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Clemensia Dovecote was a snake in a cage.
Literally. She was currently in the form of a rather large snake, about six-feet long, and locked in a cage that was sitting just off stage to the tribute interviews of the 50th Hunger Games. While she’d never figured out exactly what species she was meant to be, she assumed that it must have been some mix of breeds, given that her ability to shift into this form was only bestowed by the snake mutts that had bitten her. She was not quite as vibrantly colorful as they had been, but still one that was quite pleasant to the eye. Too pleasant, evidently, as her aesthetic appearance in her snake form had gotten her put on display.
She wasn’t overly upset about it. It was a simple matter of shifting back to human form to unlock the cage with opposable thumbs, though she wasn’t keen on doing so until much later, when the cameras were off and the audience had cleared. It would do her no good if the secret she had worked to keep in the years beyond her public “death” was undone because she was too impatient to keep up the pretense.
It was quite alright.
Clemensia didn’t mind being a spectator for several hours more. Unfortunately, her plans are not so straightforward. Her cage is unlocked and she is hoisted out quite rudely by the District Twelve fashion designer: Magno Stift.
She knows him, of him.
Magno Stift, formerly known as Magnus Snow, and briefly as Magnus Cardew-Snow, was Coriolanus and Livia’s firstborn, now disgraced, son. He’d been named Magnus, rather strategically, after Maximinius “Magnus” Ravinstill, who had been the prior President of Panem. A name like that, Clemensia supposed, was meant to grant Coriolanus favor with Dr Volumnia Gaul, given his namesake had been close friends with Gaul before his passing, but Gaul hadn’t seemed to be particularly impressed. Regardless, a name was a name, and that was the one little Magnus had grown up with.
He’d carried it dutifully until his life had taken a spectacularly unfortunate turn—starting, as most unfortunate turns did—with a marriage gone disastrously wrong. It had been an arranged marriage between him and Drusilla Sickle, a strategic social match, and one that many had believed would be rather successful, given that the two had appeared to get along quite well before their official union.
As for the aftermath—well.
If absence made the heart grow fonder, then close proximity twisted their hearts into loathing, and the marriage had lasted approximately three months in any recognizable form before Drusilla had abandoned it in all but legality. Their prior fondness for each other had clearly been the sort that thrived in the soft glow of distance, and was not meant for the unfettered realities of actually living together. Drusilla, never one for suffering in silence, had dropped the Snow name like a rebel bombing, reverting back to Sickle in what Clemensia could only assume was an act of deep and enduring spite.
Clemensia could further assume that Coriolanus must have been putting pressure on his son to smooth things over with his still-legally-considered-to-be wife. Magnus, in response, had not mended his relationship with Drusilla, nor had he proposed a divorce. No, instead he had taken to hyphenating his surname to include his mother’s family name. On top of that, he’d ensured that Cardew would be placed before Snow.
If there was one thing Clemensia knew about Coriolanus, it was that he did not take kindly to perceived slights. And this? This had been one hell of a slight. A public, deliberate, pointed reshuffling of legacy and importance. She could only imagine the thin, forced smile Coriolanus must have worn the first time he saw it printed. How many measured breaths had it taken before he started planning exactly how to rid himself of his troublesome son, she wonders. Too many to count, she is sure.
Less than a year later, Magnus Cardew-Snow was gone.
Not officially, of course. Coriolanus Snow did not make a habit of broadcasting his family’s failures. No, Magnus simply stopped appearing in public alongside the presidential family, and the Capitol, ever attuned to gossip, quickly pieced together the details that had been left unsaid. Clemensia had heard that he was staying with Tigris, back when she was still Tigris Snow, though it wasn’t long before she dropped the surname as well, marketing herself as just Tigris to her associates.
It was a quiet rebellion, a not-so-subtle distancing from the man at the top. The name Snow, it seemed, was only worth keeping if one intended to bask in its influence. If one found it suffocating, corrosive, utterly devoid of warmth, well—then one followed Magnus’s lead and burned it from their identity entirely. And what a spectacle that burning had been, because a mere week after his aunt had shed her surname, Magnus had overhauled his entire identity.
Magno Stift, he’d decided on.
Magno was an obvious enough decision.
It had enough similarity to his previous name to be familiar, but different enough that it would offer him independence. It was a sensible enough choice, though Clemensia couldn’t help but think of the fruit, if only because the Magno-Mango connection was quite reminiscent of her own Clemensia-Clementine similarity, so she could sympathize. Although, in her own defense, her family did have a business in clementines, and coveted sweet ones at that. She was quite certain that neither Coriolanus nor Livia had ever taken to cultivating mangos, much less ones that were of any note.
