hell are these people? Why are they…oh. Oh. Then it clicked. "Lucrezia" was never here. Nor Terra, for that matter.

I grimaced and said, "So…I'm playing someone named Misty?"

"Hm. A little bit of thought in that wasteland between your ears, I suppose."

"Okay, look. I get why you came up with some cover story. Capitol and all. Why me?"

"I explained this already," Lucrezia said, frowning again. "And you're not going to last long if you can't understand the power of deception. I thought it would have been obvious after becoming a victor and working with the Snows of all people. You are too well known by this district. Everyone knows your face. Every interaction you have is colored by what you did in the Hunger Games and what you do now in the Capitol. Fictional Misty Saban can be anyone and anything. Whatever's best suited to finding out all you can about these religious fundamentalists."

"But everyone's going to know I'm Terra the moment they see me."

"Wrong. Step into the bathroom."

Feeling confused, I backed my way into the dingy bathroom. "Dingy" summed it up well: The place had all the grandeur of an outhouse. Dirt caked a chipped metal sink, rust spreading out like bacterial cultures from the drain. A long fault line fractured a mirror diagonally from top to bottom. A desolate toilet filled with murky water was fit to host a family of roaches, and the bathtub likely hadn't been cleaned since the Dark Days.

I guessed Lucrezia had gotten this place cheap. I also guessed that butchers didn't make nearly as much as most merchants.

"Wonderful place, I grumbled, eying a mound of black boxes stacked against one wall.

Lucrezia snorted, "The butcher had plans to renovate. I convinced him otherwise and saved money."

"Yeah, if only you had a job that could afford a nice place," I sighed and rolled my eyes.

She opened one of the boxes and pulled out a small pair of globular containers, each no larger than the tip of my thumb. Frowning, Lucrezia looked back into the bedroom and said, "Take off your clothes."

"Uh, what?"

"You're not wearing that."

"What's wrong with what I'm wearing? If you're going to give me a makeover or something, these clothes look like everyone else's."

"They look like merchants' clothes. Misty Saban lives just outside Redhammer. Take off your clothes."

"No."

Before I could say another word, Lucrezia wheeled and slapped me. I recoiled from the hard hit, clapping my palm to my cheek as pain spread out across the side of my face. She hit a lot harder than I thought she could. What the hells?

Lucrezia grabbed my shoulder before I could say a word. She scowled and seethed, "You can help and listen to what I tell you, or you can go fester in your house until the summer rolls around. I'd prefer your help, but I don't need it if it comes to that. It's your decision."

Left unsaid was the key, But I already know you'll comply. Lucrezia didn't have to threaten me with violence. The game of intrigue she and the others played was too tempting to pass up, even if it meant a little humiliation. I figured it wouldn't be the last time I did something I didn't want to. Hells, I was good at doing things I didn't want to if the Hunger Games were any example.

Sulking, I pulled my top off as Lucrezia fetched things in the bedroom. I didn't know why nakedness still embarrassed me. I'd done it for my stylist Rhea, who had expressed a far worse…or stranger…attitude towards me than Lucrezia had so far.

"Don't strip," Lucrezia chided as I moved to remove my bra. "I don't need to check you for a fitting. I'm not one of your stylists. Just remove that unconvincing outer layer."

Well, then. Could've told me that beforehand.

I wrapped my arms around my bare waist as Lucrezia came in with a tattered, patched brown tunic and a pair of woolen trousers with a hole in one pant leg, right at knee height. She dropped something else in front of me, too, something I was far less comfortable putting on. It was a wig, a mane of curly, ratty, dirty blonde hair that could stretch down past my shoulder blades. I held it away from me, squeamish about wearing what looked like could have been peeled off of someone's head.

"Really?" I said, inspecting it like it was a hunk of rotting meat.

"Tie your hair up and pull it over your scalp," ordered Lucrezia, ignoring my squeamishness. "And put these in your eyes."

Oh, no. That was too much. She opened a small pair of thumb-sized plastic containers, each holding a clear fluid in which floated a transparent dome. I blanched. "You want me to what?"

