It's forty-nine minutes until the wedding and Katniss has thrown up twice. Confined to her hotel room, she has been instructed not to eat anything until after the ceremony, but by 9am she was starving and the complimentary nuts and fruits and little chocolates proved impossible to resist. Then the stylists arrived and started to compress her and bind her into the corset and bustier, which Katniss is sure is tighter than it was during her fitting, and she has to excuse herself to vomit up a mess of half-chewed pecans and bonbons.

It takes four hours to get her fully strapped into the dress. It is huge: puff sleeves, skirts in layers upon layers of lace and satin, an extraordinarily low neckline that bares the cleavage they've managed to maul from her chest. Once they leave, all Katniss wants to do is pace the room with anxiety, but she soon gives up trying to haul the dress around and collapses on the bed, floating in skirts like a drowned rat. The layers spread in all directions and her stockinged feet kick at nothing. She has already sweated through the dress and is aware how strongly she reeks of anxiety.

Well, perhaps it will cover up Snow's terrible blood-smell.

For the Capitol, her make-up is what one might describe as tasteful and understated, but they've slathered her olive skin in pale powder and smeared rouge around her eyes. The effect is supposed to be that of a porcelain doll. Katniss thinks she looks like she's got pinkeye. They've plastered over her bitten-down, bleeding nails with long, pale extensions which would make it perilous to use the bathroom.

Not that she even can in the dress.

Katniss considers once again the urge to throw open her hotel door and flee down the corridor, try to get out of the city. Or smash a chair through her window and make the easy drop to the street below, skirts streaming like soap suds, smearing herself in red and white on the sidewalk.

But if she does that, Prim will be next.

And so she must wait.

Katniss tries to find any joy, any sense in the fact that she is about to be a married woman. She hopes for some glitter of happiness to emerge out of the tarpit in her chest, but nothing comes. Her bones are threaded with despair, and everything else inside her is anxiety and nausea.

At 2pm, exactly on cue, the door opens without a knock. Katniss is starting to recognize the members of Snow's faceless security team by the slope of their shoulders and the way they bruise the furniture and grip her arms.

'Miss Everdeen, it's time.'

It takes her some effort to will her limbs to move, but eventually her feet are on the floor once again. She walks unevenly to the stilettos she's been left and awkwardly shoves her feet into them, creasing them in ways that would make Effie shriek, and turns to go. She catches one last glimpse of her reflection. Dark hair woven with silver, face artificially blanched, chest pushed high, waist cut in, her legs completely obscured beneath the skirts. Whoever that girl in the mirror is, it isn't her. This gives her some comfort.

They pass no one as she is led back to the roof, where the team shelter her from the wind as she is bundled into a hovercraft. They'll fly her straight to the venue, then parade her through the streets with her new husband.

Katniss draws a blind over that word. If she thinks about Snow, she'll lose control over the panic tingling in her chest. All she has to do is get through each moment: walk up the hovercraft ramp, sit on the little seat and try not to wrinkle the dress, keep her eyes fixed on the view and count every single building she can see. She gives herself these little tasks to get through the minutes. Some are easier than others. The minute she spends counting the windows in the hovercraft is an easy one. The minute when the security team places a hand against her backside to shove her up the hovercraft ramp is harder.

Perched on a seat, skirts pooling everywhere, she notices what appears to be a minibar and considers getting really, really drunk for her wedding. Blackout, vomiting, Haymitch drunk. Feel nothing, remember nothing.

But Snow wouldn't like that, and she has to keep the President happy.

The memory of his smile and his eyes slide into her: low voice in her ear, rose smell, his quiet satisfaction with how wonderfully her plan has worked.

Did she anticipate this? When she sat down at her own table and proposed marriage to the President, what did she think would happen? Did she truly see herself sitting here, draped in a wedding dress that clings to her like sticky cream, waiting to sign away her life?

Well, these are her pretty consequences.

She has not been told where the ceremony will be held, but she spots the building immediately once they approach. A huge, pale grey hall with stained glass windows on every side, the tip of its roof casting baroque shadows on the neighboring buildings. Crowds choke the streets on either side for what appears to be miles. Katniss is sure she can hear their shrieking, even though the hovercraft is soundproof.

