Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I.

“Hail unto you. I have turned away from evil, and I may live eternally. Guide me into my land, transfigured in your form, made mighty by your magic. I perceive as you perceive. Deliver me from the jaws of the furious crocodile in this land of the dual Ma’at. Grant me speech, a mouth to utter offerings. Before you I am sustained, for I know you—I know your name, the name of the great god. Grant me offerings before his nostrils; his name is Khumet. He opens the horizon of the Eastern sky, he opens the horizon of the West. I move as he moves. I enter as he enters. Cast me not out from the Milky Way. The enemy has no dominion over me. You shall not bar your gates against me. My bread is in Pe, my beer in Dep, my arms within the temple. My father Atum has gifted me. He built for me a house mirroring this world, filled with barley and wheat. Therein are feasts, carried out by my own sons. Grant me cattle, fowl, flax, incense, oils—every good and pure thing upon which the gods thrive. I exist in any form I desire, in light, for eternity. I drift down the Field of Reed, I row against the current in the Field of Hotep.”

Believe it or not, we really didn’t do anything in Cuba. People often lose sight of the most basic realities when indulging in their private fantasies—and for me, that mistake can be fatal. Cuba has a problem so bluntly real it can’t be ignored: it is too hot and far too hypocritical. Humans, once freed from the cold, start to rot. And flesh, once laid bare to humid ocean winds, spoils quickly. Jumping into the a cold pool at noon felt like an atonement ritual in a suburban sauna in Baltimore; a hot shower in Havana could send you into a heatstroke and then blackout. These are all simple logics. Besides, we—or rather, I—never envisioned surviving that fall. He was surprised at what I did, again. So yes, we stepped onto Cuban soil stripped bare in every sense. The fact that we survived at all was a miracle. 

My throat and abdomen had been torn open in the struggle. He, on the other hand, had taken a bullet to the right side of his body due to the courtesy of the RED DRAGON. To come from me it probably sounds like the worst kind of lie now, but at the time I fully intended to die with him. I remember Dr. Bedelia du Maurier later claimed I had told her during our final therapy session that “I don’t intend for Hannibal to be caught again.” Freddy Lounds plastered it across the Tatttlecrime homepage: all signs point to me having lost my mind—consumed, as they say, by his influence. As a matter of fact, I just wanted to die. 

He didn’t allow that. 

He had a fiercely loyal foster sister: Japanese. Absolutely. enigmatic. Absolutely devoted. Absolutely omnipotent. I often think of her and can’t help but scoff: such a typical East Asian fantasy, such Yellow Fever—yet with him, nonetheless, it was real. Or perhaps it was just because it was him?…

Anyway, I once freed from her own shackles, and her first act of freedom was to shoot me behind Hannibal’s wings. She repaid my kindness with a bullet. I had no idea whether she had been lurking nearby when we fell. But when I came back to life, I was lying in a Havana villa she arranged. She later told me I’d been unconscious for an entire week. She could’ve left me behind. Escaped with her beloved “nii-san“. Maybe she couldn’t tell our faces apart anymore. Maybe she was simply obeying his will to the letter. Or maybe—just maybe—she, too, was curious about how the story would unfold.

After I resumed working for Jack Crawford, helping to profile killers, the world grew dim. My vision blurred. Everything became gray and apocalyptic in a self-fulfilling way. Baltimore had no history. Cuba had too much of it—yet none of it was merciful. The skies over Havana seemed bright at first, tricking you into thinking morning had come, only for a despairing yellow mist to rise from the ground and choke your nostrils—like the bloom and fallout of a nuclear blast. When I woke, it was afternoon. The children in this rich neighbourhood had just come out to play soccer under the tree shadows. Their shrill cries stabbed at my ears, a dissonance that harmonized painfully with my Heartbeat Siren.

Waking after that long sleep was like being yanked back from the underworld. A hot wind blew through the curtains. An ice cream truck passed through a nearby alleyway, its eight-bit melody drilled into my skull. I tiptoed out of the room with my IV pole, squinting into the brightness. Downstairs, Hannibal’s foster sister‘s taking a nap in the sitting room—

Will Graham turned his head and studied Clarice Starling through the pane of glass. She turned away, tugging at her skirt to cover a fresh run in her stockings—torn while wiping the mud of her shoes earlier, when a careless stepping out the car outside the Baltimore State Mental Health Hospital had brought a spray of filthy rainwater up her shoes. The umbrella snagged. So unprofessional, Clarice, so unprofessional! She thought. Will glanced at her, up and down, and asked, “Crawford sent you?”

Before she could reply, he folded his arms, brow arching, ”Last time he sent a trainee, it ended poorly. Miriam Lass. You heard of her? She's still with the Bureau. Hannibal changed her. She wears a prosthetic now. They gave her a desk job. Kind, really. Everyone says she’s blessed to have survived. But she speaks slowly now. And she still believes Frederick Chilton was the Chesapeake Ripper.”

Starling frowned, brushing past the implied threat. “I’m only here to about the disappearance of Alana Bloom, Margot Verger, and their son, Mr. Graham. I have direct authorization from the FBI.”

“Skip the paperwork,” Will said, mouth twitching. “Let’s talk instead. I’ve shared plenty about myself—now tell me about you. You took my class in criminal psychology, didn’t you?”

“I did. You looked… more decent back then.”

“You scored well. What made you want to join the Bureau? Family legacy?”

“I need to know whether you’re involved in their disappearance.”

Will stared at her, each word deliberate: 

“I will tell you everything. But you’ll trade with me. That’s called mutual respect. Talk to me, Clarice. Why’d you become an agent?”

Clarice inhaled deeply. She hated his gaze (has he ever blinked?), but backing down now would mean forfeiting everything she had fought for with Jack Crawford and Kade Prurnell. She broke his gaze and spoke more quietly.

“My parents died young. I was raised by my aunt and uncle on a farm. A lot happened. I knew early on I wanted to work in the Bureau.”

Will said softly, “That’s good. That’s very good, Clarice.”

Hannibal Lecter is simpler than you think. Orphaned at six, his sister dead by ten, adopted by his uncle Robert and Aunt Lady Murasaki by sixteen. It’s all cliché, easy to Google. Not unlike your own story, Clarice. Of course I considered killing him—ending our sick, mutual tether once and for all. The day I woke, the day I regained the strength to stand… his sister was napping downstairs. I crept into his room. The door was ajar. I reached out to strangle him. He looked like a lion in repose when asleep. However, not as strong or terrifying as you’d think. Swaddled in bandages, almost laughable. He awoke and took my shaking hands in his while I was trying to press against his throat. Whispered my name. I didn’t succeed. 

That was it. 

Let’s talk about something else, shall we?

I think, you all glorify him now. Freddy Lounds compared him to Tantalus, Atreus, even the cannibalistic Laestrygonians. A fake divinity, Greek and baroque, pasted over his deeds. Sometimes, I think even he got obsessed with all these myths. Do you know why he committed his first murder?

Florence. The Botticelli mimicry. A couple was posed as Zephyrus and Chloris. But there was no Venus. No Mercury. No love. Just loss. Years earlier, while living with his uncle in Paris, he had fallen in love with Lady Murasaki. She was aloof, untouchable. His uncle grew jealous, exiled him to study art in Italy. To mourn the love he couldn’t have, he copied Botticelli in quiet agony. Months later, that couple was found dead—posed. His love had died, so he killed theirs. Just a romantic, brooding boy lamenting his first heartbreak. It’s no different than the poems teenage boys write in the dark dark night.

Back to cannibalism. Do you know how many human fingers end up in American food production every year—mushed into chocolate or ground into dough? Hannibal would say he merely ate with greater awareness. The second time he saw me, he made breakfast. Cheerfully watched me eat the long pig sausage he made himself. I even told him it was well-seasoned… Do you know Breakfast of Champions?

“The cereal?” Starling asked. 

“No. Vonnegut. In that book, a science fiction writer convinces a car dealer that everyone on Earth is a robot. No one except for him feels or thinks or hurts. He is the only one with free will. I was the car dealer.”

Chapter Text

“Have you ever imagined Hannibal learning how to drive?”

Will leaned against the rust-stained bars of his cage and asked as Clarice Starling approached briskly through the corridor. One hand clutched her woollen coat, the other brushing away the fine drizzle clinging to the surface. The question caught her off guard. This was her second visit to the Baltimore State Hospital for Psychiatry, and she had already begun to learn, albeit slowly, the art of not appearing utterly undone in front of Will Graham. To be fair, Jack Crawford had few young, sharp agents left to send (though interns). She had traded her heels for a pair of more sensible, low-heeled mules that muffled her steps, but Will still noticed her the moment she turned the corner. He wasn’t looking at her. His eyes, cast downward, had lost their previous aggression. Even the way he stood suggested something had shifted. His centre of gravity drawn inward, as though another self had been peeled away. Clarice thought so. She hesitated, then asked:”What did you say?”

“I was just mumbling,” Will stunned for a second and said. Then quickly,”Miss Starling—did you drive here yourself?”

“Yes,” she answered plainly, straightening her spine and meeting his eyes. 

Will glanced over her outfit. After a long pause, he said quietly,”You’re clever. Hannibal would like you, Miss Starling.”

For a long time, I couldn’t picture him behind a steering wheel for his first time. Did he learn how to drive before or after he acquired the knowledge of hunting and dissecting? Did he stall the engine in panic when pedestrians crossed the road suddenly? Who sat beside him and guided him? Can you imagine him riding a public bus to the Uffizi Gallery? Fishing two coppery coins from his wallet, sliding a credit card out, stuffing wrinkled notes and receipts back to the leather-tanned wallet. Would he keep a photograph of Lady Murasaki in the fold? Slip the wallet back into the inner pocket of his coat… How was he going home? And if he couldn’t drive, then he must have walked. Bundled in his woollen coat, simmering in thought, seething in silence and walking for hours. I’ve made a habit of skipping over those kinds of details—driving, or the mundane details if travel. The realistic things. Too realistic. They repulse me. Only once I succeeded. One moment I was on the beach shore in Grafton, West Virginia, investigating a human totem four decades in the making, and in the next I was already in front of him—in Baltimore, in his home. As if, in that very instant, he had suddenly thought of me, wanted me, like the universe itself had rehabilitated her great magic to allow us to see each other. Everything is constructed, Miss Starling, everything is artificial. There is no unreal life. I’ll never do that again. 

Once we both began to heal, Hannibal started driving again. On Sunday mornings, he would drove us to the local church. From the parking lot to the church doors, Chiyoh—his foster sister—wore a black veil, waiting patiently for him to offer his hand. She walked with him, arm in arm. She had once been his sister; now, she was our mother. I always followed behind, just like in Wolf Trap, staring at my house lit far across the black fields. And it was the same every week. The church housed a white Madonna who was not the Madonna. Its coloured dome glass told her story, but it wasn’t hers. The priest chanted praises that didn’t belong to her. Prayers. Hymns. Confessions. Monologue. We opened our mouths gently, bowing to receive the Eucharist pass from the priest’s fingers onto our tongues. If you press it hard from the palate to the roof of the mouth and suck for long enough, the milky sweetness would ooze out until everything melt in the mouth. Swallow. 

After the ritual, the priest would dip palm branches in the copper basin and flung droplets of holy water upon us all. One time, Hannibal left the church with red-rimmed eyes. I asked him if crocodiles ever wept earnestly. He told me he was praying—for the Red Dragon and for the dead, for the never-to-rest. He was asking God for mercy on their behalf, as if, by ending them, he had already forgiven them himself. And in that moment, I saw a vivid illusion of him—aged, monastic, standing alone in a crumbling abbey. As I were to reach him, he would no longer remembered me, had already forgiven everything but said that HE loved me, just like in his favourite novel. 

Mishima Yukio. 

During our therapy, Hannibal once told me a great deal about his childhood. He and his younger sister Mischa, both still children, were living in Lithuania. On Mischa’s birthday week, his uncle Robert and Aunt Murasaki came for a visit. It was the morning of November 25, 1970. At seven a.m., the adults gathered in the parlour, watching live NHK coverage of Mishima’s suicide. They weren’t called to study that morning. The servants intended to leave them alone, both for the kids and the adults. After breakfast, Hannibal pretended to go to his study, only to sneak to the door of the parlour. It wasn’t fully shut. There was some narrow space—just enough for him to see. The man in the television spoke a language only she understood. The adults all held their breath. That memory rooted deep in him, grew unnoticed, twisted into the shape of his psyche. It would take years—wandering in the library of the Paris boarding school he studied in, randomly flipping through books—before he realised it. He had seen Lady Murasaki collapse in tears, falling from a dark green leather armchair onto her knees. Hands clasped, trembling lips stifling sobs, her long black hair half pinned, half draped across her pearl-coloured silk dress, veiling her face. 

Will paused, pulling his thoughts back from the brink. Clarice Starling’s gaze had drifted far off, following him. “Miss Starling,” he called. “Look at me, Starling. Do you think I’m evil?” 

Clarice felt her palms begin to itch. “The one asking me that—are you Will Graham, or Hannibal Lecter?” 

“Why, Clarice? Why would you ask that? Do you think I ate him—and now carry a part of him inside me?” 

“…I don’t know. That depends on what you’re going to tell me. My judgment of you depends entirely on what you allow me to know.” 

“You want to believe I was seduced. That I can be defended. Clarice, I know you want the world to be right again. Smart people like you can always recognize their cautionary tales—and then spend a lifetime trying to engineer a way to dodge them. But remember this—Clarice—remember what I say: I’ve always tried to skip real life. It always becomes gaudy in the end.” Will’s voice remained tender, as ever.

Now, I need you to listen to the rest. What I’m about to say will help with your investigation.

I found myself enjoying the rumours people whispered in church about me, him, and his sister. Freddy Lounds had inoculated me—years of her relentless fabrications on TattleCrime had finally made me incapable of distinguishing the truth from lies. They all became mine. The stories these people spun were simpler than the truth—and that made me feel… alive. After services, I fished alone by the riverside. I could’ve walked away. No one would’ve known I’d been here. But I didn’t. Just like I told you before: when he awoke from his nap and softly called my name, his hands covering the intimate hands of mine I’d wrapped around his throat, I failed.

I brought back a tilapia from the river. It was almost dusk. The villa lights were off. I pushed the door open and caught a glint of his chestnut-blond hair in the last rays of sun. He was sitting on the couch, his back to me, contemplating. He told me Chiyoh had left. She had repaid what Lady Murasaki once owed. Now, everyone was free. She sent her goodbyes and kissed his cheek. I stood behind him in silence, observed him. After a moment, he rose, took the bucket and the fish from my hands, and disappeared into the kitchen. He sliced open the belly, buried his fingers into its gills—hands slick with blood and reeking of river and flesh.

After she left, there were only the two of us, and he would vanish for days. Then return. I never knew what he did while he was away. I won’t recommend you investigate it, Starling. Not every secret is tied to the "worst case scenario." People are complicated. Cuba was already hot—and unfriendly. I told you before—believe it or not—we never did anything in Cuba. Of course, I know why he left and came back. I pushed him off a cliff hundreds of meters high. He’s a petty man. He played dumb and kept another man here—like a decorative vase—just to sulk me for trying to end our story. The last time he came back, I stepped out to greet him. I asked casually if he planned on taking me with him. I was leaning against the doorway; he had his hands tucked into the pockets of suit shorts—a style only middle-aged men would wear during summer vacation. Every time I recall this scene, I think of those emaciated Baltimore junkies who accidentally relapsed after months of detox. A frenzy of mad ecstasy. I stood on the porch, arms crossed, and asked him: when will you forgive me?

