Katniss wears black velvet for the interview: slim, floor-length, sleeveless. A real, grown-up dress. The stylist says the most important thing is to make people think of her as a woman. Katniss thinks the most important thing is not to throw up when she tells a million people that she's in love with President Snow.

The interview will be hosted on Victor Vignettes. An occasional show featuring three Victors who discuss their tolerably exciting lives since they became celebrity murderers. They will talk with Caesar Flickerman and wear beautiful gowns, and they will laugh about their new fashion lines and the children they once killed.

The first two are the warm-up act. Katniss is dessert. The news she is here to deliver is so delicious, after all.

It's a smaller studio than the one to which she was taken for her Hunger Games interview. The audience, too, is a far smaller crowd. But this is going out live, and everyone will be tuning in.

After the first Victors take their turn and blather about their insipid fortunes, the show cuts to break and Katniss is ushered to the edge of the set. Behind the cameras, she watches Caesar going through his note cards. He has been apprised of the situation. Whatever is written in those notes does not seem to please him. How could it? If he botches this job, it's both of their heads.

An assistant runs up to her and checks her hair and make-up. 'You're on in thirty seconds, Miss Everdeen,' he says.

'Great.' She adjusts the dress, which insists on riding up. At least the black feels appropriately funereal.

A huge, red digital clock is counting down the seconds until they're on air. The audience falls into a hush. This is what they've all been waiting for.

Katniss hopes they keep their vomit down, too.

3, 2, 1…

The lights bloom over the stage and Caesar is lit celestial as he walks on and the theme music screams out. 'Welcome back, folks!' he announces. 'Now, for our third and final guest, it's a newcomer to Victor Vignettes. You know her, you love her: Miss. Katniss. Everdeen!'

For one brief moment she considers fleeing, and then Katniss strides across the stage into lights that burn her retinas and smiles her well-practiced smile at her host.

'Katniss Everdeen, it is an absolute treasure to see you again.' Caesar kisses her on the cheek, then leads her to the two cosy, conversational chairs. So intimate you'd almost believe it was a real conversation between friends.

'It's wonderful to see you too, Caesar.' She glimmers like a butterfly, all smiling delight.

They start with the small-talk. What is it like to be a Victor? What has she been doing? What are her future plans? It's all chaff, of course. It's the sawdust that protects the precious, awful diamond they are here to deliver. Katniss can feel her blood sliding through her as the moment approaches.

When it is time for the main event, Caesar tells some banal joke and the audience laughs, and Katniss laughs, and then he leans in for a final, offhand, conspiratorial question.

'Now, the last time we spoke, we learned so much about your love life. You were involved with another Victor: that adorable boy Peeta Mellark.'

This is the first stage of their narrative. A picture of Peeta flashes on the screen and the audience offer an adoring chorus. It's an old picture. Peeta looks like someone she doesn't know: round-faced, young, and rosy. The outdated choice of photo is deliberate, and Caesar's use of the phrase adorable boy is not an accident.

'Oh, Peeta and I aren't together anymore,' she says, to a round of disappointed awws from the audience.

Caesar affects sadness. 'I am so sorry to hear that. Might I ask what happened, or is it too painful to talk about?' He touches her hand. This is all what she expected: set them up, knock them down.

'No, no, Caesar, it's no trouble to talk about.' She pats his hand. Her next words are carefully rehearsed. 'I will always care for Peeta. He was my childhood love, you know? But we all grow up, and, well, I'm an adult now.' She pauses to laugh: quiet, controlled. She had to practice that one for an hour.

'I can see!' says Caesar, and turns to the audience. 'Doesn't she look a sight?' They cheer and howl. Katniss smiles and clenches her teeth. 'What a vision! Not the plucky girl we first met, is she?'

'You're very kind, Caesar.'

'So—' And here Caesar leans in, gets serious. 'Is there anyone new in your life, Katniss?'

She tilts her head. Smiles again. She must get the angle right so she can nail the perfect degree of coquettishness for camera 3. 'Well…' she begins, teasing.

