Lyme is barely eighteen when she stands in the main hall of the Centre with the head trainer, the head of the Program, and the Capitol envoy and vows to bring honour and glory to her district, the Capitol, and Panem with her last breath. She takes the knife from the head trainer and slices a long line across her palm with a sure, even stroke, makes a fist and lets the blood drip between her fingers to the floor as a mark of her sacrifice.

The head of the Program undoes the clasp of her bracelet - the only time it ever leaves her skin is during these ceremonies - and Lyme waits, arm extended, as they slide the final gold bead over the strands, then affix it back around her wrist. It's only a small bit of glass with a thin layer of paint, but it feels heavy, dragging her arm down, and Lyme's chest flutters but she doesn't waver as she looks the trainer in the eye and repeats the final phrases of her vow.

And just like that, it's done, and there's nothing for her to do but keep up the training, take her bulk-up medication, and drink as many protein shakes as she can choke down to build her weight before the Reaping Day. That night Lyme doesn't sleep, just sits on her bed and turns her wrist over, back and forth, back and forth, watching the light from her desk lamp hit the beads and scatter reflections over her walls.

A week before the Games, Lyme gets a piece of paper with her mentor's name on it. They're not likely to give her either of the girls who won in the years before her - it's too soon for that - and Brutus has a new victor so it won't be him, thank Snow, but that still leaves Callista or Hera or any of the ones who won in the decades previous. Lyme unfolds the paper, skims the preamble and searches for the name, only to stop and draw in a breath sharp enough it hurts.

They gave her Nero, a man, and not just a man but one who's a good thirteen years older than she is so there's no hope of them becoming equals later. They gave her a man with age and authority to flaunt, and if she wins she'll be expected to kowtow to him for the rest of her life because that's how mentoring works.

Lyme balls up the paper and throws it at the wall, furious when it sails lightly through the air and bounces harmlessly off the concrete. She spent years trying to escape her father's control on her, and now they've gone and traded him for a mentor who'll do exactly the same. It's worse because Nero hasn't even brought home a tribute; his scores are some of the best in the business, his kids always make the Final Six, and most of them the Final Four, but that doesn't actually matter outside the mentor high-five camp because they end up dead anyhow.

The ugly thought crawls into her head that they're writing her off this year, giving her a mentor she won't bond with who likely isn't going to bring her home, but that's the kind of thing she definitely isn't allowed to be thinking, and years of Centre training let her push it back. Lyme slides off her bed and does pushups until her arms burn and she can't physically raise herself off the ground anymore, and then she lies there with her face pressed to the cool metal floor.

It doesn't matter. After everything she's done, everything she's dragged herself through by her own fingernails and nothing else, Lyme can still do this. She will. There's nothing wrong with doubt but in the Centre it doesn't last long, and she lets it boil off her like standing water on a blistering day.

If nothing else, Two doesn't give tributes to mentors who don't want them, who don't think they can make a connection. That means Nero would have asked, would have put his name in for her, and even if that makes no sense, it's got to mean something. It's just that Lyme has no idea what that reason might be.

It takes her a long time to fall asleep that night, and before she does she gets up, picks up the crumpled paper and smoothes it out, laying it flat on her desk. Trust the Centre, they always tell the trainees, and Lyme has a decade of experience with the Centre fulfilling all its promises and beyond. She should trust them; she does trust them. Lyme lets out a breath and tries not to wonder why none of the female mentors wanted her.

Her district parter's name is Dale. Lyme stands a full three inches taller and fifteen pounds heavier. He's pretty where Lyme is striking but they're both solid and fierce, and their escort titters about them being a reverse matched set as she feels Lyme's bicep and gushes about Dale's classic bone structure. Lyme wants to roll her eyes but she can't, just raises her chin and looks out at the crowd, and does her best not to think about the Capitol audience who will be clucking her tongues that they're not getting a raving beauty this year like usual.

The crowd, at least, doesn't seem to care; the roaring in front of the stage fills Lyme's ears and runs through her veins and buoys her up, and they chant her name the same as any other year. She stands tall and straight, and it's Dale who makes the first gesture, reaching out to her so they can link hands and raise their arms above their heads in the traditional salute. It feels like a minor victory in itself, and Lyme tries not to laugh when she has to bend her arm to avoid stretching his.

The people in front of the stage go crazy, screaming and cheering, and they're crazy for her, with or without a mentor, and Lyme ignores the shadow behind her and bares her teeth in a savage grin.