He shrugged and told me then now is the only time.

I tossed him the car keys kept in my fist. He let me into the car. Took me to the airport. We went to Paris. We found Alana Bloom and Margot Verger.

Chapter Text

                                                                                                   Jesus

he was a handsome man 

                                                  and what i want to know is

how do you like your blue-eyed boy

Mister Death

— Buffalo Bill’s

“Hannibal doesn’t pray,” said Starling, waited in silence for a long time after Will told her what he needed to. Then she inhaled sharply, her voice breaking the stillness with a suddenness that surprised even herself. She hoped her voice sounded firmer to him than it did to her own ears.

‘’Maybe that’s true. Maybe I’ve been lying all along. Maybe I changed him.” Will paused, then squeezed the next words out of his throat like something painful: ”I once seduced him to sacrifice himself in the name of ‘friendship’.”

Still, the air before Starling shimmered ominously, slowly and thickly it bloomed. She paced the narrow corridor before him, back and forth across those few square meters, hands clasped behind her, fingers turning the cap of her pen. Will waited quietly. Five more minutes of silence passed before he said: “It can be interesting to watch you think.” 

Starling halted.

“She wouldn’t leave him either.”

“Who?”

“…Chiyoh.”

“Why?”

“You said it yourself. Her loyalty to him is absolute. And Madame Murasaki has always wished for her to lock him away—so he can harm no more.”

“Maybe she knew he was dying… Maybe she couldn’t bear to watch him tragically withering to death. Sometimes, loving someone with your heart is too harsh that you have to choose to abandon them. Keep thinking, Starling. Don’t stop.”

Will stepped back into the gloom of his cell and said nothing more. He leaned his head against the wall, like an elk resting deep in the black forest. Starling turned and saw the orderly—Barney, the big man—walking toward her. She took the hint and left.

A few days later, just as Starling stepped out of class and was about to change clothes and drive to the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, Jack Crawford stopped her. He was holding a folder by its clasp and handed her a batch of photos and case files. “Find time to talk to Will.”

Starling drew a photo from the folder out of curiosity. From the small opening at the top, some kind of bodily fluid was slowly seeping out. It was Buffalo Bill’s work. 

“No leads at all so far?” Starling asked, incredulous.

Jack Crawford didn’t answer her question directly. He only said, “Talk to Will. See what he thinks. Bring your recorder. When you’re back, tell us everything you see and hear, word for word. I’ll have our men take it from there. But remember—don’t you dare try investigating on your own.”

Buffalo Bill’s “first” victim had been discovered in Buffalo this May. A group of aimless teenagers, sneaking along the river path on their way to steal booze from a liquor store, stumbled upon a body (or as to say it could hardly be recognised as a used-to-be life form). Terrified, they puked last night’s liquor all over the thing, further erasing what little evidence remained. It took three waves of forensic teams and weeks of grim work before police confirmed: it was the corpse of a woman, sealed entirely within a hard resin casing. However, as the resin job was crude—botched, actually—as soon as the the ‘failure work’ hit the river, water seeped in through the poorly set cover, triggering rapid decomposition. The corpse swelled grotesquely until the current spat it out onto the bank. In the five months that followed, another onetwothreefourfive female bodies turned up in Connecticut, West Virginia and other places. From the main arteries of sewage lines, the cracked bottoms dried reservoirs, the mouths of overflow channels. All were encased in resin shells, each with a small opening at the top. From these holes, fat, plasma, and corpse fluid seeped out, spreading dreamy iridescent sheens across the water like oil spills. (It was like Ophelia, Starling thought, as if she had been born in the water, wept there, died there.)

Only then did the authorities begin to realise that America had birthed a new serial killer. At first, they dubbed the suspect “Buffalo Bill” simply because the first known victim had been found in Buffalo—and because every identified girl had one trait in common: pale blue eyes. But someone quickly pointed out that the Buffalo victim might not actually have been the first. That possibility made everything more elusive, more haunted.

Starling took a deep breath and started the engine.

She walked step by step, trailing the orderly deep into the heart of the asylum. The clang of metal pipes striking iron bolts rang in her ears, echoing in slow, hypnotic waves. She felt as if she were walking underwater, gravity bleeding from her bones. Wherever she passed, the light dimmed, receding behind her, until only a sickly yellow ceiling lamp pulsed ahead. Will lay on his bed, eyes closed, resting. When he heard her footsteps, he murmured without opening them, “I thought you’d be searching for the remains of Alana Bloom and Margot Verger by now.”

Starling stepped closer to the bars.

“Good evening, Mr. Graham.”

He opened his eyes, gazing upward.

“You’re not here for me today, are you?”

Her left arm stayed folded across her chest, secretly gripping hard beneath her armpit, clutching the file folder with Buffalo Bill’s case stashed in her bag. Now she could free herself. She pulled the folder out, placed it into the sliding tray used for food deliveries. Just as she completed the motion, Will stood up and corrected her in the calm, slow tone of a schoolmaster: “Next time, if you have documents for me, clear it with the current director ahead of time (Chilton’s gone, right? Forced to retire?) They’ll let us sit in a proper visitation room.”

Starling disliked his patronising manner. “Mr. Graham, you returned to Wolf Trap two months ago, and requested to be committed here, at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Jack Crawford has always hoped you would come back. He never gave up on you. He regrets giving you to Hannibal. He still wants to trust you.”

“When is Jack going to visit me himself?”

“He’s got his hands full every day. No one blames you. You shouldn’t add to his burden.”

“Jack Crawford still wants to believe in himself. He’s got no one left to trust. Tell me, Miss Starling—have you started to have this sensation of becoming his new daughter?”

Starling had had enough: “Mr. Will Graham—have you made this hospital your home now? When was the last time your wife and child came to see you?”

Will stepped to the tray, yanked it open, pulled out the file folder, and looked down at the bloody, brutal photographs inside. 

“And you—or should I say, Jack Crawford—feel safe giving me these? Hannibal Lecter might still be out there, roaming free. He may well be the architect. And I may be the accomplice.”

“He’s dead, isn’t he? Otherwise, you wouldn’t be back.”

Will said nothing, flipping through photo after photo. Then he turned to the autopsy reports. 

He turned page after page of the autopsy reports until a particular line caught his attention. He looked up at her. “Your father died when you were young, didn’t he? Did you ever long for a father’s love? Did you ever imagine Jack Crawford as that perfect father? Tell me, Miss Starling—do you think Crawford sees you as a good daughter?”

“Mr. Graham, don’t psychoanalyse me with Freud. That’s outdated. We need to save lives.”

“You’re the tuning fork to this mad, sad world, Miss Starling. You’re bringing sanity back to this deranged existence. Don’t you remember? Quid pro quo…”

She hesitated. Then she spoke.

“My father was a cop. He was shot trying to arrest a junkie. Spent a month in the hospital… We couldn’t afford the ICU. And by then, he was just a poor soul clinging to life on a ventilator. One power outage, and his heart would stop forever.”

“What was your father’s name?”

“Everett Starling.”

“And the names of the junkies who shot him?”

“…I don’t know.”

“Exactly. You can’t expect every detail to unfold itself neatly before you. Sometimes, you have to learn to let go.”

When we were still in Cuba, he once drove us out to a little roadside tavern in the countryside for dinner. He was meticulous about what he put in his mouth—rarely ate outside—so the invitation itself already felt like something precious. Under the fading light of dusk, half the diners were seated beneath oversized umbrellas along the street, chatting, eating, laughing in the orange haze. After we sat down, we overheard the next table gossiping. A woman was telling the story of how her husband had smothered a lost American hiker with cling wrap out in the wilderness. Sadly he left with nothing more than a hundred bucks for the trouble. Just at that time the waiter arrived with our wine and Lobster Enchilado. He raised his glass first and clinked it softly against mine. His eyes burned through me—ardent, unwavering. I almost thought I saw him smile, just slightly, behind the sip he took. I drank too, compelled, like swallowing poison. Later I asked him how long had he shadowed that woman's husband and he told me that just that night, and the following morning. I turned toward Chiyoh, who had been silent all evening. She was quietly skewering a piece of lobster with her left hand, staring into her wineglass as though it were a window. Like the kind of sister always standing in front of the houses. Maybe she had already sensed he was dying.

I’ve kissed her. He has, too—back when she was small, when he still played the doting brother. In this story, many people kiss many people. But what truly matters isn’t who kissed whom—it’s who never will. There are those who should never touch lips in this life. Because when two souls resonate too violently, their bodies—by some law of fate—must inevitably fall out of sync, vice versa. The whole story is only repeating itself again and again in different forms. I went into the asylum, and he rescued me. He went in, and I “rescued” him. We even tried to care for a victim’s relative together once—like she was our daughter. She, too, ended up in the asylum. I couldn’t get her out. Same plots, new leads, new hero. Always the fake new story under the same structure reassembled. He betrayed me. I betrayed him. And by now, every new story has already been told. I’m just dragging it out like a mangy dog’s tail, trudging back into this place, enduring my posthumous life.Yes, I asked to be admitted. To clear my head. To suffer through what comes next. But even crime has lost its novelty… Did you know we investigated something just like this five years ago? A man tried to craft his own human Eye of God—out near the Missouri River, in a barn beside a cornfield. He coated people in resin, lined them up by skin tone. Some “pieces” didn’t satisfy him—he dumped those in the river. They floated downstream, scattered across various inlets until they were discovered. At first, the police thought it was a traveling killer. I made them trace the river upstream. Go against the current, Starling.

“We’ve tried all of that,” said Starling. “Nothing turned up. This time is different. We even found one in a manmade channel.”

Will stuffed all the files back into the folder, pulled open the sliding tray, and shoved it through.

“Why the resin shell?”

“To preserve the body?”

“Then he wouldn’t leave a hole at the top.”

Starling felt for a moment like she had said something wrong.

Will tapped the folder. “Have you considered what the final form of Buffalo Bill’s work is supposed to be?”

“…All the flesh dissolved into tissue fluid and drained out through that tiny hole, leaving behind a skeleton inside a transparent cocoon. That’s disgusting.”

“I like your word. Cocoon.”

“What’s it meant to hatch?”

“Death.”

Chapter Text

The antique Gothic clock in the main hall struck nine, its metallic chimes reverberating down the corridor and into the cell.

“You should go,” said Will, knocking lightly on the food tray to signal her to retrieve the folder. “It’s not safe for girls to be driving these roads alone at night.”

The entire conversation had left Starling feeling helpless, disarmed. She had never truly held the upper hand in Will’s presence—much less the kind of authority she had painstakingly tried to construct. From her perspective, Will hadn’t provided any useful information, merely treated her as a momentary diversion, indulging in a kind of confessional where he could speak of Hannibal—of that enduring, unresolvable mix of longing and resentment he couldn’t utter to anyone else. After a full day of lectures and the long drive down, she no longer had the energy to think. It really was time to go. To save the fifty bucks it would cost for a motel, she’d have to drive all the way back to Quantico through the night. It was late enough already. She followed Will’s gaze, reached for the folder, and slipped it back into her shoulder bag.

That exact moment when she looked up and saw Will’s face—under the dim, honeyed ceiling light, his features carved into shadow and ravine—was when she caught it: a flicker of silver sorrow leaking through the cruel silence, unable to be suppressed. It reminded her of that moment from childhood when her mother told the doctor she had decided to take her father off the ventilator. The expression on the doctor’s face. What does grief look like when someone’s long since grown familiar with despair as till numb?

Starling shivered and straightened her posture. A strange exhilaration surged to her head. She had made it through the worst of her physical exhaustion. Now it was sheer instinct carrying her forward. She kept her eyes on Will behind the bars and, with trembling fingers, pulled the still-recording device from the inside pocket of her suit jacket. She turned it off, deliberately, in full view of him.

“Tell me something Jack Crawford shouldn’t know,” she said, her lips trembling as well.

“Then Jack Crawford’s going to hate me,” Will shrugged, a glint of Schadenfreude—or was it satisfaction in his eyes? “Let me guess. He told you to hand him the recordings and not to ask questions?”

“…Yes.”

“Daddy’s worried about his precious little girl, huh? But the little girl just wants to be bad. Tell me, little girl, why won’t you do as papa told? Trying to score your own big win and get that badge faster?”

His mock-playful tone grated against her nerves. She imagined Will had come to many realisations during his long isolation, but along with that insight, he had grown even stranger. A common fate for anyone with fire in their belly and nowhere to put it. She ignored the inappropriate metaphor and replied, “I’m not in this for the badge. These were living girls, Mr. Graham—young, vibrant, breathing. My goals aren’t that tacky. If you ever loved that ‘daughter’ of yours—or anyone—you’d understand what I mean.”

Starling’s words forced Will to swallow. “Sadly, life is built of a thousand tacky little fragments, Miss Starling. I told you that before.”

“Some people enjoy lying. Some enjoy killing. I enjoy solving,” she said, her fist clenched, her voice low but steady. “I just enjoy being the Messiah. I’ll tell you what I’ve discovered, and then you’ll tell me what you know. Deal?”

Will nodded in silence, letting her speak.

“Three of the bodies were still ‘fresh’ when we found them. The skin was loose. Their frames didn’t match their living photos. These girls must’ve been kept alive, starved, for some time before they were tortured and killed.” (Him? Will raised an eyebrow. Starling arched hers back—unflinching. She saw it more clearly now. Will was rousing her will to fight.)

“To make them fit into the resin wombs?”

“Maybe. They all suffocated inside. The ‘womb’ wasn’t punctured until after they were dead. We thought at first he wanted them alive—just didn’t know how—but then we realised it was deliberate.”

“What did the profiler say?”

“Said Buffalo Bill’s the type who made a habit of shortcuts. Probably studied art. Got away with things that way for most of his life. Then something changed. Shortcut didn’t work anymore. They also called him a sexual sadist.”

“They always do, if a killer’s victims are young women. Suffocation. Sadism. It titillates the reader. Books mislead. At least I don’t when I lecture. No evidence of penetration. Life’s messier than theory, Miss Starling. Anger appears as lust, lupus presents as hives…”

“I also know something the profiler doesn’t. I know you know something about Buffalo Bill himself. Want to hear my design?” Starling crossed her arms, lifted her chin. She wasn’t tired anymore.

“I looked at those reports and photos without being surprised,” Will answered for her. His voice sounded more like he was thinking aloud.

“Not only that. You looked like you were grading us—seeing if we’d reached the answer you already had. You knew something exactly like this was going to happen.”

A childlike shriek echoed from somewhere down the hall. Will tilted his head and whistled gently, then the scream stopped, though faint sobs still lingered in the distance.

“Sorry,” he said. “There’s a patient here goes wrong every night at 9:30, like clockwork. He believes everyone must grow up to kill their mother.”

“You tamed him?”

“I don’t tame people, Miss Starling. Or dogs. I live with them. Watch the seasons change with them. Be their friend.”

“Friendship can be deceiving. A bad friend drags you into hell. In China they say: ‘Draw near to cinnabar and you’ll be stained red. Draw near to ink and you’ll be stained black.’” She meant Hannibal, but didn’t say his name. She wanted to hear Will say it first.