They touch down in a grassy, featureless garden and Katniss feels her anxiety start to kick her in the gut over and over like a cat on its back. One of the team hands her something small and white and Katniss immediately hopes it is some kind of drug, but it is only a tiny earpiece.

'Put this in. You'll be told where to go and what to do and say.'

Katniss slips the little sphere into her ear.

'Exit the craft. You'll be on camera the moment you're outside, so smile. Follow the path slowly to the open doors.'

The voice is unfamiliar and almost inhuman. It's easier to be told what to do and not to have to worry about her decisions. Katniss rises slowly and the door sucks open, and then she is hit with a tide of screaming delight and distant flashes. The crowds are kept at bay behind a high fence, but their long-range cameras will capture every micro-expression that flickers on her face. Katniss starts smiling and does not stop.

'Up the path,' says the voice.

Katniss holds handfuls of heavy skirts in her fingers and follows a gravel path, the security team in her wake, up to two vast, open doors. Katniss thinks again about running, but now there is nowhere left to go.

'Go inside.' The voice sounds like it thinks she's stupid.

Katniss does so. The chapel is completely packed with men, women, bright colors, dozens of wigs, elaborate hats, strange faces, gleaming smiles, teeth and clapping and wails of joy.

'Wait,' commands the voice. Katniss stops short. Everyone is watching her. Through the middle of the chapel runs a narrow carpet, and though Katniss refuses to look at what lies at the end of it her peripheral vision whispers what it can see: there he is, there he is, there's your fiancé, waiting for you.

She keeps her eyes forward. Somewhere, a huge musical sound shudders out that sounds like an orchestra dying, and then a loud, flat melody begins to play. The crowd falls completely silent. Some of them are crying.

Katniss does not recognize a single person.

'Start walking,' says the voice.

Katniss obeys.

She looks from side to side and stares uncomprehending into the faces of people that, she presumes, must be important to Snow, somehow. Politicians? Celebrities? Gamemakers? Victors? She cannot say. She starts to feel her face ache at the edges of her mouth and digs her artificial thumbnail into her skin to distract her. Smile. Smile. Smile.

She is very near the front of the room when she spots just two faces she recognizes, and her smile almost falls to the floor. Prim and her mother. For a moment, it's too much: Prim, resplendent despite the ridiculousness of her pink dress and the glare on her face; her mother, a vision in pale blue. Her mother is crying. She looks happy. It is her daughter's wedding, and she is happy.

I am going to lose my fucking mind, Katniss thinks.

'Step up to the altar,' says the voice in her ear.

Katniss obeys. Her eyes are on the steps she must take – up one, up two, up three – and then, at the edge of her vision, is a pair of beautiful black shoes that shine like polished coal.

Katniss raises her head and smiles with manic ecstasy.

Snow smiles back.

She has never stood so close to him before. She has known his face her whole life, but always in its unreality: as symbol and stone, electric projection and pulse. Not veins and skin. But now they are occupying the same vibrations of the air and they are both equally real. The perfect, pencil-sharp details of his ageing face drive violently into her corneas. He looks happy, though Katniss hopes he is pretending as hard as she is. His blue eyes gaze into hers and Katniss has an insane thought that he is going to open her up and climb right into her.

It is, at least, slightly easier to smile at Snow than at her crying mother. At least Snow knows she's faking it.

An officiant steps up to them, the book of ceremony open before him, and Katniss realizes it is far too late to run. It has already started.

'Ladies and gentlemen, honored guests, we are gathered today to witness the union of this man and this woman…'

Katniss wonders if Snow can read her mind. She mentally screams every oath and insult she can think of, and she beams them out of her grinning teeth into Snow's face. He only regards her mildly, with something that reads quite convincingly like love.

I am dying inside, you fuck, she thinks. I hope you are dying too.

