Katniss wakes in her massive bed in a room built with money and blood and she stares at the ceiling for an hour before rising.

She has nothing to do today. Snow has no need of her, and she cannot hunt, and there are no chores. She wanders her bedroom in the silk slip she slept in (all the nightclothes left to her are slips) and touches an antique dresser, an oil painting, a statue of a rearing horse, a carved chair, and a little glass vase. These are now the things that make up her world. When she passes the mirror, she looks at the girl inside it and wonders who Mrs Snow is going to be.

It is hard to countenance going beyond her chambers. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of rooms to explore, and there are the massive gardens, and then what? What is there for her once these are known and mapped? Shopping in the Capitol? Walking alone, trailed by security, looking for some trinket that will bring her momentary happiness? It's too dire to think about.

So Katniss remains in her chambers. She takes long baths in a tub the size of her childhood bedroom, staring at the wall for hours, chewing on her cuticles. There is a tiny cut on her leg that she must have got while climbing a tree last week, before she was married, and she picks at it until it opens its mouth and bleeds. It's the last mark on her body from her old life. She cannot bear to let it heal. The blood snakes through the water and she feels a tiny bit better, then she returns to chewing down her fingernails.

And then what? If she wants food, the servants bring it to her. Anything she wants: steaks, soups, tiny cakes, dishes she cannot pronounce. They'll bring her anything, if she asks for it. So what reason is there ever to venture beyond her chambers? Mrs Snow waits in her rooms to be summoned, and she might as well not exist.

She passes several days like this: sleeping all afternoon, waking at night, pacing her room in endless circuits like a starving tiger. She retreats deeper and deeper into intricate fantasies of murdering Snow. How will she do it? Where will she do it? What method? She constructs universes around his open, blood-seeping corpse, and these become easier and easier to inhabit than her physical reality. She spends entire hours thinking about how to remove the skin from his skull. She spends entire hours, too, chewing her ring-finger nail.

Can't ever take the ring off, of course. She couldn't bear to put it back on. Keep it on, get used to it. Which she must, eventually. It's impossible for it to keep burning her forever.

A week slouches past and Katniss does not leave her chambers, and she thinks she is starting to get ill. She loses track of the days and so it comes as a surprise when there is a knock at the door. She is lying on the couch when it comes, doing nothing, which is to say, she is counting the flecks in a particular floorboard, which number one hundred and thirteen. She lifts her face as the door opens and she stares at some servant she does not know. She does not know any of them.

'President Snow requires your presence at an event today,' says the servant. She holds a plastic-sheathed dress. 'Your stylist team request you wear this.'

Katniss forgets for a moment how to use her mouth. 'They're not going to dress me?'

'This is a straightforward item,' says the servant. 'They will come to fix your hair and…' Her eyes drop to Katniss' fingers, which are bleeding onto the couch. 'The rest of your cosmetics.'

The servant leaves without a goodbye. Katniss lies on the couch for minutes longer, then almost an hour longer, and then she remembers to stand up and get dressed.

She unpeels the plastic the way she once unsheathed the skin of animals. The dress inside is not too bad. A purple that's almost black, low in the back and precarious in the bust, but at least it isn't going to choke her. They have left underwear, too. Katniss picks up another tiny piece of lace and a weird sleeveless, strapless bra and feels a panic attack rise leisurely inside her, stretch itself around, find it has nowhere to go, then absorb back into her bones.

She dresses quietly. The underwear is too tight and the bra pushes her breasts too high, but she lets it happen. It doesn't matter. They're just clothes. She has to learn not to care about these things.

She waits in her chambers in her new outfit, parts of her pretty and parts of her bleeding, and eventually the stylists arrive. Katniss thinks these ones are strangers, but she cannot tell. She says nothing to them as they examine her nails and exclaim in shock and revulsion at the state she's made of them, and she says nothing as they stick on new, sharp, violet nails. She says nothing as they comb her hair high into an elegant knot, or when they tell her she's put the bra on wrong and they grope her breasts into a new arrangement.

