The Cornucopia looms before Katniss and her heart goes from anxiety to panic. It's all here: the black, blasted earth where the mines went off; the place where Cato died; where that boy's neck was snapped; where Clove tried to cut her up. Rue's eyes in that monster. All that blood.

Katniss has to run, has to hide. She's in open ground, she'll be dead in seconds. Run. Get to the forest. Find water. Hide. Where's her bow? Did she have a bow?

A figure looms next to her and she spins, lunges, pushes out with her palms and scratches. She has no weapon. She's already dead.

'Katniss,' says the figure. Snow grasps her wrists in his hands. His voice is firm and gentle and amused. 'You are not in any danger. Calm down.'

She struggles for a moment, but the blind panic is already subsiding into regular, clear-sighted panic. She is not in the Games, just the arena. There are no weapons here, no tributes: just the empty Cornucopia husk. There is a musical stage inside it now, with a drumkit and a microphone. There is a group of people approaching them from some distance away, not tributes but finely dressed Capitol fools.

Snow releases her wrists and rubs the spot on his face where she struck him. There is a thin, finger-scratch line of blood there. He examines his bloody fingertip with displeasure.

'I must ask you not to mark my face,' he says. 'We will hardly be able to maintain this charade if people see us with scars and bruises.'

Katniss is quivering with rage and terror. 'Why did you bring me here?'

Snow smiles pleasantly. 'As you know, this is the arena for the 74th Hunger Games. Are you aware it is the most popular honeymoon destination for the Capitol? You would usually spend a year on a waiting list to secure a spot here but, well, when you're the President, certain things come more easily.' He bends his mouth close to her and she smells blood wash over the salty sweat scent of her own anxiety. 'I wanted to see how well you cope under pressure. Real, social pressure, Katniss: not just running and fighting. I assure you, this will not be the hardest thing you ever have to endure in our marriage. I promised you there would be death, and there will be worse. There are a great many terrible things you will need to witness, and if you can't cope with that – well, that will prove a problem.'

Katniss says nothing. She should be familiar with the depths of his evil, and yet the endless trench of it still surprises her. And yet there is something else touching the cruelty in his eyes, and there is a softness to his voice.

'That said, you don't have to do this alone. I will always be here to help you. Now, we will have a lovely tour of the 74th arena, and then we shall have dinner, and then we retire to bed. Are you prepared to enjoy our honeymoon?'

Even through the fury and flashbacks that are threatening to overwhelm her, Katniss' ears prick at his phrasing. 'To bed?' she repeats.

Snow's expression falters. 'In our separate rooms, Katniss,' he clarifies.

This is the only sliver of weakness she has divined in him, this little morality, this shrinking from the sexual suggestion. It is not much of a weakness.

But she will dig her nails into the ledge she has.

'Fine,' she says, light-headed with trauma. 'Shame to miss out on sharing the honeymoon suite. I could've told you about how I peeled the skin off a District 6 tribute while you made love to me.'

Snow looks at her coldly, and she at him. Her eyes flick to the shallow gouge she has left in his face.

'There's still a bit of blood.'

As the welcome party grows closer, Snow removes a white handkerchief and dabs at the cut. He gets most of it, but as the crowd is rounding on them Katniss grabs the handkerchief and wipes away the last drop.

'Good as new,' she whispers sweetly, and she shivers as they link arms and walk down the hovercraft ramp, turning on beaming smiles for their reception.

When they disembark they are met by a crowd of couples and one tour guide. The couples are extravagant and ridiculous: one woman with pastel pink skin, another with such extensively altered breasts that Katniss doesn't know where to look, one with a life size golden mockingjay in her hair. Fans of her victory on couples vacations. Their husbands look almost identical: glow-in-the-dark teeth, suits with shimmering tails, and a look of absolute satisfaction. They applaud as Katniss and Snow descend.

