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"Of course I'd be happy to help!" The smile Maurice Rodman offers his guest is blindingly perfect. "I have to admit, I wasn't terribly impressed at first, but Rhona gave us such an excellent show last night. You can count on my support from now on, Mr. Chen."

"That's good to hear," says Leon, letting a smile bleed through onto his own face. "I'm glad she's keeping the Capitol's attention."

"How could she not?" chortles Rodman. "My viewers have all been clamoring for the next installment of her story! You wouldn't happen to know something about that, would you? A teaser for next time?"

"Now that," says Leon cheerily, standing up and offering his hand, "would be telling. Good afternoon, Mr. Rodman. It's been a pleasure speaking to you."

What he means to say, he reflects as he leaves, is that it's been a necessity. He's never been comfortable with Rodman's kind of people, the showmen and the salesmen of society, all smiles they don't mean and words they don't say. They hit a little too close to home.

But the important thing is that it's done. With Rodman on their side, he can breathe a little easier. He may not like the man overmuch, but it's clear he'll stay on board for as long as Rhona survives. If—when—something should happen to Leon, Rhona will be in good hands. It's the least he can do for her.

He glances down the street as he exits the studio. Like clockwork, two men in plainclothes materialize from around the corner and begin to follow him again. It's almost considerate, how little they bother to hide it. He'd find it amusing if it weren't so aggravating.

At least he's finished with his rounds for the day. Call in too many favors at once, and the audience will probably get suspicious. Leon digs a cigarette out of his pocket and lights it, inhaling deeply. Back to the apartments for an early dinner, and then it's high time he had a few hours of actual sleep. He's gone for longer on less, but the faster he bores his shadows, the faster he can get back to business—

Which is, of course, precisely when his phone rings. Leon sighs, releasing a puff of smoke into the air as he answers it. "Leon Chen, District Six."

"Cute," says the caller. A woman? "I like how everyone in the Capitol's still falling for that."

The voice is rough, low, and clearly amused. It's also unfamiliar, which is worrying.

"I'm sorry," Leon says, "do I know you?"

"Yeah," says the voice, "but I'm told I have one of those faces."

And then a high, clear titter shoots straight through his eardrum, and Leon would drop his phone if it weren't for the fact that his knuckles have whitened around it. The Rook.

"This phone's tapped," he says breathlessly. Lazuli is one thing—he doesn't even know the man—but he's screwed up enough where the Rook is concerned. The last thing he needs is for both of them to get killed because of an easily avoidable mistake. "You'll have to find some other way of getting to me—"

"Relax," says the Rook. "I've got a recording running for them. They're listening to you and Shahri talking fabrics at the moment. Ecru's not really your color, is it."

"Bellasseau isn't going to fall for that," says Leon.

The Rook's real laugh is sudden and sharp. "You think Bellasseau has the time to listen to you grubbing for sponsors? He's got bigger fish to fry than you, Jabberjay. Nah, the hapless kid assigned to track your calls is the one who's going to be bored out of his mind for the next five minutes."

Turning around and looking for his shadows would only give him away at this point. Leon carefully doesn't. Instead, he taps the ash from his cigarette and takes another drag. "What do you want?"

"I want an apology. My feelings are hurt." The Rook sighs dramatically. "A lady goes all faint at the sight of blood and you don't even check to see if she's all right. It doesn't inspire a lot of faith, you know?"

"Todorov said you wanted to recruit me," says Leon. "Suggested there was some kind of underground in the Capitol."

"Todorov says a lot of things," says the Rook, and there's a note of something Leon can't quite place in her voice. "And I agreed with him last night. Right now? I'm not so sure. Take a left here."

Leon shrugs, takes a left. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots the two men again. They're a little closer now. "Bellasseau has the paper Shahri gave me. I didn't give him anything else, if that's what you're asking."

"Of course you didn't," says the Rook. "You didn't have anything to give him in the first place. We made sure of that. The meeting place changed as soon as we learned you'd been taken into custody. The question is, what can you give us?"

