Snow's security team take Katniss to a hotel room on the top floor of a skyscraper that makes her shudder with vertigo. The guests she passes in the halls point and whisper, and some erupt with delight. Katniss ignores them, eyes straight ahead, still wearing her black velvet gown. Her arms are cold, but the ring finger of her left hand burns.

Her room itself exposes the city for miles on every side, the neat spill of lights and traffic and humming buildings. She strips off the dress and takes a very long shower. She doesn't like how she smells: anxiety and perfume and that odd, synthetic smell that hangs everywhere in the Capitol. What she would give for dirt and trees, and coyote offal…

Once clean, she picks through the case of luggage Snow's team left for her. The simplest clothes are silk pajamas, which she pulls on; everything else is formalwear. Who will design her wardrobe? Will she be allowed to choose her own clothes? Or will Snow dress her to his liking?

Though it's well into the night, Katniss doesn't sleep. She wanders the room and recalls, involuntarily, clips of conversation with President Snow. Overwhelming support… No end, no respite… You look unwell… His smile rattles around her skull. He is, in a way, responsible for every terrible thing that has happened to her over the past three years… Over her entire life, in fact. She pictures his eyes and smile, and she thinks of burying him alive in wet soil.

She manages to grasp some fitful hours of sleep before dawn, but anxiety wakes her, and she spends her precious few hours alone picking through the clothes she's been given. The least offensive is a pale blue and girlish sundress embroidered with dark beads, and she is grateful that they have left her a pair of shoes she can actually walk in. She should have made control over her wardrobe a requirement of this ridiculous affair.

The security team – faceless in their helmets – come to collect her at 6am. They say very little: 'Time to leave, Miss Everdeen.'

'Where are we going?'

'The studio. Time to leave.'

This is all she can get out of them, even as they bundle her into a car and drive her through the streets. She must simply trust they will convey her safely to her destination and that none are planning to slit her throat, frame the rebels, and instigate a new war. She wonders if she's of more use to Snow alive or dead.

She eyes her engagement ring as they wind through traffic. Somehow, she knows he wants her alive.

At least for now.

Today's studio is located in the same building as the one she attended the previous night, although in a different wing. The people who work here offer insincere smiles as she passes. Some people snicker at her. Well, of course. She is the girl in love with the President. She must be a laughing stock to anyone with half a brain. But in a few hours, she'll be the girl engaged to the President. Will they snicker then, or would President Snow have their lips cut off?

By the time she is seated in the make-up chair, gazing at her own reflection cast in glowing bulbs, Katniss has a migraine. The lights of the dressing room are white fire against her eyes, and she is subjected to hours of touching, prodding, probing, stroking, trimming, and buffing. Eventually, the door opens and the chatter of the stylists fall silent, and Katniss is almost relieved to see Snow enter. There is a tolerable honesty to him that seems lacking in the Capitol.

'Good morning,' he greets her. 'Did you sleep well?'

'No.'

He takes a seat beside her and an attendant immediately drapes a towel around him. Katniss doubts that he will be subject to the same level of vivisection as she was.

'Were you nervous about today's announcement?'

'Not really.' It is so much easier to speak to him than anyone else here. He is so unlike them, and he indulges the honesty of her hatred. 'I've already ruined my life. This is just making it official.'

'Technically, my dear, the wedding day itself will constitute that.' He does not look at her as a stylist starts to tidy his beard. 'Enjoy your unmarried life while you have it.'

Katniss tries to remain still as someone weaves her hair into a bizarre new shape. 'What happens after today?' she asks. 'Can I go home?'

Snow gives a little shrug. 'I see no reason why not. You can remain in District 12 until the wedding itself. There will be necessary press coverage, of course, but we can send the crews out to your District. They'll be too desperate for interviews to complain about the trip. After that, there will be little reason for you to leave the Capitol. You should say your goodbyes while you have the opportunity.'

Katniss lapses into silence. Circles will be drawn around her life, tighter and tighter, until there is nothing left but her, alone, and President Snow winding about her.

But it can always get worse.

