A ghost-breath chill caressed the tropical night air, its silken coolness, woven with humidity, brushing seductively against her bare arms. She inhaled in slow fractions, tasting the fire's bittersweet smoke and the familiar golden whisper of Château d'Yquem. The sleek liquid reflected in her eyes, shades of imprisoned sunlight and seafog blue meeting in a quiet storm. Crimson lips curving in a faint smile, she closed her eyes, savoring the harpsichord's clear voice as it echoed across the courtyard. Its clear notes fell like stones into the darkness of her memory, stirring wordless sensation, fathomless yet near as a needle's sting. Melody spun between coolly brilliant harmony and trembling passion. Her pulse matched the tempo, marching in twin heartbeats of blood and ivory as she was caught in its silken web. As the song ascended to its climax, she was swept with it, chasing a kaleidoscope of mute memory down a wooded path.
Stone and steel and plexiglass—
The taste of gunpowder—
A sudden touch—
The fragments blazed like fire behind frosted glass. She could feel and understand them, but distantly, never opening the door in her mind. Breath fraying as the music slowed, she pulled back from the edge, wary of the division yet glad she could not return. She sighed, entangled in the harpsichord's liquid notes. As the melody faded, an unbidden tear slipped out and hung diamondlike above a small black mark on her cheek.
"Answer the question!"
She blinked hard, disoriented as she drifted into the present. Was that sudden stinging sensation a slap across her cheek? Her mind refocused quickly, like the lens of a microscope. She was sitting in an interrogation room, a cave of cold grey and metal, faced by two guards and a man in a poorly tailored suit. Like a thunderclap in the chambers of her memory, it came back to her.
They had been walking down a cobbled street that thrived with life and color, hands comfortably interlaced. She had noted the clear sunlight shining on his white fedora and deep maroon eyes, as he spoke of a rare butterfly and how it reminded him of her. They had laughed then, the sound ringing in the bright street like a pair of flutes in joyous harmony. It was something they had both learned to do in their years together. Then had come the shouts and the sirens, tearing into the calm afternoon, ripping them apart with the searing pain of a gunshot. She remembered the wild look in his eyes as he vanished into a dark doorway, and his chilling scream of desperation when he realized she could not follow. He had screamed her name as if with his last breath.
"Clarice!"
Sitting in that barren room, she realized it was the first time they had been apart in seven years. The thought hit her in a sudden, gnawing pang, a hollow cry catching in her throat as her heart burnt with longing.
"I'll ask you again." The man's voice was demanding, callous, like snake's venom after the smoothness disappeared. "Where is he? Where is Hannibal Lecter?"
Clarice was silent, thoughts retreating back into the cool foyer of her memory palace, gaze fixed on the gleaming gold ring on her left hand.
"Listen, Starling," the man spat, leaning toward her. She could smell his arrogant, tasteless aftershave. "We're going to get him eventually. If you won't help us find him, we'll throw you in a cell and charge you with obstruction. Is that what you want?"
Clarice's eyelids lowered a fraction as her mind traced the harpsichord's melody.
The man slammed his fist on the table, startling the stony guards, but Clarice was still. "I think that monster must've made you stupid. You've got nothing to gain by helping him." His harsh expression contrasted with his leering eyes. "You know what the papers are calling you?"
She barely heard him, like a fly buzzing at the edge of a vast room.
"They're calling you the Devil's mistress. The bride of Dracula." The man sneered with self-satisfaction. "You're a freak, Clarice Starling."
Lips pursing slightly, Clarice tapped her ring on the metal table.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Clarice Lecter." The man leaned closer, snarling in her face. "Is that your sick little goal in life, you pathetic bitch? To be able to say that you screwed a monster?"
Clarice's gaze flickered up, forcing him back with its cold intensity. "When I see Hannibal again," she replied quietly, "I'll recommend that he eat your tongue."
With a snarl of disgust, the man struck Clarice hard across her face. Her eyes closed, swallowing the pain in a memory of soft fountains beneath a milk-white moon.