'Welcome, welcome!' proclaims the tour guide. 'We are delighted to meet our final guests, President Snow and his newly wedded wife, Katniss Snow. They need no introduction, of course: the President of Panem and his beautiful wife, the Victor of the very Hunger Games in whose arena you now stand. Now, these are…' He begins to introduce the couples, who Katniss gathers must be important people of some sort, but she has already lost the ability to listen. Her mind is light and seething with white spots. She can remember killing Cato here. The marbled mess of his bloody flesh lay just there, among the grass…

'Katniss?' murmurs Snow at her ear. She tries to float back to him, but it's hard to forget the noise of Cato's screams and the sound of her arrow puncturing his body. 'You need to get through this. I need to know you can cope. Are you going to be a liability?'

At that word, Katniss snaps back into her body. If she's a liability, she's useless to him. Then Prim is dead. She turns a besotted puppy expression toward her husband and smiles until she thinks her skin will split open.

'Of course not, honey,' she says. She then marshals every muscle in her body to lean forward, ignoring the blood-smell of his breath, and smear her chapped lips against his cheek in a kiss. Bristles coast over her mouth. She can almost taste his flesh. 'I would never dream of showing you up.'

When she pulls away, she sees a tiny shade of discomfort go through him, but it soon passes.

The tour guide is droning on about the 74th Hunger Games: the key tributes, the most invigorating deaths, and, of course, the great love story.

'How fond we all were of Mr Mellark and, back then, Miss Everdeen,' croons the tour guide. 'What a cute little couple they were! But I must say, she has certainly traded up!'

Everybody laughs except President Snow, and then everybody stops laughing, and then everybody realizes that the tour guide has unintentionally implied that Katniss has some sort of mercurial aims in her choice of husband.

Is that the sort of thing President Snow would kill him for?

Katniss forces a laugh. 'This place brings back such fond memories of little Peeta,' she says. Then she turns to her husband, fury and disgust vibrating through her skin. 'But he could never measure up to the man I fell in love with.'

Snow forces a smile too, and everyone laughs again. No one will die today. Katniss can see in Snow's eyes the aversion to her breath on his face, to her hands cupped around his. Fueled by nausea and spite, Katniss leans in again, and she takes a quiet, revolted delight in how Snow tenses against the kiss that she plants on his cheek.

When she pulls away, Snow is looking at her with a particular kind of murderous revulsion. She shall not be a liability. She shall eat him alive.

The guide claps his hands. 'Wonderful! Let's begin the tour!'

A tidy footpath has been laid through the arena that takes you on a whistle-stop tour of every place where every tribute died. There are information plaques at each destination, telling you the dead tribute's District and how they died, alongside a hologram of looping death-footage. But no names.

Katniss doesn't know most of the details of the deaths; she hasn't seen them since she and Peeta were interviewed right after winning, and she was hardly in the best state of mind to pay attention. She walks arm in arm with her husband, and she listens to the tour guide drone on, and she smiles. Katniss keeps smiling when they're shown the place where Glimmer's arms were degloved by trackerjacker venom. She keeps smiling when they show her where Foxface died vomiting with a belly full of nightlock berries. She keeps smiling when they show her where she murdered Marvel. She keeps smiling as Snow holds her by the arm, and the urge to pull away eventually deadens. Everything starts to deaden.

She stops smiling when the tour guide turns like a fantastic spinning top and gestures toward a horribly familiar patch of the woods. The wildflowers are still here.

'And here was the final resting place of the female tribute from District 11, young Rue.' The tragedy in the tour guide's voice drips like cream. 'Oh, how we wept as Katniss wove those lovely wildflowers flowers into her hair, and sung her to sleep! Now everybody: just listen closely, and you might hear Rue's mockingjay song!' He raises a hand comically to his ear, and the other couples cock their own heads like spaniels.

Somewhat tinnily, a hidden speaker starts to pump in those four, familiar notes of Rue's song. Over and over and over again, the sign that everything is okay, that Rue is good and safe.

Katniss' hands tighten around Snow's arm. There is a rich, dark anger stirring in her. And, beneath that, is the heart-racing panic of shellshock. If she gives into the panic, Snow will have Prim killed. Katniss holds onto her husband quite literally for dear life.