“Our conversation’s finally circling the drain, isn’t it?” Will said. “Like the world revolves around him. Every shadow leads back to him…”

“Do you get TV here, Mr. Graham?”

“Barney usually puts on the channel I like. Sometimes with sound, sometimes not. I’ve grown used to what comes.”

He’s clinging to the sense of control that returns after a deliberate letting-go, Starling thought. Like Camus said—freedom’s been returned to the Romans. But then what? The unbearable weight of judgment. She said, “Did you know someone’s making a film about you and Hannibal? The name ‘Hannibal’ stirs up all kinds of fantasies. People think his parents must’ve placed great hopes on him. So naturally, his life has to be dramatic. In this wretched unauthorised version (assuming all public stories get distorted) the director claims that, in the end, you two survive. You go underground and sit side by side in a private box at a theatre in Madrid, hand in hand, watching Mephistopheles and Faust. Breathing each other’s air, whispering secrets only you understand. Like a fairytale. It’ll be on-demand soon.”

Will burst out laughing. “The director really said that?”

Starling pouted and nodded.

“If something’s not bright enough, it can’t go viral, Miss Starling. I lost my virginity of killing due to Hannibal. So no, I don’t think I’ll watch it. If he were still alive, he’d be bored by now and probably wondering how I’d taste.”

Just then, Starling’s phone rang. She nodded to Will, pulled it from her pocket as she walked down the hallway. Jack Crawford’s name lit up the screen. “Still in Baltimore?” he asked bluntly.

“I just wrapped up my talk with Will Graham. Got it all on tape,” she lied, just a little.

“I’ll have Barney see you to the garage,” said Jack. The background was noisy—he’d probably stepped out mid-meeting. “You remember Senator Martin?”

“The one who wanted to gut the FBI budget against Kade Prurnell?”

“That’s her. She’s here. Her daughter’s gone missing. We’ve got reason to believe Buffalo Bill took her.”

Starling’s heart missed a beat. “Catherine Martin? If that’s true, I can go back and ask Will more questions. We might still have time before Buffalo Bill’s ‘execution date.’”

“Forget Will Graham,” Jack snapped, his voice distorting in static. “Clarice, just come back. Hand over the recorder. Go teach your classes. Let us handle it. This isn’t a game—I need you safe.”

Starling was about to argue when she saw Barney—large, purposeful—striding her way. She hung up and, without meeting his eyes, bolted in the opposite direction.

Down the corridor came the ghostlike cries again, mournful sobbing, a wail, then a woman’s cackle. Her heels echoed, click, click, click, down the concrete floor as she ran toward Will’s cell. “Mr. Graham!” she shouted as she ran.

Will stood with hands behind his back at the bars. She grabbed them as if she were the one caged. “Tell me where to find Buffalo Bill. Please,” she said, breathless, glancing behind to see if Barney was catching up.

“Hannibal always loved a good conversation,” Will answered evenly.

“I don’t have time for riddles.” She steadied herself, lowered her voice to squeeze a plea: “Please, I beg you. I’m running out of time. For the sake of the fact that I was once your student.”

“In Cuba, he used to talk to his anonymous patients. Share revelations. One man liked talking about wombs. Resurrection. That guy once tried to suffocate himself with a condom—to crawl back inside his mother.”

Starling finally stilled herself. Barney called her name, but she ignored it. 

“If I were you, I’d check Hannibal’s house. It’s become something of a pilgrimage site for the country’s brilliant criminals now.” Will tilted his head, he saw Barney now, too.

“Miss Starling, I have to take you out,” Barney’s voice came deep and final. He gripped her shoulder and led her away but she only noticed Will’s gaze.

“Mr. Graham, we may never meet again!” she called out. “Tell me, what really happened to Hannibal?”

“The unbearable lightness of being, Miss Starling!” Will’s voice echoed down the corridor. She couldn’t see him anymore. “Do you believe Goethe? That when the heavens want an extraordinary man dead, his ruin must be drawn-out and obscure… He died in a car crash. Now you tell me—was Goethe wrong, or was he never extraordinary?”

The hallway lights blinked out. Starling was led out of the asylum.

Chapter Text

V.

I would myself unto the Devil deliver, 

If I were not a Devil myself!

—Faust

By the time they arrived at the airport, night had already fallen. They bought their tickets at the counter. The clerk, tapping on her keyboard in rote disinterest, asked if they had any luggage to check. Seeing the two of them with their hands in their pockets, cool and unbothered, she lowered her eyelids and muttered they were in luck: the direct flight from Havana to Paris only operated in the dead of night on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays—seats were rarely available. Will Graham, standing behind Hannibal Lecter, watched her fingers absently, thinking: so that must mean tonight is one of those three days. He had long since lost track of time. It had been the longest vacation leave since his return to the FBI; and now, time itself no longer mattered to him. Let’s go, said Hannibal, slipping the ticket into Will’s fake passport and handing it back. Will glanced down at the name printed on it: Nola Lecter.

The pale airport resembled a sickroom after the night fell, having lost all the vitality of daytime. Half of the shops in the waiting hall had already turned off their lights, the rolling shutters pulled down like bans. The few remaining stores still lit seemed to exist only to maintain the vital signs of passengers. The broadcast repeated itself, announcing the upcoming flights. Occasionally, sharp, scattered cries of children playing around pierced the silence, only for the entire building to fall quiet again. 

Hannibal bought a sketchbook and a few coloured pencils from a nearby bookstore. After they settled at the gate, he quietly sharpened his pencils, then began to write and draw. Will sat beside him, leaning back slightly in his chair, watching Hannibal gaze into the distance as if searching in his memory palace for a familiar painting. 

He selected his subject, began sketching on the paper. 

There were very few passengers on their flight. Will observed a handful of tired faces scattered around the gate and thought that it must be either Tuesday or Thursday then. If he looked up at the electronic board on the wall, everything would become clear, but he just didn’t really care. Just then, a family carrying large bags passed by opposite them. Before they even sat down, the woman told her husband to watch the children, saying she needed to go to the restroom. Will watched her retreating figure, an odd sense of unease rising in his chest. He kept wondering if she would return. Only when she came back and sat beside her husband did he realise that he had mistaken the woman for Hannibal (or perhaps for himself). Now, the decision to part was like a red thread tightly binding them together, and he had already missed the last chance to leave him. 

After boarding, Will finally saw that Hannibal was copying The Roses of Elagabalus. As he liked, the figures in the painting mostly bore the familiar silhouettes of those he knew. An hour after takeoff, the flight attendant began quietly wheeling a cart down the aisle, asking softly, “De l’eau, du café, ou du vin?” Row by row, again and again. The voice growing thinner and indifferent like water in a bottle. When she was only two rows away, Hannibal started packing his drawing tools, then, like a spoiled child, begged Will—who was staring out at the grey low clouds—to hold his sketchbook. Though, his eyes left no room for refusal. 

The sketchbook opened to the page he was working on: on the right side, two figures about to be drowned in petals clearly bore the faces of Alana Bloom and Margot Verger; on the left, Dr. Bedelia was struggling beneath the layers of petals, tilting her head back. Will glanced at it briefly, then silently closed the sketchbook. He thought of Chiyoh in the Havana villa, spreading out her long hair, lying earnestly in the bathtub while Hannibal combed it, humming without hesitation: The rose has withered, the one who loves you is sick… Closing her eyes, feeling the stream of emotions wash through her whole body.

He turned his head, resting his shoulder on the armrest closer to Hannibal, and whispered, “You should—”

At that moment, the flight attendant approached again with her cart. Before Will could finish, Hannibal spoke first: Deux coupes de champagne, je vous prie. L’une pour moi, l’autre pour lui. The attendant smiled faintly, leaned forward, and slowly set down two tall glasses. After she walked away, Hannibal gently clinked his glass against Will’s, then took a sip of the champagne. The glass seemed to mask his smile.

After that, there was silence.

Finding Alana Bloom and Margot Verger turned out to be much easier than expected. Once someone tastes the sweetness of the Vanity Fair, it’s hard to turn back; it’s easy to go from frugality to luxury, but hard to return. Especially for this couple, who left the US during the peak of Alana’s career. She managed the psychiatric hospital housing Hannibal Lecter, the nation’s notorious serial killer, with a unique and efficient approach that made her famous throughout the psychiatric community. Alana’s wife (and vice versa) was the actual head of North America’s most comprehensive meat empire (and the board members all called her Bloody Mary). She shaped Alana into her own image. Even if they really wanted to live quietly, their social network wouldn’t allow it. After Hannibal and Will disappeared off the cliff, the two immediately decided to leave the US for a long “vacation” in Paris, to lay low. Will said they feared Hannibal would find them and retaliate (as he was now doing). Hannibal thought Alana had lost all face in the US psychiatric academic world—she let him escape. Like a circus ringmaster who must abandon the circus after the lion escapes. In Paris, their peace was short-lived. Alana and Margot soon resumed their extensive social activities. On April 26, Alana Bloom was photographed with the director of Saint Anne’s Hospital; on May 18, Margot Verger attended a Munich meat trade fair signing cooperation agreements with her wife; on May 20, the two returned to Paris for a cross-disciplinary exchange with Slavoj Žižek… everywhere on the web. Times had changed, babe, no more hermits. Everything shone brightly under the flashbulbs.

It rained the night before in Paris; the runway gleamed fresh in the morning sun. After customs, Hannibal led Will through the underground parking lot. In a corner of the second basement, he unveiled a dusty white cloth to reveal a silent black Bentley. The interior had the style of the 1990s, with the lonely charm of a solitary middle-aged man. Having sat here neglected for years, the car fragrance was nearly gone; opening the door, the bittersweet scent of white tea and lemongrass from the factory-fitted black leather flooded in. Turning the key, the car stereo automatically played Arvo Pärt. Spiegel im Spiegel. My heart’s in the Highlands… A-chasing the deer and following the roe… Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North. 

Will said, It was still too early to leave. Hannibal smiled and asked if he was feeling timid. The one who should feel timid is certainly not me. I’ll take you somewhere else. Then he finally stepped on the accelerator. Against the flow of cars rushing to work, they crossed the city and entered the forest paths of Fontainebleau. Dense shadows and white sunlight streamed through the windshield, sweeping over them. Will opened the window, inhaling the moist mossy air, the sweet scent dancing over his lips and teeth—hot tar, young honeysuckle.

Hannibal took him to meet Lady Murasaki. After her husband Robert Lecter died of a heart attack, she defied opposition to inherit all his estate and titles, becoming the first and last Japanese countess in France. She had triumphed but earned much hatred. Countess Lecter lived alone in Fontainebleau village on the left bank of the Seine. From the living room, one could see the bottomless forest across the river. 

Will had hoped to see Chiyoh again here, but she had silently flown away like a starling. Countess Lecter was thinner than he imagined. He had fantasised many times about the woman who inspired Hannibal’s Rite of Spring sculpture: how mysterious, how sacred, like Hannibal described, practicing Japanese kendo in the garden every morning until noon; lunch always simple; afternoons sometimes spent going to the museum, with young Hannibal back from boarding school coming along; staring silently at the statue of the Sun Buddha, shedding a tear from the corner of her eye. Robert never went out with her. They had no children until they adopted Hannibal at sixteen. Now she was lighter and more fragile than the image he had in his mind.

As Hannibal drove into the garden of the mansion, she stood under the porch with a cane; a breeze stirred her long skirt. Will followed Hannibal out of the car, watching him greet Countess Lecter with the French favourite lengthy cheek-to-cheek kiss. Will stayed by the car. Hannibal glanced back, leaned close to whisper something into Countess Lecter’s ear, then went inside alone. Will stood in the breeze and said, Let me take you for a drive.

Hannibal was flipping through his childhood notes in his old room. Will pushed Lady Murasaki’s wheelchair through the village. She told him Hannibal’s love was hard to handle, and he had given Hannibal freedom. Her tone was slightly reproachful. He doesn’t care if you die, nor if he lives. This is his world. He doesn’t even care if you still acknowledge him; because when he’s drunk on love, he never believes the other won’t love him back. You did love him, Will said. A brief silence. He’s an easily moved man, Lady Murasaki said.

Will asked her for advice. And she said, Just be her, just live like this. Until one day he stops writing to her, and then one day he drives someone else here to prune the plants, to chat, to have lunch together. Just like to a normal, dear elder. From the woods came the chirping of a wood warbler. Lady Murasaki looked up and asked, Do you think he knows what we’re talking about? Will looked up too. Hannibal was leaning on the window, waving at him.

When Will returned to the Lecter mansion, Hannibal had already brought out his BMW twin-cylinder motorcycle. The last time he abandoned his Baltimore psychiatry career to come to Paris, this was the bike he rode; he had left it here when going to Florence. Now it was repainted black after maintenance. Will sat behind Hannibal on the motorcycle, feeling the angle a bit exaggerated on the pillion. For the first kilometre, Hannibal drove very slowly. Will struggled to adjust his posture, in the end he gave up and just wrapped his arms around Hannibal. Accelerating through the forest, he felt his weight became one with Hannibal’s. The mottled shadows of trees surged like waves, blurring his vision.

At precisely seven o’clock in the evening, they arrived at the dinner party hosted by Dr. Alana Bloom and Ms. Margot Verger. The two women now lived with their child in a townhouse in the heart of Paris. They had invited a sizeable crowd; even a block away, Will could already see cars scattered along the roadside. Hannibal stopped at the corner, saying he needed to find a place to park the motorcycle and would come in shortly. The door was opened by a middle-aged nanny. She gave Will a quick once-over but asked no questions, simply letting him in. A pale grey carpet lay in the entrance hall, so soft that footsteps made no sound upon it. Will entered the house alone. The golden-orange light of dusk cast his silhouette across the floor-to-ceiling windows. The two hostesses were busy entertaining guests and didn’t notice him right away. He leaned beside the refrigerator in the kitchen, picked up a glass of red wine, took a slice of prosciutto, and stood quietly in the corner like a ghost. When Alana Bloom turned and saw him, her expression changed instantly. She walked toward him. Her smile forming, then freezing on her face. Jack Crawford said you fell off a cliff and went missing, Alana said, Were you badly hurt?

Hannibal’s foster sister took care of us, Will said plainly, We stayed in Cuba to recover for three months. The word “we” left Alana visibly shaken. She repeated it faintly: “We.” Will nodded, offering no further explanation. He’s parking the bike, he said. Alana’s lips trembled as she asked carefully, I’m sorry, but…I need to ask my wife to clear out the guests, we need some privacy. Margot was chatting with some female entrepreneurs. Will glanced through the tall window and saw Hannibal had parked the motorcycle, tucked the keys into the pocket of his leather jacket, and was walking toward the house. Just keep things normal, Will said, I don’t think he wants to make a scene either. 