The officiant drones on: '…this is a commitment to union and to love, which these two people will vow before you all…'

Katniss grits her teeth, grinds molar on molar, and reforms her smile into something small and tender like a baby slug. This is worse than standing on the arena podium, waiting for the gong to sound. At least then she didn't need to smile. It seems to go on forever. Nonsense about love and honor and loyalty and blah, blah, blah, and nothing about what you ought to do if your husband murders your best friend, or how to stop yourself having a panic attack when he touches you. But at last the spiel starts to wind up, and the officiant calls for the rings.

Katniss is startled to see Prim step forth, holding a little pillow. From the other side of the benches comes another girl, so similar to Prim, also holding a pillow. Katniss has no idea who this stranger is.

The other girl brings her pillow to Snow, who bends and accepts the silver band atop it with grace. 'Thank you, my dear,' he says, very quietly. Katniss isn't sure that even she was supposed to hear. The little girl smiles like sunshine.

Prim thrusts her own pillow forward. She is visibly chewing her tongue from outrage.

'Thanks,' says Katniss, and her sister gives her a real, genuine smile.

'Give him your engagement ring,' says the voice in her ear, and Katniss moves to take off the ring before the voice shrieks at her, 'NO! Give him your hand with the engagement ring.' She jolts, then shoves her hand in Snow's direction. She is so unseated by the yell in her ear that she forgets to prepare herself for Snow's touch, and when his skin rests upon hers she almost yanks her hand back and screams at him as though shot.

Smile, she tells herself. You are happy. You are ecstatic. This is your wedding. He is the love of your life. Keep smiling.

She feels like Snow is massaging acid into her skin as he touches her. It is with incredible relief when he pulls the engagement ring from her hand, which has left a deep imprint in her skin. But the relief is short lived, for it is only seconds later that a new, thicker, band takes its place. This one will not come off until Snow dies.

I hope it's today, she thinks. I hope you die choking today.

The voice in her ear prompts her again. 'Now put your ring on him.'

She allows herself to relax her smile for a moment as her face drops and she concentrates on getting the ring on his hand. This is an easy minute: a practical task, a clear goal. Snow's hand is cold, the skin flecked, and Katniss dimly realizes she has never really held the hand of someone his age. Her grandparents were all dead before the age of sixty. Few people live to late age in the Seam, and those that survive so long do not hold hands with young girls. She slides the ring on Snow's finger and takes a tiny, sharp delight in the fact that she is shackling him. He will be bound to her as much as she to him, and she will drag him down to whatever depths she sinks.

Katniss smiles again, and this time it's genuine.

'Do you, Coriolanus Snow, commit to love and cherish this woman for as long as you live?'

'I do,' he answers, his voice a politician's clarion, and to his credit he really sounds like he means it.

Katniss waits for her cue. She's concentrating so hard she almost misses it, and there's an awkward pause as she hears yelling in her ear and hurries her response.

'Yes, I do, yes.' She sounds like an idiot. Snow chuckles, like her slip is endearing. Like this is what love feels like.

The officiant closes his book. 'You may seal your union with a kiss.'

Kill me, she thinks, on instinct.

Snow steps forward.

We may kiss, he said. That doesn't mean we must.

But of course they must. They must be immaculate, unimpeachable. Their love must be picture-perfect, holiday souvenir, romantic tchotchke, a plastic bauble. They are in love for the audience of the great nation of Panem, and their love is spectacular.

Katniss holds up her smile with fishhooks as Snow leans closer. He raises his hand and a siren screams in her head. The hand slips around the back of her neck and holds her, gently but firmly. Katniss knows how you hold an animal for slaughter. Snow leans in and the smell of blood drenches her. She shuts her eyes and prays for a bullet, an avalanche, an asteroid as dry lips meet hers. It's nothing like kissing Peeta or Gale: what an odious novelty to feel his beard against her, the touch of saliva, the taste of blood – rapturous putrescence transgressing her. She feels everything inside her shrink into a tiny, metallic, screeching point, an insect against a window, a piece of glass in your eye…

But then it is over, and he is pulling away, and Katniss blinks in overhead lights that are so bright she thinks she might pass out.

The crowd applaud maniacally. Heavy, full-throated music plays. It's unfamiliar. Weddings in District 12 are accompanied by little flutes, broken strings, children singing. She doesn't know this new instrument. It is the sound of wealth singing out in celebration.