No one comes to see her in the Justice Building. Lyme stands in the plain, wood-panelled room for over an hour, hands clasped behind her back, and she stares at the door and thinks about the train ride ahead of her and it's good nobody comes. It means her transformation worked, that no one from her old life looked at the warrior on stage today and saw the little girl with the pigtails and the scabby knees and ripped skirts.

She's glad. Most Careers don't get any visitors, at least so says the rumour mill, and for the ones who do it's never any good. Rumour has it that Odin had to put a restraining order against his last victor's parents after they kept showing up, demanding to get credit for giving her to the Centre - and that's one of the better stories. Most of the others show up to look their little monsters in the face to see for themselves if it's true. It's a distraction Lyme doesn't need and is happy not to have.

Something tickles the back of her mind as she traces the grain of wood down the wall with her eyes, following it until it disappears behind a tall, straight-backed chair, a woman - teacher, maybe, in Lyme's head she's much taller and older - who, Lyme thinks, would not have screamed at her and called her names. The memory is old, faded after years in the Centre and nothing but the Games and training packing her brain, but it's just enough for Lyme to register the curl of disappointment in her stomach.

She shakes it back. Nerves, that's all; that's probably why they make the tributes wait so long, to see what they do when there's no distraction, nothing to keep them from their thoughts. Lyme clasps her left wrist in her right hand and digs her nails in, and she goes to the start of the death list and begins the mental tally. District Eight, female: mauled by dog muttation. District Five, male and District Six, female: tracker jacker stings. District Three, male: struck by lightning ...

Lyme makes it halfway through the sixteenth, the first win by a District Two Career (District Eight, male: mace to the head) when the door opens and a masked Peacekeeper tells her it's time to board the train.

It's better this way. Lyme straightens her shoulders to banish the trickle of sweat crawling down her spine, and she might not have anyone in that tiny room to wish her well but she has an entire crowd screaming for her as she stands on the platform, and that is better. Much, much better.

She doesn't look back.

The Capitol is a whirl and a blur of glitter and painted faces and food, and even if Lyme didn't want Nero as her mentor she's glad to have one at her back, if nothing else. He's there, silent and commanding, when the Remake crew poke at Lyme's crooked, broken nose and contemplate fixing it, giving it an aristocratic arch. "No," Nero says, arms crossed, and Lyme lets out the breath she'd been holding. The makeovers between the Reaping and the Tribute Parade are important, but she never thought they'd go that far.

Her stylist, Priscilla, narrows her eyes and gives her a long once over, taking in her broad shoulders and flat hips. "It wouldn't take much to add some curves," she says, tapping one jewelled fingertip against her lip. "With a bit of work it would be easy to turn her into an Amazon goddess."

Lyme has just enough time to panic before Nero growls. "What did I tell you?" he rumbles in a voice like the start of an avalanche. "You get her to beauty base zero and that's all you do. Take the scars but don't touch anything else."

Priscilla blows out an exasperated breath. "What do you expect me to do if you won't let me do anything? She's -"

"Perfect," Nero says in a hard, clipped voice that dares Priscilla to say another word, and he uncurls his fists in a gesture that even a vapid Capitol citizen can't miss.

Lyme breaks one of the cardinal rules - don't speak, don't move, don't even blink - to glance at Nero in surprise, eyes wide, but he doesn't acknowledge her, just narrows his eyes and stays where he is until Priscilla hisses and backs down.

He steps in once more, after the prep work is done, when the stylist and prep team circle her like children's drawings of fairies. When they start pulling out lengths of shimmering fabrics he says "No dresses" in a dark, no-nonsense voice that Lyme appreciates down to her gut. He stands firm when Priscilla whines about tradition, and finally they give up and put away the pinks and purples and sequins and grumble about stifled creativity, and at last he leaves them alone.

"You Twos," Priscilla grumbles, picking up some charcoal fabric and eyeing it with distaste. "You make things so difficult. When I worked with the Ones, their mentors weren't so prone to interfering."

Lyme flicks her gaze to the door where Nero disappeared but says nothing.

That evening Lyme stands tall and proud in her chariot, dressed as an ancient warrior from the storybooks like Twos always are, and she has war paint splashed across her face and fake scars painted on her arms. It's stupid because Remake took away the real ones, but a tribute's job is to stay quiet and do what they tell you so Lyme says nothing as they trace garish, exaggerated battle wounds over her newly-smoothed skin.

Nero steps close to the side and he doesn't touch her - he hasn't touched her, Lyme realizes with a small jolt, even though on the other side Adessa is adjusting Dale's helm and fixing his stance with a few deft pokes at his side and shoulders - but he looks at her, gaze serious. "Be proud," he tells her. "You have every right to be. Let them see it."