"You know who I am," says Leon quietly. "Or who I was. You know what I can do. I'm not going to pretend I'm the same man, but muscle memory's hard to lose."

"Yeah," says the Rook. "I can't argue with that. But there's your kid to think about."

"Rhona?" says Leon, and stops short.

"Keep walking. You were talking to Rodman. Making contingency plans?"

"Something like that."

"Hey," says the Rook. "I like her. She's scrappy. My money's on her, if she can work up the nerve to off the Svanish kid in the end. But it doesn't have to be like that."

"What are you saying?" says Leon. Somewhere deep in his chest, a bubble of hope is rising.

"I'm saying we can get the kids who are left out of the arena. I'm saying it's part of the plan. But you need to act, and you need to act fast. If you're game—"

"I'm game," he says immediately. And then, because it's too good to be true: "What's the catch?"

"It's silent running from here on out," says the Rook. "From the moment you agree to the plan to the moment we hit the arena, nobody knows where you are. That includes your kid."

Which means, Leon thinks, they're hitting everything at once. The arena, the Capitol—everything. It's something he wouldn't have imagined. The scale of it is bigger than anything he could have planned for. But if the rebellion is as ruthlessly efficient as he thinks it is…

"You're saying if Rhona's injured again between now and then—"

"It's up to her to get herself out of it." There's a shuffling noise. "You throw your lot in with us, it means you drop off the radar like Todorov did. I can cover a lot of things, but I can't cover that. Bellasseau's going to be watching like a hawk for any sign of either one of you."

Leon closes his eyes for a moment. He was afraid this was going to happen. "And anything I send is going to be a sign pointing directly at our location."

"Got it in one. When we hit the arena, we're breaking out the kids who are left. We can't afford to be picky about who that is. Are you in?"

Leon hesitates. He thinks, fleetingly, of Lazuli and his deal, and he thinks of quiet nights and old stories, and for a moment he's not sure who the bright-eyed listener in his memory is.

He got out of Thirteen mere hours before they dropped the bombs, he and his squad and a handful of refugees. His sister hadn't been one of them. Isolde had stayed on the ground to coordinate an evacuation that had never happened. She'd wanted to take care of Talgo. And as for the brother-in-law who had thrown his lot in with the Capitol, who had joined the Peacekeepers and been deployed in District Six...

Well, Saclay had never forgiven him for the death of his wife and child.

Above him, Rhona is running across a screen, eyes wide, two bundles clenched tight in her fist. Rottie Beten is in hot pursuit. Neither of them look particularly willing to talk it over.

What are you looking for, Wang Dazhong? Some kind of absolution?

It's enough. It has to be enough. He takes a deep breath and forces himself to look away.

"I'm in," he says, and stubs out his cigarette.

"Good to hear," says the Rook. "I have a shuttle waiting five minutes from your location. Intersection of Opal and Gilder. I'm uploading the coordinates to your phone right now. Give the word, and I'll shut down all cameras and block all airwaves within a three-mile radius."

"You weren't kidding when you said this was all or nothing," says Leon.

The Rook snorts. "What can I say, I like a bit of a show. Can't do anything about the guys on your tail, though. You'll have to lose them yourself. Any last questions?"

"Yeah," he says, and he may be reeling, but he can't resist. "Are you and Todorov actually—?"

He ducks as the screen above him explodes, raining debris onto the street below. A flaming girder hits the sidewalk a few feet behind him, nearly crushing a parked car.

"Better stretch your wings, Sleeping Dragon," says the Rook, a trace of a laugh in her voice, and hangs up.

Right. Running. Leon glances back: Bellasseau's men are stumbling forward, still a little disoriented by the blast, but clearly trying to radio in for backup. If the Rook was telling the truth, they won't succeed, but they're still more than capable of catching him on their own if he keeps standing here like an idiot.

There's a clicking noise, and his gaze swings to the car beside him. It's been unlocked.

