Fidelis
"Okay, okay. It's my turn," Danae says. "What's she really like? Your aunt?"
My instincts flare into life. This would be a dangerous question anyway, even from someone as inherently harmless as Danae. With the possibility that the eyes of the nation - and the eyes of the Capitol politicos - are firmly fixed on me, I have to be very careful. I was prepared for this question in the interviews that never happened, but for them I'd have been sat and talking to someone I didn't really know and didn't feel the need to be truthful with. Well. Wholly truthful. I avoid telling outright lies when I can. It's something of a family value. Truth is - literally! - in the name.
I take my time chewing on my morsel of bread so that I have time to think before I answer. Danae, impatient even though it's only been a second since she asked, sways from side to side. She's never still. Even when she's asleep she wriggles constantly.
I swallow the bread and wipe my mouth as delicately as I can. "Everybody is different at work to how they are at home. Your parents must be, certainly."
"Nope!" She grins, throws a handful of currents into her mouth and carries on speaking while she chews. "Dead serious at work, dead serious at home. They're always telling me to be more serious, just because it worked for them. Now stop with the distraction and answer the question."
Fair play to her. She might not seem like the brightest but you don't get through the minefield of Ferrous without a good helping of intelligence, no matter how influential your parents are. If I hadn't worked out that the rebels were likely to rig the reapings to take me out, I wouldn't have trained and I could very easily be dead by now. "She's very calm," I say. "I've never seen her flustered or confused. And she tells good stories."
Danae grins, a wicked glint coming into her eyes, and looks around for Walterin. He's still patrolling his small circle. He's been doing this for hours, ever since the sun came up, and shows no sign of being bored by it yet. Whatever they're doing in Steel, they're doing it right. If I told Walt to go and jump off a mountain he'd probably nod and start walking until he found one. His attention is entirely fixed on the surroundings and not on Danae and I at all. We're as safe as we can be with him on guard.
There's another reason I want him close by that I won't voice aloud. He thinks that nobody noticed but I saw him provoking Milo, whether he genuinely believed that he'd stolen a knife or not. Behind that obedience is the sort of mind that needs keeping an eye on. I'm sure he won't betray us - that's against his orders and I know he's in awe of me - but I'd rather have him with us than against us.
Danae watches him complete a quarter of his circle as though hypnotised by the repetitive movement, then shakes her head and smiles.
"Tell me a story," she says. "There must be at least one that you can say in front of the cameras. Unless they're completely scandelous!"
She seems pleased by the thought that some of them are, and I don't want to disappoint her by telling her that my aunt and scandal don't go together at all. She's probably imagining the usual big-politician vices: gambling, sex, drinking, the sort of stuff that appears in the blogs on a weekly basis. The Capitol love that sort of stuff, and for some reason they really love it when it's the people in charge who've messed up. Even when we hid underground you could still hear stories like that going around, sound-bites of headlines. COMMITTEE LEADER SEDUCES UNDERAGE HAEMATITE PROSTITUTE. That sort of thing. They're almost always about minor politicians or, at worst, members of the President's cabinet. They're never about the Gamemakers. It's not that they're infallible - I know stories about some of them that would make your ears burn - it's that, especially now the rebels have seized their own unusual kind of power, they're untouchable.
That gives me an idea for a story. One that I can tell without risking anything, and one that is actually true.
"I can tell you a story," I say, and Danae beams and settles down against the tombstone, knees together, feet apart. Not a very delicate or ladylike way of sitting. I grin and push a handful of dark hair off my face where it's starting to intrude on my vision. "You know I was in the Gamemaker Academy, right? Before it got burned down. I can tell you this because it doesn't exist anymore, otherwise I'd be in big trouble...I was only a few weeks from taking my final tests, too. One evening my aunt turned up on the family estate and asked to speak to me. She did this a lot, just turned up unexpectedly, and it used to really annoy my parents."
"I can imagine," she says darkly.
"So she took me to one side and told me what happened for one of her tests. You can be a brilliant student, you see, but that doesn't mean you're certain to pass the tests, and she wanted to make sure that I was aware of that. They'd changed it since, so she didn't see it as cheating; she just wanted me to be alert for the sort of things they might do. What they used to do was call the student being tested into a room. The Head Gamemaker would be in there, sat on one side of the desk, and the student would sit down on the other, and on the desk would be a gun. And the Head Gamemaker would ask the student to shoot them."
Danae's jaw drops open. "No way!"
I smile. "Yes way. It's a test of obedience, you see? If you pick the gun up and shoot straight away, that's a strong pass. If you let yourself be bullied into doing it, that's a standard pass. If you refuse, it's a fail and you have to either leave the Academy or go back and repeat the last few years."
"What did your aunt do?" She's leaning forwards, big hazel eyes wide, even though on some level she'll think she knows the answer. I pause, relishing the moment. I've always had a bit of a flair for drama. Mother always jokes that that must come from her side of the family, and I don't doubt it. The Morticius family, despite the name, are as bright and bold as the other side are intelligent and strong-willed.
"My aunt is the only candidate in the history of Panem to check whether the gun was loaded."
There's a moment of quiet while she works this out, and then Danae bursts out laughing. I can't help but laugh along. She has an infectious laugh, bright and bubbly, that reflects her personality perfectly. She looks much more comfortable in the beige combats and simple cotton layers than she did in the suit she wore for the reaping and I'm confident that that wasn't her choice.
Walt is saluting, having rounded the tombstone of Noah Waters. The salute is sharp and crisp as ever, but it looks wrong coming from a boy just younger than me in the same combats and layers than I am wearing. I sigh and turn my attention to him. His gaze settles above my left shoulder and he seems distinctly uncomfortable with being stood up when we're sat down.