"Your eyes are a vivid color. Memorable. It's much harder to recognize you with blonde hair and brown eyes."

"I…how…"

Lucrezia sighed, adding a touch more exasperation than necessary. "Has anyone ever taught you how to survive in the world? Place one on your index finger and pull your eye open. Finger to eye. That simple. How on earth did you ever make it through puberty, let alone the Hunger Games?"

Putting on ratty clothes was easy. Putting something in my eye was a lot more difficult. After a half-hour of struggling, Lucrezia snorted, "Assuming you even show up to the church in time for the noonday service, you should take some inspiration from your struggles. The Church of the Triad has something for eyes."

"What does that mean?" I gasped, rubbing my eyes for the hundredth time and plopping the contact lenses back in their solution. Why is everything so difficult?

"Taurus told you about the corpse found outside of Redhammer, I assume. That's why you're working with him."

"Yeah. So?"

"It wasn't a normal corpse when we found it. It was blackened, charred, a postmortem burning, considering the killers had opened up the chest and removed the Peacekeeper's heart. But first they'd removed his eyes. From the autopsy, he'd been alive. A hot, sharp instrument to gouge them out, according to the coroner's notes."

That did not help my current struggle. Leaning over the sink, I put my face in my hands and mumbled, "Why?"

"Mm. If you hurry up getting ready and go to church, maybe you can tell us. Assuming you don't blow your cover in of one outing."

In another fifteen minutes, I'd finally succeeded in sticking the contacts in my eyes and fitting the wig in my head. Exhausted, I slumped over in a chair as Lucrezia rubbed brown stuff across my face. "I don't know why you're making this so difficult," she berated me as she smeared gunk across my cheek. "Of course, you're coming from one of the more privileged districts."

"You're coming from the Capitol."

She said nothing as she finished her work. I looked, in a word, alien. The girl who stared back at me through the veil of the dirty mirror wasn't Terra Pike in any way. She looked disheveled, beaten down. Secretly, I wondered if Lucrezia hadn't wanted to make my disguise difficult, as the red around my eyes made me look even more downbeat.

"Very well. Get up," ordered Lucrezia.

I sniffed, still inspecting myself in the mirror. Lucrezia pulled my hand away when I tried to straighten my fake hair and smooth out creases in my clothes. "How do I get these things out of my eyes?" I asked.

She scoffed, "Worry about that later. Worry about two things now. You have ten minutes to get to the church. When you get there, listen. Watch. Observe. And if you get the chance, connect with someone there. More than anything, you have to look like someone searching for faith, not for suspects."

Clear enough.

The crowds had died down on the streets by the time the sun rose high into the sky, but the central church downtown was as packed as always. Under the watching eye of the dam and the towering canyon walls, the faithful not at work or otherwise indisposed took advantage of the noonday heat to find shelter in one of the largest buildings in District 5. The bronze church bell clanged back and forth in the belltower high above, a spire that looked over the entire merchant quarter. The church's façade, a wall of sandstone bricks unflinching and unbreaking, met the parishioners. I felt small as I walked through a pair of two story high wooden doors, and the gaping expanse of the interior didn't help.

A pair of wooden chandeliers hung from the ceiling, at least two dozen candles situated on each, wax dripping into rusting metal holders. Not as if the church needed the light: Giant windows, scrubbed clean and glistening, let in enough sunlight that we may as well have sat outside. Given all the emphasis on light, I was surprised that the air was cool in here. The church had to have a good deal of money to afford cooling fans for a building this size.

Idols and frescos large and small lined the walls. Here, the wood carving of a bearded man, his cloak open and flowing in an invisible wind, his arms opened wide, rays bursting from his palm. There, a woman with a shield and spear, holding the line against some unforeseen enemy. And everywhere, a cloaked man – or woman, who could tell? – his hood curled over his eyes, a flaming torch in one hand, a pair of scales in the other. At the front of the great room, a red-tinted window bathed scarlet sunlight over a wooden altar. Candles burned atop it, each situated between the three idols. Giant skylights above cast light down from the sky. I had to narrow my eyes from the brightness of the church, causing me to tear up again from the damn contacts. Ugh.

