Wisely, I Say, I Am A Bachelor [Part 3 of 3]
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Back to Part 2
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III.
“I slept with him,” I tell Portia at The Fig Tree, like there’s nothing wrong at all.
“-oh my god, Cinna, honey.” She gets out of her chair and nearly pirouettes around the table to hug me. “Congratulations!” Of course I hug her back, and I can’t help grinning, but the blush doesn’t start welling up under my skin until she sits down again and demands, “Details.”
I take a drink of water. “I told him a few things,” I say because she should know he knows I know, “and we got to talking, and one thing led to another-”
“That’s the part I want details about!” she says, teeth perched on the tip of her straw.
“You don’t see me asking for details about you and Lepidus.”
“Lepidus is Lepidus, this is Finnick Odair.”
“So what, everything he does is public?”
“Yeah, including you.”
I concede.
“So,” she asks, “is it really a trident?”
Maybe I shouldn’t have been drinking water when she asked that. “Yes. But I could have told you that before.”
“It’s different when you’ve seen it intimately.”
“Portia, I wax him.”
“I mean intimately! So how long is the-”
“Portia!”
She still raises her eyebrows at me to continue.
I look around, make sure there aren’t any waiters about. “No complaints,” I say, “but I haven’t capitalized on all of the design features yet.”
Portia squeaks, and someone comes over to take our orders. It’s probably a bad idea to order sopressata, even if they almost never have it here. I should stick to salad. No seafood, either. It doesn’t stop Portia, she probably gets the squid to torment me.
Once the waiter is gone and the drinks are set down, Portia glances to either side and takes a deep breath. “So he’s okay with this?”
“It was his idea,” I say, and I know I’m only addressing one of her concerns, but for once in my life, I can’t tell her everything. “And as for the rest, well. It’s not that he’s okay with it, but we’re going to make it work.”
She nods, and makes to ask more, but I lift my hand to stop her.
“Thank you. I can’t tell-” I pause, so she takes that on its own, “-how things will turn out. But there’s more to him than meets the eye, and I’m honored to catch a glimpse of it.”
“I’d be honored to catch what meets the eye,” she says. But she nods, and her eyes don’t shine, and I don’t think we’ll be talking about Finnick on a non-superficial level again for a long time. It’s for the best. I tell myself it’s for the best.
But the last time I kept a secret from Portia, she made me swear I wouldn’t do so again.
I guess we’ve both grown up.
-
“Finnick Odair’s residence. He’s out, but if you don’t mind talking to his stylist-”
“I am his stylist.”
“-Hello, Drusus! Long time.”
“Not that long, Cinna. Has he killed you yet?”
I laugh. “Not yet. And I think I’ll make it through the rest of the week too.”
“Good to hear.”
“How’s the Snow party coming along?”
“I never want to dress an elephant again.”
“That could definitely make you miss Finnick.”
“Ha. So, if you do survive the week, you still want to come work for me during the Games?”
“I wouldn’t turn you down if you asked.”
“I thought I just did.”
“Then I’d better accept.”
“Good. I like what you’ve done with him, you know. He must be crowing that you’re treating him like an adult.”
I’m glad this phone is audio-only. He doesn’t need to see me shiver. “I wouldn’t say he’s crowing, but he does seem to appreciate it.”
“Good. Then come back and be my assistant for the seventy-third Games. I’ll have to run it by the board, but they can’t really turn down a direct recommendation. Not to mention Atia and Ari are talking you up pretty much everywhere that’ll listen.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” I say, and it’s true. I do want this. Not just to work with Finnick again, but the chance, the chances, that it provides. I need to move up before the Quarter Quell, now more than ever. I need to touch the Games as soon as I can. “Should we talk terms?”
“I’ll talk the ones I can set, at least,” Drusus says. “Twenty-five percent of the design team earnings-to my forty-five, in case you were wondering-with five percent each to prep, which you can tack on if you want to do conditioning for one of the tributes. Room, board, notions, all taken care of. Depending on which of us ends up shadowing Finnick and how long the Games go on, there’s a stipend attached, plus materials cost, since his doesn’t come out of the treasury anymore.”
Of course it doesn’t come out of the treasury, it just goes in. “I think we should let the prep teams keep their jobs.”
“I do too, Finnick’s a full-time commitment on his own. Not that our tributes tend to last very long since him, except Annie Cresta, but that’s a can of worms I don’t feel like opening. Anyway. I have to say, Cinna, I hope this is the last step you have to take before you break out. I know how you work, and I hate to say it but I’ve heard people laying bets on when you’ll burn yourself out.”
“Not too soon,” I say. “Never too soon.”
-
Our last night together before Finnick goes back to District 4, we don’t sleep. It’s surprisingly difficult to coax him out of bed when I’m in there with him.
He doesn’t ask, so I don’t tell him that I’ll be here when the Games roll around.
-
There’s a message about a gown commission waiting on my machine when I get home. Metellus Miller is apparently interested in hiring me to dress his daughter, who has seen the makeup work I’ve done with Finnick and wants me to turn her into a moving work of art for the opening ceremonies. Even in the message Miller says he’ll spare no expense, he’ll do anything to promote his daughter in society, and show the Capitol how wonderful she is.
Of course I call back, I’d be an idiot to turn that down. When I get through to Miller himself, he says he’ll send her over tomorrow afternoon, so I can measure her, get her colors, get started right away. Two months until the Games, after all. That should be enough time for something truly beautiful.
So I set up my apartment the way I’ve started to for commissions, clear the workroom, make sure there’s tea. Everything else is a clean slate.
“Hey there,” the blond girl who punched Finnick in Tantalus says. “I’m Caecilia Miller. I’m here about the dress.”
I don’t speak. I don’t move.
She sneers. “Are you Cinna the stylist, or does he have an Avox or something?”
“-No,” I manage. “I mean, no, he doesn’t have an Avox. I’m Cinna. Sorry, you just startled me. I wasn’t expecting someone so beautiful.”
Of course she’s the kind of person who believes that. “Oh, good. I hope I’ll be inspiring. I just love your work!”
“Thank you.”
I show her in, sit her down, and offer her tea, which she takes thick with sugar like she doesn’t have to worry about her figure. I don’t think she does. The muscles in her arms are real, but the dent of her waist clearly isn’t. Her hair still has the green streaks through the blond but I think they’re bluer than they were two weeks ago, as are her eyes. “Let’s get down to it. I want something built around that shifting design you did on Finnick for his Tantalus gig.”
She calls it a gig. A gig, like he’s a musician or a stylist like me. “I can do that,” I say, because it’s true. “What do you want to show?”
“Me,” she says. “The best parts of me.”
Sometimes I truly love my job.
-
Four scheduled fittings.
Three visits to Portia.
Two Avox test runs for the makeup.
Eight words that play over and over in my head no matter what’s on the television: This proves to them what I can do.
Portia perfects the lacquer, between visits one and two. It can fade between colors, layer over itself. But the trick, with this design, is the subtlety of human skin, of creating something to peel itself away. Portia says it’s either a complete waste or a stroke of genius, using her lacquer to create a basic foundation and the powder to blend it.
The gown is translucent and clings, illuminated underneath for subtle modesty, strapless and slit at both side seams for her legs to slip through. She’d sweat through the makeup if I had her wear the dress over it, so I preserve the theme of the makeup in the lining and wire the lights in the outer fabric to perform almost the same functions as the lacquer.