Lyme nods, and she can't figure out what Nero's game is, why a man like him would choose a girl like her if it wasn't to put her in her place, but it's not her job to figure it out and she has other things to focus on so she lets it slide.

Nero puts his hand on the side of the chariot as the District One horses pull out, and Lyme glances down. "They're here to see you," he tells her, and of course they are, but that's not what he means. "Forget the other tributes. They're here to see you. Knock 'em dead."

"Yes sir," Lyme says without thinking, and she turns back to the square, at the audience that's shouting so loud it sounds like thunder and wordless screams, and she lets herself believe it.

The next morning when Lyme comes out for breakfast, already dressed, Nero is waiting for her. "Dale's not the pack leader, you are," he says when she sits down and pulls her bowl of oatmeal toward her.

Lyme nearly drops her spoon. It's not that she disagrees - she's bigger than Dale and more aggressive even if she can be more subtle than the Capitol thinks she can - but that Nero's the one saying it. She'd been expecting a fight. Two girls aren't ever pack leaders, not even their victors; they find the alpha male and stick close to him, making sure they're the second on everyone's kill list, and then they swoop in after the alliance breaks and make their move. Lyme doesn't think she could pull that off.

"I'm not saying you walk all over him," Nero warns her. "You're still a team, but he's not the one you're going to jockey with. One boys usually have shitty attitudes toward girls, he's the one who's going to butt heads with you. You let him do it, but you make sure you win. He's never gonna like it, but you make him listen."

"Yes sir," Lyme says, and once again she has to fight to keep the confusion off her face.

"Here," Nero says, and tosses her a banana. "Watch your fruit intake."

Lyme hasn't had a raw banana in years; in the Centre they just blended them into her protein shakes, and she rubs one finger over the waxy skin before peeling it back. The sharp, fresh smell hits her, and Lyme swallows hard.

"There's peaches, too, I'll have them peel the skin off for lunch," Nero says, and Lyme is not a starving tribute from District Twelve who's never seen fresh fruit before, but it sticks in her throat anyhow. She concentrates on her food and doesn't look at Nero for the rest of breakfast.

That day in training, Lyme singles out the District One boy and jostles him in the shoulder, gives him a wolf's grin when he raises an eyebrow. "Race you to the top," she says, jerking her chin at the rock wall across the room.

He clicks his tongue. "That's a cheat, you monkeys are all about the rocks. May as well challenge a Four to swimming, it doesn't mean anything."

"Oh, well," Lyme drawls, rocking back on her heels and hooking her thumbs in her waistband. "If you're scared."

"Don't try to psych me into that shit, I'm not stupid," he says.

"So that's a fancy way of saying you're scared," Lyme shoots back, and he narrows his eyes. The talons of competition dig into her gut and twist, and she waits, grinning, while the One comes to the same conclusion.

"Fine," he says, tossing aside the netting he'd been half-heartedly tying into knots.

Rock-climbing was always Lyme's best recreational skill in the Centre, but she holds back, keeping her lead narrow and letting him pass her once or twice. It's too early in the game for flat-out humiliation, and she's trying to build a tenuous rivalry-bond, not grind his nose into the dirt. When she slaps her hand against the ceiling it's only a second before the One does, and he grunts to acknowledge her win but doesn't look like he's going to try to stick a knife in her leg to avenge his pride.

"Like I said," he grunts, dusting the chalk from his palms on the legs of his pants. "Challenge me to a real competition sometime, not a monkey game, we'll see how that goes."

At the end of the day, Lyme heads back upstairs with Dale, and they drop into their chairs at the dinner table, pleasantly tired but not exhausted, not at this stage. Nero and Adessa are there, and Lyme doesn't miss the bowl of skinned peaches sitting by her plate. "Good show today kids," Adessa says with a nod. "We got the footage of training down at mentor central. You're doing a great job already, so eat up and we'll go over your talking points for tomorrow."

"You look good out there," Nero says, and Lyme looks up. She still doesn't know what he's playing at, trying to win her over with compliments or what, but the worst part is she can't help feeling pleased anyhow. Only the obviousness of the manipulation keeps her from falling for it completely, and she just nods at him and goes back to eating.

The third full day of training, Nero pulls her aside before she heads downstairs. "Don't play all your cards," he says, and Lyme frowns in confusion. "Look, you're smart, smarter than most tributes who come through here. You're already a surprise because you're a girl built like one of the boys, so let them think that's all you've got, that's your surprise. Don't play smart. Stay away from any of the mental tests, just shrug them off like you think they don't matter."