Listen. Observe. Connect. Right. I reminded myself of what I was supposed to do and looked around. If there was some sort of assigned seating, it didn't look like it. Church-goers piled into the wooden pews here and there, in groups and alone. I moved towards the back of the room, still unsure of what to expect, when someone sitting by himself in a far corner stopped my cold.

He bowed his head and slumped his shoulders, but there was no mistaking my mentor. No one sat in front of Daud. No one sat beside him. Alone, he shut his eyes and waited, hands folded in his lap. Guilt – guilt? – washed over me. I wanted to push people aside and take a seat next to him. I knew why he came here and the things he did more than anyone else in the building. If anyone deserved a little support, it was him – and his fellow church-goers certainly didn't seem to provide it. He was as much of a pariah in here as he was out on the streets.

So much for fellowship. Hypocrites.

But as much as I wanted to take a seat next to him, I stopped myself. I wasn't here to comfort people. I wasn't even here to help people, and thinking that way might lead to all sorts of unintended consequences that could snowball in a hurry.

I ignored Daud like everyone else, as much as it pained me to do so, but Lucrezia had told me to connect to people. I was loathe to strike up a conversation with any of these strangers out of the blue. Instead, I spotted someone else I knew filing in – someone who I might just be able to win over as "Misty Saban," someone who I already knew how to talk to and how to befriend. I'd been doing it every day at work for three years. Maybe luck did turn my way sometimes.

I shuffled through the crowd, pushing my way into a pew and taking a seat next to Blaze.

Perking up as I approached, I asked, lowering my voice to not sound like myself, "Is anyone sitting here?"

Blaze looked at me – or at "Misty," I supposed, or whatever the heck I was in here - as if I'd asked about something crazy. "Uh…no."

Good enough. I plopped down next to him, fingering a lock of my "hair" as I waited for something to happen next. Gods, curly hair felt weird. As I waited, I fought off a dissonance in my head. Lucrezia set me up as some family-challenged girl searching for her place in the world. So be it – but how was I supposed to be extroverted and approachable if I needed to look weepy and conflicted at the same time?

I glanced up at Blaze, who was busy staring over at a wall. Well, drama could always work with him.

Suddenly I was thankful for the contacts, as squinting my eyes made them tear up again out of irritation. I leaned over, planting my elbows on my knees and pressing my palms to my face, pretending to be lost in despair. Is this what conflicted people do at church?

I peeked between my fingers here and there. Blaze had noticed me, at least, as he frowned and cast a look my way from time to time. After a few minutes, he coughed and said, "Are you…do you need help?"

In any other situation, I would have laughed. I stifled the urge and shook my head instead, mumbling, "Sorry. I'll try to stop."

He folded his arms and leaned back. "Do whatever."

"Sorry," I apologized again, doing my best to weigh on his conscience. "I know I'm bothering you. I don't even know you."

Blaze looked annoyed, glancing around at other churchgoers as the last stragglers filed in and found seats. But I knew he wasn't a bad guy. A bit abrasive, sure, but not a bad person. A girl in distress would break down his walls. He'd suggested that I go to church, after all.

Finally, he cracked; "Look, we're waiting anyway. Is there…what's up?"

I rubbed at my eyes and looked away. "I don't want to bother you."

"Jeez, girl, I'd be an ass if I told you to piss off."

I over-emphasized a sniffle and said, "It's my mom."

"Uh-huh."

"She pushes me away and looks sick all the time, and she keeps…she sees these men…oh, I'm sorry. You probably don't want to hear this. I won't burden you."

I looked away, daring him into the next move. He could go along with what I said and ignore me, but how many young guys in this situation – with a girl crying her eyes out right next to them – would do that?

Blaze rubbed his chin and said, "I, uh – look, what's your name?"

"Misty."

"Cool. I'm Blaze. Why don't you…why don't you sit up, for starters? We're gonna get started soon here."

I sniffed, nodded, and said, "Okay. I just…I don't want to bother you."

"Gods, you're gonna bother me if you keep saying that."

