The Abernathy estate was too large for how little remained in it.

Its long corridors held drafts where servants once moved. Portraits darkened with coal soot watched from walls no one had repaired properly in years. Silver had been sold. Horses reduced. Land quietly mortgaged in parcels no one spoke of over dinner.

And most nights, at sixteen, Haymitch Abernathy sat in his late father’s study doing a grown man’s work by candlelight. The Abernathy estate should have collapsed two years ago. Most people in District 12 assumed it eventually would. Its name still carried weight in invitations and introductions, but much of that weight was performance now—held together not by fortune, but by sixteen-year-old Haymitch Abernathy.

Since his father’s death, the work had fallen to him quietly. Not by law. By necessity. His mother could preserve dignity at table, but not negotiate coal contracts. His younger brother Sid was still too young to understand how close debt could come to the door smiling.

So Haymitch learned. Ledgers. Land rents. Which servants could be dismissed without scandal. Which repairs had to be made so visitors would never notice the east wing was one winter storm from failing. How to move money no one believed existed. How to keep a dying inheritance dressed as a living one. And somehow, he was doing it. Barely. But brilliantly. The estate still hosted callers. Still sent a carriage to town. Still appeared, from the outside, noble.

That illusion had become its own kind of labor. And Haymitch bore it with the same sharp stubbornness he brought to everything.

That night he sat in his late father’s study with ledgers spread wide across a walnut escritoire, candle stubs guttering low in silver sticks. He had three account books open, coat discarded, sleeves rolled. Candlelight bent over columns of figures. Rain traced the windows. His pen moved steadily. Correcting. Calculating. Saving his family in sums. When he finally leaned back, he realized hours had passed And beside the ledgers lay the governor’s invitation to the Winter Assembly.

Ignored. Nearly forgotten. He stared at it. A ball was frivolous. Political theater. A room full of men pretending old structures could never crack. But appearances mattered. And in a world built on appearances, absence was sometimes more dangerous than debt. So he rose. Dressed. Fastened a dark coat made elegant through careful maintenance rather than wealth. And left. The governor’s hall blazed with light.

Music spilled from the ballroom in bright, disciplined currents. Inside, noble families arranged themselves into conversations as carefully as marriages. Haymitch entered already detached from it. He knew how these rooms functioned. Power disguised as charm. Desperation disguised as breeding. Every compliment an exchange. Every dance a negotiation. He moved through it with practiced irony. Sharp-eyed. Amused. Unclaimed. And then, the music changed.

Above the ballroom, in the musicians’ gallery, stood the Covey. The traveling family everyone whispered about. Performers. Fortune-readers. Moon-touched, some said. Witches. And at their center...Lenore Dove. Dark curly hair pinned loosely with silver pins A violin beneath her chin. Something strange stitched into the hem of her pale gown, tiny symbols that caught light like moving script. She did not look intimidated by the room.

Then she played. And the chandeliers seemed almost irrelevant. Haymitch forgot, for one dangerous moment, to be skeptical. He found her later in the moon garden beyond the ballroom. Or perhaps, she let herself be found. The garden was old. Stone paths silvered with frost. Bare climbing roses asleep against iron arches. A fountain dark as glass. Lenore stood beside it, one gloved hand resting on the fountain rim. Watching moonlight move on frozen water.

"Are you here to stare at the moon, or are you just making a habit of sneaking up on me?" Her voice was like something darkly sweet, touched with the rough burr of the Covey.