Chapter 10: elements

She wakes to silence and daylight.

There are conflicting signals. Conflicting sensations. And even though she has slept, dreamless and oblivious, she is perfectly exhausted.

She is hot.

She is cold.

She aches.

She is comfortable.

She is terrified.

She feels safe.

After a few seconds of scattered, broken confusion she is able to orient herself.

Remember.

She is in a remote cottage with Will Graham. Last night she tried to escape, nearly getting herself killed in the process. Will found her and offered her his hand. She chose to take it.

Will.

Slowly she opens her eyes. She is sure that she fell asleep sitting up, leaning back against Will. Now she is laying down, they both are, and she's got her nose pressed into his chest. His arms are about her, holding her close to him, and she is breathing his heartbeats.

The fire must have burned down overnight. The air around her is freezing cold, but every part of her that touches Will is warm. The contrast is very nearly excruciating. All of her body hurts, most noticeably her head. She is parched and famished. Even so, she feels like she's floating. Comfortable wrapped in the landscape of Will Graham, and, just as she had told him last night, she is feeling horribly safe.

She is so very tired and broken down, and part of her wants to stay like this. Close to him in false refuge.

Their legs are tangled together, which makes it tricky for her to get clear without waking him, but she needn't have bothered with stealth; his eyes come open the second she begins moving. She wonders if he has even slept, but thinks he must have; his heartbeats and his breaths had been slow and calm.

"Good morning," she says and sits up, feeling awkward; the cottage is no longer cast in the dim, flickering light of the fire but in harsh daylight, and she is almost naked. She grabs one of the old blankets that he has used to cover them, and wraps it tightly about herself. It is musty, but it's better than to stand before Will wearing only the silk underwear no doubt chosen by Hannibal.

Will stands, seeming more at ease. He stretches a little, before reaching for his clothes and beginning to pull them on. They are still dry, unlike hers that are in a miserable, sodden heap over in the corner. He follows her gaze.

"Hannibal will come with clothes for you. I didn't bring any last night. I thought it more important to travel at speed, unencumbered by provisions."

She only nods, and he hands her his woollen undershirt.

"Put this on, though. It will help some."

It's a kindness, one which she accepts. She pulls it over her head, and brings the blanket down to her waist like a cumbersome sari. His shirt is cold from sitting on the floor all night, but it smells of Will. She hates how that relaxes her, makes her shoulder loosen just minutely. Has her senses spent the night subconsciously being taught that Will Graham means safety?

She looks at him. He is ruffled and rumpled, hair standing in all directions, stubble growing around the neat lines of his beard. Lids heavy, but eyes sharp and keen as he returns her gaze. No looking away. That won't happen here, not on either of their parts. They are, she senses, entirely beyond that. They are somewhere else now, they have taken a step across, cemented by her accepting his hand. She looks at him, tries to glide along those curious lines of vulnerability and danger that envelopes him.

She finds that she wants to tell him that she really meant it, what she said last night. That she doesn't want him to give up his happiness. That he deserves to have it.

But she doesn't say it. It would mean admitting too much, showing weakness beyond what she has already shown.

She glances out of the one window. It has stopped snowing, she sees, but the sky is of wrought iron and there is that queer stillness that begets another snowfall. Clouds bloated and distended with more winter.

"Will he come by car?" she asks. "Hannibal?"

"Yes, but it will take a little while. There is a groundskeeper, but it will take some time to plough a passable route down to here."

He smiles a little, just an amused quirk of his lip. She realises that she must look openly calculating at the information he has revealed. He preempts her:

"The groundskeeper never comes up to the house. You won't have reason to see him, let alone talk to him." He raises a brow at her, she thinks in challenge. "And we keep the car keys on our persons at all times."

She tucks that piece of knowledge away. It might come in handy.

Will follows along with ease.

"Clarice…"

"Yes?"

"You might not accept it yet, but a decision was made last night. By you. And even if you deny it...you won't get away from here. You would only hurt yourself - or worse - trying."