Slowly, he feels the beginnings of a real grin spread across his face as he slides in and drops his phone on the dash. More shouting behind him: Bellasseau's men are commandeering a vehicle of their own. Leon's grin widens just a little. Beside him, the control panels blink on, a mechanical voice drones DRIVER IDENTIFICATION ACCEPTED, and he tries not to whoop as he kicks the engine into life and roars away.

It's a nice car. A lot nicer than his beat-up cab back in Six. Nice enough that he momentarily forgets not to compensate for the understeer and nearly veers into a corner before he gets the hang of the steering. On the dashboard, his phone begins to ping slowly, but with increasing frequency. A quick look in the rearview mirror: the car behind him is accelerating, but he's got a small lead.

Time to widen it.

The conditions aren't exactly ideal. These are unfamiliar streets, and the car isn't his, and if he isn't fast enough, he's liable to face a lot more than just an irritated passenger.

But all the same, he can't help but feel like he's come home, just a little.

What it all really comes down to in the end is psychology. A supremely confident driver will get through motionless traffic in half the time a nervous man in the same car will. The trick, of course, is to make Bellasseau's men very, very nervous.

He doesn't waste any time. The gaps between the oncoming cars open up before his eyes like they've been lit with neon signs, and he guns the engine without a second thought. Off onto a side street, down half a mile, right again, around a roadblock, weaving neatly around cars all the while. He's done this in three dimensions while people were trying to shoot him down. Two dimensions is child's play.

Behind him there's the sound of screeching and the tinkle of broken glass. Another glance in the rearview mirror shows Bellasseau's men are still in the game, but one of their mirrors and the better part of the hood look slightly the worse for wear. And they've started to look distinctly frazzled, which is encouraging. One of them is still shouting vainly into the radio.

Leon exhales slowly as he banks, skidding through a roundabout and shooting out onto a mostly-empty street. By now, Bellasseau probably knows what's happened, knows exactly who's gone off the radar, but with communications shut down, he won't know where to send his men.

Which means Leon's got a minute at most before the search goes airborne. On the phone, the pinging grows more insistent. Closer now. A mile at most. Not enough time to lose Bellasseau's men in detours. Time to think outside the box.

There's another roundabout coming up ahead. It's exactly what he needs, even if he's not sure what that is just yet. Leon bites his bottom lip thoughtfully, gives the wheel a few careful wiggles and takes his foot off the gas. Waits, eyes fixed to the rearview mirror and hands set firmly against the wheel, as Bellasseau's men close the gap, as one of them leans out of the window, a gun pointed at his tires.

Then he takes a deep breath, accelerates into the roundabout, and executes a neat reverse J-turn straight into oncoming traffic.

This time he doesn't wait for the shouts or the crunch of metal on metal. He shuts his ears to all of it, to everything except for the pinging phone on his dashboard, and darts through the silver masses of panicked Capitol drivers like a shark tracking its prey.

There's a nondescript cab waiting for him at the coordinates, and for one fleeting moment, he wonders if it's a trap, but then the window rolls down and the Rook's voice hisses, "Get in," and he slams on the brakes and tumbles out of one car and into the other.

He yanks the door shut behind him and exhales. The driver raises one dark eyebrow.

"Nicely done," she says. They're already moving, blending in easily with a flock of other cabs. "That's more anarchy in three minutes than the Capitol has seen in a month, last night excepted. Didn't actually think you'd make it in time."

Leon stares at her for a moment. The woman in front of him has short brown hair, green eyes, and cheekbones that could cut glass. As little as he remembers of Lucretia Enyo, he doubts he'd be able to match her face to this one even if he tried.

She grins at him, sudden and sharp. He tries halfheartedly to wipe the smile off his own face—this is insane, he's just thrown away gods know what for a single shot at the Capitol—but it's hard with the adrenaline still coursing through his veins and the center city dropping away behind them.

"I told you I was in," he says.

