And why should I? I have said good-bye to Yuri. I'll never see him again, that's for certain. Nothing I do now can hurt him. He won't see it or he'll think I am acting for the cameras. That, at least, is one weight off my shoulders.

The arrival of the Capitol attendant with the warm milk is what breaks us apart. He sets a tray with a steaming ceramic jug and two mugs on a table. "I brought an extra cup," he says.

"Thanks," I say.

"And I added a touch of honey to the milk. For sweetness. And just a pinch of spice," he adds. He looks at us like he wants to say more, then gives his head a slight shake and backs out of the room.

"What's with him?" I say.

"I think he feels bad for us," says Soonkyu.

"Right," I say, pouring the milk.

"I mean it. I don't think the people in the Capitol are going to be all that happy about our going back in," says Taeyeon. "Or the other victors. They get attached to their champions."

"I'm guessing they'll get over it once the blood starts flowing," I say flatly. Really, if there's one thing I don't have time for, it's worrying about how the Quarter Quell will affect the mood in the Capitol. "So, you're watching all the tapes again?"

"Not really. Just sort of skipping around to see people's different fighting techniques," says Taeyeon. "Who's next?" I ask.

"You pick," says Taeyeon, holding out the box.

The tapes are marked with the year of the Games and the name of the victor. I dig around and suddenly find one in my hand that we have not watched. The year of the Games is fifty. That would make it the second Quarter Quell. And the name of the victor is Lee Soonkyu

"We never watched this one," I say.

Taeyeon shakes his head. "No. I knew Soonkyu didn't want to. The same way we didn't want to relive our own Games. And since we're all on the same team, I didn't think it mattered much."

"Is the person who won in twenty-five in here?" I ask.

"I don't think so. Whoever it was must be dead by now, and Yoona only sent me victors we might have to face." Taeyeon weighs Soonkyu’s tape in his hand. "Why? You think we ought to watch it?"

"It's the only Quell we have. We might pick up something valuable about how they work," I say. But I feel weird. It seems like some major invasion of Soonkyu's privacy. I don't know why it should, since the whole thing was public. But it does. I have to admit I'm also extremely curious. "We don't have to tell Soonkyu we saw it."

"Okay," Taeyeon agrees. He puts in the tape and I curl up next to him on the couch with my milk, which is really delicious with the honey and spices, and lose myself in the Fiftieth Hunger Games. After the anthem, they show President Park drawing the envelope for the second Quarter Quell. He looks younger but just as repellent. He reads from the square of paper in the same onerous voice he used for ours, informing Panem that in honor of the Quarter Quell, there will be twice the number of tributes. The editors smash cut right into the reapings, where name after name after name is called.

By the time we get to District 12, I'm completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of kids going to certain death. There's a woman, not Yoona, calling the names in 12, but she still begins with "Ladies first!" She calls out the name of a girl who's from the Seam, you can tell by the look of her, and then I hear the name "Lee Chaerin."

"Oh!" I say. "She was my mother's friend." The camera finds her in the crowd, clinging to two other girls. All blond. All definitely merchant's kids.

"I think that's your mother hugging her," says Taeyeon quietly. And he's right. As Lee Chaerin bravely disengages herself and heads for the stage, I catch a glimpse of my mother at my age, and no one has exaggerated her beauty. Holding her hand and weeping is another girl who looks just like Chaerin. But a lot like someone else I know, too.

"Bora," I say.

"That's her mother. She and Chaerin were twins or something," Taeyeon says. "My dad mentioned it once."

I think of Bora's mother. Mayor Undersee's wife. Who spends half her life in bed immobilized with terrible pain, shutting out the world. I think of how I never realized that she and my mother shared this connection. Of Bora showing up in that snowstorm to bring the painkiller for Yuri. Of my mockingjay pin and how it means something completely different now that I know that its former owner was Bora's aunt, Lee Chaerin, a tribute who was murdered in the arena.

Soonkyu's name is called last of all. It's more of a shock to see him than my mother. Young. Strong. Hard to admit, but he was something of a looker. His hair dark and curly, those gray Seam eyes bright and, even then, dangerous.

"Oh. Taeyeon, you don't think he killed Chaerin, do you?" I burst out. I don't know why, but I can't stand the thought.

"With forty-eight players? I'd say the odds are against it," says Taeyeon.

The chariot rides - in which the District 12 kids are dressed in awful coal miners' outfits - and the interviews flash by. There's little time to focus on anyone. But since Soonkyu is going to be the victor, we get to see one full exchange between him and Leeteuk, who looks exactly as he always does in his twinkling midnight blue suit. Only his dark green hair, eyelids, and lips are different.