Lyme narrows her eyes. "How do you know I'm smart?" she accuses. "Dale's smart. I'm the big bruiser. That's how they're playing us."

Nero cracks a smile, and it's nothing huge but it's different enough from his usual blank-faced calm that Lyme blinks. "I know because I'm not stupid either, little girl," he says.

Lyme jerks back. "Don't call me that," she bites out, and it takes all her strength not to put her hands up between them to keep him back. "Don't - just don't."

"All right," Nero says, and Lyme's breath is short and painful in her chest and her stomach is trying to escape through her ribcage. "But you need to focus. You can't let things shake you, they're going to say worse in the Arena and they'll be meaning to knock you off your game."

Lyme winces. "I'm going down," she says.

He's right. She's rattled, the ghost of her father breathing down her neck, and it makes her snappish and jittery, overreacting to the usual nonsense banter until the One girl snickers and asks if it's her time of the month. "If you even get one," the girl adds with a sneer.

Lyme knows she doesn't mean it any more than the rest of the jibes they throw at each other for the Gamemakers' benefit; she's just testing, sticking her toe in the water to see if there's anything under the surface that will bite her. Lyme pushes back her irritation and rolls her eyes instead. "Oh, right, because I look like a dude," she says, speaking exaggeratedly slowly. "That's clever. Did you come up with that all by yourself?"

One Girl snorts and tosses her braid over her shoulder, and Lyme lets out a slow breath.

That night at dinner they go over the day's findings, and confirm the alliance requests from the various district mentors. It's the standard Career alignment this year except for one. The surprise is a boy from Seven who's built big and strong from throwing axes, and he has enough of a fan base in the Capitol for his rustic charm that Adessa thinks they should consider it. Lyme wrinkles her nose but says nothing, just eats her food, and there are peaches by her plate again but this time she doesn't touch them no matter how good they smell.

Afterward, Nero leans back in his chair. "You two go on ahead," he says. "I wanna talk to Lyme."

Adessa nods. "Let's work on your throws," she says to Dale, and they disappear through the door into his room.

Lyme folds her arms, waiting for the lecture about her slip up this morning. Instead Nero just gets up, walks over to the sofa and gestures for her to follow him; when she does, sitting on the opposite end of the couch, he gives her a long, level look. "Did he call you that?" he asks.

Lyme freezes. "Who?" She doesn't bother asking Nero what he's talking about.

"The piece of shit who raised you," Nero says, and Lyme's eyes flick wide at the sudden venom in his voice. He doesn't sound like a mentor, smooth and professional; his voice curls in his throat, and his entire expression shifts and turns ugly. "He called you that, didn't he."

"Yeah," Lyme grits out. Her fingers twitch for the knife she's not allowed to have in the Games Complex. "What, was that not in my file? I thought you were supposed to know everything."

"I only know what you told the Centre," Nero says, and Lyme grunts. "But I know you don't trust me."

"I don't trust men," Lyme says, giving him a sharp look, because why not. Let it all out. In a few days she'll be in the Arena and none of it will matter anymore. "Don't take it personally." Nero says nothing, and the anger flares up inside her again. "Except that's in my file, right? No male stylists. No male prep team. So why do I have you?"

"Ah." Nero glances at the Avoxes, silent and unnerving in their red robes, like he's afraid they're going to talk. "Yeah, I think I owe you an answer to that. Because the thing is, you're going to have to trust me if you're going to listen. You'll need to trust me more than you trust yourself, so that you'll do what I tell you even when the rest of you freezes. You'll remember and follow what I said before you even know what you're doing. And I can't do that with you fighting me."

"I wouldn't have fought Adessa," Lyme says, and this is insane, this is suicide, talking back to a mentor like this, but Nero doesn't look mad, just thoughtful, and statistically speaking Lyme's dead anyway. She pushes the thought away. "Or Callista. Or any of the women. So why you? Did you draw straws?"

Nero shakes his head. "No, they were going to give you to one of the women, but right away I wanted you, and I fought for you the hardest."

Lyme goggles at him, and she fists her hands to stop herself from trying to find something to throw. "Why?" She has a bigger rant building up inside, but in the end that's the only word that makes it past the chokehold in her throat. She's not sure whether she wants him to convince her or not; she's parched with thirst and staring at a puddle of water that might save her or kill her faster, and the only way to find out is to drink.