The officiant stands aside and gestures at something on the table: paper, a pen. A death warrant? No, a wedding certificate. Same thing, really: till death us do part.

She watches Snow sign first. Coriolanus Snow. His signature is beautiful, looping like a goshawk.

Katniss hesitates. She's never had much need for writing, and she's only signed her name a handful of times. She writes slowly. Katniss E—

'No,' hisses Snow's voice in her ear.

She pauses.

Oh, of course.

She bites the inside of her cheek until the taste of metal soothes her bile, and she transforms the E into a clumsy S. Katniss Snow.

She sets down the pen, which is slimy with sweat, and pulls out the earpiece. It's done.

But, of course, it's never done.

Snow puts his arm through hers and, on instinct, she tries to pull away. He holds her like steel and she forces herself to relax. Really, she ought to be grateful he is able to cover up her mistakes.

He bends to her ear and speaks without moving his lips. 'This is the hard part. Keep smiling.'

It is a strange relief to hear the real Snow and be reminded that this is, after all, a performance.

She beams solar flares at him as though he has said something deeply romantic that no one else can hear, and then they begin the slow walk to the door. Strangers spit confetti at them. Katniss catches her mother's expression, and Prim beside her. Her mother is drying her eyes. Prim gives her a hard nod. For a moment, the warmth in Katniss' smile is genuine –

And then the doors push open and a hailstorm of camera flashes hit them. Katniss almost loses her nerve, and she grips Snow's arm for support that he is entirely willing to give, because if he doesn't, they're both probably dead.

The crowds are titanic, thousands of braying Capitol parasites. At least she's seen this before, when exhibited for the Games. Crowds are familiar in a way that Snow's arm in hers cannot be.

But it will be, one day.

There is a chariot awaiting them pulled by two white horses, manes wound with white roses, and the floral perfume makes her want to retch. She allows Snow to help her into the carriage and a moment later he is sitting beside her. Despite its ostentatious design, the chariot seat is small, and she cannot help but be pressed against Snow. No doubt most couples enjoy the intimacy. Katniss feels like the skin of her leg is on fire, touching him.

He then takes her hand in his, raises it, and raises his other hand in a wave. Katniss mimics him, convulsing her hand toward a haze of cameras. Screams and applause wrack the crowd.

Snow's voice sounds close in her ear. 'Forty minutes. Then we'll be at the mansion. Do not stop smiling.'

They ride, hand in hand, down the main streets of Panem which are every inch filled with people in ludicrous costumes. Some of them, Katniss notices, are wearing versions of past dresses she's worn: her red dress from her first Flickerman interview, her victory gown, a mentor dress from last year. There are variations, here and there, and it is somehow the most absurd thing that she has had an impact on fashion. On culture.

The crowds have warmed the winter air, and she can feel her palm sweating against Snow's. His is sweating, too, and the thought of their fluids intermingling like this makes her light-headed. Snow must be thinking the same thing, because he releases her hand and for one blissful moment they are mostly free of one another – but then his hand slides around her waist and Katniss blanches.

She's going to kill him. She's going to snap his arm at the elbow like lamb legs and then stuff it down his throat. No one touches her like this. No one, not Gale or Peeta: no one.

But Snow does.

And he'll keep doing it. She cannot stop him. The anxiety screams up inside, finds it has nowhere to go, then crashes back down. She is dizzy and sick, and the crowds are all bleeding together, faces melting, her vision fracturing into spots. She cannot breathe in the corset.

Katniss tries to take deep, slow breaths while maintaining her smile, but she is starting to lose her grip on consciousness. What if she faints? Maybe the crowds will like that? The bride overcome with emotion? She realizes she is leaning her entire body against Snow for support, but if he minds he gives no sign of it.

His mouth drops again to her ear.

'Nearly there,' he says.

It infuriates Katniss to realize that he trying to reassure her, but the fury is a fine alternative to the anxiety and so she accepts it inside herself and claws her way back to consciousness. It isn't long before the skyscrapers surrounding them drop off as the busier streets relax into the City Circle, and then the presidential mansion looms ahead like a dreadful beast. She has been here before, for Victor parties, but it never struck her then like a place where a person would actually live. It is absurdly huge, a chaos of columns and architectural flourishes, room upon room upon room.