'Now,' continues the tour guide. 'We are exceptionally blessed to have a Victor in our midst: a real exceptional thing to have on a tour. We've heard Rue's mockingjay song. But Katniss, would you please sing to us the song you sang to Rue?'

'Oh, yes!' The pink woman claps her hands together and interlaces the fingers beneath her chin. 'I would so love to hear that!'

Katniss' smile grows waxy. 'I don't think I could…'

'Oh, you have a lovely voice,' cuts in Snow. 'We would all like to hear you sing Rue's song. Come along, now. Don't be shy.'

Katniss pictures taking the spear that pierced Rue's body and sliding it up through Snow's throat, just under his chin, impaling him like a fish.

But instead she smiles and begins to sing.

'Deep in the meadow, under the willow…'

She feels the notes fall out of her as though from another person's mouth. She wants to think about anything other than Rue but she can't, of course. Not with the smell of the wildflowers that they are surely pumping in from somewhere to emphasize the scene, or with the sound of the mockingjays. This is a beautifully contrived hell. She does not let go Snow's arm; and he, for his part, supports her elbow firmly to prevent her from collapsing.

Katniss hits the final note and before it has properly rung out her audience bursts into applause, and she is yanked back into the present.

'Oh, bravo, bravo!' exclaims one woman.

'Just fantastic,' says one of the husbands, like he's at a concert. 'What a show!'

Katniss lets her eyes slide to Snow. He is applauding quietly, politely, and his smile is one of absolute contentment. Oh, she will bleed him. A day will come when she cracks open his rib cage and she licks out his insides like rich jelly. But for now, in this moment, she holds onto his arm as tightly as she can to stop from falling.

The hotel is in the launch center, which has been retrofitted with all the amenities necessary for the utmost in Capitol comfort. They are ushered to their room, the honeymoon suite, and leave the other guests. The couples wave their goodbyes and Katniss does her own maniacal wave, right up until the moment their hotel door slides closed.

It takes a moment for her to regain her breathing. She does not let go Snow's arm immediately: she breathes, and she ensures there are no black spots in her vision, and only when she is sure she will be able to stand unaided does she wrench away from him.

'You're a sadist.' She almost spits in his face.

Katniss kicks off her shoes, stalks across the room, wants to climb out a window. But their hotel room – oh the novelty – is a repurposed launch room, and thus windowless. It feels like a coffin, but the Capitol elite will happily pay thousands to play at being a tribute for a night. She realizes she is trembling with both fury and grief.

Snow is smiling as though he has not a single care in the world. 'I did not inflict this on you purely out of cruelty, Katniss. It's a test. You will see far worse things over the coming months – and years – than an empty arena. I need to know that you can maintain your composure under pressure.'

'You took me to Rue's grave!' She wants to kill him. She wants to feed him into blades that spin like summer harvest dancers.

'Technically, that place was not a grave. As property of District 11, the cargo was transported—'

The anger floods into her arms and she shoves him, hard, and he is caught off guard and stumbles.

'The cargo was a little girl's body!' She is screaming, now.

Snow steps forward, places two large palms on her shoulders, and pushes with such force she almost falls. She raises her hand to strike him, reaching for his eyes, ready to claw them from their sockets – but he catches her wrist.

'Not the face,' he reminds her.

She sets her teeth like diamonds. If she had better self-control, she would let it go. But her fury has drenched her in red, and being back in the arena has flicked switches for fight and flee that can't be easily reset.

So instead of doing anything sensible, she punches him in the stomach.

Snow groans and bends, but he doesn't release her wrist. Brief flickers of panic and regret shudder through her.

I hit him, I hit the President. Prim is dead. He'll kill them all.

She is so distracted by her own fear that she completely fails to notice Snow drawing his other arm back, and does not anticipate a blow to her own abdomen that pushes her off her feet and sends her smacking onto the hard floor with a spiderweb of pain.