She sighs.

"Will Hannibal be terribly angry with me?"

It's a response, and it isn't. Will knows it.

"He agreed to let me come for you," he says and takes a step closer.

She wants to back away, and she wants to stand there and let him come. She doesn't want to understand his non-answer, but she does.

Hannibal values his freedom above all. He has only once relinquished it of his own free will, and that was for Will. Last night he was again willing to place it in Will's hands, trusting that he wouldn't drop it. Trusting that he would go find the one person in the world with enough knowledge to take them both down. Trusting that he would bring her back.

That a man like that would take a risk like this in the first place. That he didn't just simply kill her back when she began unspooling things. Such risk.

There are so many implications, and her view much clearer of their relationship now.

Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter: Clarice thinks they might be equals.

And Hannibal is angry, is what Will doesn't say. And…and… he has stopped moving towards her, he stays where he is, doesn't get any closer.

…she would like him to get closer. It's an ugly realisation, but no less true for it. There has been touch, of course, since they took her. Hannibal has seen to it, since the night of her first attempted escape. But it has been of a conquering, manipulative nature, wielded as a weapon and a tool. And last night she got to rediscover what touch feels like on its most primitive level.

Survival. Warmth.

Like a newborn thriving on skin on skin contact, human touch and heartbeats and breaths, she now feels that she can't be without again. Not when she has so recently rediscovered it. Not when she's been left deprived for so long; long before she ran afoul of Will and Hannibal.

Yes, she would like Will Graham to get closer. But he stays out of reach.

"What happens now?" she asks, and she recognises that her voice is forlorn.

"I make another fire. We wait for Hannibal. We stay warm."

Once again, not an answer, but she just nods, and then helps Will break up the remaining chair and light a new fire. When it's crackling with hunger Will ventures outside briefly to collect more firewood with which to feed it. She thinks nothing of staying put in the cabin while he is out, nothing at all. She chooses to not consider that too closely.

And when the fire is fat and sated, spreading blessed warmth across the small room, Will sits down on the floor in front of it. She joins him, and it is she electing to sit so close that their legs and arms touch. Will says nothing of it, simply sits quietly, and once again she begins drifting on his breaths. There is the fire, here is the warmth of him, and his breathing enveloping her, lulling her, robbing her of time, and she floats, she…

…she jerks and jumps, not quite sure if she's been sleeping, when she can hear a vehicle pulling up outside.

When a car door slams shut and steps crunch on the snow outside, Will leans so near to her, almost close enough that his lips touch the delicate shell of her ear. She shivers.

"Do you remember? Do you remember what it is that I want from you?"

Even though she is hazy and exhausted and skirting confusion she knows immediately what he is talking about. He told her last night, didn't he?

Live. He wants her to live.

She has time only to nod at him, then Hannibal opens the door.

She stands immediately, entirely unwilling to have him hovering above her. Will stands too, and she notes that he is just the smallest half step in front of her. Hannibal won't miss that, she knows. Hannibal doesn't miss anything.

His face is placid, expressionless as he walks through the doorway, but she is learning to read him quite well, is beginning to know how to decipher what isn't there.

He, however, doesn't look at her. Not at first. His attention is on Will. He gets close, a hand on Will's shoulder, his attention rapt.

"Are you well?"

Will inclines his head.

"I'm fine. This was nothing I couldn't handle. You know that."

"Of course. And yet…"

He cuts himself off, nods curtly then looks at her. She stands with her chin raised, back straight, meets his eyes as if she isn't wearing Will's undershirt and an old blanket for a skirt. As if she's not battered and worn with wild hair and wilder eyes.

"Hello, Dr Lecter."

"Clarice. I brought you some clothes so you may be more comfortable on our way back to the house."

"Thank you, Dr Lecter. That's very kind."

"Of course," he says and nods once, and what a decorous pantomime they are partaking in.

