Hey, look at this!" He holds up a glistening, perfect pearl about the size of a pea. "You know, if you put enough pressure on coal it turns to pearls," he says earnestly to Finnick. "No, it doesn't," says Finnick dismissively. But I crack up, remembering that's how a clueless Effie Trinket presented us to the people of the Capitol last year, before anyone knew us. As coal pressured into pearls by our weighty existence. Beauty that arose out of pain.

Well, I can't leave Mags behind," says Finnick. "She's one of the few people who actually likes me.

Mostly we just add to the piles of rainbow glass that's been blown off the exteriors of the cany-colored buildings.

There was no discussion between them; it was as if the bugs had worked out this whole scenario long ago. Temp put on a burst of speed for the end of the bridge, and Tick turned to face down the army of rats alone.

My sleep wasn't peaceful, though. I have the sense of emerging from a world of dark, haunted places where I traveled alone.

For there to be betrayal, there would have to have been trust first.

Dawn comes before sleep does.