Katniss opens her eyes and she sees the launch room. Did she dream the Games? Did she dream winning? Did she dream Rue's corpse? She hasn't even entered the arena yet! It's all about to start! She is going to die!

Then her eyes focus and she sees the white ribbons, and she feels the rich cotton sheets, and she smells the champagne, and she remembers. The Games are long, long over. She is not about to die. She is a married woman. She is already dead.

She sits slowly and raises her left hand to her face. The silver wedding band glitters there. She is Mrs Katniss Snow. The loss of her name drops through her like lead. Everdeen was her father's name, and one of so few things she had left of him. One photo, one name, some folded memories. Only the memories now remain; Snow has wiped everything else away.

Katniss stands and decides not to think about that anymore. Her father is gone. Her life is gone. Now she has a new life, an abysmal mystery unspooling before her. Who will she be? What will become of her?

Katniss stretches her stiff limbs and does a few push-ups and crunches, then jogs on the spot until she tires. Deprived of trees to climb and forced to wobble around in stilettos all day is making her muscles itch. She does not want to lose her lean body and honed reflexes to a life of stultifying luxury. Katniss must remain, even if Everdeen is gone.

No one comes to disturb her, and Katniss indulges her alone time by taking a long shower and eating her way through the minibar while lounging in a towel and amusing herself reading the descriptions on the condoms. She hopes they charge Snow something ridiculous for the snacks. At around lunchtime, she resentfully dresses in the latest outfit left for her, which is a surprisingly sensible skirt and sweater ensemble. What she would give for a pair of leather pants.

It isn't long before a familiar knock comes at her door. She meanders over, loathing and irritation lapping against her, then opens it to see her husband. He is really quite handsome today in a deep blue suit with silver velvet trim, and Katniss hates it.

'Fancy look for a hovercraft trip,' she observes.

'This is for the reception. Your own outfit will doubtless take longer to put on. You can get changed at the mansion.'

'I thought this was my reception outfit,' she says, gesturing.

'I am sure they have something less prosaic in mind for the party.' He frowns at her plain clothes. 'Although this one at least makes you look less like a schoolgirl.'

'Oh, do you like it?' she says, her voice scalding and sour, and she does a sarcastic curtsy. 'I'm so glad it pleases you.'

Snow is about to chastise her again, but at that moment there is a rustle of activity at the end of the corridor. They turn to see one of the obnoxious couples from last night emerging from their own room, laughing with each other. Katniss, lightning-quick, steps forward and slides her arm around Snow before he can register that the couple is even there. He tenses and then relaxes against her, and Katniss gives the other couple a cheerful wave.

'Well done,' mutters Snow resentfully.

'Didn't want them thinking we'd slept in different rooms,' she says, then bites back a smirk. 'Got to keep them thinking you took my virginity last night.'

'Indeed.' Snow pulls away from her. He doesn't even try to hide his discomfort. 'Come along. We have another long day ahead of us.'

Snow escorts her out of the hotel, which necessitates more hand-holding and smiling and waving to the other couples. As they cross the field, Katniss takes an extreme glee in Snow's irritation at how she blows kisses at the crowd and hangs off Snow's arm like an infatuated teenager. Only once the hovercraft doors are shut behind them, sealing them alone with Snow's team, do they yank away from one another with such force that Katniss knocks her head on the doorframe.

'My apologies,' says Snow, but he is trying not to look at her. 'You don't need to be so… excessive.'

Katniss gives a revolting smile. 'I can't help it, dear. I'm just so in love. And glowing with conjugal satisfaction.'

This makes Snow look positively ill. He pushes past her and sinks into a chair, then snaps his fingers at one of his team members. 'Priscus? What's our schedule?'

Priscus – who looks much like every other member of Snow's team, if a little more severe – begins to read from his tablet. 'The flight will take forty minutes. Then there will be two hours for Mrs Snow to dress. The reception will begin at 3pm, and conclude at 9pm. The reception will open with a dance, and then there will be dinner at 6pm, and drinks to follow. The first dance will be a waltz.'

Snow nods vaguely. 'Yes, that's all fine.'

