Coriolanus decided to sleep in Heavensbee Hall, as did the other four remaining mentors. No one except Vipsania had thought to bring bedding, so the rest arranged themselves in the padded chairs, propping up their feet and using book bags as makeshift pillows. As the rainy night cooled the hall, Coriolanus dozed in his chair, one eye half-open for any activity on the screen. The storm obscured all, and eventually he drifted off. Near dawn, he woke with a start and looked around. Vipsania, Urban, and Persephone slept soundly. From a few yards away, Clemensia’s large dark eyes shone in the dim light.
He did not want to be her enemy. If the Snow fortress was about to fall, he would need friends. Until the snake incident, he’d counted Clemensia among his best. And she’d always gotten on well with Tigris, too. But how to make amends?
Clemensia had one hand tucked inside her shirt, where she fingered the collarbone she’d presented in the hospital. The one covered in scales.
“Did they go away?” he whispered.
Clemensia tensed. “They’re fading. Finally. They said it may take as long as a year.”
“Are they painful?” It was the first time the idea had occurred to him.
“Not painful. They pull. On my skin.” She rubbed the scales. “It’s hard to explain.”
Heartened by the confidence, he took the plunge. “I’m sorry, Clemmie. Really. About all of it.”
“You didn’t know what she had planned,” said Clemensia.
“No, I didn’t. But after, in the hospital, I should’ve been there for you. I should’ve broken down the doors to make sure you were okay,” he insisted.
“Yes!” she said emphatically, but she seemed to relent a little. “But I know you were hurt, too. In the arena.”
“Oh, don’t make excuses for me.” He threw up his hands. “I’m worthless and we both know it!”
A hint of a smile. “Almost. I guess I should thank you for keeping me from making a complete fool of myself today.”
“Did I?” He squinted as if trying to recall. “All I remember is clinging to you. Not necessarily hiding behind you. But there was definitely clinging.”
She laughed a little but then became serious. “I shouldn’t have blamed so much on you. I’m sorry. I was terrified.”
“With good reason. I wish you hadn’t had to watch that today,” he said.
“Maybe it was cathartic. I feel better somehow,” she confessed. “Am I terrible?”
“No,” he said. “The only thing you are is brave.”
And so their friendship was shakily renewed. They let the others sleep while they shared the last cheese tart in Coriolanus’s stash, talking of this and that and even rolling around the idea of trying to set up an alliance between Lucy Gray and Reaper in the arena. Since it seemed out of their control, they abandoned it. The two would pair up together or they would not.
“At least we’re allies again,” he said.
“Well, not enemies anyway,” Clemensia allowed. But when they went to wash their faces for the cameras, she loaned him her soap so he wouldn’t have to use the abrasive liquid goop in the bathrooms, and somehow the small but intimate gesture let him know he was forgiven.
No breakfast was provided, but Festus came in early to pass out egg sandwiches and apples in the spirit of camaraderie. Persephone beamed at him over her teacup. Now that Clemensia had lightened up, Coriolanus didn’t feel as threatened by the mentor pool. They all wanted to win, but that was largely in their tributes’ hands. He assessed Lucy Gray’s competitors. Teslee, small and brainy. Mizzen, deadly but injured. Treech, athletic but still something of an unknown. Reaper, too strange for words.
The last of the clouds rolled out with the sunrise. Dead snakes littered the arena, draped over rubble, floating in puddles. Drowned, perhaps, or unable to survive the cold, wet night. Some genetically engineered creatures didn’t do well outside the lab. Lucy Gray and Teslee were nowhere to be seen, but the three boys in soggy clothes hadn’t ventured down from the heights. Mizzen was sleeping, his body belted to the beam. As the other students filed into Heavensbee Hall, Vipsania and Clemensia, who seemed almost normal, sent food to their tributes.