Description
"Of course I'd be happy to help!" The smile Maurice Rodman offers his guest is blindingly perfect. "I have to admit, I wasn't terribly impressed at first, but Rhona gave us such an excellent show last night. You can count on my support from now on, Mr. Chen."

"That's good to hear," says Leon, letting a smile bleed through onto his own face. "I'm glad she's keeping the Capitol's attention."

"How could she not?" chortles Rodman. "My viewers have all been clamoring for the next installment of her story! You wouldn't happen to know something about that, would you? A teaser for next time?"

"Now that," says Leon cheerily, standing up and offering his hand, "would be telling. Good afternoon, Mr. Rodman. It's been a pleasure speaking to you."

What he means to say, he reflects as he leaves, is that it's been a necessity. He's never been comfortable with Rodman's kind of people, the showmen and the salesmen of society, all smiles they don't mean and words they don't say. They hit a little too close to home.

But the important thing is that it's done. With Rodman on their side, he can breathe a little easier. He may not like the man overmuch, but it's clear he'll stay on board for as long as Rhona survives. If—when—something should happen to Leon, Rhona will be in good hands. It's the least he can do for her.

He glances down the street as he exits the studio. Like clockwork, two men in plainclothes materialize from around the corner and begin to follow him again. It's almost considerate, how little they bother to hide it. He'd find it amusing if it weren't so aggravating.

At least he's finished with his rounds for the day. Call in too many favors at once, and the audience will probably get suspicious. Leon digs a cigarette out of his pocket and lights it, inhaling deeply. Back to the apartments for an early dinner, and then it's high time he had a few hours of actual sleep. He's gone for longer on less, but the faster he bores his shadows, the faster he can get back to business—

Which is, of course, precisely when his phone rings. Leon sighs, releasing a puff of smoke into the air as he answers it. "Leon Chen, District Six."

"Cute," says the caller. A woman? "I like how everyone in the Capitol's still falling for that."

The voice is rough, low, and clearly amused. It's also unfamiliar, which is worrying.

"I'm sorry," Leon says, "do I know you?"

"Yeah," says the voice, "but I'm told I have one of those faces."

And then a high, clear titter shoots straight through his eardrum, and Leon would drop his phone if it weren't for the fact that his knuckles have whitened around it. The Rook.

"This phone's tapped," he says breathlessly. Lazuli is one thing—he doesn't even know the man—but he's screwed up enough where the Rook is concerned. The last thing he needs is for both of them to get killed because of an easily avoidable mistake. "You'll have to find some other way of getting to me—"

"Relax," says the Rook. "I've got a recording running for them. They're listening to you and Shahri talking fabrics at the moment. Ecru's not really your color, is it."

"Bellasseau isn't going to fall for that," says Leon.

The Rook's real laugh is sudden and sharp. "You think Bellasseau has the time to listen to you grubbing for sponsors? He's got bigger fish to fry than you, Jabberjay. Nah, the hapless kid assigned to track your calls is the one who's going to be bored out of his mind for the next five minutes."

Turning around and looking for his shadows would only give him away at this point. Leon carefully doesn't. Instead, he taps the ash from his cigarette and takes another drag. "What do you want?"

"I want an apology. My feelings are hurt." The Rook sighs dramatically. "A lady goes all faint at the sight of blood and you don't even check to see if she's all right. It doesn't inspire a lot of faith, you know?"

"Todorov said you wanted to recruit me," says Leon. "Suggested there was some kind of underground in the Capitol."

"Todorov says a lot of things," says the Rook, and there's a note of something Leon can't quite place in her voice. "And I agreed with him last night. Right now? I'm not so sure. Take a left here."

Leon shrugs, takes a left. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots the two men again. They're a little closer now. "Bellasseau has the paper Shahri gave me. I didn't give him anything else, if that's what you're asking."

"Of course you didn't," says the Rook. "You didn't have anything to give him in the first place. We made sure of that. The meeting place changed as soon as we learned you'd been taken into custody. The question is, what can you give us?"

