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Chapter Text

Transylvania, 1462

My lips are numb from constant prayer, my tongue dry and leaden in my mouth. Beyond the chapel walls I hear the clamoring of my soldiers, the beat of our war drums. The cacophony of righteousness reverberates through me, a thrumming heartbeat that no doubt rattles the bones of my ancestors that rest in the crypt below. 

I open my eyes and rest my gaze on the placid face of the suffering Christ where he hangs on the crucifix above the gilded altar. I search for such a certain peace, repeating my vows to the Almighty – even if we should fail, if I should die, it would be in holy combat, and I would be reunited with my family in the Kingdom of Heaven. Death would not be death, but an everlasting reward. 

But we shall not fail. We cannot. Constantinople has fallen. The fate of Christendom hangs in the balance. The Lecters and those they lead must prevail against the unholy hordes. 

Father Davies’ hand touches my bent head with trembling, reverential fingers. “It is time.” 

I stand with the rustle of armor and turn away from the altar, letting him lead me through the candle-strewn chapel to join my sister near the doors. She is strapped into armor of her own, sleeker and lighter than what I wear, though each of us display the stag’s head pauldrons and the Lecter family crest on our chest plates. Her shieldmaidens finish plaiting her long ash-blonde hair, wrapping it around her head before lowering her helmet into place. 

A gentle wave of my hand and the maidens scatter. My sister regards me with our mother’s cool gray eyes as I help her with her quiver and place her bow in her hand. 

“Hannibal,” she says, her voice gentle but resolute. “Smile, brother. Soon the very earth will turn red with heathen blood.”

“God willing,” I say.

Mischa gives me a playful little shove. “I wager I’ll slay more Turks than you.” 

“Nothing would please me more.” Our parents died when we were young – I have always felt, in some ways, more like Mischa’s parent than her sibling. If she surpasses my skills in battle, it would bring me a father’s pride. I have taught her everything I know about the arts of war, though I always prayed to the gracious God above that she would not have to use them. 

The forces of evil have said otherwise. At dawn, we ride for the borderlands to defend our homes and our faith. 

My attendant brings me my sword and buckles the sheath to my waist. Father Davies blesses us one last time. “May your sword,” he says to me, “burn with the holy fire of Archangel Michael, the same holy fire that drove the serpent back into the pit.” To Mischa: “May your arrows strike true, as though they fly on the wings of angels, casting our enemies into the fires of Hell.” He anoints each of us with oil to seal his words.

It is the final act of preparation. I can delay no longer. 

I feel the resolute hand of God guiding me, and the fear leaves my heart.

There is only one thing that could make me hesitate, that could shake the iron grip on my sword as I leave my family’s castle, perhaps forever. A sight that would make me want to turn my back on this holy mission. 

And before we can leave, the doors part just enough for him to step in and stand before me. 

Iliya. His eyes are red-rimmed and hollow, but, for the moment, he does not weep. Instead, he offers me a brave smile and steps forward to clasp my hand where it is encased in my gauntlet. He’s wearing his bedclothes, one of my embroidered dressing gowns flung over it. Too big on him, it hangs free on one shoulder. 

My husband. My beautiful boy, my dearest treasure. My bridegroom, prized above all else. We said our goodbyes last night. I thought it best not to see him before dawn, lest I abandon God’s holy quest to rid the land of the Muslim Turks and flee with him instead. We would live in some obscure forest, he and I, with no regard for the rest of the world, or the Almighty. And I would die a happy man. The shape of his mouth and the flush of his cheek make me weak enough to imagine breaking my Christian vows. 

But he is here, now, and I cannot help but embrace him, wishing with every fiber of my heart that there was not a steel breastplate between us. 

Mischa touches Iliya’s shoulder. Her fingers are bare for arrows and I am envious of them as they brush his trembling curls behind his ear. “Take heart, my friend,” she says. “We’ll see you in a few weeks.” 

“God keep you, Mischa.” He leans away from me just long enough to kiss her cheek, and Mischa and the priest leave us to say goodbye yet again. 

“I should go with you,” Iliya implores for the final time, looking at me with his blue eyes, more beautiful to me than any sapphire or topaz they may resemble. “Please, Hannibal – let me come. If we’re to be destroyed, I want to die at your side.”

“No, beloved,” I whisper against his ear, inhaling the fresh scent of the mountain air from his dark brown hair. “Someone has to stay. If Mischa and I fail, you and your men are the last hope for our villagers. Keep them safe in the castle until reinforcements arrive.” If the Turks do make it past our forces, woe to them. My Iliya and his elite guard are fierce and quick, armed with daggers that flash like lightning and crossbows with bolts thick enough to impale a skull through a helmet. While I trained Mischa to fight, there were many things we both learned when Iliya came to Castle Lecter. 

Once, on the way to visit a neighboring boyar, bandits overtook our party, outnumbering our guards three to one. One of the most treasured memories I hold is that of Iliya leaping from his horse to stab a highwayman through the neck, rolling to his feet to fling a dagger into the throat of another. My clever, vicious boy. I trust him above all others with the safety of Castle Lecter and its inhabitants. 

“Please,” he begs, one final attempt to sway me. 

I kiss him for what could be the last time, softly at first, then with unrestrained passion. I pour all my love for him into prayers for his safety, a constant litany in my mind. 

“Iliya. I love you more than anything else on Earth or even in Heaven.” It is heresy to say, but it is true, and I only hope God forgives me. 

“Hannibal… come back to me.” He at last steps out of my embrace. “I’ll wait here for you.” He is weeping again, though I can see him trembling as he attempts to remain brave-faced. “I will defend our home. When I miss you, I-I’ll w-write my thoughts on parchment and… seal them away until you return.” 

“Be sure to write down your dreams.” I cannot stop the tears of my own. Every morning we tell one another what we dreamed of the night before. 

“All of my dreams will be of you,” he chokes out before letting a series of sobs slip out. He puts his hands over his face and turns from me. 

“God will protect us.” It is the most arduous feat I have ever attempted in my blessed years on this earth, but I manage to open the chapel door and step out into the pale dawn. My warriors roar my name as I mount my horse and join Mischa in the center of the courtyard. Together, we gallop away toward our destiny, the fulfillment of our sacred duty. 

The battle stretches over days, pausing only when it is too dark to fight. One night, there is a moon so full we can continue. Swords flash, gleaming with cold light, the blood black upon their blades, on the faces of friend and foe alike. I have always felt that each death I bring about should be fully experienced, honored with my complete attention. In war, this is not possible, though I allow myself little moments to enjoy a slit throat, the gleam of disbelief in an enemy’s eyes as I run him through, the way a head bounces just so when separated from the shoulders of a man who thought God was on his side. 

Perhaps He is. So many Christians fall to heretic blades. Mischa and I spend precious time away from the fray attempting to coordinate and strategize with the forces we have left. Mischa thinks of the crows that often circle the tower at Castle Lecter, how one of them will pretend to be wounded to distract perceived threats from discovering their nests. We devise our plan and dispatch the messengers to bring word of it to our captains. 

Before we return to battle, I stop her. She pauses, looking at me with an unspoken question. I reach beneath my breastplate and remove the golden crucifix beneath, the one engraved with words of love from my father and given to my mother. I have never coveted anything, considered it a treasure, except for this one piece of my parents I have worn every day since they died. 

“Hannibal–” she protests as I lift it to slip it over her head. 

“It is one thing if God is with us today,” I say. “It is another kind of comfort to know that Mother and Father walk with us as well. They would be so proud of you, Mischa.” 

She presses her mouth together into a little crooked smile that I know is working against her tears. An embrace, and she is gone, back to her archers on the western ridge. 

Despite the odds, our gambit is successful. Though we have lost many of our finest Christian warriors, the Turks are routed, leaderless. We take as many prisoners as we can, and as the remaining troops assemble before me, I raise a large golden crucifix handed to me by one of my lieutenants. “God be praised! We are victorious!” 

But even as we celebrate and praise God and Christ, there is a rippling unease in the air. At last, one of Mischa’s shieldmaidens finds me in the crowd. “You must come. You must come quickly.”

My heart is ice as I follow her swiftly across the churned, bloody earth, to a tent below the western ridge. I tear open the flaps to find Mischa stretched out on a blanket, surrounded by her weeping women. They pray and cross themselves. 

The healers have withdrawn. They know the sword wound is mortal. Even now I can barely see the rise and fall of her chest. Her face is still, but rigid with agony. 

I am frozen, staring down at her, unable to breathe or speak, cursed into a state of immobilized, perfect presence where I memorize the tiny details of her. The mole on her neck. The way small strands of her hair over her ears always escape her braids. The shape of her face that still contains the features she had as a child. 

The shieldmaidens quickly strip me of my armor. Still, I cannot move. I am reminded of the nights spent at her bedside, rocking her when she had nightmares of our parents’ demise; she would not quiet for any nurse or servant, even for our Uncle Robertus or Aunt Murasaki. This expression she wears now is a replica of the one she wore when she was inches away from waking with a screech and bursting into tears. 

And so, I do now what I did then. I hold her. I rock her. I whisper that everything will be all right. That the dawn is coming. 

And as she did when she was young; her face and body relax into a comforted sleep. 

She goes still in my arms. 

“She was waiting for you,” one of the maidens whispers. 

“You will meet again one day in heaven,” another promises. 

I must allow her platitudes to comfort me at this moment. I have men to lead. And prisoners to question. I will let my heart break another day, when I have the leisure. 

Three days later, I am in the middle of smashing a Turk’s fingers one at a time when a burning sensation comes over my entire body. I leave the interrogation tent and plunge into the woods, ordering back the men who follow to discover the reason for my hasty exit. I fall to my knees at the edge of a stream and splash the water on my face in an attempt to make the burning stop. It does, but the feeling is replaced by the sensation of drowning. I gasp for air, darkness feathering my vision. I lose consciousness and wake with the feeling that time has passed. My body is cold, limbs leaden. And I am sure that something is wrong at Castle Lecter. 

Iliya.

Returning to camp, I call my captains to me. We depart in minutes with hastily packed saddle bags and ride hard for home. 

We are forced to stop after nightfall. The clouds cover the moon and the road into the mountains is too treacherous to navigate by torchlight. I do not sleep. My mind is nothing but feverish prayers and his name. Iliya. Iliya. Iliya. 

The very second the gray fingers of pre-dawn light the way, we are off, making our way through the Borgo Pass. At last, the jagged towers of Castle Lecter are in sight. 

I expected to see smoke, hear the screams and metallic clangs of battle — some part of the Turkish force having broken through the line to attack my keep — but everything is eerily silent, the shutters closed, no one about. 

Reba, Iliya’s closest friend and Castle Lecter’s herbalist, is waiting for me in the courtyard, walking stick in hand. She knows the sound of my steps and reaches for me, drawing me into a tight embrace after her bow of deference. “My lord,” she says softly. “There are no words to express my sorrow…”

“My sister died valiantly,” I say, my heart still beating against its iron cage like an agitated animal. 

“Lady Mischa has fallen?” 

Time slows. Stops. I clutch her by her thin shoulders. “Iliya…?”

“He thought… he’d lost you…”

“Where is my husband?” My question is uttered with soft, disbelieving rancor. 

“In the chapel,” she whispers.

I release her and hurry to the double doors, pushing them both open on one motion. 

The castle’s household and Iliya’s guard are gathered in the pews. Father Davies walks slowly down the aisle swinging the sacred incense. Those gathered speak in hushed tones or pray softly on their knees. Echoes of gentle weeping in differing cadences; all goes silent when I step over the threshold. 

Every eye finds on me as I force my feet forward, one step after the next, my breath burning in my lungs. All I hear is the thud of my heart, and footsteps fleeing into silence. 

Iliya is stretched out on a bier in front of the altar. He is dressed in the soft white tunic and tooled leather belt he wore for our wedding. He looks so small there, flowers strewn over his chest, his hands fastened together with a white ribbon over his stomach, hair carefully combed, glossy in the candlelight. His lashes rest blackly against his pale cheeks. I appreciate the attempts, but there is no illusion here, no softening of the truth. Iliya, my beloved husband, is dead.

I want to scream. I cannot. If I did, I would never stop. It sounds like a wild, sweet release, but I can make no sound. All I can do is go to him. Even as I pull him up from the bier, scattering flowers, folding him into my arms, I can smell death. 

I know I weep, but still, I make no sound. There are no words.  Reba has always been the wisest of us. Not even a melody of sobs would truly give voice to this loss. 

Gradually I become aware that the chapel has emptied. The stained-glass windows have gone dark with the cloak of night. Only Father Davies and Reba remain, the latter lingering at the back of the chapel near the doors. I gently replace my husband’s corpse on the bier and arrange the flowers once more. In the candlelight, through the veil of my tears, I can pretend for a moment that he looks like he is sleeping. 

“The Turks shot an arrow into his chamber,” Reba explains, her voice echoing against the painted walls depicting the Stations of the Cross. Mary holding her dead son. “There was a letter, boasting that you’d been slain. Inside was this.” I turn towards the sound of jingling metal. Reba is holding my mother’s crucifix. The one I’d given Mischa. The enemy stole it from her as she lay dying and used it against me in the cruelest way the universe could imagine. “He… flung himself into the river from the tower window. Count Lecter… I wish he would have let me speak with him. I was pounding on the chamber door, but…” 

She lets her words hang, thin and ragged in the air like winter clouds. I turn away and reach out to stroke Iliya’s hair, smoothing down a chestnut curl. 

“You will see him again,” Reba insists. “He will meet you at the gates of heaven!”

“No,” Father Davies contradicts her. 

I slowly lower my hand to my lap where I kneel at Iliya’s side. I turn my face and look up at the priest. His eyes are sad, but his mouth is set in a determined line that hints at a kind of reluctant cruelty. “Your husband destroyed himself,” he says. “He took his own life. His soul is damned, Count Lecter.”

The silence rings, heavy and clear. A clarion bell. 

And I break. I can feel my very soul rending, tearing at the seams as something bursts forth from within it. What emerges is a dagger of pure understanding. 

God is beyond measure in wanton malice, and matchless in his irony. 

He sent a storm to kill my parents at sea, crafting waves so high they overturned their ship. He left Mischa in my care, only to have her die in my arms. His holy symbol, worn for decades against my heart, now used to trick my beloved Iliya. 

God has taken everything from me. He has left me entirely barren. I, who led an army in defense of his church, who defeated the heathens that would usurp Christendom. This is how I am repaid. Death and unending loneliness are what I reap, despite what I have sown in good faith.

I get to my feet and draw my sword from its sheath. My heart roars, shrieks, screams, wails the words, but my mouth only growls them, my voice steady. “I renounce God.” 

Father Davies recoils, moving away from me on tottering steps, nearly tripping on his cassock. “C-Count Lecter,” he stutters. “Why do you blaspheme so?” 

“I renounce God.” I call my new vow up to the placid face of Christ on the cross as he looks down on my Iliya, one of God’s most perfect creatures, with unmasked disdain. “I will rise from my own death and avenge his with all the powers of darkness.”

“No!” Father Davies crosses himself frantically. In stepping away from me, he trips and sprawls out on a pew. “Stop!” he begs. 

“God took everything from me,” I snarl, gazing down at the rotting piece of meat that was once my dearest treasure. “So, I will take souls from him and turn them over to the Devil. And I will kill in my own name, never again in His.” 

Compelled by a force I cannot name or describe, I slash my sword against the belly of the crucifix. Blood pours forth as though I had gutted a living man. I can feel its warmth radiating toward me as it spurts down onto the altar, filling the communion chalice. I can smell the sharp, metallic tang. Faintly I can hear Father Davies praying, sobbing out the words, each dripping with terror. 

I lean over Iliya’s body and lift the cup from the altar. Raising it to my lips, I drink. 

The world goes black, then red. 

A pain unlike anything I’ve ever felt consumes each bone in my body, each organ, infects my living blood and humors alike. With a strangled cry I fall next to Iliya, writhing in torment as my veins fill with fire. I feel each bone in my body break and snap together again in a seemingly endless series of agonizing, explosive cracks. My mouth fills with my own blood as something sharp slashes over my tongue. 

And then the pain is gone. All of it. I open my eyes and stand easily, with a liquid grace reserved for a much younger man. The dim chapel is somehow now brightly lit, though the smattering of candles sputter weakly on either side of the altar. I can see everything, every chip in the murals’ paint, every vein in the petals of Iliya’s flowers. I can smell even more sharply now the rot consuming my beloved, and I can hear Father Davies’ heart in his chest, clear as a church bell tolls. 

That heartbeat calls to me as it races, rabbit-like. The priest scrambles off the pew and runs for the door.

Expending no energy at all, I have caught him, hand twisted in his cassock, pressing him against the chapel door. Lifting him now like he weighs nothing. 

“God save me!” he chokes through a terrified sob. He flails about, and the beads of his rosary touch my face. I hiss as they burn my flesh, as though the simple wooden strand was white hot. My response is to tear his arm from its socket. It comes free easily, like removing a leg from a roasted pheasant. He howls. Blood pours onto the stones below. 

Blood. It calls to me. I am consumed with a burning thirst I cannot name, but I sate it for a moment by licking his blood from my fingers. 

I tear into his throat. My teeth are unnaturally long and sharp. I feel them extend from my gums as I drink the hot life, a communion directly from his veins. It splatters all over my tunic, soaks me from neck to feet and flows through me, satiating the thirst and bringing to me the quietude of perfect bodily satisfaction. I can feel his blood feeding the essence of vitality that stems from some unnatural spring in my heart. My heart, I realize as I drop his lifeless body to the floor, no longer beats. 

I look at my hands, stained in red, then touch the unnatural teeth before they retract into my skull. 

I do not know what I have become, but I know what I am not. 

I am no longer a child of God. I am something else entirely. 

And all I want is more. 

Chapter Text

Will Graham woke to the rustling of newspaper pages. The quiet berth of the train had lulled him to sleep again, and, judging by the light, a few hours had passed. The Hungarian countryside rolled along outside the window, full of fertile curves, rows of spring flowers, and herds of cattle and sheep. 

He’d been alone in the train car when they’d pulled out of the station in Vienna, but he’d apparently been joined by a man and a woman who were now seated opposite. The man had a newspaper open and was hidden behind it, and the woman’s face was obscured with a veil that draped down from her hat in thick folds. 

Will took a moment to remove his homburg and run his fingers through his hair. He passed a hand over his eyes with a small sound of weariness, then replaced his hat on his head. In the moments immediately following, a sense of unease blossomed inside of him. The man and the woman had not moved. The train was still rolling along, but he could barely detect the comforting rocking motion of the wheels on the tracks, and the cabin had gone preternaturally quiet. A strange dread soaked into Will’s pores through the very atmosphere itself as the shadows outside grew long. 

“Do you have the time?” he blurted, a flailing attempt to break whatever spell it was that gathered and settled over his heart, sinking into the depths of his chest. 

“Of course, luv.” The woman lifted a watch on a chain around her neck and whipped up her veil to examine it. Will recoiled as he recognized the mutilated face of Catherine Eddowes, carved to pieces by the Ripper, her wounds bloody, the white bones of her face exposed where the flesh had been sliced away. “Half-past six!” she chirped with a cheerful nod that splattered thick drops of red down onto her dress. 

The passenger at her side lowered his paper with a little crinkling sound. 

It was Abel Gideon. The man the newspapers had called The Whitechapel Murderer and Leather Apron before settling on the moniker coined by Winifred Lounds – Jack the Ripper. He, too, was dead, body riddled with bullets fired from Will’s revolver, his eyes sunken, pale blue and cloudy with rot. 

“Time passes so quickly in good company, don’t it, Inspector?” Catherine grinned at him with her mutilated lips. 

Will felt his entire body clench in horror and revulsion as she leaned closer, dribbling blood down the front of her dress. 

“Give us a kiss,” she rasped, bloody spittle flying from the ruins of her mouth. 

Will woke up. 

Again.

The train car was empty.

His breaths came in little sobbing pants, and he was slicked with sweat, collar wilted and hair damp. He cursed under his breath and withdrew his handkerchief to dab at his face, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. 

He hadn’t had a dream about Gideon in a while, since Christmas at least. He’d found a kind of peace in having a head full of real estate law instead of crime scenes and corpses. Here he was, on his way to perform his first official duties as a certified solicitor, and his mind had somehow been re-infected by the grisly images he’d tried so hard to forget. 

It had to be the time change. The uncomfortable nights of sleep, the foreign food. 

Will hesitated for a solid minute before drawing the small leatherbound journal from his jacket pocket and making a short entry. 

2 May 1893

Dream. Gideon and Eddowes. Fell asleep on train to Budapest.

He exhaled slowly, tucking the book and his pencil back in his pocket, unease settling over him like a thick, furry mantle. Putting it down in writing made it real. It’d been so long. Why now? 

He left the cabin and walked the length of the car a few times before returning to his seat. The countryside had given way to a lovely city full of stately stone buildings, lush park spaces, and soaring cathedrals. He gathered his satchel and small traveling bag and disembarked when the train came to a stop.

It was early afternoon, and the weather was fair, a soft wind blowing over the gentle waters of the Danube. Will didn’t stray far from the station – he had another train to catch – but after sitting so long he was desperate to explore, crossing bridges over the river and taking his time circling the parliament building. As he walked through the streets and let his eyes linger on the foreign majesty of Budapest, the dream eroded piece by piece. 

He stumbled across a line of shops near the train station that catered to tourists and paused when he saw a beautifully embroidered shawl hanging in one of the windows. It was white, with floral patterns in various shades of blue, its design rustic but idyllically beautiful. The blues reminded him of Alana’s eyes, depending on what color dress she wore.

He had his hand on the shop’s doorknob before chastising himself and stepping away. That was the kind of gift a man bought for a woman receiving his romantic attentions. It was an overture. And Alana had made it very clear there was to be none of that. 

The way I am… isn’t compatible with… the way you are…

Eleven words and three silences that bore the weight of their entire history together up until that very moment. And the part that hurt the most was that she was right. The way Alana was – the only child of a prominent London family with royal connections, set to inherit the estate, beautiful and revered by high society, everyone frothing at the mouth to see who she would marry – was not compatible with the way Will was. 

The way he was. Foundling. American. No pedigree. Despite having left Scotland Yard, much of his mind was still wrapped up in a world of murder, his sanity and conscience the Ripper’s final victims. He was tainted by that case, and the mark couldn’t be washed away, like Christ’s blood on Pilate’s palm. 

Silly of him, really, to think he had a chance. Such a wild, childish notion, that if they cared about one another enough, their circumstances could be overcome. That love would find a way. 

Their lives weren’t some fairytale. And when he’d kissed her before leaving for Transylvania, the way lovers kiss, Alana had been the voice of reason, her good sense prevailing and putting a stop to it. 

Will bought a postcard of Budapest’s parliament building instead and returned to the train station. 

That evening, in Klausenburgh, he wrote on it by candlelight, huddled close to the hearth in the inn’s common room. 

Dear Alana,

I feel I’ve left the West and entered the East. I’ll spend tonight at the Hotel Royale. For supper I had a dish called “paprika hendl” – chicken with red peppers. For breakfast, they serve a maize-flour porridge called “mamaliga.” Budapest was fascinating. I think you’d like it. I’ve read that every superstition in the world is gathered in the horseshoe of the Carpathians. I’ll let you know which ones are most prominent, as they interested you during my research. I am well and will write when I arrive in Bistritz.

                                    Will

A short note. Deceptively simple. It took him almost two hours to write, mentally composing and then erasing what he’d written over and over again. 

I’m sorry I kissed you.

I’m not sorry I kissed you. If you recall, when we were nine, you kissed me first. 

I apologize for attempting to change the nature of our relationship. Please know that from now on I will only think of you as a sister.

Do you remember the summer we were thirteen? You kissed me in the garden on six separate occasions. In the back of the sleigh when we visited the Alps – fifteen years old that time. When we went on holiday in Brittany, and you tried too many ciders – we were 22 then. And once more before I left to become a bobby. Can you blame me for trying again? 

Why don’t you love me? Why can’t you?

I’m not an inspector anymore. It’s been five years since the Ripper. I’m a solicitor now, and I’m not unstable.

Your father is dead. I know he told you I was an unsuitable match, but he’s gone. You’re going to inherit Hillingham and everything else, why does it matter? 

 Will read and re-read his benign message, then gave it to the hotel clerk to mail for him. He went up to his little room and tried to sleep. It was a long time in coming and could only be coaxed along by some of the whiskey he’d packed. 

The next day the train seemed to dawdle through the countryside. Will hardly minded – the window afforded him picturesque views of the rustic beauty that rolled slowly past. Sometimes there were little towns or castles on the top of steep hills, or thick, shimmering rivers snaking through the fertile fields. At every station there were groups of people, sometimes crowds, in all sorts of attire. Some wore familiar farming garb, but others were decked in a kind of peasant dress more typical, Will assumed, of the region – full, white-sleeved blouses and thick belts trailing ribbons. Some he recognized from lithographs as Slovaks with wide-brimmed hats, enormous, studded leather belts, and heavy black mustaches. 

He let his mind settle into a calm place of observation, and the time passed easily as he cataloged what he saw, making notes in his journal every so often. His reverie was broken only by noticing things that made him instinctively wish he could tell Alana about them. Thinking of her stung him in a way he couldn’t quite describe. She’d made him feel damaged. Defective. All her reasons were sound enough – her father’s wishes, their societal differences, what others would say – but beneath them was an ugly current of truth, what she’d said without doing him the courtesy of actually saying it: there was something wrong with him. 

There always had been. 

And while it had, perhaps, been droll or pitiable or sweet when they were growing up, now it was an insurmountable flaw. 

He never should have told her how he’d managed to catch the Ripper. How he’d abandoned his own mind to empathize with a monster. 

Foolish. He’d thought she’d have been proud of him for putting six bullets in Dr. Abel Gideon as he stood over Mary Kelly’s body. 

Will shook his head violently, then got up and paced the cabin before stalking the length of the car a few times to clear his mind. It took time, but he was eventually able to repress the memory of what he’d seen that day in the little rented room where Kelly had been brutally murdered. 

It was on the dark side of twilight when he arrived in Bistritz. It was a liminal place, right on the border of true wildness, and lived in a transient realm between life and death. Everywhere were people, walking home with parcels, sitting in cafés, speaking their native language over the tolling of church bells. Will knew from his research before the journey that all of this life existed – persisted – where death had run rampant. Many of the buildings were newer constructions, compared to the ancient wonders of Budapest. This was due to a series of fires fifty years ago – five of them, in fact. At the very beginning of the 17th century, the settlement had undergone a siege and lost 13,000 people, the casualties of the war proper assisted by famine and disease. 

So it was everywhere, Will thought, the living dancing on the graves of the dead. Even now, sex workers led their customers along the same alleys where the Ripper’s victims had met their fate. One day, there would be something new over the tenement where Mary Kelly had been carved up like so much meat. In Bistritz, however, the past seemed closer. He could feel it jutting out stubbornly into the living world. 

He found the Golden Krone Hotel easily enough, an old-fashioned tavern and inn right out of Chaucer. As he neared the door, a woman in a traditional white blouse with a kindly, weathered face greeted him. “The Herr Englishman?” she asked, reaching for his hand with her soft, wrinkled ones. 

Will nodded. “Will Graham,” he said. Not worth mentioning, of course, that he wasn’t English by birth. It wouldn’t matter to her, certainly not in the same way it had mattered to Edward Bloom, and his daughter by proxy. 

She ushered him inside the dark but cozy tavern and made him sit as her husband, a man just as old but sturdily built, took Will’s bags up to his room. With a half-toothless smile, the innkeeper’s wife brought him a glass of plum brandy and a letter. 

Will drank the brandy, finding it more than agreeable, and opened the missive when she’d left his table. 

         My friend,

         Welcome to the Carpathians. I am anxiously expecting you. Sleep well tonight. At seven tomorrow the diligence will start for Bukovina; a place on it is kept for you. At the Borgo Pass my carriage will await you and bring you to me. I trust that your journey from London has been a happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land. 

         Your friend,

         Count Hannibal Lecter

Chapter Text

Despair weighed him down like a blanket of heavy snow, cold and bitter and fiercely pale. He raised his hand to his face and wiped the tears away, then stepped up to the latticed window, unlatching the casement and swinging it open. Far below, beneath the castle wall and a steep cliff was the river. It was deep, and the current was strong, he knew. He had thought perhaps the waters would reflect the blush of this final sunset, but they were black. Nightmare waters, revealing only the termination of pain but no further comfort. 

He stepped out of the window and onto the narrow stone ledge, teetering on the edge of the precipice. 

Let it all end. There was no reason to continue, not for all the earthly pleasures or eternal punishments. Nothing mattered, now that he was gone. 

The old songs spoke of heartbreak, of people falling victim to it just as they might die of the plague or an arrow to the throat. He’d never understood it, never truly believed in it until now. 

“There is a reason why things are as they are.”

Will turned his head. A woman stood on the ledge next to him, dressed in the poor, ragged clothes of London street folk. She gave him a tired smile. 

Polly Nichols. 

He tried to speak, but found his voice dried up in his throat. 

Suddenly, Polly’s placid, accepting expression twisted, contorting into a grimace of pain. Blood soaked through her dress, staining all up and down her chest. With a groan, she fell, plummeting headfirst down into the steep crevasse toward the ominous ribbon of river. 

Abel Gideon stepped out onto the ledge, a bloody knife in his hand. “And did you see with my eyes and know with my knowledge, you would perhaps better understand, Inspector.”

“I don’t want to see,” Will pleaded, or tried to. His words were barely whispers forced from his lungs. 

“See. See…?” 

They reached for one another at the same time, with the same motion, as though they were the twinned reflections in a mirror, the glass and sheen of silver separating them. And they were falling…

Will woke up, sitting up so fast he heard his spine crack in several places. 

The innkeeper’s wife was knocking on the door. “I’m up,” he called roughly, and she went away, muttering under her breath in Romanian. Will leaned over and picked up his pocket watch, flipping open the cover. It was almost a full hour later than he’d asked to be awakened. 

“Figures,” he growled, getting up to dress as quickly as possible. 

The Golden Krone’s innkeeper and his wife had proven to be of dubious reliability. Will supposed it could be a cultural difference and was willing to accommodate, but it still struck him as strange. No one thus far on the journey had acted the way they had last night. 

After reading Count Lecter’s letter the previous evening, Will had tried asking the innkeeper about the details concerning his reserved seat on the coach. The man had suddenly decided he didn’t understand German, when up until that very moment, Will had been able to communicate with him without issue. The woman was the same way. The pair kept glancing at one another, brief sidelong looks that Will read easily, without activating the sixth sense in his mind that allowed him to enter the emotions and perspectives of others. They were afraid of something. Perhaps they’d skimmed some of Count Lecter’s money off the top and he wasn’t to have the requested seat, not that he cared much. 

Will prodded, asking if the innkeepers knew anything of Count Lecter or his castle, or the village near it known as Cerbul Negru. They insisted they knew nothing at all and refused to speak further, indicating they had work to do. Will noticed the old woman furiously crossing herself as she went back into the kitchen. 

Now, here she was at his door again, this time with a laden breakfast tray, sausages and more of the corn mash, bread, jam, and a pot of tea. “Eat, you must eat, young Herr,” she said as Will hurriedly packed his things. 

Will paused only to pour himself a cup of tea and bolt it down. “Madam,” he said in brusque German, stuffing his journal in his coat pocket, “why don’t you want me on that coach?”

She stared at him, wringing her wrinkled hands. 

“Clearly you woke me later than I asked so I might not catch it in time.” He could feel the ambient pulse in his head whirring to life even as he actively tried to ignore it, the golden pendulum waiting in the wings. He could feel the woman’s emotions and motivations sink into his mind like a boat taking on water. “You don’t, ah… know me… from Adam, so why are you afraid for me?” He plopped down on the bed to tie his boots, waiting for an answer. 

“Don’t you know what day it is?” She followed him to the other side of the small room where he busily packed up his writing things. 

“May 4th,” Will snapped. “Thursday.”

“No, young Herr, it is St. George’s Day! Tonight, between midnight and dawn, all the evil creatures on earth will gather the power they need to bedevil god-fearing folk all year ‘round!”

He stopped and turned to her, shouldering his satchel. “Your German has suddenly… improved.”

“Please,” she begged, snatching at his coat as he brushed past her into the hallway. 

“If you talked like this in London, they’d lock you up.”

The old woman’s mouth contorted, and she began to cry. Will mentally kicked himself but found that softness returned to his bearing. “I’m sorry if I, uh… speak…” he tried to remember the word in German. “I was rude. Forgive me. I have business that needs to be done.”

“So young and handsome!” She said between sniffles. “I fear for you! Please, take this.” She withdrew a blue-beaded rosary from her pocket. 

“Madam…”

“Please take it!” she insisted tearfully. “For your mother’s sake!”

Will felt his body stiffen and his heart go dark like the cold edge of a winter moon. “For my mother’s sake?”

She nodded miserably. 

“My mother,” he said, “abandoned me.”

“No, no,” the woman protested as he turned to walk down the hall to the staircase. “No, how could she? Please, take it, take it!” She had a hold of his coat now.

Will swallowed down a curse and stopped, holding out his hand. The woman opened the rosary and insisted on draping it around his neck. 

“God keep you, sweet boy!” she cried, crossing herself again. 

He bit his tongue against the urge to tell her that he was past thirty. Instead, he hurried out to catch his coach. The innkeeper was there, speaking with the coachman in hushed tones, making no attempt to conceal that they were whispering about him. He caught several Romanian words as he approached – “strigoi” – “moroi” – “pokol” – “vrolok” – but didn’t know offhand what they meant. 

Will tossed his bag at the coachman and climbed stubbornly aboard the conveyance. The coachman responded by freeing one hand to raise his index and smallest finger toward Will. 

He’d seen it enough times when working for the Metropolitan Police. The gesture was a ward against the Evil Eye. 

Will wanted to be irritated with them, with everyone trying to sabotage his journey to visit Count Lecter and sell him property in London. It made him feel like he was back home, still, after five years, having his name recognized, people asking him if he was related to the Will Graham that caught Jack the Ripper. Some even knew his face from the sketches done by Winifred Lounds for her Tattlecrime column. They either treated him like a hero, or asked him for grisly, offensive details about the victims and the crime scenes. It was attention he didn’t want, never wanted. 

But these people in Romania had no idea who he was. And, for some reason, they didn’t want him continuing to the Borgo Pass. Perhaps Count Lecter was less than well-loved in the region and these people didn’t want him to have the properties he desired. On the other hand, perhaps they knew he planned to buy London homes and didn’t want him to move away. 

As the coach bounced along the country roads, Will let his mind gather all the pieces of information, all the words and interactions of the innkeepers and the coachman, and let them coalesce in the part of his mind that gave him access to the minds of others. The ambient pulse sliced across his vision as he closed his eyes. 

These people were afraid for his safety. Pure and simple. They knew something about Count Lecter, or the surrounding area of his castle, that Will did not know. Or they thought they knew it. And it was something they could not name or give voice to, lest it grow in power or significance. 

Along the route, the coach stopped at several smaller villages and picked up or dropped off passengers. Some of them attempted to make conversation, but Will, after curtly answering their questions, made it clear he wasn’t interested in talking. As the Count had promised, he had a good seat, in the back facing forward next to the small window, and Will let himself be lost again in the beauty of the landscape. It was a green, sloping land full of forests and woods, peppered intermittently with steep hills, crowned with clumps of trees or farmhouses, the blank gable end to the road. Everywhere were bewilderingly lovely masses of fruit blossoms, and, depending on the wind, the scent wafted into the coach, an improvement over the human body smells of the passengers. Apple, plum, pear, cherry, the green grass under the trees spangled with fallen petals. The road ran between the hills, sweeping around the grassy curves, touching upon the straggling ends of pine woods, which here and there ran down the hillsides like tongues of flame. 

The road was rugged, but still the coachman flew over it with a feverish haste, calling sharply to passengers at the stops to enter or exit the coach as quickly as they could. The man’s general grumpiness finally got on Will’s nerves as he argued hotly with a passenger trying to climb aboard with a small dog. It was a mutt of no discernible breed, but the shaggy little brown and white creature reminded Will of Neal Frank’s dog, Allegra. 

Will stuck his head out the window opening and called up in harsh German, “Let him on. Nobody cares about the dog. I’m sure it’s trained.”

He didn’t know if he spoke for the other passengers, but he didn’t give a damn. 

The coachman seemed to be reminded of his need for haste and urged the man with the dog to climb aboard. He sat across from Will and gave him a smile and a nod of thanks. The dog was, as Will predicted, very well behaved, and sat patiently on the man’s lap as they bounced along the rustic road. 

Will reached out his hand, but stopped, looking at the man with silent question. He nodded, and Will stroked the dog’s velvety ears. She panted happily and licked his palm. Her owner said something in Romanian that Will didn’t understand. He shook his head ruefully. “Do you speak German?”