'Oh, do tell! We want to know, don't we?' He gestures at the audience and they whoop like trained dogs.

'I wouldn't exactly say that there's anyone new,' says Katniss, very carefully, 'But I do have feelings for someone else.'

Caesar's smile bears his luminous teeth. 'What a lucky man!'

'I don't think he knows I exist.'

The audience chorus in sadness once again. Katniss dips her head, a wounded bird. Get them on your side.

Caesar touches his chest, mock-offended.

'My, my, Katniss, if he doesn't know you exist then he must live under a rock.'

'Oh, well, that's not quite what I meant.' She's tripping up her words. She is about to laugh again to cover it, then swallows it. She can't go looking like a tittering schoolgirl. This must be immaculately executed. 'He's just very busy, and important. And famous.'

Caesar holds his note cards up to his face and pantomimes a stage-whisper to the audience. 'Folks, I think I may be in with a shot!' They laugh. Katniss smiles indulgently. 'But seriously, Katniss, tell me about him. Or is it a secret? Perhaps we can make some magic happen tonight.'

'Well, we first met three years ago,' she begins. She must get this perfect. Get it perfect, or her family will be shot in the back of the head. 'I felt drawn to him immediately but, well, I think everybody does. He's…' She pauses. Draw it out. Make them want it. 'He's a genuinely extraordinary man.' She says this firmly, declaratively. Caesar nods as though she has imparted sage wisdom. 'We didn't speak very much, at first. I was in the Games, and he… Well, let's just say he was pretty busy. But we've had the opportunity to get to know one another a little better of late. And…' She pauses again. Stares into the distance. Eyes misting, thoughts of romantic fantasies that the mere mortals watching her cannot comprehend. This is all part of the show. 'I love him,' she says, as though it's the simplest thing in the world. 'I've loved him for years, now. And sometimes I think he might feel the same, but… there are obstacles.'

Caesar looks as though this is the most moving story anyone has ever told. He makes it very believable. 'Why oh why has this mystery man not swept you off your feet? He must be a fool not to want you.'

'Careful what you say, Caesar!' She laughs, and he laughs, and then she resumes. Mature, comprehending, accepting, in love. 'It's complicated. He's much older than I am. I think he's worried about what people would think.'

Caesar opens his arms and addresses the audience. 'Hey, folks, love is love, am I right?' They cheer in raucous delight. She is startled to realize that this is going well.

But one wrong word, one misplaced bat of an eyelid, and it's death for all of them.

'He's an important man,' she continues, 'And I would never want to be a burden on him. He has so many public responsibilities. But when we're alone together…' She pauses and indulges the kind of sigh that would blow out the stars. 'He looks at me, and I look at him, and I feel completely content. I love him.' She gives a tiny shrug: this love is the simplest thing in the world. Oh won't you accept it?

Caesar is clutching his chest again. The audience hold bated breaths.

'Oh Katniss,' says Caesar, in almost a whisper. 'You must tell us the identity of your mystery man. I think my heart will break if I don't see a happy conclusion to this.'

He corrals the audience and they explode into shouts of encouragement and demands for the reveal. Katniss breathes in and out. She feels like she's about to serve them a severed head.

'It's Coriolanus Snow,' she says.

A gasp ripples the audience without Caesar's prompting. Katniss is sure she hears disgust in it, shock and repulsion. They are turning against her, surely. They'll tear her to pieces before Snow gets a chance to load a gun…

But Caesar is a professional. He holds her eyes with such intensity it is hard to believe that this is all rehearsed.

'Talk about a power couple,' he says with complete conviction, then turns and beams to the audience. 'Can you imagine them together? What a stunning pair.' Then he takes Katniss' hands and she tries to hold up the smile that is threatening to cave her face in. 'Katniss Everdeen, if ever anyone had the power, the ferocity to burn as bright as our President, it would be you. It would be you.'

'Oh, Caesar—'

'No, no, I'm entirely serious. You two would make an outstanding couple. Wouldn't they, folks?'

There is no hesitation: the audience shreds into applause. For a moment, Katniss' smile slips. She is stunned. Have they all been drugged?