Once inside, Hannibal quickly engaged the guests in conversation. He spoke openly about his medical practice back in Baltimore, concealing only his real name. Upon spotting Margot Verger, he cheerfully extended his arms to greet her, introducing her to the group as his most distinguished patient from that time. Margot shook his hand, her face ghostly pale. Just as she was about to faint, Will grasped her wrist, supported her back, and helped her onto the couch. Hannibal looked around and politely asked the two hostesses if the child might come down to greet their two uncles they hadn’t seen in a long time. Alana Bloom, steadying herself, went upstairs. Will figured neither of them had the courage to try to escape out the back with the child, yet he still decided to watch her. Soon, she entered the room with her back to him, gently woke the child, and led them downstairs hand-in-hand with decorum. Say hello to Uncle Hannibal and Uncle Will, she whispered in a breathy voice. The child, shy and reluctant to speak, sucked their fingers and muttered a few vague “da, da, da”s, which drew kind laughter from the guests. Hannibal pinched the child’s cheek, gave a kiss on the face, and praised the two mothers: You’ve raised the child beautifully! 

After eleven, the guests began to leave one by one. Once the last one was out the door, Margot stumbled in her heels and collapsed at the threshold. Will helped her back to the couch and poured her a glass of warm water. The child was already nodding off, so Hannibal carried him upstairs to the kid’s room, returning shortly after. When he came back, he was holding two long lengths of rope. Kneeling beside Margot and Alana, he murmured his apologies as he bound their hands tightly behind their backs.

Alana looked to Will; he averted his eyes. Hannibal inquired about Dr. Bedelia’s whereabouts, saying he hadn’t heard from her in some time. The two women began to cry in silence. Hannibal stepped into the kitchen and returned with two plates of dinner—one for himself and one for Will. Seeing the women, he frowned and said, Come now, I know you’ve always had your little feminism chat group—as if women can only survive this world by clinging to one another...

Will sat on a side couch and took the plate Hannibal handed him, eating slowly and silently. Margot, regaining her breath, stared at Hannibal with tearful eyes and said she had written a will and installed alarms everywhere. Should her heart stop beating before she turned forty, a team of private investigators and mercenaries would immediately hunt down Hannibal Lecter or anyone who resembled him. Hannibal simply brushed it off: Miss Verger, I suppose you won’t be hosting any more dinners for a while.

He moved behind the couch and turned on the living room speakers. Janis Joplin’s voice drifted out. Summertime time time, child the living’s easy… Your daddy’s rich, and your ma—

Alana finally broke down, weeping. Hannibal began listing, one by one, the top ten rude offences they’d committed against him. He said she had humiliated him, and that he had once truly loved her. That when she was being cruel, she just couldn’t help treating people like dogs, no better than Dr. Chilton. The beer-drinking, tasteless girl. He claimed he’d always known she and Margot would hook up together, only because he loved Will, and Margot was merely a lesbian. He smiled at Will as he told Alana she knew nothing of love at all. Love is the most violent experience outside of war, he said, yet she preferred lukewarm cuddles. Will took a sip of wine.

Margot found her last shred of dignity and spat in Hannibal’s face, cursing him for ruining everyone’s lives. To Will, she seemed almost delirious. This is my world! Hannibal suddenly shouted. Miss Verger, don’t you see? Everyone looks like me. Each of you is just a profile fragment of me! He dabbed his face clean with a handkerchief. Alana shivered violently, her blue eyes clouded like a dying fish. She looked at Will, hesitated, then turned away and said she was sorry. She should have believed him more, should have helped him sooner. Should have admitted earlier that she loved him. Hannibal looked momentarily displeased, and seated himself on the armrest of Will’s chair, pretending to comfort Alana, saying she shouldn’t be so hard on herself. After all, she had helped him in many ways.

Alana collapsed back onto the couch, smirking through her tears. Tilting her head, she asked if her good deeds might cancel out her "top ten" rude crimes, if they could call it even. Will, who had been eating in silence until now, finally said, Those who forgive lightly shall love lightly and those who love deeply shall also resent deeply...

Behind them, the child’s voice called softly for their mother. Startled from sleep by Hannibal’s earlier shout, the child had awakened. Hannibal gently picked them up, soothed them like an experienced father, rocking and humming a lullaby from his homeland. Don’t fall apart in front of the child, he said to the women, turning and circling behind the coffee table. Alana drooled onto the white velvet sofa and asked Will if he had come to kill her too. Will knelt before her, wiped her mouth, and replied, I came to see if you had it in you to kill him.

Alana shut her eyes. A tear, pressed by her eyelids, slid down her cheek. She kept whispering apologies.

The child slipped into sleep again. As the night deepened, a chill crept in. Hannibal lit the fireplace, laid the child on the rug nearby, their head resting on a pillow and covered with a woollen blanket. He wiped off Margot’s red lipstick and asked if she remembered how her brother’s face was disfigured. He wanted her to feel the bond of family. First the nose, then the lips... He held her chin, inspecting with satisfaction. Margot tried to bite off her own tongue, but Hannibal stopped her. You really are incredibly stubborn, he mused. He injected her with a sedative, watching as her eyes lost focus, her tense neck finally giving way.

He turned to Alana, who had already gone mad. Will told him she’d wet herself even before Margot was injected. Alana murmured incoherently, her tears and saliva mixing and sliding down her neck. Hannibal bent down and gently, almost with pity, wrapped his hands around her throat. In her last flicker of lucidity, he ended it all.

He stood in front of her and met Will’s gaze for a long time, his chest rising like a bellows, as if a lifelong friend had just died unexpectedly. Then he said he needed some air in the garden.

A perfect full moon hung low in the sky, bathing everything in silver. Will finally opened the balcony door and stepped into the garden. Hannibal was kneeling among the wildflowers, a handful of soil in his hands.

How is the child? he asked. Back upstairs, back in bed. Come here.

Will stepped across the low bushes into the wildflower meadow with his body shivering. Hannibal, kneeling, wrapped his powerful and intimate arms around him, pressed his face to Will’s thigh, and rubbed his forehead against the cool fabric, murmuring, Aš jau miręs, mama, aš miręs…

Will looked up and watched birds cross the moon. In the deep exhale of the night, he reached out and ran his fingers through Hannibal’s hair. He suddenly thought of Madame Murasaki. Hannibal buried his head in Will’s chest and quietly asked what Will had wanted to tell him on the plane. Hearing no answer, he sighed and said, I like it when you keep secrets from me. Sternohyoid omohyoid thyrohyoid/juuugular, Aaaaaaa-men. The heartbeat marched like a Prussian brigade.

After a pause, he whispered tenderly, There won’t be any more cliffs here. You really are a difficult man... Ride the motorcycle with me tomorrow, will you? The one above agreed.

The bats flew from the belfry, clouds veiled the moon. Darkness fell. Among the quiet wildflowers, Hannibal’s rough, dry, burning fingers clasped Will’s. The world stopped breathing.

Chapter Text

VI.

A helicopter from Washington, D.C. was making final adjustments, preparing to land on the base helipad adjacent to the FBI Academy. Clarice Starling sat in the last row of the semicircular tiered classroom. Tilting her head slightly upward, she could see everything happening outside the window.

A week ago, the French police finally discovered the bodies of Alana Bloom and Margot Verger in the bunker-like basement of their residence in Paris. The face of the presumed Margot Verger was so mutilated it was unrecognisable; her identity confirmed only by a ring she wore. Their thoracic cavities had been split open down the middle, with both pairs of hands stiffly clutching the edges of the wounds, as though they had torn their own flesh apart. (A grotesque tableau not unlike something from a Lady Gaga music video, Brian Zeller remarked.) Beneath the split lay their hollowed-out chests. Their lower halves had been severed at the waist and inverted opposite their upper torsos. The killer had stripped them of their identities as women, denied their humanity, and forced them to confront their endless degradation.

At the FBI’s insistence, the partial remains of these two expatriated American women were transported back to Quantico, with Jack Crawford personally overseeing the autopsy. As the helicopter touched down, Clarice watched through the window as Jimmy Price and Brian Zeller stumbled through the wind, accompanying medical staffs as they wheeled the body bags out of the cargo hold. For the rest of the evening, through her investigation seminar and long after, Clarice compulsively checked her phone over and over again. No message ever came from Crawford. After class, she politely turned down the invitation to return to the dorm with her classmates and, gathering her courage, made her way toward Crawford’s office.

It was ten at night. The administrative building showed no signs of settling into rest, still pulsing like some great sleepless organ. Several agents murmured in the hallways, drifting in and out of rooms, fatigue etched on every face. The air was heavy with the cheap, chemical scent of powdered creamer dissolving in instant coffee. Halfway down the corridor, Clarice heard Crawford’s voice loud and tense in an argument. She looked toward the sound. His broad, dark silhouette was visible behind the semi-translucent glass of a conference room. Through the thin, almost decorative blinds, she recognised familiar faces. Brian Zeller had just escaped from an oxygen-starved slideshow briefing and was sighing heavily. When he noticed her, he immediately started winking and gesturing at her. Shielding his mouth with one hand, he whispered something to Jimmy, who looked up and spotted her too. A moment later, her phone buzzed repeatedly in her pocket. Jimmy was coaxing her a child, urging her to come in and join the discussion. But Clarice only looked down and replied helplessly: Crawford said I’m not allowed to be part of any official case work. Jimmy looked like he was about to reply again, but Crawford noticed their exchange. He turned sharply, locking eyes with her. She stood frozen at the corner of the hallway, her textbook shielding her, while Crawford’s face darkened with a leaden expression—not anger exactly, but something closer to sorrow. Time stalled. The air thickened. The meeting came to a halt. For a fleeting second, Clarice regretted coming to the building at all. Kade Prurnell turned to look at her. Then so did Senator Ruth Martin. The senator rested her chin on her palm, observing Clarice intently. Despite her visible exhaustion, a glint of political calculation remained in her eyes. She leaned toward Prurnell and Crawford and asked something. Clarice’s mouth was dry. Anxious, she pressed herself deeper into the corner of the hallway, waiting for judgment to descend. Soon enough, Crawford opened the conference room door and said stiffly, “Senator Martin would like a word with you.”

Clarice dragged her heavy legs into the translucent room. The room was brighter than she had expected, the stark white light mercilessly illuminating her as well as every face awaiting her presence. She chose a chair closest to the exit, sat down, and placed her textbook and backpack neatly by her feet. Once she was settled, Senator Martin extended a hand and introduced herself, politely asking whether they had met before. Clarice, following the cue, took her hand and responded evenly. At the moment their fingers touched—perhaps from sheer exhaustion—her words slipped out without passing through any mental filter. “I went to Linsey High School with your daughter.”

Senator Martin narrowed her eyes, offering a professional smile. “No wonder you look so familiar.”

Clarice’s hand tightened slightly, her voice low and cool: “Catherine used to bully me. Said I was the poor kid. My uncle and aunt did everything they could to pay for my private school tuition. I think the principal asked you to come in for a talk once. You probably saw me then.”

The air changed its density. The room, for a brief instant, fell utterly silent—then began deflating like a balloon pricked by a needle. Ruth Martin had repeatedly expressed anti-FBI sentiments in public, attempting to court anti-establishment votes. Most in the room harboured quiet resentment toward her. Now, that resentment had finally found its outlet.

Senator Martin awkwardly withdrew her hand. Prurnell looked relieved to have a moment’s reprieve from her posturing. She straightened her posture and spoke with a tone that was both courteous and quietly defensive: “But we’re talking about a living girl now, right, Clarice?”

Clarice adjusted the hem of her shirt, glanced toward Crawford, then faced forward again. “Even if she weren’t your daughter,” she said in a straightforward tone, “I would still try to save her.”

Crawford said nothing, tapping a pen against the autopsy report in front of him.

Yesterday, when he had called Clarice, who was still in Baltimore, police had already searched Catherine Martin’s apartment. A stereotypical party-girl’s place. Dirty laundry everywhere, officers had to watch their step just to move through the rooms. From summer tube tops to winter angora sweaters, her clothes were scattered across the apartment. A khaki blazer was stained with red wine. The spill long since soaked into the fibres. On the nightstand, the police found what they were looking for. A chrysalis of the death’s-head hawkmoth. Just like those found at the last known locations of every confirmed victim. Given how rarely the species appeared, let alone survived, on the American continent, especially in a D.C. apartment, police were convinced this was the killer’s signature.

Twelve hours before Clarice walked into that conference room, Crawford and Senator Martin had listened to the recording of her last conversation with Will Graham. She had driven southbound on I-95 for over an hour at 1 a.m., and placed the recorder on Crawford’s desk. Even now, Clarice didn’t believe Will had offered much in the way of concrete information, but his theory had easily outmanoeuvred the FBI’s profiler and won Senator Martin’s attention. The thought that Crawford and Martin had heard the parts where Will spoke—tabloid-intimate, repressed, painfully ardent—about Hannibal unsettled her. Her cheeks flushed. Exhaustion flooded her nerves. Senator Martin was the kind of political veteran willing to bet on outliers. If someone caught her attention, it was for a reason. After confirming with Prurnell and Crawford that Clarice was the only one able to communicate effectively with Will, the senator had made it clear: FBI trainee Clarice Starling was to be officially enlisted for this special operation.

“I can publicly support whatever actions the Bureau takes,” Senator Martin said, rubbing her brow.

“You can discuss that with Prurnell later,” Clarice replied, though her eyes were fixed on Crawford. “I have only one request. I need guaranteed, unsupervised access to Will Graham alone whenever necessary.”

“Is that difficult to arrange?” Martin turned to ask Crawford.

He pursed his lips. “Will’s a completely unpredictable now.”

“I’m just a messenger,” Clarice shrugged, masking her growing ambition behind a smile.

Everyone turned to Crawford. He continued to tap his pen cap against the documents, the rhythm relentless. Finally, he spoke. “Fine. But tonight, I go with you.”

Clarice nodded slightly, barely audible. “Understood.”

The drive to Baltimore wasn’t long. Clarice dozed briefly in the passenger seat. Over the past forty hours, she had only managed four fitful hours of sleep—and in the hours to come, she would have to keep pushing through on raw nerve. Crawford kept his eyes fixed on the black, silent highway, his hands steady on the wheel. He turned on the radio, trying to fight off the fatigue that came from too many days of mental exertion. Late-night radio was always full of outlandish tales. Tonight, it was an interview with an alleged UFO abduction survivor from Area 51. After less than ten minutes, Crawford furrowed his brow and switched it off. Silence returned, heavy and persistent.

The sudden mission had left Clarice no time to change into more “presentable” attire. She was still in her morning run outfit. Her T-shirt soaked once with sweat, track pants, and sneakers with untied laces. She only realised this when Crawford woke her up and told her to get out of the car. Kneeling to retie them, she trailed behind Crawford, reminding herself to stay calm. He felt like an invigilator checking whether she was hiding cheat notes, and she didn’t even know if her “partner” was going to betray her. Will Graham and Jack Crawford had known each other too long. There had to be ties between them she couldn’t see. She found that it was easier to walk into his territory when she avoided watching Will.

“Mr. Graham. I bring you the man you wanted.” she announced as she stepped forward.

Will was not asleep. He sat with closed eyes, upright at a writing desk, like one of those mechanical puppets that cease movement when not observed. At the sound of her voice, his eyes opened slowly. He placed both hands on the table and looked at Jack Crawford—yet kept Clarice at the centre of his gaze.

“Miss Starling,” he said, leaning back on his elbows like he was stretching, “it’s only been twenty-four hours since our dramatic farewell. Has the next life already begun?” The acerbic tone felt directed more at Crawford than her.

“Ruth Martin thinks you and I are still of use.” Clarice said.

Will turned his head toward Crawford. “I allow you to use me.”