A pause; this time Nero checks the door to Dale's room, firmly closed. "I looked in your file and I saw a seven-year-old kid with a busted-up nose and a broken arm," he says, and Lyme winces. The Centre took a lot of photos over the years; she'd assumed only the nice ones made it in.

She doesn't like the idea of her mentor seeing a picture of her at her smallest and weakest and deciding that he felt sorry for her. "So you felt bad?" Lyme says, the words tasting bitter on her tongue. "You wanted to protect me, be my new dad, what?"

"Let's just say I know what it's like to have someone control you by beating you until you're big enough to hit back," Nero says, and oh. Lyme opens her mouth and closes it again. It's hard to imagine Nero small enough to intimidate physically; even to Lyme now, he looks like a mountain. "I was twelve when I pushed my old man down the stairs and snapped his neck for good measure when he hit the bottom."

A warm glow spreads through Lyme's core, out to her limbs; she imagined doing that so many times, or maybe just putting some apples or toys on the steps on the days her father came home drunk. "What did he do?"

"He got my half-sister pregnant," Nero says, just like that, and Lyme sucks in a breath. "So look, maybe I understand better than most that men can be shitty, shitty human beings, and the ones we're supposed to count on most of all. And maybe I didn't like the thought of someone as strong and brave as you going through thinking she had nobody to count on." He clenches his hands into fists. "I saw your file and I couldn't not have you. Not when you'd never find a mentor who understands just what you did to get here better than me."

Any Career knows how to deal with their emotions, to put them aside when necessary, but it's been a long time since Lyme has had to try so hard not to let them swamp her. "What happened to your sister?" she asks instead.

"She kept the baby," Nero says with a small smile. "I send her money every month. Haven't seen her since the Justice Building when she said I'd scared her to death and asked me not to try to see her if I made it out, for the sake of her kid." Nero hesitates, then says, "He's your age, stayed the hell away from the Program." Finally he looks at her, and his gaze pins Lyme to the sofa. "And all right, call me selfish, but maybe this time I'd like to save someone I get to keep."

Lyme lets out a long breath. "This can't be standard mentor procedure. You're supposed to be aloof."

Nero actually laughs, though it's not at her. "You're damn right it's not. But respect and distance only works if you know and trust I've got your back. All the professionalism in the world isn't going to help if you think I'm only in it because I get off on telling girls what to do. Yeah, you heard me, don't think I don't know what you're thinking." He leans forward, resting his forearms against his knees. "But let me tell you something. That piece of shit father of yours, I'm betting he called you 'little girl' as a way to put you down. Joke's on him, though, because I think that's the bravest thing anybody could ever be."

Lyme blinks double-time, annoyed that someone decided to turn the lights extra bright and glaring for the last half of the conversation. "Well, that's nice and all," she says. "But maybe you should tell me what I need to do for my private session tomorrow."

"Now we're talking," Nero says, grinning, and tentatively, Lyme grins back.

For her private session, Nero tells her to showcase her stealth.

Lyme frowns. "How do you know I'm good at that?" she asks him, but this time it's genuine curiosity, not a challenge. She doesn't remember it factoring big into her time at the Centre, but then again she's not the one paid to analyze the students. He's right, though; in her Field Exam she moved through the woods without cracking a branch as long as she wasn't running. Maybe he's seen that footage.

Nero raises an eyebrow and tilts his head, and something about the set of his mouth, the unhappy curve at the end, tells her this is just between them. "You had a dad who used to smack you around," he says. "You're telling me you didn't learn to be quiet?"

Lyme sits back. "I guess I never thought of it that way," she says, looking at Nero sidelong, but he doesn't rub it in or say something supercilious about how that's what mentors are for, just nods.

"You're smart, and you're stealthy," he says. "They already know you're big and good with swords, and they'll expect to see it, but you have to be more than that. Show them everything you are, not just what people see when they first look at you. Don't try to be over-clever. This isn't about the score; it's about showing them what you can do, what you're going to do. The score is only part of the picture."

The last two victors from Two got scores of nine and ten; no way is Lyme making anything less than that, but she knows the risks of an eleven. District Two won the 49th, 51st and 52nd games, and tributes aren't supposed to do the math but Lyme can't help it. She'll have to play it smart if she's going to keep them from being bored.

"You can do this," Nero says, and the thing is that when he says it she believes it, or at least that he does; he sits forward and the lines of his body go taut, his expression sharp and intense as he holds her there with his eyes. "There's no telling what you'll have in the Arena, but here, you control this. This is your show. I want you to let them see you're everything they want."