It is then that a stylist materializes at her shoulder and asks – with the tone of a child asking for its birthday presents – if she's a virgin.

'What?' The question slides off her like she's been hit in the face with something rotten.

'I asked,' says the bubbly young man, 'if you're a virgin. This is an engagement announcement. We can't put you in white if you're not a virgin.'

This interrogation would be intolerable in any circumstance. But today, sitting in the back of a television studio, surrounded by a catastrophe of dresses, with President Snow sitting two feet from her, the question makes her want to strangle someone.

'Is my virginity really relevant to a dress?' she snaps.

Snow's low voice sounds beside her. 'No, it isn't.' He looks at the stylist. 'Put her in white. It's an engagement announcement; it's appropriate.'

'Sure thing!' chirps the stylist. 'We are going to make you look stunning.'

Katniss sets her mouth in a thin, silent slice of disgust. She wants her reflection to appear stoic and unshakeable, but it only looks sulky. The stylist runs back and forth, holding laces and silks and cottons up to her face to compare off-white, eggshell, cream, ivory, bone… Which exact shade best conveys her unbroken hymen?

If it even is unbroken. Katniss has climbed a lot of difficult trees in her life. Accidents happen.

She is dragged to a booth that at least affords her some privacy, and starts to try on dresses. The first dress chosen for her is a parody of rustic simplicity, billowing sleeves and lace flowers. Katniss emerges from the booth and thinks she looks like a sacrificial victim.

'Twirl,' instructs the stylist.

She bites her tongue until it bleeds, then does as instructed. Snow turns to watch.

'Beautiful!' exclaims the stylist, hands clapped together.

'Absolutely not,' says Snow. 'We want bride, not child. For goodness' sake, find something more suitable.'

The stylist looks like he wants to cry. Katniss returns to the booth and waits impatiently for yet more dresses to be held against her, shivering in the white-rose-embroidered lingerie they've made her wear, until a structured number in stiff, heavy cotton is deemed a possibility. Katniss is folded into it and then emerges again for Snow to approve or reject. The stylist looks like he's having a breakdown.

'What about this one, Mister President?'

Snow glances over his shoulder. 'Yes, much better.'

'Do you have a lot of opinions on dresses?' Katniss asks flatly.

'I have very few.' Snow returns to his reflection and waits patiently for his own stylist to choose between two extremely similar looking ties. 'But it is crucial that you look like an adult for this.' He shakes his head and tsks his tongue. 'Nineteen years old. It's revolting.'

'I'm ageing as fast as I can.' She can't help the sarcasm; it leaks out of her like oil.

He looks at her with disdain, and something in his eyes makes her remember her father on one of his few bad days, which is an association she despises.

With her hair pinned and a fresh rose fixed to Snow's lapel, they are led to the set. It's the blinding beige of daytime TV, suede couches and soft carpet, a bowl of ugly flowers. Katniss feels her migraine sharpen its teeth.

They sit on the couch together and someone applies a final layer of blush to Katniss to make her look 'less ghoulish' when Snow murmurs in her ear.

'What was the answer to that question? Are you a virgin?'

She pulls a face of disgust and the blush goes all over her temple. The stylist groans and begins to wipe it away.

'Do you seriously need to know?'

'Yes.' He regards her coolly, and Katniss rubs her eyes.

'Yes, I am. Does it really matter?'

He gives a casual twitch of his eyebrows. 'I assumed you weren't. It's useful, in some ways. Less so in others. We were selling you as an experienced woman.' He snaps his fingers at one of the stylists. 'Get her a proper pair of heels; these baby shoes are ridiculous.'

Someone removes her Alice-shoe flats and replaces them with silver stilettos so high she could slide the whole shaft of the heel down President Snow's throat and open him from the inside. At least she doesn't have to walk anywhere.

When it's nearly time to roll the cameras the director approaches them, chewing on a pen, studying them like they are a fascinating riddle for him to solve.

'Okay, so: Mister President, your script is on the autocue. You will read all of the green text, which is nearly everything. Miss Everdeen, you will read the blue text. It's just the one line. Keep your attention 85% of the time on the camera. The rest of the time, look at him. You're distracted, you're in love: you can't help it.' He taps the pen against his temple. 'You're both so stiff. Sit closer together. Hold hands. No, properly – yes, that's better.'