The man shrugged with a rueful laugh of his own. The dog might have been the spitting image of Allegra, but her owner was the opposite of Neal – fair haired and ruddy-cheeked, sturdy in body where Neal had been slender. The only thing they had in common, it seemed, was their ages, close to Will’s. Both handsome, but for different reasons. 

Will thought the association would hurt, thinking of the man who had courted him during his first year as a bobby. But it came nowhere close to the pain of Alana’s rejection. He and Neal had had some good times, and he would fondly remember their end-of-shift encounters in the back room of their favorite tavern. But he hadn’t loved Neal. And when Neal had gotten engaged to a successful doctor and quit the force, Will had wished him well. In truth, he missed the dog more than he did his former paramour. 

Beyond the green swelling hills rose mighty slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathian Mountains. Right and left they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon them and bringing out all the glorious colors of the range; deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and brown here grass and rock mingled, and an endless swath of jagged rock and pointed craigs, till those themselves were lost in the distance, where the snowy peaks rose grandly. Here and there were mighty rifts in the mountains, through which, as the sun began to sink, Will saw the white gleam of falling water.  

As the coach wound on its endless way, and the sun sank lower and lower, the shadows of the evening began to creep around them. This was emphasized, Will thought, by the fact that the snowy mountain-top still held the sunset, and seemed to glow out with a delicate cool pink. 

The next village was small indeed, a gathering of warm lights in the crook of land before a great pine forest. This was where the man with the dog left them. He took a moment to thank Will again and wiggled his dog’s paw in a little wave as the carriage rolled away. Will lifted a hand in goodbye. 

With the loss of the sun, the springtime sweetness of the day was gone. The air was cold, and the growing twilight seemed to merge into one dark mistiness, the gloom of the trees, and Will spotted late-lying snow on the ground. Sometimes the road cut through the pine woods that seemed in the darkness to be closing upon the coach, great masses of grayness. 

As true darkness descended, Will could feel the anxiety of the driver and the remaining passengers ratchet up several more notches. One woman pounded her fist against the side of the coach and hollered some words that Will guessed urged the driver to go even faster. The driver lashed the horses unmercifully with his long whip, to the point where Will didn’t think he could take it anymore. He thought furtively of the revolver packed in his satchel, of whether he would need to use it to force the driver to stop beating the animals. He was surrounded by the insistent fear of the passengers and the driver, their agitation bleeding into his bones, and felt he could do nothing but lower his head and clench his hands over the satchel in his lap. 

The road suddenly grew more level, and the coach flew along this straight stretch. The mountains seemed to come nearer on each side and frown down upon them; Will knew from the maps he’d studied they were entering, at last, the Borgo Pass. There were dark, rolling clouds overhead, and the air held the heavy, oppressive sense of thunder. It seemed as though the mountain range had separated two atmospheres, and this one was swollen with the threat of rain. 

The driver, at last, pulled the horses to a stop at a crossroads. The passengers all stared at Will, their eyes fever-bright with fear or soft with pity. “What is it?” he couldn’t stop himself from asking, blurting it out in English. “What’s the matter with all of you?” 

The passengers looked at one another but remained mute. 

The driver was at the window. “There is no carriage here,” he said in his accented German, swiping a hand along his thick black mustache. “The Herr is not expected after all. He will now come on to Bukovina, and return tomorrow, or the next day. Better the next day.” 

The other passengers nodded and agreed with solemn enthusiasm. 

“Weiso den?” Will demanded, switching back to German once he’d gathered his wits enough to do so. His empty stomach was burning, and felt bile rising in the back of his throat. An innkeeper and his wife acting strangely about Count Lecter was one thing, but an entire coach full of people was another. Was it superstition or folk legend, like the ones about men that changed into wolves or the walking dead that he’d read about before making this journey? If so, they all truly believed it, at the core of their souls. His empathetic connection understood they were genuinely afraid and didn’t want him to get out of the coach. 

Before anyone could answer, the coach’s horses began to neigh and snort and plunge wildly, so that the driver had to grab at their bridles to steady them. Then, from the misty gloom, a calèche, with four horses, appeared from the northern path. By the dim light of the half-moon and the coach’s lamps, Will could see that the horses were coal-black and splendid animals. They were driven by a woman, her small frame contained in a large black coat with a high, stiff collar, the cuffs edged in rough gray fur. Will’s mind acknowledged that she was beautiful, but overriding this recognition was the startling appearance of her eyes, almond-shaped and dark yet somehow gleaming with an uncanny brightness. 

The black horses slowed to a stop with barely a touch of the reins. The woman spoke to the driver, and her voice had the clear calmness of a still pond. “You are early.”

An old woman in the coach crossed herself and pressed a rosary into her chest, squeezing her eyes shut tight. “It is she,” the spotted lips whispered. “The Sentinel!” 

Chapter Text

“Th-the English Herr was in a hurry,” the driver stammered, actively avoiding any sort of eye contact with the woman driving the calèche. 

“You wished him to go to Bukovina.”

“N-n-o, I…” he trailed off, mouth gaping like a fish dying on the bottom of a boat.

This man, the driver, with his broad, thick body, powerful shoulders and ham-sized fists, was bone-deep terrified of the woman in the black coat – the Sentinel – despite her delicate features and the bird-like, slender outline of her body, her tiny, gloved hands. Will marveled at the exchange, too dumbfounded to speak. It all felt like a dream. He expected Abel Gideon to appear at any moment. 

“I know too much,” the woman said after she let the driver struggle for words for a few moments. “And Count Lecter’s horses are swift.” As she spoke, she did not smile, but the lamplight fell on her hard-looking mouth, pretty as it was, and the gleam of ivory teeth within. Will felt a shiver of his own quake across his spine. 

“Denn die Todten reiten schnell,” the driver murmured as he released the still-agitated horses and backed around them, putting the team between himself and the woman. 

“The dead travel fast,” Will translated under his breath before he realized he’d spoken.

The dark-haired woman’s head snapped up and her eyes captured his, holding him in a burning gaze for a long moment. Without his consent, Will’s brain began feeding him pieces of the ballad the driver had quoted, Gottfried August Bürge’s “Lenore” translated by Rosetti.

Up rose Lenore as the red morn wore

From weary visions starting;

“Art faithless, William, or, William,

art dead?

'Tis long since thy departing.”

“Give me his luggage,” the Sentinel ordered after a long pause where the only sounds were the worried neighs and snorts of the coach’s horses. Her order was immediately followed, and she descended from the seat in one entirely graceful motion to collect Will’s bags and place them in the calèche. It seemed the mustached driver and the passengers had abandoned their gambit. Will was to go with the Sentinel on to Castle Lecter. 

Somewhere in the darkness that pressed in on the strange crossroads, Will swore he heard the Ripper laugh, the same little trill he’d emitted the moment Will had burst through the door with his gun up. A chuckle that seemed to say, “Well, you got me, didn’t you? Good on you.” 

Will’s brain bucked against the complete unreality of the situation, but he found his body moving. He descended the side of the coach and stepped out onto the road. The coldly beautiful Sentinel, her eyes still balefully fixed on the coach’s driver, reached out to help him into the conveyance. Her gloved hand caught Will’s arm in a grip of steel; her strength must have been prodigious, and again, so strange coming from such a slender figure. 

Will tucked himself into the seat, the place where she’d touched him burning with a kind of icy fire, even through the layers of her glove, his coat, and his shirt. The woman ascended to the seat again with another mesmerizingly swift motion and shook the reins without another word. The horses turned and Will was swept into the darkness of the Borgo Pass. 

He turned to look back and saw the steam from the horses of the coach by the light of the lamps and projected against it the figures of the driver and other passengers watching him go, crossing themselves. Then the driver clambered back up to his seat and cracked the whip. The coach thundered away, bearing the rest of the people to the safety of Bukovina. As they sank into the darkness, Will felt a lonely chill climb over his skin. 

He’d become a solicitor to get away from strangeness, from all the things that fevered his mind and made him unstable, that made him unsuitable for love. Granted, Mr. Brauner had sent him on this particular journey because he knew Will was a former inspector and could handle himself traveling to such a remote place. The past always had bearing on the present. Will had expected pickpockets, or highwaymen waylaying the coach in the middle of nowhere. He had not expected… whatever the hell was happening. 

It felt like the days working the Ripper case, where his imagination and reality bled together to create the constant sense of being trapped in a nightmare, surrounded by unknowable but impending doom. 

“Mr. Graham.” 

Will started, realizing the driver had addressed him half over her shoulder. 

“It is cold. There is a cloak and a rug on the seat for you.”

Will saw a thick black cloak and a rug for his lap. The spell of immobility broken, he quickly swept the garment over his shoulders and tucked the rug over his legs. 

“The night is chill,” the woman said again in her beautiful but strangely serpentine voice, her English perfect. “Count Lecter bade me take all care of you. There is a flask of slivovitz underneath the seat, if you should require it.” 

“Thank you,” Will said reflexively, though he shuddered to think what the liquor would do to his completely empty stomach; the last thing he’d had was the hurried tea that morning. 

They were moving now, traveling at a swift clip into the unknown night. In the darkness, all the scenery began to look the same, especially as they entered a thick wood. On and on they went, the sentinel straight-backed and immobile as if she were made of stone. The ride was so long that, at last, Will broke down and struck a match to check his watch. It was nearly midnight, which gave him a superstitious shock that his rational mind tried desperately to fight against. It left him with a sick feeling of suspense.

The Ripper believed in midnight. That’s one of the ways Will had caught him. Never mind that 3:00 in the morning was the true witching hour – all that mattered was what Abel Gideon believed, and he believed that evil men did evil work at midnight. It had been his favored time to hunt. 

A dog began to howl somewhere in a farmhouse far down the road. Will’s ears pricked up immediately, trying to judge the nature of the cry. Dogs howled for different reasons – to get humans’ attention, to call to other dogs, to warn of danger, or when they were happy or excited. He’d heard it all. His question was answered when the sound was taken up by another dog, and then another. What the hounds communicated seemed like a long, agonized wailing. Now the keening was taken up by yet another dog, and then another and another until, borne on the wind which now sighed softly through the Pass, a wild howling began, which seemed to come from all throughout the woods and the countryside, as far as Will’s prodigious imagination could grasp it through the gloom of the night. 

The horses began to show signs of wariness, straining their harnesses and whinnying, but a few soft words from the Sentinel and they quieted immediately. Will was impressed – this woman, whoever she was, must have had a long-term, close relationship with these animals that they would obey her with barely a whisper. Then, far off in the distance, from the mountains on each side began a louder and a sharper howling – that of wolves, Will assumed. 

He’d never heard a wolf’s howl. The ones in the zoo were asleep whenever he and Alana had visited, lolling about as if captivity were sapping the life from them. Will had supposed it was, and Alana always said she felt sorry for them. “Some beasts shouldn’t be caged,” she’d remarked. Alana loved animals almost as much as Will did, and that, he thought, was part of why he loved her in turn. When they were young, they always had a secret stash of kittens they were raising, or a bird that’d fallen out of its nest. Alana hadn’t been allowed a dog, but she’d always come to play with Will’s, the pack he kept in the old hunting hound kennels near Beau’s cottage. 

The team trembled again, bringing Will out of reverie. A few more words from the Sentinel, and they were back under her control completely, though Will had half a mind to bolt like a terrified horse himself. Soon, they were hemmed in with trees, which in places arched right over the roadway like a tunnel; and again, great frowning rocks guarded them boldly on either side. Though this provided some shelter, Will could easily hear the rising wind, for it moaned and whistled through the rocks, and the branches of the trees crashed together as they swept along. It grew colder and colder still, and a fine, powdery snow began to fall. Within a half-hour, everything was covered with a fine white blanket. The snow reflected the bit of moon that managed through the clouds and allowed Will to see a little better. 

He caved in and drank some of the slivovitz with shaking hands. As he’d suspected, it burned all the way down his gullet and churned around in his stomach. The alcohol did temporarily warm him but left him feeling sick and half-drunk. 

Something moved in the woods. Will shook himself and blinked several times, trying to catch sight of it. 

Through a swirl of snow, he thought he saw Annie Chapman peeking out at him from behind a tree, her intestines in her hand, slit throat yawning open. 

Will faced forward again, forcing himself to study the stiff-postured back of the Sentinel. He took another drink. Then another. 

The woman began to turn her head left and right as if looking for something in the woods. Will dared to look again. He didn’t see anything beyond the dark trees and the snow. This was a relief to him, but he was still left wondering what she was looking for. 

Wolves, he thought. Probably wolves. If wolves were such a presence here, why wasn’t there a gun at the woman’s side? He thought of his pistol again, considered getting it out and loading it in case they were overrun. But if Count Lecter’s Sentinel wasn’t concerned, and presumably lived in the region, she knew more about it than Will did. 

Suddenly, away on the left, Will saw a faint flickering blue flame between the trees. He rubbed his eyes and forehead, then looked again. It was still there. “What in hell…” he murmured, glancing around quickly for Gideon or any of his victims. His breath came raggedly in his throat as he tried to focus on the flame. He was aware of phenomena like the will o’ the wisp, naturally occurring, but the climate didn’t seem right. Was it colored fire created by burning some sort of specific element? And why would someone do something so… alchemical… in the woods in the snow?

The Sentinel saw it as well and pulled the horses to the stop. She leapt down onto the ground with the same preternatural grace and raced off into the darkness. 

“Hey!” Will called after her. “Where are you going?”

She was gone. He was abandoned, sitting in the conveyance’s seat, alone with the horses that waited patiently for their mistress to return, steam rising from their coats and from their noses. They nickered softly, and then with increasing alarm. Will fumbled open his satchel and pulled out his revolver, unwrapping it from its cloth with shaking hands. He managed to find the box of ammunition and clacked open the chamber, pushing slugs in with shaking hands. Snapping it shut, he thumbed back the hammer and waited. 

Just then, the moon, sailing through the black clouds, appeared behind the jagged crest of a beetling, pine-clad rock, and by its light Will saw around the calèche a ring of wolves, with white teeth and lolling, red tongues, long sinewy limbs and shaggy hair. Will could feel the weight of the revolver in his hand, but he felt utterly paralyzed. Not with fear, but with the same realization he’d had many times before – that what he was seeing couldn’t be real, and yet felt real, was real down to the tiniest detail. Many of the wolves were a typical tawny black and brown with a lighter underbelly, but two of them were pitch black with yellow eyes, and another, the largest, was pure white as the snow that wafted down gently onto their coats. 

The wolves were pacing the conveyance and the horses, leaving tracks in the snow, now and then growling or yipping to one another. And then they sat, haunches to the ground, and all looked the same direction. 

Here came the woman, bearing an enormous iron box, rusted with age and crusted with dirt. The creatures merely watched her as she hauled the box up onto the seat next to her and climbed back onto the calèche, picking up the reins. There was a look of triumph on her face, and he could see a small smile chasing the corners of her mouth. 

The Sentinel raised her voice and spoke a word Will didn’t understand. It was clear and ringing, bell-like, but obviously some kind of command. The wolves turned and ran off into the forest. Will still felt like he couldn’t move, the revolver shaking in his grasp. Time seemed interminable as the conveyance swept along, now almost in complete darkness as the clouds obscured the moon. 

Suddenly, Will was aware that the woman was pulling the horses into the courtyard of a vast half-ruined castle, from whose tall windows came intermittent light. The broken battlements of the west wing showed a jagged line against the moonlit sky. In the gloom the courtyard looked of considerable size, and as several dark ways led from it under great round arches, it perhaps seemed bigger than it was. The shadows gave dimension depth that Will thought might disappear in the daylight. 

They’d arrived. Still shaking, Will thumbed the hammer of the pistol back down and shoved it in his satchel before the woman could see it. 

She turned to him and offered her hand to assist him down. He stared at her, unmoving. 

“Welcome to Castle Lecter, Mr. Graham,” she said. 

And sad was the true heart that sickened afar.

Again, Will couldn’t help but notice the Sentinel’s prodigious strength. Her hand closed around his arm just above the elbow to assist him with the step, and it seemed like a steel vice that could easily crush his humerus if she’d wanted to. Will watched numbly as the woman took down his bag and placed it at his feet as he stood close to a great door, old and studded with large iron nails, set in a projecting doorway of massive stone. He could see, even in the dim, filtered moonlight, that the stone was massively carved, but that the carving had been worn by time and weather. 

As Will examined the entrance to the castle, the Sentinel climbed back onto the calèche and drove the horses into one of the dark openings of the courtyard. The sound of hooves died away, echoing over the stones.

Will stood in silence, watching the snow as it floated down from the ink-pool sky. His mind was like the snow, gently floating, landing where it might. He felt unmoored, rudderless, completely disoriented. Will found himself wrapping the cloak more tightly around himself, grateful the driver had not asked for it back. 

“Guess I should…” he murmured to himself, leaning into the dreamlike quality of the moment. 

Of bell or knocker there was none; through these frowning walls and dark window openings it was not likely that any voice could penetrate. What the hell kind of place was this where he’d found himself? Will had been in the darkest corners of London, seen things that would have landed other men in the Purfleet Hospital for the Criminally Insane never to re-emerge. But here, after five years of completely monotonous life, where he worked as a law clerk, studied his books, raised his dogs, and ate Sunday dinner with Alana and her mother, Prudence Bloom, he felt as if that normalcy had been the dream, and this reality was what he had at last awakened to. In a perverse way, it was a relief. 

It felt like home. If he dug down past his consciousness, past his thoughts and his unanswered questions and the undercurrent of terrifying unreality, he felt… safe. Like this was where he belonged. 

It made no sense. How could someplace so foreign and strange feel good? Wickedly good?

Felt good like pulling the trigger felt good.

Don’t think about that.

He was losing his mind again, after all. How droll. 

Will rubbed his eyes and pinched himself on the neck. His flesh answered the pinching test, and his eyes were not to be deceived. Will had to admit that he was, indeed, awake, and standing at the entrance to Castle Lecter.

Just as he’d dragged himself as far back into the present moment as he could, Will saw through the crevices in the old door the gleam of a coming light. Then the sound of rattling chains and the clanking of massive bolts drawn back. A key was turned with the loud grating noise of long disuse, and the door swung inward. 

Before him was a great hall, home, most prominently, to a massive curving stone staircase that split at the top, leading off to two separate wings of what Will thought was likely the habitable part of the castle. The walls were made of weathered stone and thick, ancient wooden beams, but were decorated with what appeared to be large-scale tapestries of sylvan scenes as well as mounted hunting trophies and antique weapons on display. 

Three people stood within his view. One man had clearly just opened the door. He was dressed well, if in a style Will had never seen except in illustrations from old books, wearing a dark orange waistcoat and a camel-colored frock coat with furred lapels. He was, perhaps, in his late thirties, with textured brown hair and green eyes that carried a gleam like those of the Sentinel. Will immediately didn’t like his sardonic smile. 

Behind and to the man’s right was a woman even more petite and bird-like than the Sentinel had been – a striking blonde with coldly beautiful features, clad in a midnight-blue gown with a high collar and bell sleeves. Will noted how her lips parted at the sight of him, the delicate intake of breath.

The world was nothing but shadow and watercolor, everything fading away as Will beheld the third person, a man standing on the staircase as if just finishing his descent. He wore dark trousers and boots, but a striking red silken jacket embroidered with golden designs that looked like winged creatures of some kind. One of his long hands rested on the stone bannister, the other hanging at his side. His knuckles gleamed with rings, gold and jeweled. 

His hair was a lustrous silver in the front, tapering back to a darker steel. He wore it longer than was the fashion, at least in London, and it brushed the collar of his coat and rested against one sharply cut cheek. His smooth face was noble, the mouth especially both voluptuous and proud. Without his storm-cloud hair, it would be difficult to guess his age. 

Will was overcome by a sensation that what he was seeing, this man before him, was someone both worldly and otherworldly. Someone exotic, a complete stranger, and yet his eyes – gleaming as the Sentinel’s had – were so entirely familiar Will felt like the world was about to slide out from under him, casting him up into the sky to float amongst the stars. Seeing him, this man – Count Lecter, it had to be – brought on the most powerfully crushing sense of déjà vu he had ever felt. 

I know him. 

Count Lecter’s face was, at first glance, cold and immobile. But Will tracked a pulsing muscle in his cheek and the sheen of tears in his eyes, the way he gripped the banister for dear life. 

And he knows me.

…Oh! wearily, William, I've waited for you, —

Woefully watching all the long day through, —

With a great sorrow sorrowing

For the cruelty of your tarrying…

Will felt his body lock up, one limb at a time, his breath wheezing in his throat. A frigid sensation, like melting ice saturating his brain, attacked his head and consciousness. 

DO NOT SEE ME, came the imperious command. But Will knew he hadn’t heard it with his ears. 

The man on the staircase was doing something to him, but Will hadn’t the faintest idea what or how or what he could do to stop it. All he was aware of was a low, thrumming pulse in his ears, and the echo of the command. 

DO NOT SEE ME.

He couldn’t breathe.

I’m blacking out, he thought calmly, and then promptly fulfilled his own prophecy. 

Chapter Text

Castle Lecter has prepared for months for the solicitor’s arrival. There were mortal comforts to be seen to – comforts none of my family has been familiar with for many years. Thus, we turn to the village. I have spoken with the elders – only what they need to know, which is that I need help at the keep. They sent me Peter, a stable hand kicked in the head by a horse. He hasn’t been the same since and the villagers fear he might turn violent. He was terrified of us at first, but when Chiyoh enlisted his help with our own animals, and I showed him how the humble creatures of the world respond to my call, he transformed entirely. One could not ask for a more loyal attendant. 

He wants nothing in return, save a comfortable room and as many creatures as he wishes. It pleases me to watch him collect injured animals in the woods and nurse them back to health. The village’s children, if they are brave enough, bring him their ailing pets or the runts of the litter. The courtyard is alive with one-legged ducks and blind cats and a goat with some kind of melancholic disorder. 

It vexes Antony to no end, but Antony would prefer it if we were all as miserable as he. Bedelia reminds him often that all of this is in service of our goal – freedom from the confines of my homeland. 

Peter is industrious, and soon, the castle’s livable chambers are scrubbed clean. He is clever with his hands and can fix some of the older furniture. Before long, Castle Lecter is nearly a proper home again. 

Then, Cerbul Negru sends me the girl. I know the names of every man, woman, and child in the village, and how their bloodlines connect back to the Lecters and the Sforzas. I have nurtured this place for centuries. But I do not know her. She is Russian, and her name is Avigeya. So young to have traveled so far alone. I can only think that something drew her here the way it drew the others. She has been living on the charity of the village but had worn thin her welcome; they sense something in her the way I do. Though her face is innocent, I can practically smell the blood she’s spilled. She is a murderer. 

We can sense our own.

I consider using mesmerism to make her confess to me. But I decide against it. The girl is clearly looking for a father, and, in some ways, she reminds me of Mischa. She has my sister’s intelligence and practicality. I feel I am on my honor to look out for her. 

I am slowly but steadily learning her language. We spend hours speaking. She corrects my grammar and I ask her questions under the pretense of practice. It took far less time than I thought for her to trust me. Weeping in my arms, she confessed her secret. Her father suffered under a compulsion to kill. His chosen victims were girls that looked just like her. Avigeya helped him lure the young women to remote places where they were butchered. Choices were limited; she could play accomplice or suffer their fate. What she does not say aloud but what I know is that hunting with her father was a treasured part of her life, something she misses. Though she was more bait used to lure than anything else. 

When the residents of their small city in Russia learned their secret, Avigeya’s father was killed by a vigilante mob. Only by her cunning did the girl escape, her name tainted, on the run for almost a year as the Daughter of the Shrike. 

Still, she had agency. One day we will discuss it, killer to killer. She is the sins of her father. And I welcome her into my home, perhaps one day into my family. 

She has survived this long on her own doing some domestic work, and so she cooks for Peter and herself, and sews and cleans; I know Bedelia is glad for more feminine company than Chiyoh. The castle has not felt so alive in a hundred years. 

When the solicitor arrives, we are more than prepared to receive him and his precious documents. London calls.

It escapes no one that the man from London is set to arrive on the day. I pretend it has no effect on our plans. Chiyoh mentions she will look for the fabled blue fire when she fetches him from the crossroads. I feign a lack of interest. We have not found the box before, why would we find it this year? 

Avigeya brushes the last specks of dust from the shoulders of my red silk jacket and turns me around. “Perfect,” she says. “I’ll go and finish the meal.”

I thank her and she takes her leave. I must admit a certain pleasant anticipation for the solicitor’s arrival. We have visitors so infrequently. I can only hope the others are on their best behavior, Antony in particular. We are all well fed on an opportune band of highwaymen and should be able to mind our manners. Once the deal is done, the great experiment begins. If I am successful, the world will split open for us like a piece of ripe fruit, sweet and brimming with succulent juices. 

But why must he arrive today, of all days?

I force away my memories, dragging a scythe across them as they surface. I will not think of him. 

I hear Chiyoh arrive on the calèche. I have to trust Avigeya that my appearance is acceptable. A steadying breath would be welcome at this moment but making my lungs work provides me with nothing. That reminds me; we all must remember to feign breathing while our guest is here. 

A cursory glance reveals that my flock has attired themselves appropriately and are waiting to greet the man from London. I descend the stairs as Antony slides back the bolts and pulls the ancient door open. The solicitor steps over the threshold and into the light of the candelabras that flank the entrance on either side.

If I had a beating heart, it would clench and grind to a halt. 

If I had breath in my lungs, it would dry up and choke me.

As it is, despite my body’s existence outside the realm of mortality, I feel dizzy, sick, disoriented, my voice dead in my throat. I sense my strength of twenty men desert me, and I fear my legs will collapse. I grip the carved stone bannister so tightly I hear it crack. 

It is Iliya.

My Iliya. My beloved, back from the dead. Home, at last. 

There is a long moment of silence where I can hear his heart beating in his chest. He is a living, breathing man, not one of my kind. No ghoul or ghost. Mortal. 

A miracle. But why would God give him back to me after I defied Him, defied nature? The Lord taketh and giveth, as opposed to the other way ‘round?

I search his features frantically, absorbing every detail with a predator’s eyes, enhanced by my dark gifts. It must be cold out – his cheeks and the tip of his nose are pink. 

Just as I first saw him.

And as I study that particular shade of blush rose, I fall face-first into the past. 

The day we met. It was snowing then, too, a heavy, wet, spring snow. With the sun, the temperature was fair, the frost melting from the trees as the day wore on, snow mixing with mud underfoot. I had left Mischa in charge and traveled through the mountains of my land to the flat, fertile valley ruled by a boyar called Albescu. I hoped to make an alliance with his family and encourage trade, and we hunted together, discussing the terms as we stalked deer and fox. 

As we return to his keep, a group of young people play in the snow near the gates, wrestling, building snowmen, flirtatiously chasing one another. I have just handed off my horse to the stableboy when an enormous wet snowball splatters against my shoulder. I turn to see a dark-haired young man laughing behind his gloved hand before composing his face and bowing to me. “Forgive me, Count Lecter, I was aiming for my uncle,” he says as Albescu launches into a heated scolding. 

For several moments I am unable to respond. My assailant is beautiful. I hadn’t expected it, and I am summarily paralyzed. I am struck through first by his eyes, mortally wounded by their rich color, the exact shade of a melting icicle through which one can view the sky laden with the promise of spring. These, rimmed with thick black lashes, such a stark contrast to the delicate complexion, pink with cold and exertion. His textured hair is tousled and wet with melted snow where he’s fallen victim to the attacks of others. Time crawls as I watch a glistening droplet travel down the side of his face and cling to his jaw before tracing down the perfect line of his throat. He is breathing hard through a mischievous half-smile, petal lips parted just enough to see the line of his teeth. 

Somehow, we are closer together than we were moments before. “Your aim,” I manage to say, “needs improvement.”

“Does it?” He cocks his head to the side. 

I realize the obvious. He wanted my attention and now he is receiving it. Clever boy. 

A long moment where I battle every desire of my heart not to reach out and touch him, broken now by Albescu calling for me. 

I return to the earth and my duties. As the negotiations continue, and we retire for an afternoon rest, I learn from Albescu and the servants that the boy’s name is Iliya, that he is Lord Albescu’s orphaned nephew. The boy had been living with a great-aunt as part of her household, the apple of her eye, and it was she who educated him and arranged for his training as a warrior. Last winter, she had succumbed to the sweating sickness, days after the boy had turned twenty. 

“He has seen his share of sorrows,” Albescu admits as we remove our boots. “But he is resilient. He is strong-willed; all of the Albescus are.”

 That night, the castle holds a feast where we consume the fruits of the hunt. Members of Lord Albescu’s family and other well-appointed young people have arranged a masque for our entertainment. We sit at a long table in the great hall facing a makeshift stage bearing an old wooden fence painted up to look like a castle wall. The musicians begin a courtly tune, and the players take their places. Eight young people wearing identical costumes emerge and stand on a platform behind the castle outline to suggest they are inside it. The costumes are less than chaste, despite what the characters are supposed to represent. 

Each wears a tight-fitting white drape gathered at one shoulder, and tied around the waist with a golden cord, a word stitched above it across the wearer’s midsection. Beauty, Honor, Perseverance, Kindness, Constance, Bounty, Mercy, and Pity. The eight chivalric virtues embodied, each player also wearing an ivory and gold-trimmed half-mask to hide their identity. 

As if I couldn’t tell which one of them was him. 

Another set of young people enters the hall, dressed as the embodiments of vices such as Jealousy and Scorn to menace the virtues. The fair ones are, thank God, rescued by eight heroes who then engage them in a coordinated dance, creating intricate patterns as they glide across the floor. Iliya is not a skilled dancer but makes up for it with enthusiasm and natural grace, laughing easily at his mistakes. I dance very well and would like nothing more than to show him. For now, I am trapped behind the table in the audience, fixated on his every move, the gentle slope of his ivory neck, the curve of his bared shoulder, his open-mouthed smiles. 

At last, the masque is ended, and the players remove their masks as the audience applauds. Iliya looks directly into my eyes as he slides the ribbon loose and drops his mask at his side, and it feels like he is offering his loveliness only to me, if only for a moment. Part of my mind chastises me for being so immediately smitten. The other scolds me for thinking scandalous, unholy thoughts. I will have to confess my licentiousness to the priest on Sunday. 

After the feast there is more revelry, especially after the children, their nursemaids, and elderly have gone to bed. The wine flows and the gathering spreads out into the courtyard, lit by braziers and bonfires. Everywhere is the drip of water as the late spring snow melts, the night air sweet and balmy, the stars a spill of diamonds overhead. 

We are both terribly aware of one another — at least, I am aware of him. He teases me by moving away to speak to someone else each time I near him. I ask about him, as casually as I can. I eavesdrop. He is sharply intelligent and is not afraid to show it to his elders and betters, even when it borders on insolence. His behavior is often excused because of his unjust loveliness, and he knows it. 

I have never felt as helpless as I do now, under these stars, delicately chasing him. I take a moment to pray to God and the Virgin, asking for their blessing. I will not be untoward; I will not draw either of us into sin. 

Maybe a little sin. Easily forgiven, I hope. What did God think would happen when he made this creature? 

At last, I catch him just as his companion turns away to retrieve more wine. I palm a bit of wet snow in my hand and press it into his neck, just beneath the sweet spill of curls at his hairline. He winces, sucking in a little gasp as the cold water seeps down the divot of his spine. 

“Villain,” he says, reaching behind to wipe his neck. It is a word said in play, mock-indignant. 

“Reap what you sow,” I say in a similar fashion. Now that we have spoken, I lose a portion of my paralysis, though the powerful effect he has on me is ever-present. “Count Hannibal Lecter. And you are?”

“You know who I am,” he says. “You’ve been asking about me all night.”

I am caught flat-footed and cannot respond immediately. He’s right. And observant. And damnably clever. “I was curious,” I admit. “I’ve never met someone who would throw snow at his guardian’s honored guest unprovoked.”

“Bold of you to assume I was aiming for you.”

“Weren’t you?”

He acquiesces, looking away for a moment, cheeks reddening further. “Perhaps.”

“Interesting way to catch a man’s attention.”

“I think you mean ‘effective’,” he corrects me with a coquettish tilt of his head. 

I examine the costume draping his body. It has come even looser and exposes half his smooth chest now, only a few dark hairs appearing near the peeking edge of his nipple, rosy as his lips. “Constance,” I read where it is embroidered in the fabric, drawing it to the side with my fingertips so the embroidered word can be more easily read. It takes considerable fortitude not to ball the cloth in my hand and pull him into my arms with one movement. To tear it off him. Such sinful thoughts. The priest is going to have an earful. “You should have played Beauty.” 

He raises his jaw and steps back enough that the cloth of his costume slides out of my grip. “Beauty happens. It is not earned,” he says, serious now. “I’ve done nothing. I was born, that’s all. Constance is a virtue that requires strength in the heart and soul, wouldn’t you agree, Count Lecter?”

I am desperate, like a man in a desert searching for water. I want him to call me Hannibal the way the dying man desires an oasis. I can only nod. 

“I would rather be known for being loyal to my friends and constant in my faith. If I should be disfigured in battle, I would still be known for protecting those I hold dear.” 

And I am in love with him. 

Just like that, in a single breath, a finger snap. 

“You are very wise,” I say humbly. Humbled now and forever. I am his servant until I breathe my last. Love like this, so fierce and sudden, I think, is for young people unburdened by the cares of leadership. How in the name of God am I affected so? 

I reach out and take his hand in one of mine. I raise it to my lips, slowly enough that he could pull away if he wished, my grip steady but soft enough for escape. 

He does not resist, simply watches me with those sapphire eyes, as I bring up his hand and kiss it reverently. 

Before I can let go, he has taken my hand in his, bringing it up to his chest. I inhale a silent but pointed breath when he spreads my palm against the side of his neck, holding it there with his hands, and leans his head to absorb my fingers against the soft, warm flesh there. “Your hand is cold,” he explains. 

There is no part of my body that is cold. I am all fire from head to toe, bones and all. His throat is impossibly soft, the skin smoother than the silk of his costume. With him is the scent of spiced wine and the hint of blossoms. He exudes the sweetness of a young person's warmth pitted against the cool evening and the essence of the melting snow. 

"Count Lecter!" My host commands my attention. He is drunk and feeling generous. Now is the time to refine the details of our trade arrangement. Yet I feel a flare of annoyance — even anger — at being interrupted. Iliya steps away, dropping my hand, and smiles his goodbye as Albescu slings his arm around my neck and pulls me back into the throng. 

Three short weeks I remain as the boyar's guest, and every day I find a way to see him. And he finds a way to see me, hanging about the hall, pretending to flirt with the chambermaids, waiting for me to pass by. He exchanges seats at supper, so we are across from one another. And now, at the training ground, he is inexplicably practicing throwing daggers at targets when I come to see Lord Albescu’s men and gauge their fitness to protect our merchants on the proposed trade route. He rarely misses the center of the bullseye.

Before we break for the midday meal, the boy interrupts his uncle, bordering on rudeness, as if he can't help himself. Iliya challenges me to spar, his eyes alight, cheeks that immaculate shade of pink, daring me to refuse.

I do not refuse. 

I am crushed beneath the excess of pleasure. He is a formidable opponent, and I am punished for underestimating him. We fight with wooden weapons in front of the gathered men, fight until we are panting and sweating, until the Devil takes hold and I tackle him just to bring our bodies together, chest to chest, lips inches apart. I cannot resist the desire to hold him down. 

He's fast, and he manages to get out from under me. I emit a laugh of disbelief as he holds the sword's dull edge against my neck. The onlookers cheer for him, shocked as well to have this young thing, ten years my junior, get the best of me. As if I wasn't at his mercy from the first moment I saw him. 

I've always prided myself on my control, on my measure and my piousness, but after our contest, everyone in the keep and the surrounding village knows that I wish to court him. There is nothing to be done but ask his uncle's permission. 

It is not advantageous to our trade talks, but I'm left without a choice. He has something I want. 

I receive Lord Albescu’s blessing, though he is cautious. Curious. "I understand the boy is fetching, but he has very little to offer in the way of a dowry."

"That doesn't concern me," I say, even though Mischa and I were planning strategic unions for both of us that would increase the wealth and power of my fiefdom. All those plans have unraveled, at least where I am concerned. 

I simply do not care. 

Lord Albescu asks, "Aren't you concerned with issue?"

"My sister Mischa will continue the line," I say. Even now, the church is relaxing requirements for succession for same-sex couples, allowing property and title to pass to adopted children. The thought is far away in my mind. I wouldn't want to share him with a child. There will be time enough for all of that later. 

"Very well," he agrees, stroking his beard. "If Iliya is willing, you are welcome to him. I wish you every happiness, and luck with the sharper side of his tongue." 

I have the required blessings. Now, to win him. 