Both men politely turn their backs as she puts on their clothes, then she is ushered out to the car. It's a sleek black 4x4, entirely appropriate for the terrain and climate. Hannibal drives, and Will sits in the backseat with her, presumably to prevent a daring escape while in motion.

They needn't worry. She is in no condition to do anything but rest her head against the window and look out at the landscape.

The ride back is deathly silent. Will sits easily next to her, and Hannibal stiff in the driver's seat. She, she tries to pay as much attention as possible, but it is for nought. All she sees is snow and pines and jagged mountain peaks. There are no signs of habitation, not even obvious roads. It is just desolate wilderness domed by an ironclad sky.

Before too long, after a few sharp turns that she stubbornly memorises, they stop by an imposing gate. Hannibal keys it open from inside the car, and they drive through, onto a winding, tree-lined drive. The house is coming into view, at first just glimpses through the naked trees, and she isn't even trying to hide her interest; she leans forward in her seat, eager to get a good look at the outside of her prison for the very first time.

It's a Jacobean style manor house. Three stories, as she had already known. Old, but with newer additions, creating an odd sort of harmony between gothic and modern. Lead framed windows on the higher floors, enormous single pane ones going floor to ceiling on the ground floor. There are arcades and parapets paired with sharp angles and glass. It stands with pines and mountains rising up high above it, framing it, almost embracing it. In summer, she imagines, it must look spectacular against so much green.

They pull into a circular drive in front of the house, and Hannibal quickly parks right in front of the big front door, then jumps out and helps her exit the car.

Always so courteous.

As they walk into the hallway she draws a breath and turns to him. He is removing his cashmere coat and his thick fur hat, and there is a sharpness to his precise movements that betrays just how irked he is.

"Dr. Lecter," she says, trying to keep her voice calm and not to slur. "I know that you are very cross with me. I know that I have, once again, been unacceptably rude. I know that you warned me of the consequences. And I will face them. I will. All I ask is that you wait until tomorrow. I am so very tired. And filthy. Just...tomorrow. Please."

His eyes are arctic and hellish all at the same time as he considers her. And the economical shake of his head, it dooms her.

"I think not, Clarice. Come with me."

And Will strokes her with the most fleeting of touches across her lower back as Hannibal gestures ahead to the drawing room, but he doesn't intervene. He will not help. And she would feel betrayed but perhaps she doesn't deserve to feel betrayed. Has she got that kind of claim on Will, that he owes her anything at all? No. No, he has been nothing but considerate and respectful of her since she arrived here, and she repaid him by risking his life in a snowstorm.

Would he have had to face a whiteout had he not brought you here against your will, Clarice?

Will, will. How funny.

She shakes away the jumbled thoughts, gives Will one last look of perhaps entreaty, perhaps lament, perhaps censure, then she follows Hannibal into the drawing room.

Without urging she sits down on the chair she has always occupied during their conversations here. Hannibal doesn't immediately join her, but busies himself over by his desk.

When she sees him divesting himself of his suit jacket and tie she tenses, even more so when he rolls up his shirt sleeves. And when suddenly he holds something sharp and glinting in his hand she is torn between fight and flight. She can do neither. She knows, because she's tried; she can neither outrun him nor fight him.

He's too strong, and too fast.

He makes his way over to her, pace quite leisurely but stance like a predator scenting blood and night. Gracefully he folds himself into the chair opposite hers. He stretches his legs out in a movement that is almost lazy, and their knees touch in the same sort of anchor that he has previously insisted upon when they are alone in this room.

She glances down.

He's holding a knife. It's a linoleum knife of course, curved and sharp and lethal, and he's holding it like it's an extension of his hand, sure and deft. It clashes wildly with his sharp clothes, his neat hair, but not at all with his eyes.

Hannibal says nothing, he just studies her with unnerving consideration. A few seconds tick by, and she realises that he is waiting for her to break the silence.

Well, fuck him, she thinks. He wants to play games, he can make the first move.

Then she breaks it anyway:

"Is that the knife you gutted Will with?"