"Please try and stay quiet, sir," he says.
"Shut up, Walt, we're just having a laugh." Danae wipes a tear from her eye even though it wasn't that funny. She doesn't have much patience with him and I think she'd like to pretend that he's not there. "Your turn, Fidelis. Ask a question, any question."
Well, you have to do something to pass the time, don't you? I'm not going on the attack, not yet. The plan is to stay out of the way, keep myself strong, until the last few. Then I'll intervene. But it leaves a great gap between the bloodbath and then.
"I'm going to ask Walt a question," I say, and although he doesn't pause the Steel golden boy's head whips around. For a moment he actually looks me straight in the eye, his own grey and confused, but then his gaze settles at its usual point just above my left shoulder. He looks terrified. He fought Milo without blinking, stood up to a boy who he thought may have been armed without so much as a flicker, but he has no way of dealing with me.
"Yes, sir?"
"I've told you before, it's Fidelis."
"Sorry, sir."
Danae sighs and digs into another roll of bread, clearly bored with this line of conversation already. Her hair has fallen out already so she's tied it back into a scrappy ponytail, tucking it into the collar of her shirt so it doesn't get in the way. She's made a few little gestures like this, things that would look out of place in normal society, that make me wonder if she's quite as clueless about the Games as she likes to make out. I know of the Dackota family; the parents are both on the Ferrous Sector Committee - a job with quite a lot of social standing and a lot of responsibility to go with it - and I wouldn't put it past them to have been training her on the sly, just in case. The worst thing for the established Ferrous families is to lose a child, especially the only child. If I was in their position, I'd do everything I could to ensure the relative safety of my child.
"You were going to ask me a question, sir?"
"Sorry, Walt, I was miles away." Danae smiles but Walt's face doesn't even twitch. Sympathy, humor, friendliness...it's all lost on him. "Okay. A question. If you had to bet on anybody winning..."
"I don't bet, sir."
There's an answer straight out of whatever textbook it is they teach the Peacekeepers from. None of them bet, or will admit to it anyway. My aunt explained that once, when I was little and was confused because none of my bodyguard would speak to me. Out in the districts the Peacekeepers are more relaxed, especially the longer they spend there. Sometimes they'll even help the residents with poaching or the black market. And that's okay, that's to be expected. Out there where feelings of rebellion would be hard to crush, it was important that the forces of justice were seen to be more flexible to the needs of the people; that way they'd be respected more than if they went in there with every kind of discipline. Presidents have made that mistake before. If people don't respect the Peacekeepers, they don't respect the peace. And if they don't respect the peace, they don't care about breaking it...
In the Capitol, though, standards matter. Peacekeepers have to be incorrigible. Or pretend to be, at least. After all, behind the visors there are people, people like Walt. And being a Peacekeeper is a lonely job. It's expected that they'll have their own quiet vices. They just have to pretend that they don't.
I don't doubt that when Walt says he doesn't bet, he means it. He's a new Peacekeeper, young and keen and not yet hardened by nearly twenty years of solitude and service. The concept of going against what he's been taught - that Peacekeepers don't bet - seems completely alien to him.
"Okay. New question, then. If you'd had to take that test, what would you have done?"
He pauses, staring into space. Danae rolls her eyes and mutters something to herself; I give her a look and she presses her lips together and bows her head. The silence is niggling.
"I would have asked them if that was what they really wanted, sir. And if they said yes, I'd have fired."
Danae snorts. "I wouldn't! Anybody who asks you to shoot them is probably mad. What about you, Fidelis?"
"I agree with you," I say, slightly annoyed to see that she flushes a little. It's a little reminder of my status, just when I thought I'd found someone who was capable of forgetting it. Apparently not. I'm proud of it, of course I am, but sometimes it'd be nice to speak to someone who didn't look at me and see power in human form. Not unless I want them to.
"You do?"
"Absolutely. Assuming it's a standard test, there's obviously some kind of catch otherwise we'd be replacing Head Gamemakers faster than Kalea Farris replaces her wardrobe. Anybody who asks you to shoot them has got to be planning something."
Satisfied that my point is made, that I've safely pointed out the flaw in this particular plan, I lean back against the tombstone of Marlae Wyatts and try to look comfortable. I refuse to let the rebels think that this situation concerns me or is in any way difficult for me. That's another thing about my family; we do not admit weaknesses. It makes for some interesting gatherings. My father, the long-suffering little brother, always said that if you can survive a family birthday on our estate then the petty squabbles of politics should be child's play.
I can't tell Danae any of this. A good politician distances themselves from their home life, and as much as I am now a tribute and as much as I am a young man in good company and it would be easy to let my guard down, I can't. Perhaps if we were alone I would tell her; being from a Ferrous family estate herself, I'm sure she would find it funny. But the dead, abandoned appearance of the graveyard is deceptive. We're being watched. I have to treat her as I would treat any subject, and that includes the assumption that she may turn and stab me in the back for no real reason. It's easier to hate authority than it is to love it, my aunt always says. You just have to know how to manage that. How to tame it.
Which means that as much as I would want to be friends with Danae, I can't.
She looks up at me and grins. A plain face, nothing stunning, none of the surgery or enhancements that are so common in the high and mid sectors. The Dackota family nose, small and snub. Her ponytail billows out from her head and there are leaves and moss stuck in it, but I haven't once heard her complain.
"Whoever heard of that?" she says. "A Warwell relative agreeing with someone!"
And because the world is watching, I laugh.