I'm unaware that my feet are moving to the table until I'm inches from the holograph. My hand reaches in and cups a rapidly blinking green light. Someone joins me, his body tense. Finnick, of course. Because only a victor would see what I see so immediately. The arena. Laced with pods controlled by Gamemakers. Finnick's fingers caress a steady red glow over a doorway. "Ladies and gentlemen..." His voice is quiet, but mine rings through the room. "Let the Seventy-sixth Hunger Games begin!

Katniss: I guess all those hours decorating cakes paid off. Peeta: Yes, frosting. The final defence of the dying. (252)

Shame isn't a strong enough word for what I feel. "You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him, you know," Haymitch says.

It's lovely. If only you could frost someone to death.

Entrails. No hissing. This is the closest we will ever come to love.

Caesar Flickerman asks if the president has a date in mind. "Oh, before we set a date, we better clear it with Katniss's mother," says the president. The audience gives a big laugh and the president puts his arm around me. "Maybe if the whole country puts its mind to it, we can get you married before you're thirty." "You'll probably have to pass a new law," I say with a giggle. "If that's what it takes," says the president with conspiratorial good humor. Oh, the fun we two have together.

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