I invite Iliya to hunt with me, though as part of a group. I don't trust myself alone with him, and having a righteous marriage is important to me. His uncle places us next to one another at meals. At last, I dance with him, and he blushes, stammering his compliments, speechless at last. We talk for hours, candidly now, about losing our childhoods, about God, the universe, art, philosophy – and earthly matters, of course, food and wine and life’s little joys. He continues to impress me with his intellect, surpassing even Mischa in his abilities, attuning his education with a high degree of empathy that allows him to see people and ideas from angles I had never considered. He is my heart’s beam and my life’s treasure. Iliya is the first thing on my mind when I wake, and the last image I see before I sleep. 

The time of my visit is at an end. It is the evening before my departure, and my heart aches at the thought of him being four days' ride from me when I return to Castle Lecter. But I understand it is too soon to take him with me. I know, in the bowels of my soul, that it is not a passing fancy, not a base infatuation, but others might perceive it as such, and we each have our names to uphold. We will wait. We will write, and we will visit again at Christmastime. I will need to speak to my advisers. There are financial considerations for this courtship that must be accounted for, the least of which is paying messengers to cross the mountains time and again. 

Besides, I would be remiss if I did not ask for my sister’s blessing as well. She is as much Count Lecter as I am. 

Now we are in the garden, hand in hand, a pair of sturdy men close by should I attempt to carry him off. I understand the precaution, but still feel a tiny needling at the thought that some would consider me capable of treating my beloved with anything other than the utmost respect. Of course, I long for carnal pleasures, but I am a man of God, and I would not besmirch our names. 

That is not to say I haven’t dreamed of it. Every night I am tormented by images of what I might see and touch on our wedding night – the smooth skin of his taut belly, the milkiness of his thighs, the soft curly hair on his legs that mark him as a man. It is a sweet torment.

“I know you have to leave tomorrow,” he says, taking both of my hands in his own and bowing his head, showing me his crown of oaken curls. “I only wish you wouldn’t.”

“Patience,” I say, as if I had any of my own. 

“Hannibal,” he asks softly, “you… do you truly want… me?”

I’m taken aback. “Haven’t I made that clear?” 

Overhead, the clouds tear open. A thick spring rain begins to fall, and we duck beneath a leafy bower studded with blossoms. I brush a droplet of water from beneath his eye, and then wonder if it was a tear. 

“And you won’t, ah… leave me?” he asks, though haltingly, as if he is afraid to give the words his breath. 

“If ever I leave these lands, I’ll take you with me,” I vow. 

“I love you,” he says, and then blanches, as if it slipped out without his meaning to. 

Chaperones be damned. I cannot bear the next six months if I do not taste those lips. I rest my hand on the side of his face, fingers curled into his hair, and I kiss him. 

Every bit of breath leaves my body, and I am drowning in his sweet taste, his arduous return of my affection, his sudden and desperate embrace. 

Thunder booms and the rain falls harder now. I can hear the men calling us inside. He smiles against my mouth and we part, though I keep his hand in mine. We run through the rain to find shelter from the storm. 

Chapter Text

After a span of centuries, existence has its own monotony. I have spent my years protecting the village, as well as learning, reading, thinking, writing, composing, growing ever more prepared for something, I know not what. I’d thought it had been for our leaving of my homeland, the lofty goal that kept us afloat over the decades. While I will never forget the past, it has become an underground river, ever flowing and seeping up through the soil of my soul, yet out of sight. I have done all these things, and there have been small islands of feeling, the very occasional discernible emotion. 

Antony. Bedelia. Meeting Avigeya and learning her secret. 

But this – seeing this man – Iliya and yet not Iliya, cannot be Iliya and yet is Iliya – plunges me headfirst into the dark waters of the river that no longer runs beneath the earth but erupts from it in a great torrent. Memories that I had refused to let myself relive come with this geyser, this earth-shaking eruption. I am submerged in the past, and I see it all again – my first sweet days with Iliya, captured somehow in immaculate detail. To say ‘perfect’ would not do this vision justice. It is like I have, at last, conquered the secret of traveling through time, a power I have long sought. 

But in the wake of our first kiss, I am returned to my body.

No time has passed on this plane of existence.

Antony and Bedelia are looking at me. The solicitor wearing Iliya’s face is looking at me, and I cannot bear it. 

I lash out with the dark powers that dwell within my mind, using far more force than I likely need to. I mesmerize him where he stands and compel him by exerting the requisite pressure on his brain and essence. 

DO NOT SEE ME.

DO NOT SEE ME, I command. 

And, as if the night had not brought a proper assortment of horrors, I feel something very different about his mind. Something I cannot describe in this heightened moment, cannot name, cannot fathom. I have never felt this kind of mental presence in a human before. 

It is almost like he is pushing back against me.

But only for a moment. The struggle must sap the last of his strength, because his eyes roll up, showing their bloodshot whites, and his knees buckle. Antony catches him before he can hit the floor, lifting him into his arms as if the solicitor weighs nothing.  

I flee.

In a blink I am at the library windows, shoving open the casement; it is a miracle it doesn’t break. I plunge headfirst out into the cold, snowy night, transforming just before I would smash into the jagged embankment below. And now I fly on leathery wings, soaring through the flecks of white, up, up, as high as I can possibly go before wheeling and diving, gliding down in a tight spiral, buffeted by freezing winds. 

Inches from the snow in a forest clearing I transform again, stretching my limbs as I run, howling along through the frosty landscape. My pack answers my howls, but I ignore them, leaping over fallen trees, sliding through the snow, on and on through the darkness until my senses return to me. 

I am grounded by the animal instinct of my wolf form when I discover the scent of blood and despair. I change course and come upon a man and a woman huddled against an outcropping of rock, wrapped in their cloaks. They have tools for digging with them, the remains of a fire smoldering in the snow. 

I know why they are here. The local people believe that the blue flames in the forest on this particular night of the year will lead to treasure. They are, in some ways, correct — though the treasure they would recover is only of value to me. Year after year, I use my unearthly power and my knowledge of alchemy to conjure those flames. I have yet to find what I am searching for.

These treasure hunters have met with misfortune. The man has a broken leg, a bone erupting through the skin. The woman has made a makeshift splint and is, I assume, waiting for the night to end and the weather to pass before attempting to save him.

Neither of them will be saved. 

God is beyond measure in wanton malice, and matchless in his irony, and at times, he gives me exactly what I need when I need it in the same way he cruelly took and arbitrarily destroyed all I once held dear. 

I call to my pack, sending my invisible influence through the snowy woods, a creeping shadow from my mind. They respond immediately to my summoning. In the meantime, I circle these humans’ makeshift camp site, my eyes burning through the dark, menacing them with growls and snarls that no doubt make their blood run cold. This is not necessary. It does nothing to improve the flavor of the meat, but I do it because I want to. It alleviates some of the panic and sorrow, the pain of feeling after so many years of numbness. God does the same thing, I’m sure. Suffering as a distraction for one’s own suffering. 

When the pack arrives, I move in, latching my jaws around the woman’s arm. I tear her away from her companion, who is screaming, reaching for her. He can do nothing but watch, crippled as he is. And I want him to see. 

See. 

I let go of her arm only to bury my teeth in her throat. Her blood rushes into my mouth and I drink it down even as I rend and tear at her flesh. Her screams die, and then she does. I snap up chunks of her flesh until she is nearly decapitated, the vertebra exposed. Her companion wails. His keening is answered by my pack as they reach the clearing. As I finish gorging myself, they circle the other human. He shouts and lashes out at them, but in time, his grief, the cold, and his injury make him weak. My wolves hold him down by his clothing and his broken leg. Others of the pack lay on him in a furry pile to keep him warm until my family arrives to collect him. The woods echo with his sobs and unanswered questions. 

It is unfortunate his suffering will have to be prolonged. The man has the fortitude not to beg God for mercy. Typically, I reward that kind of behavior with a quick and painless death.

Sated, thinking clearly again, or as clearly as I can, I tell the white wolf to fetch Chiyoh to this place. She will know what to do with our prey. 

Then, I transform once more and fly back in through the library window. 

Bedelia is waiting for me on one of the velvet couches, a book in her lap, skirt spread like a swath of midnight. 

“You’ve eaten,” she says as I withdraw a handkerchief from my pocket and use it to clean my mouth. 

“Treasure hunters in the woods,” I explain.

She regards me for a long, cool moment, then closes her book and gets to her feet. 

“Is he…” I cannot bring myself to say it. My instinct is to think that God could never be so cruel as to give me Iliya back and then immediately take him again, but I know better. He is. 

“Our visitor is alive,” she tells me, stepping closer. I can smell the rose water she washes with. “He’s sleeping. When he wakes, there will be food and drink available.”

“Thank you. Please tell Antony the same.”

She arches a golden eyebrow. “You won’t be joining us for dinner?”

I sink into a chair near the dead fireplace. I cannot fathom being in the same room as this English solicitor that looks so much like Iliya. Is Iliya. 

“Your reaction is understandable,” she says, stepping behind the chair to put her hands on my shoulders. There is no warmth in them, and they are as unyielding as stone. “Mr. Graham does resemble the painting, certainly.”

“You never saw him,” I say softly. “I would know him anywhere. They are identical, Bedelia.” Even as I say this, pieces of my vision return, and I compare them to the brief glimpse of Mr. Graham I saw before I fled. They are not identical. Iliya never lived to be as old as I presume Mr. Graham to be. We were only given seven short years together. Mr. Graham has circles under his eyes and an unhealthy complexion typical of humans who have lived too long in the cities that spew black smoke day and night. His expression carries a world-weariness I never saw in Iliya’s face. Other things: Iliya had a mole on his neck just below his left ear this stranger does not have, and a scar across the back of his hand that I did not see. 

These are all things, my mind argues, that vary according to lifestyle and location. All things being equal, he is my husband, my lost love. 

How is it possible? 

Many would ask the same question of me. How can Hannibal Lecter control the minds of humans, transform into a wolf or a bat, live hundreds of years past the natural life span? There are many shades of miracles. The ones I can conjure are pitch black. 

“Hannibal,” Bedelia says, her tone dangerously gentle, a layer of silk draped over thorns. “There is a resemblance. That is all. You may recall that a resemblance is what invited Antony into our lives.”

I bristle. Though she is far from incorrect. 

Much of the reason why I granted Bedelia du Maurier immortality is because of her gift of insight into my own psyche, asking the necessary questions and pointing out the patterns that I somehow fail to see. I know she provides wise counsel; that fact does not prevent me, however, from resenting her for it. “I’m aware,” I say icily, closing the window as the snowflakes swirl in, threatening the drawings I have scattered on my desk. 

The year was 1817. I had been in a low mood for several years, barely finding the strength or desire to hunt, to care for the village. And who should arrive at my door, but a poet on a journey of self-discovery. And by self-discovery, Antony really meant hiding from his numerous creditors in several countries. But he had seen the world, understood modernity, and in the dark, with one’s eyes half-closed, he did remind me of Iliya. 

Now he hates this place, has nothing but contempt for Bedelia and Chiyoh, and barely tolerates me, which is fair enough, as I quickly lost any interest after promising him an undying love affair. He doesn’t know how many times I’ve stood over his sleeping body in the crypt, considering cutting off his head. Once, I even brought a battle ax with me, half-rusted, but the blade freshly sharpened. 

I didn’t do it, because I deserve whatever slings and arrows Antony hurls my way. I made him what he is for blinded, selfish reasons and whatever misery he brings to our house is my doing. 

Besides that, once in a great while, he softens toward me. He will write a poem, and we engage in intercourse in the way as creatures of our ilk prefer. It often leaves me feeling emptier than before, but I never resist him. Resenting him eats up time, helps the days pass, gives Chiyoh and Bedelia something to talk about. 

“Are you going to speak with Will Graham tonight?” Bedelia wants to know. 

“I can’t face him again.” I blurt my response, I, who do not hesitate to wait a full night or a lunar month to consider my words before speaking. I have nothing but time. Again, the anxious claws in my heart — I haven’t felt this much in so very long. The intensity of my reaction is terrifying. 

“You realize,” Bedelia says, the silk thinner and the thorns sharper now, “that all of our hopes rest with you and this solicitor. If the grand experiment is to be successful, we need this agent to finalize the deeds. Paving our way to freedom.” She pauses, and the silence is just as sharp as her eyes are now, boring into mine. “I want to see Paris again. So does Antony. And we will show it to you.”

Lies. Once the two of them know how to travel with the earth of my homeland they will leave me. Chiyoh will always walk at my side, but I know Antony and Bedelia desire their freedom. But I cannot let them go. Not now, while I am confronted with this man who looks like Iliya.

“Hannibal.” My name as a warning. 

“I need time.” I never anticipated having to beg for this again. 

She rises, hands clasped. “We will see to him until you’ve composed yourself. I suppose another day is meaningless after all these years of waiting.”

“Bedelia.”

She pauses before she reaches the library door and looks back at me.

“I promised you freedom. I always keep my promises.”

She absorbs these words, then leaves without acknowledging them. I listen to her go, and then sit at the harpsichord, drawing out a fresh sheet of paper and readying my ink and pen. A composition is all I can think of to help me metabolize this experience. 

As I play, I hear my pack in the distance, their howls forming a perfect harmony to my song. The notes pour out of me as I attempt to digest what has just happened. He is Iliya. He is not Iliya. He is Iliya. No one will ever be Iliya. 

The wolves’ accompaniment forces me to smile through this exquisite and unexpected pain. 

Listen to them. The children of the night. What music they make!

Chapter Text

Somewhere, far away, he heard a harpsichord. It faded, the notes fleeing into the darkness. Will opened his eyes.

He didn’t know this place. A great stone hall with wooden tables, some pushed aside to create room for dancing. 

Dancing. He was dancing with a girl with dark hair. Not Alana. He didn’t recognize her, yet he knew her. Both things existed simultaneously. Another woman with a walking stick sat to the side, tapping out the time against the stone floor. “One, two, three, four!” she counted as Will and the girl moved toward one another and then apart. He missed the moment he was supposed to clasp her hand and stopped with a sigh, rubbing his hair with frustrated fingers. 

“You’re getting better,” the girl promised. “Let’s try again.”

“Part of the problem, I think, is that you don’t want to dance with Marissa,” the woman with the stick observed from her chair. 

“That’s true enough,” Will said, and the girl – Marissa – shoved his shoulder in mock-indignation. 

 “You’re the one with lead feet,” she accused. 

“But if you hope to impress your handsome count, you’d better get this right,” the woman with the walking stick warned him. 

Will went to her and took her smooth, dark hand. “Dance with me, Reba,” he begged through a smile as Marissa giggled behind him. “I can’t stand her; she smells like the goats.”

“Bastard!” Marissa yelled through a peal of laughter. 

“Again,” Reba ordered, though she was smiling as well. “You have no sense of rhythm.”

“It’s my partner,” he insisted, grinning, arms crossed over the wide-sleeved blouse and vest he wore that was damp with the sweat of his exertions. 

“May I cut in?” 

Will turned at the sound of the male voice that brought a shiver up his spine, not in pleasant anticipation, but true fear. 

Abel Gideon stood over the body of Marissa. He’d somehow eviscerated her in the span of a few moments, tossing her intestines over her shoulder. He’d carved off the lower half of her face, exposing her teeth and jawbone. Will was locked in the chains of his horror, unable to move as Gideon came closer. Will could smell the blood smeared all over him, coppery and hot, and his eyes darted from Gideon’s gaze to the crimson-stained surgical knife in his hand. 

“May I have this dance, Inspector?” 

Will shied away as Gideon approached, but the Ripper indicated Reba with the knife. The message was clear. Will knew what he had to do if he wanted to save Reba’s life. He let Gideon fold him into his arms, staining Will’s shirt with Marissa’s blood. Gideon put the hand with the knife against the small of Will’s back, and took the other in his stained palm, the blood already tacky and drying. They began to waltz, Will struggling against his instinctive revulsion of the Ripper touching him like this. 

“Don’t pretend you don’t like it,” Gideon chuckled. “Though I suppose this is a little bit like self-abuse. Since I am me, and you are me – a part of you, at least.” 

“I’m nothing like you,” Will rasped, rage filling his veins with fire. 

“Taking a life is taking a life, from the smallest fly to the largest whore.” As they danced, they tracked through Marissa’s blood, making intricate patterns on the floor in their footprints. “You’re prettier than when I saw you last, Inspector Graham. Looking a bit less… world-weary.”

Will jerked his head back as Gideon came in for a kiss, a hiss of disgust slipping through his lips. The Ripper just laughed. “What’s this lovely glow? You’re positively radiant. In love, maybe?”

He couldn’t take it anymore. Will tried to squirm away, but the hand holding the knife pressed the blade against his ribs, slicing through the cloth of his shirt until it bit into his skin. He cried out, feeling blood running down into the waistline of his trousers. 

“No reason to learn to dance,” Gideon said with an apologetic shrug as he released Will, who sank to his knees, holding his wound. “Nobody’s ever going to love you. Sweet Miss Bloom certainly doesn’t. People like you and me… that kind of thing isn’t for us.”

“I’m… not… like you!” Will snarled, stumbling to his feet. 

Somehow, the revolver was in his hand. He pointed it at Gideon and pulled the trigger.

There was a hand on his shoulder. Will instinctively lifted one of his own and shoved it away from him, sitting up and crawling back a foot or two as he gasped in a breath.

There was a girl sitting on the edge of his bed. She was young, maybe twenty if she was a day, with freckles and long auburn hair tied back in a braid. She was dressed in a simple brown frock with an apron pinned over it. Her clear eyes were wide, and her little mouth hung open in an expression of shock. 

Will’s mind reeled, trying to right itself like a listing ship desperate to come to port. He was in a bed. The room around him was unfamiliar but well-appointed, the stone walls half-covered with wood paneling, hung with paintings and tapestries. The latticed windows showed the vigorous light of afternoon and revealed the thick mahogany bedposts, intricately carved, hung with red curtains. A fire burned merrily in the large hearth. 

The dream he’d just awakened from wove with the events of the previous night – the ride with the sentinel, the blue flame in the woods, the wolves, waiting on the doorstep of Castle Lecter. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes with a few hasty swipes. When he dropped his hands back to the bed, the girl was still there. The room was still there. 

She looked a little bit like the dancing partner from the dream. The one Abel Gideon eviscerated. But they weren’t the same. He felt sick, sweat breaking out over his forehead. “Who are you?” he blurted in English. “What– what happened?”

“Ty v bezopasnosti,” she said. Will just stared at her, his mind trying to translate. Was that Russian? “Esti in siguranta,” she tried instead.

He focused on breathing. There appeared to be no immediate danger. The girl reached out and patted his hand gingerly. He nodded, trying to let her know he understood the gesture, at least. “Avigeya,” she said, motioning to herself. 

“Avigeya?” He knew the name was Russian. “Abigail?” He offered the original Hebrew.

“Da, da!” she said with a smile, then pointed a finger at his chest, raising her eyebrows.

“Will,” he said, putting a hand against his sternum, which he just realized was bare. He felt color climb up and blaze over his cheeks, furtively checking beneath the quilts and blankets piled on top of him. He was wearing his underwear, at least. 

She smiled and slid off the bed to retrieve a thickly quilted maroon dressing gown, handing it to him. Will pulled it gratefully over his shoulders as she went to the door, raising her finger in a universal signal of I’ll be right back.

Will slowly got out of bed, finding a pair of furred boots on the rug next to it. He slipped his feet in and stood up, keeping a hand on the bedpost. His legs were weak and standing up made him lightheaded. He wandered over to the window and slipped the latch, pushing it open a couple of inches. Below was the courtyard of Castle Lecter, seeming very, very different in the daylight. Where there was once a grand entrance to the castle now lived a garden, likely for kitchen needs, and a handful of mismatched animals – a white duck, chickens, a herd of cats laying in patches of sun, and a squirrel with no tail sitting on a half-collapsed wall. The afternoon air was much warmer than last night’s, and a fair breeze blew. It still carried the cool wetness of snow, but also a promise of spring. 

He shivered, despite its mellowness, and shut the casement just as the girl opened the door again. She had a tray in her arms that she set at a small table near the fireplace and invited him to sit. 

The food was simple – porridge, tea, milk, a few dried berries he couldn’t identify – but it smelled like life itself. “Thank you,” he said with a respectful inclination of his head. 

She nodded in return and left. He thought about calling after her, trying to ask her what had happened the previous evening, but from what he could tell, she didn’t speak any of the languages he knew. Besides, he was famished – painfully so, he realized. Food and tea improved his situation by leaps and bounds. 

When he finished, Will found that his clothes were hung up in the thickly carved armoire, clean and ironed, a patch applied, even, where the elbow of his jacket had worn thin. His satchel and traveling bag were there as well, everything in its place and undisturbed. 

The sun was warm, and his body felt rejuvenated after eating and sleeping. The comfort, however, did not extend to the fact that he had no memory of going to bed. Nothing beyond arriving at the door of the castle. The more he thought about it, the further away the memory seemed to slip. He recalled vague outlines – a man in an outdated frock coat, the beautiful but severe blonde woman in the blue gown and… 

A headache began behind his eyes. He persisted through it, trying to remember. Getting out his journal, he quickly wrote down what he remembered with an investigator’s care for detail. Everything from when the woman known as the sentinel came to fetch him from the coach up until he opened the door. 

The harder he tried to remember, the worse his head hurt. At last, he gave up and crawled back into bed after pulling the thick red and gold-tasseled drapes shut to block out the light that pierced into his eyes. He slept again, this time without any dreams. 

He woke to a brushing sound. Someone was standing near the armoire, running a garment brush over Will’s jacket with brisk, practiced strokes. Will sat up, rubbing his face, and saw the man who had been dressed like Lord Byron the night before, and was again, now, brushing Will’s jacket. 

He glanced up with a haughty little smile that Will didn’t like. “Good evening, Mr. Graham,” he said. “Your presence has been requested for dinner.”

Will narrowed his eyes, tilting his head a few degrees left. “You’re not, uhm… Count Lecter?”

“Me? No.” The stranger scoffed out a sardonic laugh as he brushed. “I’m a prisoner here, Mr. Graham, the same as you are.”

“What?” Will growled, pushing the blankets back to get out of bed. Luckily, he was still wearing the dressing gown that Avigeya had given him. 

The man chuckled. “Forgive me. By ‘prisoner’ I meant ‘houseguest.’ I’ve been told I have a flair for the dramatic.” He replaced the jacket in the wardrobe and regarded Will with eyes that held no warmth whatsoever, the humor cruel instead. “Let me be the first to officially welcome you to Castle Lecter. You’ve come freely enough. Go safely; and leave something of the happiness you bring. Count Lecter let me read all the correspondence from your superior, Mr. Brauner. He writes very highly of you, Mr. Graham – he says you are a man of good taste.” He gave Will a deliberate once-over and let the tip of his tongue touch his lower lip, which appeared simultaneously threatening and licentious. 

“You can introduce yourself any time now,” Will said, flinging aside the manners Prudence Bloom had cultivated in him – etiquette learnt through any means necessary, including corporal punishment, though she thought it beneath her station to administer it herself, leaving it to Old Beau instead. 

“Antony Dimmond.”

Will ignored the outstretched hand and pushed the curtains he’d closed earlier back to their original places. Night had fallen, and it was a different view entirely. The pointed shadows, deeper than three dimensions, were back, and the moonlight played nasty tricks on the courtyard below, erasing Will’s fleeting memory of how it looked in the sun. From somewhere outside, a wolf howled. 

“Your accent’s south western,” Will said, turning back to Dimmond and folding his arms. “Swindon?”

Antony’s brows shot up in surprise. “That’s right.”

“What are you doing in Transylvania?”

“You’re a curious sort of real estate solicitor.” Antony took a few steps towards Will. “Your tongue’s from London, isn’t it? But it’s a bit… muddled.”

“I was born in America,” Will admitted. “Came over when I was, ah… five or six.” 

“A colonist. How droll.” Antony, apparently, also enjoyed flinging aside decorum. He stepped even closer, forcing Will to look up — Dimmond was four or five inches taller. “Feeling better? You were weak as a kitten when you arrived. Made it as far as the foyer and collapsed. I had to carry you here like a child up past his bedtime.”

Will gave Antony a once-over of his own, lip curling in thinly disguised disdain. “Must be stronger than you look.” 

This, for some reason, tickled Antony immensely, because he tilted his head back and laughed, great ringing peals finding all the hard corners of the room and echoing there. “I am,” he said after a time. 

Something in his eyes gleamed in a way that made Will exceedingly uncomfortable. In heightened moments like this, he could barely control the empathy pulse, and something in his mind kicked the pendulum into motion, insisting he was in mortal danger. He trembled slightly beneath the thick dressing gown as he felt Antony’s ill-will press against his consciousness. Jealousy, it felt like. Why? They’d just met. 

Jealousy and… hunger. 

Antony closed the space even further. Will had to force himself not to back down or react when Antony took Will’s chin in his fingers, tilting it up an inch or so as if to examine his features more carefully. His hands were ice cold, the flesh hard and unyielding though smooth on the surface. “You do look like him,” he murmured as Will gave in and jerked his face out of Antony’s grip. 

“Like whom?”

Antony sighed and shook his head with a wry twist of his mouth. “Nobody. Get dressed, if you please. Or wear the robe, it’s up to you. I’ll be in the hall to escort you down.” 

With that, he left, shutting the door behind with a rude little slam. 

Will ignored the suggestion that he stay in his underclothes and the dressing gown and instead put his trousers, boots, shirt, and jacket back on. He did his best to fix his tie and his collar, not an easy feat. There were no mirrors in the room. 

He joined Antony in the hall, and was led down an old stone staircase, lit only by the three-pronged candelabra Antony carried with him. They went along a dark hall and then descended again into the foyer with the massive doors where Will had entered initially. The sight of it brought back a twinge of his headache, but the pain went away when Antony led him through another large set of doors to a warm and well-lit dining room, home to a long table, an enormous fireplace full of crackling logs, and forest-green walls decorated with intricately painted hunting scenes. 

The table was set at one end for three, though the middle seat at the head of the table was the only spot with a plate. Will’s stomach made a little whine at the smell of food, which was likely hidden beneath the array of covered dishes. 

The striking woman with golden hair stood behind one of the chairs with her tiny hand resting on the back slat; she looked up when they entered, offering only the ghost of a smile. Her gown tonight was green instead, and of an older, square-necked style that showed more than a little of her décolletage. There was something about her that reminded Will of the sentinel, a kind of hardness to her mouth that resisted any hint of gentle femininity. 

She only put her hand in his for the briefest moment as Antony introduced them, his tone borderline begrudging. “Mr. William Graham, may I present Ms. Bedelia du Maurier.” 

A murmur of pleasantries, and then she was studying him with the same canny curiosity that had glinted across Antony’s face when he’d grabbed Will’s chin for a careful look at his features. She held his eye contact until Antony pulled out her chair for her and assisted pushing it back in as she gathered the train of her gown. When she was settled, the men took their seats. 

“Count Lecter will see you after dinner,” Bedelia informed him, lifting a decanter of wine herself to pour into his glass. There was no sign of the girl, Avigeya, and no other domestics in sight, which Will found strange, but it was hard enough to get good help in London, let alone in this lonely place. “He sends his regrets and hopes you can exercise patience.” She shot Antony a look, her eyes glimmering in the light thrown from the fire and the gleaming candelabras that lined the table. He heaved a sigh and got up to uncover the dishes and serve portions of roast chicken, salad, cheese, potatoes, and robust bread onto Will’s plate. 

“It’s late,” Antony said by way of explanation. “The staff is… unavailable at this hour.”

“There’s so much,” Will said, looking at the spread. “Are you sure the two of you…”

“We dined earlier this evening,” Bedelia explained, raising her own wine glass to her lips for a tiny sip. Her English was just as good as Antony’s and his own, native speakers, though he detected a French undercurrent. “You slept for a long time. I trust you are feeling refreshed?”

Will nodded, turning back to the plate that called to him. He tried to eat slowly, but again, he was ravenous, as if simply being here in this strange place, with these half-mad people, suffering through his dreams, was depleting his body’s energy. “Should I, uhm… address you as Countess Lecter?” he directed this question at Bedelia. 

Antony laughed, hearty and mean. “As if he’d ever make an honest woman out of her. Or me, for that matter.”

Will chewed, watching the two of them stare daggers at one another. “Where are you from, Ms. Du Maurier?” 

“Paris. I… was raised in Paris.” She said it through a thin, wistful smile. “Have you ever been, Mr. Graham?”

He nodded. The Blooms had taken him there on the family holiday while Edward was still alive, though Will spent much of the time with his tutor being further educated instead of spending time with his adopted family. It’d always been like that – the clear separation. They’d called him Alana’s brother but never treated him like one. Was it a surprise that he didn’t think of her in a pure, sisterly way? “I saw the museums and places of, uhm… historical import,” he said. “I liked the Brittany coast better.”

She looked half-offended, which made Antony smirk again. 

“Count Lecter keeps an… international house,” Will noted, bringing his glass old Tokay to his lips. It was cold and cloyingly sweet. “England, France, the Russian girl…”

“He’s a great collector of strays, Count Lecter,” Antony said, playing with the stem of his wine glass. “I’m sure you’ll make a fine addition.”

Bedelia gave him another warning glance. Those less practiced at reading expressions, those without Will’s ambient pulse, would have missed it. She buried it skillfully in a sort of doting look of tolerance. 

“I won’t be here long,” Will said, almost as a kind of apology for the disruption in their lives, as strange as the situation seemed to be. 

“Hurrying home to a sweetheart, are we?” Antony suggested.

Will immediately, reflexively thought of Alana. As if he could explain something like that to this haughty man that seemed to resent his very existence. “Something like that, yes,” he lied. 

“‘Something like that!’ There you have it, Bedelia.” Antony raised his glass in a kind of salute and took a small sip. 

“Are you finished, Mr. Graham?” Bedelia asked, eyeing his bare plate. 

“Don’t be shy, man, there’s plenty more.”

“I am, thank you.” Will directed this at Bedelia only. 

“I’ll show you to the library.” Bedelia rose and Will copied the motion, following her at a respectful distance as not to step on the train of her gown that whispered over the ancient, well-worn stones beneath their feet. She took him back up to his room to collect his satchel, then returned to the central stair, turning right this time. They passed several small doors until they reached another, arched at the top and quite large, that was open a few feet. Light and warmth flowed from within. 

Bedelia pushed the door the rest of the way open and bade Will enter with an elegant gesture of her hand. 

Again, Will was folded to the bosom of an otherworldly feeling, though this time he didn’t mind at all. The room was two stories high, the interior, Will surmised, of the octagonal tower he’d seen from the courtyard. There were numerous arched windows along one wall, latticed, but with clear glass, showing off nothing but darkness now. Bookshelves hugged along the curved walls, and a ladder provided access to a second level of more storage via a wooden balcony. For a private collection, the sheer number of books was extremely impressive. 

One area was set up with a table, perhaps to spread out maps or periodicals, but it was dark at the moment. All light shone from the space around the fireplace that sported an enormous, mounted elk head above it, the antlers making pointed shadows on the walls. This space enjoyed a thick red and gold rug and richly upholstered furniture: a lounge, two chairs at the fireside, a harpsichord, a large globe, a sideboard with decanters of liquor, and a sturdy writing desk with a chair. Everything was lit with candelabras or, at last, oil lamps, and glowed invitingly. 

Will tracked a man’s head peeking over the back of one of the fireplace’s chairs. It moved, turning to the side as if noticing them, and Count Lecter stood to greet them. 

Will’s first instinct was to fall into utter madness. The world narrowed, and in Will’s mind the shadows grew, forming a kind of tunnel where he stood at one end, and Count Lecter at the other, as if they were the only two people in the room. 

In the world. 

His presence weighed on Will, clung to him, binding to his ambient pulse, which reared up inside of him, trying desperately to get a foothold, to understand what he was seeing and feeling in relation to what Count Lecter saw and felt, aching for his point of view. It made his head spin, and he felt sweat prickle along his hairline. 

All this with a kind of awful, cascading déjà vu.

He knew this man.

This man was a complete stranger. 

Both things true at once. Both realities valid. 

“May I present Mr. Graham.” Bedelia’s voice was a far-away echo, but her hand on the small of his back was so cold he could feel the iciness radiating through his clothing. It dragged him back into himself, though he didn’t come quietly. Will blinked rapidly and bit the inside of his lip, trying to wrestle himself back into clarity, shaking off the swirling questions. What was this place? Who are these people? Am I awake, or is this a dream? Am I losing my bloody mind?

“Mr. Graham. Welcome to my home.” All at once the Count was right in front of him, nodding out a little bow of recognition. He deliberately did not offer a hand, and so Will didn’t either. “Thank you, Bedelia.”

Bedelia fixed Count Lecter with a long look, her face very pale and very blank. Then she turned and left with a whisper of her gown, shutting the door behind her. 

“Please.” Count Lecter extended a hand toward the chairs by the fire. Will tore his gaze away and moved to sit, settling into the chair and placing his satchel at his side. “A drink, Mr. Graham? Plum brandy to warm you?” 

God, his voice – English perfect, softly accented... Will knew his voice like he knew Alana’s. But that was impossible. 

So was seeing Abel Gideon and his victims while he was awake, not to mention in his gruesomely detailed dreams. 

“No, thank you,” he heard himself say. “It’s, uhm… important to keep a clear head. For business.”

“Indeed.” Count Lecter took a seat in the chair next to his, angled so that they faced one another and the fire before them, which was bright, warm and comforting. “Thank you for making such a long journey. It must have been arduous – you were depleted when you arrived.”

“I’m sorry I, uhm… passed out on your doorstep,” Will said, not meeting Count Lecter’s eyes and instead digging through his satchel. “I didn’t mean to be a burden on your household.”

“Not at all. I’m glad you’ve recovered enough to discuss our business.” Count Lecter reached out with a long, pale hand and accepted the sealed letter that Will had found in his papers and now offered him. “From Mr. Brauner, I presume?”

Will nodded and watched him open it. While Count Lecter read, Will had a chance to really study him, using all the skills he’d learned as a bobby and an inspector for noticing and cataloging detail. The Count wore dark trousers and a blue high-necked coat with cloth-covered buttons. His hair was brushed back, though several strands hung forward, resting against the tight angle of his cheekbone. Will clocked his age as somewhere in the later part of his forties, though his skin overall was smooth, yet pale, as if he spent very little time outdoors. Clean shaven, with faint brows, and dark eyes that, when side-lit by the fire, carried a glint of auburn. 

The mouth. That particular feature ignited something in Will he didn’t expect, and found his face growing hot. He tried to tell himself it was his proximity to such a large fire. The lips were proud, firmly noble, but also carried a slightly darker blush that, against the pale skin, was undeniably sensual. Wickedly so. Will looked away, down at his hands, clasping them tightly over his folded knee. 

Of all the things to find here, at the apotheosis of his journey. Count Lecter — his physical form, at least — made Will feel like a boy harboring an inappropriate attraction to his schoolmaster. There was no denying it, so he might as well say its name and let it be — Count Lecter was a distractingly attractive man. 

There, he thought. You’ve let yourself think about it, now let it go. Let’s keep it professional.

Count Lecter read Mr. Brauner’s letter gravely. Then, with a charming smile, handed it to Will to read. Will unfolded it and skimmed through the descriptions of the properties and the legal advice, pausing on one paragraph. 

I must regret that an attack of gout, from which malady I am a constant sufferer, forbids absolutely any traveling on my part for some time to come; but I am happy to say I can send a sufficient substitute, one in whom I have every possible confidence. While he began his professional career in a different trade entirely, I believe the skills he brought to the Metropolitan Police and refined through his work as an inspector have made him a unique asset to my firm, especially in your case. As a former bobby, he knows the city like the back of his hand. Mr. Graham is full of energy and talent in his own way, and of a very faithful disposition. He is discreet and silent and displays a keen intellect and memory. He shall be ready to attend on you when you will during his stay and shall take your instructions in all matters.

Will handed back the letter. Count Lecter stood and took it over to the broad expanse of his writing desk. “You know London well,” he said, gathering up a few pencil drawings and sliding them into a drawer, leaving the surface bare. “I was told you have a recently-drawn map.”

“Yes.” Will removed a wooden tube from his satchel and brought it over to the desk. He unfurled a map from within and watched Count Lecter place a series of glass paperweights in the corners to keep it smooth. “It’s yours to keep, if you want to make any notes or marks on it.”

“You’ve no need for it.” Count Lecter paused to smile at Will, and it caught him, tripped him up. “You know your city, or so Mr. Brauner says. If you would be so kind as to show me the locations of the properties.” 

Will pointed out each one in turn, the houses in the various districts of London and the mansion and grounds at Purfleet. Count Lecter murmured a few comments but seemed suddenly distracted in the moments after Will leaned a little closer to him to point at a bridge on the map. He caught the inhale of breath and turned just in time to see the flare of the Count’s nostrils. 

He was at once indignant and embarrassed, stepping away and mentally biting his lip to keep his mouth shut before the words erupted. Did you just SMELL me?