Katniss is the only one discomfited. 'Uh, you know I can't dance, right?'

Snow turns livid eyes upon her. 'What?'

'Well, I don't know how to waltz.' She pauses. 'I know how to do-si-do; we did it every year at the harvest festival.'

Snow stares at her. He does not know how to do-si-do. He passes a hand over his face in despair, then shouts out, 'Virgilia!'

A dark-skinned, high-cheekboned woman enters and bows politely. 'Sir?'

'We have forty minutes until we land. You have that much time to teach my wife the most basic waltz. Can you do that?'

Virgilia assesses Katniss like she's a mildly interesting mathematical equation. 'Yes, I believe so.'

'Fine.' Katniss hasn't seen Snow this unhappy since the moment of her coronation. 'You teach my wife how to waltz, Katniss can try her hardest not to publicly humiliate me today, and then we'll get through six hours of henpecking by the Capitol glitterati, and then I can try to get some actual work done.'

He gets up and pushes through to another room, radiating displeasure, and Katniss feels quietly content.

'Somehow I think he liked me more when he was trying to have me killed in the Games,' she opines.

Virgilia, unmoved, holds out a hand. 'Shall we begin, Mrs Snow?'

The dance lesson is almost enjoyable. After fifteen minutes of forward steps, backward steps, and side steps, Katniss is extremely pleasantly surprised to discover that she isn't too bad at waltzing. It's a lot like climbing a tree or moving swiftly and silently through the brush, tracking something she wants to kill. Only there's less blood and more music. Virgilia is a firm and unemotional teacher, but she offers enough curt praise that Katniss knows she's doing a passable job.

They are returned to the mansion exactly on schedule. Katniss isn't given any opportunity to speak with Snow; the team bundles her off to her chambers, and there she is met by a pair of stylists. At first she thinks it's the same couple from before, but then she becomes sure one of them is new to her. It's hard to tell them apart when their hair and nails and dresses change so much. The stylists are an endlessly revolving team of complete strangers.

But these strangers get to know her body intimately. She is stripped again, her skin buffed again, every part of her touched again. She finds herself zoning out so badly she doesn't know what's happening when they work her into a new set of lingerie. She is unable to think about anything except, vaguely, the smell of blood as unfamiliar hands work a fine pair of embroidered underwear between her legs. The cameras watch her, and strangers molest her, and Katniss tries to perfectly recall the feeling of landing a throwing knife into the skull of a raccoon as hot fingers settle a lace string between her labia.

'All done!' says one of them and Katniss blinks. The last twenty minutes are a blank for her.

When she examines the dress in the mirror, she is grateful to see that it is at least not provocative. It's rather too girlish for her tastes, and probably Snow's, with layers of pink and yellow netting that float around her like she's a macaron wrapped in ribbon.

'It's a peach-blossom satin bodice with a daffodil chiffon drape and an alençon lace trimming,' says a stylist proudly. 'Daffodil' is the only word Katniss really knows, but at least she's heard of peaches.

Once she exits her chambers, balancing on terrible heels, the rumble of guests below rise up to her. She realizes she has no idea how many people are coming to the reception. One hundred? One thousand? All of them here to celebrate her wedding to the man she wants to kill more than anybody in the world.

Her low, bubbling hatred for Snow fills her as she finds him awaiting her on the landing. He is peering down at the foyer below, which is full of guests, and he looks perennially displeased. He glances up as she approaches, her dress trailing, and his displeasure increases.

'What on earth are you wearing?'

Katniss tongues the side of her mouth and tries to remember what the stylists said. 'Uh, a peach and daffodil drape with, uh… something.'

He stares at it with disdain. 'It's practically a copy of Valeria Bothwell's dress from last year.'

'Guess she's a trendsetter.'

'She died last week in a rebel bombing.'

'Guess she was a trendsetter.'

'You need to change.'

Now it's her turn to look furious. 'Are you kidding me? It took them two hours to sew me into this dress.'

'It's unacceptable.' He grasps her arm without asking and wheels her back in the direction of her chambers. 'They will need to find something else.'

