—High-as-a-Kite Bottom—

Persephone stood out in the bitter cold, tugging loosely at the scarf around her neck. She had been fine with it earlier, but its increasing pressure made her skin itch. Like its presence became too overwhelming.

More importantly, she felt choked by the Ignis scarf.

She took a sharp inhale through her nose and smoothed her blouse carefully to avoid more wrinkles. Persephone needed to process the new responsibility bearing down on her to craft a violent tribute into a star. Reaper had potential—but none like Lucy Gray Baird's. Coryo was lucky to have a natural star.

At least his tribute did not punch a Peacekeeper on live television.

The Ignis girl took a heavy sigh and continued to pull at her scarf.

"Good morning, Miss Ignis." Persephone whipped her head around to find the addict of a short man. Dean Casca Highbottom walked out of the same door she escaped with, hands behind his back as if his head was clear as day. "I presume you, like the others, are upset about the change of plans."

"Not quite." She replied curtly, lacking the interest in talking to the Dean but responsible to be nice. For a moment, she wondered where Coriolanus was so he could pull her away from the man's odd behavior. "I suppose I am a little shocked with the Mentor idea and a little mad that I have another assignment. I was supposed to graduate today. To move onto University."

Highbottom nodded along with her. "Yes, well, do you not agree that these tributes need guidance?"

"Guidance?" Persephone was inclined to ask—but it more so slipped out of her mouth before she could catch her words. She needed to proceed with caution. "The Games are honestly none of my business, our business as students. Yes, this Mentor project might be suited to root out the students only the best on paper and not socially, but the Hunger Games is a large leap to true responsibility. What if one of us dies?"

The man nodded along once again and shrugged. "If a student dies, Miss Ignis, it is not simply for nothing."

And then the words were in her throat. Persephone had to think for a moment. The tributes would be bloodthirsty as a standard, and one of her fellow classmates may be killed, but it would not be wasteful. What point was he trying to prove?

"What is the reason you are speaking with me?" She questioned. "Why the stares and prolonged looks during your speech?"

He only smirked at a distant memory. Highbottom sounded too drugged up to be taken seriously anymore. Persephone had the urge to walk away from the man and come back when his mind was clear. Or, a more suitable option: never approach him again.

"Your family name—Ignis—what does it mean?"

Persephone's brows were drawn close as she frowned, searching for his ulterior motive. "Fire, in Latin."

"Right." Highbottom nodded and clicked his tongue to the back of his teeth with a chuckle. "And Snow, what are you two? Is it friends? Secret lovers?"

"Coryo is just a friend." Her heart beat a little faster.

"Right. Of course." He shrugged as he rolled on the balls of his feet. The man was most likely stepping over a line due to his intoxication. "Fire and Snow, polar opposites. Never meant to last. One will always put the other out or never touch each other again."

Persephone remained quiet, biting her tongue as she wished for the man to leave her alone and take his blabbering elsewhere.

"You're not at all like your father-"

"My father is none of your business." She cut him off with a bite in her words.

And then Highbottom chuckled again, studying her face as she poorly suppressed a glare. "I knew your father briefly and I knew your mother just a little more. You're as much of him as I am tall."

Her heart was in her throat. The only person she talked to about her mother was her father—and the wound in his heart of her death was forever fresh and deep. One feature she had been told of was her mother's delicate interest in wearing white. "What do you know of my mother?" Persephone used all her strength to mask the tremor in her voice.

"Oh, she was like a breath of fresh air in the spring. Like a flower in a barren field." This time, the girl noticed the light in his eyes as he spoke of her. "Leucothea. Pretty as a white swan. She died in the war when she visited 8. Shot dead in broad daylight. The death of a Capitol sweetheart."

The girl blinked back tears, a hard battle against the aching pain in her heart. She had lacked her mother for years, remembering nothing about the kindness the Dean described. "Why? Did she visit 8, why?"

Highbottom shook his head with regret. "A burning question, no doubt. Nobody knows. She never told a soul." His eyes scanned down her body and took interest in her scarf. "Miss Ignis, you take great pride in your father's name. Fire on a swan is an interesting match."

Then, Persephone felt the itch of the tight knot around her neck. She reached up to the collar and pulled against it. "He wants me to parade in our family name.."

Highbottom only hummed with mild interest. "If you're not careful enough, that scarf of yours is going to choke you like a noose. Snow is the opposite of fire, no?"