Stift was a bit more unclear.
Perhaps he’d simply chosen a new surname that began with S to keep his same initials that he’d grown up with, wanting to maintain M.S. as his signature, if only for the consistency of all the documents he’d signed thus far. Or perhaps it was a subtle dig, a play on stiffed as an acknowledgment of the raw deal he’d gotten in the parental department with his utter bastard of a father, who’d clearly wanted him buried.
Clemensia could relate.
She felt quite stiffed too—decades of friendship, only to learn that Coriolanus Snow was a social-climbing, backstabbing piece of utter garbage that would have seen her die gasping had she not possessed an immunity to poison, courtesy of those horrid bites from Gaul’s colorful snakes all those years ago. But it was Stift with a T, not Stiffed, so perhaps he’d changed it for plausible deniability. Or even T for his Toad-Licking Tendencies.
Clemensia wasn’t quite sure.
Not that she really cared enough to judge.
In any case, Magno had taken to fashion with his new name.
Fashion designing had been his saving grace, or at least, it had been meant to be. He’d thrown himself into it the way one throws oneself into a lifeboat—desperate, determined, clinging to the promise of a future where he wasn’t just the failed Snow heir. He’d started his career under the tutelage of his aunt shortly after he’d rebranded himself. Unfortunately, with Tigris’s recent fall from grace—and intentional move from Coriolanus in retaliation for shirking her surname—Magno had lost his tenuous social foothold.
It was hard enough making it in the Capitol’s fashion world without money, but without a name that carried any weight? Without connections that mattered? It was like trying to stitch together an entire gown using nothing but a single, fraying thread. Clemensia could see the passion draining from him, and he predictably, inevitably, did what many disillusioned artists before him had done, seeking out solace in substances that made reality a little less sharp around the edges.
In this case, toads.
Clemensia supposed she shouldn’t have been all that surprised.
She knew first-hand that his father had consumed poison as a strategy.
Magno, at least, had the courtesy to do it recreationally.
Still, Magno had managed to enter the Hunger Games designer scene on his own merit, even with his waning social standing. Not an illustrious one, certainly not one that got him invitations to the kind of parties his father used to attend, but a place nonetheless. He had scraped his way into relevance, clawed his way up the ranks with all the grace of a half-drowned rat, only to have his own amphibian-related habits drag him right back down again. There was only so much one could accomplish when one’s primary passtime involved licking toads into a less than focused state.
So, when he’d been shuffled off to District Twelve—where he had stayed, even to this day—it had been less of a punishment and more of an inevitability. It had also, ironically, reunited him with Drusilla, who had been, and still is, serving as a Capitol escort for Twelve’s Hunger Games tributes, because apparently the universe had a sense of humor. Thirty years as of the present day, and they were still legally bound together, though for what reason, Clemensia truly could not fathom.
While she’d heard the phrase “tax benefits” tossed around on occasion, she had a hard time imagining Drusilla tolerating Magno’s continued existence just to save a few coins, given that she was filled with too much pure, undiluted contempt for that. And Magno—well. His reasoning was just as unclear. Maybe this was just another mess left to rot, ignored in favor of maintaining his hallucinogenic stupor.
But Clemensia could only speculate.
She is pulled back to the present by Magno waving her around.
Clemensia lets him do so, if only because she has the decorum not to bite him. He’s not the Snow that she’d like to kill, if she had to choose one to inflict her venomous bite upon. Magno—and Clemensia, by proxy—are creating quite the commotion with plenty of shrieking in their immediate vicinity. Clemensia has no intention of being killed by a Peacekeeper that would likely deem her as a “nuisance to public safety” and is just about to slither out of Magno’s grasp when the young District Twelve girl trots up to them.
“Mine,” she says, eyes locked on Clemensia.
Magno takes that as an invitation, lifting her up over the little girl’s head, and a moment later, Clemensia finds herself draped upon the girl’s shoulders, with her tail looped around the girl’s neck. Closer now, Clemensia is able to observe the girl more carefully. She looks…quite unwell, actually. Not in the sense of District children who had not had enough to eat, but rather signs of torture and some sort of physical augmentation.
Oh, this poor child.
Clemensia decides she needs as much support as she can get.