This is the first time Snow really touches her. He negotiates their bodies together with apologetic awkwardness, and her skin ripples queasily as their legs are pressed flush. She can feel the low warmth of him through his suit, worse than the heat of the studio lights, and that smell of perfume and blood starts to seep into her. His left arm goes behind her in what is almost an embrace, and Katniss fights the urge to yell out. When his right hand moves to encircle her own, Katniss jerks away, then she grimaces in what she hopes reads as polite apology and places her small, sweating hand inside President Snow's. The skin of his palm is strangely smooth, though the veins on the back of his hand stand thick beneath her thumb. She is instructed to put her other hand on top of his, exposing her ring, and she feels his skin twitch slightly against her.

She steals a glance at his face. His jaw is set in firm displeasure and this offers her some comfort. At least they're suffering together. It's important for newlyweds to share hobbies.

They are almost ready to begin when the director pauses to adjust her knees. Katniss didn't even know she could do anything wrong with her knees.

'Alright, take one. Let's go! Action!'

President Snow addresses the camera. He speaks slow and warm. Inevitable magma, sliding toward you.

'Citizens of Panem. I hope you will indulge me today in a more informal announcement. As many of you are no doubt aware, I have the extraordinary good fortune of the love of this young woman—' He pauses, looks at her, and Katniss smiles at him the way that Effie taught her, long ago. Snow looks back at the camera. 'Katniss Everdeen, the Victor from District 12, and I would like to announce our engagement. We could not be happier.' He pauses, smiles widely, and she locks eyes on his and tries not to look like she's thinking about disemboweling him. He continues the speech. 'Now, I want this to be a time of peace and celebration for our great nation. We have faced many struggles in these recent years, and there has been much ill-temper that I would like to now put to an end. This will be a time of peace.

'In the spirit of bounty, and of love, the annual grain rations to the Districts will increase by thirty percent. And also, for one year only, as a wedding gift…'

He pauses, looks at her. It's her cue.

'As a wedding gift, for one year, the grain rations will be doubled.' Her voice sounds like a dying wasp.

Snow nods with paternal indulgence. 'I hope that you will join us in celebrating this new era of peace and order for us all.'

They hold their smiles: oh, the bliss of true love! Oh, the era of perfume-scented prosperity! Oh, romance! Et cetera, et cetera.

The director lifts a hand. 'And cut!'

Snow removes his arm and hand politely, neither hurrying nor subjecting her to his touch any longer than is necessary. Katniss wipes her hands on her dress, leaving sweat marks on the white (ivory? bone?) fabric. The engagement ring eats into her skin like a little insect.

'That's all that's required of you today,' says Snow. They walk off the set into the darkness of the studio as a flurry of crew start to rearrange the set in preparation for what Katniss overhears is an interview with some senator. Once they are away from the lights, safely ensconced in the semi-privacy of a corner, Snow's voice drops its volume. 'Are you coping with this?'

She meets his sharp, cool eyes. This is not concern for her wellbeing: if she can't cope, then he will kill her.

'I'm fine,' she says, voice like concrete. 'Are you coping?'

He chuckles. 'My dear Miss Everdeen, I am accustomed to television spots, I assure you.'

'Are you getting accustomed to touching me?' she bites back, and Snow's smile fades ever so slightly.

'It is tolerable,' he answers. 'This, of course, is child's play. It will get worse.'

'How?'

He looks at her with condescending pity. 'Miss Everdeen, all that today asked of us was that we held hands and smiled. There will be so much more. Dances, photographs, tours, events, all of it side by side. The wedding ceremony itself, of course.'

She does not understand at first, and then it comes to her. Of course. The ceremony. Kissing. Of course. Katniss doesn't quite know how this little detail slipped her mind. The ceremony itself occupies so little space in her head; she has been thinking only of the yawning void beyond it, the infinity of Snow, but one of the most terrible parts is just around the corner.