It is an incredible relief when she is finally allowed to leave and join Snow.

She has not seen him in a week. The absence of him is simultaneously balm and distress. Without him, she has no reason to exist in this world, and she has no power over anything that happens to her. Unlike the stylists, at least Snow is careful when he touches her.

She finds him waiting in the foyer. He is stately in layers of grey, adjusting the white rose on his lapel, and Katniss feels that particular cocktail of hatred and familiarity swirl inside her. Out of habit, a dozen images flutter through her head of cutting out his eyes, nailing his tongue to something, hacking through the joints of his feet and wrists and watching him crawl over the floor, bleeding and begging…

Snow looks up and smiles with polite appreciation. 'You look lovely.'

The violent images fracture and drift apart. Having not properly spoken to anyone in a week, Katniss feels an insane alchemical high go through her from being recognized as a human being. She immediately feels more like a person.

'They make me wear the stupidest underwear,' she says as she comes to join him. 'What even is the point? No one is going to see it. Do they think you're going to see it?'

Snow, as ever, is unimpressed by her comments.

'I do not give directions to the stylists,' he comments. 'But it is true they have made more blunders than I would like.' He gives her an unreadable expression. 'Are you unhappy with the clothes?'

Katniss doesn't know how to answer that. She wants to say how much she hates these strangers touching her, but she cannot afford to offer Snow that vulnerability. Who knows what he'll do with it?

'They're fine,' she says at last, avoiding his eyes. 'So, where are we going?'

'Ah,' says Snow, and he guides her to the door. 'Somewhere unusual. It's a very special occasion. An execution.'

Katniss turns at the entrance. 'A what? An execution?'

'Yes,' says snow, mild as milk. 'Of course, you will be familiar with the common executions of District criminals that are performed by firearm. But when a Capitol citizen commits a crime so unspeakable that we deem the death penalty an acceptable measure then, well… it is a more special affair.' Katniss lets him walk her down the steps, processing his words unevenly. 'We don't like to air our dirty laundry in public. It sets a bad example to the Districts to see members of the Capitol facing execution. But this particular individual has been convicted of treason, and so shall be executed in a grand celebration by one of the traditional methods.'

Her mouth is dry. 'The… what methods…?'

They cross the beautiful twilit grounds to the limousine and she is too distracted to glare at him as he opens the door for her. She is already sweating. An execution. He is taking me to watch an execution.

'Well, crucifixion is obviously favored for its brutality – but it is such a long, drawn-out affair that we don't use it for "event nights", as it were. You can expect something more concise. Burning, flaying, impalement, et cetera.'

He sits beside her in the car. Katniss turns over these words in her mind with a kind of bafflement. Flaying… Impalement…

'I don't…' she starts, and then she has to swallow and steady the fear mounting in her chest. 'I don't want to watch an execution.'

Snow is completely unfazed. 'Unfortunately, my dear, attending executions are an essential part of our duties.' He almost smiles. 'I did warn you what this life would entail.'

She grips the edge of the seat as the engine starts to hum. 'Snow, please… Can't we go somewhere else?'

'I'm surprised this is so shocking to you. You've seen plenty of people die.'

She lets out a strangled gasp and falls back against the seat. 'Why the fuck am I dressed like this?' She gestures at the bare skin of her back and the precarious cut of the bust. 'I thought we were going dancing, or to a party, or something.'

He considers. 'I can take you dancing afterwards, if you would enjoy that. But not for long; I'm too old for late nights.'

'No, I don't want to go fucking dancing! I don't want to go to an execution either! Why am I dressed like this for an execution!'

'It is a social event, Katniss. Everyone treats Capitol executions as a special occasion. People will be celebrating the death of an undesirable… Oh, and as this is an execution for treason, I shall give a short speech. It will all be rather festive. Most people consider executions a form of recreation.'