So, she commits herself to the role of intimidating dangerous reptile for the time being, remaining perfectly docile when the girl puts her hands upon her scales in a motion reminiscent of being petted, and indulges the girl by letting out an elegant, perfectly timed hiss whenever she’s lifted up to be brandished at the much larger tributes, who shuffle away from the sharp sound. It wasn’t much—nothing compared to what she could do—but it was enough to ensure that no one tried to hurt the girl just yet.
It becomes evidently clear that this girl is suffering from some kind of brainwashing, in addition to her physical state, when it is her turn for interviews. She manages an introduction—Louella McCoy—but Clemensia highly doubts that is her actual name, given that she mutters the exact same phrase several times while Caesar Flickerman prompts her with questions. When a microphone is directed at her, she hisses right into it, then turns to hiss at Caesar directly. She turns to the crowd at their scattered laughter, and hisses at them too.
Clemensia offers her assistance here as well.
It’s a performance, but one that seems to embolden the girl into a sense of security, which Clemensia is glad for. It isn’t until Caesar asks a question about what the Lower Districts’ alliance will do when it goes down to just them that Clemensia abruptly remembers where she is. This poor girl that she’s draped over, as well as forty-six others, will be dead in the upcoming weeks. She lets out a displeased hiss, right into the bejeweled face of the woman in front of her, as the girl growls:
“You’ll murder us. You’ll murder us.”
Quite blunt for a girl that can’t be older than thirteen, but there is no waver of uncertainty in her voice, no desperate hope clinging to the edge of her words. Clemensia, from her place curled around the girl’s shoulders, watches the way the room reacts: the smiles on their augmented faces faltering, their previous laughter making way for murmurs of outrage at the unwanted reminder that their entertainment comes at the price of these tributes’ deaths. All while Louella McCoy—if that is her real name—continues to shout at a louder and higher pitch, taking to pointing out individuals that Clemensia dutifully hisses at, lest they try anything untoward.
Her efforts are rendered pointless when the girl collapses abruptly.
Caesar makes excuses of exhaustion, but Clemensia suspects some kind of sedative, though how it was delivered, she is uncertain. Still, despite the girl’s unconscious state, Clemensia remains protectively wrapped around her, keeping away the crowding Peacekeepers until one of the District Twelve boys—Wyatt, she believes—steps up. She lets him carry the girl offstage, though remains close, waiting while the final District Twelve boy—Haymitch Abernathy—offers his interview. She is intimidating enough that no one tries to corral her back into any sort of cage.
She is well aware that she could use this opportunity to slip away, into a corner where she knows there are no cameras, and properly shift back into a human but she’s attached now. Sue her, this little girl had grown on her. So, she sticks around a while longer, telling herself it will only be until they return to their quarters, then she can make her exit. Even before the tributes are shuffled out of the interview area, Clemensia already knows that will not be the case.
So, she settles in for the long-haul.
She doesn’t typically remain in her snake form for very long, given how traumatic that initial snake bite and ensuing “hospital” stay had been, but decades of distance had allowed the rainbow scales that had spread across her skin time to fade, as well as give her the time to develop an appreciation for the more advantageous side-effects that were yielded from that horrific incident—among which were poison resistance and the transformation ability into a venomous snake.
She’d found both to be rather useful in her continued survival, especially when Coriolanus had attempted to have her killed. He hadn’t realized that the poison he’d put into her tea had no effect on her, nor that her cool skin was not due to death, but he did have the audacity to put of a performative show of panic and grief upon her “tragic passing” and partake in arranging her funeral.
She’d slipped away at the morgue using her snake form, and those in charge of managing her body kept their mouths shut. No one wanted to tell the President of Panem that they’d misplaced the body of his “dear friend that he was mourning deeply,” so another body that had yet to be cremated had been taken and dressed up as her.
Coriolanus certainly hadn’t been looking close enough when “her” body was buried to notice the difference, and she silently thanked Capitol corruption working in her favor and set about living a more private life, with only close friends aware she was still alive. It was a small blessing that the growing essentrics of the Capitol meant that a snake being out and about was more likely to be seen as someone’s mismanaged fashion statement rather than an oddity to be reported.
Now, Clemensia was finding her snake form to be an incredible asset for eavesdropping. It was much easier to piece together what was going on when they were speaking behind closed doors. She could figure that the girl was some kind of body double, similar to Clemensia’s case, though in a much more tragic scenario given that she was still alive and could very much feel the pain of the alterations forced upon her.