She picks herself up, or tries to, because the ludicrous train of her dress has wound serpentine around her ankles. Snow is breathing hard. He is stronger than she realized, and clearly not untrained in combat. But she is far younger and has known blood more recently than him, and she hates him so, so much. She is sure that she could kill him.

It is strange when Snow looks at her – sprawled on the floor, dress tangled, hair a mess – with a kind of tenderness.

'Katniss,' he says, gently. 'I do not want our relationship to be like this. I do not want to hurt you, but I would like you to exercise a little more self-discipline and to show some basic respect for me. What do you think?'

He offers her his hand. She does not take it, shrugging herself awkwardly up from the floor.

'If I don't do what you tell me, what happens? You kill someone I care about?'

Snow regards her with something like pity. 'No, Katniss. I do not want a wife who is terrified of me. I'm not a monster, even if it suits you to think of me as one. Of course, if your behavior really starts to become problematic then, well… I may have to consider more drastic methods of dealing with you.' He purses his lips. Katniss wants to cut them off his face. 'But as husband and wife—' Katniss makes a sound of low disgust. '—while we will inevitably have our disagreements and our spats, I do not want our relationship to be one of constant antagonism.'

'We don't have a relationship. I'm just your…' She shrugs widely. 'I'm your prisoner.'

'We are each other's jailers,' he says softly. 'Do you think, perhaps, we could at least try to be friends?'

Katniss feels her anger break like waves and wash through her, and in its place she feels only exhaustion and, beneath that, terrible grief. For dead Rue, for the loss of her life, and the parody of a person she now has to be. She must keep living, whatever she is now, and smiling, and letting Snow touch her.

'I don't want to be your friend,' she says, her lips barely moving. 'I will hate you every day for the rest of my life. I will hate you when I bury you, whenever that may be. We will never be friends.' She spits the word like acid.

Snow's expression is a cipher. The smile and tenderness is gone, but what lingers in its place is unknown to her.

'Alright, Katniss,' he says, at last. 'I can only hope you reconsider your decision. I suggest we get some rest before dinner. We have a couple of hours, if you want to sleep.'

He points behind her and Katniss takes her first moment to breathe and properly consider her surroundings. The launch room has been completely transformed and she barely recognizes it. They have expanded it out, making space for a huge, white-sheeted bed over which are scattered red rose petals. She wanders past the bed, picking up and then casting aside a petal, and finds a bottle of extremely expensive champagne on the bedside table. There are chocolate-covered strawberries, too, and a little golden card that reads Congratulations! She unfolds this and reads its shiny, gold writing.

The Hunger Games Tourism Board welcomes you to the honeymoon suite of the 74th Arena. We wish you health, love, and happiness on this most special of days. May your lifetime be one of bliss and enduring love.

Katniss drops the card. 'They made it all so nice,' she murmurs, looking over the room. 'They really thought whoever stayed here would be happy.'

'It's all remarkably standard.' Snow sounds unimpressed. 'You can take this room. I'll be next door. I must ask you to be discreet. We are on our honeymoon, after all. We can't be thought to be sleeping in separate rooms.'

Katniss drops onto the bed. It gives underneath her with a pleasant spring. 'It's so important to you that everyone thinks we're having sex, isn't it?'

Tired discomfort settles on Snow's features. 'It is a necessary evil.'

Katniss grimaces. The last time she was at this arena, she had been so concerned with how her hostile attitude might get her killed if the audience hated her too much. Now, hostility is all she has.

'How do you think they'll say we did it?' she says, her voice a sharp little knife. 'Maybe they think you're too old to be on top. Or maybe they want to think about you doing me from behind.'

The remnants of Snow's smile evaporate entirely. 'Such detail for one so inexperienced,' he says, his voice drought-dry. 'You've had a difficult day, Katniss. I suggest you sleep.' He pauses, examining the room, looking with disgust at the rose petals and the champagne. 'Before we leave, you might think to…' He gestures at the frippery. '…disturb all of this. Give the impression that the room has been…' He seems to struggle with expressing the concept. '…used for its intended purpose.'