"I don't understand, what are you saying?" She frowned deeply, pondering his words if it were a warning or encouragement. Her scarf was going to kill her? And the talk about Coryo was extreme.

The short man took a step closer to her, a sudden serious and scared look in his eyes. "Be lucky you have survived Snow as long as you have. Get far away from him while you can, before he uses you and traps you in a cage just like his father."

That was all Persephone Ignis needed to walk away. "Careful." She warned, her lips curled with disgust as she caught the murky, hazed effect in his eyes from his lack of sobriety. "Don't take too much Morphling, Dean Casca Highbottom. You are still the prestigious creator of the Hunger Games."

"Oh, do I wish I wasn't." He gave her a sickly sweet smile as life drained from his face. Highbottom was, in the moment, completely dead inside.

And Persephone brushed it off as his addiction.

Just as it faded from her unsettling conversation with the Dean, her excellent posture appeared once again with the arch in her back Coriolanus loved so much. As she took her few steps into the crowd, her father found her and took a pressuring hold on her arm. His neatly combed hair now had a few strands fall from the rest.

"Persephone, have you begun thinking of your strategy?" Then he went off to ramble about himself. "You know, I completely expected for the Plinth Prize to be awarded today and to boast to the other parents about you as my daughter, but I believe this Mentor idea brings the opportunity to show your skills to the others, make a name for yourself..."

His voice faded away. Every noise faded away as she caught sight of Coriolanus away in the crowd, staring intently at her. The attention made her palms sweaty and cheeks flush. He looked as if he was thinking, most likely about her with his eye contact. A cold expression she had noticed appeared on his face every so often took over, as if he morphed into a new person.

He looked mildly angry.

She was irritated even worse.

A perfect match.

"Dad, is it okay if I go talk to Coriolanus? I've been meaning to discuss how we must approach our roles as Mentors with him." Persephone cut off his monologue and gave him a practiced smile.

"Oh, of course, my dear." He nodded, then narrowed his eyes. "But don't share too much of your plan with him. Don't want him to steal your ideas."

"Right." She agreed, but had no clue what plans he was talking about. She had just learned of the assignment and had a few loose ideas, but had no plan. And although she was lying to her father about what they were to discuss, it was not a bad idea to spring ideas with each other for a leg up in the competition.

Once Persephone locked eyes with the boy again and made her first steps to walk to him, he quickly followed and pushed away the throng of people to get to her quicker.

"Highbottom is truly a Morphling addict."

Coryo furrowed his brows with confusion. "What?"

Persephone clarified what she meant, tugging at her scarf once again as she felt her face get hot with his proximity. By the crowd, he had been pushed closer to her, his body just a few inches away from hers. Pity many of the Capitol citizens decided to linger and take up so much space. "Dean Highbottom came up to me, he was spitting some nonsense about my mother, even about you."

As she laughed at the absurdity of the Dean's claims, Coryo's eyes darkened profoundly. "What did he say about me?" He believed this was no laughing matter. If Highbottom said a peep about the Snows lacking money or tarnish Persephone's trust in him, cutting off his control over her, he would make sure the addict was dead by nightfall.

"Oh, he just said some odd things. That we're just fire and snow." Persephone shook her head and lightly rolled her eyes.

"Oh," Coriolanus muttered with relief.

"Truly just as you said, Coryo, he is High-as-a-Kite Bottom. Only way to go at the top is down."

He nodded along as he attempted to calm his rapid heartbeat, praying it was only by the scare of Highbottom and not by the girl in front of him. As Coriolanus surveyed her appearance completely for the first time he saw her that day, he noticed the way she just kept tugging and itching at the scarf around her neck.

He also noticed the arch in her back, oh, that lovely arch.

Persephone Ignis was simply ravishable. So sweet and naive that he could manipulate her by lifting a finger. So vulnerable for abuse. Coryo wished he could do whatever he wanted to her with no remorse, but the pit in his stomach that fluttered every time she talked or looked at him held him back.

She was supposed to be nothing, and yet he stopped himself from engaging in harsh conversation about her.

So he could imagine throwing her around and reducing her to nothing, but keep his fragile little crush?

None of that mattered. She would still make a beautiful bride and perfect First Lady of Panem.

Persephone gazed at the group of her classmates, the snarky ones with the flippant comments, discussed with the younger students in the Academy and furrowed her brows as an idea sparked in her mind. "I think I have an idea."

"What is it?" Coryo asked her, snapped out of crafting his dream future.

"The tributes arrive by train, right?"