'Oh, fuck…' She buries her face in her hands. More death. Death for entertainment, death for pleasure, death with light refreshments. Death woven by her husband and death casually condoned. Death garnished by her smiles…

She feels Snow's familiar hand rest upon her shoulder. There is something grounding about the sensation.

'It is perfectly acceptable for you to be moved by the death, if you need to be. Weeping, shock, even fainting have all been fashionable responses in the past.'

'I'm not going to faint.' She grits her teeth and shrugs his hand away. 'Stop touching me.'

'As you wish.' He turns away from her and examines the sparkling city lights as their car is absorbed into the Capitol streets. 'But be aware that people will expect us to be on high form.'

Katniss looks at him and thinks about smashing his head into the window. 'You mean you want us to hold hands and kiss while watching someone get flayed alive?'

'Indeed,' he smiles.

She looks back to the window. The cacophony of urban lights makes her head pulse. 'I didn't think marrying you would be like this,' she says.

'What did you think it would be like?' He sounds lightly curious.

'I don't know.' Like being dead. Only she keeps living, day after day. She glances at him. 'What about me? Am I fulfilling your expectations?'

He seems to enjoy this question. 'I will say that you consistently surprise me, Katniss.'

She has nothing to say to that. She wants to surprise him with blades and bone-saws. A knife in his back. A wire snare against his throat. But she has none of these things. She has her hatred, and she has her anxiety, and what else? What else is she?

It is a short drive in the limousine to the wide, open plain of the City Circle where the execution is to take place. They take the backstreets, avoiding the crowd, but Katniss can hear the distant roar. She fidgets with her wedding ring, rotating it in hot, tight circles, until she notices Snow watching her and she stops. The trip is disorientating as they weave through buildings, but Katniss thinks they pull up behind the very spot where the President first watched her and the other tributes on their chariot ride. How strange it is to be on the other side of the stage.

The car engine clicks off. Katniss steadies her breathing and Snow indulges her. It's quiet here, the crowd noise muffled by the heft of the platform. She feels very much alone – except for Snow.

'Do we really need to do this?' she says.

'No,' answers Snow. 'We can do whatever we like. I'm the President. But I have chosen to do this, because it is useful to make an example of a Capitol rebel. And you are going to do this because it is useful that people see that the girl from District 12 opposes the rebellion and will celebrate the death of insurrectionists.'

Her mouth twists. 'But I don't celebrate the death of insurrectionists.'

'Yes, you do,' he says, with his monstrous smile. 'Simply by standing next to me and smiling you perform an act of celebration. It doesn't matter what you think, or what you want. All it takes is a smile. And you're going to do that for me, aren't you?'

Katniss chews open the wound in her mouth and she tastes the blood and saliva that fills her. 'Of course,' she says, voice as light as dry summer hay. Then she leans forward, fox-quick, and smears a blood-and-spittle kiss on Snow's cheek. He recoils, glaring, and immediately wipes at the pink froth with his handkerchief. 'I'll be absolutely perfect,' Katniss smiles.

They leave the limousine and there is a steep set of stone steps leading them up to the platform. They are easy for Katniss to scale, and she takes note of the extra effort they demand of Snow. He is, by and large, in excellent condition for his age, but these little weaknesses show through at times. She is stronger. She is faster. In a hunt to the death, she would be the predator.

But they are not in a hunt to the death.

They are married.

They emerge atop the platform and Katniss blinks, hit by a screaming sea of people, the wind, and an infinite variety of colors. Somewhere, a sour brass band is pumping out a triumphant, uneasy melody that Katniss does not recognize. She never recognizes the music in the Capitol. Her bare shoulders shiver despite herself. The Capitol winters are milder than those in District 12, but it is still far too cold for sleeveless, backless dresses. Snow always wears layers, fur and cotton and leather. Protection. Sophistication. Authority. But none of that for Katniss. She must glitter and freeze, and pretend she enjoys it.