Caecilia genuinely enjoys being prepped and painted, the day of. She talks to me about her pre-Games workout, as if she’s a Career tribute going in, or as if she wants me to be proud of her for making my design conform to her. She’s excited, smug, curious, but I don’t explain what the design is, precisely. And of course there’s no way I can know the exact path of her arteries and veins, but I have been doing anatomical drawing for over half my life, in one way or another.
So all through the night, what’s inside Caecilia Miller conceals and reveals itself, shade by shade, at the turn of the clock. Her bones, wound through with glowing red and blue, branch off under the web of her gloves into capillaries so fine they’ll never bruise. The arteries coil and spiral down her legs, her arms, everywhere. The best parts of her are her blood and her bones.
She loves it. She preens, can’t stop staring at her skin even after I send her off to deal with her hair. She doesn’t mind that I’m removing her green streaks, whitening them, paring away everything she’s done to herself outside.
I won’t be at the ball, of course, and I won’t have time to watch it, since Finnick and the tributes arrive tonight. But there will always be tabloids, always broadcasts, always who’s who wearing what.
-
“Take the girl,” Drusus commands, once he gets a look at Molina and Cherlie at Beauty Base Zero, “at least for the interview and training. I’ll handle the opening ceremonies outfits, like we planned. I’ve updated the colors for them.” He hands me his organizer, lets me stroll through it. Drusus digitizes most of his designs and palettes, and it works for him, but it actually makes me dizzy. He says he likes knowing precisely what pigments go where. “And I’d be an idiot if I didn’t let you do their makeup.”
“You’re just as good with it as I am,” I say.
“Sure, but you’re a public relations wet dream,” he says. He nudges his organizer out of the way with a paper tabloid.
Caecilia Miller’s circulatory system smiles up at me.
“Done,” I say. “Jellyfish?”
“Jellyfish. And now, thanks to you, I can make them see the poison barbs.”
-
“Hi,” Molina says, once I shut the door behind me. “You look sane, compared to the others.”
“I try to be,” I tell her. “I’m Cinna. I’ll be taking care of you until the Games, maybe after if you win.”
“Good,” she says. Molina’s bold, with dark red-brown hair cut almost as short as mine, broad shoulders and a build I’d actually describe as boyish. I can tell the prep team has covered up some white discolorations on the sides of her face, but I think I’ll be removing that whenever I can.
“Can you tell me a little about yourself?” I ask. “Something you think I can’t see.”
“Sure. Well, I’m eighteen. I’ve been training since I was ten, so I volunteered because this year would be my last chance, and the girl they drew wouldn’t have brought it in, you know?” That, I could see on her, but I let her go on. “I work on one of the tankers. I’m going in there and I’m going to fight. But you know, this is the part I looked forward to the most, during training.”
“What, being styled?”
“Yeah. It’s probably silly of me, but I wanted the chance to feel worthy. You know, to shine. To stand out.”
“It’s not silly.” I kneel down next to her and start getting her measurements. “It’s the best chance you have.”
-
“Jellyfish,” Finnick says, once Drusus and I show the tributes out. I guess it’s not the worst thing he could say to me after two months away, but then again I haven’t asked if he’s actually mentoring or just here for-work. Societal obligations. That.
“Jellyfish,” Drusus says. “Teaching an old design new tricks.”
“Could work.” And then Finnick cracks his neck and ducks into the kitchen. Not mentoring, then. Already has aching muscles. I don’t like it. I don’t think I ever will.
I take one look at Drusus and barely have to open my mouth before he tells me, “Go ahead. You take him, the prep teams can deal with the tributes.”
I nod, and knock on the kitchen door, but step right in anyway.
“Cinna?”
“Yes.”
“I’m only up here because Beetee’s doing work downstairs,” he says. The walls click, the screws turn. “Audio only,” he says. “Fifteen minutes.”
I glance over my shoulder anyway. “It won’t be this year,” I say.
“Not this year,” he agrees. “Not one of ours, anyway. People are still out for District Four blood. Did you watch the Reaping ceremonies?”
“Only ours.” I didn’t have time.
He nods, and convinces the coffeemaker to give him hot chocolate instead. “Eleven’s got a fighter, and so does Eight, but I don’t think they’re right for what we need.”
“We’ll see after the opening ceremonies.”
“Gianna is in Eight this year, right?” he asks. I nod. “Good, she got promoted. It might be impressive enough to make a splash.”
“We don’t need a splash,” I correct. “We need a spark.”
“Then we need to get you to a District you won’t drown in.”
I laugh. “I don’t think you’ll put me out completely.” I have my sketchbook with me-the newest one, I’ve filled up three in the last two months, but this one has at least some of what I need to show him most. “I need a test run the same way you do. I hate to say it-and I hate to do it, because it’s unfair to her-but I’m going to make them all watch Molina. We’ll see how far she gets.”
“We’ll see,” Finnick says. His hot chocolate is probably still too hot, but he drinks it anyway, around the pile of whipped cream on top. “I can talk to the mentors about steering her away from the Career pack.”
“I don’t think that’s a bad call,” I say. “She wants to stand out.”
He shudders. “You should have seen her volunteer.”
“I did,” I say.
“Right.”
Seconds of unbugged time pass, with nothing either of us is willing to say.
“Let me take care of your back,” I ask him.
“Now,” he agrees. “The rest of me later?”
“With pleasure.”
-
All through training, Molina wears something a step outside the box. A knotted scarf the first day. Bracers the second. A top with three zippers, the day she meets the Gamemakers, and she comes away with a solid 9. For the interviews, her dress is like oil, dripping in wet sequins from her strong shoulders, translucent over her legs. Finnick tells me her sponsors are falling in line, choosing her over Cherlie. The mentors coach her unassuming and straightforward, herself all through. I let the white lesions around her eyes shine out. Oil, spreading over the surface, laying the foundation for catastrophe.
She hugs me and thanks me, before I send her up into the Arena. “Thanks for trusting me,” she says. “I’ll make sure you didn’t misplace it.”
I run my fingers over the side of her face. “You never told me how you got these scars.”
“They’re not scars,” she says as she steps back onto the platform. “It just started happening.”
“Let’s hope it keeps happening,” I say, and I think she hears it because she smiles, but the platform’s already begun to rise, and she’s gone.
Televisions line the halls on the way back to the hovercraft. By the time we take off for the Capitol, I know she’s survived the Cornucopia, and struck off into the desert alone.
-
“The year we decide to fight back is the year the Arena tries to kill us,” Finnick sighs, sinking back into the vanity chair as I line his eyes. “Clubs. Sand.”
“Salt,” I say. “It’s not that different than being on the ocean, is it? Water everywhere and not a drop to drink?”
“You can filter the ocean, now,” he says. “Slowly, but you can.”
“Not the same, then.” I cap the eyeliner, set it aside. “But it worked, until that.”
“We’ll see.”
“We’ll see,” I repeat. I know where Finnick’s going tonight, even if Drusus is nominally in charge. A fundraiser. Another club, another set of chains, another place I can’t hold him back from. Another auction. The first night of the Games and at least now I know how much things cost, how much they have to wring out of Finnick in order to keep things going. Knowing doesn’t make it any easier. I have to wonder if it ever does. Finnick Odair is real, the television is more than shadows on the wall. “I’ll go with you.”
“I’d like that,” Finnick says, smirking. “Just don’t enjoy yourself too much.”
“There? Not at all. But here, I hope you’ll let me.” I tilt back his chair, take up my paint, and go to work.
-
I walk in with him. I stand by as they auction him off. No Gamemakers in the crowd tonight, just omnipresent in the corners where the desert filters in onscreen, but the older man who looks like Trajan managed to pay in advance this time. He’s the only one I recognize from last time, the only one I recognize at all.