The count was actively not looking at Will, focused on the map instead. But the little pulsing muscle in his jaw did not escape Will’s attention, his eyes attuned to micro expressions by instinct. It was the kind of noticing that saved one’s life as a bobby. 

He spoke just to say something. “Why ten houses in all these different neighborhoods? Are you, uhm… speculating? Raising the market value?”

Count Lecter did not answer. Instead, he went to the window and gazed out over his dominion. Will came closer as if summoned, looking over his shoulder. The window afforded an uninterrupted vista of the mountains, or their outlines against the star-strewn sky. Below them was the expanse of castle wall, and then a sheer drop. A tar-black river snaked along the bottom, its surface shimmering with the half-moon. 

Will felt an instant churn of vertigo and turned away with a small sound of distress. 

He knew that river the same way he knew Count Lecter. Pieces of his dream came back, and he could feel himself falling and falling and falling. 

A hand on his arm brought him around. It was steady and strong, unyielding in the way the Sentinel’s had been. Will started, his eyes flying open. He was clutching the side of the desk, half-leaned over the map of London, sweating and breathing hard. Count Lecter was at his side, brows knitted in concern. Close enough for Will to smell him, now, a kind of Byzantine perfume that was part incense, part wood smoke on a cold day, part amber. Beneath it all, the scent of deep earth and streams fed by mountain runoff. 

“You’re unwell.” This was a statement, not a question. 

“I’m fine,” Will managed, straightening at the waist and passing his sleeve over his damp forehead. “I’m… I might have c-caught something, uhm… during the trip.” 

“Then you should not travel until you’re well again.” Against all sense of decorum, Count Lecter was closer to him now, and Will was trapped between him and the desk, unable to move without making it very clear he was trying to avoid contact. The hand on his arm felt heavy and significant, even through the layers of clothing. 

“I-it could be the elevation,” Will stammered, feeling himself slipping into Count Lecter’s vast, dark gaze, marveling at the sudden size of his pupils. The vertigo had been replaced by a liquid feeling that pooled in his midsection and agitated his humors. This close, and he wanted… 

…to be closer. To close the gap entirely. 

They stood silent for what felt like a long while, Count Lecter still holding his arm above the elbow. There seemed to be a strange stillness over everything; but as just as Will thought he couldn’t stand it anymore, he heard, as if from down below in the valley, the howling of many wolves. “Sometimes, I think they sing,” Count Lecter said softly, still staring Will directly in the eyes, not something he normally let people do for more than the amount of time decorum required. “Do you think they harmonize?” 

“I-I, uh… I don’t know much about music,” he said, mouth suddenly so dry he found it difficult to speak. Yet his lips and tongue wouldn’t stop. “I was trained to sing. For Mr. and Mrs. Bloom. My, uhm… my benefactors…”

“I play the harpsichord,” Count Lecter said. “Perhaps a duet. When you’re feeling more like yourself.” 

I don’t know what that feels like. Not anymore. 

“You saw wolves when you came here.” Once again, not a question. “Did they frighten you?”

Will was monstrously aware that another half-inch of space between them had disappeared. He tried with all his might not to look at Count Lecter’s mouth, and succeeded. A small victory, probably meaningless. “No,” he lied. 

Count Lecter’s lips quirked a smile. Will interpreted it easily. He knew it wasn’t the truth. “You dwellers of the city cannot enter into the feelings of the hunter.” The hand on his arm was no longer steadying him, no longer there out of concern that he might pass out again. Will could feel its intention pulsing through his arm and up, blazing along his veins until his heartbeat had drawn it through every part of his body, especially his–

“I’m not from the city,” he blurted quickly with a little shake of his head. “I was born in a swamp and-and I… I remember that I loved it. I, uhm… like you said, I don’t hunt, but… I fish.”

“One you stalk,” Count Lecter said, his voice slipping like silk between them. “The other you lure.”

“But it’s the same in the end,” Will said, mirroring Count Lecter’s cadence without meaning to, a by-product of the ambient pulse. “You eat.”

“The feast is life,” Count Lecter said. 

Closer. 

“Eat it and live.”

Oh God, Will thought.

Count Lecter seemed to check himself. He backed away from Will in increments and released his arm. “But you must be tired. Tomorrow you shall sleep as late as you wish. Avigeya will see to your needs.”

Will swallowed hard, nodding. “Thank you,” he said reflexively, turning away at last to gather up his satchel. 

“I have to be away until the afternoon; so, sleep well and dream well.” Will hadn’t heard Count Lecter move, but he was somehow at the door, holding it open. “I trust you can find you way back to your chamber?”

Will nodded and looked down as he passed Count Lecter, stepping out into the hallway. “Goodnight,” he muttered, hurrying away with his satchel tucked under his arm. 

Soon, he was back in bed after having built up the fire. He laced his hands over his midsection and stared up at the damask canopy, all in a sea of wonders. Will doubted. He feared. His mind fed him strange, marvelous, distressing things. One of which he was deeply aware of but could not confess to his own soul. For the first time in years, he closed his eyes and prayed. 

Chapter Text

Will pulled back the hammer on his revolver. He pressed the cold metal of the barrel against his forehead for a moment and considered. He didn’t have to open that door. It could all end now.

Inside, over the sound of his trembling breaths and racing heart, he could hear the wet squelching of a knife sawing through flesh, the sick grind as it hit bone. 

Will kicked the door open.

Abel Gideon looked up from where he was carving off a section of Mary Kelly’s face. 

Mary Jane Kelly, Will’s informant. And, in a desperate gambit, his bait. 

He hadn’t gotten here fast enough. It was too late for Mary and it was all his fault.

Gideon must have known she was working with Scotland Yard. Why else would he create such a tableau, emptying Mary of all her internal organs and slicing so much flesh from her bones? Stripping her face to its skull? Will knew in that moment, through the panicked roar of his ambient pulse, what Gideon meant by that. I saw her for who she was, not the face she presented. She wasn’t a sex worker – she was a plant, your undercover agent, and she trusted you to keep her safe. What a terrible mistake this young lady made.

Abel Gideon turned from his work, the knife in his hand, smiling through that damned little laugh, a coyly rueful chuckle. Oh dear, you caught me. I’ve been naughty, haven’t I?

Will raised the gun.

But it wasn’t his revolver anymore. It was an alpine dagger, an antiquated thing, but beautiful, with a gleaming blade and smooth wooden handle accented with hammered gold. Will had never seen it before, but somehow, he knew the weapon was his. It felt like a part of him where he held it with a firm but mobile grip. 

Instead of pulling the trigger on the revolver, Will cocked his arm in a motion that felt totally alien but was simultaneously part of his muscle memory. The dagger flew from his fingers and lodged directly in Abel Gideon’s neck. 

Gideon dropped his own knife, wavering on his feet, and lifted a hand to close around the hilt of the dagger that stuck out of his neck. He pulled it free; it came out with a sucking sound and a torrent of blood. “Dangerous little thing aren’t you?” he gurgled, sinking to his knees, his blood mingling with the stains on his clothing from Mary’s slaying. 

Will pulled a second dagger from somewhere on his person and strode forward to kick Gideon in the chest. He fell back against the bed and flopped to the floor, face up, a hand pressed over the hole in his neck. Will skittered Gideon’s surgical knife away from his grasping fingers, then knelt on him, straddling his hips, feeling blood both warm and cooling soak into his trouser knees. 

“This is how it feels,” he murmured, raising the dagger. He brought it down in Gideon’s abdomen, carving open his midsection and reaching in with his free hand to grasp at his intestines, drawing them out in great bloody lengths. Gideon watched him in silent horror until, in the end, he smiled. The light faded from his eyes. 

Panting, Will got to his feet, slicked with perspiration and blood. Gazing down on what he’d done, he felt a wave of righteousness saturate him, flooding his core. He floated there, the coppery scent of blood surrounding him, in a sweet and easy peace that made him wonder if it was the same for babies nestled in the waters of the womb. 

He was suddenly aware of a footstep behind him. Will turned, and noticed Count Lecter standing in the doorway, looking decidedly different from how Will had seen him before. He was in a half-untied doublet, a bruise on his cheek and one eyebrow split, leaking blood, a similarly stained sword in his hand. He also appeared younger, his hair maple brown, face unlined beneath a little stubble, the flesh even more taut and smooth than when Will had first seen him. 

The look on Count Lecter’s face was one of complete shock. It was evident in his stunned expression that he hadn’t known what Will was capable of.

Will felt his heart fold in on itself, crushing down into a crumpled, deflated thing. What have I done? How dare I delight in such wickedness? Thou shalt not kill! 

He’s going to leave me…!

“Hannibal,” was all he could manage, barely a whisper, as the dagger slipped from his bloody hand and clanged to the floor.

All at once, Hannibal smiled, a bright and loving beam. Dropping his own weapon, he opened his arms, and Will rushed into them, breath whooshing from his lungs as Count Lecter wrapped him in a tight embrace that was crushing in its relief. “My clever, vicious boy,” he murmured through a disbelieving chuckle, words tickling against the side of Will’s sweat and blood-dampened hair. “You were magnificent.”

Will pulled back to look at him, hot tears running down his face, cutting lines in the sticky smear of blood that lingered on his cheek. “It’s beautiful,” he admitted through a smile of his own as Count Lecter thumbed away a tear, then leaned in to kiss him. 

There was blood on Will’s lips and they both tasted it, sharing the metallic bitterness between their mouths. Feverish now, grasping one another with greedy hands, bodies tangled together. Will was hard within moments as Count Lecter cupped his backside in a possessive grip, pulling at his hair to tip his head back and kiss his throat, dragging his tongue over a crimson spray. “Am I not… damned to Hell for enjoying it?” Will panted through the rising tide of desire. “Killing is supposed to be the ugliest thing in the world…”

“Darling,” Count Lecter breathed against his neck, tickling the shadow of his kiss. “When we die, wherever you go, I will follow, even if I follow you into Hell.” 

When Will opened his eyes to try and unlace Count Lecter’s doublet further to touch more of his body, they were no longer in Mary Kelly’s drab room, but back in the castle. They stood in front of a thick door decorated with an intricate carving of the Tree of Life. Will reached out and grasped the knob, trying to pull it open so they could go in, Count Lecter’s arms circling him from behind now, the outlined desire evident against Will’s curves, urging him to hurry. 

The door wouldn’t open. 

“Will,” Count Lecter breathed against the back of his neck. 

“Will. Will!”

He kept pulling at the door. It was locked.

“WILL! Vstavay!”

Will let go of the door handle and dropped his hand to his side. Shaking his head, he re-focused his eyes. There was the Tree of Life, but the door had somehow changed in the blink of an eye, transforming from a gleaming, carved masterpiece to old, weathered, cracked, and dusty. 

He turned to see the girl, Avigeya, tugging on his other hand, her face a smear of concern. “I’m all right,” he said, not really knowing if he was telling the truth or not. 

She let go of his hand and he dragged his forearm over his perspiring forehead. He was soaked in sweat, his white night shirt clinging to him, transparent in ways it shouldn’t be where it stretched across his chest. He inhaled a trembling breath, passing his hands over his body. He didn’t think he was hurt, at least. His feet felt like ice, spread bare over the cold stones of the castle floor. 

He didn’t know where he was in Castle Lecter, or how he’d gotten there. 

Avigeya reached up and put her cool, dry hand on his forehead, then the backs of her fingers against his cheek. “Poydemte,” she said, taking his hand again. He let her lead him back through a few dark, unused hallways. He noted there were two sets of footprints in the dust here, one bare, and one shod. His and Avigeya’s. Otherwise, the dust was undisturbed. This must be the unsafe wing of the castle, the one he’d noted was crumbling in some places. 

They emerged into the kitchen through a door with rusted hinges that Avigeya used all her weight to close behind them. The space was rustic, its tools rudimentary, to be sure, but it smelled like fresh bread and rosemary. Avigeya made him sit down at the small table near the fireplace and poured him a cup of tea, rushing upstairs after to bring him the dressing gown from the hook by his bed. 

He slid it on and sank back into the chair, picking up the teacup. “I’m all right,” he repeated as she hovered over him. “It was just a dream. Sleep walking, do you understand? Asleep, but, uhm… walking around. It happens to people sometimes. Stress, and a different bed…”

If it was a dream, how had his mind known what the door to the west wing looked like? 

Will steered his mind far away from what he’d seen in his reverie. He was glad for the dressing gown, as it hid any evidence of his stubborn, slow-to-fade arousal. 

Avigeya seemed to be scolding him and went on for a time in her native language, pausing only to pull a few rolls of bread out of the oven before returning to his side. Somewhere in the chatter, he heard ‘Lecter’ but couldn’t understand what she meant. “Stop,” he ordered sourly after she continued to fuss over him, touching his forehead and cheeks again. 

She understood that well enough. With a huffed sigh, she served him breakfast, right there on the humble table, though she used the table service he’d seen at dinner with Ms. Du Maurier and Antony Dimmond – beautifully wrought, and immensely valuable. It was strange, Will thought, as he forced down porridge and more tea, that Avigeya was the only domestic he’d encountered thus far, considering the evidence of wealth all around the castle. The curtains and the upholstery of the chairs and sofas and the hangings of his bed were of the costliest and most beautiful fabrics and must have been of fabulous value when they were made. They were centuries old, from what he could tell, though in excellent condition. Will had seen something like them in Hampton Court, but there they were worn and frayed and moth-eaten. 

 At last, he finished eating. Avigeya cleared up the table with a pouty little curve to her mouth, not looking at him. “I’m sorry,” he said as he got up, tying the dressing gown more tightly around himself. “I didn’t mean… thank you. For, uhm… for finding me and waking me up. I, uh… I wish you knew what I was saying.” He reached out and took her hand. She rolled her eyes, but then smiled and squeezed it before picking up a water pail and going out the kitchen door into a small courtyard and a well. 

Will returned to his room to find Avigeya had already been there to leave him some water and towels. She must have come with it and realized he wasn’t in bed, went looking for him. He needed a shave, but he’d yet to see any mirrors in the place. He’d have to make do with the little one he’d packed in his luggage. Then again, in such a wild place, with such unconventional company, a little stubble didn’t seem like it was worth doing much about. 

As he mechanically washed and dressed, Will let himself remember the dream, now that he was alone. It was unlike any dream he’d ever had, even during the Ripper case. Those dreams were pure nightmares, featuring Abel Gideon and his victims, Will sometimes taking on the perspective of the murderer or the woman being slaughtered. They were almost always based on real events, the dream simply replaying the results of his ambient pulse, his discoveries during his forays into the Ripper’s point of view in order to learn who he was and set the necessary trap. He must have killed Mary Kelly a dozen times in his nightmares, and been killed by Gideon a dozen more than that.

This… thing that had happened during his sleepwalking episode felt entirely different. Disturbing, how strong his feelings had been, his desire and his affection for the younger version of Count Lecter, the monumental connection he’d felt. The terror of Count Lecter seeing that he’d killed and enjoyed it, the thought that he might turn away from Will in disgust, was a thousand times more horrific than being Abel Gideon or his victim. It was ridiculous, but Will felt like if the dream version of Count Lecter hadn’t embraced his dark nature, celebrated it, Will would have died, not just in the dream, but in real life, struck down by a broken heart. The prodigious relief of being seen, cherished, even after revealing himself to be monstrous, was one of the most sublime things Will had ever felt. And it felt so real. 

To ground himself back in the tangible world, Will left his room again in search of… someone. Even Avigeya, it didn’t matter. He’d wash and hang clothes, man the iron, stir the soup, just to be with someone else. Will was usually very at home with solitude – the company of his dogs notwithstanding – and when Old Beau had died, he’d simply continued living alone in the cottage on Hillingham’s lands. Technically, he had rooms in the Bloom’s house, or he had, at one point, but he didn’t stay there. And no one complained. Foundling out of sight, out of mind. Thus, Avigeya would find him capable of almost all housework, since he’d never liked domestics in the cottage, either. 

Out in the courtyard, he found a man hugging a goat with all the gentle affection that one might use to embrace a child. 

This was something he had never seen, so Will paused to observe. The man was dressed in rustic peasant clothing but seemed well-cared-for. When Will approached and called out a greeting, the goat bleated miserably, then went rigid, collapsing into the man’s arms, legs splayed out as though the creature had been turned to stone.

The man’s head shot up to behold Will, his deep brown eyes ringed with tension. He had a strange scar on the side of his head where the hair no longer grew. The rest of it was wild and long. Will’s ambient pulse whirred, slicing over his vision for a few sweeps. 

“I’m sorry.” Will stopped his approach and held up his hands. He tried the apology in several languages. He only knew the most rudimentary phrases in Romanian, but that one seemed to make sense. The man nodded his forgiveness, stroking the goat as the creature unclenched its body and got up again. They watched it trot away over to a water trough to drink, scattering chickens in its wake. 

The man stood up and dusted off his trousers, then turned to Will with a benevolent nod. Will felt a sense of safety that exuded from the stranger, a deep well of kindness that flowed up from him like a natural spring. He held out his hand, and the man took it for a shake that was firmly friendly. “Will,” he introduced himself. That was twice now, in this strange place, that he had thrown decorum out the window regarding names. As if it mattered – these people couldn’t speak any of his languages, how did he expect them to say, “Mister Graham” or even William when they could just say “Will”? 

“Peter,” the man said in return. He put a hand on Will’s arm, a gentle touch, and beckoned him towards one of the arches in the courtyard, a tentative smile on his face. Will followed readily enough. The thick stone archway opened into another, smaller walled courtyard. Horse stables stood on one end, and on the other, something that might have been a garrison long ago. This is where Peter led him, opening an old wooden door to reveal a series of rooms where he apparently lived, along with a plethora of creatures, some in cages, others running underfoot. 

One by one, Peter showed him every animal from a mouse to an owl, from numerous cats to a fox missing an ear, a squirrel with no tail, and, his clear favorite, a half-grown deer that was entirely tame. Peter was Carpathian St. Francis, or a creature in a fairytale or a children’s story. Despite the prodigious number of animals, the space was relatively clean (there wasn’t much that could be done about the ducks; they couldn’t help where they excreted) and the creatures seemed happy and healthy enough. Will still didn’t understand what Peter was saying about each animal, but he understood the language of kindness and care. 

Will hoped his meaning was clear when he thanked Peter for showing him the menagerie. He should get back to the castle in case the Count was ready to talk about the finer points of the land purchases. On his way, he saw the woman with the dark hair and eyes that had driven him from the coach up through the Borgo Pass to the castle. She was brushing one of the coal-black horses with practiced, even strokes, murmuring to it as she went. She stopped when she caught sight of Will, slowly straightening her body and regarding him with her glittering, canny eyes, as if she expected him to do something… wrong. Sentinel indeed. 

Will tried a smile and raised a hand in greeting. She only stared, unblinking. 

“Damn,” he muttered, turning away and hurrying back to the castle. It was a shock, like going from a hot bath to plunging into a frozen lake, interacting with Peter and then…

Avigeya caught him and made him return to the kitchen to eat again. She had an English dictionary with her and tried to read him some words. They laughed at her attempts, and his attempts to answer in Romanian or Russian. It was enough to shake off the strangeness of seeing the sentinel, though the morning’s unconscious wandering was still hanging around Will’s shoulders, a heavy yoke. 

When they finished, Avigeya pointed to a word in the dictionary. “Library,” she said. 

“Biblioteka,” he said, and she smiled, nodding. 

“Go,” she urged, in English. 

He thanked her and went, wishing again for a mirror, if only to make sure he didn’t have food on his face. 

No. Be honest with yourself. You want to make an appearance for him, as much as you can. 

One wants to present a professional appearance for important clients, he argued against his own mind. 

Especially when those clients are distractingly handsome.

If he wasn’t careful, pieces of the dream were going to force their way back in, and that was the last thing he needed before this meeting. Will stepped into the library, where the afternoon light was steadily sinking, and added a log to the fire. He arranged his legal papers and studied them in detail, even though he knew them backwards and front. Anything to distract him from the growing feeling that Count Lecter was coming closer and closer, and would, within moments, walk through the door. 

I can’t wait to see him again.

The thought bubbled to the surface of its own stubborn volition, and Will cursed. It was blasphemy this time. 

Chapter Text

Castle Lecter has prepared for months for the solicitor’s arrival. There were mortal comforts to be seen to.

No. 

It is not the solicitor I await.

Yes, it is. Mister Graham comes from London.

Then why am I standing in the courtyard in the snow, surrounded by my household, my sister Mischa at my side?

My heart flowers, seeing her beside me, her long hair braided into a crown and decorated with holly leaves and red berries, wearing a gown for once, a fur cloak thrown over her shoulders. 

I miss you, I want to say, but that is not what comes out of my mouth. “Thank you for humoring me,” I say instead. “You look lovely.”

“I’ll find a way to make you return the favor,” she says with a little grin. “And not to worry. You look fetching enough that you might have a chance to claim him.” She turns back to the open gate. “Might,” she teases me. 

I’m dreaming a memory. I haven’t dreamed in decades. When I first became what I am, I suffered them nightly, twisted nightmares of Iliya and Mischa dying before me over and over, or sweet dreams that were even more painful upon waking, because reality was far crueler. I trained myself to recognize dreams over time and came to control them entirely. Once I could do so, I shut off the part of myself that allowed them at all. 

This is a dream, but it is also the past, and I cannot control a single thing. I am memory’s puppet. I have no choice but to comply, though I try and will myself to wake. This memory is beautiful but in waking from it, I anticipate torture.

At last, a company of sledges caravans into the courtyard, their gleaming runners gliding over the crystalline snow; some are pulled by shaggy horses, the others by teams of dogs. I have prepared words to say to welcome the entire assembly — the guards and attendants and drivers all – but they are forgotten in an instant. There, in the bare winter sun, is Iliya, throwing off the blankets and carpets he’d been snuggled under to stay warm, laughing as he desperately tries to free himself. Just as he manages to fling off his cloak and step out of the sledge, I am there, lifting him into my arms in an enormous embrace, uncaring where one of my hands cups his backside, the other clutching his chest against mine. I nuzzle into his neck and inhale deeply of his scent like a dying man’s last gasp of air. 

He’s pulling my hair now, tilting my head back to kiss me, and it is indecent, especially in front of his retinue and my entire household, including Father Davies. And yet, there is nothing said, only benevolent laughter peppered with chatter and greetings, the excited yipping of the dogs. 

At last, I release him, but just enough to put his feet back on the ground. I did not think it was possible, but he is more beautiful than when I left him at his uncle’s last May. May 25th, to be exact. I know all the days of import. May 25th was the first day I kissed him, and May 4th was the day we met for the first time. May 14 was when we sparred at the training ground. 

More beautiful. How? Hair a little longer, yes, curls cascading down the back of his head to brush the back of his high-necked collar. Just a little more man than boy since I’ve seen him last, perhaps that’s it.

Constance is a virtue that requires strength in the heart and soul.

And what is Iliya, if not constant? All summer long, through the harvest and into the winter, we have written back and forth to one another, lengthy letters dripping with longing. I sent him my sketches. They’ve grow progressively more sensual as time goes on. I cannot help but draw him and add my image as though I am there to visit. It began as a simple series of illustrations suggesting things we might do together when next we met – hunting, dancing, reading to one another. It evolved into something else, and I sincerely hope he’s able to read my messages alone. 

But more importantly, our knowledge and understanding of one another has only blossomed through our correspondence. I love him even more, with every corner of my heart, and seeing him after all our letters and the months of waiting has given me a new set of eyes to behold him with. And I cannot release him, not entirely. I keep my hand on him, though spread in the sweet but chaste place where his back bows in and let the other caress his cheek. His smile is warm enough to melt this deep snowpack of mountain winter that threatens all of us with the icy sting of crystals on the wind. 

Faintly I can hear Mischa saying the things I’d meant to say in welcome to the entire retinue, her own unadorned version of it anyway, and directs everyone to go about their business of stabling the horses and dogs and unloading the baggage. But now his arms are around my neck again and he’s hugging me close, planting intermittent kisses on my ear and cheek, lips warm against my winter-stung skin. 

At last, he relaxes back. We are momentarily sated. “My lord,” he says as a greeting, releasing me for a proper bow, though it is through another mischievous smile. 

“Your Excellency,” I reply, bowing in return, though not as low – I outrank him according to mortal man’s ridiculous ordering of human life. We are all equal in the eyes of God. 

We’re laughing now, like we’ve had too much wine or plum brandy, drunk on each other. 

“What do you think of the sledge?” He hoists himself into the bench furthest back and beckons me to sit next to him. 

“Fine indeed.” It seems new, painted apple-red with gold-leaf detail and intricate little stags prancing along from one side to the other. A reflection, I think, of my family crest. 

I am correct. “A gift for you,” he says as I settle in next to him, eyeing our chaperones, who are blowing into their hands and stamping their feet not far away. I wonder how distracted they are with the weather. “From my Uncle Albescu, in the spirit of the season and the continued friendship between our fiefdoms.” 

“It’s a fine sledge,” I say offhandedly, barely looking at it. The winter wind whistles through the courtyard and lifts his hair away from his forehead before letting it fall back down in a pile of curls. Pink cheeks, pink nose, God help me. “Come here, you’ll catch your death.” 

He throws a glance toward the men tasked with watching him and moves with the practiced quickness I saw him demonstrate when we sparred. Iliya slings a leg over mine and settles on my lap, one cold hand against my neck and the other sneaking around my back and traveling as low as it can before it’s stopped by the sledge seat. In a coordinated movement, I draw a thick blanket over us. Now we are in warm darkness, stealing what we can before we’re caught. 

I recline and he presses himself over me, finding my lips with his, my hands touching what they shouldn’t. I’m aware of my hypocrisy, that I simultaneously resent being chaperoned because I would never besmirch Iliya’s honor or the Lecter name, and that I am taking more than a Christian man should without a ring on his finger. 

God lends me no strength to resist him and I half-collapse in the seat with him clinging to me, kissing my neck, working his hand further down my chest as my glove kneads into his backside. The layers of clothing we wear between us to fight the cold are maddening. My body is responding, God help me – we must stop –

“God can see through a blanket, my sons!” Father Davies calls to us. 

“Damn,” Iliya curses in my ear with a rueful chuckle. 

“I missed you,” I say, “Terribly.” 

“Your drawings have given me so many ideas,” he whispers, sending a thrill and a fire through my body. “And dreams…”

I give him one more intensely illicit kiss, and we push the blanket back, letting the icy sun in once more. Where it was once dark, it is now blinding.

Where it was once dark, it is now blinding. 

Not blinding. I need a moment for my eyes to adjust. 

Chiyoh’s pale face reflects the light of the torch she bears. Her hand is on my shoulder where she leans over the edge of my stone sarcophagus, having pushed the lid aside enough to wake me. 

“The prisoner,” she says. 

I nod, and rise from my grave, taking a moment to brush the loose earth from my bare body. The earth was excavated from the catacombs beneath the chapel where we lie from dawn to late afternoon or evening, or, in Antony’s case, until the sun goes down again. He is particularly sensitive to light, or says he is. It’s also entirely possible that he’d rather lie in a tomb than see or speak to any of us. The feeling is often mutual. 

There is no reason to dress. This will be bloody work. I move through the catacombs to the deepest part of the crypt, where we excavated the dirt. Tucked in these recesses are the dusty bones of Lecters from long ago, some of the skeletons in a disarray, heaped in corners, mingling in untidy piles. The tunnels are carved into the earth, aided by ancient beams and stones. The room in the back is a kind of natural cave, water dripping from the ceiling. It is here where the surviving treasure-hunter is chained to the wall. 

Days ago, he understood that no one could hear him scream, and that he was given more food the quieter he remained. He does not speak and stares at me with owlish eyes as I enter. 

I understand why Chiyoh has awakened me. The broken leg is infected, despite our best efforts; I applied all my knowledge I’ve learned from the latest medical books and what Reba taught me long ago, but there is no recourse. Chiyoh has already prepared, bringing in a sturdy wooden chair and the medical tools I sent away for, delivered all the way from Belgium. Mail ordering has made life in the Carpathians much more convenient. She also has a large serving bowl in her hands, a piece of our fine tableware. 

This is a meal, after all.

He moans softly as Chiyoh lifts him, chains clattering, and arranges him in the chair, the good leg bent, the other stiffened out, swollen and discolored. She takes her place behind our prisoner and leans into him, resting her chin on his shoulder and locking his wrists against the arms of the chair with her own preternatural grip. He whimpers and shies away from what I assume is her cold, unnatural skin against the side of his sweating face. 

“Mr. Cazacu,” I say, kneeling at his side and placing the bowl beneath the thigh of his bad leg. “I apologize, we have no means of anesthesia. Anything I gave you would enter your blood and pass the effects on to my family and I. Chiyoh, your belt, perhaps?”

She lets him go for a moment to unbuckle it and slides it between the man’s teeth for him to bite on. It is then that he begins to weep, but silently, bloated tears pouring down his cheeks. 

“I’ll go as quickly as I can,” I promise as I tie a tourniquet around his leg three inches above the knee. I open the black medical bag and remove a pair of shears that I use to cut away his trousers, tossing the pieces to the side. “You’ll feel better when it’s gone. Chiyoh?”

She nods, and I can hear her whispering into his ear. He glances back at her and catches her gaze, and within moments, his face relaxes. He is safely mesmerized, but Chioyoh still holds him down in case his body reacts on instinct. 

I begin by slicing his skin with a scalpel, then switch out for the Caitlin knife to get through the muscle. This method should be effective; I’ve read many descriptions of field amputations from doctors tending the tides of wounded in the American Civil War. Now the bone saw. “You’re doing very well, Mr. Cazacu,” I compliment him. Even though Chiyoh is holding him down, he isn’t resisting — I think he may have lost consciousness. I hope not from exsanguination, though that will be his manner of death eventually. A glance up reveals he is awake, but still in the grip of Chioyh’s mesmerism. 

As I work, my mind clears, even as I can feel Chiyoh edge toward feral at the sight and smell of this much blood. Now that I’ve had a chance to digest her words, Bedelia is right. I have made mistakes in the past as a direct result of missing Iliya, worn down like a river stone under the current of grief. First and foremost, I need to know if Will Graham is somehow Iliya reincarnated and returned to me by God or fate. 

And Will Graham needs to know if he is my husband. Be absolutely sure of it, in fact. But convincing a mortal man who has grown up in this new age of science and reason that he is my love reborn is no small task.

And therein lies my quandary. For if I can ascertain his identity, and he also accepts it, there is the matter of my monstrousness. That I am a creature outside of the natural order of life, and that I sustain my unending existence through the blood of humankind. My curse, I always assumed, for renouncing God. Though if I had died that day in the chapel, I never would have seen Iliya live again, never would have met Will Graham. 

I don’t pretend to understand God’s mysterious ways. They aren’t mysterious so much as whimsical and cruel, his motivations purely selfish, rooted in his own entertainment and ego. Why else would he collapse the edifice of a church on a praying congregation, as he did only two years ago in Budapest?

Regardless, I don’t know what Will Graham will do when he understands what I’ve become. If it is his love I want, I will have to be very careful in how I reveal my nature – or my supernature – to him. 

No mesmerism, if it can be avoided.

If he is Iliya, I want him to love me for what I am, not in spite of it. 

I want him to see me. Know me. Not just the man I was when I was alive, but the thing I’ve become. I want to be entirely embraced. 

God owes me this much, not that He gives a damn.

I finish tying off the arteries with horsehair. Now, I sew the flap of skin I saved over the glistening stump. Good as new. I bandage him up and lift the discarded leg from the floor. Chiyoh brings out another dish, smaller, and I hang the leg from a hook in the ceiling, placing the dish beneath to ensure that not one drop of blood is wasted. 

Chiyoh places the man on his straw pallet and arranges him as comfortably as possible. Now he may have morphine, and I give him a dose, showing Chiyoh how to inject him and give her instructions on how much and when. I hope she is truly listening. I can see hunger glistening in her eyes.

At last, I say, “Drink.”

She lifts the bowl to her lips, the one we positioned beneath the leg during the amputation to catch all the blood that spilled during the procedure. Drinks, long and deep. 

“Easy, girl.” I turn to see Antony leaning against the stones at the entrance to this cell. “Save some for the rest of us.” 

“If you want the reward, you should put in your share of the work,” Chiyoh replies, handing me the bowl and wiping her lips with the back of her hand. 

“She’s right,” Antony says through a chuckle even as Bedelia glides in to drink her share. Chiyoh nods to her – they’ve been taking turns caring for our prisoner, his demonic nurses. “But do you really want to risk it, pet? It won’t do to have me skulking around the castle on an empty stomach. With so many precious humans about.” He takes a step forward, eyeing me. “Some more precious than others, it seems.” 

“That,” I say, pointing to the smaller bowl where the hanging leg’s blood is slowly dripping, “is yours. Patience is a virtue.”

“If only you’d shown a little,” Antony muses, strolling over to the amputated leg and watching the blood drip down into the bowl. “Just imagine, if you’d waited long enough you wouldn’t have needed me at all. I could have lived a life of travel, continued my poetic career–”

“The word ‘continue’,” Bedelia says, “implies that it began in the first place.”

“Forgive me, Bedelia – how dare I speak in the presence of someone who was so successful in her chosen profession – selling her husband to Robespierre and whoring when the money ran out.” 

“Enough.” I nod to the women. Chiyoh picks up the fuller bowl and offers it to Bedelia, who drinks. I can hear her fangs unsheathing themselves in her mouth, though there is no neck to pierce. 

“Of course. It’s terribly rude to argue in front of the food, isn’t it?”

I pick Antony up by the throat and slam him into the stone wall, wafting down small pebbles and a sift of dirt. “Yes,” I say, calm as you please as I squeeze the flesh of his neck with my iron hand. “It is.” 

And then I drop him. He lands in a heap, hacking out coughs where I half-crushed his windpipe. I go back through the crypt and up the rough, uneven stone stairs to the dusty, neglected chapel. I keep some of my clothing and effects on the altar that once held the blood and body of Christ. The crucifix is long gone – burnt to ashes. This is no longer a holy place. This is where I was baptized to darkness. 

I finish dressing, washing myself with a bowl of water and a cloth and brushing my hair. Bedelia emerges from the crypt, a little blood on the corner of her mouth, and helps adjust my collar and sweeps grave dust from my jacket. 

“Antony may do something rash,” she says.

“I’m aware,” I say. 

“I want to tell you before he does,” Bedelia says, running her hand down my arm. “Because he will reveal it to you at the worst possible time, when it hurts the most.”

“What is it?” I tire of this. Will Graham is waiting for me. 

“Chiyoh found the box beneath the blue flame,” she says. “We didn’t want to tell you after what happened when you saw Mr. Graham walk through the door.” She pauses. “We don’t want any kind of delay. The freedom you promised.” 

My pulse pounds in my temples. I’ve eaten enough recently to have a pulse, which is a blessing as it also encourages pretending to breathe. “‘There is a resemblance. That is all.’” I repeat her own words back to her. “Yet the day of his arrival coincides with the day I first laid eyes on Iliya. And, after years of searching, we happen to find the box.”

“Correlation does not make causation.” Her mouth has turned ugly. “I only want you to be careful. Keep our goal in mind.” 

I turn to leave. 

“You promised, Hannibal,” she calls after me, a dead thing’s voice echoing in this profane place. “You’ve told us many times that you always keep your promises.” 

I slip through the chapel doors and enter the castle. Will Graham is waiting. 

Chapter Text

The library was spectacular. 

Will grew restless while he waited, thinking too hard about the Count, and allowed himself to explore both storeys of the vast collection. There were books in numerous languages, from Latin to Romanian to Russian to what Will thought might be Japanese. Whole shelves dedicated to the output of British Isles, including somewhat-recent magazines and newspapers. “Damn,” Will muttered as he flipped through a massive stack of Punch, easily finding the cartoons published during the Ripper case mocking Scotland Yard’s inability to find the killer. Will felt lucky that he didn’t see any copies of the London Evening Standard, which had featured whole pages devoted to Winifred Lounds and her scandalous reporting of the investigation, along with her pen-and-ink drawings. 

Though those drawings could, he thought, explain why Count Lecter looked at him almost as though he recognized Will from somewhere. 

Lounds’ illustrations, however, did not account for why Will felt like he’d seen Count Lecter somewhere before. Which was completely impossible; the man had lived his whole life in the Carpathians and Will would remember someone as distinctive looking. 

Striking, if we’re being honest, his mind muttered. 

He left Punch and continued to peruse. The books were of the most varied kind – history, geography, politics, political economy, botany, geology, law – all relating to England and English life and customs and manners. There were even such books of reference as the London Directory, the “Red” and “Blue” books, Whitaker’s Almanac, the Army and Navy Lists and – it somehow gladdened Will’s heart to see it – the Law List. Count Lecter was a meticulous man, it seemed, preparing in every way possible to emigrate. 

Will left the English section, running his fingers over the spines of another set of volumes. While some corners of the room were dusty and laced with cobwebs, the books themselves were lovingly taken care of. It must take Avigeya a considerable part of her day to keep it clean. 