I said nothing, merely nodding and staring at my lap. I glanced over as he looked at me, his face showing his resolve buckling. For a moment, a horrible feeling shot through me. I knew exactly what I was doing: I was using one of my only friends in District 5 to further my agenda – no, not my agenda, Lucrezia's agenda. Weaving Blaze around my finger took a few tears and sniffles, not much more.

But, dammit, he had no idea how high my stakes were. For Blaze, church and the solar power fields were the highlight of life. I had bigger matters to attend to. Winning Taurus's and Lucrezia's favors might mean getting a tribute out alive. It might mean sparing that victor the troubles of dealing with Calla's requests and all the stress that came from the Capitol's political game. I was willing to toy with one boy's emotions for all that.

I'd worked through the death of a president. What he had worked through?

"Thanks," I murmured.

"Hm?"

"Nobody's been willing to listen to me recently. At least you didn't tell me to screw off."

He paused, finding the right words to reply with. "Well…to both hells with those people. They sound like asses."

I nodded and forced a smile as a man I'd seen only once walked in through a side door. Pyre York, the man who'd wanted a message three years ago. What had he been up to since then?

Glancing over at Blaze, I hesitated and stopped short of saying anything more. This would be a process. Misty wouldn't win over my friend in one outing. I'd need to keep coming back here, try a little more each time. However it went, I knew I had an in: Whether or not I got to know Pyre or any other heads of this faith, I knew Blaze. Now, the girl I pretended to be knew him, too.

Pyre walked up to the altar, looked out over the pews, and coughed. For a moment, I thought he looked right at me.

"Brothers," he said. "Sisters. Sons, daughters, fathers, mothers. Today I want to ask each of you a question: Who do we turn to in our loneliest hours? Our family? The ones we are born to, not of choice, but of chance? Our friends, the ones we choose but never truly know? Our associates, co-workers, victims of circumstance?"

He shook his head. "No. We are all sinners. All men and women, children even, each of us flawed. Backstabbers. Thieves. Cheats. Our sins are endless. Through our waking hours in this world, we can place our full faith only in those higher than us. The Light guides us. The Moon protects us with her shield, her spear. The Flame shall judge us and weigh our crimes when we exit this world. Who are we to place our worth, our confidence, in the material essence of this world, when so much more awaits us?"

I bristled at his words. Who was Pyre York to know what horrible things happened in this world?

"I say this," Pyre went on, waving a hand over the crowd. "not out of judgment, but of observation. Even here, some of us are guilty of blindly internalizing the words of those we think our superiors, and labeling that our gospel. This is a crime in the eyes of our Lords. There is only one word, and that is the word of the Light. The word that the Moon protects, the word the Flame wars over. The word the Dark fights to usurp. Most insidiously, the word the Shadow seeks to corrupt, to poison. Seek out the deceivers amongst you. They are the black ones who would turn you from holiness, the ones who would corrupt you into following the footsteps of a fallen race. For that is what we are – can you not see it? Do we not witness the sins of forsaken overlords, those who would abandon our poorest and weakest, those who would cast our children every year to certain death, those who would mock our poor, our destitute? When you see your brothers, your sisters, do you spit upon them? The fallen would."

Next to me, Blaze clasped his hands and nodded. I gritted my teeth. For all his charisma and faith, Pyre was no different than so many others I'd seen in the Capitol. He was a merchant of hope and dreams. In that instant, I saw why Lucrezia, Xanthia, and Taurus hated this faith so much. Hidden in Pyre's speech was a populist rant against the Capitol, against any sort of law and order outside of the faith. For as much as he railed against deceivers, what was Pyre doing in front of that altar? How different was he from me, Terra, Misty, whatever I was?

I glanced up at Blaze as my friend listened in to those sweet, persuasive words. Pyre wasn't interested in saving anyone from whatever religious damnation he believed in. I wouldn't let his agenda evade my gaze.

/ / / / /

A knock on the door jolted Annie Odair from her nap.

Instantly, she clapped her hands over her ears to drown out the din. Don't let it in. Don't let it in. Finnick wasn't here to tell her it would be okay. Why wasn't he here? Taking a deep breath in, Annie steadied herself. Finnick was in the Capitol for the week. He had to take care of things. She had to take care of their house. She'd be okay, he'd said. She'd be okay.