She can feel Snow's breath against her, even now. There is something melancholic in his aspect, and she takes what little comfort she can in his suffering. If she despises his touch, he despises touching her more.

'Can I go home now?' she asks.

He looks at her like she's a tired-out child. 'Yes, I think that would be alright. This, then, will be goodbye until the day of the wedding.' He gives her a final, detestable smile. 'Are you looking forward to it?'

A sneer cuts open Katniss' lips and she lets the hatred seep through. 'It'll be the happiest day of my life.'

The journey home to District 12 is long, but Katniss is finally able to sleep. It is not dreamless, but her nightmares lack the usual narrative arcs of fear and flight and killing and blood. She is beset with abstract images, some familiar and some not: an abandoned minecart, an opal-handed hairbrush, offcuts of meat she needs to prepare, a white flower opening and revealing red inside.

When the train arrives home, all Katniss wants is to return to her familiar bed and think about absolutely nothing for the ten precious weeks she has until her wedding day. But when she reaches her home and pushes, exhausted, through the front door, the silence that greets her is full and throbbing. The parlor is packed as it never is: her mother, Prim, Haymitch, Peeta, Gale. And Buttercup, of course, who seems uninterested in the gathering. Gale avoids her eyes. Peeta looks like a wounded deer.

Her mother rises. 'Hello, dear.'

'What?' she says.

'I was worried when you didn't come home last night,' says her mother. 'We saw you on the television this morning.'

'Oh.'

It's true the signal is pretty bad in District 12, but the power is always mysteriously perfect when there's something the Capitol wants them to know. It hadn't occurred to Katniss that her engagement announcement would meet that bar, but of course it would. The rations announcement, at least, was something everyone needed to hear. She tries to be grateful that she doesn't need to break the news to her family herself.

Those who are looking at her do so with confusion and concern.

'I believe congratulations are in order,' offers Haymitch. He shakes a glass of whisky in her direction. 'Missis Katniss Snow, huh? Nice rock.' He gestures at her hand and she raises it, confused, then remembers. They all eye the engagement ring like it's a venomous spider.

'This is a joke, right?' cuts in Prim. 'It's part of a game?'

'It's…' She cannot stand this. So many eyes watching her. This is worse than the television studio. 'I can't do this right now. I have to go to bed.'

She turns to leave, but Gale blocks her path.

'Katniss,' he whispers. 'Is he making you do this? You don't have to. There's always another way. We can get you out of here.'

'No, it's not like that, he…' She wants to escape. Run for a thousand miles. Somehow, Snow's company was easier than this. 'It was my idea. It's a political ploy, to stop the riots. I just need to go to bed.'

'Honey,' says her mother, and there's the frightened naivety in there that all parents possess, the exceptionalist belief that their children must be alright. 'He's far too old for you, surely? I'm sure there are other, older Victors that he would prefer.'

Katniss closes her eyes. Wants to sink into mud.

'He's done this before, you know,' slurs Haymitch. 'I mean, I don't know exactly, but this happens to Victors all the time. He sells them, whores them out. First time I've seen him take one for himself, though.'

At the word whores, her mother shuts her eyes. But Prim's own are wide.

'So tell him no!' she shouts. 'You won the Hunger Games! You can do whatever you like!'

'She has to do what he tells her to,' says Peeta, his voice quiet and cutting in the room. He and Haymitch have defeat in their eyes. They know the games Snow plays with a particular, bloody intimacy.

'No, she doesn't!' Gale's voice echoes around the house. 'She has options. If you can't tell him no, then let's leave. We can get out of here.' He grasps her arms and Katniss is catapulted back to the studio: Snow's hands, Snow's arm, Snow's breath. She jerks away.

'I can't,' she stammers. 'I… Please, I need to go to bed.'

Prim's voice cuts into the room, and it sounds so small: 'Will you have to go away?' Katniss looks at her sister, at her huge eyes and the little curve of her nose, and her heart shatters.

'Yes, I will have to go away.'

'Forever?'

No one wants to speak now. Her mother has started to cry. Haymitch drinks like it gives him oxygen.