Crawford looked as if his heart had broken. He could barely meet Will’s eyes. But if he closed them, if he relied only on Will’s voice, the illusion of normalcy almost returned. “Can I still trust you, Will?” He asked.

Will didn’t look at him again. He placed his fingertips together, forming a steeple in front of his lips. “Do you remember when you took me to see Hannibal, locked away under Alana’s watch?”

“I don’t think this is the same situation.”

“But I do, Jack. You need to keep your agents close. You can’t let every talented agent under your command be possessed by Hannibal’s ghost.”

“Did you kill Alana Bloom and Margot Verger?”

The question caught Will off guard. He turned toward Crawford again, seemingly startled. But Clarice sensed something deeper lurking under that surprise, something more dangerous. “No.” Will said softly.

“Then I’m not speaking to Hannibal’s ghost right now.”

After a beat, Will turned to Clarice. He asked if she had followed his advice, about where to find Catherine Martin and Buffalo Bill. Clarice’s palms dampened with sweat. She feared that with one more word, Will might expose everything that hadn’t been captured in the recordings Crawford had already heard. Crawford’s silence could mean anything, and she was far from seasoned enough to read the subtext. She braced herself. “A lot has happened in the past day, Mr. Graham.”

Will nodded slowly, pondering. “Jack, can you let Clarice and me speak in private for a bit?”

Crawford studied Clarice for a moment. “Ten minutes,” he said.

Once Crawford stepped out of earshot, Clarice unzipped her jacket. His scrutiny had left a cold sweat on her spine. She waited for Will to speak. One minute passed. Nothing. Finally, she broke the silence. “The moment I saw Ruth Martin, I brought up how her daughter bullied me in high school… Maybe I really need a break. I thought she’d cut me out of the case entirely.”

Will didn’t seem remotely concerned by her misstep. He replied lightly, “And yet you still want to save her? Even after Crawford keeps warning you not to let me in too deep?”

“…Maybe I just enjoy playing the Messiah. Is that some kind of pathology, Mr. Graham?”

“Most people drawn to public service have a touch of it.”

“Every last place where a confirmed victim was seen alive, they found a death’s-head hawkmoth pupa. Same kind was found in Catherine Martin’s apartment. This moth mostly exists in Southeast Asia—Malaysia, the Philippines… Buffalo Bill must’ve gone to great lengths to raise them in the States.”

“That fits. He wants to hatch death. The death’s-head hawkmoth is his most poetic metaphor. So. What are you going to do?”

“Follow your earlier suggestion. Visit Hannibal’s home.”

“You don’t trust Crawford? Or the FBI?”

“I don’t trust Hannibal.”

Will’s face showed something like approval. He glanced at the clock—only five minutes left.

“They brought Alana Bloom and Margot Verger’s bodies back to Quantico today,” Clarice said, taking a sharp breath. “They were in the basement of their house in Paris.”

“I see.” Will’s voice held no surprise, no further questions. Clarice sensed she was drawing closer to the centre of it all.

“I don’t think Goethe was wrong,” Clarice said, returning to the point where their last conversation had broken off. “You need to tell me exactly how Hannibal died in that car crash.”

“There’s not enough time.”

“If you don’t hold back, there is. Give me something. Next time, I’ll trade you my first Messiah moment.”

Will buried his face in his hands. The warmth of his palms seemed to thaw the cold from his skin. He no longer looked distant. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. From the end of the hallway came a soft, eerie whimper. Then the metallic clatter of pipe against iron pole. The whimper stopped short. And Will began to speak.

The morning after we reunited with Alana and Margot, Hannibal and I went out early on the motorcycle, riding through the city before breakfast. We returned to the house to cook for the child. Later, we packed the car to visit an old friend in Geneva. Dr. Bedelia. You’ve probably never heard of her. She’s spent this entire story trying to vanish into the background.

I think, in some way, the child soothed Hannibal’s old pain. He was so quiet, so trusting, he believed everything we said. Bedelia loved to went to the Sunday market for dry white wine and spicy sausages. We found her that way. After catching up with her, Hannibal decided on a whim to cook something elaborate—rosemary, butter, lotus leaves. A feast. We all got in the car, the child with us, driving under a gentle afternoon sun.

Then a truck came barreling down the wrong lane. Brakes screaming. No warning. It slammed into us head-on. There was this high-pitched whine in my ears, endless and loud. The impact bent the car into something unrecognisable. The side Hannibal and the child were on—just blood and ruin. I never had a chance to see if they were still breathing. I crawled out. Awake now. Really awake. I no longer wanted to check. There was no shape left to recognise. It didn’t matter. The last few months felt like a fever dream, like I’d relapsed into encephalitis again. There was no grand finale. No drawn-out agony. No fated climax out of a novel. Didn’t Chekhov say, if you show a revolver in act one, it must be fired in act three? But life isn’t like that. The car crash… cured me.

I went back to West Virginia. 

That’s all.

“Was your conversation with Bedelia like the one with Alana and Margot?” Clarice pressed, right on the nerve.

“Maybe,” Will said vaguely. “Maybe not. Time’s up.”

Clarice turned. Crawford was already watching her. He approached. It wasn’t the first time this had happened to her—but she still couldn’t stop shaking.

As Crawford stepped into view, Will called out, deliberately loud: “Don’t forget what you promised to tell me next time!”

Crawford walked ahead. Clarice followed. Together they left the psychiatric ward.

As the hospital doors shut behind them, Crawford raised one thick hand to cover his eyes and nose, standing motionless under the streetlamp. Clarice tried to break the silence by offering her own deductions, but Crawford simply listened without speaking. They were both utterly spent.

Finally, Crawford lowered his hand. Under the pale yellow light, Clarice could just make out faint tear tracks on his face. “The last time I let Will see Hannibal alone,” he said, “he ended up like this.” He took a breath. His voice trembled. “Clarice… Clarice… stay close to internal comms. Call me often, all right?”

Chapter Text

VII.

 If the sea's tides are the same that not only wash along your veins but also billow through your fantasies then it is all right to listen to but not to tell stories about that sea, because you and the truth of a true lie were thrown sometime way back into a curious contiguity and as long as you are passive you can remain aware of the truth's extent but the minute you became active you are somehow, if not violating a convention outright, at least screwing up the perspective of things, much as anyone observing subatomic particles changes the works, data and odds, by the act of observing. —LOW-LANDS

Before dawn the next day, Clarice Starling opened her eyes, just one minute earlier than the alarm she had set. She swiftly pressed the alarm off, tiptoed out of bed, and, steadying herself against the wall, slipped into the bathroom. A splash of cold water jolted her fully awake. It had now been sixty-five hours since Catherine Martin was believed to have disappeared. Time was racing past. Her eardrums buzzed, her heartbeat thrummed in sync with the clock. Despite having slept only three or four hours each night for the last three days, her brain felt feverishly alert. From the woods beside the dormitory came the irritating cooing of doves. Normally, when hearing that sound, she could still steal another hour of sleep. She opened the bathroom door softly, only to see her roommate Ardelia Mapp, who should still have been asleep, leaning against the wall, staring at her.

“Three days. I finally get to see you in person. If it weren’t for the new clothes I find tossed into your laundry basket every morning, I really would’ve thought you’d gone missing too.” Ardelia teased gingerly.

“Did I wake you?” Starling asked, tinged with guilt.

“I woke on my own.” Ardelia’s voice was weary, haunted. “Had a dream. Thought I’d never see you again.”

Starling’s heart dropped as she thought of the abyss awaiting her, but she quickly swallowed the unease. “I’ll call you before ten tonight, okay?” She turned her back to Ardelia and began packing. Crawford had given her special permission to carry a nine-millimetre pistol—six bullets and one full magazine. Baton, phone, recorder, multi-tool kit, paper, pen, micro camera. That was it. Ardelia helped her double-check the items, hugged her tightly, then sat back on her bed, dazed, watching her leave the dorm.

Driving from Quantico to Baltimore at rush hour could sometimes take two and a half hours. But with the early roads still clear, Starling sped onto the highway, thinking no cop would bother her this early, and pushed the accelerator all the way into the city. By then, the sky was faintly lit. She slowed down once in town, heading from downtown toward uptown. In the morning fog, the dazed, glassy-eyed junkies on the streets looked like zombies. Starling recalled what Will had said to her during their second meeting. But was it really happiness? The thought made her palms itch. Just then, the car radio suddenly burst into a gospel song. A sharp organ chord pierced her ears without warning, making her jump. She slammed on the brakes and switched the radio off. Amid her ragged breathing, impatient horns blared behind her.

Hannibal’s office-cum-residence sat at the border of uptown and downtown, a solemn Baroque stone relic that should have served as a reassuring dividing line for the neighbourhood. But since its owner’s notorious past had been splashed across the media, to Starling it carried an indescribable gloom. After Hannibal Lecter had surrendered to the Baltimore State Hospital, both his lawyer and financial advisor abandoned him, and most of his assets had been frozen ever since. For years, the house had remained locked, its doors shut tight. Now and then thrill-seekers and gawkers would come to snap photos, but given how many innocent lives were tied to Hannibal’s history—and the rumour that Hannibal (in flesh or in spirit) killed anyone he found rude—few dared venture inside. On the steps lay offerings from fanatics: flowers, wine, printed music, scalpels, anatomical models… and rotting animal organs. Starling frowned at the sight, held her breath, forced the lock open, and crept inside.

The first room was the patient waiting area, walls scarred with graffiti from intruders—crude declarations of existence, carved with knives or scrawled in marker. Deeper inside, in his office, there were almost no signs of trespass. Large pieces of furniture were draped in white cloth against dust. His books, a triptych woodblock print by Utagawa Kunisada, and small sculptures had been catalogued and stacked in the corner. Starling could only guess their original placements by the faded outlines on the walls. Power and water still flowed; appliance indicators glowed faintly through cloth. The air was thick with that dry, mouldy smell peculiar to long-neglected rooms. Each step she took stirred the staleness into wider circulation.

After circling the office, she tiptoed to a hidden door. Through it—or via the side entrance outside—one could access Hannibal’s two-story private residence. Still, silence. Starling raised her nine-millimetre, moved along the walls, carefully sweeping every corner. Nothing. Soon she discovered, the house felt severed from time, detached from the flow of human civilisation since Hannibal’s departure.

Frustrated, she lay down on Hannibal’s bed, covered in white. Beneath the cloth was the frame and mattress he had chosen himself. Her heart pounded. Gazing up at the ornate ceiling carvings, she suddenly felt she understood Hannibal completely, if only for an instant. Strength filled her. With outstretched hands, she felt the whole house’s stories emanated from her own grip; the building existed because of her. Yet as she sank into the mattress, she wondered if she had chosen the wrong path. She knew Hannibal owned a cliffside villa on the northern Chesapeake, where he and Will had plunged together after “metamorphosing” of the Red Dragon. But she hadn’t gone there first—partly because Baltimore was closer to Quantico, partly because she believed, almost superstitiously, that Buffalo Bill was the sort of criminal pilgrim easily guessed. Baltimore was for rulers; Chesapeake was for lovers. And Buffalo Bill was no lover. But now she doubted her logic. Her thoughts began to blur as soft sunlight seeped through heavy curtains, spilling over her fingertips.

Just then, a phone rang beneath her feet. Starling shot up. At first she thought it was her phone, but quickly realised it came from deeper below. She slipped off her shoes, crept in socks across the floor, searching. Near the kitchen island, she found a trapdoor. She descended the steps.

A secret pantry.

Motion-sensor lights flicked on one by one along the long corridor until the space’s far end glowed. It was colder here. Starling could smell the warmth of human flesh in the air. The basement looked empty—the FBI had seized all his tools—but every crack in the floorboards, every shadow on the walls bore stains. The thought of what had once happened here kept her from brushing too close. She swallowed hard, sticking to the narrow strip of light from the overhead lamps, advancing like walking a razor’s edge.

At the end of the corridor stood a glass case holding a whole human heart. It was no specimen. Both left and right atria were wired to a pacemaker, beating slow and steady.

Starling froze for several seconds. Her hand went to her coat pocket, pulling out the micro camera, ready to capture this grotesque evidence. She bent her head—and in that instant, a faint creak came from behind. Someone else had been hiding in the shadows all along. Breath held, they had slipped up while Starling was transfixed by the heart. Before she could turn, a rough rope snapped around her throat, tightening brutally.

She clawed back, digging her nails into scalp and ear. The attacker grunted but pulled harder. Her carotids throbbed wildly; her world shrank to a collapsing black hole. Her last instinct screamed: this was Buffalo Bill. She had to escape now—or become the next body in a resin womb. Her right hand scrambled in the bag until it found the nine-millimetre. She fired by her ear. The thunderous blast tore her eardrum. Warm fluid trickled from her right ear—whether from his wound or her own ruptured flesh, she couldn’t tell. But the shot broke his rhythm. The rope slackened. Starling rolled away, staggering behind a table for cover.

A furious roar erupted. Round two was about to begin.

Just as she grabbed for her full magazine, a sudden, prolonged telephone ring blared upstairs. Like a vampire struck by daylight, her enemy faltered, then fled clumsily down the hidden passage. Metal clattered, and silence reclaimed the house.

Heart pounding, Starling crawled back to the case. The heart still pulsed with mechanical calm. On top of the glass lay a delicate gift box. Inside was a pupa of a death’s-head hawkmoth.

The phone continued ringing upstairs. Starling was now almost certain it was meant for her. She hurriedly photographed the scene, coughed blood, and staggered back up. The bell echoed through the rooms like dripping water from the ceiling, each note splintering her already spinning senses.

Clutching her bleeding ear, she found a telephone near the kitchen. Wrapping it with a tissue, she picked up.

At first, there was only steady breathing. Starling stayed silent, but blood rose in her throat and she coughed lightly. Then came the voice she had long imagined, long awaited: “Hello, Miss Clarice Starling.” A pause. “Now, I think it’s just the two of us.”

Her mouth went dry. A thousand questions crowded her lips, but none came out. For a moment, she thought she was hallucinating. Did this mean Will had lied? Or had Hannibal fooled them all again? At last, she managed: “So you really are alive.”

“I guess, I saved you?” Hannibal’s voice was calm as ever. “It sounds like you’ve just been through a harsh battle.”

“Thanks to you.”

Starling’s breath steadied. The house, under its master’s distant hand, fell back under control; danger ebbed. After a long silence, Hannibal told her to open the curtains in the living room, to look west. That neighbour had once been a UN official, now retired but still faithfully watching UN news. Today’s noon broadcast showed a reporter at the Geneva headquarters, speaking beneath the sculpture of a broken-legged chair. Passersby drifted behind. Then, in a corner of the frame, a man appeared—silver-grey hair, black cashmere coat, phone in hand, back to the camera. As Starling’s eyes locked on him, he turned.

“I saw your silhouette in Freddie Lounds’ report,” Hannibal said over the line. “You look almost like a new Will Graham. Tell me, do you plan to arrest me?”

Clarice frowned. From Will’s stories, she had pieced together Hannibal’s proud, imperious, yet self-styled gracious demeanour. She thought she was prepared. But truly “meeting” him, she realised how formidable he was. Adjusting her stance at the window so she could see the screen more clearly, as if facing him directly, she asked: “If you had met me first instead of Will Graham, would the story have unfolded differently?”