Katniss suddenly has to stifle a laugh. She is going to live in the President's house, and be the President's wife. That is funny.

The black gates yawn open, thick with personal security whose nightsticks and guns warn against any of the public's attempts to follow their chariot inside. As the gates swing close behind them Katniss tries to pull away from Snow, but he yanks her arm back against him. It's hard enough to bruise her.

'Not yet,' he hisses.

She clutches him back, digging in her fingers tight enough to hurt him, and she counts the seconds until they are at the front door. The path is long, but the screams of the crowd slowly dim in the background. Snow climbs out of the chariot first. She is desperate to kick him in the face but too weak to do anything but wait for him to offer her his hand and help her down. How reprehensible to touch him, and stop touching him, and then keep touching him, over and over and over again.

Get used to it, Katniss tells herself. Be grateful you're not kissing.

Hand in hand, they climb the steps and approach the mansion's open doors. She counts every step and every moment until they're across the threshold, and then Snow turns her around to raise a hand in farewell to the distant crowd. She does the same, her face on fire with smiling, her skull screaming, her thoughts barely coherent as her panic attack crests. Two servants start to push the doors closed and she waves and waves and waves—

The doors shut. Katniss yanks away from Snow and gasps like she's drowning.

Snow observes her coolly. 'It's over. Take a moment to gather yourself.' She doesn't look up at Snow, who is moving casually around the foyer of his home. 'We don't need to keep up the show when we're in private. The servants are loyal to me; they won't breathe a word.'

Katniss barely registers these comments as she tries to stay awake and alive.

Snow observes her with a mix of amusement and concern. 'Are you alright, Miss Ever—' He cuts himself off. Shakes his head and laughs with real humor. 'Mrs Snow. I really ought to call you Katniss, now.'

Katniss' throat claws for oxygen. 'Shut up,' she says at last. 'I just need to get out of this corset.'

She takes gulps of air, one hand against a wall to steady her, and it is only when the black spots clear from her vision that she can properly observe the house. What a despicable extravagance. It's like a birthday cake, white and green and pink, and stupid trinkets like busts and vases fill up alcoves just to give the space a purpose. The foyer aches above her into the upper echelons, and for a moment she lets herself slowly spin and stare into a glass roof, which feels as high as the night sky. This is her home, her prison and her sanctuary.

'The first of three stages of this farce are over,' says Snow, and Katniss is able now to properly face him. He is her husband. Her husband! The word rattles through her without meaning. 'Next will be the honeymoon, then we will return for the reception. It would usually be the other way around, of course, but this fits my schedule better.'

Katniss stares at him in uncomprehending hatred. 'We're going on a honeymoon?'

'Of course,' says Snow, as though this is the most obvious thing in the world. 'It's just for one night. I can hardly afford to take time away from work. But it is important that we offer a symbolic moment of, well, public privacy. People will be expecting it.'

'So they can speculate on how you took my virginity?' Katniss spits.

The cool smile slips a little. 'Yes, I imagine some will be talking about that.'

There. That moment of discomfort. That tiny hole through which she is able to bore.

Snow presses on in spite of her vulgarity. 'Well, we have a few hours before we are scheduled to leave. A team will dress you for the honeymoon and take you out of…' He waves his hand vaguely at the nightmare of a dress. 'That, and put you into something more suitable.' He glances at one of the servants: a girl with pale blonde hair in plaits. 'This girl will take you to your chambers.'

The girl gives a little bow. Katniss is momentarily surprised by Snow's words. 'I get my own chambers?'

'Of course,' says Snow. 'Did you expect us to actually live together?'

She shrugs. 'I didn't think about it.'

'Well, we shall reside in separate wings of the mansion. I am sure you will appreciate your own space, as I appreciate mine. Go get changed. You look…' He sighs with a mix of exhaustion and amusement. 'You look uncomfortable.'