Later that day, Lyme slips into the room as Dale is on his way out. The Gamemakers sit at the far end of the room, chatting with each other and comparing notes; there's a large breakfast spread on the tables in front of them, and they don't notice as Lyme moves through the various stations to the front of the room, keeping herself out of sight. She slips a hatchet from the rack of weapons, and with a sharp turn, hurls it across the room. Axes aren't her weapon but she's good enough at them, and it spins end over end and lands with a heavy thunk in the torso of a dummy.

The Gamemakers' heads snap around to look at her, and Lyme gives them a brief nod but doesn't stop. She has fifteen minutes, and during the final months when the more dangerous training tapered off - it's a lot of paperwork if the chosen Volunteer dies before the Reaping - she and Dale were drilled on using that time to the second until Lyme can mark the seconds in her head with someone else in the room counting backwards down by threes.

Lyme runs through swords and clubs first, her chosen melee weapons, ones that look good with her strong shoulders and muscled arms, and though it's not her specialty she throws spears to show them she has range. She stays away from daggers and throwing knives because those are for the smaller tributes, like the Ones - Dale this year has chosen dual-wielding daggers as his iconic look - but she makes sure to use her weapons in sharp, precise ways. She's not just picking up a mace and smashing things; Lyme takes out the dummy's kneecaps and other strategic weak points before finishing with a blow to the head.

FInally, Lyme heads for the ribbon zone, where long, thin strips of fabric stretch across the floor and through the air in criss-crossed patterns, small bells strung along the lines. Lyme takes a breath, centres herself, and moves through the course, slipping over and under the ribbons without setting off any of the bells. It's the hardest thing she's done since coming here, and by the end, when she balances on one leg and pivots, three limbs extended, to clear the last obstacle, her hair is damp at the back of her neck.

Once she's clear, Lyme sweeps back up to standard position and lowers herself into a bow, then waits for dismissal.

Lyme, the boy from One, and the girl from Four all score tens. Lyme clicks her tongue against her teeth, sulking down in her chair, but Nero gives her a look and she sits back up, albeit with a scowl. Dale, at least, only scored a nine, but he seems happy with it, and what's more, so does Adessa. Lyme recalls Nero reminding her that scores aren't everything, and the first real drumroll of competition starts up in her chest. It's almost time.

Nero slaps his hand against his thigh. "Time for sleep," he says, and that's as good as an order.

They might have given her a standard Career score, but Lyme saw them, in the flashing glances she spared between moves, and they were watching her, eyes narrowed. She'd impressed them, but they were giving her the very chance she needed: the chance to be one of the crowd until it's time to strike. Lyme falls asleep with a smile on her face.

The smile sticks under her skin for all of the next day, even though Lyme's angle is serious and deadpan to contrast against the giggling girl from One and the surprisingly charming farmer's daughter from Ten. Her interview goes down perfectly, and afterward Nero claps her on the shoulder in congratulations and Lyme doesn't even flinch.

"You looked great up there," he tells her, and paint her purple and call her an amethyst but Lyme actually feels a glow of pride when he smiles at her. It's a little embarrassing that all it took to get through the years and years of bitterness is a little praise, but then again, that just means her father was a dick, not that Nero is a magical worker.

The smile lasts until she goes to bed and it hits her that this is it, this is the final night. Lyme brushes her fingers over the sheets, and the thought wiggles its way under her fingernails that this could be the last bed she ever sleeps in. As soon as she thinks that, a whole pile of others come tumbling down like a rockslide, giving Lyme a never ending list of lasts: tomorrow morning's shower, tonight's dinner, the view from her window.

Lyme isn't used to fear. It's been years since she felt it truly - not just fear of disappointment, or of failure, but real, bone-crushing terror - and for a minute she doesn't remember what it is. She lies in the bed the size of her room for the first three years of Residential, unable to move, while a cold sweat breaks out over her skin and her breathing tightens. For a second she wonders if she's having a heart attack.

She's good - the best scores in the Centre across two years - but in the Arena that doesn't mean anything. In the 51st, the boy from Two died two seconds into the Games, when the mines around his platform failed to deactivate. Before that, in the 50th, they lost three of their four tributes when the volcano erupted and took out the Career camp. In the 49th, Brutus' district partner died in an earthquake when the ground gave out under her. None of them could have saved themselves; the Arena is as capricious as it is cruel, and sometimes when it decides to take a tribute there's nothing they can do.

What if, after years of training, of enduring her father's blows and her mother's averted gazes, of training and starvation and endurance, of killing four criminals with her bare hands or a single blade, Lyme dies because of an avalanche, or a flood, or because they send a poisoned snake to sting her while she sleeps?