In the end, he goes first. Finnick is hung with his arms over his head, still clothed, and the man tears through Finnick’s shirt, on seams I hid and loosened. An albatross hangs on Finnick’s back and chest, on a thin double noose Finnick wove himself. Its wings glisten with blood and bile, spread over Finnick’s back and wrapped around his sides, as if to say then strike me first, go through me to get to him. The eye is the only part of the bird that blinks and shifts, its lid and pupil lacquered over to fade in and out and follow whoever dares look. Its head curls over Finnick’s shoulder, beak gaping near his heart.
Last time, at Tantalus, this very man had hesitated at nothing. This time, he marvels and stares, silent enough that I can hear the names of tonight’s dead tributes announced, and see their televised faces wash over his.
-
Finnick still needs me, when it’s over, when we’re home. He laughs, punch-drunk and delirious, and clings to me as we tangle through the doors. I may not find this funny, I still have work to do, but it’s a relief, all told, all over, that he isn’t last time’s kind of broken. I smile. I rake my fingers through his hair. I hold him by the noose and take him into the shower with me to wash the makeup away. There’s less blood, fewer bruises, rope burns on his wrists and ankles but nothing under his skin. The albatross itself is nearly intact, barely frayed at the feathers, and the water runs black and white and gold down Finnick’s body as I smooth it away, dismiss it like magic, like a ghost. It’s dangerous, and I know it, wanting him and feeling this and having this power, but Finnick puts himself into my hands and holds me close and asks for me, begs me to give him something he wants.
He knows me. He knows I’ll give him anything he wants.
So once he’s clean, once the bruises are gold and the cuts are sealed pink, I let him take control. He kneels, holds me against the shower wall by my wrists, takes my fingers into his mouth and then more, alongside, at the same time so I can feel what he does to me. His tongue, his skin, the heat of the shower-with all that, he’s not the only one with parts of him boiling away. He whispers my own words back at me, put enough water in one place and you’ll get the same results as fire, and that’s what comes over me, that’s what happens when he wraps my legs around him and fucks me into the wall.
We go to bed with our hair still wet. He sleeps draped over me, his skin mending as I trace it, faster than I dared before.
-
Cherlie is the sixteenth tribute to be eliminated, choosing to be flayed in a sandstorm rather than face the snake muttation that’s killed four other tributes so far. It’s a mistake, but it’s a mistake he chose, and that’s as much a choice as he’s probably ever gotten. They’re interviewing his family in District 4 while it happens, and the Capitol watches Cherlie’s mother and father and two younger brothers look on, turning green with disgust and horror.
Molina is the twenty-first. Her mentors send her plastics to seal her skin and gather her sweat, filters to wring the blood of the small snakes and hares and mutts she beats to death. In the desert sun, her already dark skin tans as brown as the leafless trees, but the white vitiligo on her face thickens and spreads down to her jaw. The commentators start calling her the Jackal. When the snakes drive the last four tributes closer she goes out fighting, and mortally wounds the girl from District 2, before the spikes drill into her brain.
They have to show the aftermath of her death, because the hovercraft doesn’t get there in time to scare off the giant snake, and it’s as hungry as the tributes.
-
Finnick calls me from the victor’s lounge, the night after Molina dies, and tells me, “Turn on Wear and Tear.”
I comply.
Ligaria Baum, the most fashion-conscious woman in the Capitol, is wearing white stripes on her cheeks.
“You did it, Cinna,” Finnick says in my ear, quiet, urgent.
“So I did,” I say just as quietly, because yes, I believe it, but my heart is in my throat and it’s difficult to speak around.
“Meet me at the victor’s lounge. Do you know where that is?”
“I do.”
“Good. We should talk. And celebrate.”
-
“What the hell is he doing here?” Johanna Mason snaps.
Standing in the doorway of a room with half a dozen victors, I don’t say. One of these things is clearly not like the other. Chaff. Beetee. Wiress. Johanna. Me.
“Who are you, kid?” Chaff asks, but I don’t get to answer him before Wiress asks, “Where are you going?” and Beetee asks “How did you get here?”
“And if you’re one of Finnick’s, he doesn’t mix business with pleasure,” Johanna adds.
“I’m not here for Finnick’s business,” I say.
“Well, you’re not pleasing anyone else by being here.” For someone as small as Johanna Mason is, she seems to take up a lot of my space.
I tell her, and all of them, “I’m just here to pick him up.”
“Where are you going?” Wiress asks again.
“I don’t know, that’s his decision.”
“So I’ll ask you again,” Chaff says, “what’s your name?”
“Cinna.”
I expect them to laugh, and they don’t. Are these the people I’m collaborating with?
It doesn’t matter. They’re not collaborating with me.
“You should probably wait outside, Cinna,” Beetee says. “If he said he’d meet you here, he’ll see you in the hall before he gets in here.”
“There’s only one door,” Wiress agrees. At least she smiles at me.
“Fair enough,” I say, and step back, start to shut the door. “Sorry I intruded.”
My hand is still on the knob when Finnick laughs behind me. “They’re not the friendliest bunch.”
“They don’t have to be.” I turn to him and try to smile.
“Sorry about that. There’s a lot they don’t know,” he says once we start down the hall, him leading, just slightly out of step.
“And a lot they don’t like.”
He signals the elevator to take us down. “As long as they don’t tear you down, there’s nothing to worry about, right?”
There is. There always is. But it’s nothing I can talk about, not here, so we don’t.
-
Dinner is on me, drinks are on him. The Games lurk on the restaurant walls, past prime time and into the commentary and recaps before the inevitable showdown tomorrow afternoon. The desert sand is grey at night. I wish I didn’t know the tributes’ names.
Finnick drinks more than I do. Out of the Games or not, he’s here until closing ceremonies, so I don’t blame him. He drinks things in vivid colors with sweet flavors and names that I think must have been foreign once, but wouldn’t have given a thought to before. They stain his tongue pale purple, green, gold.
“So what’s it look like for next year?” he asks, draping himself over his chair as if he doesn’t know what he looks like, which I know, now, is true.
“It depends on who retires,” I say. “Or if anyone’s promoted.”
“Can you ask?”
“If there’s an open position at a low enough level, I can request, at least. Like if it’s a choice between Eleven and Twelve. Not that Twelve ever opens up.”
“That’s because Troy is part cockroach,” Finnick says. “To hear Haymitch talk about it, anyway. Are they even trying to get rid of him?”
“No more than they’re trying to get rid of Haymitch.” I think I did see him in the victor’s lounge, asleep on a couch while the others were driving me out.
“They can’t get rid of Haymitch,” Finnick says. “He’s the only living victor in District Twelve.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. All the other districts have at least three. Some have only one man, or one woman, but at least three total.”
“Then you’d think Haymitch would try to help his tributes win, if he wants to get off the hook that much.”
Finnick smiles brightly, raises his glass to toast me. I am getting much, much better at giving him lines to read between.
“And it’s hard to win,” I go on, “if you can’t catch anyone’s attention at the opening ceremonies.”
“Then Haymitch had better hope Troy gets it into his head to retire,” Finnick says, drinking. “What about Three and Eleven? Three’s also having problems. No victors at all since Wiress.”
“I could do wonders with Three,” I say. “Better than I could with Twelve. Three has a higher budget too, a stronger theme.” Three has a better tactical position, geographically, and a larger population as well, but that’s not for this conversation, not overtly. “And Eleven’s stylist position is probably opening up this year, since Laetitia did so well. Did they rule Sabal into fifth or sixth place?”