More hours of pin-poking and nipple-twisting? Absolutely not. She yanks herself away. 'No way. I'm not going through that again. I'm wearing this.'

'No, you're not.'

'Yes, I am.'

He grasps for her again and she pulls back, arms raised defensively, ready to fight, even if she throws him over the railing into a crowd of the Capitol elite. They regard each other, testing the air, then Snow lunges for her. She's too quick, he's too old; he can't catch her.

But he can catch her dress.

Snow's fingers close on the butterfly gauze puff sleeve. The rip is loud. The sleeve tears, and along with it comes half of the arm- and bust-seam.

With the comic inelegance of a baby rabbit, Katniss' left breast falls free.

Snow's eyes drop to the exposure and Katniss briefly considers covering herself, but then Snow inclines his whole body away from her, eyes on the opposite side of the foyer.

'That was not intentional,' he says.

He is embarrassed!

President Snow, embarrassed, is the most wonderful thing that Katniss has experienced in recent memory. Choirs chorus in her skull. It's the most powerful she has felt in so very, very long.

And Effie talked down my breasts, she thinks.

'Should I go back and change, then?' she says, purposefully not making any attempt to hide her loose breast.

'Yes, obviously,' Snow seethes, refusing to look at her. 'Find something else. Be ready in fifteen minutes.'

Katniss walks back the way she came, happier than she ever thought she could feel with half of her chest on display.

Katniss doesn't even bother to look for the stylists. She rifles through the many wardrobes left to her and finds a frankly quite stunning silver-grey dress: light silk, floor-length, sleeveless but high-busted. It sparkles quite pleasingly, and she spends a little longer than she ought modelling it in front of the mirror. It's too low in the back, scooping down to just above her backside, but otherwise it's a sensible and almost severe item. She decides, also, to rip off the underwear they forced on her and just go commando. It's the kind of thing she knows would piss off Snow, and that is one of the few things that brings her joy.

She rejoins Snow at the landing and he looks at her with relief.

'Much better.'

'Yes, you see how it covers both of my breasts.'

Snow looks at her with contempt, but Katniss is too pleased with herself to care. Together, they descend the staircase arm-in-arm and neither expresses any desire to maim the other.

The guests are not quite as ridiculous as Katniss expected. Her context for public events is all Games-related, but the general demographic and aesthetic extravagance is markedly different at her wedding reception. The people are older, most of them at least fifty, and for the most part lack the ludicrous fashions that she so associates with the Capitol. There is a clamor of applause and delighted aahs as she and the President descend, and Katniss feels a tiny bit excited. It's quite nice, being thrown a party and being celebrated for something other than killing children.

Snow comes to a halt and she stands beside him. He takes her hand in his and Katniss chews loose the healing skin inside her mouth.

'Thank you, all, for finding time in your busy schedules to attend this little gathering.' There is polite laughter. The wedding of the President is pretty much the biggest social event of the decade. 'Most of you know I never thought to remarry. No doubt this comes as a surprise to a good many of you. But, well…' He turns to look at Katniss and his smile is radiant. She tries to mimic it. 'My Katniss is an extraordinary young woman. I am truly blessed to enjoy a love like this.' He turns back to the crowd. 'If you will indulge us, my wife and I would like to take the first dance.'

A space is cleared in the floor and a string quartet prepares themselves. The crowd is silent and beaming as Katniss and Snow take to the floor. Katniss can feel her heart racing like an over-cranked clock. She genuinely does not want to get this wrong, not only for the sake of not embarrassing Snow, but because she would actually like the first dance at her wedding to not be a complete disaster.

She is relieved to be in the slinky silver dress rather than the nightmare of chiffon and flowers. She can move far more easily, although balancing on her heels is still treacherous. Snow takes her hand in his and she manages this time not to visibly jolt, but her calm is ruined by the touch of his second hand on her lower back. The intimacy of his cool palm on her bare skin punches her with anxiety. He is suddenly standing far too close to her, his face inches from her own, and that blood-smell is soaking into her again. She can feel her smile slipping. She can feel the urge to run scratching at her brain.

'Katniss, focus,' he whispers, and in the steel of his voice she is able to strengthen herself.