The darkness presses down on her like a physical thing, and it takes all Lyme's strength to push herself up to a sitting position and slide out of bed. Once her feet hit the floor it's like she triggered some kind of spell, and suddenly Lyme can't move fast enough, shooting out of her room and willing the door to shut faster. She presses her back against the smooth metal, eyes closed and breathing hard, and when she looks out at the room there's Nero on the sofa, watching her.

Lyme freezes, but Nero just moves to the corner, waving a hand. "Come on out and sit down," he says, and it would be stupid just to run back into her room, so Lyme does. She wants to pull her knees up to her chest but she can't, not with that the universal symbol for being a baby.

Nero watches for a minute, then he calls over an Avox and has her bring them two mugs of hot chocolate. Lyme holds the mug in both hands, looking down at the thick brown liquid, and the heady scent of it fills her senses. "That's not on the diet plan," Lyme says, accusing.

Nero chuckles. "I won't tell if you won't," he says, and he doesn't wink but something in his voice makes it sound like one.

The Capitol is famous for its decadent meals, and the Games Complex has the best food replicators in the city, rumour has it, but Twos never get to find out because the Centre sends a pre-approved menu ahead of time for the tributes to follow. Every calorie is accounted for, every meal a carefully-designed mix of proteins and carbohydrates designed to keep them fresh and ready while packing on the weight so it won't hit them as hard once they're starving in the wilderness. Hot chocolate is nothing but empty sugars.

Lyme can't remember the last time she had it. Maybe it's a trick, but then Nero leans back and takes a long sip of his. Her heart hammers, but Lyme does the same, and the flavour is rich and decadent and feels like it should be illegal, and she burns her tongue in her haste to try it a second time. Nero doesn't say anything, just quirks a smile at her.

"I'm gonna tell you a secret," he says, tapping his finger against the edge of his mug. "Everybody gets scared."

Lyme gives him a flat-eyed look. She might have just given herself a mini panic attack, but that doesn't mean she needs platitudes. "Please," she says, barely keeping the irritation from her tone. Just because Nero gave her cocoa doesn't mean she can sass him.

Nero points two fingers at his eyes, then at her, then back again in an 'I'm watching you' gesture. "You really think I'm going to waste the last night lying to you?" he asks. "I'm serious. Everyone is scared. If you're not that means you're way too cocky, and likely as not you're going to make a stupid mistake five minutes in that'll cost you big time. Scared is good. It's terror you gotta watch out for. The right amount of fear keeps you focused; too much and you freeze. You just have to find the balance. The easiest way to do that is to remember why you're here."

Lyme frowns and picks at a loose thread in the hem of her sleep shirt. "I'm here to bring pride to my district," she says, and she's not parroting, exactly because she means it, she does - she owes everything in her life to the Centre that gave her control over it, even if it means giving all of that away in the end - but at the same time, it doesn't fill her with the glowing fire of purpose that it usually does.

"Yes," Nero says. "We're all here to serve the Capitol and to remind the country why we have the Games. But that's not all. You're here because you're the best. Because you fought non-stop for over ten years while over a hundred other kids gave up. Good kids, smart kids. Strong kids." He stops, makes sure Lyme's paying attention. "Prettier kids. You're better than all of them. And just because it's the Capitol's right to take it all away in a second doesn't mean you didn't earn it in the first place."

Lyme twists her shirt around her fingers. The fear is still there, lurking, the loss of control like a shark swimming beneath the water. "A lot of things go wrong in the Arena," she says, hesitant, because in the Centre an admission of weakness like that would get her laps and pushups until she physically couldn't walk anymore.

"I know," Nero says. "And some of them, can't anything be done about them and that's that, and a good Career knows how to swallow the fear of things we can't control. But the ones that can - well, I'll be doing everything I can to help you. You know why?"

It's an obvious answer, the kind of thing that in school all the kids would hang back, glancing at each other, afraid that there's a trick. "Because you're my mentor," Lyme says finally, when Nero doesn't keep going or make to answer the question for her.

"Damn right." Nero sets down his mug on the table. "And because you're my girl and that means my job is to move heaven and earth to bring you home."

Lyme has a fuzzy memory of her father using possessive phrases like that to her mother, scowling and slamming his hand against the wall while she flinched. With him it was a threat, a promise of ownership and control and a million other things that meant he had the power to do whatever he wanted. With Nero it doesn't sound like that. With Nero it sounds like an honour every bit as great as the one sitting on Lyme's shoulders, and Nero has sat in this room with a tribute five times that Lyme can remember and not brought home a single one of them. Lyme wonders what it would be like to be a mentor's first.