“Fifth. He had the higher kill count, even if the cannons fired at the same time.”
I nod. “So I could ask for Eleven, if Troy doesn’t leave Twelve.”
“You’d like working with Chaff and whoever else he brings, Seeder or Ami,” Finnick says. “They’re solid people. My mother would say good neighbors. Dedicated to their tributes, too, more than Haymitch for sure.”
He’s saying that Eleven’s in on it too. It’s not surprising. And Chaff wasn’t unkind to me before, just gruff. I try to envision an opening ceremony concept for Eleven, a theme. Life. Growth. Abundance. Endurance. Roots and vines and the inexorability of nature. I could build a line of clothes around it for any tribute, I’m sure. “We’ll see what opens up.”
“We’ll see,” Finnick repeats. “But you’re as good as in.” He toasts again, looks at me over the rim of his glass.
“And you’re in for the night,” I say, keeping his eyes, “unless you want to spend your night off-”
“At least at home, we can turn the television off,” he says, once the glass is on the table. But he’s still looking at me, still challenging me, still saying he knows what I mean.
“Yes,” I agree. “Yes we can.”
-
Innate: Finnick Odair is a tease.
Applied: His hand in my back pocket for the duration of the cab ride home.
He doesn’t even withdraw it to pay the driver, just drops his wallet into his lap and works it open with one hand, and tips exorbitantly as usual. When I try to slide out of the seat, he stays close, presses his fingertips hard against the cloth and looks at me like I should know exactly what he’s doing. Good thing I do.
What he’s doing-what we’re doing-starts as soon as the door to the apartment closes, and starts with me. I back him into the closet door and kiss him until he laughs. He whispers filthy things in my ear, his breath sweet from all the bright liqueurs, about what he’s going to make me do and how well it’ll show up on my clothes. I’m more for showing than telling but I can’t deny what his voice does to me any more than I can stop it. I goad him on, take what I can, run my fingers and my tongue over the parts of him I know are his. He says he knows I like to watch him, if I like it so much he’ll give me just the right angle, just the right light, if I can keep my eyes open at all the way he plans to touch me. We make it to the bedroom and almost to the bed, there are still drawers to rifle through and clothing to take off, and when he finally pulls me on top of him I can’t slow down. He has us both in one hand, makes me rock back on my fingers just to go faster, to have this sooner, to see what it does to him, and then he’s under me and in me and spread out gorgeous on the bed, tearing at sheets that can’t contain him. And I’m struck with the desire to make water burn.
I don’t know when it changes, but I’m there, and the way we move is making my eyes flash white and my knees ache and fire race through me, immolating my blood and choking me and reducing the world to one haloed point just out of reach-
-and that point becomes a spark.
“-my sketchbook,” I say, somehow, between all the ragged yesses and pleading and stilted breath. “I need my sketchbook.”
I don’t even see Finnick’s face when I climb off him and reach over the edge of the bed. I know my satchel’s in here, it was still on my shoulder when we came in here, he didn’t let me drop it in the hallway. There. No, those are his pants.
“Cinna?” The bed rustles. His skin slides against mine. Not now. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, I just need to get this down.” There-yes. I get the book out, and my pencils, and balance on the edge of the bed. It all comes together, once I have that in hand; start with the forms, the helmet, the cape, fire licking back against the wind but too strong to extinguish, the light at the base bringing out their faces. I’m dimly aware of Finnick excusing himself and the lights creeping under the bathroom door but it doesn’t matter, once I taper this line it’ll all look like flames within flames. Portia has to perfect the fire this year. She will, once she gets a look at this. The bathroom door clicks open and Finnick’s shadow passes me and I know.
FIRE, I write in the corner once I’ve shaded the contour of the flames.
conflagration
spark
hearth
candle
sun
scorched earth
ember
prophecy
pyre
light
“To understand the impulse for fashion is to understand the impulse for fear,” I say.
“You’ll have to explain that.”
I didn’t know he was listening. I keep drawing. “What were you afraid of growing up, Finnick?”
“Mags, mostly.”
I laugh. “I mean on a deep primal level. Loneliness. The dark. The unknown. You can train yourself not to fear fire and you can train yourself not to fear death, but you can’t drive away the fears that preserve you.” I make a few quick lines, cause the cape to cast a graphite shadow. “Why do people assert themselves? Because they want to be seen. They want to be known. And they want to be in the light. Fashion grows out of that fear. Fear of obscurity. Fear of loneliness. Fear of the dark.”
“Cinna?”
“I’m boring you.”
“You’re brilliant.”
I shake my head, no. “I need more light.”
He pulls away from my side, and brings in my lamp from the parlor. By the time he returns, I’ve started a new page. Interview clothes. A suit with peaked lapels and lining like lava, a handkerchief twisted into flame.
“This won’t ever work for District Eleven,” Finnick says. The lamp snaps on, and I don’t have to squint anymore, pull back from the page enough to see the whole.
“No,” I agree. “Three or Twelve. Three the fire is electrical, green, the spark of technology, of creation.”
“Beetee will like that.” The walls click, the screws turn, the bugs are gone and a good thing too, because I’ve probably already said too much. “Haymitch will like it more.”
“Fire from coal. Resurrection. Coal is a fossil. Fire out of death.” I start on a dress that rises from the hem to crest in flames around the girl’s chin. I balance them out, fan out the hem into a mermaid cut, scalloped in front to support the gems. “And always last. Twelve always goes last.” I finally look up. “That’s where I need to be. Last. Where they’ll remember.”
“I’ll talk to my people, see if we can get Troy to move on.” Finnick’s hand nestles on my shoulder, and his shadow creeps over the corner of the page but not into the design.
“This is it,” I breathe. “This is why.”
“Should I leave you be?”
“No. Stay.” The dress needs gemstones, sequins are too flat, too wet. Edges. Facets. The sun gone nova, consuming the earth.
“I never thought I’d be anyone’s muse,” he laughs.
“You never think about yourself at all,” I say. Fire all through, blue sources, more at the skirt, all gold through the bodice, fire has a thousand colors, no, not colors, a spectrum. And gloves, I can paint those on her arms, make them flicker and fade. “Who do you fight for?”
“Annie,” he says.
The inspiration is a haze, and that name is wandering through it. Annie. Annie Cresta. The victor of the seventieth Games. District 4. Finnick was her mentor, the last time he mentored at all. She went mad. The tabloids said she loved him.
I’m not sure I should care. There are still gemstones and graphite and seams pouring out of my fingers. “Was it true from the start, or did it become true?”
“It became true,” Finnick says. “When I let myself love her. When I decided they couldn’t take that away from me.”
I put it into the dress instead. Whatever I’m feeling, it belongs there now, where it can’t hurt anyone else.
It all takes shape in silence. Fire. Dresses and suits and training clothes that capture destruction, power, erasure, renewal. Parade outfits built of living flame. My place in the revolution, laid out in sketches and notes, unsigned but indelibly mine. Finnick breathes, and the sweat chills on my skin, and I draw.
In the morning, the seventy-third Hunger Games will end. Finnick will sleep in, and I will pack his bags and make his coffee and prep him for what’s probably the last time, and he’ll go to whoever has requisitioned him. He’ll make my connections, and knowing how things are going and what his word counts for and where I stand in this mad world, I’ll get what I want, and request District Twelve for my first appointment as a Games stylist. I’ll keep my secrets. It’s me and the fire, not against it but with it, wielding it, and whoever tries to keep us apart will burn beside me.
For me, the seventy-fourth Hunger Games have already begun.