When the drones arrived, Treech ate hungrily, but Reaper again brushed off his food, climbing down into the arena to scoop water from a puddle. Indifferent to Treech and Mizzen, who finally awoke, he went about collecting Coral and Circ and adding them to his row. The other boys watched him warily, but neither engaged him, put off either by his eccentric behavior or the possibility of stray snakes. They were probably hoping that someone else would finish him off, but his work remained un-interrupted, and he returned to the press box when he’d tidied his morgue. Treech sat on the edge of the scoreboard, swinging his feet, while Mizzen mimed eating. Persephone responded immediately, ordering him a large breakfast.
After a minute, Teslee showed up. Her face pinched in concentration, she hauled out a drone that, while much like the original delivery craft, appeared slightly altered. She positioned herself directly under Mizzen.
“Does she think that will fly?” asked Vipsania dubiously. “Even if it does, how can she control it?”
Urban, who’d been scowling at the screen, sat forward suddenly in his seat. “She wouldn’t have to. She wouldn’t need to if — But how did she . . .” He trailed off, trying to puzzle something out.
Teslee flipped a switch, raised her arms, and launched the drone into the air. It ascended, revealing a cable that connected the base of the drone to a loop on her wrist. Thus tethered, the drone began to fly in a circle about halfway between her and Mizzen. He looked down, clearly perplexed, but got distracted by the arrival of his first drone from Persephone. It dropped a chunk of bread down to him and made as if to return home as usual. Then, a few yards out, it swerved and came back at him. Mizzen leaned back, surprised. He reflexively swatted at it, but it only passed over him, opening its claws to deliver a nonexistent gift, and came in again.
“What’s wrong with that drone?” asked Persephone.
No one knew, but at that moment, a second drone came in with water, and a third with cheese. They, too, deposited their packets, only to hang around, attempting repeated deliveries. But the drones, which had been timed for a smooth airdrop, began to bump into one another, and sometimes into Mizzen. The tail of one caught him in the eye, and he cried out, lashing at it.
“Is there any way for me to contact the Gamemakers? I mean, I sent three more!” said Persephone.
“There’s nothing they can do,” said Urban in amusement. “She found a way to hack them. She’s blocked their homing direction, so his face is their only destination.”
Sure enough, as the other three drones arrived, one at a time, they malfunctioned in a similar fashion. Mizzen was their sole target, and what had seemed at first funny turned deadly. He got to his feet and attempted to flee down the beam, but they swarmed around him like bees to a honeypot. Having left his trident on the ground, he pulled his knife and attempted to fight them, but the most he achieved was momentarily knocking them off course. They weren’t programmed to make contact with him, but as they ricocheted off one another and his blade, more and more collided into him, until they gave the appearance of an attack. Mizzen began to grope his way to a pole — the very one on which he’d left Teslee to her fate — but his knee would not cooperate. Frantic now, he took a wild swing at the drones, throwing his weight onto his injured leg, which wobbled and then gave way. He lost his balance and plummeted toward the ground, snapping his neck sideways on contact.
“Oh!” Persephone exclaimed as he hit the ground. “Oh, she killed him!”
Vipsania frowned at the screen. “She’s smarter than she looks.”
Teslee gave a satisfied smile and reeled in her drone, switching it off and giving it a loving hug.
“Do not judge a book by its cover.” Urban chuckled as he tapped some gifts into his communicuf
f. “Especially if it belongs to me.”
His glee was short-lived. While featuring the drone incident, the Gamemakers had neglected to show the wider picture, in which Treech had climbed down from the scoreboard and through the stands, dropping into the arena. He seemed to appear out of thin air, making a gigantic leap into the frame and bringing his ax down on Teslee in one fell swoop. She had barely taken a step when the blade connected with her skull, splitting it open and killing her instantly. Treech leaned his hands on his knees, puffing with exertion, and then sat right on the ground next to her, watching the blood ooze into the sand. The drones arriving with a shower of food for her set him in motion again. He collected a dozen parcels and withdrew behind the barricade.
Urban covered his moment of disbelief with disgust and rose to go. He could not escape Lepidus’s ever-present mic, though, and barely managed not to snarl when he said, “That’s it for me. Laugh a minute, wasn’t it?” Then he walked off, leaving Persephone to expand on her regrets and her gratitude for the opportunity to be a mentor.
“You made the top five!” Lepidus beamed at her. “No one can ever take that away from you.”