Hesitating, Annie got off of their couch and inched towards their front door. The wooden floorboards creaked under her feet. For a house in the Victor's Village in District 4, the Odair household had always seemed…old. Antiquated, like something drawn up from the past. Maybe it was the dark oaken floorboards, so different from the driftwood floor that had covered Annie's home back when…back when. Maybe it was the spaciousness of the living room, the lonely furniture, the walls too wide for a single person. Her son was upstairs, caught up in whatever he did. Annie was too frightened to find out. Ever since Finnick had told her that the Capitol had enlisted Drake in those…things…that he did, Annie had been afraid of long talks with her son. She was afraid of what she'd learn, afraid of the things she couldn't change.

Helpless. That was what she was. Helpless to help her best friend, her lover. Helpless to help her son, her only child who looked so much like Finnick. Helpless to help her district partner thirty years ago, his head severed from its shoulders, rolling along the ground like a melon…

Annie clamped her hands tighter over her ears.

She couldn't hear the sounds of District 4 from the Victor's Village, anyway. The gulls, sure, but no more. Not the sounds of the boats, the oil motors, the rumbling like the engine from the one that her mother had worked on when she was a little girl, the one that had exploded at sea and taken her beautiful mother to the bottom. Not the grinding and coughing of the cannery like the one her father had worked in after her mother's death, the toil working him to the bone until he died not three years after she'd become a victor.

Annie didn't want to open the front door. Terrible things lurked out there.

Forcing herself to step forward, Annie reminded herself of what Finnick had said so many times. One more step. You've done so much, Annie. Be brave for me. For us both. He'd said that the day her father had died, the day she'd given birth to Drake, the day she'd watched Drake Reaped for the 95th Hunger Games. So many horrors. What lurked outside the door this time?

With knots tangled in her gut like the links in the rope Finnick twisted over and over again in his quiet hours, Annie opened the door. No Peacekeeper stood there to meet her, no harbinger of doom – at least of that sort. Instead, a pretty, smiling familiar face said hello.

"Annie!" Brooke Larson said with a bright smile. "It's so good to see you! We don't see each other enough."

Annie held her hands to her chest and took a step back. "You shouldn't be here," she whispered.

Brooke laughed it off with a wave of her hand. "C'mon, Annie. Finnick mentored me. We've know each other a while."

"They're looking for you."

"Oh, I know. Don't worry about that."

"They say you're bad."

Brooke bit her lip, the corners of her mouth turning up as she slumped her shoulders. "Annie, it's me! Do you know how many times I've talked with Finnick? When we've shot the breeze over the Games, the Capitol, things we wished could be better? You're just as much family to me as he is. All of you. Is Drake home?"

Instinctively, Annie closed the door halfway and narrowed her eyes. The predatory woman had mentioned her son. She was dangerous. The Peacekeepers, the ones Annie feared but tried to avoid, had searched this woman's empty house. Would they come here now?"

"He's not here," Annie said after a long pause. "He won't be here."

"I just want what's best for him. He only won a few years ago. I'm our most recent victor before him. Can't I just talk to Drake?"

"No."

Drake came down the stairs just then. He spotted Brooke, his eyes questioning as he approached the door. "Something up?"

Annie's heart fell. She bit her lip and clutched her son's shoulder as Brooke said, "Hey, Drake. Got a minute? Been a while since we talked."

"No," Annie murmured, holding onto Drake with both hands now. The woman wanted something. She was dangerous. Finnick had said so too, not just the Peacekeeper men in white who posted notices.

Drake exhaled and put his hands on her shoulders. "Mom, it's fine," he said. "I'm just gonna talk."

She wanted to say something warn him of the things Brooke could say, but the words didn't come to her. Defeated, Annie let go, backing away as her son glanced at her and spoke to the woman at the door. The dangerous woman. The schemer.

She was letting Finnick down. She wasn't a good mother. What if the scheming woman got into her son's head? Annie turned away, retreated into the living room, and wiped a tear away.