Moreover, the other tributes from Twelve were incredibly protective of her—Lou Lou, as they’ve been calling her. Clemensia notes the gentle way they treat her, and she bares her fangs when Wyatt coaxes Lou Lou to say her line—All bark and no bite—just to spare her the stress of having to do any retakes, as she suspects Plutarch would want.
On the subject of Plutarch Heavensbee, Clemensia has gotten a significant amount of insight about him. Specifically, his willingness to play on the edges of rebellion, and putting children in place to carry it out for him.
Honestly, Clemensia thinks he’s not aiming high enough. Flooding the Arena? That is far too easily undermined. Too much risk with not enough potential payoff. Even something more audacious like blowing up the Gamemaker room isn’t a guarantee for the kind of message Plutarch is clearly trying to send. If he wants significant change in one action, then he’d have to take it to the top.
Or rather, take out the one at the top.
Clemensia won’t lie to herself. She is not the type to try to fool herself into believing her intent is anything altruistic. She has her own, personal reasons for wanting Coriolanus dead. But she does believe in pragmatism, and pragmatism dictates that if Coriolanus Snow were to drop dead tonight, then Panem would be in a better state than it was this morning. So, if Clemensia has the opportunity to make that happen, well—who is she to deny fate?
Of course, her window of opportunity is rather small, given the Hunger Games begin the following morning, but she is more than adaptable. She knows where Coriolanus is most likely to be—it is just a matter of getting there. She doesn’t think that will be much of an issue until Clemensia has almost snuck out. Lou Lou has noticed her missing immediately, and Wyatt, in concern, quickly notes the reason for her distress, drawing Haymitch and Maysilee to “help look for Lou Lou’s snake.”
Clemensia halts in her motion and slithers back.
She had only stayed with them beyond the interviews out of a protectiveness that had quickly developed for this girl, and it would be cruel to go back on what she’d been doing over the several hours. She would have rather not involved the children, but she supposes that she can be adaptable here as well. She hisses, a soft thing, coaxing. It catches the attention of Lou Lou, who runs over to her.
Her District partners notice her and follow, during which time Clemensia slithers up to wind herself around Lou Lou’s shoulders again. It is easier than expected to guide her, as Lou Lou walks in the direction with the slow shift of Clemensia’s weight, leaning one way or the other. She nudges Lou Lou towards the exit of the Heavensbee Residence.
Wyatt moves to follow immediately. “Lou Lou? Where are you going?”
Lou Lou doesn’t answer him.
Wyatt doesn’t seem to expect a response, reaching for her to guide her back towards an inner room. Clemensia gives a hiss in warning before he can. He seems to weigh the odds of what damage he might sustain from what he believes is a wild snake, and pulls back. He still follows, though, at a cautious distance, as do Haymitch and Maysilee. All of them radiate concern so palpable Clemensia thinks she can taste it when she flicks her tongue out. She admires it. She won’t let any harm come to any of them.
That will be certain once Coriolanus is dead.
It takes much more coaxing once they reach outside, given the inherent risk, but she’s fortunate. Plutarch bringing them to his home was nonstandard, but it also means they’re in the Corso, just a couple blocks down from the old Snow apartment. It is abandoned now, mostly. Except for a singular occasion, once a year, the day before the Hunger Games. She’d thought it endearing so many years ago, and joined him a few times to visit in the years after University, when they’d rekindled a friendship.
He’d had his own place by then, either funded by his apprenticeship with Gaul or the Plinths sponsoring him, but he’d claimed that he liked seeing “how far he’s come” looking back on where he was, before looking forward to where he’d be.
And indeed, he’d mostly left his old apartment behind, looking ahead at the Hunger Games in his ascent—on the rise from Gaul’s apprentice, to a Gamemaker in his own right, then onto Panem’s presidency upon President Ravinstill’s death. It’s the kind of sentimental act that Coriolanus pretended that he was above, but even in the year before he’d tried to kill her, he’d visited. It has been more than a few years since then, but Clemensia is willing to bet that he’s kept it up even now.
She keeps guiding Lou Lou forward, careful and deliberate, keeping her weight steady against the girl’s small frame so as not to startle her into second-guessing their path. Lou Lou walks with the unbothered certainty of someone who has never been led astray by the one leading her, as if she knows Clemensia is taking her somewhere important.
Or perhaps it is just that the girl is so mentally lost that she’d trust Clemensia for offering any measure of security. Behind them, Wyatt, Maysilee, and Haymitch keep their voices low, hushed but urgent, trying to coax her back without spooking her further.
