The walls of this elevator are made of crystal so that you can watch the people on the ground floor shrink to ants as you shoot up into the air. It's exhilarating and I'm tempted to ask Effie Trinket if we can ride it again, but somehow that seems childish.

When I was young I was trained in stage fighting and rapier and dagger, for several years.

Several sets of arms would embrace me. But in the end, the only person I truly want to comfort me is Haymitch, because he loves Peeta, too. I reach out for him and say something like his name and he's there, holding me and patting my back. "It's okay. It'll be okay, sweetheart." He sits me on a length of broken marble pillar and keeps an arm around me while I sob.

But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.

By the end of the session, I am no one at all. Haymitch started drinking somewhere around witty, and a nasty edge has crept into his voice. "I give up, sweetheart. Just answer the questions and try not to let the audience see how openly you despise them.

But it's Posy, Gale's five-year-old sister, who helps the most. She scoots along the bench to Octavia and touches her skin with a tentative finger. “You're green. Are you sick?” “It's a fashion thing, Posy. Like wearing lipstick,” I say. “It's meant to be pretty,” whispers Octavia, and I can see the tears threatening to spill over her lashes. Posy considers this and says matter-of-factly, “I think you'd be pretty in any color.

And then he gives me a smile that just seems so genuinely sweet with just the right touch of shyness that unexpected warmth rushes through me.