Katniss snorts. 'Yeah, make people think we had a honeymoon in the honeymoon suite. I understand.'

He nods at her. 'I'll see you in two hours for dinner.' He pauses at the door, smiling drily. 'And congratulations on the wedding.'

Katniss waits until Snow has closed the door, then throws a pillow at it. She bounces back on the bed and looks around her: the petals, the champagne – someone has even hung little white ribbons along the walls. It is absurd to think that the last time she was in one of these rooms she was preparing to die.

Well, Katniss Everdeen is dead, now. Who on earth is Missis Snow? That doesn't even sound like a person.

Katniss picks up the little golden card again. May your lifetime be one of bliss and enduring love.

The desire to cry prickles in her throat and she swallows it, hard. She will probably never love anyone now, not romantically. Too dangerous. All of those silly daydreams that she never dared to properly indulge – a home, a hearth, a husband that loved her, even children – have been wiped away. Now everything is Snow.

Katniss reaches for the champagne and takes a moment to figure out how to uncork it, then manages to spill foam all over the bedding. Well, who cares? Let them think they made a mess.

She downs several deep, manic gulps, then suppresses a belch.

'Okay,' she tells the empty room. 'A honeymoon. The Victor and the President. Imagine what they get up to.'

She investigates the rest of the suite, peering inside the drawers, and looks in the bathroom, too. She tosses a couple of the neatly-folded white towels into the bottom of the shower and half-empties a small bottle of bodywash down the drain. Obviously they would need to shower. Who could have sex with Snow and not want to scrub themselves clean after?

In the bedside table drawer, Katniss cackles raucously as she reveals a beautiful blown glass bowl filled to the brim with condoms. She flicks through them. She's never actually seen condoms before. They're hard to come by in the outer Districts, and often poor quality, unless you can afford to pay for those made of animal intestine. She often wondered if the big families people had were by choice. Have lots of kids so that if you lose one to the reaping it doesn't matter so much? Or have as few as possible to lower the odds that any get called up? She could never figure that one out.

Katniss picks up one of the foil packets and reads its tiny description. She has no idea what ribbed for her pleasure is supposed to mean. She tosses it back in the bowl and decides to leave the condoms alone. Surely no one is going to count them to see if any were used?

'Besides, we could have done it without condoms,' she mutters to herself.

She pulls off all the bedsheets and rumples them, then rolls around on both sides of the mattress. She eats a huge mouthful of the strawberries, juice cascading over her lips, then starts on instinct as she sees a droplet of red juice fall onto the white sheets. She stares at the damp, red spot, growing and growing, then is racked with more laughter.

There's still an unhealed wound in the side of her mouth that she can't remember giving herself, so she sticks her fingernail against it and works open the skin until she gets a few drops of blood onto her fingers. She evaluates the bedsheet carefully, then smears the blood roughly halfway down the mattress. It delights her to think how much Snow would hate this.

'That's where we'll say he fucked me,' she announces, a little drunk, to the empty room. Then she laughs again. She must be the source of her own happiness, now. Nothing else will be.

Sleep should have been impossible for someone in her condition, but the next thing Katniss knows she's waking up to a knock at her door. Her head is pounding, her sense of time disoriented, and she does not know if she has slept for minutes or hours or days.

'What?' she calls, her voice slurred.

'Dinner in twenty minutes,' comes Snow's voice through the door. 'Please get ready.'

Katniss wipes drool from her face with the back of her hand. There is melted chocolate on her lips and dress, but fortunately there is a new, plastic-wrapped dress hanging on the wardrobe with a little label reading honeymoon dinner. Katniss wanders over with drunken sleepiness and examines it. It's much more straightforward than the wrap dress, which is fortunate because it takes her nearly the full twenty minutes to extricate herself from that. This new dress is sleeker, maroon, and aside from its plunging cut she finds she really doesn't mind it too much. Even the heels are reasonable this time: little kitten heels on deep purple shoes. Why they couldn't have given her something sensible like this to wear when traipsing through the forest is beyond her.

