Peggy tentatively runs one finger along the smooth ridges of Karem's bone, worn down by Linden's handling. It would feel wrong to her to hold a memento of a person she'd never met, and it would also feel wrong to touch the bones of dead tributes somehow. Someone once told her that only the people least worthy of victory won the Hunger Games; she's not sure if she would have considered Scorpii any more virtuous than Linden, but it still feels wrong for her, an unrelated Victor, to touch his and Arta's bones.

"It's not the skill that makes them beautiful." Perhaps the inexperience in his painting makes them more beautiful. It's the heart behind them, the desire to remember. It hums with feeling, and it's not all grief. It doesn't have to be grief. The food given by neighbors--that's full of care, but it's also full of grief, because it's given with the understanding that you may be too stricken or impoverished to prepare food for yourself or your family. It goes away after a set amount of time, and you were supposed to stand up and move on with just the scars on your heart to remember.

She wishes she could help. She wishes she could call in favors or grease palms, but she doesn't have any connections sizable enough in Avox companies. Instead, she just says softly, "I'm sorry." Clay wouldn't be the same, but it would be something. It's the memories that matters the most, anyway. "Is there anything I can do?"