"You know who I am," says Leon quietly. "Or who I was. You know what I can do. I'm not going to pretend I'm the same man, but muscle memory's hard to lose."

"Yeah," says the Rook. "I can't argue with that. But there's your kid to think about."

"Rhona?" says Leon, and stops short.

"Keep walking. You were talking to Rodman. Making contingency plans?"

"Something like that."

"Hey," says the Rook. "I like her. She's scrappy. My money's on her, if she can work up the nerve to off the Svanish kid in the end. But it doesn't have to be like that."

"What are you saying?" says Leon. Somewhere deep in his chest, a bubble of hope is rising.

"I'm saying we can get the kids who are left out of the arena. I'm saying it's part of the plan. But you need to act, and you need to act fast. If you're game—"

"I'm game," he says immediately. And then, because it's too good to be true: "What's the catch?"

"It's silent running from here on out," says the Rook. "From the moment you agree to the plan to the moment we hit the arena, nobody knows where you are. That includes your kid."

Which means, Leon thinks, they're hitting everything at once. The arena, the Capitol—everything. It's something he wouldn't have imagined. The scale of it is bigger than anything he could have planned for. But if the rebellion is as ruthlessly efficient as he thinks it is…

"You're saying if Rhona's injured again between now and then—"

"It's up to her to get herself out of it." There's a shuffling noise. "You throw your lot in with us, it means you drop off the radar like Todorov did. I can cover a lot of things, but I can't cover that. Bellasseau's going to be watching like a hawk for any sign of either one of you."

Leon closes his eyes for a moment. He was afraid this was going to happen. "And anything I send is going to be a sign pointing directly at our location."

"Got it in one. When we hit the arena, we're breaking out the kids who are left. We can't afford to be picky about who that is. Are you in?"

Leon hesitates. He thinks, fleetingly, of Lazuli and his deal, and he thinks of quiet nights and old stories, and for a moment he's not sure who the bright-eyed listener in his memory is.

He got out of Thirteen mere hours before they dropped the bombs, he and his squad and a handful of refugees. His sister hadn't been one of them. Isolde had stayed on the ground to coordinate an evacuation that had never happened. She'd wanted to take care of Talgo. And as for the brother-in-law who had thrown his lot in with the Capitol, who had joined the Peacekeepers and been deployed in District Six...

Well, Saclay had never forgiven him for the death of his wife and child.

Above him, Rhona is running across a screen, eyes wide, two bundles clenched tight in her fist. Rottie Beten is in hot pursuit. Neither of them look particularly willing to talk it over.

What are you looking for, Wang Dazhong? Some kind of absolution?

It's enough. It has to be enough. He takes a deep breath and forces himself to look away.

"I'm in," he says, and stubs out his cigarette.

"Good to hear," says the Rook. "I have a shuttle waiting five minutes from your location. Intersection of Opal and Gilder. I'm uploading the coordinates to your phone right now. Give the word, and I'll shut down all cameras and block all airwaves within a three-mile radius."

"You weren't kidding when you said this was all or nothing," says Leon.

The Rook snorts. "What can I say, I like a bit of a show. Can't do anything about the guys on your tail, though. You'll have to lose them yourself. Any last questions?"

"Yeah," he says, and he may be reeling, but he can't resist. "Are you and Todorov actually—?"

He ducks as the screen above him explodes, raining debris onto the street below. A flaming girder hits the sidewalk a few feet behind him, nearly crushing a parked car.

"Better stretch your wings, Sleeping Dragon," says the Rook, a trace of a laugh in her voice, and hangs up.

Right. Running. Leon glances back: Bellasseau's men are stumbling forward, still a little disoriented by the blast, but clearly trying to radio in for backup. If the Rook was telling the truth, they won't succeed, but they're still more than capable of catching him on their own if he keeps standing here like an idiot.

There's a clicking noise, and his gaze swings to the car beside him. It's been unlocked.