He paused his hand over a copy of Sir Richard Burton’s translation of A Thousand and One Arabian Nights. Flipping through it, Will suddenly closed the book with an awkward half-laugh. This was definitely not a sanctioned version of the text, as it was interspersed with illustrations depicting the sexual escapades of the characters. Detailed illustrations. In fact, the book’s text seemed like a smokescreen for someone wanting to own a collection of erotic art. 

Some of the pairings weren’t even featured in the stories. One illustration showed what appeared to be a mighty king and a young prince…? 

Will had seen plenty when he’d worked in Whitechapel, and he’d had some rudimentary experiences with Neal, but these pictures were… something else. The fantasy element only served to make them more alluring. 

“How do you even…” he muttered, turning the book sideways to try and understand how the prince could stand that way and still have the king be able to–

“Good evening, Mr. Graham.”

Will dropped the book. It landed with a thud on the library floor. He tried to keep his face blank as he bent to retrieve it and quickly slide it back onto the shelf. 

“Forgive me. I startled you.” The Count wore a dark blue high-necked jacket tonight, similar to what he’d worn the last time Will had seen him, but tonight he had a dark red cape fixed to his shoulders with a gold pin shaped like a stag’s head. Count Lecter looked like a character from a poem half-lost to time, his eyes and features otherworldly and coldly noble. 

Will could only nod in reply as the count came closer, examining the books that Will had shown an interest in. “I’m glad you’ve found your way in here. I’m sure there is much that will interest you. These companions–” he rested his hand on the bookshelf, his fingers an inch from A Thousand and One Arabian Nights, “have been good friends to me, and for some years past. I take it you noticed my Anglophilic collection.” 

Will nodded again, his throat dry. He realized it was rude to do so, but he avoided the Count’s dark eyes that seemed to catch each little gleam of light and reflect it back out. “I’ve been adding to that particular section of the library for some years, ever since I had the idea of going to London.” He paused, glancing at the spines of the books. Directly, Will thought, at that damned copy of Burton’s translation with the ungodly pictures. “They have given me many, many hours of pleasure.”

“It’s, uhm… wise to, ah… have a strong background in the culture before you arrive,” Will said, daring to look at the Count’s face again. “Immigrants are expected to meld to the English way of life.”

The count’s head inclined a few degrees. “Do you speak from experience?”

“I was a child when I came,” Will deflected. “I’ve never, uhm… really known anything else.” 

“You remember America,” Count Lecter said. Was it Will’s imagination, or had he moved closer? “You told me last we spoke.’ 

Will flailed mentally, attempting to shift the subject away from himself once more. “Based on your research,” he said, “D-do you think you’ll be happy there? In London, I mean?”

“I long to go through the crowded streets. To be in the midst of the whirl and rush of humanity, to share its life, its change, its death, and all that makes it what it is.” 

“It’s certainly different from… here. But if you’re still… prepared to make the journey, we should, uhm… discuss your purchases.” Will nodded toward the desk, where he’d spread out the map again, and arranged all the paperwork. 

The count feinted, avoiding the matters of business by saying, “May I ask you something, Mr. Graham?”

Will nodded, repressing the urge to take a step back. Or forward. Anything to break this unspeakable tension. 

“What do you think of my tongue?”

Will’s mind went white, a mental landscape like the Carpathians in the snow, swirling with flakes, the jagged spires of the mountain’s gray shapes in the background, the wind whistling forlornly between them. “Your… tongue?” He involuntarily glanced at the Count’s proud mouth, memorizing the curve of his lips, the little half-smile. 

“Is that not the word?” The count considered, tapping his finger against the bookshelf next to them where he rested his hand. “I’ve learned English through books, mostly. I know the grammar and the words, but not the correct flow of conversation, the turns of phrase. I would lose my accent.”

“Don’t,” Will said before he could stop himself. “I mean… who we are is… reflected in the way we speak. I, uh, I understand the desire to want to fit in, but you don’t want to… be someone else.” 

“Is that why you refuse to completely transform your tongue?” Count Lecter asked it innocently enough, but Will couldn’t help thinking about the wet muscle in his mouth. In their mouths. God, he’d almost forgotten the last person he’d kissed was Alana, and their lips had opened for only the briefest moments. “Every so often, I hear a more Americanized pronunciation when you speak. I assume it is purposeful.”

He’d never told anyone that. Of course, Will could mimic accents – he only needed to use his empathy pulse. He’d spent more than enough time living in London to learn how to blend his voice seamlessly. But part of him… didn’t want to. If the Blooms never let them forget he was born in America, then he would never let anyone forget it. 

It was a matter of pride that he hadn’t fully examined before this moment.

“You’re… insightful. To say the least,” Will admitted. He wanted desperately to leave the bookshelf and get down to signing the documents so they could talk about something less personal, but he couldn’t break away. 

Couldn’t? Wouldn’t…?

“You speak excellently,” he said when Count Lecter didn’t respond, just studied him with his uncanny eyes. “I wouldn’t be worried about being understood. Besides, uhm… you could practice with Mr. Dimmond. And Ms. Du Maurier seems… fluent, uh, also.”

“For practicality’s sake, I have availed myself of their conversation,” Count Lecter said. Will inhaled a little more deeply than he needed to, just to get a lungful of his scent, rich and ancient and almost cloying with incense-like smoky sweetness. “We’ve resided here together for many years, and one does struggle to find new topics to explore. That is why I’m so pleased you’re here.”

“Oh,” Will nodded, not sure what to say. 

“When I move and speak in London, I will be an obvious stranger. That is not enough for me. Here, I am a count, a nobleman; the local people know me. But a stranger in a strange land, he is no one; men know him not – and to know not is to care not for; I hope I am not rude for saying so.”

Will thought immediately of Londoners’ willingness to believe that Jack the Ripper was a Jew in the early days of the investigation. The count was right; the population in general was suspicious of the Other. “I don’t find it rude,” Will said. “I find it honest.” 

“My hope is that you might fulfill many roles during your stay,” the Count continued. “Not just as an agent of my friend Leonard Brauner of Exeter, to tell me about my new estate in London, but also to help me learn the English intonation. I’d like you to let me know if I make the smallest error in either pronunciation or manners.”

Will nodded again, looking away a moment before resuming eye contact. 

“Please.” The count waved a hand toward the desk and Will gratefully led the way back over to the map and the documents. 

They went over some more of the deeds and contracts and discussed the various properties, consulting the map as needed, navigating the terms of the mortgages and the way the payments would work. Will threw himself into the legal management side of his brain and could almost pretend this was a normal client on a normal day if he didn’t stand too close to the count. He was still talking about Piccadilly when Count Lecter moved away from the map and stoked the fire, then settled in one of the large chairs with a bottle of the typical Romanian plum brandy and two glasses on a table close by. The afternoon had gone long, and the shadows crept ever longer.

“Come and join me, Mr. Graham,” the count invited. Will had no choice but to obey, settling in the chair angled towards him, warm by the fireside. Just then, there was a soft knock on the library door. The count called out in Romanian, and the door opened. Avigeya stooped to lift the tray she’d set on the ground to manage the knob and entered, offering them each a smile, though the one she gave Count Lecter was far warmer and more affectionate. “Your supper,” Count Lecter announced as Avigeya set down the tray on another table on the other side of Will’s chair, then moved it so that Will could use it to eat from where he sat. “Forgive me if I do not join you; I ate heartily before I came.”

“Thank you. Uh, spasibo,” Will attempted, hoping his pronunciation wasn’t atrocious. 

“Vsegda pozhaluysta,” she said, dipping a little curtsey. Count Lecter switched the language and spoke to her briefly in Romanian, and Avigeya withdrew. 

“I apologize for being unable to meet with you earlier in the day. I had important affairs in hand. Please know that if I am ever delayed again, you are more than welcome to use this room to your heart’s content.”

“Thank you,” Will said earnestly as he opened his satchel for writing materials, only to see that Count Lecter had them out on the desk already. He set the bag down awkwardly again, then tried a smile that felt pinched over his face. “It’s, uh… it’s nice… in here. Impressive collection.”

“You may go anywhere you wish in the castle, except where the doors are locked. There are sections that are structurally unsafe. Particularly the west wing. The halls beyond the door engraved with the Tree of Life are most unsafe. I believe you visited the door earlier in the day.” 

Will grimaced, watching the count pour him a glass of the plum brandy. He bolted it down before answering. “Avigeya told you.”

“Somnambulism,” Count Lecter said, motioning him to eat. Will lifted the cover from his plate and found what smelled like a venison roast with root vegetables with a creamy sauce seasoned with the ever-present paprika. He took the suggestion, but with care. He was used to bolting quick meals when working for Scotland Yard as a bobby and an investigator, and in this new life, as he poured over law books, studying for his accreditation. Now he called upon Prudence Bloom’s lessons regarding table manners that he’d locked away in his memory. “Has it happened to you before?” Count Lecter wanted to know.

Will nodded, swallowing a piece of meat. “It’s been a long time. Over five years.” 

“Not so long,” Count Lecter said, “in the grand scheme. Sleepwalking is a twilight state where you are neither fully awake nor fully unconscious. One might surmise that in such a place, without societal expectations or the change in behavior that results from being observed, one could express more truth. You strike me as a man that is seeking to reach his full potential. Perhaps that potential is best explored in the twilight state.” 

“I’ll, uhm, drag a chair in front of my bedroom door tonight,” Will promised. “That should keep me from… wandering around.” 

“It was outside of your control.” Count Lecter poured them each another drink. “Why do you feel shame?”

Will almost choked on his food and took a large swig of brandy to wash it down. “I wasn’t aware of what I was… wearing. Or not wearing…” 

“I can assure you the girl was in no way scandalized.”

“I was,” Will countered. 

Count Lecter hummed. “So much energy expended on modesty, when every one of us inhabits a body of one kind or another. The thought should unite man instead of instilling a sense of sin.”

Will thought immediately of the book with the racy illustrations and felt himself blushing. He concentrated on eating, and while the food was good, it sat like lead in his stomach. “Something you’ll have to get used to in London,” he said after a time. 

“We are in Transylvania, and Transylvania is not England,” Count Lecter noted, lifting his brandy to his lips and inhaling its scent. The flames of the fire reflected in his eyes in such a way that they appeared to glow a deep maroon. A sharp shadow cast by his cheekbone hit Will right in the gut. “Our ways are not your ways, and I suppose, to you, there will be many strange things for you here.”

Will’s tongue stole out to touch his bottom lip. He put his silverware down and turned himself more fully toward the count. “Since you’ve opened the door here, I’d… like to ask you something.”

The count nodded for him to continue. 

“The night I arrived here,” Will began. “I saw something in the woods.” He described the blue flame, and Chiyoh and the wolves, the box she brought back with her. “I hope I’m not… sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong, but I just, uhm… wanted to know if I was seeing things. I know when I arrived, I fainted, so it’s completely possible that when I saw the flames, I was suffering from whatever it was that made me black out later on.”

The count considered this. “Sometimes you do not trust your eyes,” he said. 

Will nodded, then checked himself. The last thing he needed was this client thinking he belonged in an asylum. “There’s been a handful of situations since I came to this part of Europe that have given rise to… questions, I guess you’d say.” 

Another strange look of repressed feeling flitted over the count’s face. Or was that a shadow? 

“It is a commonly held belief in these lands that on a certain night of the year – May 4th, in fact – all evil spirits have unchecked sway. A blue flame is seen over any place where treasure has been concealed.” 

“Treasure?” Will lifted the piece of humble bread he’d been provided and wiped his plate with it. 

“That treasure has been hidden in the region, there can be little doubt. It is ground fought for over centuries by the Wallachian, the Saxon, and the Turk.” The count’s mouth was cruel for a long moment before he continued, and Will’s ambient pulse stirred. There was pain there, not prejudice. “There is hardly a foot of soil in all of my lands that has not been enriched by the blood of men, patriots or invaders. In old days there were stirring times, when the Austrian and the Hungarian came up in hordes, and the patriots went out to meet them – men and women, the aged and the children too – and waited their coming on the rocks above the passes, that they might sweep destruction on them with their artificial avalanches. When the invader was triumphant, he found but little, for whatever there was had been sheltered in the friendly soil.” 

As the count spoke, Will’s mind was a kaleidoscope of images as if he skimmed along time – invasions, battles, blood on the ground, men crushed under stones, the dying impaled on spikes, the cries of the wounded, and a profound weeping that gradually coalesced into the heartbroken cries of one person. A man, holding the body of someone he loved.

When he surfaced, he had the idea there had been a long silence, each of them staring into the fire. “Do I call her… Miss Chiyoh?” he wondered, flitting away from the subject of blood-soaked soil.

Count Lecter chuckled. It was warm, like the light emanating from the mighty hearth. “Again, this is Transylvania, not England. You asked Avigeya and Peter to call you Will. I’ve only ever known her as Chiyoh, the name that is both a beginning and an ending.”

Will smiled a little – it was a relief, he thought, as strange as this place was, to be free of the chokehold of decorum from time to time. “Chiyoh found something that night. Was it the treasure?”

The count drank his brandy. “I know she brought back a box. I have yet to look inside of it.” He swallowed, and Will watched his throat work with more interest than he should have. “Whatever it is must be a treasure. If the legend is true. Something very dear. Something thought long lost.” 

“You should open it,” Will encouraged. “Whatever’s inside might have some kind of historical importance.” 

“I know the history of these lands with the certainty of a sunset,” Count Lecter said, looking at him now as Will busied himself replacing the cover on the dish and folding his napkin. “History, however, lacks nuance.”

“It’s written by the victors,” Will agreed. 

“The most important things aren’t written of at all.” Count Lecter got to his feet and went over to the arched library windows. Will hesitated, but then joined him, very aware of when his elbow brushed the edge of the Count’s cloak when he stood close. “What do you think of the view?” 

Will looked away quickly, battling the sudden sense of vertigo. Count Lecter must have seen him swaying a bit; there was a sudden supportive hand cupped beneath his elbow and another against his back, a steadying gesture. Benign, but somehow shockingly erotic. Will felt the sudden jolt and liquid burn of that touch the same way he felt when he’d been caught sneaking glances at the illicit illustrations. 

Against his instinct, he moved away from the window, turning with a little intake of breath. “I never had a problem with heights,” he said through a self-deprecating little chuckle. “Something about that river…”

Count Lecter did not respond immediately. When Will glanced his way, a clandestine hand brushing his hair from his forehead, he was surprised by the immediate, seemingly-reflexive expression of sorrow that crossed the Count’s features. It was momentary, however, clouds over the moon. Will pressed his lips together and offered a shaky smile. “I know you’re looking forward to the big city, but, ah… I think you might miss it here. It’s beautiful. The air’s… clean. Life doesn’t move so fast.”

“Do you like it here, Mr. Graham?”

Will formulated his answer. If he wasn’t suddenly having flashbacks from the Ripper case and questioning his sanity – and Antony wasn’t around – “Yes,” he answered. “It feels like… a home.” 

“London doesn’t feel like home to you.” Count Lecter’s utterance was all statement, with no curl of a question. 

Will had never considered the notion. It hit him like a splash of slush on an East End street, an unwelcome shower of gray winter. 

“What does home feel like?” Count Lecter asked this as Will abandoned the desk to stand by the mantle, hoping the warmth of the fire would help with the cold soak of self-understanding. 

“Wild,” Will said immediately, without considering his words, a truly free association. “N-natural. Balanced.”

“You find solitude invigorating, suspended in nature. The constancy of its cycles.”

Will brightened at the thought. It was the strangest thing – he felt exposed, but understood in a way he’d never been, even with Alana, who knew him better than anyone on earth. “Nature isn’t good or evil, and it doesn’t, ah… subscribe to the constant evaluation of one or the other.”

“Morality doesn’t exist.”

“Not in the wild, it doesn’t,” Will said, watching the count approach the hearth as well, the firelight climbing over half of his angular face. Instead of appearing hellish, the fire only made the softest, most comforting glow of the hard edges of his bone structure. 

Beautiful, he thought.

STOP! the other side of his brain snapped.

“Man’s creation. Morality doesn’t exist. Only morale.” 

Will smiled, wide and honest, dropping his gaze, amused but suddenly shy. “Wordplay. That’s pretty advanced for someone who thinks he doesn’t speak English well enough.” 

“Wild places improve your morale.” Count Lecter broke away to return to his chair. Will followed and accepted another drink, even though it really wasn’t in his best interest. Vaguely, he remembered the contracts, the mortgages, the map, but it all seemed so far away from the warmth of the fire and the strange, unearned intimacy of this conversation. 

“And the city tends to erode it,” Will confirmed as he settled in. “You put millions of people together in a-a veritable jungle of streets and buildings and factories spewing smoke and expect them not to behave like animals.”

“Cities urbanize the animal. Over time, he might forget that he was born a beast.” Count Lecter put the brandy to his lips. Will couldn’t tell if he drank, because his throat didn’t move this time. “May I ask you to tell me more about the swamp you spoke of at our last meeting? Your first wild place that felt like a home.”

Will glanced up at the ceiling, blinking slowly, sifting through his memories. “The bayou. Louisiana. It’s in the southern United States, right above the Gulf of Mexico.” 

“I know where it is,” Count Lecter told him. “I have a copy of this year’s World Almanac.” 

“That’s where I was born,” Will said. The warmth of the fire, the silken way Count Lecter’s words echoed through the shadows outside of the hearth’s glow, the meal and the brandy, it all lulled him into a sense of security, allowing the memories to flow unimpeded. “In the bayou near a little town called Lafayette. We ended up living just outside of New Orleans after my father died. Then it was, uhm… just me and my mother.”

“What was she like?” 

Will paused. “I don’t remember. It was so long ago.”

“I lost my parents at a young age,” Count Lecter revealed. “I was eleven. It seems ages ago, but I still have a sense of my mother. Not a mental image so much as an imago, a construction in my mind of her essence.”

As Will let his eyes unfocus on the firelight, he found it. Her. The imago, whatever that was. A thin woman with miles of dark brown hair, curly, like his, and blue-green eyes that mirrored his own. His coloring, the way she flushed. The way she smiled. The scent of her body and the touch of her hands, her fingers stroking his hair back, the way she dried his tears with her apron. 

Christ, if he wasn’t careful, he was going to start crying, and that would be a complete disaster. How had this long-repressed memory surfaced, so raw and split open? “I don’t remember much. I remember playing, throwing rocks in the water, catching frogs. We ate their legs. Looking for crawfish. I don’t know whose boat it was, but I remember fishing, remember – gliding on the water under the m-moss. Some swamps have black water. When it’s churned up it-it’s foamy, dark brown – and when it’s still, it’s a mirror. You see – you see everything twice, right side up and upside-down.”

“Are there fireflies?” Count Lecter asked softly.

“Thousands. Millions.” 

Count Lecter poured him another drink. Will hadn’t realized he’d finished another one already. He should have refused, but he didn’t. “And who took this precious place from you? Or took you from it?” 

Will exhaled slowly, not meeting the count’s canny gaze. “After my papa died, my mother and I, we had to go into New Orleans so she could work. And she would leave me at the French Market. I’d-I’d play with other children. And some of the crab fishermen, they’d look out for me until she came back. Then one day, she didn’t come back, and that’s when the Blooms found me.”

“The Blooms?”

“Edward and Prudence Bloom. Edward was in New Orleans on business, and they happened to be passing in a carriage, visiting with another couple. Their daughter, Alana, saw me and she said, uhm… ‘l-look at that poor boy all alone’ and they… took me with them. And I went back to England with them, and they took me in.” 

Count Lecter seemed to be waiting to see if he’d say more. Will repeated the next part of the story. It felt like a rote schoolhouse recitation. He knew his lesson by heart. “They took me in, and they paid for my education and my keeping. And I was Alana’s… playmate. We grew up together. I always did my best to look out for her and they brought me up.” He pressed his mouth closed, not looking at his companion who, Will could see in his periphery, was staring at him with a degree of sharp attentiveness. 

“Your name isn’t Bloom,” Count Lecter noted after a long silence filled only by the snapping of the logs. 

“I wasn’t, uhm… formally adopted,” Will revealed, surprising himself by giving Count Lecter such a sensitive admission. Legally, not being one of the Bloom family had always been a source of everlasting shame. Something acquaintances whispered about.  

“This upsets you. It always has.”

Will stood up suddenly and paced over to the bookshelves and back. “I know this is strange, coming from a solicitor, but the paperwork and the legal piece isn’t really important, is it? When dealing with family?”

“You don’t really believe that.”

Will felt his anger flare, unfurling in him suddenly. “How do you know what I believe or don’t believe, Count Lecter?” he demanded. “We barely know each other.”

A pause bloated with meaning; dead weight suspended between them on a razor-sharp wire. 

When Will dared look at Count Lecter again, ready to apologize for speaking sharply – this was a client, after all, an incredibly important client, and he’d probably just misread a cultural cue – he saw a lone tear escape the count’s hooded eye. But it looked strange. Darker than it should have, but maybe it was a trick of the firelight…? He didn’t get a chance to examine it, because Count Lecter immediately raised his hand and wiped it away, so fast Will thought if he blinked, he might have missed it. 

“Forgive me,” Will blurted immediately. “I, uh, I didn’t mean to upset you…?” Was the count so sensitive? Did… did men cry in front of each other in Romania?

“Not at all, Mr. Graham. Forgive my sentimentality. You have a gift with words, and I couldn’t help but picture the child you were. It causes me pain, thinking of him growing up feeling so wholly unwanted.”

Alana wanted him, he almost argued. The words died on his lips. She might have, once. She chose him, after all, picked him out of a crowd of ragged street urchins on the steaming brick avenues of New Orleans, saved him from a life in the underbelly of the city or destitution in the swamps. Now, after what had happened when he’d kissed her before leaving for Transylvania, that last little spark was extinguished. 

“I’m older than I appear,” Count Lecter said to him now. “I’ve seen much of human behavior, even in this isolated place. My experiences provide me with a clarity I should more often keep to myself. I don’t know the English ways, and I’ve made our conversation travel to places reserved for better friends, I fear.”

“Don’t worry,” Will suggested, wracked with a sudden guilt that sucked at his soul like a boot stuck in the mud. “Please– I should apologize. I… like your honesty. People back home do… a lot of damned dancing around the point. Saying things without really saying them or going years without addressing long-term problems or-or asking the tough questions.” In that way, working in Whitechapel had been a boon. Folks there were incredibly to the point. ‘Ello lad, six-pence for a fuck, ‘ow about it?

“Then let us speak of other things,” Count Lecter suggested. He stood and motioned Will to follow, bringing his brandy glass. “I am a great lover of music, and I understand London has many operas and theatres and halls for performance. Will you show me where they are?”

Somehow, when Will peeked at his watch a short time later, it was well after midnight. He’d had no idea time was passing so quickly. Something happened when he was in the presence of Count Lecter, in this strange, grotesque, beautiful castle, in this vast yet intimate space, that troubled his perception of time. Just seeing the hour indicated on the watch face made him yawn, though he tried to stifle it as Count Lecter studied the map, his finger hovering over Royal Opera House. 

“I’ve kept you too long,” Count Lecter said, noticing his indications of weariness. “You should get some rest. I fear you’re still feeling the effects of your journey on your health.”

Will stood but lingered. “I’ll, uhm, do what I can to make sure I don’t wander.” 

“I’ll be close by,” Count Lecter promised, getting to his feet as well. “I keep irregular hours, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. I won’t sleep until dawn.” 

Will blushed, thinking of the count catching him in his night shirt instead of Avigeya, the flood of blood to his cheeks a result of embarrassment and, if he was being honest about preferring to be honest, titillation. “Gonna guard my door?” he suggested with an ironic tilt to his head. 

“I’ll be close,” was all the count would say. “Goodnight, Will.” He paused, dropping his gaze a moment before lifting it to meet Will’s again. “That was my error, Mr. Graham. “

Will shook his head. “No, uhm… Will’s fine, actually.”

“Well then. Goodnight, Will.” The count extended a hand to claim, Will thought, the greeting handshake they had never shared. He copied the motion with no hesitation but lost his breath when their palms touched. Count Lecter’s hand was solid, strong, but cold. It was comforting against the blazing heat that seared over the surface of every inch of skin when they at last touched without any barrier. 

He wanted more. More skin, more touching, everything, all of it…!

“I have to go,” he said lamely, a half whisper. No, really, I must. Or something is going to happen!

Count Lecter slowly released his hand, and Will hurried away. 

Chapter Text

Will Graham sleeps soundly tonight or seems to. As much as I would like to see into his thoughts and know his dreams, I dare not attempt it. He strikes me as someone well-attuned to his mind and I feel instinctively that he will know what I’ve done. I must be clever if I am to achieve my goals.

I told him I would keep watch, and I am, though not discreetly from the hall or one of the salons adjacent to his room. I am at the foot of his bed, my shadow stretched over him, undulating as the firelight moves. It was warmer today, and he has partially thrown off the heavy quilts in his sleep, freeing his arms and part of his chest. It is for the best that he is wearing the modest white nightshirt; I’m not entirely sure I could stand it otherwise. 

His face is smooth and untroubled by the cares that etch into it when he is awake. I let myself study it now, unhindered by convention, staring all I like, letting my eyes devour what they will. So like Iliya. And yet, the different expressions, the pain stitched into every fiber of his being are antithetical to what my husband was. I wonder if this is truly what Iliya would have looked like if he’d lived another decade. He would have been pleased to know that his facial hair filled in just so. The shadow of Will Graham’s beard is utterly tantalizing; I want to feel it with my fingertips, trace my tongue under his jawline. 

Even if he is not, by some cruel trick, really Iliya returned to me, that would not diminish hedonistic desires I have for him. Objectively, he is beautiful. But if he is some part of my husband, and I can make love to him, knowing that I am loved in an equally all-encompassing way – that is what I demand from Heaven again, not a simple seduction, which would be easy enough to accomplish. 

I can feel the ache in him. He is touch starved. He wants to be loved. 

I can hear his heart beating, the soft cadence of his breaths. I can smell him, his living body and a kind of fevered sweetness I’ve never experienced before. There is no real comparison – the closest I can come is to say the scent calls to mind cinnamon and pine, and how it complements the underlying musk is stunning. It calls to me, to the monstrous part of me, tugging there just as hard as it engages my better nature. I want to consume him, I want my lips against his neck. I can imagine the tiny, pained noise he would make when my teeth breach the skin, and how it would be swept up in a moan of satisfaction. If I were to eat Will Graham, I would make it pleasurable until it wasn’t. 

I haven’t felt sexual arousal in years. Not until this man wearing Iliya’s face came through my door. Now it has returned with a vengeance, and it has no outlet. I think fleetingly of calling upon Bedelia or even Antony to help alleviate it, but the concept is off-putting. Beautiful as they are, they’re dead, and any connection they once felt with me is similarly withered. I want a human touch, a warm body, a kind word, a real smile. 

Reduced to self-abuse, then? It’s been not just years, but decades since I’ve pleasured myself. I do not suffer under the yoke of morality, and normally the concept would appeal to me. But here, now, with him, I don’t want that kind of hedonistic gratification. 

Just when I think I have my impulses under control, I’m on my knees at the foot of his bed, reaching into my clothing and bringing my hand against my sudden and immediate hardness. Anything to alleviate this ache. I watch him sleep, devour the little stretch of space where his slumbering lips part in my imagination, picturing awakening him with my insistence and the way he might smile and indulge me. The way Iliya would have smiled, that knowing curve that always made me weak with desire for him. 

How differently would Will Graham treat me as his lover? Would he want the power, intent on dominating me, or would he want me to use my prodigious strength to subdue him and claim him entirely? Or would he be like Iliya, a delectable combination of the two, leaning just toward submissive?  

Will Graham has lived in a metropolis and has a certain disdain for convention. I wonder how many people he’s gifted that mouth to, how well-versed he is at providing oral pleasure. Iliya was inexperienced by the physical act only – he had friends who had wisdom to share, and he’d asked them for their advice. Prepared in all ways for me: long afternoons spent practicing the dances, training with his men so I would be proud of his strength and skill, and untold hours at the feet of the housemaids and foul-mouthed stablemasters, listening to their experiences and cataloging what he’d like to do to me when we were at last allowed such intimacy. 

Iliya appeared at Castle Lecter with a mind full of sensual imaginings, but no other hands had touched him except for a few stolen childhood kisses and caresses. As for this version of him – and I have begun to think of Will Graham that way, though I still hear Bedelia’s warnings in the back of my mind – I have no way of knowing.

Until I find out.

It takes every ounce of my considerable power to maintain any sort of control. A blink and I could be upon him, tasting that ivory throat, at last running my hand through his hair. Stroking his hair, that’s all I want – could I have that sweet, small indulgence at least? 

It wouldn’t stop there. Not until my cock was buried root-deep in that pretty mouth–

When I climax, I lose all sense of myself, and disintegrate into mist. I become a gray mass of shadow, undulating slowly to the floor even as I feel the remnants of my pleasure. And then, like the craven monster I am, I slip out beneath the door into the hallway. As much as it always pleases me to sin in God’s face, a glutton for lust and pleasure, I do feel a sting of some kind to my pride. 

In four centuries, I have never felt as powerless as I do now. My soul – my continued existence – hinges on this man. A human, our fragile prey. On whether he is who I think he is. And if he could ever love me such as I am. 

I find Chiyoh emptying a bucket of our prisoner’s leavings in the woods. I coalesce into my bipedal form and step out from behind a tree. “How is he?”

“He will last a while longer,” she says. 

“Has he eaten?”

“Some broth,” she says. This is a optimistic sign. I do admire his courage. 

“Our visitor has been sleepwalking,” I say, following as she walks back towards the chapel. “I’d like you to watch over him until dawn.” I pause. “Outside the door should be sufficient.” I have never known Chiyoh to have any interest at all in carnal amusement, and I know her self-control is between iron and silver. Stronger than mine, surely, considering what I’ve just done. She would never harm him, wouldn’t touch him without my consent. I know all these things, and yet, I want the vision of him sleeping for myself; I am greedy, nourished by the very sight of him in such a vulnerable position. 

Chiyoh nods. 

I prepare to change into my wolf form, intent on running off some of my tension, when she speaks again. “The box.”

Now I am nothing but tension. 

“I placed it in the west wing.” 

I manage to thank her before turning away, assuming my bat form instead. I fly into the library window and transform back, holding onto the arm of a chair for support. 

I cannot abide this weakness in myself, this hesitancy, indecision. It is, when I think about it, a terror of feeling. It has been so long since I’ve suffered like this. Since I’ve lived in hope like this. Since I’ve been tempted with the possibility of joy. 

Passion is good. It gets the blood pumping. 

I must face my fears, and I must resign myself to the fact that the mother of transformation is destruction, and her father is chaos. 

And so, I glide silently through the halls of Castle Lecter until I reach the door that leads to the west wing. 

I can gaze upon the door, at least, without losing my hold on reality. The Tree of Life, the details of the intricate carving lost to time and many inches of dust and grime. I could become a mist and slide beneath the door, but I do not. Instead, I find the small carving of a warrior in the decorative pattern that surrounds the tree image, and I move his little wooden dagger just so. 

The attendants have a key, of course – but I wanted you to know how to get inside no matter the circumstance. I want this door to welcome you.

I am sinking into the past again, and I cannot stop it. I try to transform; perhaps as a wolf I might–

Going to use the secret latch to visit me tonight, my lord?

Impossibly, the ancient mechanism clicks. The lock releases. 

Decorum requires that I risk my life climbing through your window as the old songs describe. 

The door, however, is swollen shut with age, the hinges rusted. So, I use my prodigious strength to open it, concentrating on physical tasks to try and make the memories slide by without sinking in their claws. 

Tap… tap… tap…

Reba’s stick finds my ankle, and none too gently. “You won’t be doing anything of the sort,” she informs me as Iliya takes her arm to lead her into the suite of rooms I’ve prepared for his stay. “Do I need to summon the priest to remind you of the pains of Hell?” 

I make sure I’m looking directly at Iliya when he takes in the whole of the space. In the center is the bedchamber; there are rooms on either side for his people, and a boudoir with a sitting area and a table and chairs. I watch him carefully as he investigates the space with Reba, describing it to her so that she might picture it, showing her where each of the pieces of furniture is. “And this is the bed,” he says at last, bringing her to it. “It’s… uhm… I’ll start with ‘large’.” It is a stately thing made of wood carved by the same artisan who made the door, the posts meant to look like branches of the Tree of Life. I have had every seamstress in the village working for six months on the quilts and sheets, and the curtains are stitched to look like leaves, made of rich green and gold fabrics. 

“Feel this.” Iliya guides Reba’s hand to the curtains; she touches the stitching and makes a little sound of approval. Next, she uses her stick to determine the dimensions of the bed, feeling the carvings and the quilts and pillows. 

“This is an exceptional gift,” she says wryly, “for a visiting friend, even one that you’re courting, Count. How is Iliya supposed to bring it back home with him to Lord Albescu’s castle?”

Iliya grins at me, his eyes alight, leaning against the bedpost with his arms crossed. It is then I notice how many bags and trunks the men are loading into the room, and how the attendants bustle about to hang up clothing. By my estimation, he’s brought with him everything he owns. 

Reba approaches us and puts her hand on Iliya’s face, measuring his expression. Then she reaches out to me. I take her hand, and she uses her other to feel my features, tracing my smile. “Marissa!” she calls. “Find me a parchment and pen. Count Lecter has a letter to write.”

Iliya tosses his head back with a laugh. “What letter is that, Reba?”

“A letter to your uncle formally asking for your hand in marriage. If we send the messengers now, you may have an answer before you are slated to leave, not that you ever planned to.” 

“Not that you ever planned to let me go,” Iliya accuses me, pressing close. 

I take his hand and kiss it, unable to contain my happiness. “I had a more formal proposal planned. During the feast—”

He pulls his hand out of my grip and curls his arms around my neck, kissing me to shut me up. 

Reba’s stick taps my leg again. “Leave some room for the Holy Spirit!”

Laughing, we part, though I keep hold of his hands. “Write the letter,” he begs. “You can still have your spectacle of asking. Would you like me to pretend to be surprised?”

“No one would, for one second, believe you’re surprised he wants to marry you,” Marissa giggles as she lays out the writing materials on the table in the adjacent room. 

“I need you, Hannibal. Please.” My intended drops his gaze and then lifts it, sweeping up those ebony eyelashes just so, and God help me, I am and forever will be powerless to deny him anything, and it is a helplessness I proudly wear like the most precious gem around my neck. 

I trace the backs of my fingers disbelievingly down the side of his smooth face, still cool and pink from being out in the cold. “Marry me, Iliya Albescu.”

He quirks a half-smile, cocking his head. Makes me wait half a beat for it. “Yes. Yes, yes.”

When I glance over at Reba, she has tears in her eyes and a wide smile on her face. That does not, however, prevent her from her duties. “Put pen to paper, my lord,” she insists. “Iliya, help us with your things. Apparently, you’ll be staying awhile, so you might as well arrange everything to your liking.”

As I write the letter, seated at the table, I am constantly distracted by him as he helps unload the trunks and bags. At one point, he deliberately walks past me holding the white silken costume he wore the night we met. “I thought you might like me to wear it again,” he suggests softly, bending down to speak in my ear. 

Reba and Iliya’s men have an insurmountable task ahead of them. How can I keep my hands off him until Albescu sends back his blessing? 

When I return to Iliya’s chambers – someday soon, our chambers, God willing – much of the unpacking has been done, and only Reba, Marissa, and Iliya remain, gathered by the bed, whispering, Iliya blushing and Marissa red-faced and giggling. 

“I sent my fastest messengers on a dogsled,” I inform them. “They were hesitant to miss the Yuletide celebrations, but I promised to compensate handsomely upon their return.” 

“Good,” Reba says. “Thank you, Count Lecter. I hope you understand that I’m just trying to look out for Iliya’s best interests.” 

“Thank you for your vigilance,” I say, and I mean it. A Godly marriage is of tantamount importance. 

And that tantamount importance crumbles when Marissa says, “Step over here a moment, Reba – the staff moved a couple of things in the sitting room, and I want to make sure you know where they are.” She leads Reba away, throwing a wink over her shoulder at us. 

Within moments, Iliya and I have collapsed onto the bed and pulled the leaf-like curtains around us, plunging us into warm and sensual darkness, fragrant with Iliya’s scent, so delicious I wish I could drink it like nectar. I grasp his arms above the elbow, but he evades me easily, pressing me into the mattress and stretching out over my body. I can feel every part of him, even if it is through a doublet and breeches and warm winter stockings, the promise of his shape. God above, to see that body, hold it like this without the barriers – how can one tell when one is going mad? Is it a sudden plunge or a gradual descent? 

We kiss and touch as much as we can in what will assuredly be a short time, stolen moments. I heft his backside in my hands as he leans over me, relishing those sweet but powerful curves as he grasps desperately at the fabric at my shoulders, holding me down for a moment before drawing me up to kiss him, then back down again, having his way, and of course I let him. 