-
---
-
.
Back to Part 2
.
III.
“I slept with him,” I tell Portia at The Fig Tree, like there’s nothing wrong at all.
“-oh my god, Cinna, honey.” She gets out of her chair and nearly pirouettes around the table to hug me. “Congratulations!” Of course I hug her back, and I can’t help grinning, but the blush doesn’t start welling up under my skin until she sits down again and demands, “Details.”
I take a drink of water. “I told him a few things,” I say because she should know he knows I know, “and we got to talking, and one thing led to another-”
“That’s the part I want details about!” she says, teeth perched on the tip of her straw.
“You don’t see me asking for details about you and Lepidus.”
“Lepidus is Lepidus, this is Finnick Odair.”
“So what, everything he does is public?”
“Yeah, including you.”
I concede.
“So,” she asks, “is it really a trident?”
Maybe I shouldn’t have been drinking water when she asked that. “Yes. But I could have told you that before.”
“It’s different when you’ve seen it intimately.”
“Portia, I wax him.”
“I mean intimately! So how long is the-”
“Portia!”
She still raises her eyebrows at me to continue.
I look around, make sure there aren’t any waiters about. “No complaints,” I say, “but I haven’t capitalized on all of the design features yet.”
Portia squeaks, and someone comes over to take our orders. It’s probably a bad idea to order sopressata, even if they almost never have it here. I should stick to salad. No seafood, either. It doesn’t stop Portia, she probably gets the squid to torment me.
Once the waiter is gone and the drinks are set down, Portia glances to either side and takes a deep breath. “So he’s okay with this?”
“It was his idea,” I say, and I know I’m only addressing one of her concerns, but for once in my life, I can’t tell her everything. “And as for the rest, well. It’s not that he’s okay with it, but we’re going to make it work.”
She nods, and makes to ask more, but I lift my hand to stop her.
“Thank you. I can’t tell-” I pause, so she takes that on its own, “-how things will turn out. But there’s more to him than meets the eye, and I’m honored to catch a glimpse of it.”
“I’d be honored to catch what meets the eye,” she says. But she nods, and her eyes don’t shine, and I don’t think we’ll be talking about Finnick on a non-superficial level again for a long time. It’s for the best. I tell myself it’s for the best.
But the last time I kept a secret from Portia, she made me swear I wouldn’t do so again.
I guess we’ve both grown up.
-
“Finnick Odair’s residence. He’s out, but if you don’t mind talking to his stylist-”
“I am his stylist.”
“-Hello, Drusus! Long time.”
“Not that long, Cinna. Has he killed you yet?”
I laugh. “Not yet. And I think I’ll make it through the rest of the week too.”
“Good to hear.”
“How’s the Snow party coming along?”
“I never want to dress an elephant again.”
“That could definitely make you miss Finnick.”
“Ha. So, if you do survive the week, you still want to come work for me during the Games?”
“I wouldn’t turn you down if you asked.”
“I thought I just did.”
“Then I’d better accept.”
“Good. I like what you’ve done with him, you know. He must be crowing that you’re treating him like an adult.”
I’m glad this phone is audio-only. He doesn’t need to see me shiver. “I wouldn’t say he’s crowing, but he does seem to appreciate it.”
“Good. Then come back and be my assistant for the seventy-third Games. I’ll have to run it by the board, but they can’t really turn down a direct recommendation. Not to mention Atia and Ari are talking you up pretty much everywhere that’ll listen.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” I say, and it’s true. I do want this. Not just to work with Finnick again, but the chance, the chances, that it provides. I need to move up before the Quarter Quell, now more than ever. I need to touch the Games as soon as I can. “Should we talk terms?”
“I’ll talk the ones I can set, at least,” Drusus says. “Twenty-five percent of the design team earnings-to my forty-five, in case you were wondering-with five percent each to prep, which you can tack on if you want to do conditioning for one of the tributes. Room, board, notions, all taken care of. Depending on which of us ends up shadowing Finnick and how long the Games go on, there’s a stipend attached, plus materials cost, since his doesn’t come out of the treasury anymore.”
Of course it doesn’t come out of the treasury, it just goes in. “I think we should let the prep teams keep their jobs.”
“I do too, Finnick’s a full-time commitment on his own. Not that our tributes tend to last very long since him, except Annie Cresta, but that’s a can of worms I don’t feel like opening. Anyway. I have to say, Cinna, I hope this is the last step you have to take before you break out. I know how you work, and I hate to say it but I’ve heard people laying bets on when you’ll burn yourself out.”
“Not too soon,” I say. “Never too soon.”
-
Our last night together before Finnick goes back to District 4, we don’t sleep. It’s surprisingly difficult to coax him out of bed when I’m in there with him.
He doesn’t ask, so I don’t tell him that I’ll be here when the Games roll around.
-
There’s a message about a gown commission waiting on my machine when I get home. Metellus Miller is apparently interested in hiring me to dress his daughter, who has seen the makeup work I’ve done with Finnick and wants me to turn her into a moving work of art for the opening ceremonies. Even in the message Miller says he’ll spare no expense, he’ll do anything to promote his daughter in society, and show the Capitol how wonderful she is.
Of course I call back, I’d be an idiot to turn that down. When I get through to Miller himself, he says he’ll send her over tomorrow afternoon, so I can measure her, get her colors, get started right away. Two months until the Games, after all. That should be enough time for something truly beautiful.
So I set up my apartment the way I’ve started to for commissions, clear the workroom, make sure there’s tea. Everything else is a clean slate.
“Hey there,” the blond girl who punched Finnick in Tantalus says. “I’m Caecilia Miller. I’m here about the dress.”
I don’t speak. I don’t move.
She sneers. “Are you Cinna the stylist, or does he have an Avox or something?”
“-No,” I manage. “I mean, no, he doesn’t have an Avox. I’m Cinna. Sorry, you just startled me. I wasn’t expecting someone so beautiful.”
Of course she’s the kind of person who believes that. “Oh, good. I hope I’ll be inspiring. I just love your work!”
“Thank you.”
I show her in, sit her down, and offer her tea, which she takes thick with sugar like she doesn’t have to worry about her figure. I don’t think she does. The muscles in her arms are real, but the dent of her waist clearly isn’t. Her hair still has the green streaks through the blond but I think they’re bluer than they were two weeks ago, as are her eyes. “Let’s get down to it. I want something built around that shifting design you did on Finnick for his Tantalus gig.”
She calls it a gig. A gig, like he’s a musician or a stylist like me. “I can do that,” I say, because it’s true. “What do you want to show?”
“Me,” she says. “The best parts of me.”
Sometimes I truly love my job.
-
Four scheduled fittings.
Three visits to Portia.
Two Avox test runs for the makeup.
Eight words that play over and over in my head no matter what’s on the television: This proves to them what I can do.
Portia perfects the lacquer, between visits one and two. It can fade between colors, layer over itself. But the trick, with this design, is the subtlety of human skin, of creating something to peel itself away. Portia says it’s either a complete waste or a stroke of genius, using her lacquer to create a basic foundation and the powder to blend it.
The gown is translucent and clings, illuminated underneath for subtle modesty, strapless and slit at both side seams for her legs to slip through. She’d sweat through the makeup if I had her wear the dress over it, so I preserve the theme of the makeup in the lining and wire the lights in the outer fabric to perform almost the same functions as the lacquer.