"It is," says Hannibal and places it on its side on the little table next to him, the one normally holding a glass of water and his notepad. She could, in theory, reach it from where she sits, but that notion is of course purely academic.

"And slit Abigail's throat?"

"Yes," he says, and not a trace of regret in his voice. He grabs the curved handle, and with a sharp flick he sets the knife spinning on the tabletop. Like a bottle.

Truth or dare.

It's a threat, she thinks, and it's a game. One she suspects it would be devastating to lose. A pity only that she suspects Hannibal will tell her nothing of the rules.

And she rather believes it is nothing like quid pro quo.

"You are tired, Clarice," says Hannibal, voice even and low. "Lean back."

And he spins the knife again. Around and around it goes, the sound of wood and metal rotating into a hum, a hum that settles around her, sinks into her, makes her bones resonate. It's soothing and grating simultaneously, but all the same she reclines backward against the sensation.

"I fear you have been very careless, Clarice," comes Hannibal's voice, and she realises that it sounds unbodied because she has closed her eyes. She opens them again, as he continues:

"You have been given chances. You have squandered them. It is time for you to listen to me very carefully. It is time for the two of us to reach a final understanding. Don't you think so?"

The hum slows as she nods, then speeds up again as Hannibal gives the knife another casual flick.

"There is Will and me. Then there is, I believe, Will and you. There will be, perhaps, Will, you and I." Another flick, and the anodyne susurrus is lulling her into a queer sort of tunnelvision where there is only Hannibal and his eyes so very close. "And you and I, Clarice."

It is getting so dark. She is here but she is not at the same time, and there are shadows, winding, thorny shadows thrown onto the wall behind his head. And his eyes, they glow as they hold her captive and still.

"And for all those constellations to work, there needs to be honesty. From me. Certainly from you. And I think it is time that we are nothing but honest with each other."

"You've spoken about honesty before," she says, and she is surprised how clear and steady her voice is, because she feels like she is floating and sinking at the same time.

"And you have promised to give it before."

As slumped as she sits, as tired as she is, she still manages to raise her chin.

"It was an honest escape attempt."

The corner of his mouth twitches, just a suggestion of a movement but definitely there.

"I would have thought less of you if you hadn't tried, of course. You are resilient. Stubborn. Strong. Brave. You know, catching the couturier in Ohio was a true feat. And your efforts since, however hampered by bureaucracy and pettiness, have been quite impressive. Not least your mission to find us."

"There is no telling if I would have succeeded though," she says, and she hears her own voice from afar. "You found me first."

"You might well have. I told you, Clarice, that you walk on fire. You walk a path between back country robustness and transcendent elegance. Stable. Beautiful. On the periodic table, you might touch down somewhere between iron and silver. You remind me of someone very special to me."

He takes a breath, spins the knife again and she feels like she spins with it, that Hannibal is the only firm point left in the room. That she must cling to him in order not to be sucked unto the temporal maelström he is creating with his knife.

"But that doesn't change the fact that our situation here is...precarious. It cannot be jeopardised. I will not risk the freedom and health of Will, nor myself. Do you understand?"

"I do," she says. "I do understand that."

The knife spins on, and she spins along with the sound. All narrows, darkens ever more, she can see nothing but Hannibal and the shadows behind him. Smoke and thorns and horns.

"Where are we, Clarice?"

Confused, she tries to look around, but finds that she can't take her eyes from him.

"We…we are in the drawing room, Dr. Lecter."

The knife keeps spinning on the table, and she blinks against her exhaustion and wonders if he really has, somehow, taken her somewhere else.

"Will told me about the stag. And he told me you see it too. Curious, don't you think."

She tries to keep up with him, with his change of direction, with how his questions maybe aren't questions at all.

"You may walk on fire, but I told you there is darkness inside of you too. A wealth of it. Else you would be unable to see the beast."

"I don't know what it means."

"Oh, but you do, Clarice. And that knowledge doesn't live very deep at all. In fact, it is ready and waiting just beneath the very surface of you."