They have emerged in a partitioned area, the very one from which Snow first addressed them, three years ago. That was the first time she saw him in the flesh, though he had been so far away he might as well have been another hologram.

He's not far away now, though. He's holding her arm.

Snow leads her to two chairs, ornate and velvet. Katniss has not often had use for the word throne, but this is what they are. She is very tempted to seat herself in the larger one, just to irk Snow, but she sensibly takes her place in the smaller of the two.

From here, Katniss can see a crowd stretching as far as the eye can see. She stares at the bellowing populace, perplexed and unsettled. She can hear them shouting her name; indeed, she can hear them shouting her name a lot. She can hear, 'We love you, Katniss!' and 'Girl on fire!' and 'Katniss, Katniss, Katniss!' She cannot hear anyone calling out for President Snow.

He is clearly thinking the same thing and inclines his mouth to her ear. 'I think they're rather more excited to see you than me.' He sounds equal parts amused and irritated.

'I don't know why,' she mutters back.

'Well, look at you,' says Snow, and he points. Katniss follows the finger. There they are, the two of them, projected in magnificent lights and colors on a hologrammatic screen. Snow looks immaculate. Katniss thinks she looks underfed and shellshocked. But there is a resentful fierceness in her eyes, still, and her chin is high. How easily trauma and hate must read as beauty to these people.

She looks away from the image of herself to the rest of the platform, spread out before them, elevated high above the crowd. There is a microphone, and next to it is a strange, bronze, humanoid statue. It looks like a mannequin, but a seam runs along its side. There is a hole where the face should be, and Katniss can see that it must be hollow. This is the only object that gives any suggestion of how, exactly, the execution will be carried out. Katniss stares at it with distrust and displeasure. In District 12, they just put a gun to the back of your head. So much more efficient.

The brass band cuts out and then emits a screeching flourish, announcing the beginning of something. Katniss peers out over the platform. A militaristic looking man in a stark blue uniform strides across and the audience shriek in delight.

'Thank you, thank you,' announces the man, bowing to the public. Katniss doesn't know him, but the crowd obviously do. 'Before we begin today's tragic affair, let us please give a big round of applause to our President and his stunning bride, Katniss Snow!'

'For fuck's sake,' Katniss mutters, and Snow grips her hand so hard it hurts and lifts both together in greeting to the crowd, who scream some more. Their wedding bands clink together in a tiny toast. She loathes how well she is starting to know the feel of his hand in hers, his skin against hers. More and more of him is insinuating itself inside her.

'I am sure I speak for all of Panem when I wish you the utmost in health and happiness, Mister President,' beams the man, and Snow nods back in polite acknowledgement. Then it's showtime. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' says the man, 'it is with great heaviness of heart and sorrow—' Katniss thinks he doesn't sound remotely heavy of heart. '—that I come before you to announce the execution of one Paula Urnish, for the crime of treason. On the eleventh of October, the condemned planted a bomb…'

'You didn't tell me it was a woman,' Katniss whispers.

Snow looks surprised. 'I didn't think you'd care. You've killed women before.'

Katniss falls back into her throne. 'No, I've only killed children.'

'…and not just resulted in loss of life,' continues the man on stage, 'but significant damage to our Halls of Justice. That such a radical, violent act could come from a Capitol citizen is a sobering reminder to us all that even our closest may betray us.'

Katniss glances at Snow, and he at her. She can feel a smile tugging at her lips. It's like they're sharing a joke.

The man wraps up his introduction. 'We gather here to witness the execution of this dissident. Bring out the condemned!'

Two Peacekeepers stride across the platform, guns raised, and between them is the woman to be executed. She is such a tiny thing. She must have once been pretty, but dyed blonde hair is showing dark roots and the circles under her eyes gape grey and wretched. She looks like she's been starved for some time, and her pale shift – her only clothing – hangs loose from sharp shoulders. Barefoot and shivering, the only other thing she wears are handcuffs.

