"What's that on his face?" Gloss Rosewood's district partner, Blush Badeux, tilts her head at the television, her fork and knife politely poised over her neatly garnished tri-tip steak. She's a round-faced girl with pale skin and thick black hair that she spins into twin buns and secures with ribbons the color of her big blue eyes. The reproach in her voice is palpable.

Gloss follows her gaze to the television, where a boy in neat black pants and a faded, tucked in scarlet button-down takes his place on the stage beside District Three's escort, his cheeks red and shiny with tears. A flat cap crushes his loose black curls into a halo around his face, and his eyes are dark and troubled behind a silver pair of wire spectacles.

"Glasses," Gloss says. He's seen them before in photos from the Dark Days in his textbooks, usually worn by older people of lesser means. People who existed under conditions Gloss couldn't fathom. Blush has never had a reputation for being the most diligent student. He wouldn't be surprised if she's never cracked open a textbook in her life.

"People of… lesser means often wear them when they can't afford surgeries to improve their eyesight," their escort says cheerfully. She dabs at her mouth with a silver handkerchief, then grins at the both of them, laughter in her eyes. "It's ironic, isn't it, that they're so unsightly."

Blush laughs. The escort laughs. Gloss doesn't bother to pretend he's listening, his eyes still stuck on the reaping as the train car reignites with the sound of clinking forks and crystal glasses.

Onstage, after the District Three escort forces her new tributes to shake, the female tribute quickly switches hands and doesn't let go. She's a tiny girl, no older than twelve, with deep brown skin and kinky black hair that's divided into what seems like a dozen braids down her scalp, all of which trail down into a tail secured with a yellow bow at the back of her neck. The male — Nikola Kaplan, Gloss struggles to recall — readjusts his grip so she can hold on tighter. He even forces a smile for her benefit. It's shaky. Weak. It only makes his tears come down faster.

Blush rolls her eyes. "Embarrassing."

"No, it's dangerous." Gloss takes a drink of cider, and by the time he looks back up at the television, the tributes have disappeared into the Justice Building. "Nice of him, but stupid."

"I guess when you're reaped, you don't think about strategy. Appearances," says Cosmos Brieson, Gloss' mentor, through a mouthful of potatoes. The escort glares at him like she's tried and failed a thousand times to correct this unforgivable violation of manners. "Then again, if you're anything like those two, there's no use in even bothering."

Blush almost chokes on her steak from laughter. Gloss just lets the words circle around in his head, heavy and vivid. When he took the stage, he was all smiles and waves and glittering teeth. He felt powerful, brilliant, heart pounding, back straight, pure strength and boldness. A lion.

For perhaps the first time in more than a decade, he considers what it must be like for the others. The ones who cry, the ones who scream, the ones for whom the Hunger Games is a waking nightmare and the Reaping an annual reminder that they — or their sister, or their lover — could be one of the next few children to die in a storm of weapons and guts when the gong sounds off. All at once, he remembers being a little boy sitting in his father's lap in front of the television, his thumb in his mouth, cringing at the shrieks of mothers whose children were reaped. Back then, he thought of his mother making that sound; his father fighting against Peacekeepers to mount the stage. That someone could volunteer for the Hunger Games didn't make any sense.

Somewhere between six and twelve, that fear — or was it empathy? — was trained out of him. By the time he was in training, all he saw when he watched the Hunger Games was the triumph in the finalist's eyes when Claudius Templesmith declared them victor.

Gloss remembers the exact moment he realized he might not be coming back. It wasn't when Cashmere kissed his cheek in the visiting room or when his father clapped him on the back and said, 'Make me proud.' It was the very moment he stepped foot on the train to the Capitol and thought of all the tributes from his district who'd done the exact same thing and had never returned alive. Six years of training, and only then did he take the time to fear what was coming for him.

People in outer districts lived in that fear, were born and bred in that fear. Gloss doesn't want to imagine living like that. But he does anyway. And when he sleeps that night, shadows of trees and mountains racing along his wall as the train rockets toward the Capitol, he knows that he could very likely be the tribute that little girl is most afraid of.

He hopes she dies quickly. If he gets to her first, he'll make sure of it.

:::

The chariot hall is even more daunting in person than it ever was onscreen in behind-the-scenes footage. With its wide, silvery walls and industrial overhead lighting, it reminds Gloss of the massive mountain in District Two said to house the majority of the Capitol's military power. Though the echoey effects of the vast cement space are dulled by the number of chattering, made-up bodies neatly arranged inside by district number, the clip-clop of horse hooves are unnaturally loud when the sleek black beasts stir and stomp in place.