Caecilia genuinely enjoys being prepped and painted, the day of. She talks to me about her pre-Games workout, as if she’s a Career tribute going in, or as if she wants me to be proud of her for making my design conform to her. She’s excited, smug, curious, but I don’t explain what the design is, precisely. And of course there’s no way I can know the exact path of her arteries and veins, but I have been doing anatomical drawing for over half my life, in one way or another.
So all through the night, what’s inside Caecilia Miller conceals and reveals itself, shade by shade, at the turn of the clock. Her bones, wound through with glowing red and blue, branch off under the web of her gloves into capillaries so fine they’ll never bruise. The arteries coil and spiral down her legs, her arms, everywhere. The best parts of her are her blood and her bones.
She loves it. She preens, can’t stop staring at her skin even after I send her off to deal with her hair. She doesn’t mind that I’m removing her green streaks, whitening them, paring away everything she’s done to herself outside.
I won’t be at the ball, of course, and I won’t have time to watch it, since Finnick and the tributes arrive tonight. But there will always be tabloids, always broadcasts, always who’s who wearing what.
-
“Take the girl,” Drusus commands, once he gets a look at Molina and Cherlie at Beauty Base Zero, “at least for the interview and training. I’ll handle the opening ceremonies outfits, like we planned. I’ve updated the colors for them.” He hands me his organizer, lets me stroll through it. Drusus digitizes most of his designs and palettes, and it works for him, but it actually makes me dizzy. He says he likes knowing precisely what pigments go where. “And I’d be an idiot if I didn’t let you do their makeup.”
“You’re just as good with it as I am,” I say.
“Sure, but you’re a public relations wet dream,” he says. He nudges his organizer out of the way with a paper tabloid.
Caecilia Miller’s circulatory system smiles up at me.
“Done,” I say. “Jellyfish?”
“Jellyfish. And now, thanks to you, I can make them see the poison barbs.”
-
“Hi,” Molina says, once I shut the door behind me. “You look sane, compared to the others.”
“I try to be,” I tell her. “I’m Cinna. I’ll be taking care of you until the Games, maybe after if you win.”
“Good,” she says. Molina’s bold, with dark red-brown hair cut almost as short as mine, broad shoulders and a build I’d actually describe as boyish. I can tell the prep team has covered up some white discolorations on the sides of her face, but I think I’ll be removing that whenever I can.
“Can you tell me a little about yourself?” I ask. “Something you think I can’t see.”
“Sure. Well, I’m eighteen. I’ve been training since I was ten, so I volunteered because this year would be my last chance, and the girl they drew wouldn’t have brought it in, you know?” That, I could see on her, but I let her go on. “I work on one of the tankers. I’m going in there and I’m going to fight. But you know, this is the part I looked forward to the most, during training.”
“What, being styled?”
“Yeah. It’s probably silly of me, but I wanted the chance to feel worthy. You know, to shine. To stand out.”
“It’s not silly.” I kneel down next to her and start getting her measurements. “It’s the best chance you have.”
-
“Jellyfish,” Finnick says, once Drusus and I show the tributes out. I guess it’s not the worst thing he could say to me after two months away, but then again I haven’t asked if he’s actually mentoring or just here for-work. Societal obligations. That.
“Jellyfish,” Drusus says. “Teaching an old design new tricks.”
“Could work.” And then Finnick cracks his neck and ducks into the kitchen. Not mentoring, then. Already has aching muscles. I don’t like it. I don’t think I ever will.
I take one look at Drusus and barely have to open my mouth before he tells me, “Go ahead. You take him, the prep teams can deal with the tributes.”
I nod, and knock on the kitchen door, but step right in anyway.
“Cinna?”
“Yes.”
“I’m only up here because Beetee’s doing work downstairs,” he says. The walls click, the screws turn. “Audio only,” he says. “Fifteen minutes.”
I glance over my shoulder anyway. “It won’t be this year,” I say.
“Not this year,” he agrees. “Not one of ours, anyway. People are still out for District Four blood. Did you watch the Reaping ceremonies?”
“Only ours.” I didn’t have time.
He nods, and convinces the coffeemaker to give him hot chocolate instead. “Eleven’s got a fighter, and so does Eight, but I don’t think they’re right for what we need.”
“We’ll see after the opening ceremonies.”
“Gianna is in Eight this year, right?” he asks. I nod. “Good, she got promoted. It might be impressive enough to make a splash.”
“We don’t need a splash,” I correct. “We need a spark.”
“Then we need to get you to a District you won’t drown in.”
I laugh. “I don’t think you’ll put me out completely.” I have my sketchbook with me-the newest one, I’ve filled up three in the last two months, but this one has at least some of what I need to show him most. “I need a test run the same way you do. I hate to say it-and I hate to do it, because it’s unfair to her-but I’m going to make them all watch Molina. We’ll see how far she gets.”
“We’ll see,” Finnick says. His hot chocolate is probably still too hot, but he drinks it anyway, around the pile of whipped cream on top. “I can talk to the mentors about steering her away from the Career pack.”
“I don’t think that’s a bad call,” I say. “She wants to stand out.”
He shudders. “You should have seen her volunteer.”
“I did,” I say.
“Right.”
Seconds of unbugged time pass, with nothing either of us is willing to say.
“Let me take care of your back,” I ask him.
“Now,” he agrees. “The rest of me later?”
“With pleasure.”
-
All through training, Molina wears something a step outside the box. A knotted scarf the first day. Bracers the second. A top with three zippers, the day she meets the Gamemakers, and she comes away with a solid 9. For the interviews, her dress is like oil, dripping in wet sequins from her strong shoulders, translucent over her legs. Finnick tells me her sponsors are falling in line, choosing her over Cherlie. The mentors coach her unassuming and straightforward, herself all through. I let the white lesions around her eyes shine out. Oil, spreading over the surface, laying the foundation for catastrophe.
She hugs me and thanks me, before I send her up into the Arena. “Thanks for trusting me,” she says. “I’ll make sure you didn’t misplace it.”
I run my fingers over the side of her face. “You never told me how you got these scars.”
“They’re not scars,” she says as she steps back onto the platform. “It just started happening.”
“Let’s hope it keeps happening,” I say, and I think she hears it because she smiles, but the platform’s already begun to rise, and she’s gone.
Televisions line the halls on the way back to the hovercraft. By the time we take off for the Capitol, I know she’s survived the Cornucopia, and struck off into the desert alone.
-
“The year we decide to fight back is the year the Arena tries to kill us,” Finnick sighs, sinking back into the vanity chair as I line his eyes. “Clubs. Sand.”
“Salt,” I say. “It’s not that different than being on the ocean, is it? Water everywhere and not a drop to drink?”
“You can filter the ocean, now,” he says. “Slowly, but you can.”
“Not the same, then.” I cap the eyeliner, set it aside. “But it worked, until that.”
“We’ll see.”
“We’ll see,” I repeat. I know where Finnick’s going tonight, even if Drusus is nominally in charge. A fundraiser. Another club, another set of chains, another place I can’t hold him back from. Another auction. The first night of the Games and at least now I know how much things cost, how much they have to wring out of Finnick in order to keep things going. Knowing doesn’t make it any easier. I have to wonder if it ever does. Finnick Odair is real, the television is more than shadows on the wall. “I’ll go with you.”
“I’d like that,” Finnick says, smirking. “Just don’t enjoy yourself too much.”
“There? Not at all. But here, I hope you’ll let me.” I tilt back his chair, take up my paint, and go to work.
-
I walk in with him. I stand by as they auction him off. No Gamemakers in the crowd tonight, just omnipresent in the corners where the desert filters in onscreen, but the older man who looks like Trajan managed to pay in advance this time. He’s the only one I recognize from last time, the only one I recognize at all.
