The moonlight cast a silver glow over District 12, brushing soft shadows across the bare hills and sagging rooftops. The holler was quiet tonight—too quiet, Lucy Gray thought. It used to hum with fiddle strings, echo with laughter, and sway with the stomping of Covey boots as they danced to their music. Now? It felt like a tune left unfinished.

She twirled a velvet ribbon between her fingers, eyes distant as she stared at it. It once belonged to Billy Taupe, who had saved up his liquor money to buy the beautiful fabric. 'Someone with your pretty face ought to have a pretty ribbon along it,' He said to her long ago when he died, the ribbon to her braided hair. That was when they first began to date and shared their first kiss.

That was till he gave his voice, his music, and his heart to Mayfair Lipp, the mincing, spiteful daughter of the mayor, with her silken curls and practiced smiles. Vicious creature with red lips that looked gaudy on her pretty, pale face. A girl that Bully Taupe also began to date, not long after he began to date Lucy Gary.

"Coward of a man," Lucy Gray muttered as she gripped the ribbon in her hand. She didn't dare put that thing in her hair once more. Instead, she tied it around her wrist, a sign of mourning but strength, as she once read in the old books the Covey owns.

And it ain't just a betrayal of her love but to the Covey he once was a part of. Excommunicated now, the name Billy Taupe is nothing more than dirt that she steps on every day with her head held up high as she sings away her pain.

She also danced away the pain, swaying her hips side to side as her long skirt created a ripple of colors. That was what she did every night at the tavern as her songs echoed through the air and had people dancing to the tune.

Tonight was no different. The air was thick with smoke and sweat as well as clinking glasses and stomping feet. Lucy Gray stood on the small wooden stage, alongside her cousins, Barbe Azure and Maude Ivory.

"Love's a lie in a satin dress, with a sugary smile and a dagger's kiss..."

Lucy Gray spun to the rhythm of the guitar as she strummed its strings. The ribbon caught in the light as it whipped in the air. She was lost in the music, her voice echoing through the room. She almost didn't pay attention when the door creaked open. But when she looked down from the ceiling lights, she paused in her movement.

Billy Taupe. He smiled away like the devil couldn't reach him, as if he had not begged to come back into Lucy arms not even a month ago when found out. And in his arms, wrapped around like two snakes crushing its prey, was Mayfield, all dressed up and wore a heavy perfume that reached Lucy gray nose from across the room.

Her fingers stiffened around the mic stand. And when Billy Taupe caught her eyes, his murky brown meeting her bright ones, her heel missed its mark. While the stage provided a perfect height for its performance, it was begging to break any second.

The world spun.

A gasp echoed as Lucy Gray tipped forward—stage edge vanishing beneath her in a flash of panic.

But before she could brace for the crash of floorboards and the sound of her guitar smashed into pierces, strong arms caught her mid-fall. Not Billy’s. Not a Covey member.

You.