Bowing est Bardus [Nightbird, Onyx, Sarella]

Fire is the only thing that America won't let me practice with inside the house. Ironically, it's one of the safest of all my posessions. Glitter, smoke, dead mice or birds, she has no problem with, but fire is her greatest fear. And, because I trust her and love her, I comply – my favourite magic trick has never conjured up her gasps of amazement or approval, and so I don't keep on attempting it.

They say a magician should never show the same trick twice, for fear that the audience will get the knack of it. They say that if questioned, a performer should not speak, only smile and lower their eyes. But since this invisible they has always been my demon, I find myself repeating the same routine for groups of porcelain children every day. They sit on the crystal-shimmering pavement, their painted faces animated with something almost natural, their chubby fingers clutching at unblemished knees, suspended as if in paralysis by awe and amazement. Awe and amazement for me. I can't help but think, as my fingers dance around each other, blue flame sliding and running between them like spider web, dangling off the minuscule threads of viscous oil that glows on my palms and knuckles, that this is not the way that children should be. In district Thirteen, the few native children that lived there, myself included, spent our days scrambling over the dusty landscape and through the dark tunnels that veined out through our home. Blood and bruising was only ever a sign of a satisfactory day of fun, ragged breath to match our ragged clothing a true indicator of real adventure. In the Capitol, the only blood you see is in amateur tattoo parlours, cosmetic hospitals, birthing clinics or on the overworked Avox' swollen fingers, toes and shoulders. No true Capitolite would dare let a scar or scab damage their cold, hard masks of perfection. I find it even more disgusting than the physical damage I would much prefer.

I pool the still flickering oil into the lightly lined pit of my left palm, brushing my slightly greasy hair away from my eyes, which are intently focused on controlling my magic trick. It is almost as if, even to me, the fire is controlled by my mind, and I'm not lying to the people who are meant to be my masters. As the wavering lilac starts to die, I bring my trick to its never-changing close, conjuring a coin from where it hides under my wrist and revealing it in place of the blaze. I show it to my audience, who giggle and applaud genuinely. The autumn sun makes the gold flare off the ground, almost as if there was another fire to replace my tame purple one. Some come closer and try to grab it from me, or even just dust their sticky fingertips against its cool surface, checking if it is real. Maybe they're amazed that it could possibly be fake, having grown up in such real wealth all their short lives. The irony catches me again; how in such a synthetic, surreal world, the citizens are still stunned by tricks and fakery.

Parents as festively and appallingly dressed as their poster-child spawn retrieve the little ones, some who saw my trick giving me tiny claps or smiles reserved for only their fellows. If they knew me, really knew where I came from, how I got here, they wouldn't be so generous with warm feelings. It's surprising, that America is so well-known amongst this set of people, and yet her servant is often mistake for part of that hand, too. The combination of the fine clothes I don't refuse from her, the absence of hard labour in my luxury life as avox to an artist and my polite, comfortable silence makes it seem more like good manners than the absence of a tongue altogether. My tablet rests in the beaded bag resting beside me, engraved with a list of creative and home supplies I have been asked to buy, along with the command to get something for yourself, Pig. –A. I smile as I think of it, how much she needs me as a friend as well as a runner, butler and entertainer, and stand up to make my way along the street and into the shopping district where my objective lies. Fun and games are all fine, but there's still work that needs doing and I mustn't forget my place – an avox' place. As much as every other bubblehead resident may do so.

The aisles of the market shop are filled with garish, unnatural looking produce and materials, and I wander idly for a while. Letting my eyes adjust to the sun-rivaling brightness of everything here. My bag swings at my side, a pack of cards cartwheeling and somersaulting around the sturdy wax tablet as I move. And then, suddenly, my movements aren't my own. Forced forwards by a clumsy tidal wave in human form, the ground surges towards me as my feet are tangled in other, ivy-like limbs. My hands take most of the force of the impact, my shoulder blades forced together in a painful clash of nerves and muscle. A ragged groan escapes me, hindered by the significant absence of a tongue to carry it out my mouth. My bag is thrown forwards by the momentum, spilling cards everywhere, and I groan again as I scramble to my feet and brush myself down. Ignoring the debris, all of which is the contents of my bag, I turn to help up the person who threw me to the ground. A boy a little younger than myself, with wide, terrified eyes that betray his voicelessness. He, like many others here, must think me to be one of them. My theory is confirmed as he stutters, bowing like a fool and refusing to make eye contact with me. Do I frighten him? He turns to help the others who also seem to have been involved in this accident, and I join him, picking up an infant in a plain white dress and placing her back on her feet. An avox uniform? I have always hated the concept of uniform, like we are all the same criminal, guilty of everything that a judge could come up with, dressed identically. But it's being different that means I'm now making this boy afraid, isn't it?

As I straighten up, the boy mirrors me, and I smile at him before turning to pick up my cards and bag. Absentmindedly, I shuffle them in one hand as a sort of physical mantra, keeping me from worrying, like the two other avoxes in this scene, that I will be severely punished for being involved. For scratch off the neon paint and tear off the tinsel, and this town and its citizens are just as black hearted as anywhere else.