Putting the faith in anything the Capitol does making sense. Tsk tsk.

"They are." Forty-six of them. More than the old Hunger Games ever had; Venus' flimsy rationales creak and crumble under the weight of forty-six children. She sighs deep, more an inverted gasp than a melancholy musing, and she screws her eyes up for a second as she tries to make a place in her mind for this kind of enormity.

"I try to tell myself that at least the kids don't have to do all the killing this way, but they still find ways around it. Ways to make them suffer the most."