'Well, let's go to the polls!' Caesar rotates his chair. The camera will fill the frame with his face, now, as the call-in question is posed. 'Folks at home, do you think Katniss Everdeen should follow her heart and confess her feelings to President Snow? Send in yes if you want to give a shot for true love! We'll be back after the break!'

The theme music cacophonies around them. Caesar leans into Katniss and they both smile and talk meaningless babble. 'Oh, we must do this again, Katniss—' 'Oh, yes, thank you, Caesar—'

Someone yells, 'And we're off-air. Three-minute break, people.'

Caesar leans back and flicks off his mic. He gives Katniss a smile that's several molars smaller than his usual. 'You doing alright, Katniss?'

'I'm fine.' She keeps her own smile up. The audience can tolerate Caesar taking a thirty-second break, but she cannot afford to let her character slip for even a moment. Her performance can never end. 'You were excellent.'

'It's a tricky business,' he says, twisting open bottled water and drinking deep. 'But that went well. Very well. We'll see if it was enough.'

He flicks his mic back on and jumps to his feet, all sparkles and energy again, and he goes to keep the crowd warmed up. 'Are we all having a good time, folks?'

Katniss tries not to fidget. In a few minutes, she will know if the gambit was successful. It will probably be her death sentence, either way. Across the Capitol as well as the Districts, thousands of people will send in their responses, desperate to be a part of this blasphemous romance that Caesar has sold so well. He has, as ever, dressed up a corpse and the audience has blown it kisses.

Once the huge on-set clock starts to count down from ten, Caesar rejoins his seat. He adjusts his tie. This is it. Someone mouths three, two, one…

'Welcome back!' he exclaims to one of the many cameras. 'You have just returned to see the conclusion of our final section of Victors' Vignettes, where we are catching up with Katniss Everdeen, who has just revealed to us the spectacular news that she is in love with none other than our one and only President Snow. Now, pollsters, can we get an answer to the question we asked before the break: should Katniss Everdeen follow her heart?'

A huge graphic representing the poll results appears on the screen. The bars slide up and down, up and down, spinning tension out of pixels. Katniss watches the poll bars vibrate. A yes means the safety of her family, the abolition of the rebellion, and the ruination of her life. A no means Prim's severed head.

For a sick, guilty moment, she hopes for no. A world opens up before her, one of grief so sharp it would tear her to pieces, where Prim and her mother's beds lie empty, and where the families of Peeta and Gale mourn yet another dead child. It would be pain like no other. But at least it would be at an end. She could die, if she wanted. Nothing would matter anymore. She would be free.

The numbers appear and start to count up, digits cascading, slowing as they reach their maximum. 10%, 18, 24…

The numbers freeze in place.

Yes: 83%

No: 17%

The first bar is verdant green. Spring grass and phlegm. Katniss feels faint. She claps her hands beneath her chin and laughs like a hyena. It's sincere hysteria.

'Well, the people have most certainly spoken!' announces Caesar. 'How encouraging it is to see so much support for such a pure and beautiful love! My, my, Katniss! I hope that President Snow knows how lucky he is! We're all rooting for you, Katniss Everdeen!'

When Katniss gets beyond range of the cameras, she retches into a make-up bag. Her head is swimming with the lights and a thick sheen of sweat has plastered her dress to her back. Perhaps it's not too late. Perhaps she can run back in front of the cameras, say it was all a big joke… Oh, Caesar and her cooked it up… Oh, what a riot, her and the President… Who could possibly believe such a thing?

The show concluded, Caesar Flickerman strides off set and pats her shoulder once. 'Good luck, Katniss,' is all he offers. And she is alone.

But not for long. Soon, she won't ever be alone again.

A runner comes up to her holding a shining red telephone. It catches the light like blood. 'For you, Miss Everdeen.'

She knows who it is, of course. He doesn't even bother to introduce himself when she holds up the receiver, which is warm like a living creature.

'Well done, Miss Everdeen,' says President Snow. His voice is warm like dying roadkill. 'It seems you and I need to talk.'