Nero shifts, and he holds out one hand, slow and deliberate, like the time Lyme saw a stray dog down behind the shop and tried to pet it, before it snapped at her and took off in the other direction. Lyme sits still, every instinct screaming in her to run, and it's stupid that she knows a hundred ways to kill a man but she still freezes when one tries to touch her. Finally Nero lets his hand rest on the back of her neck, but instead of gripping and pushing down, digging into her skin and leaving bruises, he runs his fingers through the short hair at the base of her skull, rubs his thumb over the pressure point behind her ear.

"I believe in you," he says, quiet and solemn. "You're going to go out there and you're going to win the Games, and I'll be watching over you whole time. You're not a kid anymore, fighting all alone while everybody looks the other way. You've got a mentor, and that means you never have to be alone again."

And that's the thing, isn't it. Even if she dies alone - because millions of viewers don't count, not when they don't actually care about her or know her name or that she likes the sound of rain pattering against the windowpane with thunder rolling safely in the distance - she won't really be alone, because Nero will be there. Nero will grieve for her, take her loss into him like he has all the kids he failed to save. Lyme lets out a long breath and tips her head back, leaning into the reassurance of his touch.

"I'm going for the record," Lyme tells him. "Highest any Two's ever made was nine."

Nero chuckles, and he ruffles her hair. "You just worry about getting out of there and let the records take care of themselves."

"I'm just saying," Lyme says, and it hits her that she wants to make him proud. She actually cares about doing right by him, proving his faith in her has basis, and she's glad she's sitting otherwise her legs would have buckled.

"I believe you." Nero snorts. "Now bed, missy, you've got a big day tomorrow."

Lyme makes a face at him, and Nero claps a hand to the side of her face and gives her an affectionate shake.

The heat rises off the pavement like a sea of magma. Lyme stands in her Arena uniform with Nero at her shoulder, looking out at the hovercraft.

"Come back to me now, you hear?" Nero says, his voice hard with the tone of command. "Do what you need to do."

Lyme nods and walks away. She's pictured herself in this position for ten years, and in her daydreams she strode proud and strong to the hovercraft, not looking back at her mentor, because who needed that? Babies, that's who. But this time, something stops her, slows her down and makes her turn and squint back at him, her hand shading her eyes. "My name was Madeline," she blurts out, glad the whine of the engines will keep her words safe from the cameras.

That's not in her file; the Centre promised, and she checked once to make sure. Nero blinks once, twice, then nods. "Good to know," he says.

"I just." Lyme shrugs, embarrassment beating at her chest. It's stupid, but if she dies, she wants someone to remember the girl who died first so she could be here. "I thought someone should know."

Nero lifts his hand in the District Two salute. "Go get 'em."

Lyme returns the gesture. "Yes sir," she says, and this time as she heads for the hovercraft she does her ten-year-old self proud.

Just under three weeks later Nero sits by her bed. "Welcome back, little girl," he says, his voice hoarse.

Lyme's fingers twitch on the blanket. Nero reaches over and grips her hand, and slowly, slowly, Lyme finds the strength to squeeze back. "I got ten," she croaks. The words burn in her throat.

"I know you did." Nero runs his thumb over the backs of her knuckles. "You're in the record books already."

Lyme closes her eyes, and she's dehydrated and dizzy so her eyes itch but nothing comes out. "It doesn't feel like I thought it would." She thought she'd feel like a Victor, full of pride and warmth and glory, but all she feels is tired. Tired and sick and off-balance, like the whole world is a set of stairs with the last step missing. She wants to wash her hands, scrub at them until the skin sloughs off.

"Never does," Nero says. "But that's a problem we can fix, now that you're safe." He stands up, bends and kisses her forehead, and Lyme should protest except she's exhausted and floating on clouds and if Nero lets go of her she'll float away. She must have mumbled something, because Nero keeps his hold on her with one hand, and reaches up with the other to brush her hair off her forehead. "I'm not going anywhere."

When she wakes up the next time he's still there, a bowl of peaches - with the skins this time, drizzled with thick, heavy cream and sprinkled with cinnamon - beside him on the table. "Here," Nero says, and helps her hold the bowl steady while he adjusts the pillows behind her back.

The peaches taste like summer, which is an idiotic thing to think and even stupider thing to say out loud. Lyme's about to blame it on the medication when Nero grins. "I know what you mean," he says.