It's also cold. That, of course, isn't helped by the fact that Gloss is nearly naked, painted with rings of ruby powder that wrap around him from ankle to neck like a boa constrictor. Blush sports the same "outfit," topped with sheer, flowy red fabric that hangs from her shoulders and hair like a grand cape. While the fabric also covers her torso and lower half, it leaves her ruby-powdered navel vulnerable to the eyes of the entire Capitol, all of whom will probably want to devour them. Whatever that means. 'I could just eat you up like a strawberry sundae,' said Gloss' stylist as if it sounded like anything other than assault of some kind. Then she had the audacity to ask him why he'd gotten goosebumps.

Gloss is busy attempting to escape the stylist in question — she's been looking at him like a bird of prey since she set eyes on him — when he backs right into a horse. It's a massive, soft, warm wall at his back, and its sleek hair comes away glittery red when he slowly turns and backs away from it. He tells himself with no small degree of reproach that he volunteered for the Hunger Games and therefore shouldn't fear the wrath of even the most majestic and intimidating beasts. The creature's glossy black eye peers at him with bland disapproval.

"Good to know I'm not the only klutz around here," says a calm, kind voice Gloss doesn't recognize. It chuckles, but not insultingly. "Don't you worry. It's not gonna hurt you."

Gloss turns and comes face-to-face with the boy from District Three, whose face is powder-fresh and brilliantly lit by the silver wires that have been twisted around his head like a crown, twinkling with tiny blue lights as if electrified. The large, loose onyx curls piled atop his head creep towards the tips of his ears and brush the back of his neck. They give Nikola the extra two or three inches he needs to reach Gloss' height. Gloss suddenly wants to touch them.

"I never thought a guy as buff as you could look so terrified," Nikola says with a good-natured grin. His front teeth are a little crooked, a little crowded, a little imperfect for One or the Capitol, but it doesn't matter. The boy steps close enough for Gloss to smell the strong scent of candyfloss wafting off of him and gently dusts the ruby powder from the horse's glossy black hair. "These guys are harmless. A little smelly, maybe, but the Capitol trains them well."

A small part of Gloss wants to reach out and pet the horse alongside him, but he finds that he's content with watching the beast huff and lean into Nikola's touch. Gloss smiles after a moment, feeling like he's witnessing something rare, something beautiful, like a sunset against the ocean. "Nikola, right?" He asks, just because he wants him to know he's been paying attention.

Nikola looks back at Gloss. A little smile, a little nod. "Yeah."

"You know you're only supposed to press the aroma button once, right? The smell of candyfloss is making my eyes water."

Nikola tilts his head, and his curls gently follow his movement, soft and glossy. "Candy what?"

Gloss breathes a laugh. "You smell like a carnival."

"Oh, cotton candy! I love that smell. It's like strawberry and—"

"Pure sugar."

Nikola grins. "Exactly. But those things don't come with instructions, you know. All I wanted was a shower and I felt like I walked into a spaceship." He gives the horse one last pat and a kiss on the neck, then moves on like he didn't just kiss a horse in the heart of the Capitol. "And what's with that water thing in the toilet? I thought I broke the damn thing."

Gloss squints. What could he possibly… "You mean the bidet?"

Nikola shrugs. "Whatever you say, man." He adjusts his glasses, shaking his head and looking at Gloss like he's sharing some kind of mutual complaint with him. "I almost shit myself."

Gloss chuckles. "Well, I guess if you're gonna shit yourself, that's the place to do it."

Nikola throws his head back and laughs; the sound is somehow even more brilliant than his voice. Gloss is so taken by it, he forgets to laugh with him. Instead, he smiles and takes a moment to admire the things about him he hadn't noticed from the wide shot of the Reaping. The powder on his skin doesn't quite cover the freckles that dot his cheeks, his neck, his shoulders, brown against the tawny skin that's a few shades darker than Gloss'. In person, Gloss can notice the subtle downward hook of the bridge of his nose, something he hasn't seen among the natives of One. With his curls, eyes, and skin, he looks like a kind of person Gloss has never seen outside of his television. Different, unique.

He's so enraptured, he doesn't notice Nikola's laughter has stopped until he drinks in his eyes and finds that they're focused on something behind him. Nikola's gaze is sober now, serious, underscored by something like fear. Gloss turns around and spots Blush, who glares them down with stormy eyes. She's beautiful in her chariot costume, but no less fearsome. Gloss steps in the way of her view of Nikola and turns back to him, willing away his nerves with a smile. It only half works. Nikola doesn't smile back, but takes a moment to catch his breath.