One of my hands traverses the curve and presses along his thigh – taut, muscled, I can feel the definition beneath the cloth – and sneaks its way along his waistline. Don’t–

Too late. I slide my hand over the front of his breeches and feel the outline. I would love him regardless of what lies beneath, even if it is nothing at all, but I must admit the dishonor of being very pleased with the dimensions I find. 

His mouth pulls away from mine as he seizes in a sudden moment of excess, gasping audibly at my touch. I try and shush him but it’s too late. The curtains fly open and Reba’s stick pokes in, jabbing Iliya in the side so he yelps. “I’ll beat you,” she warns. “Don’t think I won’t.”

“Mercy!” Iliya cries, rolling off me and out of the bed.

Reba prods me with her stick next. “You might be a count, but I’ll whip you too.”

“I deserve it,” I admit with a smile. 

She sighs, feeling my face where I still lay on the bed. “Promise me,” she requests. “On your honor. Just be patient, my lord.” 

“On the honor of the Lecter name,” I swear, taking her hand in mine and sliding off the bed with a little huff – my body is disappointed, even if my better nature appreciates postponing physical satisfaction. 

I must say goodbye. There are preparations for the feast that require my attention. I embrace Iliya before I go, as chastely as I can, and kiss only his forehead, then his hand. “A moment, please?” he requests of the ladies. “I promise, it’s only to speak privately.”

“No reason to trust you. Any of you,” Reba scolds, poking Marissa in the ribs with her elbow. 

“I swore to you,” I remind her. “I pledge on my name and God’s as well.”

She touches my face to know I am serious, then heaves a heavy sigh. “All right. Just a moment or two.” The women retreat out of the bedchamber to wait by the door carved with the Tree of Life. 

“Hannibal,” he says when they are out of earshot, “I need to, uhm… ask you something. It’s important.”

“Anything, my love.”

He half-smiles at my use of an endearment, but the other half of his mouth is still grave. “Before you really ask me to marry you,” he says, “in front of everyone, I need to know that… you won’t leave me.”

I’m dumbfounded. “Do I seem inconstant in my affection?” If he’s misunderstood me in some way, I will not rest until I’ve put things right again. “Have I given you reason to think–”

“No, no,” he assures me. “I have… childish fears. Forget I said anything.” 

In a sudden flash, as brief and brilliant as the silver scales of a fish as it leaps from the water, I understand what he’s trying to say. “When I lost my parents,” I tell him, “There was a long time where I was worried that anyone I cared about would die or leave me. Mischa had such nightmares – that I had died, leaving her completely alone. It took me years to grow close with my aunt and uncle. Part of me was worried that they’d disappear from this earth just as suddenly.” 

I exhale slowly and brush the silky skin of the back of his neck with my fingertips before helping myself to a handful of curls to stroke. “Only God knows what is in store for each of us. No one can control the powers of life and death. We are mortal; here today and gone tomorrow. But if we live our lives in slavery to that knowledge, we will dwell only in misery, which is a sin unto itself. God has given us this beautiful world. He gave me you.”

“And he gave you to me.” Iliya blinks one clear blue eye and a crystal tear, pure as the snow outside, slips free. I brush it away. 

“All we can do is live righteously, love much, and trust in the Lord.”

He sniffs, but smiles. “Thank you,” he says, a hand on my cheek. “The rooms are… it feels so much like home already.” 

“You’re welcome, Will,” I say.

Will…? 

It is Will Graham in my arms with the sweet, doting smile on his face. No, it is my Iliya. It is Will. It is Iliya. It is–

-an empty room.

The salon is a ruin of rotted furniture and moth-eaten rugs and hangings. Many of the diamond-shaped panes of glass in the windows are missing. Dust. Cobwebs. Birds have nested here. I can feel the tiny lives teeming in the corners – mice, centipedes, beetles, squirming things that have awakened as the weather warms. 

The bed still hangs with the leaf-stitched curtains, though they are rotted and shredded with age and vermin. The bedclothes in a similar state, the pillows ripped open to make nests for mice and rats and birds. The quilts are still crumpled, as they were when Iliya opened the window and threw himself into the river. 

I haven’t touched a thing since I lost him, except to take his portrait from the hall and hang it here. Even now, it has a rotting drape over it, so I am spared seeing his face. 

Spared. I see it every time I look at Will Graham. 

Spared. There is nothing left in me to spare. Let the pain come, the anguish repressed over these decades. I must remember who Iliya was down to the exact details that may have eroded over time. Without this strong sense of who he was, I will never be able to measure Will Graham against him. If there is any hope, I must first be made to suffer acutely. No more fighting battles against my insistent memories. 

The box is on the table, sitting directly over the place where I wrote the letter asking Albescu for Iliya’s hand. 

I press my fingers against the seam of the lid. It’s been sealed shut. A human would need several tools to open this, but I focus my wolf form only on my hands and arrest the change when I have claws. These I force into the seams with my uncanny strength, cracking open the seal and lifting the lid. 

Here it is. Everything that Iliya left behind that Reba was able to save. So many of his possessions I burned. I couldn’t bear to see them, to know they even existed within these walls. It wasn’t enough to seal up our rooms. I had to watch his clothes and his books burn, my drawings of him, all of it. 

But Reba and Marissa, they saved what they could in secret, preventing me from the foulest sin I might have ever committed – hurling Iliya’s ashes onto the bonfire along with everything else. 

The golden urn is there, along with horn cases containing papers. 

“Iliya,” I choke out in a half-whisper, letting my fingers rest on the urn before snatching them away with a hiss. There is an ancient rosary wrapped around the urn. Not to ward me off, no – Reba never fully understood what I had become. The other girl knew enough to keep her mouth shut, and she lived because of that decision. 

The rosary is there out of respect. A beacon, an acknowledgement. God, look upon your poor servant and have pity, even though he killed himself, snuffed out the life You gave him. Admit him to Heaven. Don’t abandon him like everyone else he loved. 

I let the pain rip through me like a javelin thrown by a warrior mounted on a thundering horse, collapsing me in the chest, cleaving my heart into so many pieces they cannot be counted. Pulverized into nothing but blood, the blood that pounds now in my temples. 

I must remind myself that I wanted this box found. My dearest treasure. Reba buried it to keep it safe, and she wrote later to say that I might only ask her for the location, and she would give it to me, provided I promised not to destroy the contents. By the time my rage had passed, and I thought to ask her, a decade had passed. To me, it felt like a blink. The world did not slow down for Reba; she died in a wave of sweating sickness. The chambermaid was nowhere to be found, and Iliya’s remains and his letters and other papers, the last evidence of his existence, was lost to me. 

Until now. 

The powers of darkness showed Chiyoh where to dig, and this time, she found what I had long sought. All this on the day Will Graham came to Castle Lecter. 

“Hannibal.”

Somehow, Bedelia is behind me, resting her cheek against my back for a moment. She snakes an arm under mine and gently lowers the lid of the box, hiding its contents. Weak as a kitten, I let her turn me away from it, lead me out into the main chamber again to stand by the ruined bed. “So, you see,” she says, “your beloved rests there, in that box. He is not here, in the body of another man.”

“There are more mysteries of heaven and earth than can be counted,” I argue. I feel a cascade of relief. I have done the most difficult part, and I am still alive. I withdraw a handkerchief from my pocket and clear my eyes of bloody tears. “You are over a hundred years old, Bedelia, and yet you live. We should not exist, but here we are in this very room, having this conversation.” 

Her lip curls, just a touch of cruel defiance. “Even if it were possible,” she says, “is he not planning to return to London himself? Why not merely follow him there? Conduct the experiment that could free the rest of us while you… attempt whatever it is you are attempting with Will Graham.” 

I cannot explain it, but I feel that if I ever parted from Will again, I’ll lose him forever. I am afraid. What of brigands or a train derailment, if he catches some kind of plague? He is too precious to release out into the world. 

And, truth be told, I don’t care about London anymore. 

“I need more time,” I tell her.

“Hannibal,” she warns. 

“I need more time,” I repeat, edging closer to her, my tone imperious. She should not forget who is master here – Antony would also do well to remember. 

Once I have Iliya back — if indeed it is possible — I am more than willing to let Bedelia and Antony go. Chiyoh has always been free to go, and she knows this.

In fact, they’ve all always been free to go. They don’t know that it is only I, the progenitor, that must replenish my power with the soil of my ancestors and the power of my homeland’s rich earth. 

They could have left at any time. 

But then I would have been alone. 

Chapter Text

Someone was humming, a warm, sentimental tune he didn’t recognize. Light made the inside of his eyelids blood-red. Will turned on his stomach in the bed with a little grunt of discomfort, climbing the ladder of consciousness one rung at a time. The clatter of dishware. The sound of liquid being poured into a cup. 

Will turned over in bed and squinted into the light. A female figure was setting up breakfast on the table near the fireplace, humming as she went. Backlit, he could only see the outline. 

When she stepped away from the window and came closer to his bed, Will’s breath stopped.

Mary Kelly smiled down at him, her strawberry hair a twisted halo around her head, glowing in the window’s light. She looked like how he’d seen her last, brave and resolute. Yes, she was being paid to play the part of a sex worker to lure the Ripper, but she’d also said, “I’ll do my part to end this killing of women. Who knows? When this is over, maybe you’ll put in a word for me at Scotland Yard. I’d make a lovely investigator, wouldn’t you say, Mr. Graham?” 

She would have. In the short time he’d known her, he’d been stuck by her intelligence and instincts. 

Though both had failed her when she’d agreed to help him. She trusted him to keep her safe, and he’d betrayed that trust. 

“M…” her name shriveled in his lungs. He blinked desperately in the bright sunlight. For a fraction of a second, she stood over him as he’d seen her last – her face sliced away from her skull – and then–

“Good morning, Will,” Avigeya said, putting a tentative hand on his where it was balled up on the top of the quilt. He relaxed his grip and took a thin, slow breath, then tried to smile at her. She reached out slowly and put her hand on his sweaty forehead, checking for a fever. “Hmm,” she mused, then motioned to the table where his breakfast was ready. 

Will had no appetite, but he gamely pulled on the dressing gown and sat at the table while she bustled about, tidying, hanging up his clean clothes. “Food,” she said in English. “Ty dolzhen yest'.” 

He attempted as much as he could. She sighed when he indicated he was finished, clearly disappointed at how little he’d put away, then left him to wash and dress. 

Will postponed these chores and pulled out his writing things instead, sitting in the warm sun thrown in by the window. 

         Dear Mr. Brauner,

         Count Lecter let me read your letter. Thank you for your compliments, and I hope to live up to them. We have yet to complete the paperwork. The Count has many questions, and I want to be sure our firm has served him to the best of our ability. I will remain in Transylvania until he is satisfied and transport the documents back by hand. 

                  Sincerely, Will Graham

         Dear Alana,

         I hope you aren’t worried. I’m sorry I haven’t written since Budapest. I have arrived at Castle Lecter and I am staying here until the paperwork is complete. Then back to London. Thank you for keeping the dogs for me. I hope Mrs. Bloom is well. 

Christ, what else was there to say? That he missed her? That he still cringed all over every time he thought of that bitter moment when she’d rejected him? That he would give anything to have done things differently? To be someone else entirely? 

To him, Alana was the same as she’d always been. Kind, nurturing, clever, an excellent listener. His protector, always, his advocate with the Blooms, the one who ordered his clothes and made sure he had what he needed at home, the only person who remembered his birthday. Well, what they celebrated as his birthday, since the Blooms had no way of knowing his real one, and Will didn’t remember. The family used the anniversary of when they’d picked him up from the streets of New Orleans like a bedraggled kitten or a motherless puppy in place of a true birthdate. In all honesty, Will didn’t know for certain how old he really was. 

Alana was a woman now, but he remembered the curious, adventuresome girl she had been. He’d never forget playing in the rain, catching frogs and fireflies, hiding under tables at fancy parties where they had to make their own amusement, taking their lessons together from the governess. She was still his first love and always would be. 

No, it was Will who had changed, drawing slowly away from normal life and deeper into the underbelly of London. He’d joined the bobbies because he wanted to help people and keep them safe. If he was being honest with himself, he’d wanted to prove to Edward Bloom that he had value. Policemen were heroes, weren’t they? 

Then, the discovery of his barbed gift, the empathy, the ambient pulse – he’d solved a murder in the matter of a day without help from any of his higher-ranked brothers on the force. Once his superiors knew what Will was capable of, they trained, cultivated, and promoted him. 

Alana had seemed proud of him for being a bringer of justice. But in order to catch murderers, Will had to think like one, and sometimes the lines blurred.

See? See…?

Why had he told Alana the truth about how he solved the crimes? Why every gory detail? He’d had no one else to confide in, but it had driven her away, and now she was lost to him. 

Will swallowed hard and wrote, 

The count is an excellent host, and I am well-looked after. I hope to see you soon. – Will

He sealed and addressed the missives. Now to figure out how to mail them. He’d have to ask the count this afternoon when, he assumed, they would meet again to continue working through the documents. 

Fresh air sounded good. Will cracked the window and inhaled. The snow from his arrival had completely melted, and the air held a promise of an even warmer day ahead. He dressed and went out to the courtyard where he found Peter trying to wrangle a squirmy duck that needed its foot dressing changed. Will held the bird wrapped in a cloth while Peter, murmuring soothing words in Romanian, cleaned out the creature’s injured foot and re-wrapped it. He nodded when finished, and Will carefully set the animal down, pulling the cloth away. The duck quacked grumpily at them, flapping its wings, then waddled away. 

Avigeya appeared awhile later with the English dictionary and they practiced words in the courtyard together, watching Peter work with the fainting goat, trying, Will thought, to get it more used to being surprised. They ate together in the courtyard as well, Avigeya bringing simple things like bread and a soft cheese, dried apples, and crisp, cold water that tasted like Will imagined a mountain spring might. 

He was, at last, summoned away by Bedelia du Maurier, who glided out into the courtyard in a dazzlingly white silk blouse and amber-colored velvet skirt. She looked startlingly white as well in this direct amount of sunlight, her hair a blaze of gold. 

Avigeya shot to her feet to display the proper deference, and Peter simply stayed crouched next to the goat, not looking at the mistress of the house. “Mr. Graham,” she greeted. “I hope you’re feeling well today.”

“Fine, thanks,” he said. It wasn’t a complete lie. Aside from mistaking Avigeya for Mary Kelly this morning, he felt stronger and more rested than before. Being out in the sun with the animals and his two… friends?... felt astonishingly normal, a reprieve from most of what life was like here at Castle Lecter. 

“Count Lecter would like to see you in the library.”

“Thank you.” Will nodded a goodbye to Avigeya and Peter, and went up to the library, where he found the count waiting, gazing down into the abyssal river that Will, for some reason, didn’t like looking at. Or his body didn’t – like most of the countryside, he found it beautiful and picturesque, but something about the dizzying height overwhelmed his senses every time he looked at it. 

When the count glanced up at the sound of the door, Will caught a momentary flicker of an expression before his features eased back into their usual mild politeness. He looked… Will wanted to say ‘sad’ but it didn’t fully envelop what his empathy pulse picked up. Broken-hearted, maybe. It was a unique pain, Will knew. Once his features smoothed, he smiled at Will, though that undercurrent of sorrow remained even in its welcoming curve. Aside from his expression, the count was sharply dressed as usual in a gray jacket embroidered in black, some red at the sleeves and collar. 

“Will,” he greeted, and Will indulged in a mental pause to relish how his given name came out of Count Lecter’s mouth, in his unique accent, his lips forming the four simple letters. “Your night passed without event, I take it? No one found you wandering the halls.”

Will nodded as he approached, then paused to look at the map instead. Their eye contact was too much for him, and they’d only been alone together for less than a minute. He noted a copy of an English Bradshaw’s Guide was also on the desk, a recent publication containing traveler information for London as well as detailed train timetables. “It was, uhm… easier to go to bed knowing I wasn’t going to wake up somewhere else, half-dressed.”

Half-dressed, why had he even mentioned… Will swallowed, cheeks prickling with heat as if he stood next to a fire. Was it hot in here? He unbuttoned his jacket, then took Count Lecter’s advice and threw decorum to the wind, draping it over a chair and rolling up his shirtsleeves. This helped the perspiration a bit. 

“How do you feel?’

“Uh, better,” Will said, hesitating only because of his vision of Mary. “I don’t think I got up at all last night. On the mend, hopefully. I don’t want to be a burden.”

“It’s a weight my household is more than happy to carry,” Count Lecter insisted, joining him at the map. Will inhaled as quietly as he could to get a good lungful of the scent he brought with him. 

“Still, I don’t want to overstay my welcome.” Will straightened and pulled the letters out of his pocket. “I need these posted.”

“I’ll send them to the village with Avigeya,” Count Lecter promised. 

Will offered him the letter to his supervising solicitor. “You can read this one,” he said. “Since you were, ah, forthcoming with your own mail. Let me know if there’s anything else you’d like me to add to my message to Mr. Brauner.” 

Count Lecter opened the message to Mr. Brauner and scanned it, then removed a dish and a stick of sealing wax from a drawer in his desk. Lighting a small candle from another nearby, he dripped the wax on the letter and sealed it with his ring. It depicted a coat of arms that featured the antlered head of a stag. “And your other?” he asked. 

“Oh. Uhm, right.” Will put the letter to Alana on the desk and let Count Lecter seal it. When finished, he flipped it over in his long fingers and read the name on the front. “Alana Bloom. Your childhood savior. Plucked you up from destitution. I suppose she hasn’t heard from you since you arrived. I’m sure this message will calm any worries she has.”

Worries? He wasn’t sure about that. Yes, Alana would be concerned about his welfare. His bumbling romantic advance couldn’t undo years of care. But his absence on this journey was well-timed. He knew she was relieved he was going away for a while after their last conversation, knew it the same way he knew a killer’s design. 

He only nodded and let Count Lecter place the letters on a small table near the door for Avigeya to take with her. 

Once more, they discussed the business of the sales, specifically the property in Purfleet. Count Lecter, again, had done his research, knowing the neighborhood well, even some of its history that Will was unaware of. “You don’t like to go into anything unprepared, do you?” Will said good-naturedly as they looked at the map. 

“Some things are impossible to prepare for.” It seemed as though Count Lecter hated to admit it. “Attempting to prepare for the transplantation of my life is a mechanism of comfort.” 

“Hmm.” Will shifted some of the papers and lifted out the floor plans – such as they were – for the manor house at the Carfax property. “Worried you’ll regret the move? Like we talked about?”

“A life without regrets is no life at all,” Count Lecter said, offering Will a brief smile before leaning closer to grasp the floor plans with gentle fingertips. Again, Will was surrounded by his scent and took a clandestine breath. It made him tremble. 

“Cold now?” Count Lecter asked, glancing over the plans. 

No. His forehead was still a little damp, even. “Just for a second,” he said by way of explanation. 

“Tell me more about the house itself,” Count Lecter requested. 

Will went over the plans with him, doing his best to describe the estate in its totality. It was surrounded by a high wall, of ancient structure, built with heavy stones. It needed some repairs, but mostly to the interior, as it hadn’t been inhabited for some time. The foundation and bones of the house were more than solid, and the gates had recently replaced heavy oak and iron doors. “It’s called Carfax as a… corruption of the name Quatre Face,” Will said. “The house is four-sided, based on the cardinal compass points. According to my notes, it’s, uhm… twenty acres, all told, completely surrounded by the stone wall.” 

“Secure,” Count Lecter noted. “How high is the wall?”

“It varies, due to the age of the stones, but I’d say it averages about six feet. So yes, secure.”

“And what of the grounds? Will I lack for nature? That was something you said was disagreeable about the city.”

“It’s a beautiful property,” Will admitted. Purfleet was more rural than London proper. “Lots of trees. There’s a pond – nice and deep, spring-fed, so it’s mostly clear water. It flows in a fair-sized stream. Good fishing, especially if you stocked it.”

“I will,” Count Lecter promised, “if it would encourage you to visit.”

Will felt his breath catch but forced it to be as inaudible as he could. “Thank you, that, uhm… like I said, it’s… nice there. I think you’ll enjoy it.”

Count Lecter lifted a sketch Will had brought of the exterior of the house. It was disjointed in the fact that it had been added on to so many times, the farthest back, Will thought, being the medieval era. One part of it was made of immensely thick stone with only a few windows high up and heavily barred with iron. It looked like part of a keep and was close to the old chapel built onto the house itself. The other wings from different time periods seemed grafted on like branches of a foreign tree bearing strange fruit. 

“Even with the estate being so large, I’m sure it’ll take some getting used to – having neighbors,” Will said, indicating a smaller map of the neighborhood. “There aren’t a lot of houses, but right here –” he pointed to a structure about an acre from the eastern side of the wall that bordered the estate – “is something Mr. Brauner didn’t want me to tell you about.” 

The count’s pale brows rose a few degrees. He turned to Will and caught his earnest gaze. “Before you speak, do you want to violate your employer’s confidence?”

“You’ve been honest with me,” Will said firmly. “I’m being honest with you. I could, ah, dance around the point and say that this house here is a private medical facility, or, uhm, a rest home, but you’ll find out when you move and I don’t want you to-to think I kept something from you that might… alter your decision to buy this estate.”

“Will.” His name was damn near a caress coming from that aristocratic mouth. “If you’re certain. It is not my intention to pry–”

“It’s the Purfleet Hospital for the Criminally Insane,” Will said in a rush of words. “It’s where they lock up people who’ve lost their minds and done something violent.”

“Interesting. Is there any danger, do you think?”

Will wrinkled his forehead. “Honestly,” he said, “I don’t think so. I’ve seen the place before – had to go interview a witness once. It’s… not a place where you’d ever want to be an inmate, but the security’s good. The administrator there is a Dr. Frederick Chilton. Seems to enjoy collecting, ah… rare specimens. But he seems like he runs a pretty tight ship. Then there’s the wall around Carfax. I’d say the worst thing that might happen is… depending on the weather, you might… hear them. The patients.”

“Trading wolves for lunatics, then. I wonder if they howl similarly.” 

Will scoffed a little laugh. “Well, is the deal off?”

“Quite the opposite. I have nothing but sympathy for those whose minds betray them for one reason or another. They suffer no more moral failing than someone who falls victim to, say, consumption, or is hit by a wagon. They should be treated as though they have a medical condition, not a character flaw.” 

Will was completely taken aback. “That’s… an incredibly… compassionate point of view,” he said.

“Empathetic,” Count Lecter corrected. “There have been times when I felt like I was losing my foothold on sanity. I know how isolating it can be.” 

“It is,” Will blurted, then checked himself. “It must be.” He mentally flailed about as Count Lecter turned from him and went to the sideboard, where he had stashed a bottle of wine. At least, that’s what Will thought it was – it was so dusty it was only the vague shape of a bottle. Pulling a knife from his belt, the count uncorked it, sniffed the cork, then poured two glasses, motioning Will to join him in the comfort of the chairs before the hearth. The fire was very small, and they didn’t feed it; the springtime warmth from the fading day was still trapped within the walls. 

Will didn’t know much about wine, but he appreciated the smoothness of this particular red. Not too dry. Count Lecter swirled the wine in his glass and watched how it clung to the crystal. “Thank you for your honesty, Will. I mean that. I hope that we can be honest with one another. In our professional exchanges, and as we get to know one another. You said yourself you felt a certain freedom here.”

“Transylvania is not England,” Will recited Count Lecter’s words back to him with a half-smile. “I’ll drink to that.”

They touched glasses with a resonant ring. 

“And you don’t mind,” Will ventured after a short silence, “that the house is old? Needs some interior work?”

“I am glad that it is old and big. The Lecters are an old family, and to live in a new home would kill me.” This made Will chuckle. “I have the coin to make it habitable sooner rather than later, and I will begin with the renovations as soon as I arrive. It is as you said, Will – the house at Carfax will feel like home. The walls here are crumbling. The shadows are many, and the wind breathes cold through the broken battlements and casements.” He took a sip of wine. “I am no longer young, and my heart, through the weary years of mourning over the dead, is not attuned to mirth.”

“You think Carfax matches your heart.” Not a question. Will could feel it. 

Count Lecter nodded yes, looking at the small hearth fire. “I’ll be right at home. Doesn't a heart also have chambers? It’s an echo of this place. Like Castle Lecter, it is a chimera, with the head of one creature, the body of another, limbs of a third – something of all.”

“Like Notre Dame,” Will added.

“The grand cathedral of Paris?”

Will nodded. “Victor Hugo described it that way.”

“In his story of the hunchback, if I remember,” Count Lecter’s face was warmly amused by Will’s reference, which Will was glad to see. He went to the bookshelf and selected a volume, flipping the pages until he found what he was looking for. “‘Every face, every stone, of this venerable monument, is a page not only of the history of the country, but of the history of science and art.’”

“‘Each wave of time leaves its alluvium – each race deposits its strata upon the monument – each individual contributes his stone,’” Will recited. 

This brought another smile of open enjoyment to the count’s expression. “‘Time is the architect; the nation is the builder.’ You know this book well.” He passed the volume into Will’s hands before reclaiming his seat. It was the first English translation, published in 1833, and Will held it delicately, though it was in excellent shape for its age. “I have it in French as well, if you’d rather.”

“I’ve read it in both, but sometimes, you just want the story, not… an exercise in translation.” 

“A story that resonates with you. That’s why you’ve read and reread it.”

Will flipped reverently through the pages. “It’s just a good story.”

“Featuring a man adopted into a situation less than loving,” Count Lecter noted, though gently. “Treated like a servant.”

“Treated like a monster,” Will said, voice harsher than he meant it. 

“Is that how you were treated by the Blooms?”

         “No,” Will denied. “No, nothing like that.” Not until he’d told Alana about how he solved the Ripper case, and all the cases before. Then, she’d looked at him like he was as mentally deformed as Quasimodo’s body was. “I-I don’t know. Maybe something like that. It’s, uhm… it’s hard. To describe.”

Count Lecter refilled their glasses. “You wrote to your sister. She must care for your well-being. Her handpicked orphan.” 

“She’s not my sister,” Will said immediately, then sighed. “Like you said. Not being… formally adopted or even… informally, really, I never thought of her as my sister. And she didn’t… think of me as her brother.” 

“How do you mean?”

Will gulped down half his wine. “You know how kids are, when they have, uhm… friends. They… emulate the adults around them. She and I were sort of…” He shook his head and rubbed his eyes wearily. It was so hard to talk about, but the truth lived inside of a bubble that had him trapped. He had the sense that if he could just… drain it out of himself, he’d feel better. 

This was a rare moment. He’d never had anyone to talk to about Alana before. 

“We were sweethearts, I guess you’d say,” Will said at last. And there was the breach in the bubble’s smooth inner wall. Just as he’d thought, once he began, it poured out of him, the whole story. Even as alarms clanged in his head, his mouth didn’t care. And Count Lecter encouraged him, murmuring here and there, validating, truly listening, or so it seemed. 

When he’d finished, the wine was gone, and Will swam in a strange warm place of light intoxication and the drunkenness of emotional intimacy. 

Now, Count Lecter spoke as he uncorked another bottle of wine. “The night you dined with Antony and Bedelia,” he said, “you mentioned someone you missed. A sweetheart. I assume you meant Miss Bloom?”

There was a strange intonation in the way he said Alana’s name, so formal now. It broke through the warmth Will was wrapped in and tickled his neck with a chill. “Yes,” he said. “Not that… she’s waiting for me to come back.” He sighed. “Listen, don’t misunderstand me. She doesn’t owe me her affection. She doesn’t have to choose me. I’m not… entitled to her. I’m grateful… just to be, uh, part of her life. I just wish I hadn’t gotten…” He had no idea how to finish, so he just shut his mouth. 

“Miss Bloom seems unsure of her own mind.”

“She was pretty damn sure of it before I left.” 

Count Lecter’s hand tightened on the arm of the chair. Will watched the knuckles go pale. Yet his expression and voice were as placid and pleasant as ever. “And if she is less sure when you return? Will you let her reel you back in like a fish only to throw you back again? Catch-and-release, hoping the next time you’ll have grown?”

“She was very clear.” Now he wondered. He couldn’t help but wonder. It tore him between hope and utterly shameful despair. 

“Your worth is not questionable.” Count Lecter was looking directly at him now, eyes faintly illuminated by the rays of the dying fire. “Though somewhere along the line, someone has convinced you it is. I suspect Miss Bloom is to blame.” 

“No, that doesn’t track,” Will argued, barely batting an eye when Avigeya came in with his dinner. “She always defended me from her parents, our governesses—”

“Out of pity.” Count Lecter responded in kind. “The same pity that encourages the rich to give to the poor in a public way — so their benevolence can be witnessed. That isn’t love or understanding.”

Will was too stunned to speak. 

Because it was true. 

How was this man, who was born and had lived so far from Alana, speaking like he knew her, knew how she was with Will? 

“I didn’t mean to insult her,” Count Lecter said after a time. “But I feel insulted on your behalf, Will. It’s clear to me that you aren’t aware of how remarkable you are. You’ve been told for too long that you are unworthy to thrive, and in the spirit of honesty between us, I want to tell you exactly the opposite.”

Will's emotions oscillated wildly as he held Count Lecter’s earnest gaze. He felt alternately hot and cold, angry and then ready to cry, not from sorrow but out of… happiness, a kind of harrowing gratitude. 

Silence, as he wrestled.

At last, Count Lecter rose and wandered over to the map. “Remember, Will, how the story ends. The beautiful girl is dead. Quasimodo throws his adopted father from the top of the cathedral to smash to pieces on the stones below, blood smearing the heart of the city.”

“But his bones were found,” Will countered, “holding on to Esmeralda’s.”

“Eternity clutching someone that would never love him.” 

Will’s emotions reared and plunged yet again. It was exhausting. 

“I wouldn’t want that for you,” Count Lecter said. “For anyone I consider a friend.”

Will still couldn’t answer. His throat was too tight. All he could manage was to get out of his chair and stand next to the count, pretending to look at the map. 

Letting their shoulders touch. For several long, significant moments. Will gladly clung to their weight. And then the count’s arm brushed his deliberately as he leaned in to indicate Purfleet again with one elegant finger. 

“Anything else you think I need to know about the surrounding area? Remember, you’ll be all the way in Exeter when I arrive. Not at my side to guide me.”

“You can always write,” Will said, unable to hide his eagerness. He cleared his throat. “I mean, if you need me… well, you know from Bradshaw’s that it’s not a long train ride.” 

“How long would it take you to reach Purfleet from your home?” Count Lecter wanted to know. 

“I’ll show you.” Will used the map and the Bradshaw’s to show him the trains and the times from Purfleet to the station closest to Hillingham. “If you come to call, there’s no need to go up to the manor house. I live in a cottage on the grounds…”

Will’s throat was dry; he hadn’t talked so much in what felt like years. Telling Count Lecter now about Old Beau, who once cared for the Blooms’ hunting dogs, all sold off when Edward died. How Will now used the little house and the kennels and runs for dogs he’d found abandoned around the city. “No wonder Peter’s taken a liking to you,” Count Lecter noted with a gleam in his eye. 

Will’s dinner had gone cold by the time he remembered to eat it, but by the time he noticed, it was so late he begged Count Lecter not to bother Avigeya. He ate some of it, but not enough to shield against the bottles of wine that kept appearing. His tongue was loose, and the conversation flowed cozily, stretching from Victor Hugo to fishing to dogs. Louisiana, London, Budapest, the village, the fainting goat.

At last, Will could not help but feel the chill which comes over one at the coming of the dawn, which is like, in its way, the turn of the tide. He didn’t want the sun, didn’t want Count Lecter to notice how late it was. Or how early, in this case. The count was playing the harpsichord for Will now, one of his original compositions; they’d built up the fire, and Will was curled up on the lounge near it, listening to the music wind through the diminishing shadows. 

Then, a rooster crowed with preternatural shrillness through the clear morning air outside the library windows. Will groaned as the music stopped, and Count Lecter no doubt noticed the warm gray of the quickening sky. 

A hand extended down to him, and Will took it without thinking. Count Lecter helped him to his feet, and Will came with a rueful chuckle. “How remiss I am to let you stay up so long,” Count Lecter scolded himself, though his expression said the exact opposite, his smile affectionate, borderline doting. “You must make yourself less interesting, Will, so that I may not forget how time flies by us.” 

“Sure, I can do that, if you quit playing so well,” Will retorted as he stretched, still feeling the cool outline of the count’s hand in his own. “That was – completely different than anything I’ve ever heard. Maybe you’ll be playing the concert halls in London.”

“Would you come and see me, Will?”

Will let out a silent exhaled laugh as they moved slowly for the library door. “If you can get me a free ticket, sure.”

“I meant in London. After I’ve settled in and worked on Carfax, made it presentable. I’d like you to be my first guest.”

“Y-yes,” Will agreed, almost immediately. “Yeah, I’d be happy to. And you should, uhm… come by my… Hillingham.” He wasn’t sure if it was the wine or the exhaustion causing his slurred speech and befuddlement. More likely, it was a result of the count’s physical nearness as he escorted Will back to his room. 

“Any trepidation I had for the relocation is gone,” Count Lecter confessed as they neared Will’s door. “I know I shall have at least one friend in London. Someone I can trust.”

Will nodded, smiling, eyes on his feet before he risked looking at Count Lecter again. They’d stopped in front of Will’s chamber door, and the atmosphere that cradled them had gone unnaturally silent. Will could hear nothing but the beating of his own heart in his ears; no more cockcrows, birds waking up outside, Avigeya in the kitchen or Peter and his animals. He never heard Bedelia, Antony, or Chiyoh anyway. But the descending of such a silence loaded the entire moment with an undeniable weight that promised a future lightness. 

At last, Count Lecter moved, taking one of Will’s hands in both of his own. His palms were smooth and cool, and his eyes were luminous, almost lit from within, if such a thing were possible. “Will,” he said. “Do you believe in destiny? That even the powers of time could be altered for a single purpose?”

Will balked, his mind struggling to catch up, examining each word with meticulous slowness. “I would, uhm… I would love to believe that. It’s beautiful.” 

Outside, at last, Will heard the rooster crow again. Hannibal made a small growl of discomfort, as if the animal’s call was causing him pain. Will opened his mouth to ask him what was wrong, but no sound came out. The count was leaning in, closer to him, letting go of his hand and curling his palms instead around Will’s arms just above the elbow, the grip firm and reassuring. 

Will’s chest felt like it was on the brink of either caving in or exploding. He instinctively closed his eyes, his mind a pure white chaos. 

The count’s lips brushed his cheek, just at the ridge of his cheekbone, a few inches in front of his ear. “Sleep, Will. Someone will keep watch over you.” 

Will inhaled with a little tremble and opened his eyes to say goodnight as well. 

But the count was gone, having disappeared in the dark interim. 

Chapter Text

When Will opened his eyes, feeling the burning shadow of that kiss against his cheek, Count Lecter was there, still holding his arms in a firmly affectionate grip. Will’s face split into a dumbfounded smile; he let himself put his hands on the count’s waist, resting on the forest green coat he wore that was embroidered with intricate threads of silver, held handsomely against his frame with a thick belt. 

It was Yuletide; he understood this in a wave of sudden recognition that he did not question. They were celebrating. 

A woman with ash-blonde hair braided around her head, the strands decorated with bits of winter greenery, stood up next to them and raised her wine goblet. “A hearty welcome to our friends from the court of Lord Albescu. You bring us many treasured gifts this yuletide.” She glanced over at Will and Count Lecter with an arched brow. “Let us be merry. And let them one day be married, for God’s sake, and soon!” Cheers, whistles, laughter. 

The hall around them, Will realized, was part of Castle Lecter, though when he’d seen it last it was dark and bare. Now it was filled with tables, blazing fireplaces, and people falling upon a generous medieval feast. He sat with Count Lecter and the blonde woman at the table of honor.

The other people in the room were no more than watercolor versions of themselves, their words meaningless droning. Will only had eyes for Count Lecter, who looked so young again, the gray gone from his hair and the deep lines from his face. Will marveled at how he smiled so easily, showing teeth, something he’d never done in Will’s presence before. 

Count Lecter lifted a piece of juicy meat from his plate, waited until the dripping stopped, then turned to Will. “Try this,” he suggested. Will suddenly felt as if he were the animal roasting on the spit, heat prickling his entire body. He leaned in and opened his mouth to be fed, but closed his lips around Count Lecter’s forefinger, sucking hard before he could let go. 

Leaning back to chew, he watched with a sense of smug satisfaction as Count Lecter had to take a moment to recover, drinking in a large mouthful of wine in the interim. “You,” he said softly after he’d regained some composure, “will be the death of me, beloved…”

Count Lecter decided to retaliate a while later. While engaged in lively conversation with a passing friend, he snuck his hand along Will’s leg, beginning at the knee for an affectionate, benign squeeze, before drifting his touch higher. Will could feel the press of each of his four fingers riding the inseam of his trousers – what was this other thing he was wearing called, was it a doublet? – closer and closer to where his legs met. Will tried to keep his face blank, but trembled and bit his lip when he felt Count Lecter’s smallest finger press against his groin, the other fingers gripping his thigh possessively, massaging now–

Will tipped his head back and sighed, then covered the motion by turning as if to cough. Hannibal finished the conversation and the guest moved on. Only then did he remove his hand and use it to pick up a honeyed cake. “Sinner,” Will scolded under his breath with a breathy laugh.