The hovercraft takes her to a restaurant. Away from the colorful, giggling crowds, she is led around the back to a private room, huge and crimson and dim, the walls flocked with strange flourishes. The only light is breathed by candles and all but one table is empty. At that one table, there is only one occupant, immersed in the dark, who is watching what she knows is the recording of her interview.

President Snow doesn't look up at her, even when she reaches the table. From the hologrammatic screen she hears her electronic voice pipe like a child: 'He looks at me, and I look at him, and I feel completely content. I love him.'

'How quaint,' says Snow, and flicks off the recording. They meet one another's eyes. Neither looks content.

'How did I do?' she says. No point being coy. They are about to become so very close, after all.

'You were tolerable.' He gestures at the seat opposite. 'Please, sit.'

It is strange to sit with him like this, as though they are both human beings. She is accustomed to seeing his face on twenty-feet tall screens in the square, glowing and superb. Here, by candlelight at dinner, he looks like an old man: mortal, skin sunken, hair slightly disturbed. As he unfolds a thick, cotton napkin, she notes he is also wearing deep, black velvet, just like her. She hopes this is coincidence.

Two glasses of purple-red wine mirror the candlelight. A waiter sets a plate before her and she examines it. It shimmers with a familiar food she has not seen in a long time, not since a cold and starving childhood winter. Snails.

She thinks this is a joke until she sees the same plate set before President Snow, who lifts a slim fork without objection.

She will never understand the Capitol.

'Now the board is set, and we can make our moves as we wish.' His mouth quirks in what could hardly be called a smile. 'Do you know how many civilians have been killed in the riots since your interview concluded?'

'No.'

'Zero.' He gives a tiny incline of his head. 'It seems that even violent, bloodthirsty rebels can be distracted if you throw them bizarre enough a bone.'

'So people bought it?'

'They did.' He spears a snail and brings it to his lips, and she thinks about ripping the fork from his hand and sliding it into his sclera. 'Overwhelming support, indeed. I admit, Miss Everdeen, I did not anticipate quite so positive a reaction. It seems the public has an enduring fondness for you and your little broken-hearted performances.' She watches him eat and neither says anything for a while, until he raises his eyebrows at her. 'Are you not hungry?'

She looks at her undisturbed plate. 'We only ate snails when we were dying of starvation.'

'Interesting,' he says, which it isn't. 'Escargot is a rare dish. I had thought to treat you. But you can suit yourself.' He sets down the fork, dabs at his mouth, and Katniss notes that a little blood comes away on the napkin. 'To business, then. Let us first consider your ridiculous list of demands.'

'I'm not doing this unless you do what I asked for.' Her voice is catgut-taut.

'My dear, you have no leverage.' He spreads his hands. 'You do as I say, or your family dies. It is really that simple.'

'If the people don't believe it, the distraction fails,' she begins. 'If the Districts don't get anything in return, the riots will continue. A wedding won't make people forget that they're starving to death.'

He smiles at her. His eyes are blue and golden in the candlelight. 'Perhaps, Miss Everdeen. It might be that I can find some budgetary flexibility to increase the Districts' rations. Not much. But some. By, say, ten percent.'

'Double them,' she says, immediately.

'Ten percent,' he repeats.

'Double,' she also repeats.

'Again, Miss Everdeen, you have no leverage.'

'You're an idiot if you think that will do anything,' she says, voice flat, knives in her eyes. 'Double it, and maybe people will stop killing each other.'

He reclines in his chair and regards her, smiling again, and for a moment she's able to forget the whole idiotic marriage plot and just think about what it would be like for the poor of District 12 to have enough to eat. So many deaths would never happen. Never again would you find a child, cold and curled like a bird's nest at the bottom of a trash can.

He has no intention of giving only ten percent. He just wants to play with her. And she's bored with games.

'Why don't we save time and you just tell me how much you're really willing to give them,' she says.

He smiles more. He seems to be entertained. She thinks about stuffing his throat with snail shells until they slice open his trachea from the inside.