'Do you need to touch my back?' she says through her smiling teeth.

'Yes. It's a waltz.' He says this as though she's stupid, and Katniss tries not to roll her eyes.

The strings begin murmuring to themselves, and Katniss feels everything she just learned about dancing go from her head. Then Snow moves, stepping firmly to his left, and the combination of muscle memory and the force of his movement pushes her along, and then to the next step, and then to the next, and she realizes she is doing it. It's going okay. She can waltz.

Why, if she can master the waltz, the next three decades of marriage to her most hated enemy will be a piece of cake.

Snow dances well, and he is particularly good at covering for her mistakes. It is, as ever, far easier to smile at Snow than at the roomful of strangers. They share an ease and mutual recognition in one another's suffering. Katniss even starts to get used to the hand on her back, and as she warms up to the moves she realizes she doesn't actually feel too bad. She has spent so much time smiling and sitting still and posing and laughing that it is a relief to be able to move around, to use her physicality, to step softly and expertly as she did as a hunter.

There is almost disappointment when the waltz ends. She is breathing hard, skin flushed, and she is genuinely considering asking if they can keep dancing rather than make small-talk with the guests when Snow dips her to the floor with such suddenness that she almost cries out, and then he presses his lips to hers.

It's nearly worse than the wedding kiss. At least she was able to prepare herself for that; this kiss comes completely unannounced, and her mouth remains hard and terrified against Snow's. But almost as soon as it begins his lips are leaving her, she is being righted, and he is looking at with her with annoyance.

'Pull yourself together, you look furious,' he says through a smile.

'Why did you do that?' she hisses through her own hateful grin.

'It's the first dance of the wedding reception, Katniss, I am expected to kiss you.'

'Why didn't you warn me?'

'Katniss, I can't give you a warning every time occasion requires that I kiss you.' He reaches up and bizarrely tucks a lock of her hair behind her ear. 'Fix your expression. Look happy. This is your wedding celebration.'

'Oh, I'm fucking delighted,' she says while showing as many teeth as she can.

They decide to break apart at that point, for both their sakes, and Snow goes to make small-talk with a group of dull looking men who can only be politicians while Katniss stands alone. She glances around her. She knows absolutely no one here: her family have not been permitted entry to this most exclusive of after-parties. It's her wedding reception, and she is alone. She helps herself to a cocktail borne by a circulating waiter and wonders if it would be better to go back to Snow and hang off his arm rather than standing here doing absolutely nothing. It's embarrassing.

But her wallflowering does not last long. A man approaches her, one she does not know, smiling benignly. He is perhaps in his early fifties, extremely tidy and dressed in a royal blue suit. He has a waxy kind of handsomeness that Katniss does not enjoy.

'My, my, Mrs Snow. What an honor.'

Without asking, the man leans forward and takes Katniss' hand, then presses his lips to it. Katniss forces herself to submit to this, then wonders if she actually has to. Is this normal behavior? Would Snow mind if another man was kissing the hand of his wife?

'Who are you?' she asks.

The man smiles and Katniss cannot discern any sincerity in it. 'I am Senator Laurus Daric. You might recall that my television spot was delayed on account of your engagement announcement.'

'Oh.' Katniss feels like she's expected to apologize, but she really doesn't want to.

'I must say, it's a rare thing for a girl from District 12 to make her way to the Capitol,' Daric muses. 'To overcome your background, your breeding, and wind up alongside the President… Quite a story.'

The word breeding chafes against her. Katniss shows her canines. 'I've overcome a lot, especially in the Games. I killed people.' She takes a loud slurp of her drink and Daric's lip curls in disdain. 'Have you ever killed anybody?'

He laughs as though this is a charming joke. 'Not yet.' He offers a little bow that Katniss finds rather sarcastic. 'Lovely to meet you, Mrs Snow.'

She watches him disappear back into the crowd. Katniss doesn't even know what a senator does. It's not like anyone's say other than the President's matters, so what would be the point of him?

