LITMIR.BIZ

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and again when I try a frothy pink soup dotted with raspberries.

      Faces appear, names are exchanged, pictures taken, kisses brushed on cheeks. Apparently my mockingjay pin has spawned a new fashion sensation, because several people come up to show me their accessories. My bird has been replicated on belt buckles, embroidered into silk lapels, even tattooed in intimate places. Everyone wants to wear the winner’s token. I can only imagine how nuts that makes President Snow. But what can he do? The Games were such a hit here, where the berries were only a symbol of a desperate girl trying to save her lover.

      Peeta and I make no effort to find company but are constantly sought out. We are what no one wants to miss at the party. I act delighted, but I have zero interest in these Capitol people. They are only distractions from the food.

      Every table presents new temptations, and even on my restricted one-taste-per-dish regimen, I begin filling up quickly. I pick up a small roasted bird, bite into it, and my tongue floods with orange sauce. Delicious. But I make Peeta eat the remainder because I want to keep tasting things, and the idea of throwing away food, as I see so many people doing so casually, is abhorrent to me. After about ten tables I’m stuffed, and we’ve only sampled a small number of the dishes available.

      Just then my prep team descends on us. They’re nearly incoherent between the alcohol they’ve consumed and their ecstasy at being at such a grand affair.

      “Why aren’t you eating?” asks Octavia.

      “I have been, but I can’t hold another bite,” I say. They all laugh as if that’s the silliest thing they’ve ever heard.

      “No one lets that stop them!” says Flavius. They lead us over to a table that holds tiny stemmed wineglasses filled with clear liquid. “Drink this!”

      Peeta picks one up to take a sip and they lose it.

      “Not here!” shrieks Octavia.

      “You have to do it in there,” says Venia, pointing to doors that lead to the toilets. “Or you’ll get it all over the floor!”

      Peeta looks at the glass again and puts it together. “You mean this will make me puke?”

      My prep team laughs hysterically. “Of course, so you can keep eating,” says Octavia. “I’ve been in there twice already. Everyone does it, or else how would you have any fun at a feast?”

      I’m speechless, staring at the pretty little glasses and all they imply. Peeta sets his back on the table with such precision you’d think it might detonate. “Come on, Katniss, let’s dance.”

      Music filters down from the clouds as he leads me away from the team, the table, and out onto the floor. We know only a few dances at home, the kind that go with fiddle and flute music and require a good deal of space. But Effie has shown us some that are popular in the Capitol. The music’s slow and dreamlike, so Peeta pulls me into his arms and we move in a circle with practically no steps at all. You could do this dance on a pie plate. We’re quiet for a while. Then Peeta speaks in a strained voice.

      “You go along, thinking you can deal with it, thinking maybe they’re not so bad, and then you—” He cuts himself off.

      All I can think of is the emaciated bodies of the children on our kitchen table as my mother prescribes what the parents can’t give. More food. Now that we’re rich, she’ll send some home with them. But often in the old days, there was nothing to give and the child was past saving, anyway. And here in the Capitol they’re vomiting for the pleasure of filling their bellies again and again. Not from some illness of body or mind, not from spoiled food. It’s what everyone does at a party. Expected. Part of the fun.

      One day when I dropped by to give Hazelle the game, Vick was home sick with a bad cough. Being part of Gale’s family, the kid has to eat better than ninety percent of the rest of District 12. But he still spent about fifteen minutes talking about how they’d opened a can of corn syrup from Parcel Day and each had a spoonful on bread and were going to maybe have more later in the week. How Hazelle had said he could have a bit in a cup of tea to soothe his cough, but he wouldn’t feel right unless the others had some, too. If it’s like that at Gale’s, what’s it like in the other houses?

      “Peeta, they bring us here to fight to the death for their entertainment,” I say. “Really, this is nothing by comparison.”

      “I know. I know that. It’s just sometimes I can’t stand it anymore. To the point where … I’m not sure what I’ll do.” He pauses, then whispers, “Maybe we were wrong, Katniss.”

      “About what?” I ask.

      “About trying to subdue things in the districts,” he says.

      My head turns swiftly from side to side, but no one seems to have heard. The camera crew got sidetracked at a table of shellfish, and the couples dancing around us are either too drunk or too self-involved to notice.

      “Sorry,” he says. He should be. This is no place to be voicing such thoughts.

      “Save it for home,” I tell him.

      Just then Portia appears with a large man who looks vaguely familiar. She introduces him as Plutarch Heavensbee[5], the new Head Gamemaker[6]. Plutarch asks Peeta if he can steal me for a dance. Peeta’s recovered his camera face and good-naturedly passes me over, warning the man not to get too attached.

      I don’t want to dance with Plutarch Heavensbee. I don’t want to feel his hands, one resting against mine, one on my hip. I’m not used to being touched, except by Peeta or my family, and I rank Gamemakers somewhere below maggots in terms of creatures I want in contact with my skin. But he seems to sense this and holds me almost at arm’s length as we turn on the floor.

      We chitchat about the party, about the entertainment, about the food, and then he makes a joke about avoiding punch since training. I don’t get it, and then I realize he’s the man who tripped backward into the punch bowl when I shot an arrow at the Gamemakers during the training session. Well, not really. I was shooting an apple out of their roast pig’s mouth. But I made them jump.

      “Oh, you’re one who—” I laugh, remembering him splashing back into the punch bowl.

      “Yes. And you’ll be pleased to know I’ve never recovered,” says Plutarch.

      I want to point out that twenty-two dead tributes will never recover from the Games he helped create, either. But I only say, “Good. So, you’re the Head Gamemaker this year? That must be a big honor.”

      “Between you and me, there weren’t many takers for the job,” he says. “So much responsibility as to how the Games turn out.”

      Yeah, the last guy’s dead, I think. He must know about Seneca Crane, but he doesn’t look the least bit concerned. “Are you planning the Quarter Quell Games already?” I say.

      “Oh, yes. Well, they’ve been in the works for years, of course. Arenas aren’t built in a day. But the, shall we say, flavor of the Games is being determined now. Believe it or not, I’ve got a strategy meeting tonight,” he says.

      Plutarch steps back and pulls out a gold watch on a chain from a vest pocket. He flips open the lid, sees the time, and frowns. “I’ll have to be going soon.” He turns the watch so I can see the face. “It starts at midnight.”

      “That seems late for—” I say, but then something distracts me. Plutarch has run his thumb across the crystal face of the watch and for just a moment an image appears, glowing as if lit by candlelight. It’s another mockingjay. Exactly like the pin on my dress. Only this one disappears. He snaps the watch closed.

      “That’s very pretty,” I say.

      “Oh, it’s more than pretty. It’s one of a kind,” he says. “If anyone asks about me, say I’ve gone home to bed. The meetings are supposed to be kept secret. But I thought it’d be safe to tell you.”

      “Yes. Your secret’s safe with me,” I say.

      As

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