In the end, he goes first. Finnick is hung with his arms over his head, still clothed, and the man tears through Finnick’s shirt, on seams I hid and loosened. An albatross hangs on Finnick’s back and chest, on a thin double noose Finnick wove himself. Its wings glisten with blood and bile, spread over Finnick’s back and wrapped around his sides, as if to say then strike me first, go through me to get to him. The eye is the only part of the bird that blinks and shifts, its lid and pupil lacquered over to fade in and out and follow whoever dares look. Its head curls over Finnick’s shoulder, beak gaping near his heart.
Last time, at Tantalus, this very man had hesitated at nothing. This time, he marvels and stares, silent enough that I can hear the names of tonight’s dead tributes announced, and see their televised faces wash over his.
-
Finnick still needs me, when it’s over, when we’re home. He laughs, punch-drunk and delirious, and clings to me as we tangle through the doors. I may not find this funny, I still have work to do, but it’s a relief, all told, all over, that he isn’t last time’s kind of broken. I smile. I rake my fingers through his hair. I hold him by the noose and take him into the shower with me to wash the makeup away. There’s less blood, fewer bruises, rope burns on his wrists and ankles but nothing under his skin. The albatross itself is nearly intact, barely frayed at the feathers, and the water runs black and white and gold down Finnick’s body as I smooth it away, dismiss it like magic, like a ghost. It’s dangerous, and I know it, wanting him and feeling this and having this power, but Finnick puts himself into my hands and holds me close and asks for me, begs me to give him something he wants.
He knows me. He knows I’ll give him anything he wants.
So once he’s clean, once the bruises are gold and the cuts are sealed pink, I let him take control. He kneels, holds me against the shower wall by my wrists, takes my fingers into his mouth and then more, alongside, at the same time so I can feel what he does to me. His tongue, his skin, the heat of the shower-with all that, he’s not the only one with parts of him boiling away. He whispers my own words back at me, put enough water in one place and you’ll get the same results as fire, and that’s what comes over me, that’s what happens when he wraps my legs around him and fucks me into the wall.
We go to bed with our hair still wet. He sleeps draped over me, his skin mending as I trace it, faster than I dared before.
-
Cherlie is the sixteenth tribute to be eliminated, choosing to be flayed in a sandstorm rather than face the snake muttation that’s killed four other tributes so far. It’s a mistake, but it’s a mistake he chose, and that’s as much a choice as he’s probably ever gotten. They’re interviewing his family in District 4 while it happens, and the Capitol watches Cherlie’s mother and father and two younger brothers look on, turning green with disgust and horror.
Molina is the twenty-first. Her mentors send her plastics to seal her skin and gather her sweat, filters to wring the blood of the small snakes and hares and mutts she beats to death. In the desert sun, her already dark skin tans as brown as the leafless trees, but the white vitiligo on her face thickens and spreads down to her jaw. The commentators start calling her the Jackal. When the snakes drive the last four tributes closer she goes out fighting, and mortally wounds the girl from District 2, before the spikes drill into her brain.
They have to show the aftermath of her death, because the hovercraft doesn’t get there in time to scare off the giant snake, and it’s as hungry as the tributes.
-
Finnick calls me from the victor’s lounge, the night after Molina dies, and tells me, “Turn on Wear and Tear.”
I comply.
Ligaria Baum, the most fashion-conscious woman in the Capitol, is wearing white stripes on her cheeks.
“You did it, Cinna,” Finnick says in my ear, quiet, urgent.
“So I did,” I say just as quietly, because yes, I believe it, but my heart is in my throat and it’s difficult to speak around.
“Meet me at the victor’s lounge. Do you know where that is?”
“I do.”
“Good. We should talk. And celebrate.”
-
“What the hell is he doing here?” Johanna Mason snaps.
Standing in the doorway of a room with half a dozen victors, I don’t say. One of these things is clearly not like the other. Chaff. Beetee. Wiress. Johanna. Me.
“Who are you, kid?” Chaff asks, but I don’t get to answer him before Wiress asks, “Where are you going?” and Beetee asks “How did you get here?”
“And if you’re one of Finnick’s, he doesn’t mix business with pleasure,” Johanna adds.
“I’m not here for Finnick’s business,” I say.
“Well, you’re not pleasing anyone else by being here.” For someone as small as Johanna Mason is, she seems to take up a lot of my space.
I tell her, and all of them, “I’m just here to pick him up.”
“Where are you going?” Wiress asks again.
“I don’t know, that’s his decision.”
“So I’ll ask you again,” Chaff says, “what’s your name?”
“Cinna.”
I expect them to laugh, and they don’t. Are these the people I’m collaborating with?
It doesn’t matter. They’re not collaborating with me.
“You should probably wait outside, Cinna,” Beetee says. “If he said he’d meet you here, he’ll see you in the hall before he gets in here.”
“There’s only one door,” Wiress agrees. At least she smiles at me.
“Fair enough,” I say, and step back, start to shut the door. “Sorry I intruded.”
My hand is still on the knob when Finnick laughs behind me. “They’re not the friendliest bunch.”
“They don’t have to be.” I turn to him and try to smile.
“Sorry about that. There’s a lot they don’t know,” he says once we start down the hall, him leading, just slightly out of step.
“And a lot they don’t like.”
He signals the elevator to take us down. “As long as they don’t tear you down, there’s nothing to worry about, right?”
There is. There always is. But it’s nothing I can talk about, not here, so we don’t.
-
Dinner is on me, drinks are on him. The Games lurk on the restaurant walls, past prime time and into the commentary and recaps before the inevitable showdown tomorrow afternoon. The desert sand is grey at night. I wish I didn’t know the tributes’ names.
Finnick drinks more than I do. Out of the Games or not, he’s here until closing ceremonies, so I don’t blame him. He drinks things in vivid colors with sweet flavors and names that I think must have been foreign once, but wouldn’t have given a thought to before. They stain his tongue pale purple, green, gold.
“So what’s it look like for next year?” he asks, draping himself over his chair as if he doesn’t know what he looks like, which I know, now, is true.
“It depends on who retires,” I say. “Or if anyone’s promoted.”
“Can you ask?”
“If there’s an open position at a low enough level, I can request, at least. Like if it’s a choice between Eleven and Twelve. Not that Twelve ever opens up.”
“That’s because Troy is part cockroach,” Finnick says. “To hear Haymitch talk about it, anyway. Are they even trying to get rid of him?”
“No more than they’re trying to get rid of Haymitch.” I think I did see him in the victor’s lounge, asleep on a couch while the others were driving me out.
“They can’t get rid of Haymitch,” Finnick says. “He’s the only living victor in District Twelve.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. All the other districts have at least three. Some have only one man, or one woman, but at least three total.”
“Then you’d think Haymitch would try to help his tributes win, if he wants to get off the hook that much.”
Finnick smiles brightly, raises his glass to toast me. I am getting much, much better at giving him lines to read between.
“And it’s hard to win,” I go on, “if you can’t catch anyone’s attention at the opening ceremonies.”
“Then Haymitch had better hope Troy gets it into his head to retire,” Finnick says, drinking. “What about Three and Eleven? Three’s also having problems. No victors at all since Wiress.”
“I could do wonders with Three,” I say. “Better than I could with Twelve. Three has a higher budget too, a stronger theme.” Three has a better tactical position, geographically, and a larger population as well, but that’s not for this conversation, not overtly. “And Eleven’s stylist position is probably opening up this year, since Laetitia did so well. Did they rule Sabal into fifth or sixth place?”