She cleans up her make-up the best she can in the bathroom. One of her artificial nails has broken off already, so Katniss pulls the rest free, revealing the bloody nail-stumps beneath. Her ring-finger is an absolute wreck; ever since she started wearing the engagement ring, that digit received especial attention from her teeth. Well, at least it'll be dark at the dinner. Once she's wiped off the smeared mascara and strawberry-ruined mess of lipstick, she looks almost normal, almost the natural Katniss. She's still her, somewhere, at least for now.

She recognizes the knock at the door as Snow's characteristic rap, and resents the familiarity of it. Got to get used to that. Soon she'll know everything about him.

She opens the door and finds Snow in a black tuxedo, velvet-lined. It suits him, like everything he wears.

'Are you ready?'

'Yes. And the room is appropriately honeymooned.' She gestures at the bed with some theatricality.

'I see,' says Snow. His eyes linger on the browning red stain she made on the bedsheets.

'Do you like the authenticity?' she says, trying to needle him.

'Admirable,' he says, very flatly, but Katniss thinks there is something genuine in there. Then he offers her his arm. 'Shall we?'

Katniss stares blankly at him for a moment, not quite able to will herself to touch him again. Then she steps forward, slides her arm through his, and it's like submerging herself back into a hot spring of anxiety. It's starting to become normal.

'Are we going to be late?' she asks as they walk together down the corridor.

'It really doesn't matter. I'm the President. They can't start without us.'

They emerge outside once again in what used to be the cornucopia. The horn is still there, huge and glittering, but now there are dining tables set up with white tablecloths and there are lights that somehow float in the sky. Katniss hopes they're not going to be shown highlights from the Games while they eat. Surely even the Capitol elite would get queasy stuffing themselves with duck liver while watching teenagers carve each other's faces off?

She is relieved to discover that tonight's entertainment comes in the extremely anodyne form of a musical performance from one of the Victors who won a few years before Katniss. She is a short, pretty girl with large, frightened eyes. She's looked frightened since the day she came out of the arena. Katniss vaguely remembers that she won by having the exceptional good luck of grabbing a poisoned blow-dart kit from the cornucopia in the first few minutes, then being the only tribute to hide on the northern side of the map. She only had to make one kill, in the end.

Katniss feels hateful with envy.

Snow leads her to their table and Katniss must stop herself from sitting immediately so Snow can pull out her chair for her. She sits and tries to look gracious, but she doesn't think she's pulling it off. All the other couples seated around them look happy. Maybe they're pretending, too.

Snow sits opposite and trains his eyes politely on the singing Victor, who has launched into some torturous, vibrato medley of the song Katniss sung for Rue. Thankfully, it's such a bastardization that Katniss can't even feel angered by it.

'Everyone is looking at us,' she mutters. It's true: the other couples, the tour guide, the staff are all sneaking constant glances at the President and his wife.

'Of course they are,' says Snow without surprise. 'We are even more of a draw than the arena itself. This is an extremely lucky night for them.'

Katniss tries to settle down and picks up the menu. It tells her they will be served a thirteen-course meal of white truffle salad, saffron soup, wine-soaked shredded beef, beluga caviar, and blah, blah, blah. Katniss' eyes slide off the page. The food she will devour, but the sheer enormity of the list is exhausting. At least the fare is better than the last time she was eating in the arena.

Rue's berries. District 11's bread.

Katniss pushes that out of her mind. She distracts herself by pulling at her dress, which is bunching oddly around her breasts, braiding little pieces of her hair, and folding the napkin into unusual shapes.

'Katniss?' says Snow at last, and she glances at him.

'What?'

He is watching her with a mix of annoyance and fascination. 'Could you try to sit still?'

'I am sitting still.'

'You are fidgeting in every which way imaginable.'

Katniss is not even aware that her conduct is objectionable. 'Sorry,' she says, and sets down the napkin.

Snow's next complaint comes half-way through the first course. Well, half-way for Katniss. She ravages the salad in a matter of seconds as Snow turns the leaves over with a curious, offput elegance.