She has little time to consider this, however, as she is then immediately set upon by a gaggle of politicians' wives, who all want to know everything about her. She soon learns that this particular demographic is nothing like wives in District 12, where everyone has a profession, even those who dedicate much of their time to child-rearing. Here, the wives seem to be defined by nothing more than the sheen to which they give the arms of their husbands, and Katniss realizes that she can't tell any of them apart. A new claustrophobia starts to build in her as she answers inane questions about the wedding and the honeymoon and her forbidden romance with Snow. Will this be what the rest of her life is like? She had been terrified of the violence of being wedded to the President, but the possibility of incredible dullness was not something for which she was prepared.

Katniss is only roused out of the mind-numbing boredom by a particular comment made by a wife who is only distinguishable due to being significantly more drunk than her peers.

'Well, you are a lucky girl,' she says through pink-iced lips. 'I only wish I met my husband when he was the age of yours.'

Katniss studies the woman, who is tipping a lime green cocktail down her throat. 'What do you mean?'

The woman wiggles her head as though this is obvious. 'Best of both worlds, honey! You get the money, you get the power, and none of that sex stuff.'

The other wives nod conspiratorially, as though this is a sentiment shared by them all, and Katniss realizes with first amusement and then dread what they are suggesting.

'What are you implying?' she queries, her voice sharp.

The drunk woman looks startled. 'Well, you know… What with the President marrying such a younger woman, we all assumed…' She trails off and all of the other wives shut their mouths tight. Katniss pushes forward.

'You all assumed what?' she urges. Oh, if she only had her bow… She could aim it just right to get three of these wretches with one arrow through their skinny necks…

'We assumed… I mean, it's a bit of a joke, isn't it?' She laughs, and no one laughs with her. 'A man his age with a girl like you… It's not exactly a marriage of passion, is it? I mean, is he even… you know… capable?'

The silence from the other wives is deafening. They are making Snow an object of mockery. This puts Katniss in danger. If they see through the marriage, it won't bring unity. If it doesn't bring unity, Snow loses power. If Snow loses power, Prim dies.

Katniss' mind is blank. 'Of course it's a marriage of passion,' she says hurriedly. The women stare at her with curiosity and confusion. Katniss tries to think of something, anything, to say. She has never had a talent for flirtatious banter; her knowledge of sex is entirely theoretical, outside of watching the deer in mating season and her own brief, dispassionate forays into masturbation. She opens her mouth and lets whatever words are inside spill out. 'He made me come three times on the ride over here.'

The women stare, open-mouthed.

Katniss downs her drink and hopes that if Snow kills her for this, he does it quick.

'If you'll excuse me,' she tells the women, then flees as gracefully as she can.

It's a relief to locate Snow, and then Katniss reflects briefly on how bizarre it is to associate relief with the man who is the cause of every terrible thing that has ever happened to her. He is talking to some grey old men but looks up with convincing adoration when she approaches.

She tucks a hand around his arm. 'If you fellows could excuse me, I need to borrow my husband for a moment.'

She leads him out of the main ballroom into a quieter corner where they will not be overheard.

'We have a problem,' she says. He lowers his ear to her mouth for her to speak. 'Are you aware that people here think that I'm a gold-digging whore and you're an impotent fool?'

They keep romantic smiles plastered on their face throughout the entire conversation lest anyone looks at them (which a lot of people are, all of the time).

'It was a concern,' he says. 'That is indeed a problem if they're saying it out loud.'

'Especially if they're brave enough to say it to my face. What is this? I thought people supported our marriage.'

'The demographic of Flickerman's show do; that doesn't mean it translates to the Capitol elite.' A grimace twists his smile. 'My priority was soothing the rebellion in the Districts. I anticipated that this could be an issue.'

'What do we do? Other than…' She is suddenly extremely uncomfortable. 'Other than me telling people that, uh…'

He stares at her. 'What?'

'I might have… just a little bit… told some of the society wives that you, uh… you know, told them some details of our sex life.'

Snow looks like he wants to smash her skull against the wall. 'What, exactly, did you tell them?

Katniss mumbles under her breath.

'I can't hear you.' He sounds lethally angry.

'I just told them…' She cannot bear to look at him and hurries through it as fast as she can. 'I just said you made me orgasm a lot. That's all.'