"I think you try to find darkness everywhere, Dr. Lecter. I think you thrive on it. Thrive on it so much that you may go looking for it where there is none. To corrupt. Warp."

His smile is openly cruel, and as sharp as the knife that he flicks again.

"We will see. After all, metamorphosis takes place in nature all the time. Profound changes in form, in structure, substance… But could it take place if the very foundations were not already laid? I think not. Consider it: from egg, to larvae, to cocoon, to imago. Moth. Severe transformations, but all following a preordained path."

She stiffens at his unsubtle way of reminding her of Jaime Gumb's crimes, the horrors of his basement, and Hannibal looks pleased, looks like he is eating her unease straight out of the air.

And the knife spins, and it spins, and it spins again. It moves with terrible purpose now, and she knows that Hannibal is about to truly pounce.

"Where are we now, Clarice?"

They are no longer where they should be. She is sure of it. She can't see any of it anymore, she floats in different shades of black with only Hannibal to keep her put.

"Somewhere…else. Crossroads. My sanity ends, your madness begins."

"You think me insane?"

"No. Madness and insanity...with you they are two separate things."

"Your honesty is refreshing, thank you. It feels good to have all of it, at last. I wish for it to remain boundless, but we shall see, shan't we?"

"You're welcome, Dr. Lecter," she says and clings to the armrests of her chair so that she doesn't just get pulled under. He seems to notice her predicament which is really anguish, and he places a hand on her temple to keep her more solidly anchored.

"What is your greatest fear, Clarice?"

Or perhaps he's not anchoring her, but burrowing. Burrowing into her, beneath her epidermis, her bones, her skull. She feels sure that he holds her mind in his cupped hand, going deeper even than the knowledge he claims lives within her.

And the question he asked is no less heavy for being an echo.

The hum the knife makes against the table - such infernal acoustics! - pulls truth from her lips like red string.

"To be sent away. Rejected."

"Like the FBI rejected you."

Not a question. She treats it like one regardless.

"Yes, and…"

She cuts herself off, but Hannibal looks like he's catching what she doesn't say, right there in the diminishing borderland of air between them. His knee is moving against hers, his thumb strokes her jawline, and he is eager. He looks like he's about to reach between her ribs and scoop out all that is her, drink it down like milk and honey and marrow.

"And?" he prompts, his voice sounding far too close.

"My mother sent me away. After my father died. She sent me away."

"How did your father die, Clarice?"

The hum of the spinning knife forbids her from staying quiet.

"He was a police officer. He was shot during a robbery. They shot my daddy."

She can hear her own voice, how it's turned high and childlike, how thickly her accent drips from her lips.

"He was in hospital for a long time after. Then he died."

"And what happened after he died?"

He has moved from his chair, she's sure. He must have. His face seems close enough that he might rest his lips on her brow, but all she can really focus on is the susurrus of Damascus steel against wood.

"Mommy sent me away. She couldn't afford to care for me any longer. She sent me to live with a relative. He was a rancher. I ran away from him."

"Why did you run away? What did this man do to you, Clarice?"

"He didn't…not what you th…he...lambs. I found lambs. In the barn. For slaughter. They screamed. They screamed. And I couldn't….I can't save them. I ran away that night. I took an old horse and a lamb and I ran away. And he was so angry afterwards he sent me to an orphanage."

Hannibal's face is terrible. His face is beyond, and her confession and trauma ambrosia to him. Yes, his pupils dilated and her scent must be so sweet in his nose, vulnerable and ripe.

"And so you have been abandoned by everyone, haven't you, Clarice. They have left you and they have turned their backs. Your father. Your mother. Jack Crawford. The FBI."

"Yes."

He's so close now, whispering his soft but sharp questions straight into her ear.

"And is that what you dream about at night? The screams? From the lambs? From the girls? Victims left unsaved. Do the screams breach your bone fort, Clarice?"

"Yes."

