The white void was beginning to ripple, the edges of my "Grace Year" fraying like an old hem. I stood amidst the invisible mountain of my hoard—thousands of bolts of silk, crates of lab equipment, libraries of seeds, and the stolen mastery of a thousand craftsmen.
"How was it?"
I turned to see Fate leaning against a pillar of starlight, looking exactly like a man who knew the ending of every book but refused to spoil it.
"It was... transformative," I said, looking at my hands. They were steady, glowing with a faint, violet hum. "I've built a world inside myself. But where are the others? I wanted to thank them."
"Oh, they have a lot of things to deal with—souls to move, clocks to wind—and so do I," Fate said with a small, cryptic smile. "But I wanted to see you off personally. You've got a spark, Zinnia. Most people would have just hoarded gold; you hoarded possibility."
He stepped closer, his eyes reflecting a million different paths. "Now, for the fine print. You will be reborn as Zinnia Moonlight in District 12. You'll be an orphan living in an abandoned house near the forest. In the eyes of the world, no one has seen you for three years. You're a ghost story, a girl the woods swallowed whole. I'm sending you back just one month before the 70th Hunger Games."
He reached out, his finger trailing through the air. "Good luck, Zinnia. Try not to break the world too much."
The stars rushed at me, and the white mist turned to the smell of coal and cold rain.
I woke up on a floor that groaned under my weight. The house was a wreck, but it was a shell I could fill. I didn't rush to the Square. I had thirty days to turn this ruin into a fortress and myself into a legend.
Using Magic, I didn't just repair the house; I sang to it. Using the All-Tongue, I spoke to the wood and the stone, asking them to hold strong. With a flick of my hand, the rot vanished, replaced by reinforced oak and invisible runes of warding. To the neighbors in the Seam, it still looked like a dilapidated shack, but inside? It was a sanctuary, kept warm by silent, magical hearths.
I spent my weeks becoming a quiet miracle in the Seam. I started with the children—the little ones with hollow cheeks and eyes too big for their faces. I'd find them huddled in doorways and offer a "lucky" piece of fruit or a warm roll. I used the All-Tongue to tell them stories of the woods, befriending them until they began to look for the "Moonlight Girl" whenever the hunger got too sharp. I couldn't feed the whole District without drawing the Capitol's fire, but I could make sure a few dozen children went to sleep with full bellies and hope.
Then, there were the men in white. I didn't treat the Peacekeepers like enemies; I treated them like men far from home. I used the All-Tongue to hear the weariness in their voices. I brought them small packets of food—enough to be a kindness, but not a crime. I even ventured into Victor's Village to find Haymitch Abernathy. He was a jagged piece of glass, but using Life's gift, I quieted the ghosts in his mind for a while and left him bread that tasted like the life he'd lost. "You're too bright for this place," he'd muttered. "Let them try to dim me, Haymitch," I'd replied.
The day before the Reaping, I made my final rounds to the Peacekeepers I'd befriended. To each man, I handed a bundle of small silver chain bracelets—one for him and one for each member of his family back home.
"For luck," I told them, my voice a soft command. "Tell your wives and children never to take them off. They will keep the shadows away." They didn't know the charms were calibrated to their life-signs—that the moment a blade or bullet came for them, the chain would snap and whisk them to the safety of my manor.
The morning of the Reaping was silent. I dressed with a mother's care and an inventor's precision, choosing my vibrant blue Pheasant dress with white polka dots. I styled my hair into a braided bun, secured by my silver hair stick.
I looked at my reflection. I was eighteen. I was vibrant. I was a master of a thousand crafts. I locked my heavy oak door and walked toward Justice Square. The crowd parted. The children I'd fed waved tentatively, and the Peacekeepers at the checkpoints shifted, their hands grazing the hidden silver bracelets under their sleeves. They looked at me with a strange, burgeoning hope.
In a world of shadows, I was the moon. I reached the security line, my heart a steady drum. I am Zinnia Moonlight. And I am going to be the center of attention.