'Katniss,' he says again. 'You do not need to inhale your food. More is coming.'

Katniss wants to answer through a mouthful of salad and spit truffle at him, but she decides this might just be the thing that gets her shot in the head. She takes care to swallow.

'I grew up starving,' she says. 'You never stop being hungry when your body is used to starvation.'

'Yes, I know,' he says with a strange tiredness. 'But please try to conduct yourself like the wife of the President.' He gently massages his temple. 'I was so concerned about the Districts revolting against this match it didn't even occur to me to book you etiquette lessons.'

Katniss tries to control herself for the next course, but it's hard to eat a thimbleful of soup slowly. She notices how delicately Snow eats: tiny mouthfuls, cutting food into the smallest of portions, chewing slowly and carefully. She thinks back to that bloody napkin, their first dinner together, and she wonders if there's a connection.

The droning music and Snow's careful eating make her feel a little less anxious, a little more confident. She swirls her glass (more champagne, though she takes care to pace herself this time) and examines her husband, lit eerily by the floating lights.

'Why are there so many cameras in my rooms back at the mansion? Is it so you can watch me?'

Snow gives her a confused, then amused glance. 'It's so my security team can watch you. Believe me, I won't be tuning in. I have better things to do with my time.'

'What are they watching me for?'

'Everything,' he says plainly. 'It's primarily for your own security; there are plenty of people that want you dead. But it's also to make sure you're not wreaking havoc, or plotting something, or trying to hurt yourself.'

'Why would I hurt myself?'

Snow's eyes drop to her hands. Katniss looks too. Her ring-finger shines raw where she's bitten the nail almost to nothing.

'There could be many reasons,' he says, annoyingly condescending.

Katniss suddenly feels embarrassed of her bitten nails, which she realizes now are badges of her lack of mental fortitude. She wants to hide them beneath the table, but that would be admitting defeat. Besides, she still has beef strips to work her way through.

She decides to go back on the offensive.

'Did you watch me in the Games?'

'Not at first. You weren't very interesting.'

'When did I get interesting?'

'Well, it certainly wasn't when you were mooning over Peeta Mellark in a cave for three days.'

'So you did watch.'

'Not live. I caught the highlights.'

'Don't avoid the question. When did I get interesting?'

Snow's eyes meet hers, cold and sterling. 'I've seen dozens of Victors. Few are remarkable. Most are just lucky. You became interesting to me the moment you tried your little trick with the berries.'

'Is that another reason why your team are going to watch me? Make sure I don't try to poison myself again? Or you?'

Snow laughs then: a real, but awful laugh. 'Katniss, if you are contemplating murdering me, I suggest you give it very careful consideration.' He drops his voice and leans forward. Katniss inhales with fear and nausea and a strange, instinctive twinge in her stomach as she feels his blood breath flow over her. 'If I die under suspicious circumstances that implicate you, your family will be killed immediately. I don't even need to arrange anything to ensure your death. The moment I am gone, rivals and successors will descend upon you like locusts. You'll be eaten alive.' He looks around them and gestures with his fork. 'Among the Capitol elite, you have remarkably few allies. I am one of them. I promised I would protect you, and I will. But you will need to behave.'

Katniss is about to counter with her own riposte, but then something absurd hits her. Somewhere among the smell of truffles, the dim luminescence of the floating lights, and the wailing song of the Victor a realization comes to her.

'This is it, you know,' she says. 'This is our marriage. This is what life is going to be like for… Well, forever. This is it.'

Snow's face is lit unevenly. He looks so very human, and Katniss wonders at the number of times she has already kissed him. How casually they conduct their abominations! His face is already growing familiar to her, not just to her eyes but to her mouth and hands. Soon she will know him perfectly, inside and out.

And what will she know of herself, when that day comes?

Snow offers her a strange smile. He lifts his glass. 'To matrimony,' he says.

Katniss hesitates, then raises her own. 'To you dying in your sleep.'