“Lou Lou,” Wyatt tries again, keeping pace but making no sudden moves. His voice is gentle, like it always is when speaking to her, but there’s an unmistakable tension beneath it now. “C’mon. We can’t be out here. We have to go back.”
Maysilee clicks her tongue. “Shouldn’t have let her get so attached to that thing,” she mutters.
“Yeah, well, too late for that,” Haymitch says.
Lou Lou walks on, unhurried but certain.
“She wouldn’t just leave for no reason,” Wyatt says, his concern pressing into every syllable. “Not unless she thought she was supposed to be going somewhere.”
Haymitch swears under his breath. “We’re getting too far from Heavensbee’s place.”
Clemensia would smile if she had lips. Yes. We are.
The further they get, the more uneasy the three grow.
Wyatt is still hesitant to reach for Lou Lou again after Clemensia’s earlier warning, but she can feel his every instinct pulling him toward her, toward protecting her. Maysilee keeps scanning the streets, no doubt assessing just how much trouble they’ll be in if anyone sees them, but Clemensia notes that she doesn’t turn back either. Haymitch seems to be weighing something in his mind, an expression flickering across his face that Clemensia can’t quite parse before it disappears again.
Regardless, they follow. Of course they follow.
A little further now. Almost there.
And—there.
Lou Lou stops in front of the door to the Snow apartment.
Clemensia uses her tail to tap gently against it, and Lou Lou presses her hands flat against it. That’s not it. She needs the door opened, and she knows it’s unlocked, but she can’t do it herself in this form. She can’t risk transforming right here, either, because if any of the children yell and Coriolanus gets alerted too early, then her chance might be ruined. She uses her tail to tap on the door again, this time using the end to point towards the door handle.
“What the hell are we doing?” asks Haymitch, low and urgent.
He looks behind them anxiously, before looking back at Lou Lou.
“I don’t know.” Maysilee crosses her arms. She nods in Lou Lou’s direction. “Maybe breaking and entering? Does that sound about right?”
Wyatt exhales sharply. “We can’t stay out here. It’s too likely someone will walk by.”
“No one’s seen us on our way here,” Haymitch points out.
“Yes, but odds are we won’t be that fortunate forever.”
“So we just go inside whatever this place is? What if someone’s in there?”
“We have to,” Maysilee interrupts, voice sharp. “You think we’re going to stand out here like idiots while that thing,”—she gestures toward Clemensia, her words laced with impatience—“slithers off and does whatever the hell it’s leading Lou Lou to?”
Haymitch hesitates for a moment, but ultimately reaches for the door handle and pushes it open a crack. It’s all Clemensia needs. She doesn’t waste a second, slithering off Lou Lou’s shoulders with a quick flick of her tail, before moving swiftly towards the interior of the apartment. She hears Lou Lou’s small steps patter behind her, and the others follow suit with alarmed confusion.
Clemensia finds Coriolanus quickly.
There he is. That same calculating bastard.
Behind her, the others stumble in, a few paces behind.
Coriolanus turns at the sound of their intrusion. His gaze flicks up with the calm, deliberate composure of a man who does not expect to be threatened in his own space. His gaze lands on Lou Lou first, then Haymitch, before breezing over Wyatt and Maysilee. He doesn’t look down to see Clemensia, and certainly doesn’t have time to react when she lunges at him, fangs sinking deep into his leg with a sharp, vicious puncture that makes him stagger to the floor with a stunned, strangled sound. She lunges again, this time sinking her fangs deep into the side of his neck, now within reach.
Coriolanus chokes.
His body jerks violently, hands clawing at the wound, at her, at anything to stop what is already inevitable. Truly, the second bite was unnecessary. Already, his breath is coming in ragged gasps, the venom working quickly to both paralyze and numb him. He’ll be dead within the minute. His fingers twitch, his body shudders, and his mouth opens as if he wants to say something—maybe a curse, maybe a plea.
And then, only then, does Clemensia shift back.
Her body twists, scales turning to skin, limbs reforming in their place. She rises from the ground, her human form returning as she straightens to her full height, standing over him. Her chest rises and falls with steady, deliberate breaths as she watches the life drain from his face. Coriolanus blinks, his vision unfocused, his pupils dilated and glassy. But recognition flickers there, just for a moment. Just long enough for her to see it dawn in his eyes, and he mouths a name that he does not deserve.
Clemmie.
His lips part, but no sound comes out.
Then, the light goes out of him entirely.
Silence.