"Don't worry about her," Gloss says. "She can't do anything to you until we're in the arena."

Nikola looks back up at him. His eyes are big and dark behind his silver glasses, studying him like he's missed the point. "Yeah," he says. "I know."

"Gloss!" Gloss recognizes the booming voice as Cosmos Brieson and turns in its direction. The man leans hazardously against One's chariot, holding some blue drink with a twinkle in his eye that doesn't quite look sober. "It's showtime."

"I'll talk to you—" Gloss starts, but when he turns back to face Nikola, the boy is already gone.

:::

"I know it smells gross, but give it a try," says Nikola. His voice is quiet and echoey from this far across the training center, but Gloss listens — and watches — closely as Nikola delicately holds out a cup of some steaming liquid to his district partner and smiles. The two tributes sit next to a small pot that hangs over a fire, suspended from a pole. A few plant stems lay scattered around their legs, thin and long with dozens of small yellow flowers at the ends. Gloss can only assume they've made it into a tea. "Go on, Nano. You got it."

Nano glances up at him with big, nervous eyes. Only when he winks at her does she pull in a shaky breath and take the cup from his hands. She blows into it, presumably to cool off the tea, and a cloud of steam billows right into Nikola's face, making them both giggle. "Okay, okay, you've had your fun. Now drink it, silly."

"I will!"

"Uh-huh. Prove it."

Nano frowns pointedly, then takes another big breath and brings the cup to her lips for the world's tiniest sip. She lowers the cup and squints at him.

"Not too bad, huh?" Nikola says, smiling. "If you ever get cold, see if you can find some of this stuff. It'll—"

"Can I try?" The young boy from District Eight emerges from where he's been hovering just out of their sight, his hands tucked into his elbows and his expression tentative. With his warm brown skin, soft dark eyes, and jet black hair neatly groomed away from his slightly chubby face, he looks every bit as young as he is: twelve, like Nova. He looks much less messy than he was during the Reaping, Gloss mentally remarks, which is supposed to be something only his escort would notice.

Nano shrinks back into herself and places the cup down on the ground near her knees. Nikola looks up at the boy and grins. "Sure you can, buddy. Get over here."

The kid perks up and carefully sits with them, blocking Gloss' view of the cup, the fire, and the pot. "My name is Needle. Needle Nandi."

"Cool name, Needle. I'm Nikola. This is…"

"Focus."

Gloss hears the whoosh of Blush's blade slicing through the air and ducks on a flinch. With another swift twirl, Blush takes a dancer's stance before him, her body perfectly poised and the tip of her sword pointed straight at his chest. "I don't understand your fixation on those rodents and I don't want to. We've got a Game to win."

"We need him."

Blush raises a brow and turns back to look at the trio of tributes. They've erupted into quiet laughter around the fire, passing around their single cup of tea. "What? Him?" She scoffs, the sound dripping with disdain. "Our alliance needs warriors, not a barista. This isn't a tea party."

"That 'barista' is a medic." Gloss breezes past her and places his knife back on the rack. He's been fidgeting with it, spinning it in his palms, tossing and catching it over and over. "I've been paying attention to him. He's smart. Incredibly so. He knows almost all of the plants in the Capitol's database, and the ones he didn't, he picked up just like that," he says with a snap of his fingers.

"Yeah? What good is that going to do us, Gloss? He's useless in battle."

"Maybe he is. But he has an advantage we don't. He may not know how to fight, but he knows how to heal."

Blush rolls her eyes. "That doesn't—"

"There could be anything in that arena, Blush. Poisonous plants, dangerous temperatures, muttations. Our chances of getting injured or infected are as high as anyone else's. Without him, we're vulnerable."

Blush opens her mouth to argue, but instead pauses to glance back at Nikola. Her bottle-blue gaze lingers, considerate but no less repulsed.

"He'll join us. I promise you. We keep him alive, he keeps us alive," Gloss says. "Because without us, he dies."

"With us, he dies." Blush meets his eyes and rests her hands on the pommel of her sword, leaning on the blade. It's bad form, but she maintains her balance perfectly. "If he really is as intelligent as you claim, he'll be smart enough to know that we're going to kill him eventually."

"That's why he's going to try to run when we're not looking," says Gloss. "If he accepts our alliance, he'll make a plan to stay with us until the tribute pool dwindles and it starts looking like he's next. Then he'll try to run off with some of our supplies and fend for himself."

