Chapter 5: The Allocation of Sponsors and Lady Morrow's Considered Opinion

The Sponsor Allocation had been scheduled, as all Grand Ascension events were scheduled, with a precision that suggested the Court believed punctuality to be a moral category. The tributes were to present themselves in the Amber Anteroom at half past ten — not ten, not eleven, but half past ten, which Honoria noted was the time most calculated to disrupt any productive morning activity while still allowing the Court to feel it had been generous with the morning itself.

She arrived at twenty-eight minutes past.

The Amber Anteroom was exactly what its name promised and rather more than she had steeled herself against: a room panelled in warm pale gold that managed to make every occupant look as though they were being gently illuminated from within, which she suspected was the architectural intention. Tributes stood in clusters of careful proximity — close enough to appear sociable, far enough to make rapid retreat possible. She catalogued the room in the time it took to cross the threshold: Province One's female tribute stationed near the window with three others, four-deep in conversation that was not conversation; Province Six's male tribute standing alone at the refreshment table with the studied nonchalance of a man who knew he was alone and intended to make it look chosen; Callum, already in mild, pleasant exchange with a girl from Province Eight whose name Honoria had not yet managed to acquire, both of them apparently discovering mutual opinions about the anteroom's curtain fabric with every sign of genuine interest.