Time was fluid, sluicing backward and forward, and now they were dancing, the tune lively, the hall crowded with guests moving in a coordinated reel. “You’ve been practicing!” Count Lecter called over the sound of stamping feet and clapping hands. 

“See if you can keep up,” Will challenged. 

In response, Count Lecter caught him around the waist in perfect time to the music and lifted him. Instead of putting him back on his feet to continue the dance, he simply slipped Will into his arms. Will clung to him with desperate ardor, and they angled in for a stolen kiss. 

The music stopped. 

The fires went out.

The hands around Will’s back clenched roughly, no longer a playful caress, but a brazen, licentious grope. 

Will jerked his head back before their lips could touch. He had the sensation that the bottom had dropped out of the world as he looked into the cloudy corpse-eyes of Abel Gideon whose face had somehow replaced Count Lecter’s. Gideon looked as he did at the inquest, when Will was asked to view the body and explain what happened. Jack the Ripper was half-draped in a white sheet, the revolver holes stark and dark against his charnel skin. Will cried out and wrenched free of his grasp, falling back hard on the floor. 

Abel Gideon laughed, watching him scrabble backward until he hit the leg of a table, upsetting the cups and dishes on it. Will winced as something viscous and cold dripped off the edge of the feast table and splattered onto his cheek and neck. Frantic, he swiped at it, raising his hand to his eyes. It was blood. 

Will got to his feet, wiping the blood on his doublet. The food on the feast table was gone, replaced by viscera. Where the roasted boars had been displayed were the bodies of the Ripper’s victims, the ones Will had investigated, anyhow – Eddowes, Kelly, Chapman, Stride, Nichols, their innards removed, eyes staring blankly at him. 

“Happy Christmas, Inspector,” Abel Gideon said through a wide grin. 

Will’s terror broke him, but his anger put him back together piece by piece. With a snarl, he lashed out at Gideon, connecting his fist with his face, then wrapped his hands around his neck, squeezing. Undeterred, the Ripper continued to laugh. It echoed through the empty halls of Castle Lecter. Will squeezed harder, until he thought his hands would break–

The pain woke him, and he was so grateful for it there were tears in his eyes. Will found himself standing in his room at Castle Lecter, squeezing one of the thick wooden bedposts like he could throttle it lifeless. 

Sobbing a series of little breaths, he tried to let go of the post. His hands were locked, the joints unresponsive. He managed to open them enough to release the post, but his fingers were frozen in claw shape. Grunting, he flexed them open and shut until the blood began to flow again, filling them with pins and needles. 

Once he could use his hands again, he sank into one of the chairs at the table with his journal and the small pencil he kept tucked inside. 

14 May 1893: Dream – Castle Lecter in the 1400s? Christmas feast. CL and I are in love. Changes – AG and 5 victims. Sleepwalking. Tried to kill bedpost. 

Will flipped back through his book, reading his shorthand. He’d started recording the dreams and visions as he could, documenting what he feared was a descent into madness. A pattern was outlining itself. Part of the dream would be pleasant, taking place long ago in an almost fairytale-like setting, Count Lecter younger and less careworn, the castle in good condition, full of laughter and life. And at some point, just when Will accepted the dream as reality, leaning into it, letting himself revel in the love, comfort, safety – and, yes, sexual desire – present in the fantasy world, everything would shift. Abel Gideon or Mary Kelly would appear, and sometimes the other victims. Reality would split between timelines, bringing him back to the Ripper, to London, to the crimes he’d tried so hard to forget but were entombed in his mind, a gallery of wanton violence. 

Will couldn’t decide which was more disturbing; reliving the Ripper case, or the strength of his feelings for Count Lecter in the dreams, the ravenous, reckless love that consumed him in those visions. 

He barely knew this man and had never known him in that particular context. 

They were, however, growing closer in the waking world. Night after night of conversation and music, walks around the castle and the grounds, and a particularly lovely afternoon where Count Lecter had shown him the way to another nearby river teeming with fish. Will didn’t have tackle, but he knew how to weave a fish trap. They’d spent the rest of the day finding reeds and seeing what Will could catch with such a rudimentary tool.

Romanian fish were smarter than English ones, and Will threw back the small silver creatures he did manage to trap. 

Will didn’t write such things down, but he had mentally cataloged all the times they’d touched. Will had slipped next to the stream and would have fallen in if Count Lecter hadn’t thrown an arm around him, a steady anchor. There were more brushed shoulders, their knees pressing together as they sat next to one another at the harpsichord so that Will could watch those long, nimble hands at work. A reassuring hand on his shoulder or arm that Will was still too hesitant to return, but that he craved. 

There were no more kisses, however. He was forced to write it off as a Romanian display of affection freely given to any friend, or a result of too much wine. 

Even with these scraps, he was satisfied. The time they spent together made him forget the dreams and the continued strangeness of the castle, which slowly revealed itself to him as the days passed. Avigeya and Peter really were the only domestics, responsible somehow for the care of Count Lecter, Antony, Bedelia, Chiyoh, and himself, in addition to Peter’s menagerie of animals. Chiyoh brushed and exercised the horses at times, but sometimes that work fell to Peter as well. 

Count Lecter, Bedelia, Chiyoh, and Antony kept the same unnatural hours, up until dawn, sleeping most of the day away. The earliest Will saw any of them was midafternoon. He also had no idea where they slept. A few clandestine explorations of the parts of the castle he was allowed revealed a series of locked doors, but they seemed so old and unused he wasn’t sure they would even open if unlocked. He also rarely saw anyone besides Count Lecter, Peter, and Avigeya. It was as if the other three merely haunted the castle instead of lived in it. 

With a sigh, Will returned his journal to his satchel. He paused to rifle through the papers they’d managed to finish. There were more, and more to discuss about the land purchases, but business was rarely a topic of conversation anymore. 

And what was the hurry? 

Besides, Count Lecter had made it clear that Will wasn’t leaving until he had his sleepwalking under control. Will had to admit he was right. It wasn’t safe for him to travel alone. He might walk right off of the train or wander the streets of a foreign city in his nightshirt, prey for thieves or worse. 

Well, he could fight in his sleep. He’d just proved it. Will shook his right hand and sucked in a breath as pain radiated up to his wrist. He’d tried to punch a bedpost. Luckily, it seemed to be a glancing blow, only scraping and bruising his middle knuckle. If he’d hit it with his whole strength dead on, he would have broken his hand. 

He opened the window to let in the spring breeze, relishing in its gentle cooling of his perspiration-soaked body. When Avigeya came with his wash water and breakfast, she also came with an English word. “Market,” she said, after setting everything down. 

“What market?” he asked, hiding his injured hand in his lap and using the other to pick up his teacup. 

“Will. Peter. Me. Market.” She nodded at the window. 

Will got up to look. Peter was leading a scruffy-looking donkey into the courtyard for a drink from the trough while he fitted it with a saddle, numerous bags and cloth sacks hanging from it, currently empty. 

“You’re going down to the village?”

She nodded enthusiastically. 

“I’d love to come,” he said. “Just, uhm, give me–”

“Eat,” she said through a bright smile, then left him to hurry through his breakfast and washing up. 

Through the courtyard, past Peter’s dwelling and the stables, the woods began. But Peter and Avigeya showed him a path he hadn’t noticed previously that wound down the mountainside, worn by age and reinforced here and there with gravel, paving stones, and ancient wooden beams. It was cool in the sylvan shade of the deep woods, but once they’d descended far enough, the trees thinned. The sky held only the scraps of clouds and treated them all to a clear cerulean. The strong sun and the lowering elevation inspired Will to take off his jacket and drape it over the donkey’s saddle, leaving him in his waistcoat and rolled shirtsleeves. He’d quit wearing a necktie days ago, and it was so intensely freeing he wondered how he’d ever go back once he returned to London.

It took over an hour to get down the mountain. The rugged landscape smoothed, and the trees became even more scarce, opening into fragrant meadows and fields. Farms dotted the landscape, each one with its grove of flowering fruit trees lending their fragrance to the already sweet air. The path they followed met up with an actual road, muddy and wheel rutted as it was. A mile or so more, and they at last reached the village of Cerbul Negru. 

It was bigger than Will had suspected, and quite prosperous, despite its remote location. The buildings were made of painted wood, brick, or stone, all in good repair; the main thoroughfare home to a tavern or two, a dry goods and hardware store, a church, and a schoolhouse. The lawn of the church was bustling with activity, lined with makeshift market stalls and carts. 

Will felt a shift in the atmosphere as soon as the three of them came within sight of the locals buying and selling. Peter was greeted by a few of the men who seemed to know him, exchanging greetings, waiting patiently as Peter petted every one of their horses or dogs, which he seemed to know by name.

Avigeya strode through the market with a special straightness of her spine, chin uplifted. Will understood then why she’d taken care with her appearance today, hair braided and looped up on her head, fastened with pins and green ribbons that matched her eyes. Anyone under the age of 30 was looking at her with a strange kind of reverence. It wasn’t just that she was pretty. She handled herself with a confidence supported by the full bag of coins she’d brought. She moved between vendors, testing flour and sugar, examining bolts of fabric and furs, carefully eyeing trays of baked goods, preserves, dried fruits, selecting only the best. The merchants tripped over themselves to get her what she wanted. Girls her age whispered behind their hands. 

They knew who she was. Her status, Will sensed, came from the fact that she ran the household at Castle Lecter. This garnered her respect, and a curious kind of fear; Will thought she couldn’t help but revel in it. 

Will, of course, was the biggest distraction of all. The villagers knew he was with Avigeya and Peter, so it wasn’t much of a leap for them to discern that he was connected to the Count. The staring and whispering were awkward to be sure, but after a while it felt like Avigeya was showing him off, too, which he had to admit was sort of nice if he didn’t think too hard about being a spectacle.

It didn’t take long for a woman with textured blonde-gray hair chopped at her shoulders to approach Will and offer her hand to him. “Welcome,” she said in accented English. “My name is Katerina. Welcome to Cerbul Negru, you are most welcome. You are the English solicitor?”

He indicated yes and she smiled widely, clasping his hand between both of her own, her grin sincere if imperfectly toothy. 

“I am the leader of the town council,” she said, motioning him over to her table. She was selling jars of honey that gleamed golden in the strong sunlight. “I hope business goes well?”

Will nodded, unsure how much she knew of the proceedings. 

“We will miss Count Lecter terribly, but we know he will return to visit, and he will always take care of us,” she said, handing him a piece of honeycomb in a bit of waxy paper. “You try this.”

Will put the comb in his mouth and sucked out the honey, balling up the wax in his mouth. “Eat, eat it all,” the woman encouraged. “It is good for the body. The bees know what is good for us.” 

It was the best honey he’d ever tasted, and he told her so. “My bees are so happy now,” she told him. “They love the blossoms. Apple and pear, all the flowering trees. You can taste it in the honey. You can taste happiness, yes?”

Will wasn’t sure if he knew what happiness tasted like, but she was so energetically sincere that he simply agreed with everything she was saying. “How does Count Lecter care for the village?” he asked as Avigeya directed Peter to begin loading the donkey with their purchases. 

“His prosperity is our prosperity; his happiness is our happiness.”

“Like the bees?” Will suggested.

“Yes! The bees kiss the flowers, and the plants grow. We keep the bees, keep them safe, and they give us honey. It is like that with our beloved count, the Lecter family for ages and ages. He protect us, and we protect him. We need a doctor, he bring a doctor here and he lives with us. He pays for our teacher to be trained in the city, come back here and teach the children. New houses, digging the wells – four years ago, when there was a horrible frost and we lost so much hay – wagon after wagon came from Bistriƫa full of hay for the winter. You see?”

Will smiled, dabbing honey from his lower lip. “Sweet,” he said. 

“Yes, a sweet man, a kind man–”

Will stumbled over his words, “No, I meant – I mean, yes, if you think – I think so, too, but, uhm… I was… the honey. You’re right, you can, ah… taste the blossoms.” 

“Here, here.” She handed him several paper-wrapped combs and a jar of honey, so much to carry he was worried he was going to drop something. “You take it! No charge, please, a gift!”

“That’s not necessary, we have–”

“I insist!” Katerina said in a tone of no further argument, holding up one bony finger. 

Now that someone could translate, more of the merchants wanted Will to try their items, urging Avigeya to spend more money. Will had a mouthful of warm apple cake when he noticed a young man lingering at the corner of the dry goods store across the way. Just a glance at the man’s intensely baleful expression he wore beneath a dirty mop of auburn hair inflamed Will’s instincts. The entire town, it seemed, was at the church for the market and focused on their visitors. This man, in contrast, held back, watching, staring…

At Avigeya.

Will glanced at her. She was testing a length of bright red ribbon between her fingers, noting its softness, oblivious to the fact that the stranger was skulking nearby, watching. Will flipped through a few scenarios in his head. Did he fancy her, and couldn’t approach? Not with an expression like that. Was it possible he was looking at someone else, at the market in general? No. It was her. 

Keeping an eye on him, Will finished eating and said to Katarina, “Who is that?”

She glanced over in the direction where he discreetly nodded. He winced as she made it obvious they were looking, but what else could he do? “Who?”

The boy was gone. 

Chapter Text

It was damned unsettling, how quickly the young man staring at Avigeya had disappeared. He must have clocked Will looking at him before he even mentioned the stranger to Katerina. 

“Who are you looking for?” she asked now.

Will described the tall, thin, auburn-haired young man to her, and how he was acting. “That is nobody who lives here,” she said, and Will believed her. “I hope there isn’t a thief about! We never have a problem with criminals.” 

At last, when the laden donkey’s load was secured, and the shaggy beast had received his treat of sugar cubes, they were ready to depart. That was not to be, however, as the Count’s solicitor was suddenly inundated with lunch invitations. Before Will knew it, they were in one of the taverns, the tables rearranged to accommodate Will and the town council. Peter elected to head for home, so that the donkey could be unburdened, leaving Will and Avigeya to share a meal with Katerina and the town council. Will enjoyed the food — cabbage rolls, cold chicken, meat rolls, spring greens, and freshly fried doughnuts with soft cheese and fruit preserves for dessert. 

What he did not enjoy was being the center of attention for a meal that lasted almost two hours. They wanted to know everything about Will and London, how things were at the castle, how Will had traveled there, what he thought of Romania. He barely had a chance to eat, he was forced to talk so much. Finally, he managed to steer the conversation back to the Lecter family and their long-standing rule over these lands and the village. 

The council had many tales to tell of how the ancient line had protected the village from invading Turks, bands of marauders, power-hungry village elders that needed a reminder of who was in charge. More recently, ten years ago there had been an outbreak of sweating sickness. Count Lecter himself had ministered to the sick, ordering everyone else to stay away from those in quarantine, despite how the council begged him not to infect himself. 

“It was as if God himself protected Count Lecter,” Katerina sighed through a grateful smile, watching Will finally finish his dessert. “We gathered them all here, in this very tavern, and he cared for them all. A few he could not save – they were old and sickly to begin with – but the young, and the children! They got better with his care. And it stopped the sickness. Without him, the whole village would have died.”

Will’s heart felt full to overflowing. He had no reason to feel it, but he was proud to hear of all that Count Lecter had done for the residents of Cerbul Negru. It made him feel validated – that it made sense to have feelings of affection for someone who was so good to these folks. And damned brave, if the story about the plague hadn’t been exaggerated. These people were well taken care of. He’d seen other villages on the journey that were essentially destitute, people scraping out a hard living, their suffering etched on their faces, their children’s eyes bright with hunger. Everyone here seemed healthy, some residents even edging toward stout. Will felt like his instant connection with Count Lecter had to be a result of his empathy pulse. It lent credence to his ability to judge character. 

Will was glad the meal seemed like it was almost over, everyone settling in with cleared plates and cups of tea. “Could I, uhm… ask you something about… something strange I saw?” Will directed this at Katerina. 

“Anything, Mr. Graham.”

He described the blue flames he’d seen in the woods. “I asked Count Lecter about them, and, uhm… he said there was a-a superstition that on May 4th, the lights showed where there was treasure buried.”

A chill passed over the table that was so sudden, Will almost felt it with his skin, not with his mind. “A foolish belief,” Katerina said quickly. “Those who have gone to search for it over the years have never returned. Never. In fact, it is town council rule that everyone is home that night.”

“Do people from other villages try?”

Katherine’s gnarled hand balled her napkin into oblivion. “If they do, they do not live to tell of it,” she said. 

“Why?” Will wanted to know. He’d seen it and lived, though he hadn’t been actively searching for anything. “What could have happened to them? I mean, isn’t it… possible they found something, and then left town?”

Several of the council chattered together suddenly in Romanian. Avigeya’s eyes widened, and she glanced at Will. Without thinking, he put his hand on hers in a brief gesture of reassurance. 

The moment passed, and Katerina smiled again. “The woods are dangerous after dark, Mr. Graham. Not always, but when they are dangerous, they are very dangerous. You spoke of seeing the wolves. There you have it.” 

“You’re telling me that, ah… wolves killed everyone who went up on the mountain to look for treasure?” Will knew dogs. Admittedly, dogs were not wolves, but they shared common ancestry and common behaviors. It seemed unnecessarily aggressive to kill any humans in the woods after dark. And only on certain days? In May, there would be no shortage of game to chase. Wolves only went after humans when they were left with no options. Treasure hunters would be armed, surely, knowing the danger. 

“I hope you do not plan to try and find any treasure, Mr. Graham. Besides, you’d have to wait a whole year.” Katerina smiled again, strained, her lips stretched over her prominent teeth. 

“No, I wasn’t planning on it.” 

The meal wrapped up quickly after that. It was late afternoon, and the sun threatened to dip behind the mountains before long. With many hearty goodbyes, they at last escaped the clutches of hospitality and headed back down the road toward the mountain path. 

Avigeya and Will shared a few laughs, shaking their heads at their excitable hosts. Then they walked in the comfort of a shared silence, which Will found refreshing for several reasons, the most pressing of which was that he was just damn tired of talking and listening to people talk. But also, he liked Avigeya, and she seemed to like him, too, and the silence was laced with that kind of simple affection. He felt like she was a sister to him more than Alana was. He wanted to protect her and yet also felt nurtured by her, the way she took care of him in the simplest domestic ways. Even though it was her occupation to do so, it felt like she did more than she had to. Maybe he was projecting, he didn’t know. He’d learned the hard way to lean into moments like this, because they were few and far between in his life. 

“I know you won’t understand most of this,” Will said after a time, as they reached the outer edge of farms. “But you’re impressive, Avigeya. Somebody so young running a whole castle by yourself. It was… nice to see you in your element today.”

She smiled with a slight shake of her head. 

“I know. I just needed to say it.”

She nodded as if to say, “I didn’t know what you meant, but I know how you meant it.”

Just before the road branched off, at the mouth of the mountain path, stood a figure, lingering next to a tree as if waiting for them. It was hard to see in the gloaming – the sun had just snuck behind the mountain – but as they neared, Will’s hopes were lifted and cherished. It was Count Lecter, in another beautifully embroidered jacket, this one edged in gold thread. His wardrobe was certainly prolific, even if most of the pieces were far from what was the current fashion in London. They carried that same timeless, fairytale quality, Will realized, as the dreams – the pleasant parts of them, anyhow. 

“I’m sorry,” Will apologized immediately, realizing that Count Lecter had felt the need to come looking for them. “I didn’t leave a note or anything – I went with them to the market and, uhm… got roped into staying for lunch, and it took hours…”

“Will.” Count Lecter smiled benevolently, strolling toward them as they neared. “No need to apologize. Peter told me where you were. Did you enjoy yourself?”

Will scoffed through a smile. “More or less. Yes. I did. The village was just, uhm… very enthusiastic. Lots of questions.”

“I’m sure they were fascinated with you,” Count Lecter said. “As I’ve said, we don’t often have visitors.”

Will thought of the young man that had been stalking around, watching Avigeya with such a hateful expression. He should say something, but not in front of the girl. 

Count Lecter spoke to Avigeya, and she nodded. Giving a little wave, she gathered her skirts and continued up the mountain path without them. 

“Would you walk with me, Will? I don’t often come down the mountain and I want to enjoy the warmth before we return.”

Will nodded, trying not to seem overeager. Count Lecter led him further down the road, away from the village, and turned down another rustic path that opened into a vast orchard of fruit trees. They were all in various states of blooming, and the ground beneath was carpeted with a thick layer of blossoms. Will inhaled deeply as they ambled beneath the bower of pink and peach flowers, watching them drift lazily to the ground. 

As they moved deeper into the orchard, Will thought he heard voices in the breeze, gentle laughter. He could see two sets of legs clad in rustic boots, stockings, and skirts sticking out from beneath a tree with low-hanging branches full of blooms. He could just make out the forms of two people sitting on the ground with their backs to the tree, speaking softly, giggling intermittently. Then, the unmistakable sound of kissing, the arduous press and release of lips.

Count Lecter either didn’t see the girls hiding there, or didn’t care, continuing undeterred. As they approached, one hushed the other. Then, two blushing young faces appeared as they peered around the tree. Neither of the girls could be twenty yet, and it was clear from their faces they’d snuck off to be together. 

“Bună ziua,” Hannibal greeted them. The girls gasped in recognition, scrambling to their feet, brushing their skirts free of petals and hurrying to cinch back up the laces of their bodices. Will noted with a bobby’s practiced eye the love mark one of them had on the rounded edge of her breast before she pulled the neck of her blouse closed and tied the ribbon. He looked away quickly, embarrassed for them, but Count Lecter only smiled beatifically. Once they’d put themselves back together, the girls hurried to curtsey and greet their nobleman properly. 

Count Lecter spoke with them briefly, and the girls relaxed, smiling. One of them asked, “El este cel pe care îl iubești?”

Count Lecter didn’t answer, just glanced at Will with a strangely vulnerable look on his face that passed after a moment. He waved his hand, and the girls linked arms, hurrying away back toward the village. 

“Hard to remember what it was like to be that young,” Will said, mostly just to have something to say. 

“A lifetime ago,” Count Lecter agreed as they resumed their walk. “It feels longer.” Will agreed with him. Count Lecter went on, “Spring is often a time of youthful indiscretion. Something about it encourages rash action.”

“Spring’s, uhm… supposed to be about love, I guess,” Will said, looking at the petal strewn ground lest Count Lecter see something in his eyes as he said the words. 

“It is, according to the natural world. Reproduction is easier when the weather is fair. Are you a student of art, Will?”

Will shrugged as they paused in front of a stream at the end of the orchard lane. “It was part of my education. I appreciate it, but I wouldn’t say I’m, uhm… any kind of expert.”

“I look forward to visiting the galleries and museums of London,” Count Lecter said over the babbling call of the stream. “All I know of the great works comes from books. Botticelli is a particular favorite. Are you familiar with his work?”

“Vaguely,” Will admitted, wishing he’d paid more attention when the tutor had taken Alana and him to some of the collections in London and Paris. “Sounds Italian. Renaissance? Oh, uhm… Birth of Venus, right?”

Count Lecter made a sound of assent, watching Will kick a little pebble into the stream. “Though my favorite of his works is Primavera.”

“Springtime,” Will confirmed. 

They circled the orchard twice as the shadows grew long, Will slipping into a place of pure meditation listening to Count Lecter discuss the various mythological beings in the painting; Venus, of course, and Chloris, Goddess of Springtime, along with Flora, Cupid, Mercury, and the Three Graces. “I’ve always found the figure of Zephyrus to be the most intriguing. He represents the west wind, and the winds of spring. It’s common to think of spring winds as the wind is today–” Count Lecter paused, letting them each feel the warm breeze, “-but often, March winds are tumultuous, changeable, ranging from pleasant to bitter in a matter of hours. And so Zephyrus was, changing from Hyacinth’s devoted admirer to his murderer in moments. An action birthed from spite.”

Will remembered the story – Zephyrus and Apollo both in love with the beautiful youth Hyacinth, vying for his affection. Hyacinth was felled by Apollo’s discus blown off course by the jealous Anemoi. “From pain,” Will corrected. “He destroyed the person he loved because he was in so much pain. It turned him into a monster, just for a second. But a second was all it took, I guess. And it was too late.”

“A second is all it takes,” Count Lecter agreed, his voice softer now as they paused near where the girls had been hiding on their amorous adventure. “To lose someone.”

Part of Will wanted to change the subject immediately. Anything to make his host jovial again, not emoting the wistful melancholia Count Lecter sometimes suffered during their conversations. Will had noticed a pattern – that he got like this when they discussed anything having to do with the more difficult aspects of romantic love, such as losing a partner. He took a breath. Honesty. They’d come to an understanding, a place where the truth was expected. So, Will screwed his courage to the sticking place, and asked, “Did you ever… have someone that you loved that much? That not having them could hurt enough to make you lose your mind, even for… just a moment?”

It was Count Lecter’s turn not to look at him. “I thought you might ask me this someday, Will.”

“You don’t have to answer,” Will said hastily, balling his hands and shoving them in his trouser pockets. Slowly, he raised his chin so he could sneak a look at the Count’s face as they walked on. 

Count Lecter reached out and caught a petal as it fell from the tree above, holding it in his palm, touching it gently with his forefinger. “I was married once. Ages ago, it seems.” Will watched his throat work, the lines of his face somehow etching more deeply as he spoke. “He died.”

Will’s heart felt pierced by those two words. The empathy pulse whirred to life and tore the wound deeper. “I’m sorry,” he managed. “For your loss, and I sh-shouldn’t… shouldn’t have a-asked.” 

“Will,” Count Lecter said his name, almost just to say it, Will thought. They’d stopped walking beneath a gnarled apple tree. Each time the breeze shifted, another blizzard of pale pink blossoms showered down. “You have been remarkably forthcoming with me, despite the fact that your culture forbids such a quick intimacy between friends.” Will shivered involuntarily at the use of the word intimacy, but he kept the tremors confined to his back and shoulders, keeping his expression still. “I have not returned the favor. I have not been in a place of vulnerability with you.”

“You don’t have to be,” Will pleaded. “I understand if you don’t want to talk about him.”

“I haven’t spoken of him in a long, long time.”

Will pressed his lower lip against the line of his teeth a moment, and exhaled, trying to steady himself. “I’m trying to understand. Why is… who is Antony… to you? And, ah, Bedel– Ms. Du Maurier?” 

“Bedelia is one of my oldest friends,” Count Lecter told him. “We did share a brief romance when she first came to Transylvania. It… reoccurs periodically, though not in years now. Antony is different. He’s someone I thought I could love, that I hoped I would grow to love. I’m sure you can tell by his manner that he and I do not see eye to eye on many things.”

“Then why does he stay?”

Count Lecter half-smiled. “If Antony had a penny to his name, he’d be gone. But travel and transplant require money, as you know. Once I’ve established myself in London, I’ll see what I can do for him. If I financed him now, he’d squander it and come back for help again. Please don’t ask me to discuss it further, as it’s a delicate situation between the two of us.”

“Of course,” Will agreed swiftly. “No, I, uh, I already feel like I asked too many questions.”

“You’ve started, why stop?” Count Lecter held out his arm for Will. In a stance of escort, a gesture antiquated but unmistakably chivalrous. Will just stared at the appendage for a second before he slid his arm through the Count’s, scoffing out an embarrassed chuckle. This wasn’t something people in his world often did. To him, anyway. “I mean it, Will.”

“All right,” Will began, feeling every inch where his arm touched Count Lecter’s, a soothing press of musculature. “Do you think you would consider… marriage? Again, I mean? Or even just, I don’t know, being with someone…?”

The count stopped and gently slipped his arm free of Will’s. His eyes were dark and earnest, all the pride gone from his noble mouth. “The luckiest man who walks upon the earth,” he said, “is the man who finds true love.”

“Your husband was your true love.” Will tried his god-damndest to keep the disappointment out of his voice, but feared he failed. 

“He was,” Count Lecter confirmed. Then, “Perhaps mankind is more blessed than we’re aware. Perhaps a man might be lucky enough to find true love more than once. A mighty gift from providence indeed.” 

Will nodded, glancing down at the fallen petals at their feet, then back up at Count Lecter, just for a moment, before he felt compelled to look away. “You’ll be in London soon,” he said. “There are… lots of people. You might find someone if you’re looking.” 

Count Lecter was smiling. He could see it if he looked up through his lashes, just for a moment. “I’m afraid I don’t know how the inhabitants of London court one another. Transylvania–”

“Is not England, I know,” Will finished for him, then dared to meet his gaze again. He wet his lower lip with a brief touch of the tongue. 

“What is customary, then?” The count was reaching for his face. Will’s breath trembled down his throat, vibrating against his heart that felt like an oscillating star. 

“Uhm…” Will groped for words as the hand grew closer. He held very still, waiting to see what would happen.

The count plucked a fallen petal from Will’s hair, then let it continue its descent to the ground to join its friends. Only then did Will breathe. “If, uhm, you’re interested in someone, you usually ask their family first to-to, uh… begin courting them. Then, you-you can’t be alone together.”

“Heavens, no, I shouldn’t think so,” Count Lecter said, the lilt of play to his words. 

“And, um, no touching. Unless something happens you can’t avoid. Like if, uh, your-your companion was to slip and nearly fall.” He immediately thought of the tumble Count Lecter had saved him from at the stream a few days back. 

“That’s good to know,” Count Lecter agreed. His hands had left Will’s grip and were moving… where? Gliding along Will’s forearms, headed for the crooks of his elbows, it felt like. Will didn’t dare look away, but he found himself mirroring the motion. 

“You can take walks. Chaperoned walks or-or drives.” Will felt like he was babbling. He was barely aware of what he was saying, so much more intensely focused on the count’s touch, his nearness, his scent mingling with the blossoms all around them. “And at social events with other people. Dinner parties or-or concerts, um, the opera… uh, and meals with their families. To make sure it’d be a good… a good match.” 

“Hmm. Very sensible.”

“Courting doesn’t go on for long,” Will continued in a steady pour of words, desperate to fill the silence as they stood together, almost embracing now. The count’s two-odd inches of added height compared to Will’s felt somehow much larger, like he was being loomed over, if that was the word. “Proposals are expected, but, um, engagements can go on for quite a while. The-then you can be alone together more often. Um, and then there’s rings, of course, and… the fashion recently has been giving one another photographs…”

“An interesting technological advance,” the count murmured, as if they’d been invented only yesterday instead of close to 70 years ago. 

“And locks of hair. There’s, um, they sell special jewelry for it, so you can keep it close.”

“In Transylvania, you have to be careful to whom you would give a lock of your hair,” Count Lecter said softly, his mouth even closer now to Will’s. “It can be used for witchcraft, of course.” 

“Of course,” Will echoed with a disbelieving little laugh that sounded as strained as it felt. 

The count reached out and grasped another petal from the shoulder of Will’s shirt and brushed it aside, then let his palm rest there, fingers grazing the back of Will’s neck, thumb resting on his skin where his collar hung open. His touch was cool but so soft, a heavenly balm against how hot Will was growing beneath his clothes. “And flowers?” the count continued his query. 

“Yeah-yes. Flowers, but, uhm… it’s a little complicated, because every flower has its own meaning, and you can mix them together to say… I mean, send complex messages. I’ve never…” That was a lie, and it surprised him that he wanted to lie about it. He had, once, given Alana a bouquet of daisies, which meant “I love you truly.” Of course, he’d gathered them from the garden himself, so perhaps she hadn’t realized he’d meant them as a declaration, as opposed to a professional arrangement delivered via messenger. 

She’d kept them in her room until they withered and died, and the maids threw them out. And yet, nothing changed. This wasn’t long after they’d kissed on holiday, and Alana had been skillfully maneuvering away from the topic every time he tried to talk to her about it. She’d kept the daisies. Seemed to cherish them. But never answered, in the language of flowers or otherwise. 

Count Lecter reached up above them and plucked a small stem of apple blossoms. Will watched with bated breath as he fastened them securely in the top buttonhole of Will’s waistcoat. “And what does London have to say about apple blossoms?”

Will couldn’t speak. 

“What do they symbolize?” Count Lecter asked patiently. 

“They mean, uhm… ‘I prefer you before all,’” Will said breathily. 

The count hummed through a smile that only made Will’s cheeks feel hotter, sweat gathering at his hairline. He plucked down another small cluster of blossoms, and tucked them behind Will’s ear, arranging them in his curls. “They suit your complexion,” he said, and Will’s fervent prayers for more touch were answered. The hand that had placed the flowers settled on his cheek, cupping his face, a smooth expanse of silken coolness. Will didn’t even try to stop himself from leaning into the touch, dropping his eyes shut for just a moment to use only his instinct. 

Yes, he wanted to say. You can. Please. He wanted that touch. Craved it like sustenance that he needed to live. 

A familiar giggle came on the breeze that rustled the blossoms overhead. They turned at the same time to see a small group of people hiding behind a nearby hedge, holding the boughs to the side to spy on them. It was the girls they’d caught earlier, along with several otheer young people ranging all the way down to childhood. 

And Catherine Eddowes, her half-skinned face dripping blood.

No.

“Damn,” Will whispered, squeezing his eyes shut and raising his hand to his forehead as Count Lecter released him entirely. 

“Forgive them. Today has proven to be a very exciting day in Cerbul Negru,” Count Lecter said as the youngsters scampered away, laughing, into the dusky gloom of approaching evening. 

“It’ll be dark soon,” Will said ruefully. Already it was going to be hard to see the path walking home. 

“Don’t worry. I know the path, even in the blackest night,” Count Lecter said. “Besides, if you stumble, I violate no decorum by catching you.”

Will half considered falling on purpose on the way back but felt ridiculous even thinking about it. He was a grown man and acting like the girls they’d caught kissing in the orchard, away from the prying eyes of their parents. They didn’t say much on the way back, but Count Lecter paused in the courtyard before they went inside. 

“Will,” he said, his accent wrapping the name in velvet. “I have something I’d like to ask.”

“Go ahead.”

Count Lecter reached out again, and Will melted internally as he brushed a curl across his forehead, a feather-light touch that communicated unequivocally the same message as the apple blossoms did. 

“I’d like you to call me Hannibal,” he said softly.

With shaking fingers, Will removed the sprig of blossoms from behind his ear, and tucked them in one of the many buttonholes of the Count’s intricately stitched jacket. 

I prefer you before all.

Chapter Text

The wine in Will’s glass glowed red as he peered through it toward the cozy fire Hannibal had built up just a few moments before. And here was Hannibal now, settling back down on the cushioned bench they shared, lifting his arm to drape it over Will’s shoulders. Outside the latticed window, the day was bright and clear and very cold, the gusts of wind blowing ice crystals against the glass that scraped like grains of sand. 

The woman across from them was sprawled on a chair, one of her legs up and hanging over the armrest. Her ash-blonde hair was braided tightly against her head, and she wore leather breeches with a blouse, laced leather vest, and high boots. She had the same noble features as Hannibal, the same eyes, the same proud mouth, but all of it beautifully feminized. “A spring wedding would be expected,” she said, swinging the leg that rested over the chair’s arm. “Gives time for Albescu to come without having to brave the pass in the deep snow. Time for gifts to be found or made.”

Her words, wise as they were, became a dull drone as Hannibal shifted, slinging his arm around Will’s middle instead and pulling him onto his sturdy lap, hugging him around his midsection. Will reclined with a coy smile. A sip of his wine, and he settled in, resting his back against Hannibal’s chest, relishing in the press of his lips against Will’s neck, just below his ear. 

“But that’s months from now,” Will complained, Hannibal’s hand rounding his thigh. 

“Won’t last that long, will you?” The woman leaned back in her chair, trying to project a sour face though she seemed unable to hide her smile. “Mary, mother of God, you two are worse than the stable boys after too much apple brandy.” 

“You have a heart of stone, Mischa,” Hannibal joked gently, his words a soothing rumble in his chest that Will could feel flowing through his back. 

“Or something else of stone.” Will tipped his head back to whisper it in Hannibal’s ear. The hand on his leg gave a warning squeeze as Mischa rolled her eyes and let out an exhausted sigh. 

“I propose a solution.” Mischa drained her wine glass and set it on the table between them, leaning her elbows on her knees. “I’ve spoken to Father Davies. He won’t discuss the particulars, but he understands the predicament. He just keeps repeating that verse from Hebrews. ‘Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.’ Which begs the question, I think – what exactly constitutes ‘defiling’ in the eyes of God?”

“I could think of a few things,” Will whispered to Hannibal again. The hand on his leg tightened almost to the point of pain. Will retaliated by shifting his backside against the clear outline of Hannibal’s cock beneath his breeches. 