“I fall in love too easily, Miss Starling. I build walls. I stand forever on the absolute high ground of being human. The only problem is—once I am seen, I fall hopelessly in love with the one who sees me. Forever.”

“Was Buffalo Bill sent by you?” Starling cut in coldly.

“He doesn’t go by that name with me,” Hannibal chuckled. “But I suppose you’d better hurry. You frightened him.”

Starling was about to hang up when Hannibal added: “I’m sorry you were treated so rudely in my house. As compensation, I’ve left gifts for you and Will on the second-floor bookshelf of my consultation room. Deliver his for me, won’t you? Run, girl, run. Time is short.”

Their eyes met—through the camera’s corner, through cables and air, through chambers of the heart. In that instant, they fully aligned. Then the television went dark, the phone clicked dead, leaving only a harsh busy tone. Like a maiden stripped of pleasure and love, stood on the midnight steps and fell, the clock tolled slowly—twelve times in all.

Chapter Text

VIII.

The second floor of the consultation room had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on three of the four sides. When they had once been filled with Hannibal’s collection, the place had seemed almost fairytale-like. The only way to reach the second floor was by climbing a wooden ladder fixed to the wall. Everything about it reminded Starling of the Beast’s grand library in Beauty and the Beast—except here it was steeped in Hannibal’s hidden dislocations and dark amusement. She climbed the ladder. At the corner of the shelves, on a small round table, she found the gift left for her and Will: a note and a bottle of aftershave. Printed boldly on the bottle’s packaging was the word “Guilty.” The note, written in delicate cursive, read “Belleville, Ohio” with an IPv4 address written beneath it. Starling quickly copied the address into her phone and sent it to Jimmy Price, asking him to track the exact location. Then she snatched up both the note and the aftershave and hurried down the ladder. She sprinted out of the building and ran for her car. Her hands trembled slightly from the rush of adrenaline; when she pushed the key into the lock, it nearly slipped from her grip. She started the engine, threw it into reverse, and at the same time dialled Jack Crawford’s voicemail. She left a quick report of her discovery and her movements, concealing everything related to Hannibal.

On the drive, she couldn’t stop recalling Will’s description of Hannibal’s car accident. In her mind she replayed the prison intake photos she had studied in the files, overlaying them with the image of the man she had just seen on a distant television screen. At last those images fused into one—blurred, cruel, undeniable. Waves of exhilaration surged against her temples.

As she neared Belleville, Jimmy’s reply finally came through, giving her a specific physical address. Almost simultaneously, Ohio state police received the same intelligence and prepared to dispatch. From the map, it was an old mansion, isolated at the edge of the woods, far from Belleville’s town centre. Buffalo Bill had left more than half an hour before her. Starling could only hope that her speeding would buy a slim chance of Catherine’s survival.

Jame Gumb—or as the FBI knew him better, Buffalo Bill—abandoned his car by the roadside in frustration. He shoved open his front door, slammed the lock, and grabbed a red fire axe leaning against the wall. With a roar, he pushed past the cluttered living room and headed straight for the storage cellar off the kitchen. 

“Youuuuu fuuucking bitch—did you call the cops?” Gumb kicked the cellar door open and shouted down the stairs.

Catherine Martin screamed, then fell into incoherent sobbing, words spilling out that no one could understand. Gumb, gripping the axe in both hands, hopped step by step down the stairs, eyes glazed, muttering: “You’ve made things very difficult for me, young girl… My art, interrupted! … You’re in trouble… in trouble…”

He was nearly at the bottom when the sharp ring of the doorbell froze him in place. He inhaled deeply. He shut his eyes and remembered how his mother used to call him her little artist. You’re wonderful, my baby. You were born deeper, more sensitive Dasein than anyone else, a child of sorrow… But adulthood had twisted everything. Tears welled in his eyes as he clung to his grand vision: thirteen death cocoons scattered along waterways across fertile soil, forming a massive pentagram array. When all the incantations were complete, his heart would forever beat in the cellar, his soul forever return to his mother’s womb… to the purest beauty.

Now it was all shattered. He stood still, suppressing his very existence. He had never even thought the doorbell worked—no one had ever come here. Holding his breath, he tried to project the illusion of an abandoned house, hoping the visitor would leave.

The bell rang three more times, then stopped. Gumb steadied himself, descended the last five steps—then came the pounding knock at the door. He stiffened his neck, eyes wide, screaming silently inside. He chose to check. Running up the stairs, he shut the cellar door. Passing through the kitchen, he slid the axe upright behind his back. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. 

“Anyone home?” A young woman’s voice, police-like.

He cracked the door open, showing only one eye.

“Great, finally someone answered.” Starling put on the air of a patrol officer, casual. “Do you know a Mrs. Lippman?”

“No,” Gumb said flatly, already moving to shut the door.

Starling’s left hand clamped the door, forcing the gap wider. She tried to glimpse past him into the house. “Records say she used to live here. Could you help me out?” Her throat still hurt; she rubbed her neck with her right hand. Gumb’s gaze followed the motion. He noticed the faint pink tear-marks along her neck. Their eyes locked.

Starling shoved harder, wrenched the door wide, and drew her pistol. At the same instant, Gumb darted aside, bringing the axe upright in front of him as he retreated step by step toward the kitchen. “Drop the axe! Hands in the air!” Starling aimed steady.

But he ignored her. Reaching the cellar door, he hurled the axe toward her feet, yanked the door open as cover, and bolted down the stairs. Below, Catherine Martin, having overheard most of the exchange, shrieked: “He has a gun! Get me out! Get me out!”

Starling kicked the axe under the oven, then followed into the cellar. The space was larger than she had expected. At the far end knelt Catherine, chained, gaunt from days without food. Filth and rotting scraps surrounded her. She gasped at Starling’s sudden appearance. Starling, stern-faced, switched off her phone’s flashlight and gestured for silence. One hand pressed her pounding heart; the other raised her gun as she hugged the wall, moving deeper. 

First room around the corner was covered with resin and moulds; in the second room the walls were lit by ultraviolet lamps. Third room was piled with trivial odds. In the fourth room there was an insect breeding case , with a few death’s-head moths battering against the glass, a faint violet lamp inside. Empty of people.

Gumb was hiding in a side room by the stairs. When Starling kicked the door, they both fired at once. His bullet grazed her left ear; hers only scratched his skin. He barrelled past her, scrambling upstairs. Now both her ears throbbed with pain, leaving her numb, Starling thought, there was nothing left to be afraid of. Dizzy, half-blind, she clawed her way up, shouting hoarsely: “Police are on the way—don’t resist!”

She staggered at the stair’s base, then fired four shots upward on instinct. The trigger went slack before she found that the magazine was empty. She fumbled for another but realised the house above had fallen quiet. The basement was full of darkness, but sunlight streamed down the stairwell. She squinted against the lightness. Two of her shots went right through Gumb’s right leg, other two in the abdomen. Blood and bile seeped down step by step. Gumb gasped like a dying fish in his own pool of blood. At last, her hearing began to return. Catherine’s sobs merged with Gumb’s groans, filling her ears. Reloading, she stepped over the blood, levelled her gun at his head, panting, her own blood dripping into his. She finally asked the one question she most needed: “How did you contact Hannibal?”

“You’ll… never… reach… him…” Jame Gumb seemed he was out of his last breath.

Starling knelt, flipped off the safety, pressed the pistol to his temple, braced her boot against his arm, and repeated slowly: “How exactly did you contact Hannibal?”

Catherine whimpered again.

Gumb stared blankly, gave a broken laugh, a hiss of air like a leaking whistle. He didn’t move anymore.

Starling watched long enough to be sure that Buffalo Bill was dead. To her surprise, she felt no urge to cry. Police and fire crews would be here any minute. She knew the house held secrets of his communication with Hannibal, but time was short. She went back to Catherine. The girl recoiled, whispering deliriously as though Starling herself were terrifying. Starling used the hostage-calming lines she had been trained to say: “I’m FBI. You’re safe.” Yet the iron chains were too heavy to break, she could only let Catherine wait for the fire crew, while she go upstairs to make a phone call.

"No! Motherfucker—you can't leave me here alone with him!" Catherine cried again, "Help me out! Help me out! Motherfucker save me--"

For a moment, Starling gritted her teeth viciously, and a cold-blooded thought flashed in her heart: she must slap Catherine Martin. But her reason suppressed the desire for violence. She simply appeased Catherine Martin and ran upstairs to open the door to the basement.

The fire brigade has arrived. She lost her time. 

The police and fire brigade came almost at the same time. Reporters were kept outside the cordon, cameras and microphones straining for shots. very soon, headlines blared with images of Clarice Starling, bloodied, leading a filthy but alive Catherine Martin out the mansion’s door. Headline: “Girl Helps Girl!”

In the hospital, Starling underwent full examination and bandaging. Crawford drove her back, their exchange of fatherly scolding and concern not worth repeating. At Quantico, she slept an entire day and night, dreamless. She had to be convinced by Ardelia that it was possible to go so long without food or water, almost like a coma. The Academy granted her another week of leave. Now, every news broadcast in America replayed footage of the Belleville mansion, Buffalo Bill’s horrors, and Starling leading Catherine Martin out. She was entitled to her buffer time.

Packing her bag, she locked away her recorder, tools, and everything else. The gun had been returned to Crawford. Secretly, she unfolded Hannibal’s note and pressed it flat under her textbooks. Only the aftershave remained in her satchel. She stared at it, pondering.

A hot shower, a suit, and she slipped out of the dorm in the quiet of the afternoon.

With the golden authorisation from her superiors, she now moved freely through Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. After a brief call with the director, she passed unimpeded into its depths.

Just as she arrived, she brushed shoulders with Molly Graham, who was just leaving from a visit with her husband. At the cell, Will was already seated upright, proper. Barney sat in the hall chair, arms crossed, watching the television—which showed, once again, the heroic posture of Clarice Starling. The television was muted. Sunlight filtered through the barred windows, damp air rising unseen yet heavy on the spirit.

Wordless, she drew out Hannibal’s gift and slid the bottle into the food slot. Will hesitated, then pulled the food slot to get it. “Guilty” glared from the label on the waist of the bottle. Their silence revealed its own conversation. He pressed the label to his palm, unscrewed the cap. The scent of white tea and lemongrass filled the air between them.

“I spoke with him. This is his gift to you,” Starling said softly, standing closely to Will, hands behind her back.

Will trembled slightly—rare in front of her. He fought to compose himself.
“And what did he give you?”

“A note to satisfy my messiah complex,” she replied in riddles, as he did. “Following the trail from him and you, I found Buffalo Bill. Rescued Catherine Martin. In his mansion we discovered detailed diaries. He truly was an art student, but also an infant. Always wishing to crawl back into his mother’s womb to be reborn. He preyed on drunken girls in bars for his sacrifices. No wonder Catherine was an easy target.”

“How does that make you feel?”

“Powerful.”

“Your revenge succeeded.”

“For a brief, vicious moment, I thought she deserved her fate… But when I saw her eyes clouded, her body caked in mud, I no longer thought so. Her life is already ruined.”

“Yet you feel powerful.”

“I followed your advice, and went first to his Baltimore home for clues… Mister Graham, there was a heart hidden in his basement, still beating, with a death’s-head moth cocoon on it. Autopsy showed it was Margot Verger’s heart. Now they’re getting even more confused.”

Chapter Text

It is true, I have always kept my face turned toward the motionless dregs at the lowest depths, the nadir of of human existence. That has been my fate. 

—Madame de Sade

At six-thirty in the morning, she rose. From the low bench beside the bed she pulled her blanket, draped it across her shoulders, and went to wash. On the second floor balcony she lit a cigarette, her gaze vacant, until it was time to go down and walk the dogs. It had been three and a half years since Molly Graham’s husband was brought back to America and confined to the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Today was, as ever, the day of their monthly visit. 

She moved through the trivialities with such a penitent’s ascetic will, and when they were done, the time for breakfast had come. She turned on the television, bypassed the news channels, absentmindedly stirred the pancake batter. Upstairs came the rustle of her son, Walter Graham, awake. The house seemed to reverberate with a din more unbearable than usual, urging him out of his room. He came down the stairs. Molly had already fried the pancakes, two plates waiting at opposite ends of the table. Between them, a bottle of maple syrup and a cream jar marked the border line. 

Eat your breakfast, she said with forced cheerfulness; do we really have to go, the boy complained; we already skipped twice, and if we miss this one it will be improper; or you could just divorce him, and never again be tied to that lunatic; God would not allow us to abandon the helpless; then your husband surely never believed in God; he is your father, he saved many lives; stepfather, and he makes you worse off than divorce; shut up and eat your breakfast. 

Molly ate more slowly than ever before. Wolly went off to feed the dozen stray dogs the family had taken in, each with its own bowl and prescribed food. Molly sat at the table, her gaze hollow, fixed on the television at the far end of the living room, where a paternity–test reality show was replaying. On her plate: half a pancake and a flood of syrup. She lit another cigarette, drew deep, and tapped the ash onto the plate’s rim, where it quickly merged with the syrup. “You-are not the father!” The black judge on the screen shouted, her voice bright yet piercing, the gavel struck down hard. Then came the weeping, the lamentation, the confessions. After a long time Molly made her decision. She crushed the cigarette out in the last half of the pancake, grinding the butt deep into it. Twice she called for Wolly, until at last the dogs settled and stopped messing around with him. The house fell into a short silence. Together, one behind the other, they went to the SUV.

The drive was without words, until the car passed through the gates of the Baltimore State Hospital. Molly checked the things she had brought for Will, took one bag, gave another to Wolly, and walked slowly into the heavy doors.

“Molly Graham. Same as always, here to see Will Graham?” the guard asked as he flipped through the logbook.

Molly gave a small nod.

The guard placed a call. The clock ticked, ticked, ticked. After a while he hung up, and his face took on the same gravity that clung to Molly. “I’m sorry, an FBI officer is visiting Will Graham today. You won’t be able to see him.”

“That’s fine, we can wait,” Molly caught Wolly rolling his eyes in impatience, so she slipped an arm around him, her fingers pressing a little harder, “isn’t that right, Wolly?"

“I’m afraid it will be a wasted trip. No telling how long the agent will keep him.” The guard looked at mother and son with pity, and from the window behind him he brought out an envelope. “We were meant to mail this to you today. Since you are here…”

Molly no longer wanted to listen. She put the groceries for Will on the desk, asked the guard to deliver them to her husband. She took the envelope, hurried after Wolly, who was already striding away. He was kicking stones in the parking lot. She slid into the car, hands trembling as she tore it open. Inside were the divorce papers, signed by Will Graham, and two plane tickets to Munich, dated a month from now.

Three years had passed since Clarice Starling’s last return to the Baltimore State Hospital. Staff turnover was high; most of the attendants did not know Starling, only Barney, who, at the sight of her, broke into a surprised smile. He took her by the arm and led her through the long corridor, no longer telling her the patient meeting precautions as he had once gave to a young FBI student pedantically or even with thinly sarcastic—only a few simple reminders now. When they reached Will’s room, Barney immediately brought a chair with a back and set it in the corridor near the iron railing. Starling accepted Barney’s gesture and sat, quietly studying the interior of Will’s room, seeking confirmations that matched the shape of it in her memory. Will sat on the edge of the bed with his eyes closed, blanking out. Barney intended to rouse him, but Starling stopped him with a raised hand. She motioned Barney back to the lobby, leaving her a little solitude with Will.