The girl sets off and Katniss pursues, her wedding heels clacking like gunshots on the marble floor. They ascend a staircase so tall her legs are burning by the summit, exhausted by the effort of heaving the dress around, and then she is led down a magnificent corridor to a revolting pair of golden doors. They are draped with ornamentation like melting cheese.

The girl opens the door for her.

'You have got to be shitting me,' says Katniss.

The girl looks at her in alarm, but Katniss is distracted entirely by the furnishings. It's a glittering museum, rococo and cream, ceilings painted with fat babies, curtains that fall like velvet rain. She strides past the three sofas that face each other, chasms apart, and through another set of doors that introduces a bedroom with a bed so large she could drown in it. Beyond that, a bathroom beckons, but she makes a circuit back to the poor girl waiting by the door. 'I cannot believe people live like this. I could get lost on the way to the toilet.'

The girl does not smile, or speak. Because, of course, she can't. She's an avox. They stare at each other for a moment, until Katniss realizes the girl is waiting to be dismissed.

'You can go,' she says, and the moment the door is closed she kicks off her heels with such violence she cracks an ornate wooden cabinet.

She is about to try to rip off the dress, but then she notices the camera. It's in the corner by the window, unhidden, brooding over her. Katniss pulls a face and stalks into the bedroom – but there is another camera in here, in the same corner. She turns. Another camera in the opposite corner.

She goes to the bathroom: more cameras. There's even one in the shower.

When she returns to the lounge, it's no surprise that there are three more cameras she didn't spot the first time.

Is Snow going to watch her? Is that the nature of the deal? He won't try to fuck her, but he likes to watch?

She does not have the luxury of being precious about this. The anxiety ripples within her, and Katniss forces it back. Okay. So people will see her naked. That's fine; what does she care? She will simply learn to endure it, like she endures everything else.

Katniss tries to rip off the dress, but it has shackled her waist so tightly that she cannot shift it even an inch. Searching through the drawers of a green-leather-topped desk discovers a pair of scissors and she slices her way free, severing the dress in two. It is a great relief to wield something like a weapon and do a kind of violence.

She catches sight of herself in a mirror the size of a pond, once again wearing the ridiculous honeymoon lingerie, her waist cinched like she's an insect, the bodice lined as though with icing.

'Awful,' she says, and then she begins to slice her way out of the underclothes. Once she's completely naked she walks to the bathroom and spends a moment attempting to comprehend the shower system, until she is able to summon a three-way jet of hot water and can scrub her skin back to its usual color. She doesn't bother to dry her hair, or do anything with it. Let Snow deal with her at her most slovenly. She will not dress up for him unless he forces her.

Which he will. On a daily basis, to parade for the public, to hang off his arm, to smile and wave and blow kisses at the adoring populace…

Katniss tries to put that out of mind for now. She feels lighter now the wedding is over and that she is alone in her own quarters, free of the dress, feeling a little more like her old self. She walks back into the capacious bedroom, padding barefoot and naked over the huge, plush rugs and tile floor. The windows reveal vast, beautiful gardens: bursts of roses, a glimmering artificial lake.

It's beautiful, and she hates it.

Katniss wanders toward the lounge, curious to explore the nooks and crannies of her new home and prison. As she rounds the corner she lets out an ugly scream, as there are two complete strangers standing in the lounge.

'We're to help you dress in your honeymoon outfit,' says one of the strangers.

Katniss sets her tongue between her teeth. She is completely naked and dripping wet, but neither of the coiffed and glowing figures seem to have even noticed.

'Who even are you?'

'We're part of your stylist team,' beams the other stranger.

'Do you have names?'

'Yes,' says the first, and offers none. 'Now, come along: we need to prepare you.'

Katniss' lightness evaporates as she submits herself to another achingly tedious process of being groped and decorated. The little time she was allowed autonomy over her own body was far too short. This particular dress is an elaborate wrap in pale pink. The stylists wind long sheets of fabric around her body, binding first her stomach and then her breasts, flattening her like a pencil. Then the material is fed between her legs and Katniss tries to think about hunting and forest-smells as she feels the fabric bite into her genitalia. It's a degrading mummification, and by the time they have finished Katniss can barely breathe or walk once again.

'Are we done?' she says, once she's completely covered.

