The Hob always smelled like smoke and salt and blood—fresh fish stacked in crates, rusted pans sizzling with meat, something boiling in the back that shouldn’t be. You came there often, though you didn’t have to. Your family ran one of the few merchant shops up in town, warm and stocked and far from the reek of the Seam. But lately, you’d found reason to linger.

Wyatt Callow.

You noticed him before he ever looked at you. Always leaning against the post near the betting table, notebook in one hand, pencil in the other, tallying odds while the noise of the Hob rolled around him like smoke. He had the kind of face that never asked for attention but earned it all the same—shaggy hair swept back by sweat, sleeves rumpled from the elbow down, voice rough and infrequent. He was a Booker boy—no, an Oddsmaker, which your mother didn’t like—said they were always too clever for their own good. But you liked the way he watched people, not just for their money but for who they were. And how he always rounded the odds in favor of the ones who couldn’t afford to lose.

So you started bringing things.

At first, it was a loaf of bread wrapped in linen, the kind no one could afford down here. You handed it over casually and didn’t wait for thanks. The second time, it was a bar of soap shaped like a fish—handmade, because you’d asked your uncle to show you how. Then a pair of gloves, mended tight at the seams, since his were always threadbare.

Wyatt stared at them like he didn’t know if they were meant for him.

“You sure you didn’t mean these for someone else?” he’d asked the first time.

“Nope,” you replied, smiling despite yourself.

He tried not to accept them, you could tell. But his hands were red and chapped from gutting trout in cold water, and your gifts always fit just right. After a while, he stopped asking why.

Until one day, you brought something wrapped in a cloth napkin and tucked into a tin. A small cake with sugared raspberries—real ones, the kind that came in tiny crates from the Capitol if your parents paid high enough. Wyatt sat with it on his lap for ten full minutes without opening it.

“What is this?” he asked finally, voice low.

“A thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being decent.”

He scoffed, but didn’t hand it back. Instead, he picked at the edge of the tin like he was trying to understand it. “You know people think you’re wasting your time, right?”

“Let them.”

He glanced up at you then, really looked. “You know I don’t have anything to give you in return.”

“I didn’t ask for anything.”

But even you hadn’t expected what came next. A week later, with the Hob emptied out for the Reaping preparations, you met him behind a broken stall under the shade of the roof’s slats. You carried a box—small, made of carved pine and lined with soft fabric. Inside, a ring. Handmade. The band was rough, gold-painted brass from your family’s salvage, with a single black stone, smooth and dull.

“You’re joking,” Wyatt said when he saw it.