Got it," I say. "Did you tell Peeta this?" "Don't have to," says Haymitch. "He's already there.

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.

Gale and I were thrown together by a mutual need to survive. Peeta and I know the other's survival means our own death. How do you side step that?

Even in war there should be lines you didn't cross.

But in my head I can hear Haymitch's smug, if slightly exasperated, words: "Yes, that's what I'm looking for, sweetheart.

But just before they cut back to the main newscaster, I see the unmistakable flash of that same mockingjay's wing. The reporter has simply been incorporated into the old footage. She's not in District 13 at all. Which begs the question, What is?

If you won't talk about yourself, at least compliment the audience. Just keep turning it back around, all right. Gush.