'Before the execution commences,' says the announcer, 'a few words from our President. President Snow!'

More applause. More screaming. Katniss remains seated, but to her surprise Snow grasps her wrist and brings her to her feet. Unable to pull away, she walks with him, hand in hand, across to the microphone.

No, no, not this, please, not this…

Snow releases her once he reaches the microphone, and Katniss folds her hands neatly in front of her and addresses the crowd with her most serene smile. Out of the corner of her eye, only two feet away, she can see the condemned criminal watching her. The woman's eyes are so big and white that it's all Katniss can do not to stare back.

'This is always a tragic occasion,' intones President Snow, and Katniss watches a sea of faces nod in sincere agreement. 'Betrayal by a citizen of the Capitol is like a betrayal from within your own family. None of us want to watch our own people die.' He pauses for emphasis. Katniss becomes convinced her dress is going to slip down. 'But when greed surpasses loyalty it threatens not only law and order but the entire ethos of our great nation. This young woman…' He looks past Katniss at the condemned. '…made a terrible choice. She must now pay a terrible price.' Very briefly, he catches Katniss' eyes. 'Let this be a warning to all of us of the dangers of selfishness.'

There is more applause, and Katniss is grateful when Snow takes her hand again to lead her back to their seats. Even in the cool wind, she can smell the woman's sweat.

Once they are seated again she feels Snow try to release her, but she digs her fingernails in. He gives her a sidelong glance, then allows it. She does not want to release him. If he is going to chain her to this horror show, then she shall chain herself to him.

The man in blue approaches the bronze statue. He clicks open a latch and the statue falls open at the seam, revealing its hollow insides. Katniss realizes it is the perfect size of the condemned woman.

The woman, too, seems to realize what the statue is for.

'No,' she says. 'No, please, don't do this. I've learned my lesson. I've learned it, okay? Listen – Demetrius, please, you know I didn't mean to – stop, please – stop!'

The Peacekeepers hold her arms firm while the announcer unlocks her cuffs. She is lifted clean off the ground, then forced into the perfect bronze mold that must have been made specially for her. Automatically, a second set of cuffs emerge from the statue and slide around her wrists and ankles, binding her in the bronze shell.

'PLEASE!' She is crying now. 'Oh, you're evil, you're all evil! Panem is at an end! The Capitol will fall! There will come a better day!' Her rolling eyes fix first on the crowd, then on Katniss, then on her husband. 'Snow, we will find you! We will come for you! The day is coming! Your reign will fall!'

The Peacekeepers slide closed the front of the statue, which clicks in place, leaving only the woman's face visible.

Is this the execution? she Katniss. Starvation? Dying of thirst? No, that wouldn't fit an "event night"…

The man in the suit returns to the microphone and offers the audience a winning smile. 'Let the execution commence!'

For a moment, Katniss has no idea what's going on. Is she going to be crushed? Suffocated?

Katniss feels the heat before she sees the glow.

The statue is not standing directly upon the stone platform, but upon a metal plate. She had not noticed this before, but now the plate is glowing dark orange. The woman starts to cry, and then she starts to scream. The plate glows brighter orange, then yellow, then a sunshine white. The statue is being heated like a skillet. The woman is being cooked alive.

Katniss' skin tickles with heat, and then she smells the flesh. It's just like cooking pork. Her mother always cooked pork with sage…

Katniss starts to quietly panic. 'I'm going to throw up.'

'Don't.' Snow's voice is so harsh against her that the nausea is beaten back by sheer force of his will.

The woman screams, and the audience cheers, and Katniss thinks about sitting with Prim and laughing as they chewed on pork loin that they must have bought for a very special occasion... The woman keeps screaming… The skin of her face is smoking, and now it is peeling, and Katniss shuts her eyes as she sees the woman's eyeballs start to melt out of their sockets.