“No,” she said somewhat dubiously. “No, that’s the kind of thing that sticks.”
Coriolanus looked from Clemensia to Vipsania. “Just us, I guess.” The three arranged their chairs in a row, with Coriolanus in the middle, while others cleared away the seats of the defeated.
Lucy Gray. Treech. Reaper. Final three. Final girl. Final day? Maybe that, too.
Lucky made his entrance in a hat stuck with five sparklers. “Hello, Panem! Had this hat done especially for the final five, but they’ve been sending off their own sparks!” He pulled two sparklers out of the hat and hurled them over his shoulder blindly. “Final three, anybody?”
One of the sparklers fizzled out on the floor, but the second set a curtain to smoking, eliciting a high-pitched yipping sound and panicked footwork from Lucky. A crew member ran on-screen with a fire extinguisher to handle the crisis, allowing Lucky to regain his composure. As his three remaining hat sparklers died, the number for sponsors and gamblers began flashing at the bottom of the screen. “Whoowee! The betting’s getting hot and heavy! Do not miss out on the fun!”
Coriolanus’s communicuff pinged healthily, but so did Vipsania’s and Clemensia’s. “A lot of good it will do me,” Clemensia murmured to Coriolanus. “He doesn’t trust me enough to eat anything I send.”
Lucy Gray had to be hungry, but he assumed she was resting in the tunnels. He wanted to send her food and water, both for sustenance and as a conduit for the poison. Since her last two opponents could easily overpower her, he had to do something to put the odds in her favor. For now, he could think of nothing but to keep the crowd on her side. When Lepidus approached him for his promised thoughts on Lucy Gray’s performance, he laid it on thick. Coriolanus didn’t know what it would take to prove to people she was not district if she hadn’t convinced them by now. “I feel a great injustice may have occurred by her being not just in the reaping, but in District Twelve at all. People will need to judge for themselves. If you agree with me, or even suspect I might be right, you know what to do.” While the new barrage of donations hitting his communicuff was affirming, he didn’t know how it would help. He could probably feed her for weeks on what he already had.
But the only tribute moving around the arena was Reaper, who had descended from the press box, cutting off another large swath of flag on his way. Gaunt and unsteady, he teetered over to add Teslee and Mizzen to his collection, using the new piece of flag to cover them. With effort, he climbed up to the back row of the arena, where he dozed in the sunlight, rocking gently back and forth, his cape spread out to dry. Coriolanus wondered if he would soon perish of natural causes. If starving to death was a natural cause. He wasn’t entirely sure. Was it natural if hunger had been used as a weapon?
To his relief, Lucy Gray materialized just before noon in the shadows of a tunnel. She surveyed the arena and, judging it safe, stepped into the sunlight. The mud on the hem of her ruffled skirt had begun to cake, but the damp dress still clung to her. While Coriolanus ordered her a feast on his communicuff, Lucy Gray crossed to Reaper’s puddle and knelt. She scooped up water, slaking her thirst and washing her face. After combing out her hair with her fingers, she twisted it into a loose knot, finishing just as a dozen drones entered the arena.
She appeared not to notice them as she took a bottle from her pocket and dipped the neck into the puddle, collecting an inch or so of water. After swishing it around, Lucy Gray poured the water back into the puddle and was making to refill the bottle when the incoming drones caught her attention. As the food and water began to drop around her, she tossed away the old bottle and gathered her gifts into her skirt.
Lucy Gray started for the nearest tunnel but then glanced up at Reaper lolling in the stands. She changed course, hurried to his morgue, and lifted the flag material. Her lips moved as she counted the fallen.
“She’s trying to figure out who’s left in the Games,” Coriolanus said into the mic that Lepidus had pushed in his face.
“Maybe we should put it up on the scoreboard,” joked Lepidus.
“I’m sure the tributes would find that helpful,” said Coriolanus. “Seriously, that’s a good idea.”
Suddenly, Lucy Gray’s head shot up, and the provisions in her skirt fell to the dirt as she turned on her heel and ran. She had heard what the audience could not. Treech swung out from behind the barricade, wielding his ax, and caught her wrist as she passed under the beam. Lucy Gray twisted around, dropping to her knees, fighting wildly as he raised the ax.