'Thirty percent increase,' he says, at last. 'But for this year only, it will be doubled. As a wedding gift.'

At the word wedding her front falls and she remembers, with the sound of something dead hitting the ground, what this whole scheme is about. Of course. She is having dinner with her fiancé.

She picks up a snail shell with her fingers and crushes its sharp edge into her palm.

'Good,' she says, and takes a mouthful of wine to cover her disgust. It tastes like ripe death. 'And you'll ask the Peacekeepers to stop killing innocent people?'

'I will recommend that the application of lethal force be reserved for only the direst circumstances.'

'And my family and friends?'

He inclines his head. 'Your mother and sister shall have my protection, as my future in-laws. I can extend no such promises to your friends, but I promise that no threats against them come from me.'

'I need to believe that,' she says. 'I need to know they'll be safe. You've killed people's families before.'

He looks a little impatient. 'Miss Everdeen, if you become my… wife… then I shall protect your family as long as I am able. I give you my word.'

The snail shell cracks in her hand and butter seeps over her palm. She drops it back on the plate.

'Okay,' she says. 'Fine. I'll do it. If you do as you say you will, I'll go through with this stupid farce.'

President Snow leans forward. His expression is curious to her: there is almost real concern behind the cool disdain.

'Miss Everdeen, are you sure you want to do this? To be clear, this is not a question regarding your comfort. It is about your ability. You must remember, if we enter into this arrangement, it will be for the rest of your life. It will never stop. No end, no respite. Every moment you are outside the walls of my home, you will need to play your role. Every person you talk to will need to believe that we are happy newlyweds. You will have no confidants. No friends. You will never be able to breathe a word of the truth to anyone. You will witness death. You will witness suffering. And you will need to stand by my side and smile, for the rest of your life. If you make too many mistakes, if you become a liability, I will have you killed and frame the rebels.' He smiles at her as though this is simply polite chit-chat. 'Is this really something you can handle?'

Katniss looks away from those arctic blue eyes and counts the flourishes on the wallpaper. He lets her consider, not hurrying the decision, and Katniss hopes for rational arguments and counter-arguments and facts and fallacies to flood into her mind. But nothing comes. Only the four, five, six count of the soft tips of the flocked patterns that pass over President Snow's head like peculiar clouds.

Her gaze drops onto that thick napkin, where she can still see a drop of Snow's blood.

'It's not for the rest of my life,' she says at last, eyes fixed on that flash of red. 'Only for the rest of yours.'

'Touché.' He turns over the napkin and hides the blood. 'But I assure you, Miss Everdeen, my… ailments… such as they are, are not likely to end my life any time soon. We could be together for twenty, thirty years. Longevity may be a rarity in the poverty of District 12, but in the Capitol, we live long lives with excellent medical care. And when I do pass on, well, your life might not be so easy after that. Who knows what vultures will crowd in to peck at you?'

Thirty years. Katniss cannot imagine thirty years, side by side with her enemy, counting the seconds until his heart locks up. She pictures happy accidents: a slip down the stairs, a hovercraft accident, perhaps she could slide something sharp into his food…

'Do I really have a choice?'

'Yes, of course you do,' he says, with some surprise. 'I am not going to enter into a forced marriage, Miss Everdeen. If you would prefer to revert to my original plan and address the Districts and stop the rebellion through well-metered words then, well, that option remains open to you.'

'That will never work. Especially now the whole world thinks I'm in love with the President.'

He smiles. 'Perhaps you should have considered that before you declared your affections on live television.'

She folds her arms. Counts the wallpaper. Twenty-six, twenty-seven… Imagine every flourish a year. Imagine your life marked by seconds, minutes, hours, months yawning out one after the other after the other, tomorrow and tomorrow, as you die inside a little more every day.

'If I refuse to make the speeches, or if I make them and fail, you'll kill my family?'

'I will.' He says this quite genially, almost as though it is a favor to her.

She has run out of wallpaper to count. Snow is staring at her, unmoved, and she feels like just being near this man is going to poison her. His blood-breath will fill her with red, wriggling worms.