At last Will hooked a golden sturgeon out of the running river in his mind. He opened his eyes, satisfied, and noticed Starling watching him without looking away; neither appeared surprised. “Since Buffalo Bill, this is the first time you’ve come to see me,” he said.

“I made permanent,” Starling replied. “Since then I’ve handled seventeen cases on my own.” She showed her FBI badge; it was valid for another ten years. The photograph on it made her look crisp and heroic. Too much had happened in the three years; she found no neat entrance. She waited for Will to study her badge long enough, then went on, “Jack Crawford retired midyear. He’s worked his whole life—time for him to rest.”

“There are too many unresolved cases, too many innocent people hurt, Miss Starling; he is in pain. I don’t think his days will be easy.”

“He trained enough people.”

“Who will take over as head of Behavioural Science?”

“… I am.”

Will’s expression carried an of course look. Starling lifted her chin slightly and leaned toward Will: “Everyone in the department has their specialty, but only I…only I have that  kind of intuition, as you have yours. Prurnell thought of me without hesitation.”

“Do you still think about those tacky little things?” Will was referring to his earlier mockery of her.

“Promotion is not the aim, Mr. Graham. The work, the responsibility, chose me.”

“That’s exactly the sort of empty rhetoric the plainly ambitious spout.”

“I finally understand why you love Hannibal. Last time I followed your counsel to investigate Hannibal’s residence in Baltimore, lay for a while on his bed. I stretched out my arms, and felt a grand sense of command… I’m beginning to understand the allure of power. What Hannibal possesses is absolute power outside the civil structures of human society. Power tastes the same as passion, Mr. Graham. Everyone loves power, not the say the ability to toy with such absolute power within your own hands…”

Starling leaned back against the chair and turned her head. On Will’s writing desk the bottle of aftershave Hannibal had given him sat with its label worn away. She hoped Will would take longer to notice that the situation had completely reversed—that it was no longer he who needed to pour out to her his cruel love for Hannibal, but she who now required his hearing. Will, however, gave a quick, nimble smile and said to her, “Now I can finally call you Clarice without burden.”

“My appetite has grown,” Clarice admitted, “I want to do things others are not capable of doing.”

“I saw it in you from your first visit.”

“Tell me about the last time you and Hannibal went to see Dr. Bedelia.”

Will had, obviously, from the first second he saw Clarice, foreseen that this question would come. He rose slowly and paced behind his desk with his back to her. Now, what neither of them lacked was time itself. Clarice watched him without speaking, and after a long while added, “I know you promised Dr. Bedelia you would never let anyone capture Hannibal again, but—”

“I like you this way. Declaring war on your teacher, testing the limits of humanity.” Will turned, speaking before Clarice finished.

Clarice’s mouth lifted in a small, satisfied arc.

“I just like decoding.”

“You think he has become a god, no longer human, right? At this point, anyone could kill him.”

“Not anyone, Mr. Graham. Only you and I—if you allow it.”

“But you still owe me something, Clarice.” Will pulled out the chair at the desk and sat. “Have you forgotten? Last time you promised you would tell me of the first time you were a messiah.”

“Such a thing loses its punitive meaning when the one meant to be tormented offers it willingly, Mr. Graham.” Clarice sat with the same posture as Will, reminding him once more, “Besides, our positions have reversed. It would be meaningless.”

“Punishment is a crude means of friendship. I have always wanted only to exchange minds.” Will sat deep in the dark; his eyes shone with an almost abrupt brightness.

Clarice drew a deep breath.

“After I was ten, I lived with my mother’s cousin and her husband on a ranch in Montana. Raising sheep and stock horses. Stayed until high school.”

“Were they cruel to you?”

“Not in that way. I had my own room. An Indian rug on the floor, five pillows on the bed always. A desk. But the ranch was not a quaint place for city folks to feel poetic about; we worked from dawn till dark.”

Will listened intently; his eyes seemed moist. “That unvarying life can be hard to bear.”

“All the horses had flaws. Other farmers sent flawed foals to our place. We raised them, but my uncle forbade me from naming them…then they were sent to abattoir.”

“You raised them yourself.”

“I fed them hay and water. I secretly named them. I remember one I called Hannah—only a little lame. I never understood why her owner would not mend her. Each morning when I took the school bus past the stable, Hannah would whinny and watch me go.”

“But one day they would kill her, for you to survive in Montana.”

“I slowed their feeding, hoping they would not grow fat enough to be ‘worth’ slaughter. I hoped if I fed them just so, they could die of old age. My uncle found out. He was angry but could not strike me. Later he forbade me from tending the horses. One day he opened the stable gate and let all the horses out to graze.”

“That’s no good sign.”

“Like the last sumptuous meal for a condemned man. The day I came home and saw all the horses in the field, I dropped my bag and, while no one watched, rode Hannah out of the ranch.”

“Why her?”

“That’s the point. She was the only one I remembered. I rode into town. Suddenly a storm broke—lightning over the roofs, thunder roaring like nature’s wrath. With the horse I had nowhere to shelter, no escape. Just then the town sheriff in his patrol car saw me. He sorted the whole thing out and returned me to the ranch.”

“Did they still kill her?”

“No. The newspapers ran the story. As long as one’s own life unaffected, easy charity for poor livings always flooded. My uncle kept Hannah under community pressure. Two years ago my aunt phoned to say Hannah died in her sleep at twenty-two. Her eyelashes were long.” Clarice lowered her eyes.

“Ah, what a heartwarming little tale,” Will replied, a bit acrid.

“All the other horses were slaughtered that year. I was just a child taken in. Their money paid for my schooling at Linsley High.”

“How did that make you feel?”

Clarice stopped. She realised Will had been aping Hannibal Lecter’s manner of speech as he conversed with her, as if she had come expressly for psychoanalysis. She narrowed her eyes and waited until the residue of his affect had ebbed. She said, “Now I finally understand…when you chose the cliff, you must have thought exactly what I thought riding away from the ranch.”

“What was I thinking?”

“I can only say what I was thinking, Mr. Graham…later, when people learn of it, they will say she loved her with all her being—hopelessly. ‘For her, completely isolated, there was simply no other solution.’”

Chapter Text

The tall orderly, Barney, waived his hand at the far end of the corridor. When Clarice finally noticed him, he tapped his watch, reminding that the hospital’s official visiting hours were over, and soon the evening meal would be served to the inmates. Clarice gave him a small twitch of her lips but did not rise from her chair. 

“I advise you not to go looking for Hannibal,” Will said softly, drawing her gaze back to him, “He might remain silent for the rest of his life. If you don’t provoke him.”

“Like he once tried in Florence?”

“In Florence, he was only venting his rage.” Will closed his eyes. Before him rose the image of Hannibal outside that church in Havana, eyes wet with tears; and in his hallucinations, Hannibal’s sudden awakening, his vanishing into the clouds (くもがくれ), the blessing he had whispered to him then. “Alana Bloom found him easily enough. That was a different matter altogether.”

“Then what else could he do?”

“Do not speculate on the minds of others, Clarice. He has harmed too many innocents. If you ask me, at this moment he might be in Russia.”

“Because it’s cold enough there?”

“Because he still maintains an interest in this physical world… Russia would suit him well.”

The dinner cart came rattling down the corridor, its bell chiming clearly. Clarice noted how the hospital had been peculiarly quiet all day, as though only she and Will were left within these walls. Now, at last, the bell pulled life back into the silence. The staff, weary of the endless repetition of routine, stopped beside her with heavy steps, slammed down the brake, and looked on as Will rose, slid his tray through the food hatch, then left without a word. After the cart rolled away, the two resumed their talk.

“Your neighbour doesn’t cry anymore,” Clarice said.

“He killed himself not long after you shot Buffalo Bill. He couldn’t endure those days without his mother.” Will did not take the tray from the hatch. He sat back at his desk, pressing his hands together, supporting his nose.

“Was it one of your guided coincidences?” Clarice asked, slowly.

Will deflected. “I expected you’d want to ask about Alana Bloom and Margot Verger.”

Clarice looked at him, and suddenly remembered a line from Dostoevsky. ‘A whole minute of bliss! Is that not enough for the whole of one’s life?’ He had tasted love, and from then on could never return to what he used to be. She would not let Will have his way in this. She said, “The corpses lay before me. I don’t need you to cloud my sight. I have my own path of thought. I can see you standing there.”

“Many now insist it was another of Buffalo Bill’s cross-border crimes. A France Debut.”

“Then they’re all fools,” Clarice shot back quickly. She rose from the chair, hands in her pockets, black low heels clicking sharp against the floor as she approached him. “You and Hannibal took the child, went to Geneva, found Dr. Bedelia du Maurier, and then?”

Silence filled the space between them. Clarice stood watching Will close his eyes, as though time itself slowed. She could not tell if he was scouring the depths of his memory for that day three and a half years ago, or if the images of Hannibal had never truly left him at all, replaying endlessly since the moment of his car accident. He might not need to remember; memory came back unbidden. Perhaps silence suited their story more than speech. At last, Will spoke.

“Alana Bloom and Margot Verger’s child carried in his blood the nature of Mason Verger. Mason was a madman, born wicked. They would never have lived long. Their son would have killed them.”

“Causes for causes cannot serve as attribution, Mr. Graham,” Clarice said evenly.

“I’m not attributing, I’m remembering… Don’t interrupt my thought, Clarice.”

She had wanted to press further, but chose silence, drew her hands from her pockets, and returned to her chair.

We parked in the garage of Bedelia du Maurier’s house in Geneva. A stone cottage with a back garden. It was a weekday with bright morning light; maybe that’s why few walked the streets. But Bedelia had retired. She was out, perhaps at some social affair or shopping. We sat in her garden, basking in the sun, drinking her treasured wine, waiting for her return.

Little Verger knelt in the grass, digging up an anthill. He turned on the garden spigot, shoved the rubber hose into the hole. Soon the ants drowned, black clumps of bodies washed across the green lawn. When he grew bored, he ran off. With Hannibal beside me, I felt no need to intervene, only continued with my wine in the sun. When the boy came back, his face was freckled with blood, down his neck more ghastly still. In his hands he held a dead cat, its belly ripped open with some blunt tool, fur matted with blood, half its stomach and intestines dragging on the ground, dripping. He cried out, “da da,” to summon us to admire his work.

Hannibal sighed softly, muttered in the cadence of the French “Non, non.” He told the boy to leave the cat in the garden and led him inside to be washed. I was left alone. Later, as I rose to turn off the spigot, I saw Bedelia driving up in her convertible. As she lifted the garage door, she eventually realised her home had already been claimed.

I saw her face twisted with venom, fear, hysteria. 

She drew a small pistol from the glove box, tried to reverse and escape. Adjusting her mirror, she saw me standing at the locked gate, gun levelled at her head. Perhaps she meant to back over me, smash through the gate. Instead she pressed the brake, not the gas; the car stalled. I closed in slowly, opened the door, invited her out. Her legs gave way and she slumped against the car. I picked up her pistol, slipped it into my coat, and raised her to her feet, guided her into the house. All the while, Hannibal watched from the second parlour window, deep and steady. I saw him.

By the time she stepped inside, she had regained her calm. Quietly she slipped off her heels, told me she had just returned from the city with many purchases. Hannibal came out, radiant, greeted her. I felt her strain to recapture that tranquil, medicated tone of hers as she said, “You petty, small-minded man.” No one reacted. Once she had been Hannibal’s wife, once shared his trials. Later he abandoned her, then she felt obliged to smear him and curse him more and more when he was isolated. No anger shall be brought up at this moment, but when little Verger, wrapped in a bath towel, came chattering barefoot down the stairs, Bedelia was shocked, a rare gasp torn from her throat. She followed the boy’s pink-blooded footprints with her eyes, then turned to Hannibal. “You always surpass my worst expectations…” I tired of her voice and went outside to examine her so-called shopping. In the car I found red-soled heels, a white beaded evening gown, and thirty rounds of 7.63mm pistol ammunition. 

I have always wondered how such people, protagonists of these gothic tales, manage to live with dignity—like those old Dracula stories in castles, money in my left hand, love in my right, the moon overhead, and if you beg me, I shall show you eternity. God, he was only a man. At the beginning he only wanted to work a case. Now he must face eternity… You are different, Clarice. You are grounded. You must work, must live in the real world to remind us of our wretched survival.

I stayed in her car until the sun sank behind the mountains, listening to the first station the radio offered. Her taste was poorer than Hannibal’s. At last I carried the bags inside. Hannibal’s mouth was wet with blood; Bedelia sprawled in some twisted posture on the floor. The boy straddled her, flailing his hands and howling. I thought he was just born retarded. I despise boys. If he were a girl, doing the same thing, I would have felt entirely different. Hannibal saw it too, perhaps regretted, but chose to feign ignorance, to grant us both a chance. A story of insertion into the space between women.

He sat on the sofa, feigning innocence, eyes pointing to Bedelia on the rug, as if tattling, saying she had quarrelled with him. I dropped the packages, knelt by her, checked her breath. “She will wake,” Hannibal told me. He bent, handed me a handkerchief, asked me to clean his wound. I did. I knew then that free will had become, in his eyes, a joke. No one possessed it—not I, not anyone. We had become his long-lost childhood toys. And he himself had lost free will. If I had told him to die, he would have done it at once.

Later he injected her with adrenaline. She woke. Hannibal, before both of us, me and her, cut off her right leg, and with her white wine, rosemary, garlic, butter, prepared veal. Soon the ingredients ran short. The next morning, while she still lay unconscious, he led us to market. Then came the accident I told you about. In the time after, without me, she would have to survive alone.

My story is told.

“Was she a strong woman?” Clarice asked.

“She was not steadfast… No one is steadfast, Clarice. We are all souls enslaved by flesh. I believe she is dead.” Will looked down at the floor, at his stunted shadow.

Clarice felt her palm itch. From her pocket she drew a page, folded four ways. In its yellowing centre: a Swiss phone number. She looked down at the digits she had sought for two months, her breath deepened, her pulse quickened.

“I called her. She answered,” Clarice said, still pondering, refolding the page and slipping it back into her pocket, “She told me her name was Bedelia du Maurier. A psychiatrist.”

“Did the voice match her FBI records?”

“Perfectly, Mr. Graham. I asked if she had family. She said her husband was Hannibal du Maurier. He died in an car accident. She lost her leg, lives alone in Geneva.”

“Ah, not the first time she’s played such a game…”

“Geneva police questioned her at home. I watched the footage. She was fulling into it. She doesn’t remember. Why?”

“Bedelia once accused Hannibal, after Florence, of brainwashing her—making her his Frankenstein's bride. Hannibal is petty. Not the first time he’s played with someone’s mind. He enjoys such grotesqueries…”

Clarice cut in. “Mr. Graham, that’s not my question.” Her eyes burned on him. “I want to know why she still lives. ‘Alone in Geneva’…”

“Perhaps worse torments lie ahead.”

“I see no torment there worse than Alana and Margot’s fate… I’ve been thinking of what you once told me, Mr. Graham.”

“Call me Will.”

Clarice ignored his desperate plea. “I’ve hardly slept these days. I had to come, to test my thoughts. Your self-pity has some truth. You changed him. He awakened your chaos; you awakened his tenderness. And yet again, you betrayed him…”

Will nearly laughed. “Would you say every harmless soul who dares not injure another is more tender than he was?”