Snow pinches his brow and for a moment looks like mortification will kill him. Then he drops his hand and is warmth and smiles again for the watching crowd.

'Fine. It could have been worse. Perhaps it's even useful that some rumors circulate. You can get away with saying things that I cannot.'

Katniss is as relieved as she is surprised. 'So, should I do more of that?'

'No.' He almost shouts the word. 'But we can't ignore this. This marriage cannot make a joke of us in the Capitol. Quelling the Districts' rebellion will have all been for nothing if it opens us up to enemies closer to home.'

'Then what do we do?'

He gives a world-weary sigh. 'I'm afraid hand-holding and chaste kisses might not cut it. We might need to make a more public display of our…' His lips part and Katniss can see his tongue catch his teeth in open, revolted displeasure. '…passion.'

'How?' she says blankly. 'You want us to screw on the dancefloor?'

Katniss wonders if Snow would prefer to murder her or the entire roomful of guests. 'Something like that. We'll need to try harder for the last dance. Sell the authenticity. I'll need to be more physical with you.' There is genuine regret in his face. 'I was hoping we could get through this without such theater. But this is how it has to be. I'm the President, and I'm an old man. If I become a joke to these people, we'll both be dead. Do you understand?'

Katniss nods. 'I can deal with it. It's just one dance.'

'For now,' he says ruefully. 'Did you learn anything else in your conversations?'

She frowns. 'A man spoke to me, some senator.'

Snow's lip twitches, but with amusement or disdain, Katniss cannot tell. 'Senator Daric?'

'Yeah.'

'What did you think of him?'

She shrugs. 'I didn't like him. Am I supposed to like him?'

'Absolutely not.' If anything, there is more contempt in Snow's voice than when he was discussing their public affections. 'He's a conniving little bureaucrat.'

Katniss helps herself to a vibrant blue drink carried by a passing waiter. 'What even is a senator's job? Don't you make all the rules?'

'I do. For now. But this is not a dynasty. I do not choose my successor. There will be a vote to determine the next ruler of Panem, after I die. Senator Daric, unfortunately, is one of the frontrunners.'

Katniss tries to run calculations. Surely anyone that Snow dislikes must be a better alternative to the man responsible for decades of oppression and bloodshed. And yet Katniss cannot help but feel more comfortable in Snow's presence than Daric's. Why, right now they are almost having a conversation!

'So… If you die, he might become the next President?'

'Believe me, Katniss, I am working very hard to prevent that.' Snow takes a mouthful of his own drink and his lips crease with scorn. 'That is, when I'm not fighting the rebellion, disciplining the peacekeepers, maintaining my own reputation, and, well, quarrelling with you.' He frowns at her. 'Katniss, stop chewing your tongue.'

She catches herself. 'Sorry. It's what I do if I can't bite my nails.' She resists the urge to peel off the appliques. 'I can't really imagine anyone could be a worse President than you.'

'Oh, there are far worse people than me, I assure you.' He downs his drink and Katniss decides to do the same. Maybe if they both get drunk, it'll be easier to feel his hands and his lips and his corruption against her. She could get so drunk she wouldn't need to remember the fingerprints he leaves on her soul. But Katniss doubts that Snow would ever allow that. He looks her up and down with resignation. 'Well, Katniss, shall we wrap up this circus?'

He offers his arm, and Katniss manages to take it without grimacing. The warmth of his body is starting to become normal to her, and she hates it. She wants every particle of his being to remain an attack on her: she wants to feel invaded. She cannot let Snow's body become normal. She cannot forget what he is. He is malice, and blood, and mass graves, and also – calamitously – her husband.

Everyone applauds as they emerge onto the dance floor, and Katniss feels the surreality of it all eat at her. So many strange faces, so much delight, and all of it for something so rotten. They are a wax apple with a dead worm at the core. The music dwindles, then the strings kick in again with a slow, lush, romantic waltz. Katniss keeps her smile soft and her eyes glittering as one of Snow's hands takes her own, which she is getting horribly used to, and then the other goes to her bare lower back. She shivers, but his hand is firm against her skin. The fingertips are both feather-light and inflexible, trapping her and supporting her as he pulls her closer to him – so much closer than their first dance. Her smile falters as she is brought flush against his chest, the fabric of her dress rubbing against his suit, her breasts against him. Katniss regrets not wearing underwear; she wants as much fabric separating their bodies as possible. Snow's smile is beautifully crafted. She tries to mimic it, but the proximity of him is sending hot, itchy eruptions through her skin. Her heart starts to race. She wants to run.