Slowly, he feels the beginnings of a real grin spread across his face as he slides in and drops his phone on the dash. More shouting behind him: Bellasseau's men are commandeering a vehicle of their own. Leon's grin widens just a little. Beside him, the control panels blink on, a mechanical voice drones DRIVER IDENTIFICATION ACCEPTED, and he tries not to whoop as he kicks the engine into life and roars away.

It's a nice car. A lot nicer than his beat-up cab back in Six. Nice enough that he momentarily forgets not to compensate for the understeer and nearly veers into a corner before he gets the hang of the steering. On the dashboard, his phone begins to ping slowly, but with increasing frequency. A quick look in the rearview mirror: the car behind him is accelerating, but he's got a small lead.

Time to widen it.

The conditions aren't exactly ideal. These are unfamiliar streets, and the car isn't his, and if he isn't fast enough, he's liable to face a lot more than just an irritated passenger.

But all the same, he can't help but feel like he's come home, just a little.

What it all really comes down to in the end is psychology. A supremely confident driver will get through motionless traffic in half the time a nervous man in the same car will. The trick, of course, is to make Bellasseau's men very, very nervous.

He doesn't waste any time. The gaps between the oncoming cars open up before his eyes like they've been lit with neon signs, and he guns the engine without a second thought. Off onto a side street, down half a mile, right again, around a roadblock, weaving neatly around cars all the while. He's done this in three dimensions while people were trying to shoot him down. Two dimensions is child's play.

Behind him there's the sound of screeching and the tinkle of broken glass. Another glance in the rearview mirror shows Bellasseau's men are still in the game, but one of their mirrors and the better part of the hood look slightly the worse for wear. And they've started to look distinctly frazzled, which is encouraging. One of them is still shouting vainly into the radio.

Leon exhales slowly as he banks, skidding through a roundabout and shooting out onto a mostly-empty street. By now, Bellasseau probably knows what's happened, knows exactly who's gone off the radar, but with communications shut down, he won't know where to send his men.

Which means Leon's got a minute at most before the search goes airborne. On the phone, the pinging grows more insistent. Closer now. A mile at most. Not enough time to lose Bellasseau's men in detours. Time to think outside the box.

There's another roundabout coming up ahead. It's exactly what he needs, even if he's not sure what that is just yet. Leon bites his bottom lip thoughtfully, gives the wheel a few careful wiggles and takes his foot off the gas. Waits, eyes fixed to the rearview mirror and hands set firmly against the wheel, as Bellasseau's men close the gap, as one of them leans out of the window, a gun pointed at his tires.

Then he takes a deep breath, accelerates into the roundabout, and executes a neat reverse J-turn straight into oncoming traffic.

This time he doesn't wait for the shouts or the crunch of metal on metal. He shuts his ears to all of it, to everything except for the pinging phone on his dashboard, and darts through the silver masses of panicked Capitol drivers like a shark tracking its prey.

There's a nondescript cab waiting for him at the coordinates, and for one fleeting moment, he wonders if it's a trap, but then the window rolls down and the Rook's voice hisses, "Get in," and he slams on the brakes and tumbles out of one car and into the other.

He yanks the door shut behind him and exhales. The driver raises one dark eyebrow.

"Nicely done," she says. They're already moving, blending in easily with a flock of other cabs. "That's more anarchy in three minutes than the Capitol has seen in a month, last night excepted. Didn't actually think you'd make it in time."

Leon stares at her for a moment. The woman in front of him has short brown hair, green eyes, and cheekbones that could cut glass. As little as he remembers of Lucretia Enyo, he doubts he'd be able to match her face to this one even if he tried.

She grins at him, sudden and sharp. He tries halfheartedly to wipe the smile off his own face—this is insane, he's just thrown away gods know what for a single shot at the Capitol—but it's hard with the adrenaline still coursing through his veins and the center city dropping away behind them.

"I told you I was in," he says.