SOMA COULD NOT HOLD BACK THE SMIRK GROWING as she watched Coriolanus push through the crowd, swallowed by sea-shaped masses and skirts rushing back and forth. Soon enough, his gleam of white hair was lost in the crowd. 

"Are you all right?" she turned to Tigris. "I'm sorry, I thought he would be more civil." 

Tigris barked a rough laugh. "Whatever you've been doing to my cousin, it's working. I've never seen him lose his composure like that." 

Soma grinned. "Oh, Tigris, you know how to compliment a girl." 

Tigris purred pleasurably. 

"I should talk to my tribute," Soma said apologetically, squeezing Tigris' hand. "You're welcome to come but--" 

"I'd rather stay with the fish." 

"That's what I thought. I'll find you later." 

Tigris gave her a bright, sharp-toothed smile, then turned and padded through the crowd. Her bristling lionfish fins forced people to give her a wide berth, and Soma thought it quite suited Tigris, to part crowds like a queen. 

She turned and went the other way, heading towards the front stage. 

Soma slipped easily through the crowds, beaming and waving and mouthing to people in the crowd as she passed. Nearly everyone she knew from high Capitol society was here, and that was an expansive list. While Coryo thought her unpleasant, Soma was actually quite a charmer when she wanted to be. 

After squeezing Senator Gryth's over-perfumed hand in passing, she finally broke through the crowd, where Mags Flanagan was talking with none other than Dr. Volumnia Gaul, elevated above the heads of the crowd. 

Yikes, Soma gritted her teeth into a smile, climbing the low platform. 

"Mags!" Soma cried, spreading her arms. "How are you liking the party?" 

"I'm getting used to being a spectacle," she said brightly, but Soma heard the sarcastic bite behind it. She folded Soma into a hug. "I love your dress." 

"And you look purely sensational," Soma beamed. She turned to the white-coated Dr. Gaul, who of course, did not dress according to theme. "Hello, Dr. Gaul." 

"Hello, Soma Plinth," Dr. Gaul said cordially, dipping her head. "Been fighting wars lately?" 

Mags raised a fiery eyebrow, glancing at Soma. 

She beamed. "Oh, yes, I have. A war of hearts, though, and I think that isn't quite your style." 

Dr. Gaul coughed a laugh, surprised. "Sejanus told you about that, did he?" 

"No, sadly," Soma smiled sweetly. "He passed before he got the chance. But I got to read his diaries, and I just so loved that line. Wars are won with heads, not hearts, or something to that effect. Simple and effective." 

"A flatterer, I see," Gaul said slyly. "Nothing like your brother." 

"Not remotely." 

"How is this war of hearts going? Bloodily, I presume?" 

"Presumption is an assumption," Soma said airily. "And you know what they say about assumptions." 

Gaul gave her a hungry, unsettling grin, her lips spreading slightly too wide. "Clever girl." 

Soma curtsied lightly in response. 

Mags stared blankly between the both of them. 

"If you'll excuse us, Dr. Gaul, my tribute and I need to make some rounds," Soma clasped Mags' arm, drawing her to her side. "And talk strategy, which I'm sure you shouldn't be partial to." 

"Ah, fine, if you insist," Dr. Gaul sighed headily. 

"Oh, I didn't," Soma beamed pleasantly, sweeping away. "Have a good night! Enjoy the snake meat. It's a delicacy." 

The sound of Dr. Gaul's high cackling followed them through the crowd. 

Mags hissed out of the side of her mouth. "What was that?" 

"Semantics," Soma sighed. "Platitudes and proverbs, I'm afraid. Oh, Mags, it's good to see you. I'm becoming him." 

Mags' brow dented, the only change in her smooth, pale face. "I can tell. You've always been a chameleon, but this is a lot, even for you." 

"Can't change the nature of nature, I'm afraid, love," Soma laughed, guiding Mags up a flight of carpeted stairs. The music died behind them, slowly fading.

"You're going to forget what shape you were born if you keep shifting around like this," Mags scolded, but she grinned at Soma anyway, pulling her close. 

They stopped at the top of the stairs and sank down, crouched together like two girls eavesdropping at a party. Blue lights flashed through the patterns of the balcony, sending watery shapes wavering over Mags' pale face and Soma's olive skin. 

Soma turned to Mags, hands clasped in her lap, face bright. "How are you liking it so far?" 

"Honestly? It's terrible." Mags' strong bones and round cheeks made deep shadows in her face, contorting her features. "Everybody here is so... useless. They all lounge around and do nothing all day." 

"Sin is the product of sloth," Soma conceded. "And not the cute kinds. They're like cats. Ungrateful, selfish, and lazy. Except cats don't force other cats to kill each other's kittens for sport." 

Mags shivered.

Soma reached out and took her hand. "Listen, Mags. You're not going to die." 

"You don't know that-" Mags began. 

"No, no, I do," Soma cut her off. Her eyes glittered, capturing Mags' gaze, sweeping her words away. "I know. I'm not going to let you die in that arena. Coryo cheated his way to victory, and I will too. We'll make it." 

Mags suddenly seemed small and pale, taking a shaky breath. Her whisper was so slight, Soma barely heard it. "Soma, I can't kill someone." 

Soma squeezed her hand warmly in her own, feeling the softness of her flesh, the callouses from weaving nets and bending fishhooks. 

"You can't. But I can." 

CORIOLANUS SEARCHED THE CROWD, seeking, fumbling almost blindly through the blurs of faces and the too-bright jewels that glittered on chests and wrists and legs. His mouth was dry, his heart was pounding, and the world was crushing in on him relentlessly. 

He needed to find-- to find--

He stopped, suddenly, and a waiter nearly upended a platter of shrimp to avoid colliding with him. 

Coriolanus didn't even apologise, he just stared emptily at the sea of bodies crashing about him. An elbow jostled him, a knee nudged him, and he let them. 

He had nobody to find. 

A pit opened in the bottom of his stomach, and he felt as if his organs were tumbling through it, emptying him of a heart and lungs and spine. 

Coriolanus had never minded being alone. Sejanus had been an annoyance, Lysistrata merely an ally, Arachne just someone he grew up with. And Lu-- she had just been a mistake. 

Solitude, Coriolanus had found, was priceless. Space to breathe, to stretch his arms wide, to scheme and plot with no morals or pithy feelings to cramp his space. 

Yet here, crushed by bodies, suffocating in people, Coriolanus had never realised how alone he was. 

His body turned of its own accord, and his feet forced his body to move, back along the way he came. Back to her. 

How pathetic, he thought, that the only person he had left in the world was a girl who wanted to ruin him. 

And how fitting.