'This is just the first layer,' says one stylist, like she's stupid. Everyone thinks she's stupid. 'We're going to make you beautiful.'

The next layer is a lighter fabric, but there is such a voluminous amount of it that by the time they have wrapped it all around Katniss she feels at least ten pounds heavier. The material flows in and out of the lower layer, winding around all of her. Katniss waits and bites her tongue and chews the inside of her mouth. She must somehow learn to cope with people touching her. Even if sex isn't a requirement of this bargain, she has nonetheless signed away her body. They will do with it as they wish, and it will be simpler if she just lets them.

The finished dress is less hideous than the wedding gown, but only slightly less uncomfortable. Katniss sits still as they apply a more subtle layer of make-up, and she tries to find some calm in the center of her roiling anxiety. There is no calm to be had, however, and she tries to distract herself thinking about where Snow would take her for a honeymoon. A beach? An island somewhere? Will it be nice there?

Once she's completely re-imprisoned in a new outfit and the stylists release her, Katniss rejoins Snow in the foyer, who has changed into a slightly less formal suit.

'That's a better dress,' he observes.

'As long as you like it,' she says, unable to keep the snideness out of her voice.

'Katniss, there's no need to be impolite.' Snow smiles, and despite herself Katniss finds something comforting in the cold, controlling honesty in it.

She takes a breath. 'So, where are we going for our honeymoon?' The word is a big, dead bug in her mouth.

'Oh, I have something very special planned,' says Snow, and now his smile is less comforting. 'I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise. The hovercraft is waiting. Shall we?'

With great pain and reluctance, Katniss reaches out to take his arm once again – but Snow steps neatly away.

'We will take the back door,' he says quickly. 'We do not need to… be physical with one another for this trip.'

Katniss finds herself smiling now. It is such a tiny advantage to have over him – so minute – but for all that she detests his touch, for all it makes her want to set herself on fire, there is a very specific recoiling in him that does not exist in her.

She gets a closer glimpse of the gardens as they exit through the back, and she wonders if Snow will allow her to walk freely among those rose bushes and the tall, heavy trees with their feathery leaves. It is quite a disappointment when they board the hovercraft and she finds that all the blinds are closed.

'Why can't we look outside?'

Snow sits opposite her and folds his legs, perfectly calm. 'We are going to a very exclusive vacation spot, Miss Ever—' He cuts himself off again. 'This will take some time to get used to,' he mutters. 'Katniss. It is an extremely coveted destination, perhaps the most popular of its particular kind. I want it to be a surprise for you.'

'I hate surprises.'

He laughs low and warm, and she hates him more than ever. 'Yes, Katniss, I imagine you do. Now try to relax. It's a short flight.'

Katniss is prepared to sulk the entire journey, but then she discovers that there are more complimentary snacks (which aren't really complimentary anymore: if Snow owns all of this, now she does too) and starts to make up for the meals she's lost to vomit and anxiety. Snow watches her with unguarded disdain as she eats with her fingers and licks them clean. The moment she notices his eyes on her, she doubles her efforts to make as much of a mess as possible.

Small victories. Tiny, tiny victories.

She is startled when the hovercraft lands and has to extract a half-chewed piece of nut brittle from her molars, much to Snow's open disgust.

'If you're quite finished gorging yourself, we have arrived.'

She deposits her half-eaten food on the table as untidily as possible, then joins Snow by the hovercraft door and waits for it to open.

'Close your eyes,' he says. She glares. Thinks about pouring salt into his. He smiles. 'Indulge me, please.'

She sighs, clenches her teeth. Then she does as commanded and waits. There is the low, mechanical sound of the door sliding open, and then cool, grassy air swells around her. Snow takes her hand and she almost yanks it back, but she allows him to walk her onto the ramp. She can smell water and flowers, and distant pine. She wonders if they are in the mountains. For one moment, she believes that Snow might have taken her somewhere beautiful. Somewhere calm, with privacy, where she can run through the grass and taste the wind, and she can pretend for a few hours that she is free.

'Now open your eyes,' he says.

Katniss does so, and she breathes in with a sharp, silent cry.

They are at the Cornucopia.