HEART OF GOLD | CORIOLANUS SNOW

𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙋𝙏𝙀𝙍 62

He could not have braced himself enough.

Hurriedly, Lilith leafed through her notebook, and while she had been almost three-quarters in earlier, she now flipped to a page near the start. Whatever she was showing him, however, Coriolanus wasn't seeing it. All his energy was concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other and willing a stony face into existence. He could hear her, though.

Still angling her binder toward him, Lilith said, "When I was coming up with my proposal, I checked the database from the school network and found only nineteen victors in twenty years of Hunger Games—there's no record of the tenth. Whenever my friends and I try to pull it up, it just comes up blank. But no one here's mentioned a thing about the missing victor or finds it weird we only invited nineteen for the Preview. Everyone acts like it's normal, so I'm sure there's a logical explanation and I'm the only one who doesn't know about it."

She stopped, and his legs, which had been mirroring her gait, imitated. As Coriolanus realized they had arrived outside his office, he glanced down and glimpsed a table containing presumably the same nineteen names that Marcella had shared during their meeting. Except, this featured numbers enclosed in parentheses following each, indicating the year of their victory in the same elegant, forward-sloping hand. Again, presumably, for his eyes seemed to defy focusing.

When Coriolanus looked up though, when he finally looked at Lilith—rather than through her—there was nothing unclear about what he saw. For the first time, he registered her expression. Her expression that was not as he'd expected, not exactly. He'd expected puzzlement, curiosity, and, most of all, accusation. There was no trace of the last, not even the slightest hint. If he used a microscope, he wouldn't detect a cell betraying that sentiment. As for the other two, they lurked in the shadows, because what shone in her golden eyes, of all things, was shame, as if this ignorance was somehow her fault.

"I was hoping you'd tell me what it was, sir," added Lilith quietly. Only, her voice held none of the hope she spoke of.

Drawing his shoulders back, Coriolanus was glad he had little to do—his posture was instinctually superb. He slid his hands into his pockets, projecting an air of thorough nonchalance. There was no reason he shouldn't be calm and relaxed. Absolutely no reason at all, because—

"You're right," he said. "There is a logical explanation."

As she gazed at him attentively, waiting, Coriolanus apprised her of the story: that, back then, the servers were only backed up after every Games; that, that year, unfortunately, it died before a copy could be made; that the IT folks tried to salvage it to no avail; that all documents and footage were lost.

That was the official story. That was what every Gamemaker in the history of Gamemakers had been told of what happened to the records of the 10th Hunger Games.

Lilith did not doubt it for a second.

Lilith did not doubt him for a second.

"Is that why everything's written to three servers at once now?" she asked matter-of-factly, having been familiarized with the practice during their recent broadcast of the Victor's Festival.

"We learn from our mistakes," said Coriolanus, quirking a smile. "Is there anything else?"

"No, sir."

"Then you should go." He didn't have to glance at his watch to know that it was almost six; Marcella had disbanded them at quarter to. "I'm sure it's nice to leave on time for a change."

"And I'm sure that applies to Head Gamemakers as well." Lilith chuckled.

"I'm afraid a Head Gamemaker's work is never done," countered Coriolanus, and was surprised by the wave of nostalgia that struck him.