Katniss wets her dry lips. 'He says that you and mother can visit, sometimes.' Her voice is hoarse.

'And what about the rest of us?' says Gale. 'Do we get a dinner invitation to the President's house?'

Katniss takes a deep breath. 'He says that I can still see Haymitch and Peeta at Victors' events.'

Confusion has given way to sour defeat. No one speaks. The only sound is the fire, and Buttercup growling at nothing. Katniss' mother is crying quietly. Among the anxiety and exhaustion, Katniss feels guilt balloon inside her. She has been so preoccupied with keeping everybody safe, she did not even consider the wreckage she's leaving behind.

She refuses to keep the guilt. This, like everything, is Snow's fault.

Just when the silence is becoming unbearable, Peeta peels himself away from the wall. 'I can't be here for this,' he says, quietly. 'I hope this is the right decision. I don't know. I'm not sure I have a place here anymore.' He smiles at her, but it is a smile of wrenching pain. 'I saw how you talked about me on TV.'

The remnants of Katniss' heart break into even more pieces. 'Oh, Peeta—'

'No, no, I get it.' He waves his hands. 'You've got a new narrative to play. It's okay. It's really okay. But I can't be here. If nothing else, people can't see you hanging around with your ex, right?' He grins, and Katniss is just about able to smile wanly back. Peeta pauses at Katniss' side on the way out. 'I hope you take care of yourself. And whatever you do, don't trust him.' He touches her shoulder, very briefly – and then he's gone. The door closes behind him and Katniss feels like she has never been so alone in the world.

'I'm going to bed,' Katniss says, very quietly. 'I'm really sorry. I'm sorry to everyone.'

Every limb feels anchored as she climbs the stairs. Her small body is sinking to the bottom of the sea. How will she be able to live like this? Will it be easier when she never has to see her family anymore, and her whole world is smiling and television and Snow at her side?

She pauses on the landing as a clamor of feet climbs the staircase behind her. She'd recognize those steps anywhere. He can be so quiet when he wants to, but so loud, too, if it suits him.

She turns, her migraine wrapping her mind in cotton wool. 'Gale, please—'

'Katniss?' He looks so strong, and reliable, and he smells like earth and smoke and coal. What she would give to do as he says… take his hand, and run away… and Snow could never touch her again…

'Please, Gale,' she implores. If he keeps talking to her, she'll lose her nerve. 'I need to rest, I need to stop thinking about all of this.'

'Maybe we're looking at this wrong,' he says, his voice low enough that it won't carry downstairs. 'Maybe this is a good thing.'

Even through her exhaustion Katniss can tell these words are total madness coming from Gale.

'Maybe this is just what we've been waiting for.' Suddenly Gale's eyes are all excitement and fire. 'Katniss, you'll have unprecedented access to him. To Snow. We could – I mean, the rebellion could use this.' His eyes widen. 'Imagine if you killed him at the wedding. On live TV.' He laughs as though he's been given the greatest present in the world. 'Katniss, we could take down the Capitol. This could be it.'

Katniss has never felt more exhausted in her life. 'If I kill him, Prim will die.'

'Oh, come on, what can he do once he's dead? This could be it, the thing that gives us the edge.'

'He will have measures in place,' she says steadily. 'He's careful. He's cleverer than us. Killing him will guarantee my family's deaths.'

'Oh come on, think of the chaos!' Gale hisses, as though he cannot hear her. There's a real hint of insanity in his eyes as he thinks about Katniss stabbing Snow with a registry pen while exchanging vows. 'The Capitol would tear itself apart. You marrying Snow… This might be the thing that clinches it for us.'

Curiosity eats at Katniss' exhaustion. She keeps her voice to a bare whisper. 'Gale, are you working with the rebels?'

'Of course I am! How could I not? Every day it's more dead bodies. Do you have any idea how many of my friends are dead?'

And the truly awful thing is that she doesn't. She cannot keep track. She cannot bear to learn the names of the corpses that smolder in the town square, or if Gale's siblings are all still alive, or why she hasn't seen Greasy Sae in at least a month…

'Snow promised the killings would stop,' says Katniss, and even as the words leave her mouth she hates the taste of their naivety.