The screaming continues for some time. The inside of Katniss' eyelids dance with white stars. She does not open them, not when the screaming stops, not when the heat against her face cools. It is only Snow's voice in her ear that gives her body permission.

'It's alright, Katniss. It's over. You can look now.'

She opens her eyes hesitantly. The woman's face is not a face anymore. It's just a kind of black lump, some charred smears where features used to be. How strange to think that this was a living, talking person just a few minutes before.

This was a person, Katniss thinks, staring at the statue. Not a person any longer. Burnt flesh and hot bone. One moment you're alive, the next you're…

'Katniss?'

She looks back to Snow. He glances pointedly at their hands. She looks.

'Oh, I'm sorry…'

Her hands are woven so tightly around his that her nails have sawn cuts into his skin. There is blood on her appliques. She releases the tension of her grip, but does not let go his hand, and he does not release hers. She is trembling.

His voice is kind. 'We can go home now.'

They rise, and Katniss is shaky on her feet. She is grateful, this time, for Snow's hand supporting her as he guides her back down the steps, away from the eyes of the crowd. She has to hold onto the wall to stop falling down the steps, and it is a great relief to ease back into the vehicle.

The moment the door is shut she drops to her knees and vomits over the floor.

'How theatrical of you,' observes Snow. 'If you're planning to throw-up on a regular basis, perhaps we should get you some anti-emetics.'

'I can't help it,' she says around a mouthful of spit and bile. She hasn't eaten any proper food today and her vomit is full of slimy candy and savory biscuits. She wipes her lips with the back of her hand, then takes some expensive napkins to mop up the mess she's made. Snow, sighing with exasperation, pulls them from her hand.

'The maids will clean it up. Sit down.' Katniss is too tired to argue and does as she is told, not even mindful of her distance from Snow. She just wants to rest. Suddenly, Snow reaches for her face and she jerks back, wary and hateful, and he laughs at her. 'Calm down. There is vomit in your hair.'

Katniss runs her hands through her hair and pulls loose a chunk of undigested something, then throws it to the floor. 'Don't touch me,' she reiterates. 'I don't like it.'

Snow reclines in the seat. He seems entertained by her. 'And yet you spent much of the event holding my hand.'

'That's different,' she snaps.

'How?'

'Because touching you is different than being touched by you. I get a say in it.'

'Interesting,' he says lightly, like this all a fascinating joke to him. 'Well, you did excellently, for the most part. As long as we maintain a strong front for the public, it really doesn't matter how you behave in private. However, I must insist you try to curb your more intense impulses.' He lifts his hand and shows her the bloody imprints of her fingernails.

'Are you going to punish me for that?' she says quietly.

'No, no, not at all.' A smile suddenly breaks on his lips. 'It was rather invigorating.'

'You deserve worse,' says Katniss.

'Perhaps,' he says, as though this is some fun hypothesis she's put to him, and then he retrieves a bottle of cool water from the minibar. 'Drink.'

She stares at him with hate, then accepts the bottle. The water in the Capitol tastes so different to the water of home.

Katniss' voice is a little hoarse. 'Was she really guilty?'

'Oh, yes,' says Snow, as if this is very reassuring. 'They're not always, of course. But in this instance she did in fact try to kill a large number of people.'

This brings Katniss little comfort.

'I didn't mean it,' she says suddenly. 'What I said.'

'What are you referring to?'

She recaps the bottle and forces herself to meet his eyes. He is so comfortable with her unhappiness. 'When I hurt your hand, I said sorry. I didn't mean it. It was habit. I'm not sorry.'

He smiles. He looks so pleased with her. 'I understand. But, Katniss… When I apologize to you, know that I always mean it.'

She looks at him with loathing, but no violent urge comes to her. Watching a woman cooked alive seems to have put a damper on her bloodlust. But nonetheless her eyes linger on the lovely little wounds she has made in his hand, like they've been gnawed on by fruit flies, and the relish she feels is the closest she can get to happiness.