There is something warm and wet on her face, and first she thinks that it's blood, then she realises that it's tears. That she's crying, sobbing, drawing large gasping breaths like she might never breathe right again. And she finds suddenly that Hannibal's arms are wrapped around her, that she is on his lap. That her head is on his shoulder, his lips in her hair. For a second she stiffens, remembering the last time he nuzzled her, but then she relaxes. Cries onto him, into him, and feels how greedily he feeds on her hurt as he gently shushes her.

"You won't be rejected here, Clarice. Won't be sent away or abandoned. Will and I, we accept you just as you are, and just as you will be."

Ah, he is a devil, a corrupter.

The release of tears is short lived. Gradually, she becomes aware that something cold and sharp rests against her throat. When she tries to move she is prevented, the sting sharp against her jugular, a wet sensation in her suprasternal notch telling her that he has drawn a trickle of blood.

She tries to sort the signals and the cues, but comes up short. She can still hear the lulling, infernal hum of the blade spinning right there on the table. It's still there. It hasn't stopped. But it seems there is another blade held, almost teasingly, against her skin. She can feel the metal vibrate with her pulse, can feel her heartbeat against the blade. Will the acoustics get trapped in the steel, she wonders. Will Hannibal draw this knife, years from now, bring it to his mouth and feel her trapped heartbeats against his tongue?

Will he steal them now, her beats? Will he do it? If he wields the knife just right - and of course he would - will he be able to sip her blood straight out of her jugular vein?

She remains held close to him, firm in his embrace, tears drying on her cheeks, as she realises that she actually doesn't know. She doesn't know if he will kill her right now or let her live. And god , is there a wonderful sense of freedom in that! In being relieved of agency and decision, in being left entirely to someone else's desire. Floating entirely unencumbered by choice.

She relaxes into him, becomes heavy and pliant. He can feel it, he must do, feel how she yields against him.

His lips find her ear.

"Do you understand me, Clarice?"

She wants to say that he hasn't said anything, given her anything to understand, but that would mean insulting both of their intelligence. He is making himself very clear indeed. He might not abandon her, but he will kill her if he has to, and those two things aren't mutually exclusive in his mind. She is on her last life. He will tolerate no more foolishness, no more rebellion. From now on she is to play the game precisely according to his rules.

Or he will eat her, and damn Will Graham's wishes.

The hum slows, the linoleum knife on the table about to come to a standstill. Her cheek rests against his chest, his shirt damp from her tears, his blade still held sharp against her jugular. His free hand is playing with the hair at her nape, soothing movements in sharp contrast to the death at her throat. Her eyes wide open, and they are, the both of them, back where they began. The drawing room, she can see it clearly now. From being a feared space it now presents itself as something comforting, welcoming, in comparison to the place she just travelled to with him.

With effort she twists just enough in his grip that she may meet his eyes. He doesn't let up on the knife, and she can feel more blood trickling down the column of her throat, but she considers it a worthy sacrifice. She wants to be able to see him clearly as she gives Will Graham what he requested of her.

"I understand perfectly, Dr. Lecter."

It is a smile on his lips, not just a twitch.

"That is very good, Clarice. It would seem that we finally have a true accord."

The knife at her throat remains though, and she wonders if he might forget himself, if he might be ruled by his own bloodlust. The question becomes more acute when almost absentmindedly he reaches out with his free hand, gently dips the tip of his finger in the blood on her throat, then brings the digit to his mouth. His eyes darken at the taste, his face turns severe, all blue hues and sharp lines. His grip on her tightens, he brings her closer into him, and suddenly the air around them is thick and hard to breathe. She shifts slowly on his lap, feeling heavy, warm.

"But I don't want you to break me, Dr. Lecter. I don't want to be taken apart and then put back together again according to your wishes. What will it take for you not to do that? What must I do?"

Oh god, the amusement on his face is something terrible to behold. His finger remains on his lip. It is just a little bit red, before his tongue flicks out and swipes up the last smudge of blood. Then he pounces while sitting entirely still.

"Accept this. Accept us. Just as we accept you. All of you. Silver and iron and everything between."