Blush looks baffled. "So why the hell do you want him around if he's just going to—"

"He's not going to get the chance to do any of those things as long as we keep a close eye on him." Gloss starts counting on his fingers. "We don't let him go anywhere alone, we don't let him have weapons, and we make certain there's always someone watching him."

"And that's where your little fantasy ends." Blush sighs. "You're not going be able to convince anyone—"

"I'll do it."

Blush stares. Gloss shrugs, heedless. "I'll keep him next to me. I'm the leader of this group and this is my idea. He'll be my responsibility."

Blush curls her lip, glancing across the room at Nikola like she can smell him from where he sits. Gloss wouldn't be surprised if she could. The elevator smelled overwhelmingly of candyfloss long after he stepped out of it. Gloss suppresses a smile.

"I don't want him near me," Blush finally says.

Gloss has no doubt that that's the real source of her opposition. "I know you don't. But you also don't want to risk getting infected — or burned, or god knows what else — and having no one around who knows how to help you."

Blush whips her head around to glare at him and the ribbons in her hair swing. "Don't act like you know what's going on inside my head."

"I'm not acting," Gloss says firmly. "You're human. No one is fearless."

Blush scowls at him, but her expression changes when Gloss doesn't react, stands firm, waits. One last time, she looks between Gloss and Nikola until heaving a final sigh of decision. "Okay. Fine. Invite him, I don't care. But—" she twirls her sword with a flourish and lifts it at Gloss, a glitter in her eyes that she probably thinks looks menacing. "Stay the fuck out of my head."

Gloss pitches his voice low so only she can hear it. "You're not threatening anyone, Blush." He pushes her sword out of the way with the palm of his hand. "Tell the others. I'll be back in a minute."

When he walks away, he feels her eyes on his back, white-hot and furious. It couldn't matter less. They may both be lions, but she's a sheep where it counts.

:::

"Every single one of you guys could bench press a rhinoceros and you're saying you want me?"

Gloss breathes a small laugh. "I doubt that, but yes."

"I don't get it, Gloss," Nikola says for perhaps the sixth time. He removes his glasses to rub his eyes — hard — like it'll help him understand. When he puts them back on, he somehow looks even more confused. "I just don't get why you'd choose some guy from District Three to join your alliance of…"

"Bloodthirsty monster people?"

"Exactly. You get it."

Gloss can't quite keep from rolling his eyes. It brings out a small chuckle from Nikola, and Gloss feels a strange tingle in his chest.

"I can't help but like a guy who's self-aware," says Nikola, his voice softer, less certain. Gloss can't quite tell in the dim light, but he might even be blushing.

"I can't help but like a guy who knows what he's doing."

Nikola's smile falters. He looks at his hands and continues weaving his half of the net they're working on. Loop, pull, loop, pull. "Gloss, I don't—"

"I hardly knew any of the plants on that test you were doing, meanwhile you blazed right through it and scored a one hundred."

Nikola reaches under his glasses and rubs his eye. The red heat of his face reveals itself in a sliver of light. "Yeah, maybe, but I—"

"You made some kind of healing brew out of a weed and some rosemary."

"It wasn't a healing brew, it was just a—" Nikola stops; narrows his eyes. Bottomless chocolate brown. "Wait. You were watching me?"

Gloss averts his gaze and corrects it immediately. "I wouldn't be a good leader if I didn't survey the competition."

Nikola grins like he's caught a thief in the act. "Survey the competition my ass. You were watching me."

Gloss clears his throat and sits up straighter. He sets down his half of the net and places his hands on his knees open-palmed, inviting Nikola to listen. "Look. It's simple. Our alliance obviously has the brute strength it takes to navigate the arena—"

"You mean kill tributes."

"—but we could use someone with more technical knowledge. Survival skills, medicine, someone who can patch us up and keep us in good shape."

Nikola sighs and weaves even faster, manipulating his rope with a little more force than strictly necessary. Gloss marvels at the dexterity of his work, the way he grips and pulls and weaves and knots. It isn't hard to imagine him tying off a tourniquet or bandaging a wound. "You want a medic."

"A medic. Exactly."

"'Till when?"

"'Till—what?"

"You heard me," Nikola says. He places his net down on his lap and narrows his eyes, all of the kindness from the chariot rides gone. "What happens when you're done with me, Gloss?"