Later that night, when Katniss wakes, she doesn't know where she is. All she remembers is the smell of burning flesh and, deeper than that, the smell of her own leg, blistering. She does not recognize the arcing, painted ceiling, nor the massy drapes, nor the way the moonlight stretches over the carpet like a cat. She does not recognize the furniture, ornate and uncanny in the dark. She does not recognize the strange perfume smell of the room. She is only half awake, and half of her is not in the room. That half is in the arena, running from fire.

Why is it so dark? Has she been struck in the face? Is she blind?

She falls from the bed and gropes for her bow, but it is gone. Her quiver is gone. She can feel her bare skin, licked by silk. Where is her jacket, and where her backpack? Has she lost everything? Is it all burned away in the fire, her weapon and her eyes? But, no, she can see light: grey, alien light, and glass windows. Has she been taken? Is she in a hovercraft? Is she dead? Did they kill her and lift her body away?

Katniss does not know that she is screaming.

She does not know that she is screaming even as five figures break down the door. They are here to kill her. She searches for something – anything – to use as a weapon, and something in the depths of her mind tells her there is a pair of scissors on the nightstand. Not really knowing why a nightstand is here, her fingers find the handle of the scissors and she holds them against her chest. She scrabbles into a corner, counting the figures pouring into the room, wondering if she can possibly take out even one of them…

'The area is secure,' says one figure.

'No sign of breach,' says another, a female voice. 'Nothing on the cams, either.'

'The girl just had a nightmare.'

Katniss feels, rather than hears, the scream in her throat strangle itself out. She starts to recognize the pattern of moonlight over the floor. And then she recognizes the smell of blood and roses as a man drops low before her.

One of the figures says, 'Sir, I don't recommend—'

'Katniss?' says a voice so close to her, one like gravel and honey, and her eyes focus on the pale blue ones before her. 'You had a nightmare. Are you alright?'

Katniss becomes aware that she is shaking so hard she can hardly grasp the scissors, and she lets them fall to the floor. Familiar hands hold her wrists. His skin is so cold.

'Katniss?'

Adrift in her own panic, Katniss hauls huge breaths into her lungs and meets her captor's eyes.

'I want to go home,' she whispers. Her voice is a songbird warble.

There is a shade of sadness in those blue eyes. 'You are home.'

Katniss only feels confusion, and then the final fragments of her reality start to fall back into place. She remembers where she is. 'No…' she says, shaking her head. 'No, no, no, no…'

'Katniss—'

'Don't touch me!' She gropes for the scissors again, but Snow has already released her. The panic subsides into anxiety, and Katniss can start to feel the sound of her heartbeat ease.

'Sir?' says one of the security team.

Snow waves a dismissive hand. 'You can go, Sulla.' He remains crouched before his wife as the team files out, one of them muttering a complaint to his neighbor, and Katniss tries to look her husband in the eyes. She waits until they are alone to speak.

'Am I on fire?' she rasps.

'What?'

'Am I on fire? Am I burning?'

Snow hesitates. 'No. No, Katniss. It was just a dream.'

Katniss draws in a deep breath and pushes her hair back from her face. Everything seems mundane, now. Her eyes have adjusted to the darkness, and she can see Snow quite clearly in the moonlight.

'You set me on fire,' she says, her voice featureless.

'In your dream?'

'No.' She stands, a little shaky, but ignores Snow's hand. 'In the arena. The Gamemakers threw fireballs at me.'

'That was not a decision I made,' says Snow, quite reasonably. He always seems so comfortable, be it giving a speech for the nation in a new suit, or here, in her bedroom, wearing a night robe and slippers. Katniss realizes this is the most vulnerable she has seen him. How peculiar to see him out of a suit, wearing striped pajamas under a deep red robe, the collar and top of his chest bare. The skin showing is weak with age. Of course he would always wear high-collared clothes; they make him look stronger, younger. Standing here before her in his night clothes, his hair unkempt, he looks far less like a President and more like an old man. And yet there is no compromise in him. He stands in her bedroom, eerily intimate, completely at ease. And she hates him.

