He nodded at Satyria. “Lovely gown. It’s new, isn’t it?” He could tell at a glance that it was the same dress she always wore to the reaping ceremony, refurbished with tufts of black feathers. But she had validated his shirt, and he needed to return the favor.
“I had it done especially for today,” she said, embracing the question. “Tenth anniversary and all that.”
“Elegant,” he said. All in all, they were not a bad team.
His pleasure drained as he spotted the gymnasium mistress, Professor Agrippina Sickle, using her muscular shoulders to maneuver her way through the crowd. Behind her was her aide, Sejanus Plinth, who was carrying the ornamental shield Professor Sickle insisted on holding for the group photo each year. It had been awarded to her at the end of the war for successfully overseeing Academy safety drills during the bombings.
It was not the shield that caught Coriolanus’s attention but Sejanus’s outfit, a soft charcoal gray suit with a blinding white shirt offset by a paisley tie, cut to add flow to his tall, angular frame. The ensemble was stylish, brand-new, and smelling of money. War profiteering, to be exact. Sejanus’s father was a District 2 manufacturer who had sided with the president. He had made such a fortune off munitions that he’d been able to buy his family’s way into a life in the Capitol. The Plinths now enjoyed privileges that the oldest, most powerful families had earned over generations. It was unprecedented that Sejanus, a district-born boy, was a student at the Academy, but his father’s lavish donation had allowed for much of the school’s postwar reconstruction. A Capitol-born citizen would have expected a building to be renamed for them. Sejanus’s father had only requested an education for his son.
For Coriolanus, the Plinths and their kind were a threat to all he held dear. The newly rich climbers in the Capitol were chipping away at the old order simply by virtue of their presence. It was particularly vexing because the bulk of the Snow family fortune had also been invested in munitions — but in District 13. Their sprawling complex, blocks and blocks of factories and research facilities, had been bombed to dust. District 13 had been nuked, and the entire area still emitted unlivable levels of radiation. The center of the Capitol’s military manufacturing had shifted to District 2 and fallen right into the Plinths’ laps. When news of District 13’s demise had reached the Capitol, Coriolanus’s grandmother had publicly brushed it off, saying it was fortunate that they had plenty of other assets. But they didn’t.
Sejanus had arrived on the school playground ten years ago, a shy, sensitive boy cautiously surveying the other children with a pair of soulful brown eyes much too large for his strained face. When word had gotten out that he’d come from the districts, Coriolanus’s first impulse had been to join his classmates’ campaign to make the new kid’s life a living hell. On further reflection, he’d ignored him. If the other Capitol children took this to mean that baiting the district brat was beneath him, Sejanus took it as decency. Neither take was quite accurate, but both reinforced the image of Coriolanus as a class act.
A woman of formidable stature, Professor Sickle cruised into Satyria’s circle, scattering her inferiors to the four winds. “Good morning, Professor Click.”
“Oh, Agrippina, good. You remembered your shield,” said Satyria, accepting a firm handshake. “It worries me that the young people will forget the real meaning of the day. And, Sejanus. How smart you look.”
Sejanus attempted a bow, sending a wayward lock of hair into his eyes. The cumbersome shield caught him in the chest.
“Too smart,” said Professor Sickle. “I told him if I wanted a peacock, I’d call the pet store. They should all be in their uniforms.” She eyed Coriolanus. “That’s not terrible. Your father’s old mess dress shirt?”
Was it? Coriolanus had no idea. A vague memory of his father in a dashing evening suit dripping in medals came to him. He decided to play out the hand. “Thank you for noticing, Professor. I had it redone so as not to suggest I’d seen combat myself. But I wanted him here with me today.”
“Very fitting,” said Professor Sickle. Then she directed her attention to Satyria and her views on the latest deployment of Peacekeepers, the nation’s soldiers, to District 12, where the coal miners were failing to produce their quotas.
With their teachers engaged, Coriolanus nodded at the shield. “Getting a workout this morning?”
Sejanus gave a wry smile. “Always an honor to be of service.”
“That’s a fine polish job,” Coriolanus replied. Sejanus tensed at the implication that he was, what, a suck-up? A lackey? Coriolanus let it build a moment before he diffused it. “I should know. I do all Satyria’s wine goblets.”
Sejanus relaxed at that. “Really?”
“No, not really. But only because she hasn’t thought of it,” said Coriolanus, seesawing between disdain and camaraderie.
“Professor Sickle thinks of everything. She doesn’t hesitate to call me, day or night.” Sejanus looked as if he might continue, then just sighed. “And, of course, now that I’m graduating, we’re moving closer to the school. Perfect timing, as usual.”
Coriolanus suddenly felt wary. “Whereabouts?”
“Somewhere on the Corso. A lot of those grand places will be going on the market soon. Owners not being able to afford the taxes, or some such, my father said.” The shield scraped the floor, and Sejanus hefted it up.
“They don’t tax properties in the Capitol. Only in the districts,” said Coriolanus.
“It’s a new law,” Sejanus told him. “To get more money for rebuilding the city.”
Coriolanus tried to tamp down the panic rising inside him. A new law. Instating a tax on his apartment. For how much? As it was, they barely eked out a living on Tigris’s pittance, the tiny military pension his grandmother received for her husband’s service to Panem, and his own dependent benefits as the child of a slain war hero, which would cease on graduation. If they couldn’t pay the taxes, would they lose the apartment? It was all they had. Selling the place would be of no help; he knew his grandmother had borrowed every cent on it she could. If they sold, there would be next to nothing left. They would have to move to some obscure neighborhood and join the grimy ranks of everyday citizens, without status, without influence, without dignity. The disgrace would kill his grandmother. It would be kinder to toss her out the window of the penthouse. At least that would be quick.
“You all right?” Sejanus peered at him, puzzled. “You just went white as a sheet.”
Coriolanus regained his composure. “I think it’s the posca. Turns my stomach.”
“Yeah,” Sejanus agreed. “Ma was always forcing it down me during the war.”
Ma? Was Coriolanus’s place about to be usurped by someone who referred to his mother as “Ma”? The cabbage and posca threatened to make a reappearance. He took a deep breath and forced his stomach to hang on to it, resenting Sejanus more than he had since the well-fed district boy with the cloddish accent first wandered up to him, clutching a bag of gumdrops.
Coriolanus heard a bell ringing and saw his fellow students converging at the front of the dais.
“I guess it’s time to assign us tributes,” Sejanus said glumly.