“We must consider his circumstances under his own laws.”

“Then you’ll find nothing but an existential crisis,” Will snapped.

Clarice fell silent, chest heaving. She felt their brief alliance breaking apart, quietly, piece by piece. Will retreated again into his own deep dark shadow. Now every one is left alone. Isolated. She glanced down the corridor. Night had fully fallen. Barney still stood, waiting patiently for her to leave. She rose, whispered “Thank you” through the bars, slid her hands back into her pockets, heels clicking proud, and walked away without looking back.

Chapter Text

The world’s swelling up. — The Displaced Person

For Clarice Starling, it had begun as one of countless ordinary workdays. She parked her Ford Mustang on the slope at the end of Massachusetts Avenue, its nose pointed toward the main entrance of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Today's mission was a joint raid, targeting Evelda Drumgo, the widow of a drug lord who had grown increasingly brazen in the District of Columbia. The operation involved tactical teams from the ATF, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the FBI. Though the three agencies had negotiated and nominally placed overall command with Clarice, in reality, they operated as separate fiefdoms, undercurrents of tension swirling beneath the surface.
Clarice walked to the back of her car and began methodically checking her equipment in the trunk, stowing each item into her backpack. Taped to the inside of the trunk lid was a photocopy of a manuscript page, bearing elegant cursive script: "Belleville, Ohio," and below it, an IPv4 address. Clarice glanced up at the photocopy, then hefted her bag and shut the trunk. She strode quickly toward the command vehicle.
The command vehicle was disguised as a dilapidated white van, its body spattered with grimy mud spots. It passed through a long tunnel, and when light once again illuminated the interior, they were nearing the river.
ATF and DEA officers continued to chatter, quietly exchanging pieces of their own intelligence. Evelda had been detained twice before, but each time she had slipped away effortlessly. She was the widow of an old drug lord, her network of loyalists extensive and deeply entrenched; moreover, while her late husband was still alive, he had deliberately infected her with HIV via injection. She was, herself, a significant bioweapon. Clarice sat silently at the back of the van, eyes closed, conserving her energy. Her fingers gently traced the bulletproof vest concealed beneath her shirt, mentally counted the rounds in her sidearm, and rehearsed the planned route of action in her mind.
“We’re here,” said the driver. Clarice opened her eyes. They had stopped on Riverside Drive; three kilometres ahead stood the Fish Market building. Evelda’s meth factory was hidden in the basement below. “Gentlemen!” Clarice called out. The voices around her were still scattered, showing no sign of stopping. She cleared her throat, waited a moment, and repeated in a firmer, louder voice: “Gentlemen!” This time, a DEA agent, with whom she had a reasonably good rapport, chimed in to quiet the others and called a halt to his colleagues’ chatter. Gradually, silence settled over the vehicle.
Clarice looked around, briefly reiterating the plan and contingency measures. "If you have alternative interpretations, feel free to explore them in your after-action reports," she concluded calmly. Just then, their assault team on the boat radioed in, confirming Evelda's exact location.
The light turned green; Evelda would cross the next intersection in no more than a minute. Clarice, peering through her periscope, noticed there were far more people on the avenue than she had anticipated. Some leaned against the riverside railings, others sat under the café umbrellas at the building’s base. To Clarice, each appeared suspicious, as if each could be one of Evelda’s crew.
Evelda’s black Audi appeared about ten meters away. Clarice yelled, "Go!" and was the first out of the van. She raised her pistol and fired a precise shot into the Audi's tire. The black car's tires locked, sending it crashing into the riverbank embankment. Evelda scrambled out from the passenger seat. Just then, a sniper positioned above shot the driver of the black car through the neck. Blood sprayed, drenching Evelda's back and the embankment within half a meter. Clarice rolled to the side of the vehicle, about to raise her gun, when another black car shot out from an intersection, cutting directly between Evelda and Clarice.
Two white FBI tactical vehicles followed close behind. In the ensuing hail of gunfire, one of Evelda’s men threw a smoke grenade; thick white smoke rapidly engulfed the entire avenue. Clarice leapt up, squinting through the haze, one hand covering her mouth and nose, the other holding her gun, running in the direction she’d last seen Evelda.
s the white smoke began to thin, the thunderous roar of helicopter blades filled the air above. The arrogant Evelda Drumgo stood before her with a baby lifted in front of her face, the child's lower body positioned perfectly to block her heart. Clarice stepped over the body of an ATF agent, gun aimed at Evelda’s feet, ordering her to put the baby down and raise her hands.
The baby began to wail loudly, a sound that reminded Clarice of the patients’ screams she had once heard in the Baltimore mental hospital for Criminal Insane. Her nerves twitched involuntarily. Evelda’s dark eyes stared fixedly at Clarice, unmoving. The wind whipped up by the helicopter ruthlessly tossed their hair and clothes. Suddenly, Evelda let out a sharp cry and threw back the baby blanket. Clarice caught a glimpse of a cold, hard gunmetal grey beneath the blanket. Almost without hesitation, she fired a shot into Evelda’s forehead. Brain matter exploded from the back of her skull, splattering the car window behind her.
Evelda’s body fell back onto the bonnet, the baby still cradled in her arms. Camera flashes and shutter clicks rang ever clearer in Clarice’s ears. She was swallowed by a wave of white flashes from all around. Clarice picked up the blood-soaked child, lifted her head in anguish, and saw the cameraman in the helicopter leaning out, his large camera pointed down at her. Next to him, a reporter with a headset was shouting, straining her voice. Clarice saw no looks of relief or ease on their faces. The baby continued to wail.

Clarice washed her wounds and the baby's blood from her hands under a tap at the Fish Market, then got into a medical vehicle. Someone quickly drew her blood; the test results wouldn't be available until tomorrow, and until then, she had to take post-exposure prophylaxis. The doctor handed her the small yellow bottle of PEP and sent her back to the ATF headquarters. She drove back to Quantico alone.
She closed her office door, half-drew the blinds, turned off the light, and sat in her chair for a long time, waiting for darkness to fall. A few minutes later, Kade Prurnell strode into her office, heels clicking decisively, holding a tablet. Prurnell slapped it down on Clarice's desk. The homepage of Tattle Crime website prominently featured a photo of Clarice aiming her gun at Evelda. But the angle was so cleverly shot that, at first glance, it looked as if Clarice was pointing the gun at the baby's head. In a smaller inset photo at the bottom right was a media shot of Clarice from three and a half years ago, after the capture of Buffalo Bill  (“Girl Helps girl!”). A massive headline dominated the page: What has three years in POWER done to the ranch girl? The accompanying article was vitriolic, its tone reminding Clarice of Freddie Lounds's rhetoric about Will Graham that she and Ardelia had secretly read about during classes at the FBI Academy. Clarice read silently, then, in front of Prurnell, opened the small bottle, shook out a PEP pill, and swallowed it with a sip of water.
“Freddy Lounds has always been like this,” Clarice explained, weary.
“It’s not just her this time,” Prurnell replied, stowing the tablet.
“You know this is all malicious slander…”
“Well the public doesn’t, Clarice. They see only what they see. You've made things very awkward for all of us.” Prurnell switched on the office lights, crossing her arms as she stepped back in front of Clarice. “You’d better think carefully about how to explain this in your report.”
With that, she swept out of the office with her tablet, not even bothering to close the door behind her. Clarice sighed, stood up, turned off the light, closed the door, and sank back into her office chair. The western window of her office began to glow with an orange-red light, soon staining the entire western sky. Clarice stared at the landline phone on her desk for a long time, her mind a blank. Finally, she picked up the receiver and dialled a number she hadn't called in months.
"I need to see Will Graham later," Clarice said, her voice muffled as she curled in her chair.
"Clarice Starling?" The voice on the other end sounded surprised.
"Yes. What is it?"
“Didn’t your secretary just inform us this morning that Will Graham could be discharged? ‘No charges, case closed’… He’s already gone.”
Clarice's mind snapped to attention. She bolted upright from her chair, pulled her notebook from the drawer, flipping through the pages with a clatter, and confirmed her work log four times before hurriedly hanging up. Bathed in the fading sunset glow, she grabbed her bag from the office sofa, avoided the people chatting in the break room, and hurried downstairs. She tossed her bag onto the passenger seat, started her Ford Mustang in one fluid motion, and, driven by instinct, turned onto the road leading to Wolf Trap.
By the time she reached the open fields of Wolf Trap, darkness had fully fallen. But the direction of Will Graham's house was unusually bright. He must be there, Clarice thought, pressing the accelerator. The closer she got to Will Graham's house, the more fiercely the anxiety churned in her chest. Hello, Mr. Graham. No, that's too formal, Clarice thought. Or perhaps: Will, I won't let you escape me— Oh, Dr. Lecter, you're here too? Finally, we can speak face to face, on equal terms... She rehearsed various opening lines in her mind.
About a kilometre from Graham’s house, she finally saw clearly. The bright light wasn't from electric lamps; it was a twisting, rising pillar of flame, mixed with heavy black smoke, shooting straight into the sky. Only then did Clarice realise: Will Graham's house was burning, already reduced to embers, consumed completely.

A little after ten o'clock, Barney arrived with the keys and announced his freedom. Tears welled in Barney's eyes as he confessed he had always believed a man like Will, good at his core, didn't belong in such a place indefinitely. He reminded Will of their first meeting years ago when Will was still with the FBI; now, standing as equals again, Barney was genuinely happy for him. He unlocked the reinforced door, removed the restraints from Will's wrists, helped him pack his meagre belongings, processed the paperwork, and personally escorted him out of the asylum.
A black Bentley waited at the entrance, its windows tinted so dark they were opaque even under the overcast sky, revealing nothing of the interior.
"Is that for you, Mr. Graham?" Barney's earnest voice broke the silence.
"I'm alone in the world now, Barney, remember?… Besides, I've just gotten my freedom back. I think I'd like the pleasure of walking." Will stretched, waved a casual farewell to Barney, and stepped through the main gates.
Barney watched him go, discreetly wiping a tear from the corner of his eye before turning back inside. Once he was gone, the Bentley stirred to life with a subdued purr and began to follow Will at a crawl.
Man and car progressed slowly through the Baltimore streets. Sunlight pierced through rents in the layered clouds like golden threads dropped from heaven. Hannibal eased the accelerator, bringing the car parallel to Will. He rolled down the window and sounded the horn, a polite inquiry if Will desired a ride. Will squinted against the light, making out the sculpted features within. He asked with a thread of self-mockery in his voice if their story felt a bit repetitive. He remembered a similar exchange four years prior, their roles starkly reversed – he had facilitated Hannibal's escape then. I think, Hannibal's voice was a low cello note, our story requires reiteration to achieve rigour. I am no longer concerned with forgiveness or rancour. Please get in the car, good Will, he added. 
Will slowly opened the door. He recalled Lady Murasaki's final words to him: Give him tragedy, not a normal life. Give him the most poignant tragedy, let him become tragedy itself. Fulfil him. His heart began to beat in a familiar, treacherous rhythm. He ceased thinking of himself, his body merging with the elemental world. He asked where exactly was he injured in the crash; the man holding the wheel turned his unsettling, blossom-like eyes forward and told him he shall never injured. After saying that Hannibal's right hand captured Will's left, guiding it slowly to the back of his neck, to the carotid artery. A raised scar, about a centimetre wide, met Will's fingertips. Will traced its length for a long moment. You finally carry a fragrance worthy of you, Hannibal said, a reference to the aftershave he had so meticulously chosen for Will.
Hannibal pressed the accelerator deeper. They passed dissolving couples, school-bound children, preaching madmen. The engine hummed, light and shadow shifting like phantoms. Nearing the highway on-ramp, Hannibal wrenched the steering wheel hard. The sudden turn threw Will against him. Will gritted out whether he is trying to disorient him and make him easier to hand over to Clarice Starling. A faint smile touched Hannibal's lips as he corrected their course, said, he’d told both their stories. What use would she have for him now?
The road from Baltimore to Wolf Trap was one Will hadn't traveled in four years. Time seemed to have congealed. His house in the field stood exactly as he remembered. Parking the car, they walked side-by-side towards it. In former days, the pack of stray dogs would have been raising a cacophony, but today a conspicuous silence reigned. Will unlocked the door. The interior was almost unchanged, save for a fine layer of dust suspended in the air. Hannibal followed him in, went directly to the piano, and lifted the fall board, his fingers depressing a few random notes. He asked where were Will’s wife and son; the other one replied, grocery shopping.
Hannibal settled onto the sofa by the fireplace, said he could wait for their return. Will moved to the kitchen stove and turned on the gas valve. They're grocery shopping in Germany, he said, turning, his body blocking the controls. Hannibal's nostrils flared. He lifted his head, his gaze burning into Will, confirming the truth slowly. Will gave a slight nod. Their eyes locked at last.
You wicked man! Hannibal said after a moment, rising with a pretence of disappointment. Will found himself moving closer. Now they stood facing each other in the centre of the room. Within these familiar walls, they had confronted, parted, longed, and lived. The story began here; it must end here.
Some would say we're in love, Hannibal murmured, his head bowed; you stabbed me through the abdomen, Will countered, his voice soft, almost petulant; that was the idea; we had so little time together… so much apart, how can that be love; time is a chrysalis, Will, this entire story existed solely for our meeting, we can live within it forever; Clarice will catch up to us soon; she won't, Hannibal said, taking Will's hand, she’s still chasing drug dealers in the District, the road ahead can be very difficult for her; ah, you know that, do you; I know everything, Will, everything…
The gas had been gradually filling the space where they stood. Hannibal asked if he was truly prepared. Cruel colours danced in their retinas. Only then did Will realise his body was trembling. He turned his head away and said he'd had four years of solitary contemplation, and this was the only solution he could find. Besides, he added, ultimately, Hannibal had asked for this. Chiyoh was gone. He could have been free, could have forgotten him, they had given each other that freedom…
Sometimes, Hannibal said, sometimes I wake in the morning and feel us doing the same things. Thinking together. Eating together. Searching for each other in memory. Mourning a child that never truly came to be. Releasing a starling that was never meant to be caged. Just as Will had once felt, he too could no longer excise the other from his being. My God, how could he have known, at the story's beginning, the taste of eternity? In this world of image and apparition, I nourish you, you nourish me. We are neither of us wholly ourselves anymore. You have indeed evoked a better self in me, Will. You have killed us and resurrected us. My heart, shattered by you, has been mended by you. Do you see? I am weeping. I am here weeping before you.
This is enough. I have tried every possible permutation of love, Will said, his hand trembling as he drew a box of matches from his pocket.
Do you still think I'm evil? Hannibal asked.
Not anymore… Soon, not anymore, Will replied. His hand, clenching the match, shook violently. His lover's hand closed over his, steadying it. The same hands that had intimately gripped his throat; the same hands that had abandoned him and drawn him close again. The truly difficult part was over. The heart approaches the wooden box; the mallet strikes the nail. The world swelled up.
They finally kissed.
Silence.
Profound solitude.
In a violent, annihilating flash, their pitiful pasts and mortal flesh were defiled and then incinerated, their ashes scattered to the wind. All would breathe air laced with their remains, commune with their spirits, and forever be permeated by their toxic essence. From this moment on, everyone would carry a part of them forward.

[FIN.]