Katniss hesitates, then she shoves Snow with all of her shaky strength. He staggers, but is surprised rather than hurt. She is younger and faster, but he is still easily twice her size.

'You orchestrate the games,' she spits. 'Everything that happens inside happens with your sanction. You set me on fire. You cut me up and deafened me. You killed Rue.'

Through the heavy grey moonlight, she can see that Snow is smiling at her. 'My dear, if you expend your energy blaming me for everything that has ever hurt you in your life, you will exhaust yourself.'

'Try me.' She shoves him again, her hands small against his chest, and it infuriates her that he is allowing this. He is treating her like a child having a tantrum, when all she wants to do is rip him open with her teeth and chew on his insides. She shoves him again, but he is ready for it this time. She is weaker than when she first came here, worn thin by anxiety, but not as weak as she was in the arena when she killed Glimmer. She could kill him. She could eat him like summer berries.

'Katniss,' he begins, in that horrible, reassuring voice, and before he can say another word she throws herself at him with all the strength in her terrified body. This time it's enough: he slips and falls, and it is less than a second before the scissors are in her hand again and the blade is against his throat. She climbs atop him and holds the blade, moonlight-white, against the pulse of his neck.

'I could cut your throat,' she says.

But he doesn't move. He doesn't struggle. He lies there, Katniss astride him, and he smiles up at her without any of the condescension and paternality that he likes to deploy with her. Katniss' anger swells as she stares into eyes that are bright and glittering with intrigue. With admiration. With joy.

But of course she can't kill him. If she does, then Prim will be next. She must not kill him: but she wants him to know that she can. That she is strong and he is weak against the sparkling canines of her hatred.

It takes about three seconds for the security team to flood back into the room and for five gun barrels to point at her head.

'DROP IT! DROP IT NOW!' yell a racket of voices, and Katniss only smiles.

'Stand down, Sulla!' shouts Snow, and with great reluctance the team does so. It's a peculiar sight: Katniss, in her silk slip, straddling Snow in a robe, the white hair of his chest exposed, and a huge pair of dress scissors nudging into his carotid artery.

The security team don't know what to do with themselves.

'Katniss, my dear,' says Snow, with a melodic, conversational quality, 'would you kindly put down the scissors?'

Katniss delays as long as she can. If they want to take the scissors from her it will be trivial to overpower her, and then what little dignity she has is gone. When she thinks she's pushed her luck as far as it can go, she pulls away the blade and tosses them aside. Snow looks pleased with her.

Only then does Katniss fully register her position, legs astride Snow, and the obscene sensation of her naked thighs encompassing him, the press of her pubic bone against his abdomen, and the feel of his own body warm beneath and between and against her. His hands are always cold, but the rest of him is hot against her skin.

She stands quickly, disgust crawling up her spine and something sharp shifting in the pit of her belly, and one of the security team helps Snow to his feet.

'Well, I think that's enough excitement for one night,' he says, tightening the rope of his robe. 'Let us give Katniss her space. She has had a difficult evening.'

One of the security team speaks to Snow in a low voice.

'Sir, I recommend we search these rooms and confiscate anything that could be used as a weapon. I would also recommend locking the doors.'

Snow is still smiling. 'That will not be necessary, Sulla.'

'Sir, I cannot endorse giving the girl this much liberty. She could be dangerous.'

Snow's eyes drift to Katniss. She stands in her nightclothes, more conscious than ever of her bare feet, shins, and thighs, and the thin, clinging material of her slip. Snow does not look at her body, only her face, and does so with something strange and whetted.

He never stops smiling. 'Yes. Yes, she could be dangerous.'