But she cannot run. She must smile and let Snow touch her. She must feel the noxious entirety of his body against her own, and she must pretend she enjoys it.

The music ends its introduction. Snow moves, and they begin to dance.

He is too close to her, far too close. This is like kissing, only worse, because it doesn't end. Snow's breath hits her again and again and she feels seasick.

I can't do this, Katniss thinks. She shuts her eyes. Thinks about Gale. She pictures his firm, calloused hands; she recalls his reckless laugh and shining eyes; she remembers the young, hard muscles of his body against hers when they horsed around or when they helped each other up rocks and trees and hills… His hand on her back… His spicy smell… His lips…

Then the memory of Snow's kisses hits her like a throwing knife and Katniss' mind splinters. But she doesn't pull away. She behaves. She keeps moving, dancing, her mind dissolving. The heat of Snow's breath is excruciating: washing her, scrubbing her skin...

His face is too close… She opens her eyes and there he is, filling her vision, filling her senses. Katniss knows what it is to be hunted, but now she is learning what it is to be caught and eaten. There is no escape.

When Snow leans in for the kiss – gentle, intimate, pristine and cancerous – Katniss meets him halfway. Just to get it over with. Just to have some control over what's happening to her. When she finds Snow's lips with her own, there is some comfort in knowing that it cannot get any worse. She is in the deepest point of hell, his mouth soft against hers, and all she can think of is raw meat… raw meat against her teeth… And Snow's hands close on her face and neck, almost strangling her, almost caressing her… Holding her as delicately as if she were the most fragile thing in the world… Nausea erupts through her… At the base of her stomach, there is a sharp tremor that she does not recognize…

Applause shells them. Then Snow's mouth is gone and his body is a little further away. Katniss blinks dizzily, her vision swimming. The dance is over, the kiss is over, and everyone adores them.

Snow leans to her ear. 'Are you alright?'

'I'm fine,' she mutters, trying to keep smiling, feeling perilously close to vomiting. 'I just need some air. I feel sick.'

'I'll walk you outside so it doesn't look like you're fleeing from me.'

Katniss is increasingly woozy, and she can do little but let Snow steer her out of the room and down an unfamiliar corridor, through a room filled with servants bustling about glasses and bottles, and then out of a huge glass door into the cold night air.

This is the first time she's been in the gardens. They are silent and colossal; overhead, the black night sky is bruised with city luminescence, and all around the grass stretches into faraway darkness. They are alone here. Magnificent rose bushes glitter with tiny electric lights, and as their sweet smell hits Katniss she leans over a plant-pot and vomits multicolored liquid.

Her throat burns and contracts, and then lovely endorphins pass through her as her nausea lifts. She wipes her mouth on the back of her hand.

'Better?'

Snow is standing next to her, and it takes Katniss a moment to realize he is holding her hair back.

She shrugs away from him and collapses on a stone bench. 'Yeah, I'm finished. Stop touching me.'

'Did you drink too much?'

'Maybe.' Her face scrunches. 'The kissing is the worst part of this. Kissing Peeta when I didn't want to was never this bad. I hate how you smell. It's disgusting.' Her eyes flick to his. If Snow is offended by her comments, he doesn't let it show. 'Why do you smell like that? And taste like that? Like blood?'

The lightest fingerprint of a smile touches his mouth. 'You noticed?'

She raises her eyebrows. 'How could I not? Are you sick?'

He watches her, and she him. It's cool and quiet in the garden, and the roses reflect the light like massive silver coins.

'Now is not the time for us to discuss this,' he says at last. 'I think it would be best if you got some rest.'