Gloss doesn't have time to linger on the sound of his name in Nikola's mouth, the way his tongue moves around the word when he says it, like it's foreign, unnatural for him. Gloss' words stick just behind his teeth. There's nothing for it. They both know the answer.

Nikola breaks his gaze and resumes working on the net, making a noise in his throat like he's disappointed in him.

"I can see how this arrangement would benefit your alliance, but I'm having trouble seeing how it would benefit me."

"With us, you'll have food, water, shelter, protection. Without us, you'll be in the same position as all the other tributes."

"Uh-huh. And you'll be in charge of the alliance hunting us down."

Gloss chews his lip, suppresses a sigh. "Nikola—"

"I don't really have a choice, do I? If I decline, I'll have a target on my back. If I accept…" Nikola takes a deep breath that shudders in his chest. "I'll still be killed eventually."

Gloss doesn't respond. It's better to let him work out the logic on his own; come to his own conclusions. Gloss just wonders why he's saying it aloud, like he trusts him. Or maybe he accepted his fate the moment the escort called his name. It's a bitter thought, and it evokes a pang of sympathy.

"I'd like to consult my mentor before I make any serious commitments."

Gloss tilts his head at the boy and holds his gaze, willing his expression to look persuasive. "But what do you think?"

It's ineffective. Nikola only raises a brow, cracks a small, smug smile and says, "I think I'd like to consult my mentor before I make any serious commitments."

Gloss chuckles, small, brief. "Alright. I respect that."

The conversation strays to a bewildering new Capitol contraption Nikola has discovered — judging by his description, Gloss' best guess is that it's a microwave — and Gloss tries and fails to hide his laughter until they've gone their separate ways. His preoccupation with the boy never quite goes away, though. He still looks, still peeks, still glances — only now Nikola does it too.

:::

Gloss drops his fork to his dinner plate and swallows the chicken he'd been eating, his eyes wide and fixed on his mentor. "He accepted?"

Cosmos groans and swings his suit jacket over the back of his dinner chair before falling into it. "Of course he accepted, Gloss. Only I'm fucking bewildered that you invited him — or anyone — to be part of the alliance without consulting your entire group first, not to mention your own goddamn mentors. There's a strategy involved in these things, for fuck's sake, there's a crown at stake."

"If I'd asked anyone, I'd have been shouted down."

"And rightfully so!" Blush's mentor, Ruby White, stills Gloss with a glare for a long moment before angrily returning to her peas and carrots. "What a stupid idea."

"Not remotely. It's a life-saving one," Gloss says evenly. "Cosmos understands." He glances up at his mentor, who remains silent, bitterly scowling at his food while the table unravels around him. Gloss knows he's right. Cosmos wouldn't have survived his Games if he hadn't forced an Eleven girl to treat his snake bite before slitting her throat. "I understand why you're angry, Cosmos, but you know why I did it."

Cosmos snorts. "You did it because you're foolish. You did it because you won a few awards at the Academy and now you think you're the final word on everything in your alliance." He sinks his fork and knife into a chicken breast and saws through it with much more force than necessary. "If you were any more of a fuck-up, I'd have you written out of the alliance and thrown to the wolves."

Gloss examines him. "But."

Cosmos goes silent for some time, chewing and glaring and pouring fresh wine. Gloss pulls in a deep breath, silently willing him to admit what he knows to be true.

"But it was the right move."

Gloss breathes a sigh and feels a weight go with it. Blush groans loudly, dropping her silverware to her plate with a sharp clatter. "You're kidding."

"I hate it just as much as you do, kiddo—"

"Don't call me that."

"—but your little band of meatheads has about as much medical knowledge as a slug on morphling. You're gonna need someone who doesn't eat swords for a living to stitch you up when things get ugly. In the Games, hubris only does one thing: it gets you killed."

"Finally. That's all I've been trying to—"

"Quiet, Gloss." Ruby's long, blonde braid would remind Gloss of his younger sister if her face weren't quite so hateful. "You've caused enough nonsense for a lifetime. Out with you."

Gloss stands without fanfare and takes his plate with him, piling it up with a second helping of everything he can reach. He doesn't bother to hide the grin that sneaks up on him, the strange sense of gratification that washes over him at the fact that one of his favorite victors has approved of his executive decision — in his own furious way. No one ever accused Cosmos Brieson of being polite. Never meet your heroes, they say.

Gloss reaches the entrance to the hall, and a small red potato bounces off of his right shoulder. He doesn't have to look back to know it's Blush's treat. He does anyway, and when he catches her venomous gaze, he tosses her a wink.