She fixes him with her most hostile stare. 'Do I have to sleep with you?'

For the first time in their conversation, President Snow looks discomfited. 'No, of course not. I have no interest in that sort of thing. This is a political arrangement, nothing more. You have my word.'

She exhales. Imagine your life. Imagine it as a flying insect, trying to land on pond scum, and getting sucked in and stuck to the surface, legs scrabbling, spiracles filling with filthy water. Imagine it like that, for thirty years… For more…

'Yes, I'm sure I want to do this,' she says.

'You look unwell,' he observes.

She shakes out her hair, readjusts her chair, tries to cool the nausea lapping against her. 'I'm fine. So, what happens next?'

He leans back. 'Well, Miss Everdeen, the first thing is a gift.' He reaches into his jacket and extracts a small, black box. He sets it on the table before her.

If Katniss had grown up in a wealthier District, perhaps the box would have meant something to her. But this gesture is alien. She takes the box, clicks it open.

'Oh,' she says, flatly.

The engagement ring is not ostentatious, which surprises her. Silver band, a single diamond. It isn't as loathsome as she thought it might be. She wonders if he picked it out.

'As far as our public narrative is concerned, this night will be the one on which I proposed to you and you accepted. You will, therefore, need to wear this ring at all times. At all times, Miss Everdeen. If you lean out of your window not wearing this ring, and a camera catches you, then that's three days of press coverage of the supposed breakdown of our relationship.'

'Can't you just tell the news what they're allowed to say?'

'I do.' He smiles. 'But we allow them a degree of liberty. It is useful to gauge what the common people believe. You will never take that ring off. Is that clear?'

Katniss looks at the little silver shackle. 'Do you have to wear a ring?'

'It is not customary for the groom to wear an engagement ring. But a wedding band, yes. I will wear that for the rest of my life.'

Katniss thinks about grinding the diamond into President Snow's eyeballs, one after the other, until two bloody recesses remain.

But she doesn't.

'Fine,' she says. She fumbles with the case, yanks out the ring, and shoves it onto her finger. It glitters in the candlelight like viscera. She already feels the digit burning. It will grow hot and drop off. It will be all that remains of her, and they will send it back to District 12 in a box.

'Now, we must discuss the timeline. You did well to establish a three-year flirtation between us. That will make a rapid engagement less controversial. I think ten weeks is the minimum the public can accept as a reasonable timeframe for the wedding. We will announce the engagement tomorrow and I will deliver my new… policies for the Districts. After the wedding itself, you will move into my home and you will be at my side for all appropriate public events. In private, you will remain in my home or the Capitol – under escort, of course – and you can occupy yourself however you wish, within reason. Is this all acceptable to you?'

Katniss' eyes are glassy. These words slide past her like slush. 'Whatever.'

'I need you to pay attention, Miss Everdeen.' His voice is sharp and her eyes lock onto him. 'Any slip on your part could bring this crashing down. Right now, you are not doing a very good job of convincing me that you are capable of this challenge.'

She closes her eyes. Pictures the drowning bug. Opens her eyes. 'I understand, President Snow. Will I be allowed to see my family and friends?'

Snow shrugs. 'I see no reason your mother and sister can't visit on occasion. It would be entirely inappropriate for the Mellark boy to enter my home, of course. You can see him and Mr Abernathy at Victor events.'

Katniss feels the lights of her life snuff out, one by one. The flocked wallpaper starts to close in on her like swarms of flies.

Snow glances at his watch. 'This has been a long evening, and doubtless you have a lot to process. I suggest you rest. My team will take you to a hotel. In the morning, we will make a televised announcement of the engagement.'

'Okay.' She moves to stand, but he holds up a hand to stop her.

'Miss Everdeen,' he says, firmly. 'This is your last chance to change your mind. If you walk out of this room wearing that ring, that's it. No turning back. We will be married within three months.'

She pictures slicing him in so many places that no skin remains. She pictures blood gushing out of him like sewage. She doesn't bother to smile. 'I look forward to our nuptials.'