Then—
“You’re a woman,” says Haymitch Abernathy.
Clemensia casts him an amused glance. “Well spotted.”
Haymitch squints at her. “You were a snake.”
“That is also true.”
He looks at her for a long moment, then down at Coriolanus’s body sprawled across the floor. Beside him, Wyatt shuffles closer to Lou Lou, putting a protective arm around her, before fixing Clemensia with a steady, determined look. “Peacekeepers would execute District kids for a lot less than murdering the President.”
Clemensia hums. “It’s quite fortunate that you have done no such thing, then. Isn’t it? You were out looking for a snake that your young friend was quite fond of: a harmless little thing that happened to go missing in the Heavensbee Residence, and naturally—”
“Harmless? Little?” says Maysilee, incredulously. “We just saw you tear Snow apart with your little fangs. Nothing harmless about that.”
Haymitch snorts.
“And naturally,” Clemensia continues. “You helped her search the rather large household, high and low. It’s no wonder that your mentors couldn’t keep an eye on you all, though you never left the premises. But you came up empty in your search. Quite coincidental that Coriolanus Snow, beloved President of Panem, oh-so-tragically succumbed to an unforeseen and, dare I say, entirely unfortunate medical event several blocks away.”
“Unfortunate medical event,” echoes Wyatt.
“Indeed,” Clemensia says, and nods solemnly before offering a smile. “I’m sure the coroner will fill in an appropriate story. Look at him: old, stressed, overworked. It was inevitable—expected, even—that his body would give out one of these days. It’s such a shame that it happened in an abandoned apartment with no witnesses.”
Haymitch scoffs. “You think anyone’s gonna believe he just keeled over?”
“Why not?” Clemensia says mildly. “By the time they examine him, all they’ll find is that he died of something—an acute reaction, perhaps. A venom, maybe. But from where? A rogue muttation that got loose in the Corso? An assassin with a penchant for theatrics? Who’s to say?” She turns her gaze on Haymitch with a small, knowing smirk. “Certainly not you. You, Wyatt, and Maysilee had no idea what was happening. And Lou Lou? A child? Please. No one would suspect her of anything.”
Wyatt shakes his head. “This is insane.”
“Oh, undoubtedly.” Clemensia steps over Coriolanus’s body without a second glance and moves toward Lou Lou, crouching slightly to meet the girl’s wide, unreadable gaze. “But it will work. And all of you are entirely uninvolved, yes?”
Lou Lou stares at her for a long moment. Then, slowly, she nods.
Clemensia smiles. “See? Even Lou Lou agrees. And if anyone asks what you were doing here, you’ll tell them the truth—you were looking for a snake. I’m sure everyone who has seen your interview will find no reason to question that.”
“You’re terrifying,” says Haymitch.
“Thank you,” Clemensia replies, straightening back up. “Now, I suggest we get going. There’s no need to linger here.”
“Seems like you’re in a hurry,” says Maysilee. “Don’t you think it feels a bit like you’re hastening us all to our deaths with the Games tomorrow?”
“The Hunger Games will no longer be an issue for you.”
“The Capitol’s not going to cancel an event like the Quarter Quell the day before it’s set to happen,” Wyatt says. “It’s more likely that they’d use the coverage to distract from Snow’s death and a possible power vacuum that’s now opened up.”
“Oh, of course. But Capitol News could be inclined to make an announcement of this caliber, especially when given orders from the head. And, naturally, such news would cause quite the public stir, and proper coverage would take time. Events get postponed, then reshuffled, and when the right people are the ones getting things moving—” Clemensia offers an assuring smile. “It’s all rather flexible.”
She offers several more assurances while she ushers them back to the Heavensbee Residence, leaning down to let Lou Lou hug her before she goes. “You’ll be alright, little one,” she tells her. “Just stay with them, alright?”
Clemensia pulls away only after the girl nods, and she offers a reassuring smile as she wanders back over to Wyatt’s side. Maysilee moves to put a protective hand on her shoulder. Haymitch hovers at the door.
“Guess we should get back to our snake search, then.”
“Unsuccessful snake search, yes. Off you go.”
Clemensia supposes she can’t fault them for not directly believing her when she told them that they wouldn’t need to worry about the Arena tomorrow. But, she will need to talk to several old friends and classmates to ensure that she won’t be made a liar. It has certainly been a while. How long has it been since she’s spoken to Androcles? To Festus? To Livia? How would they react, she wonders, to a purported dead woman?
In any case, they’re all long overdue for an Academy reunion.