She hadn't meant to nod but she finds herself doing it anyway.

"I understand. But I don't think I can become something that I am not."

"We are not asking that. We are only asking that you do not fight against inevitable change. You are stubborn, yes. Perhaps too much. Perhaps to your own detriment."

She shifts on his lap and wonders how he can make a knife on her neck seem affectionate. She doesn't understand him. Suddenly she finds herself wanting to understand him. And that, she thinks, might be most dangerous of all.

"You wanted to kill me rather than capture me."

"I did not."

She shakes her head.

"But...you said...Will said…"

He shushes her.

"Not true. And don't you think, Clarice, that Will and I might have had different reasons for bringing you here?"

"What do you mean?"

"May I be blunt?"

"Please."

"I advocated for killing you precisely because I knew Will would baulk at it and suggest an alternative way to bring an end to your search."

It feels as if she's still spinning with the knife, even though it sits silent and still on the table.

"So you...wanted me to come here?"

"I did."

"Why?"

He looks at her for a long time, before answering.

"I fear you are not yet ready to hear the answer to that, Clarice."

"Will you let me know when?"

"I promise."

And then, gently and seemingly without any effort at all, he lifts her off him and sets her down in her own chair. The knife slips from her neck just like that, and she is suddenly feeling horrifically cold.

"You need to rest now. Go to bed. But first, I would like to give you something with which to remember this by. For when you slip. For when you doubt yourself, and me, and Will. For when you feel tempted to cling to dated values and morals."

He slides down onto the floor in front of her chair, and she is forced to spread her legs slightly to accommodate the bulk of his chest. She can feel her heart moving in her mouth, the copper tang, the beats.

"What is it?" she whispers.

"Something of permanence. Something you will never forget. Lift your shirt."

"What?"

"Lift up your shirt, Clarice."

She would like to say no, but if she does, will she betray the wishes of Will? Will Hannibal kill her? Will she lose any chance of understanding, and perhaps be free? She doesn't know, and she doesn't want to take the risk. Slowly she lifts the hem of her shirt up to just underneath her breasts, bares the vulnerability of her abdomen to him, and she wonders if her will is really hers. Or does he still hold it in his hand, in the thrum of steel on wood?

Hannibal immediately brings the knife to her belly. She jerks, tries to press herself back into her chair, disappear, but he uses his free hand to grasp hold of her hip. Keep her still for him.

"What are you…"

"I won't hurt you," he assures, then deftly cuts into her. She gasps, whines, but she can't move. She can feel warm blood running into the waistband of her pants, she can hear how her skin parts for him. She can't feel any pain though, and from afar she thinks it might be because of the sharpness of the blade.

"Stay still for me, and it will be over soon," he murmurs, and he wields the knife as a painter's brush, moving it with surety and finesse and something like abandon. And it begins to hurt now, sensations catching up with her. He cuts shallowly, the wounds superficial but the sting infernal and acute. She breathes through her nose, tries to cast her eyes around and distract herself from what he is doing. But it seems she can't see clearly unless she is looking at him. So she winds her fingers into his hair and clings to the sight of his forehead and brow and the slope of his nose as he uses the knife to draw on her. His breath is hellishly hot on the exposed fragility of her belly, and she fights the urge to throw her head back.

How can he be on his knees before her yet still rule so absolutely?

She uses the pain to shape words to give him.

"Who is it that I remind you of?"

He blows on her belly as he cuts. Is he trying to soothe? She thinks not.

"My little sister Mischa. I loved her very much. I ate her."

As she fights the awful combination of horror and fascination and supplication he finishes with a small flourish. Remaining on his knees he looks up at her, and there is fire and darkness tearing each other to pieces in his eyes.

"I think you may call me Hannibal again."

He walks her to her bedroom and bids her goodnight, and he doesn't lock her in. When he is gone she lifts the hem of her shirt, squints downwards. There, gracefully following the line of one of her ribs, are letters and signs in beautiful, bloodied cursive:

Fe — Ag.