'Do you trust him?'

Katniss does not know the answer to that question.

'Will you at least consider it? Please, Katniss?' He tries to grasp her arms again, and this time Katniss allows it. 'We can protect Prim. I know we can. We can take her underground. Okay, maybe you won't be able to murder him on the wedding day – but you could do it, when the time is right. Get him alone. Get him vulnerable. I know you can do this.'

'I'll consider it,' she says, very carefully. 'But listen: don't do anything stupid. Don't come after me, don't attack the Capitol. If I can't kill him, you can't do anything that might endanger Prim – or yourself.'

Gale looks as though her through shining eyes as though they've already won, as though the Capitol is crumbling as they speak. 'Yes, Katniss! Yes, we can do this!'

And without a second thought, Gale – who has avoided her, and moped, and sulked for three interminable years – pushes himself against her in a kiss. The moment their lips touch all thoughts of Gale are driven from her mind and Katniss can only think of Snow: flashes of his smile, his breath, his smell. How much will she die inside when they are married and holding hands and his lips are on hers before an audience of the whinnying Capitol…

She's shoving Gale away from her and slamming him against the wall before she even realizes what she's doing.

'I'm sorry, I shouldn't have…' Gale drags a hand through his hair. 'I'm sorry, I just got caught up in the moment.'

It takes a second for Katniss to float back into her body. When she does, she finds her exhaustion is soaked in fury.

'Don't do that!' she hisses. 'Do not ever do that!' She raises her hand and flashes that dreadful diamond, glittering in the dark. 'Do you see this? I'm engaged. I'm engaged to the President. He would kill you in a heartbeat, do you understand?'

Gale does not look as though he understands. 'Yeah.' There's still a grin widening his mouth. 'Yeah, I get it, Katniss.'

At that moment, Katniss is not sure who is more dangerous to her: Gale or Snow.

'You shouldn't come here anymore,' she says. 'There'll be a lot of news crews coming here over the next few months. If they get a shot of something like that, you're dead. Maybe I'm dead, too. Just stay away from me, okay?'

The elation is slipping from Gale. 'Okay,' he says. 'Can I still see you in public? The wedding is in ten weeks, right? We've got time.'

How much easier it is to pretend that everything is going to be okay.

'Yeah,' she says. 'We have all the time in the world.'

She turns away, and once she's locked in her bedroom the exhaustion and the horror of it all slides back into her. Rebellion and murder seem like children's fancies, and the only thing that's real is Snow. Her bed welcomes her, that familiar smell of animal blood and hunting sweat and leather. She lies there for a very long time, doing nothing, thinking nothing, except abstractly of Snow and his smile and his eyes. Her mind traces these elements compulsively, like they're a new, tumorous part of her. She wants to scratch out the inside of her skull. Soon, he'll be the only thing left inside her. Everything else will crumble away like the seeds of feather weed grass, clutched between her fingers as a child, carried away on the wind.

Katniss wanders the dark of the Victors' Village alone, her thumb rubbing against the engagement band. The wakeful nights followed by the hours of sleep she snatched on the train, plus the time difference between the Capitol and District 12, have shaken her sleep schedule and left her tetchy and disoriented. She walks past Peeta's house, dark at this hour, and wonders if he is able to sleep. She might have visited him, once upon a time. The urge is still there, hot in her chest, to seek him out for comfort. He would let her lie with him. He would let her listen to his slow heartbeat and he would tell her that everything was going to be alright.

Katniss keeps walking. The emotional turbulence of it all aside, she cannot be seen spending the night with her ex-boyfriend on the week of her engagement. She might as well deliver the bullet to Peeta's head from Snow herself.

There is light in Haymitch's house. This is familiar: he never sleeps in the dark. But he also stays up drinking until sunrise, so it's a fifty-fifty chance he's still awake.

Katniss takes the steps and tries the door. Unlocked, which either means Haymitch is still awake or that he has been drinking even more than usual. He does not like to sleep unsecured.

