There is another Capitolite in her midst, a man who had the nation under his foot and never forgot the feeling. Augustus Sinclair spent the better part of the decade since the war in a state of political limbo: he was a prisoner under protection. In exchange for his freedom (and ensuring Ilar and the Honeymeads were not harshly prosecuted), he sang like a canary and opened the Solutions' books and ledgers to see just how deeply indebted the Capitol had become towards the Districts. He knew the only reason he was still alive was his usefulness for the new government: someone had to manage the finances, though he was supervised under threat.

Gone was the vast fortune of a man who sold paradise to save his own skin, but he never agreed to any renunciation of his past. And to see that familiar face, still beautiful after all these years...

"They have your energy," he managed to murmur, his face now covered in a beard to better hide among the population. "Your daddy would love t' see 'em." The boys were the spitting image of their father but ten years softened Sinclair's hatred of the Compson name. They didn't choose to be born from cheap and traitorous stock.