She rolls her eyes. She doesn't want to rest: she wants to run through the gardens and melt into the darkness and never be a human being again. She scrapes her applique nails against the stone. 'What happens now? I mean, tomorrow? What happens for the rest of my life?'

'Tomorrow, nothing will happen. Nor the day after that. Actually, I have no public events scheduled with you until next weekend. I will need to devote some time to my work. Planning a wedding is rather time-consuming, you know.' He smiles at her, but she offers nothing back. 'You should take the week to explore the house and the gardens. This is your home now, however much you might resent it. I will give you as free a rein as can be sensible, considering your…' His smile widens. '…your deep, abiding hatred for me.'

The evening breeze runs over Katniss' bare shoulders and she shivers, and Snow notices. He notices everything about her.

'Are you cold?'

'Stop it,' she mutters.

'Stop what?'

'Being nice to me.' She rubs her hands into her eyes. 'Yesterday you took me to tour the places where I killed people, and where a person I cared about died. Now you want to comfort me?' She shakes her head in disgust. 'Whatever mind games you're playing, I'm not interested in them. I don't see why we have to speak to one another at all if we're not in public.'

'I'm not playing mind games, Katniss. I am being kind to you because it is useful to keep you in good health. I took you to the arena because that was useful, too. I do things for specific reasons. I am not vindictive.'

She grips the bench so tightly that one of her nails snaps off. 'What does that even mean? What, you hurt people and you kill them and you let people rot in poverty and misery and starvation, but as long as it's not vindictive, then it's alright?'

'Pain is a tool,' he continues pleasantly. 'Poverty is a tool. Trauma is a tool. They are all useful and effective, when deployed appropriately. I am not interested in pain for the sake of pain.'

Her hatred sears her. 'So you want to traumatize me?'

The little smile that curves his mouth makes her want to break his jaw. 'If it's useful, yes.'

She stares at him, aghast and raging. She can still feel the stain of his kiss on her lips, his hand on her back, his chest pressed against her own. She bares her teeth. 'If you want to traumatize me, why don't you just rape me?'

The smile withers. Katniss can hear the distant clinking of glasses as champagne is poured, and she can hear the soft burble of a fountain somewhere. For a moment, she thinks she's pushed him too far. But Snow's discomfort soon hardens into cold, quiet anger.

'Several reasons, Katniss.' His voice is pack-ice. 'First of all, that kind of trauma would not be useful to me. And it would be base. I am not interested in base gratification.'

'So you can pretend you're better than everybody else?' she snaps.

'The third reason,' he continues, ignoring her, 'is that I made you a promise. I keep my promises.' The anger lifts, and there is that infuriating, mocking kindness in his eyes again. 'Does that reassure you?'

'I don't need to be reassured.' She still sounds like an angry dog. 'I've survived worse. I don't care what you do to me.'

His voice is still soft, like ash. 'Yes, you do, Katniss.'

'Oh, I despise you,' she mutters. She feels like she could be made of the same stone as the bench. 'You are evil. You are everything I hate, so stop pretending that we're—'

'Husband and wife?'

She glares at him. 'That we're friends.'

'Katniss.' This time his voice is harder, and Katniss forces herself to hold his gaze. 'As you observed at our honeymoon, this is it. This is the rest of your life. Or, at least, your life for the foreseeable future. I promise you, it will be much easier to endure this existence if you exercise a little… amiability.'

She folds her arms and turns away from him. 'I don't want to do that. If we're not in public, then I want you to leave me alone.'

'I can do that,' says Snow, quite mildly. 'But remember, Katniss: I am all you have. If you prefer to be alone, then I shall leave you alone. But you will be just that: alone.'

He pauses, letting the word imprint into her softest parts, and then he leaves. Katniss sits by herself on the bench with the roses, and their cloying smell surrounds her. This is it. This is her married life, day after day, an endlessly receding white horizon. Amidst the smell of the roses she detects the smell of her own vomit, and she thinks about Snow, and then she lies down on the stone bench and shivers in the darkness and pretends she's back in the forest… Running over pine-needles… A bow at her back, Gale at her side… Hunting and chasing, ready to bite, ready to kill, and no one will ever be able to catch her and put their fingers inside her…