“No!” Coriolanus jumped to his feet, pushing Lepidus aside. “Lucy Gray!”
Then two things happened simultaneously. As the ax began to fall, she flung herself into Treech’s arms and clung to him, avoiding the blade. Bizarrely, they seemed to embrace each other for a long moment, until Treech’s eyes widened in horror. He shoved her away, dropping the ax, and tore something from the back of his neck. His hand shot into the air, fingers gripped tightly around the bright pink snake. Then he collapsed to his knees and smashed it into the ground, again and again, until he fell dead in the dirt, the lifeless snake still clutched in his fist.
Her chest rising and falling, Lucy Gray whipped around to locate Reaper, but he still sat rocking in the stands. Momentarily safe, she pressed one hand against her heart and waved to the audience.
As the crowd in the hall applauded, Coriolanus let his breath out in a huff and turned to acknowledge it. He’d done it. She’d done it. With her pockets full of poison, she’d made it to the final two. She must have sheltered the pink snake in her pocket, just as she had the green one at the reaping. Were there more? Or had Treech beaten the final survivor to death? No telling. But just the possibility of another reptilian weapon made Lucy Gray seem deadly.
While Lepidus ushered off Vipsania — who thanked the Gamemakers through gritted teeth — Coriolanus sank into his chair and watched Lucy Gray reclaim her feast. He leaned over to Clemensia and whispered, “I’m glad it’s us.” She answered with a conspiratorial smile.
As Lucy Gray flattened the wrappings and spread all her food out in a pleasing fashion, Coriolanus thought of their picnic at the zoo. Was she restaging it now for his benefit? Something tugged at his heart, and the memory of the kiss hit him. Were there more in his future? For a minute, he drifted into a daydream of Lucy Gray winning, leaving the arena, and coming to live with him in the Snows’ penthouse, which was somehow saved from taxes. He’d attend the University on his Plinth Prize while she headlined at Pluribus’s newly reopened nightclub, because the Capitol would agree to let her stay and, well, he hadn’t worked out all of the details, but the point was, he got to keep her. And he wanted to keep her. Safe and close at hand. Admired and admiring. Devoted. And entirely, unequivocally his. If what she’d said just before she kissed him �
�� “The only boy my heart has a sweet spot for now is you” — was true, then wouldn’t she want that, too?
Stop it! he thought. No one has won anything yet! She had polished off most of her food, so he ordered another round, a large one that she could squirrel away and live off for the next few days, in case she just decided to hunker down and wait for Reaper to die. It was a good plan, low risk to her and inevitable if he stayed on his current course of rejecting all sustenance. But what if he didn’t? What if he regained his senses and decided to eat the nearly unlimited sponsor gifts that Clemensia could provide him with? Then it would come down to a physical matchup again, and Lucy Gray would be at a real disadvantage unless she was packing more snakes.
When the drones had delivered her supplies, Lucy Gray sorted them and stowed them in her pockets. They hadn’t seemed spacious enough to hold all the food and drink along with another snake, but she was awfully clever. He hadn’t even seen her remove the snake that killed Treech.
Festus brought Coriolanus and Clemensia sandwiches at lunch, but they were both too nervous to eat. The rest of the students ate in their seats, not wanting to miss a moment. Coriolanus could hear whispered yet passionate debates over who would win the day. He could never remember people caring in the past.
The beating sun began to dry out the arena, soaking up the shallow puddles and leaving only a few deep enough to drink from. Lucy Gray rested on a bit of rubble, her skirt spread out to catch the rays. The lull brought out Lucky, who gave a detailed weather forecast, including a heat advisory and tips to avoid related cramps, exhaustion, and stroke. The line at the lemonade stand outside the arena stretched long, and people hid under umbrellas or crammed into precious bits of shade. Even the dependable coolness of Heavensbee Hall failed, so students stripped off their jackets and fanned themselves with notebooks. By midafternoon, the school had made fruit punch available, which gave a festive feel to the event.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Page 29