There is a low, electronic hum of voices as she enters, and there she finds him standing before the television. One hand on his hip, the other holding a drink, he is studying the projected shimmer of her face and Snow's on that dreadful beige couch.

'In the spirit of bounty, and of love…' Snow intones. Katniss watches her own smiling face, her own hands around Snow's, the press of her body against his. What an absurd insult. Do they look happy to other people? Snow looks perfect: content and commanding, quietly feting his new bride. Katniss thinks she looks insane.

'Why are you watching this again?'

Haymitch must have heard her enter, because he neither jumps nor throws a knife at her head. 'Can't exactly say, sweetheart. Dwelling on misery.'

'You think people are going to buy this?'

He shrugs. 'You make a pretty couple, in a, uh, grandfather-granddaughter kind of way.'

'Ugh,' she mutters. Her own shimmering face beams back at her. 'Can we turn this off?'

Haymitch obliges and aims the remote control. 'You want a drink?'

'Please.'

He grabs a dirty glass, examines it, puts it down, picks up another even dirtier glass, then puts that down and picks up the first again. He fills it generously and Katniss takes it in two hands, cradling the glass, letting the smell of alcohol drive away that of roses.

'Are you sure you want to go through with this?' he asks her. 'He's not forcing you into it?'

'It was my decision. I mean, as much as anything is your own decision in this place.'

'Maybe he only made you think it was your decision,' Haymitch counters. 'He loves mind games. He loves games in general.'

'I know,' she says quietly. She stares into the golden whisky glow and wishes she could drown in it. 'Did you mean what you said before? About Snow prostituting people?'

Haymitch gives a ramshackle shrug and collapses on the couch. 'That's what I hear, and I've seen enough to believe it. Sells Victors to whoever wants to buy them. There's a lot of money in it, I guess. Or power.'

'But he doesn't buy them himself?'

Haymitch shakes his head slowly, sprawled like a scarecrow. 'No. No, I haven't heard of that before. He keeps himself out of it. Likes to think he's better than everybody else, maybe.'

Katniss sips her whisky and thinks about the sour, rich taste of Snow's wine. 'He says I don't need to have sex with him. He says it's just about the politics of it.'

'Do you believe him?'

She chews the inside of her mouth. 'I think so. He gave me his word.'

'Peeta's right, you know. You can't trust him.'

'I do, though.' She frowns. 'I think he finds the idea of sleeping with me kind of disgusting.'

'Well, that's very rude of him, because you're a very pretty young lady,' Haymitch teases gently. 'You know, he's an old man. Maybe he can't get it up anymore.'

Katniss toasts. 'To my future-husband's impotence.'

They clink glasses and exchange dry smiles. Haymitch always makes the worst things easier. No pretty lies, no sugar-coating. It's the same kind of honesty she finds comforting in Snow.

'You know, I never thought I'd get married. I always hated the idea. Marriage, kids, more reaping, more death…' She takes a gulp of the whisky and it sears her throat. 'I never thought things would end up this way.'

'We never expect our lives to end up the way they do.' Haymitch's glass throws whisky-gold light angels against the wall. 'You try to get through the days, one after the other after the other, just waiting to get around the corner… Waiting for your life to be different, somehow… Lighter…' He takes a long breath. His voice is plain and unpitying. 'And then, one day, you realize: that's it. That's all your life has been and will ever be.'

Katniss breathes deep the whisky and must-smell of Haymitch's home that she once so despised. Soon it will only be a memory, just one more thing taken from her; stolen, slipped into the pocket of the Capitol as though for safe-keeping.

'I can't picture my life anymore,' she says. It stretches out before her, a thin ghost, and in it there's more blood, more death, and there's Snow. Always and everywhere, ready to weave into the fabric of her soul, there's President Coriolanus Snow. 'I feel like I'll just drop dead on the wedding day.'

Haymitch says nothing to this for some time. A dog barks somewhere. It's so quiet without the sound of gunfire and death.

At last Haymitch says, with great portent, 'There's only one thing I know for certain.'

'What's that?'

He fixes her with a heavy-lidded, ironic smile. 'I sure as hell ain't buying you a wedding present.'