The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: Chapter 26 Summary & Analysis

Sejanus asks Coriolanus about the officer test and insists Coriolanus “deserves” to pass. He’s so “duplicitous.” Later, after dinner, Coriolanus has his first hour of guard duty at an air hangar. The old Peacekeeper he’s paired with goes to sleep, so Coriolanus has nothing to do but think of Lucy Gray. He’d much rather be with her than on guard duty. It was really nice at the Capitol, where Coriolanus always knew where she was. Who knows, Billy Taupe could be trying to win her back right now. Coriolanus spends the next few days thinking of her.

On Friday, Coriolanus is almost relieved to be working with the birds. After the truck drops the recruits at the hanging tree, Coriolanus finds himself in a group with Bug and Dr. Kay. Dr. Kay knows exactly who Coriolanus is and asks how he’s liking the districts. Coriolanus admits he’s learning more here now than he did during school. Dr. Kay shares that she was in 12 during the war and headed the jabberjay project. This makes Coriolanus feel better; the jabberjays were a major failure. Coriolanus engages Dr. Kay in conversation about the birds. She says, lovingly, that the jabberjays, all of which are male, did surprisingly well in the wild.

After Bug brings a caged jabberjay down from a tree and runs back up another tree with an empty trap, Dr. Kay shows Coriolanus how the birds work. Pulling out a small device with buttons, she says that now, the bird is in neutral—he can say what he likes. Then, she puts him on record mode and the bird goes silent. Dr. Kay puts the bird back on neutral and presses a third button—and the bird regurgitates the conversation Coriolanus and Dr. Kay just had. Dr. Kay says that in theory, the birds are the perfect surveillance device: they’re undetectable, unlike a microphone, and if rebels catch and kill one, it looks like just a bird. Dr. Kay says the rebels probably figured out what the birds were because the Capitol didn’t cover their tracks well enough. Or there was a spy on base.

Dr. Kay explains that they can’t use the birds’ homing device to call them back because the transmission system has been disabled. She also laughs that she’s not sure how the birds will behave now that they’ve “gone native.” Then, she says that after being released on neutral, they created mockingjays with the local mockingbirds. Dr. Kay notes that the mockingjays can’t speak at all, but they can mimic music better than mockingbirds. She asks Coriolanus to sing, so he sings a few bars of Panem’s anthem. A mockingjay immediately replicates the melody, others pick it up, and soon they sing in harmony.

Without thinking, Coriolanus says they should kill all the mockingjays. To try to cover up this misstep (Dr. Kay is shocked), Coriolanus suggests they’ll push out native species. But Dr. Kay says if they can’t reproduce with each other, they’ll die out anyway; otherwise, one more songbird in the world won’t hurt. Coriolanus agrees the birds are harmless, but he hates them and distrusts “their spontaneous creation.” By the end of the day, the group has caught 30 jabberjays and no mockingjays.

Back at the base, Coriolanus and Bug help unload the birds into an old hangar and agree to care for the birds. A few days later, on Saturday afternoon, Coriolanus and Bug clean the jabberjays’ cages and help scientists run them through drills. Quietly, Bug suggests the birds would be happier left alone in the woods, but Coriolanus isn’t convinced. The birds might hate 12 as much as he does.

That evening, as everyone prepares to go to the Hob, Coriolanus realizes he’ll have to bring Sejanus backstage if he wants to see Lucy Gray—but will Sejanus then collaborate with rebels backstage? Regardless, Coriolanus and Sejanus head around the bar to what turns out to be a large garage. The Covey are inside and Maude Ivory runs over immediately. She accepts popcorn balls from Coriolanus and, with Sejanus, goes to show the band her treats. Coriolanus kisses and sits down with Lucy Gray.

When Lucy Gray says that she has no idea who owns the garage and that the Covey will “just perch here until they shoo [them] off,” Coriolanus thinks that she always uses bird imagery. He tells her about working with the jabberjays, but this makes her sad—she thinks it’s torture to control their voices. Coriolanus insists there’s no human equivalent, and Lucy Gray asks if he feels free to say what he thinks. Coriolanus knows she’s asking about the Hunger Games and the Capitol, but he says he believes people should speak their minds. Lucy Gray says her daddy thought the same—and he died because of that. Knowing a Peacekeeper probably killed her daddy, Coriolanus spits that a rebel sniper killed his father.

It’s time for the Covey to go on, so Coriolanus swallows his anger. He agrees to join the Covey for a hike to the lake with Sejanus tomorrow and then follows Sejanus back to their bunkmates. Coriolanus decides to get drunk, since he can’t see Lucy Gray after the show. He feels happier and friendlier as the night wears on. At one point, Maude Ivory is onstage with Lucy Gray and says they’re going to sing Lucy Gray’s namesake ballad, which was written by “some man named Wordsworth.” As Maude Ivory sings the ballad, Coriolanus tries to parse the meaning. The song is about a little girl who lives on the mountain and dies after she gets lost in the snow—and then becomes a ghost. Coriolanus hates “ridiculous” ghost stories and thinks it’s terrible. He turns to ask Sejanus about the song, but Sejanus is gone.