“Fifth. He had the higher kill count, even if the cannons fired at the same time.”
I nod. “So I could ask for Eleven, if Troy doesn’t leave Twelve.”
“You’d like working with Chaff and whoever else he brings, Seeder or Ami,” Finnick says. “They’re solid people. My mother would say good neighbors. Dedicated to their tributes, too, more than Haymitch for sure.”
He’s saying that Eleven’s in on it too. It’s not surprising. And Chaff wasn’t unkind to me before, just gruff. I try to envision an opening ceremony concept for Eleven, a theme. Life. Growth. Abundance. Endurance. Roots and vines and the inexorability of nature. I could build a line of clothes around it for any tribute, I’m sure. “We’ll see what opens up.”
“We’ll see,” Finnick repeats. “But you’re as good as in.” He toasts again, looks at me over the rim of his glass.
“And you’re in for the night,” I say, keeping his eyes, “unless you want to spend your night off-”
“At least at home, we can turn the television off,” he says, once the glass is on the table. But he’s still looking at me, still challenging me, still saying he knows what I mean.
“Yes,” I agree. “Yes we can.”
-
Innate: Finnick Odair is a tease.
Applied: His hand in my back pocket for the duration of the cab ride home.
He doesn’t even withdraw it to pay the driver, just drops his wallet into his lap and works it open with one hand, and tips exorbitantly as usual. When I try to slide out of the seat, he stays close, presses his fingertips hard against the cloth and looks at me like I should know exactly what he’s doing. Good thing I do.
What he’s doing-what we’re doing-starts as soon as the door to the apartment closes, and starts with me. I back him into the closet door and kiss him until he laughs. He whispers filthy things in my ear, his breath sweet from all the bright liqueurs, about what he’s going to make me do and how well it’ll show up on my clothes. I’m more for showing than telling but I can’t deny what his voice does to me any more than I can stop it. I goad him on, take what I can, run my fingers and my tongue over the parts of him I know are his. He says he knows I like to watch him, if I like it so much he’ll give me just the right angle, just the right light, if I can keep my eyes open at all the way he plans to touch me. We make it to the bedroom and almost to the bed, there are still drawers to rifle through and clothing to take off, and when he finally pulls me on top of him I can’t slow down. He has us both in one hand, makes me rock back on my fingers just to go faster, to have this sooner, to see what it does to him, and then he’s under me and in me and spread out gorgeous on the bed, tearing at sheets that can’t contain him. And I’m struck with the desire to make water burn.
I don’t know when it changes, but I’m there, and the way we move is making my eyes flash white and my knees ache and fire race through me, immolating my blood and choking me and reducing the world to one haloed point just out of reach-
-and that point becomes a spark.
“-my sketchbook,” I say, somehow, between all the ragged yesses and pleading and stilted breath. “I need my sketchbook.”
I don’t even see Finnick’s face when I climb off him and reach over the edge of the bed. I know my satchel’s in here, it was still on my shoulder when we came in here, he didn’t let me drop it in the hallway. There. No, those are his pants.
“Cinna?” The bed rustles. His skin slides against mine. Not now. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, I just need to get this down.” There-yes. I get the book out, and my pencils, and balance on the edge of the bed. It all comes together, once I have that in hand; start with the forms, the helmet, the cape, fire licking back against the wind but too strong to extinguish, the light at the base bringing out their faces. I’m dimly aware of Finnick excusing himself and the lights creeping under the bathroom door but it doesn’t matter, once I taper this line it’ll all look like flames within flames. Portia has to perfect the fire this year. She will, once she gets a look at this. The bathroom door clicks open and Finnick’s shadow passes me and I know.
FIRE, I write in the corner once I’ve shaded the contour of the flames.
conflagration
spark
hearth
candle
sun
scorched earth
ember
prophecy
pyre
light
“To understand the impulse for fashion is to understand the impulse for fear,” I say.
“You’ll have to explain that.”
I didn’t know he was listening. I keep drawing. “What were you afraid of growing up, Finnick?”
“Mags, mostly.”
I laugh. “I mean on a deep primal level. Loneliness. The dark. The unknown. You can train yourself not to fear fire and you can train yourself not to fear death, but you can’t drive away the fears that preserve you.” I make a few quick lines, cause the cape to cast a graphite shadow. “Why do people assert themselves? Because they want to be seen. They want to be known. And they want to be in the light. Fashion grows out of that fear. Fear of obscurity. Fear of loneliness. Fear of the dark.”
“Cinna?”
“I’m boring you.”
“You’re brilliant.”
I shake my head, no. “I need more light.”
He pulls away from my side, and brings in my lamp from the parlor. By the time he returns, I’ve started a new page. Interview clothes. A suit with peaked lapels and lining like lava, a handkerchief twisted into flame.
“This won’t ever work for District Eleven,” Finnick says. The lamp snaps on, and I don’t have to squint anymore, pull back from the page enough to see the whole.
“No,” I agree. “Three or Twelve. Three the fire is electrical, green, the spark of technology, of creation.”
“Beetee will like that.” The walls click, the screws turn, the bugs are gone and a good thing too, because I’ve probably already said too much. “Haymitch will like it more.”
“Fire from coal. Resurrection. Coal is a fossil. Fire out of death.” I start on a dress that rises from the hem to crest in flames around the girl’s chin. I balance them out, fan out the hem into a mermaid cut, scalloped in front to support the gems. “And always last. Twelve always goes last.” I finally look up. “That’s where I need to be. Last. Where they’ll remember.”
“I’ll talk to my people, see if we can get Troy to move on.” Finnick’s hand nestles on my shoulder, and his shadow creeps over the corner of the page but not into the design.
“This is it,” I breathe. “This is why.”
“Should I leave you be?”
“No. Stay.” The dress needs gemstones, sequins are too flat, too wet. Edges. Facets. The sun gone nova, consuming the earth.
“I never thought I’d be anyone’s muse,” he laughs.
“You never think about yourself at all,” I say. Fire all through, blue sources, more at the skirt, all gold through the bodice, fire has a thousand colors, no, not colors, a spectrum. And gloves, I can paint those on her arms, make them flicker and fade. “Who do you fight for?”
“Annie,” he says.
The inspiration is a haze, and that name is wandering through it. Annie. Annie Cresta. The victor of the seventieth Games. District 4. Finnick was her mentor, the last time he mentored at all. She went mad. The tabloids said she loved him.
I’m not sure I should care. There are still gemstones and graphite and seams pouring out of my fingers. “Was it true from the start, or did it become true?”
“It became true,” Finnick says. “When I let myself love her. When I decided they couldn’t take that away from me.”
I put it into the dress instead. Whatever I’m feeling, it belongs there now, where it can’t hurt anyone else.
It all takes shape in silence. Fire. Dresses and suits and training clothes that capture destruction, power, erasure, renewal. Parade outfits built of living flame. My place in the revolution, laid out in sketches and notes, unsigned but indelibly mine. Finnick breathes, and the sweat chills on my skin, and I draw.
In the morning, the seventy-third Hunger Games will end. Finnick will sleep in, and I will pack his bags and make his coffee and prep him for what’s probably the last time, and he’ll go to whoever has requisitioned him. He’ll make my connections, and knowing how things are going and what his word counts for and where I stand in this mad world, I’ll get what I want, and request District Twelve for my first appointment as a Games stylist. I’ll keep my secrets. It’s me and the fire, not against it but with it, wielding it, and whoever tries to keep us apart will burn beside me.
For me, the seventy-fourth Hunger Games have already begun.
-
---
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