"So, Soonkyu, what do you think of the Games having one hundred percent more competitors than usual?" asks Leeteuk.

Soonkyu shrugs. "I don't see that it makes much difference. They'll still be one hundred percent as stupid as usual, so I figure my odds will be roughly the same."

The audience bursts out laughing and Soonkyu gives them a half smile. Snarky. Arrogant. Indifferent.

"He didn't have to reach far for that, did he?" I say.

Now it's the morning the Games begin. We watch from the point of view of one of the tributes as she rises up through the tube from the Launch Room and into the arena. I can't help but give a slight gasp. Disbelief is reflected on the faces of the players. Even Soonkyu's eyebrows lift in pleasure, although they almost immediately knit themselves back into a scowl.

It's the most breathtaking place imaginable. The golden Cornucopia sits in the middle of a green meadow with patches of gorgeous flowers. The sky is azure blue with puffy white clouds. Bright songbirds flutter overhead. By the way some of the tributes are sniffing, it must smell fantastic. An aerial shot shows that the meadow stretches for miles. Far in the distance, in one direction, there seems to be a woods, in the other, a snowcapped mountain.

The beauty disorients many of the players, because when the gong sounds, most of them seem like they're trying to wake from a dream. Not Soonkyu, though. He's at the Cornucopia, armed with weapons and a backpack of choice supplies. He heads for the woods before most of the others have stepped off their plates.

Eighteen tributes are killed in the bloodbath that first day. Others begin to die off and it becomes clear that almost everything in this pretty place - the luscious fruit dangling from the bushes, the water in the crystalline streams, even the scent of the flowers when inhaled too directly - is deadly poisonous. Only the rainwater and the food provided at the Cornucopia are safe to consume. There's also a large, well-stocked Career pack of ten tributes scouring the mountain area for victims.

Soonkyu has his own troubles over in the woods, where the fluffy golden squirrels turn out to be carnivorous and attack in packs, and the butterfly stings bring agony if not death. But he persists in moving forward, always keeping the distant mountain at his back.

Lee Chaerin turns out to be pretty resourceful herself, for a girl who leaves the Cornucopia with only a small backpack. Inside she finds a bowl, some dried beef, and a blowgun with two dozen darts. Making use of the readily available poisons, she soon turns the blowgun into a deadly weapon by dipping the darts in lethal substances and directing them into her opponents' flesh.

Four days in, the picturesque mountain erupts in a volcano that wipes out another dozen players, including all but five of the Career pack. With the mountain spewing liquid fire, and the meadow offering no means of concealment, the remaining thirteen tributes - including Soonkyu and Chaerin - have no choice but to confine themselves to the woods.

Soonkyu seems bent on continuing in the same direction, away from the now volcanic mountain, but a maze of tightly woven hedges forces him to circle back into the center of the woods, where he encounters three of the Careers and pulls his knife. They may be much bigger and stronger, but Soonkyu has remarkable speed and has killed two when the third disarms him. That Career is about to slit his throat when a dart drops him to the ground.

Lee Chaerin steps out of the woods. "We'd live longer with two of us."

"Guess you just proved that," says Soonkyu, rubbing his neck. "Allies?" Chaerin nods. And there they are, instantly drawn into one of those pacts you'd be hard-pressed to break if you ever expect to go home and face your district.

Just like Taeyeon and me, they do better together. Get more rest, work out a system to salvage more rainwater, fight as a team, and share the food from the dead tributes' packs. But Soonkyu is still determined to keep moving on.

"Why?" Chaerin keeps asking, and he ignores her until she refuses to move any farther without an answer.

"Because it has to end somewhere, right?" says Soonkyu. "The arena can't go on forever."

"What do you expect to find?" Chaerin asks.

"I don't know. But maybe there's something we can use," he says.

When they finally do make it through that impossible hedge, using a blowtorch from one of the dead Careers' packs, they find themselves on flat, dry earth that leads to a cliff. Far below, you can see jagged rocks.

"That's all there is, Soonkyu. Let's go back," says Chaerin.

"No, I'm staying here," he says.

"All right. There's only five of us left. May as well say good-bye now, anyway," she says. "I don't want it to come down to you and me."

"Okay," he agrees. That's all. He doesn't offer to shake her hand or even look at her. And she walks away.

Soonkyu skirts along the edge of the cliff as if trying to figure something out. His foot dislodges a pebble and it falls into the abyss, apparently gone forever. But a minute later, as he sits to rest, the pebble shoots back up beside him. Soonkyu stares at it, puzzled, and then his face takes on a strange intensity. He lobs a rock the size of his fist over the cliff and waits. When it flies back out and right into his hand, he starts laughing.

That's when we hear Chaerin begin to scream. The alliance is over and she broke it