“Hannibal,” Mischa’s irritation bled into her voice. “You’ve said you want a godly marriage. Reba and I have been talking, and we think, for the sake of everyone in this damned castle, that you,” she looked at Hannibal directly as she said it, “as the higher rank in the union, need to decide how to define that word. And if things happen that are outside of that definition…” She shrugged, pouring herself another glass of wine. “Reba needs some rest. She’s been chasing the two of you around for three weeks straight.” 

“And in those weeks, nothing untoward has happened. I gave my solemn vow,” Hannibal argued, massaging Will’s leg now, the other hand tightening against his midsection. 

“You’re reasonably sure Albescu will give his blessing?”

“He will,” Hannibal said, and Will nodded in firm agreement. 

“He said as much before I left,” Will added. 

“You’d say anything to get what you want,” Mischa quipped, stretching back in the chair again and slinging her leg over the arm. “Little demon. Satan with his silver tongue. So, once the message is received and you’ve gotten the blessing, here is my proposal.” She reached into her bodice and withdrew a small slip of paper, upon which her writing appeared. 

Will leaned forward and snatched it up. He felt his cheeks flush even as he laughed. “What is this?”

“A contract of sorts,” Mischa explained as Will handed Hannibal the paper. “Once the two of you are officially engaged, you keep the marriage bed undefiled, however you would define it. As you can see, I’ve listed my interpretation of the scripture.”

Hannibal was smiling, his dark eyes shining in the dim firelight as he and Will read the suggested terms. Defiling the marriage bed would occur only if the couple engaged in the kind of activity that would lead to procreation (should one member of the pair have the capability) or a comparable bodily action. Therefore, on the wedding day, the virginity of both parties would still be intact in the eyes of the church, since the purpose of marriage is a procreative-style bonding, even if the children are adopted in eventuality. 

Other constraints – the pair may NOT be together alone after dark. The pair may NOT spend the night in one another’s beds. The pair may NOT engage in overt activity where it can be witnessed, either by sight or sound. The pair WILL exercise good sense and discretion. Each member of the pair WILL attend mass DAILY and confession WEEKLY, though amorous activities that do not defile the marriage bed are not considered sins and do not need to be confessed. 

“My sister, the theologian,” Hannibal complimented, giving Will the paper and then chuckling at how red his face was. “And my love, my literally blushing bridegroom. Not as shameless as you thought.” This he directed at Mischa. 

“Do we have an agreement?”

Just then, they heard the door carved with the Tree of Life bang open, and the sound of shuffling steps. In flew Marissa with Reba at her side, tugging her along by their linked arms. “Count Lecter! The messengers have returned! They wanted me to bring you down, but Reba poked them with her cane, and I stole the letter and here it is!” She practically threw it at them. Will caught it and handed it to Hannibal as he slid off of his lap. Will’s stomach churned – there was no reason for his uncle to deny them, but what if –

Hannibal tore open the seal and pulled out the parchment, his eyes flying over the words. “‘It is my great pleasure to grant you my permission’,” he read, then tossed the letter over his shoulder and swept Will to him, burying their mouths together for a furious kiss. Marissa squealed and Reba and Mischa talked all over one another, chattering excitedly, letting out strings of relieved laughter. 

“We-agree-to your terms,” Hannibal managed to free his mouth from Will’s, angling his chin up as Will kissed his throat down to the frustrating barrier of his collar. “It’s daylight. Get you gone – all of you–”

“Praise God,” Mischa cried in relief. 

“Remember your honor, both of you – you’ve been given a great freedom, now, don’t you dare go too far!” Reba’s words grew softer as the other women led her back out of the chambers. The door slammed shut, and they could hear the audible snick of the lock. 

Will shifted his weight and tipped Hannibal on his side, then spread over him, trapping him on the bench, opening his mouth wider - more, at last, at last! Hannibal tried to say something, but Will wouldn’t give him a second to speak. He kept their lips together, fumbling blindly for the laces of Hannibal’s shirt that held the neck closed, tugging at them desperately and only making the knot worse. Hannibal finally caught him by the shoulder and snaked a hand up to grab a handful of hair, yanking his head back. “I’ve had a beautiful bed made – wouldn’t you like to use it?”

“No,” Will denied him, but it was through a laugh that only became louder when Hannibal dug his fingers into Will’s sides, making him contort in delighted agony. Hannibal managed to get up and catch Will’s wrists, holding his arms in a steely grip. Will gave a few half-hearted tugs, but was happy enough to give in, tossing his head to edge his unruly hair out of his face. 

Hannibal kissed him now, still holding his wrists tightly between them. He paused only to yank Will to his feet and into his embrace. Will tightened his arms around Hannibal’s neck and leapt on him, hoping to catch him off guard. But Hannibal was ready, grabbing his backside as Will wrapped his legs around and hoisted him up easily. 

“Ready to defile me, Count?” Will teased as Hannibal carried him toward the door. 

“I’m ready to do everything except that,” Hannibal growled, nipping the skin at the base of his jaw. 

As Hannibal – his fiancé – carried him through the door into the bedchamber, Will wrinkled his nose. Something in here smelled like death. He lifted his head from Hannibal’s shoulder and gasped out a shaky breath. They were no longer in the castle. He could see the doorway leading back to the sitting room where they’d been with Mischa, floating in space like some kind of portal. Now, Hannibal was carrying him through Mitre Square. Towards the bed with the leaf hangings, yes, but it sat not in the comfort of a bedchamber in Castle Lecter, but in Mitre Square, London, near the stone fence–

And there she was. Catherine Eddowes, split open on the cobblestones, eviscerated, face carved up, blood pooling all around her. When Hannibal set him on the bed, Will was frozen, eyes fixed on the body, trapped between horror and delight as Hannibal kissed his throat and fondled him through his clothes, caressing his inner thighs and palming his hardness with a persistent hand. Will gasped out an unbridled moan and fell back on the bed, Hannibal boxing him in with his legs, pressing down on his hips and grinding into him. “H-han–” he tried. Could he not see what Will saw?

Abel Gideon popped out of an alleyway, Catherine’s kidney in one bloodstained hand, chewing, blood dribbling down his chin. “Oh my… dinner and a show!” He leaned against the wall and took another bite of the kidney, leering at them. 

Somehow, desire cut through the horror. Will focused on Hannibal’s face as he bent over to unlace Will’s doublet, helping him struggle out of it. He tossed it aside and Abel Gideon let out a wolf whistle. Will grasped ardently at Hannibal, trying to let their panting breaths drown out the distraction. This is not real, this can’t be real – unless Gideon is real and this bed is not real, and which one am I…? 

I don’t know who I am, he tried to say, but it came out as, “I… love you, Hannibal…!” 

Hannibal put his hand around Will’s neck and pressed him into the bed beneath, squeezing, applying a firmly amorous pressure, working his thigh between Will’s legs. “I want to see you — all of you,” he growled, a loving purr, his free hand teasing open Will’s shirt laces, spilling open the neck of the soft white garment.

“Oh, I’d like to see, too,” Gideon suggested around another mouthful of kidney. Will glanced his way and then quickly back, trying to make himself un-see the bloodstained jaws chomping at the fresh organ. “This is better than the Moulin Rouge!” 

“Draw the curtains,” Will panted as he caressed the back of Hannibal’s head where he had his face buried in Will’s neck, collarbone, decolletage, lower, kissing, testing Will’s skin with his teeth, gentle presses of tongue. 

Hannibal sat back with a laugh. “Curtains can’t hide us from God, beloved. I need the light to see you.” 

But I don’t want HIM to see…!

Will felt himself flushing hot, hotter as Hannibal yanked his shirt out from where it was tucked into his breeches and visited Will’s stomach next, clutching greedily along his defined hip bones as he kissed its flat, milky plane. “Oh God,” Will murmured, unable to stop the words as they tumbled free from his lips, arching his back. Hannibal stopped only to lift him up roughly by the fabric to help Will pull the shirt over his head and toss it away. 

Hannibal paused, breathing hard, stroking Will’s hair back over his forehead, touching with his gaze first, taking in Will stripped to the waist. “Perfect,” he breathed. 

“Not sure I’d go that far, but…” Gideon said, then cackled. It was a wet, sloppy sound. He had his mouth full again. 

Will and Hannibal, smiling at their hurried clumsiness, freed Hannibal from the top half of his clothing as well, and Will sighed audibly, with a longing satisfaction, running his hands through his expanse of chest hair, feeling along his taut abdomen and chest musculature before grabbing him around the neck and demanding his kisses again. At long last, their skin together, so much skin on skin on skin, velvet, treasured warmth. 

“Catherine, you should really see this. You’re missing out. Oh wait, you don’t have eyes anymore, so sorry about that.” 

Gideon had the dead woman in his arms, trying to hold her up so she could see onto the bed before dropping her to the ground again with a sickly thud. Will shook his head, trying to block them out – his cock was so hard now he couldn’t stand it; the lack of release felt fatal. “Please,” he found himself begging, unsure who he was addressing and what he was begging for. 

Hannibal pulled him free of the rest of his clothes with another murmur of deep appreciation, drawing his tongue along the inner flesh of Will’s thigh, and, at long, long last, resting his hand over Will’s cock, thumbing the slit. 

It only took a few movements, not even a full breath’s length, and Will came, hard, arching his back on the bed. Hannibal waited until his breathing slowed before kissing him again, struggling out of the rest of his own clothing. 

Will sat up, still panting. He felt like, if he could see himself, he would be radiating light from a source deep inside. There were no words. He pressed Hannibal down on the bed, head on the pillows, and climbed eagerly between his legs. 

Hannibal was big, and while Will had known through clandestine groping that he was well-endowed, it was something else to see it fully erect. He was shocked at the sensation of pure affection he felt just for this one part of his lover’s body, and how readily he opened his mouth and drew him in, his mind running through all the things he’d learned about from more experienced friends. 

“Look at that enthusiasm,” Gideon complimented, tossing the rest of Catharine’s kidney down on her eviscerated body. “You like it, Inspector? Is sucking cock as fun as it was to blast six bullets into me? Or was killing better?” 

Will faltered, gagging when he hit an inopportune part of his throat. Hannibal reached down and took his hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he said, eyes and voice darkened with desire.

“But not the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen,” Abel Gideon reminded Will, leaning his shoulder on the bedpost. “Reckoning. Judgment. Revenge. Better than sex, isn’t that right, Inspector Graham?” He tossed Will’s revolver on the bed. It landed next to Will’s free hand that he had splayed out on the quilt as he worked to tease out a symphony of moans from Hannibal’s throat. “C’mon, Inspector Graham! You know what you really want…”  

Will woke up slowly this time, his body heavy, weighed down by exhaustion and desire. The afternoon sun peeked through a crack in the curtains, throwing a shaft on his face, piercing his eyes as he forced them open. He groaned and turned on his side, sweaty, disoriented, but aware enough to let reality swim back into focus on its own instead of trying to force it. 

Well, at least he hadn’t slept-walked. 

But there was another matter at hand. In his hand. And all over his undergarment. Pieces of the dream puzzled themselves together and he heaved a great sigh that was half exasperation and half satisfaction. He’d been touching himself in the way he’d dreamed Hannibal had pleasured him. 

Hannibal. How easy it had become to call him that. The name tasted so natural on his tongue, a wholesome food. His name, his voice, they were silken threads of his dreams, and brought comfort whenever Will felt alone. 

If he could just stop dreaming about the bloody Ripper and his murders, his nights would be filled with a fairytale version of what he didn’t dare let himself hope for in the waking world. 

He wanted Count Hannibal Lecter. Desperately. Even more so now after that dream, what it promised Hannibal looked like under his elegant clothing. And God help him, even if it had been self-abuse, his orgasm had been so good, so deeply satisfying. One of the best he’d ever had, just his own hand and a dream releasing what felt like a lifetime of tension. 

Avigeya had given him a kettle for his fireplace at his request, so he didn’t have to bother her as much for wash water. He filled it at night so it would be ready for the morning. Now he built up the fire and warmed it, watching the flames lazily lick the logs, like he’d been licking–

No, not again. In a dream, he couldn’t help touching himself. There was no shame in the liminal state. 

He used all the water in the pot to wash with, taking extra care with his genitalia and surrounding area. He used all the water and sent Avigeya back for more when she arrived with breakfast – or was it lunch? He’d been sleeping so late these days, staying up until nearly dawn every night with the count. 

With Hannibal. The familiarity of the first name stirred in his loins again. For the first time since his bungled declaration to Alana, he felt… good. Hopeful about something, even if this place was strange beyond belief and his dreams and visions were spiraling increasingly out of control. He was safe here. It would pass, like it did after he solved the Ripper murders and killed Abel Gideon. Took some time, but it had passed. 

He ate and got dressed, sans his shirt and jacket. Needed a shave, badly, even if he had to use the little shaving glass from his travel kit. If he let his stubble grow any longer, it’d be just that much more difficult to shave it off with his straight razor. 

Will heated water again, and filled the basin, then propped his shaving glass up on an uneven stone that jutted out from the castle wall, making a little shelf that was, thankfully, just the right height where he could see himself. Will ruefully opened the curtains, squinting again in the bright sunshine, and lathered up his face and neck. He opened his razor and began, chin tilted up, carefully drawing the blade over his neck up to his jawline, rinsing it frequently. 

“Afternoon, Mr. Graham.”

There was a hand on his shoulder. 

Will started violently, the blade slipping, the edge digging into his skin. He made a sharp bark of pain and turned toward the hand. The razor he kept open, held loosely in his grip, in case he needed a weapon. 

Somehow, Antony Dimmond was standing behind him, wearing his usual antiquated frock coat and haughty expression. 

But that wasn’t possible. Will hadn’t seen him approach in the mirror, much less heard the door open and close. Will glanced wildly back at the mirror and saw again that Dimmond had no reflection. 

Inexplicably, the shaving glass tipped over and fell to the stone floor below, shattering into tiny fragments. The sound of breaking glass seemed incredibly loud. 

“Oh dear. You cut yourself.” Antony took a step toward him, raising a hand. Something in his features seemed both lustful and feral as he stretched out a hand toward Will’s bleeding neck. Will backed up against the washstand, hard enough to slosh water out of the basin, his mind shrieking danger. 

He hefted the razor in his hand. Antony’s eyes, flashing with preternatural light, clocked the weapon. He laughed mirthlessly, fingers still headed towards Will’s injury. “Take care,” he said. “Take care how you cut yourself. It’s more dangerous than you think within these walls.”

“Why?” Will demanded. “What does that mean?”

“Do you want me to show you?” 

“Don’t touch me,” Will warned, his depthless anxiety spilling into his voice, manifesting as anger. He tightened his grip on the razor’s handle.

“Antony.”

They both turned at the sound of Count Lecter’s imperious tone. Somehow, he was standing in Will’s open doorway, though Will hadn’t heard the door. 

“You’re being rude to our guest.” 

Antony sneered, but backed down, turning away from Will to stare daggers at the count. “Too bad about your mirror, Mr. Graham. But I’m sure Count Lecter will tell you that you shouldn’t put your faith in such trinkets of deceit.” Will, still frozen, limbs singing with the agonized tension, watched him go, pausing only to say, “It won’t be long,” to Count Lecter, “before he knows.” 

And then he was gone. No boot scrapes on the stone hallway floor. A simple blink, and Antony was no longer there. 

Will’s pulse pounded in his temples, his brain fighting against what his eyes couldn’t comprehend. It was, he thought with a sinking heart, a familiar feeling. The moment of danger ebbed away, and the tide shifted in his mind. Now he found himself half dressed, with a face covered in soap, a razor in his hand, and Count Lecter coming toward him. His eyes were sharp, and Will could see the muscle of his jaw twitching, though his expression was softly apologetic. 

“Give me the razor, Will.”

Will looked at it in his hand. Count Lecter reached out slowly and eased the blade out of his fingers. Gently, he turned Will around and put the blade against his cheek, using the other hand to hold Will’s jaw steady. Will’s mind dissolved into a static hum of nerves as Hannibal slid the razor over his skin until the shave was finished. Will tried to stay as still as possible, breathing evenly, while he felt the remnants of his amorous dream sneak back out of the shadows. It was torture, but the prolonged touch was more than welcome.

At last, Count Lecter washed the razor in the bowl of water and set it on the washstand. Will turned to him, heart thudding and buoyant. 

Hannibal’s lips were parted, and his pupils were wide, his eyes luminous. He reached out and placed his cool palm against Will’s bare chest, letting it glide down over his pectoral muscle, headed south. Will couldn’t stop himself from reaching out and grasping at the Count’s waist, snagging the edges of the dark blue coat he wore, its edges trimmed in luxurious gray fur despite the warmth of the day. 

Closer. Will could smell the cheap remains of his shaving soap, but Hannibal’s scent rose to cover it, ancient amber and an exotic, spiced musk that he breathed in gratefully. Hannibal’s eyes seemed lit from within, somehow catching the afternoon sunlight in a reflective way that made his irises glow topaz. Will usually hated eye contact, but now he thought if asked to look away it would cause physical pain. 

Hannibal wound his fingers in Will’s hair, grazing them into his curls via the back of his neck. Will could feel the hand on his chest trembling as he stepped closer still. Their hips were touching now without pressure or force, resting together naturally. 

“Will.” His name sounded like a warning, a single syllable laden with meaning, four letters of alarm. Will’s empathy pulse roared to life. You’re in more peril than you know.

It’s more dangerous than you think within these walls, Antony echoed in his head. 

I don’t care – I don’t care – please –!

Will hit his limit. To hell with decorum, manners, what was appropriate, what had happened the last time he’d been open about his affection with someone, their business relationship. Alana, Mr. Brauner, properties, solicitors, ethics, language, hierarchy, culture. To hell with it all. 

Will broke open in that moment.

He tried to lean in for a kiss, balling the count’s jacket in his palms and attempting to pull them closer together. 

He was stopped by the hand in his hair tightening, catching him just shy of his target. Lips barely grazed lips, hovered, that was all. Shared breath, or was that only his own air coming back at him? 

Hannibal’s hand on his chest was very suddenly locked behind his back, bowing him in, shoving their hips together. There was no mistaking the feeling of a desire response in the count’s body, and Will was momentarily thrilled by the generous outline.

But you knew that – you dreamed it, a tiny voice whispered somewhere deep inside of him. 

Pleasure and pain rippled across Will’s scalp as Hannibal’s hand closed harder and he used the leverage to tip Will’s head to the side. Will felt him nuzzle down the line of his throat, starting at the edge of his ear and moving along the slope of freshly shaven skin, breathing in and exhaling a heady sigh that mirrored Will’s own soft sound. The count dipped his head lower and continued to pull his hair, angling more exposure of his neck. 

Hannibal’s tongue touched the thin line of blood that had flowed down to the rise of Will’s clavicle from the small razor cut. He dragged it upward, collecting blood as it went. Will’s desire raged against the bars that held it in, broke the locks, the inmates ran the prison now. He grasped the count tighter, half-mad, his conscience’s cries – that this was strange, ill-advised, why the blood? – muffled by the thick drapery of lust that settled over him in its entirety. 

He inhaled sharply when Hannibal closed his lips over the cut and sucked, likely leaving a bruise matching the one he’d seen on the peasant girl’s breast when they’d caught the pair kissing in the orchard. A powerful tremor wracked the count’s body; Will could feel the hand in his hair shaking, gripping and relaxing in intermittent bursts, braiding pleasure and pain along his scalp and over the stinging wound on his throat. These places on his body were tributaries to the river that led between his legs, his anatomy straining in his trousers, desperate to be released, touched, acknowledged.

A strange sensation now, like the tips of two needles touching the skin on either side of the small cut, as if the pointed ends of carpentry nails were grazing his skin. Coming from Hannibal’s mouth, encased in the barrier of his lips…? 

And, very suddenly, Hannibal let him go. Will stumbled, holding nothing but air. The physics didn’t make sense – how was he all the way across the bedchamber now? Will grasped the bedpost, panting. “Hannibal,” he breathed. 

Count Lecter’s face was a contorted mess of emotions that shifted so rapidly even Will couldn’t track them. Desire, pain, murder, adoration, fear, love, hunger — the ambient pulse’s pendulum swung so fast it was making him sick. 

“Will,” Hannibal breathed, then straightened his shoulders, and arranged his face in a mask of commanding aristocracy. “Will,” he repeated firmly. “Look into my eyes.” 

Will complied, a question curling along his tongue. It slithered back as his body went rigid, then slowly relaxed, one muscle at a time. There was a strange chill inside of his head, in his brain but somehow tangible. Cold, sliding like a piece of ice melting along a sun-warmed stone, or being drawn over living flesh, leaving a chilly trail of moisture behind. 

What is that? What’s happening to me? Will flailed mentally against the sensation that seemed to encase his body now. “What are you… what are you doing…”

“Relax, beloved,” came the purred murmur as the world softened at the edges and bled watercolor. 

Beloved…?

The feeling became colder in increments, and the pressure on his mind increased. Will’s hold slipped, and he plunged into a sunken place of floating blackness.

He heard Abel Gideon’s amused chuckle echo through the darkness around him. Then the images stormed the gates of his mind, bludgeoning them open. Nichols. Stride. Eddowes. Chapman. Mary Kelly alive, shaking his hand. Mary in pieces on the bed. Abel Gideon slowly sliding down the wall, blood pouring from his bullet wounds.

“See? See?”

Will woke up. 

He was standing at the wash basin, razor in hand, face freshly shaven. The razor fell from his quivering hand, splashing into the basin.

Sleepwalking and shaving? 

Had he been asleep? 

Will stumbled over to the bed and sank onto it, head on his hands. He remembered the dream he’d had, about Count Lecter and a woman he thought might have been his sister. They’d… done things… with Abel Gideon watching. He’d awakened to a bodily need instinctively if shamefully fulfilled. Gotten up, washed thoroughly, dressed partially, heated more water to shave… and now he was finished, though he had no memory of the actual act. 

His shaving mirror was shattered on the floor. 

Will put his head in his hands and forced himself to breathe, fingers trembling as he rubbed furiously at his eyes.

Think about it like a crime scene. Interpret the evidence. 

He got up and slipped on his boots so he wouldn’t catch any of the glass on his bare feet. Will moved methodically around the room. The door was unlocked but firmly latched, as he’d secured it after Avigeya had left the second time. Curtains open. He estimated he’d started shaving about twenty minutes ago, maybe less, and the position of the sun seemed to corroborate his recollection. The water in the basin was warm, though not steaming, as it had been when he’d begun, almost too hot to touch right out of the kettle. 

If he’d lost time, it wasn’t much. Not like during the Ripper investigation. Back in 1888, he’d lose entire afternoons or evenings, blinking back into consciousness hours later, only to have his colleagues tell him he’d been acting normally, if a little cold and distant. 

Your body is part of the crime scene, he reminded himself. What can you interpret? 

He had a headache, and it was getting worse by the minute, the afternoon light piercing his eyes like white-hot arrows. He drew the curtains with a sigh of relief, then examined himself as best he could with no mirror. He was aroused again, despite his distress, though the headache was taking care of the other ache, replacing one with the other. He put on his shirt, then paused at the foot of the bed, lost in thought, rubbing the back of his neck. 

Will hissed a small sound of pain as he dragged his hand across the side of his neck. There was a little shaving cut, already scabbing over. But it felt bruised there as well, like a dull blade had been pressed against his throat, cutting him a little but leaving broken blood vessels under the skin. It irritated him, not being able to see it. His razor was sharp; if he’d pressed hard enough to get a bruise, he would have slashed more deeply into his skin. 

Maybe he’d fallen or hurt himself some other way during the small time he was sleepwalking. Or unconscious? In some form of, as Count Lecter described it, a liminal state. 

The concept only reinforced the idea that he was still not well enough to travel. Will wondered when he’d be fit to be alone again and considered that he should be more concerned about the time away from London. Yet, he could only vaguely force himself to care. He might be losing his mind, his health falling apart, but who was to say it wouldn’t be happening right now in London if he was there instead? 

Maybe it was Alana’s rejection that had triggered it. This thing in his brain that shuffled around reality. If emotional turmoil was the culprit, it would explain so many of the strange things that he’d seen in and experienced in Transylvania. 

He prodded his neck wound with his fingers a few times before washing it with soapy water again and leaving it to air dry. Unable to stave off the headache or ponder further what was causing it, he crawled back into bed and welcomed the darkness. 

If only he could dream of Hannibal without the Ripper paying a visit… 

Chapter Text

“What happened to your neck?” 

Will paused, lifting an unconscious hand to press the pads of his fingers against the injured place. “Cut myself shaving,” he said. 

“Ah.” Count Lecter held a branch of brambles aside so Will could slip past them without the thorns snagging his clothing. They were deep in the forest, having hiked further down the mountain. The promise of spring sang between the bare trees, many of them budding or unfurling tiny leaves. Here and there they passed wild crab apple trees and flowering pussy willows. Already the undergrowth had woken from the clutches of winter, adding green to the landscape. “Seems you accomplished the task, regardless.”

Will rubbed his smooth face. “Wasn’t easy. I, uh, dropped my shaving mirror.” 

They made their way down into a little dell inhabited by an ancient, twisted tree that listed to the side, half-uprooted. The sun beamed down in full force, warming the glade with golden light. A little stream flashed silver nearby, filling the air with its clear song. Will’s heart swelled. Natural places like this were a treasure, and it seemed like Hannibal’s lands were full of hidden gems like this. 

They broke the tree line, making for the exposed roots of the old oak, in no hurry at all, letting the sun tickle their backs. “W-why aren’t there any mirrors?” Will asked tentatively as Hannibal knelt to examine a crocus that had burst up through the patchy grass, a lone flag of purple and ivory. “I mean, in my room, and the library, other places I’ve been…”

Hannibal straightened, the small flower between his fingers now, brushing imaginary grit from his knee with his free hand. “I fear you’ll find my explanation borders on the ridiculous. I know you’re a man of sense. England is a hub of science and industry. I hesitate to explain something that is rooted entirely in emotion and superstition.”

“Transylvania isn’t England,” Will reminded him. “And I’m not in any place to judge you. Wouldn’t want to.” 

Hannibal stepped closer. Will held his breath as the count threaded the delicate flower through his buttonhole. “In our traditions here, mirrors trap the souls of the dead if left uncovered after someone dies in the house. Smashing them, presumably, might be even more effective in preventing the soul from transitioning to the afterlife.”

“I’m sorry,” Will said reflexively. 

“Will,” Count Lecter said, resting a hand on his shoulder. “Please don’t apologize for trying to understand me. It’s a welcome gift.” 

“I don’t like bringing up things that make you…” Will shrugged helplessly as the hand on his shoulder glided down softly to his elbow, then traced beneath his forearm to clasp his hand. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to say or-or not say about…”

“About my husband,” Hannibal finished for him. 

Will nodded, pressing his lips together, looking down at the flower attached to his waistcoat, not at the count. 

“The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Why is a mystery to any of us. It could be part of a plan. It’s easier to see farther along a road from a high seat, and Heaven must be the highest seat of all.” The count squeezed Will’s hand reassuringly, a cool press of flesh. “Or, as I’ve come to think, He is erratic because there is no master plan aside from his whims, which can be generous or cruel, depending on His mood.” 

Will tried to grasp the thread of what Hannibal was saying to him. “God took your husband from you…?”

“Many tend to cling to the things he takes away. But we would all do well to remember that he giveth and can give generously.” The count’s other hand rose slowly to push aside a lock of hair from the side of Will’s face where the gentle breeze stirred it. “Though He is not constant. Not as impartial or balanced as Nature herself.” He paused, looking at the gnarled, half-collapsed tree. “Shall we see some of her precious bounty?”

Will nodded, and let Hannibal lead him on, still holding his hand, which was making it hard to concentrate on the elaborate way the count spoke, especially about sensitive topics, saying much while saying little, if one were to dissect the interactions closely. They rounded the side of the root cluster that had become exposed, and Will immediately noticed the hollow beneath the fallen tree, dug out by some kind of animal and surrounded by tracks. Based on the size of the hole…

“This is a wolf den,” Will said, stopping in his tracks. “We shouldn’t…”

“Come here and see.” Hannibal let go of his hand and continued, getting closer to the opening. He whistled softly. Will watched, enchanted, as several sets of little tawny eyes appeared in the gloom. One by one, five wolf pups emerged from the burrow beneath the old tree, each sibling sporting gray-black fur on their bodies and amber hair from the neck up. They whined softly, but otherwise seemed completely unafraid. 

“What if the mother comes back?”

“Don’t worry, Will,” Hannibal soothed, easing down onto a nearby rock. The puppies raced up to him, little round bodies adorably uncoordinated, their tails flopping back and forth as they hurried through the grass. “Most of what is ‘known’ about wolves comes from stories where they play a villainous role. Humans often frame nature’s predators this way, hunting them to extinction and upsetting the balance.”

“And then… wonder why the deer and rabbits eat all their crops.” Will edged forward slowly, a wide, unconscious smile of delight stealing over his face at the sight of the pups tumbling along the grass. 

“There is much to be learned from beasts.”

“Are you sure we won’t… hurt them? The mother, she won’t-won’t abandon them, will she? If they smell like us?” Will thought of baby birds and overturned nests. He thought of his own mother and why she never came back that day. 

“No harm will come to them, I promise.” Hannibal lifted one up gently and set it in his lap. The little creature playfully bit the edge of the count’s coat, let it go, then pounced on it again. The others pawed at his legs, whining for a turn. 

Will came closer with slow, deliberate steps, then knelt at Hannibal’s side, leaning on the rock and resting his back against it, legs outstretched. He’d hardly settled when the pups climbed over his calves, one gnawing on his boot laces. He made no effort to curb the unbridled laughter that their frolicking brought out of him. One pup crawled up his chest to lick his face and he held it close, indulging in its soft, babyish fur. 

“They like you,” Hannibal said as the pups abandoned him entirely to play with Will, mobbing him for attention.

After a while, one of the pups yawned with an adorable little whine. “Tuckered you out, huh?” Will chuckled, reluctantly releasing the pup he’d had snuggled in his lap. One by one the pups retreated to the den, disappearing into the snug darkness within. 

Will sighed through a smile once they were gone. He glanced over and saw Hannibal gazing down at him with an unchecked look of soft adoration that made his cheeks pinker. Will looked away quickly and got to his feet, brushing off his trousers. They retreated to the edge of the clearing, stopping only when Hannibal said, “There’s their mother.” Will turned and saw a moon-white wolf disappear into the den, pausing only to glance back at them. There was something canny in her golden eyes. Will knew it was silly, but he felt like she had thanked them for playing with her children and running off some of their energy. 

They turned back towards the wood, walking slowly towards Castle Lecter as the afternoon shadows deepened, the sun headed for her resting place behind the mountains. 

“I miss my dogs,” Will said. 

“Who looks after them when you’re away?” Hannibal asked.

“Alana,” Will said, though he was reluctant to manifest her presence into their conversation by saying her name. 

“I look forward to meeting them.” Them, Will thought. The dogs. Not Alana. The thought twisted in him. Hannibal didn’t care for Alana, he knew, but that dislike came from viewing her at a distance, based on Will’s perceptions of her. Count Lecter hadn’t grown up with her, spent countless hours playing with her. Holidays by the seaside, lessons, sharing secrets… He felt guilty that someone who he was growing close to didn’t understand how much Alana meant to him, even if things between them were strained at the moment. She did care about him, and that care was more than pity. Wasn’t it?

I'm insulted on your behalf, Will. 

No one had ever taken up for Will quite like that. Concerned with the matter of his honor. It spread a warm, liquid feeling in his gut that seeped further down until he was suddenly doing his best not to remember any of his dreams.  

As they crossed the courtyard and Will glanced up at the window of his chamber, pieces of a vision came back to him despite his best efforts. Hannibal clutching him possessively, a hand on his hair, kissing his neck, leaving a deep, passionate suck-bruise, a reckless mark of unbridled desire—

Will’s hand crept up and touched the tender spot on his neck. 

No, he’d cut himself shaving. In the liminal state he might have pressed onto the wound too firmly with his fingers, causing the bruising. 

He must have dreamed the kiss, perhaps while he was injuring himself during the blackout. Why was his fantasy just coming back to him now? Usually, he recalled his dreams immediately and with vivid, cruel clarity.

“Will?”

Will shook his head. Hannibal was waiting for him at the kitchen door, having greeted Avigeya, who he could see within chopping vegetables. 

“Coming,” he said, hustling inside. 

Hannibal spoke briefly to the girl, and then led Will upstairs to the library. They cleared a bit more of the paperwork — though regretfully, each of them aware of the dwindling pile — and then Avigeya came with Will’s dinner.

Hannibal was on the second storey balcony, searching for a book he’d been telling Will about as Will settled in to eat the lovely roast with a root vegetable mash and mushroom gravy. Hannibal returned with the book and set it on his chair, then went to the sideboard to pour them some wine. “Avigeya’s really coming into her own as a cook,” Will told him, accepting the glass the count offered. “You should try this.”

“It smells delectable.” Count Lecter settled into the chair, flipping through the book as night fell. The daylight was lasting longer and longer these days, though the lower position of the sun was always shadowed by the mountains. 

“Pairs well with the wine,” Will said. Their expedition outside had worked up his appetite. 

A thought unwrapped itself in his brain. 

He’d never once in the time spent at Castle Lecter seen Hannibal eat. 

Most of the time the count explained that he’d eaten earlier in the day. But Will had been with him all afternoon. Unless he’d eaten an enormous breakfast and lunch, Will couldn’t imagine that he wouldn’t be hungry for supper by now. 

And in the mornings until after lunchtime, Will was usually with Avigeya, practicing Romanian or English, helping Peter, or working on planting the kitchen garden that needed to be sown. Which meant Avigeya wasn’t preparing and feeding massive meals to the count during that time.

Or to Bedelia, Chiyoh, or Antony, for that matter. 

There had to be an explanation. Perhaps they cooked for themselves? Antony certainly didn’t seem like the kind that would find emotional nourishment preparing food for himself or others. Chiyoh? Bedelia? He didn’t know. 

His investigator’s mind ticked through all the times he’d been to the kitchen, trying to recall the dirtied pots and pans, cataloging the foods he’d been served based on the number of rabbits and pheasants hung. 

“You, uhm… you really should try it. It’s, ah… tender. It just melts.” Will leaned back on his chair and indicated his plate. 

“I’ll be sure to have her make it again sometime,” was the response. Then, as if it was an afterthought, Hannibal leaned over with a finger extended. “Could I?”

“Go ahead.”

He touched the pad to the juices that came off the roast, then put it to his lips.

Will looked away just in time. It didn’t stop him from hearing the tiny noise of suction. Dear God, he prayed mindlessly, looking at his food and not at the count, trying desperately not to let his mind slip into debauchery. 

“You’re right, it goes very well with this vintage.” He settled back into his chair and picked up the book again. 

Bloody hell, Will thought, commanding his anatomy to back down. 

After a time, Will finished, and Avigeya stopped in to clear his plate. He thanked her, and she smiled with, “You’re welcome, Will.”

“Your pronunciation is impeccable,” Hannibal complimented as she left. 

It was only then that Will realized he’d responded to her in Romanian, and she’d answered him in kind. The translation happened so fast he hadn’t even thought about it. That never happened, even when he was speaking French, which he’d first spoken in Louisiana and had been tutored in ever since the Blooms had taken him in, the governesses belittling the Cajun out of his accent easily enough. 

“We’ve been practicing every day,” Will told the count. “English is hard to learn, though. But she’s a smart girl. More than she lets on, I think.” 

“I couldn’t agree more.” Hannibal found the section of the book he was looking for. “Here. The writings of one of my ancestors. He describes the history of my lands with a kind of imprecise passion I thought you’d find fascinating. Make yourself comfortable — to call him long-winded is generous.”

Will’s legs were tired from the walk. As Hannibal positioned his own chair closer to a candelabra for reading, he slid onto the cushioned lounge, stretching out after moving the table closer so he could reach his wine easily. This also gave him an unimpeded view of the count as he read from the weathered tome, one side of his face brightly illuminated, the other merging with shadow, drawing out and emphasizing all the dimensions Will loved about his bone structure and subdued expressions. He planned to sneak as many glances as he could. 

Hannibal began reading from the text, translating to English as he went. “To the boyar, the pride of his house and his name is his own pride, and their glory is his glory, and their fate is his fate. We Szekelys have a right to be proud, for in our veins flows the blood of many brave races who fought as the lion fights, for lordship. Here, in the whirlpool of European races, the Ugric tribe bore down from Iceland the fighting spirit which Thor and Odin gave them, which their Berserkers displayed to such fell intent on the seaboards of Europe, and Asia and Africa too, till the peoples thought that the werewolves themselves had come. Here, too, when they came, they found the Huns, whose warlike fury had swept the earth like a living flame, till the dying peoples held that in their veins ran the blood of those old witches, who expelled from Scythia had mated with the devils in the desert. Fools, fools, what devil or what witch was ever so great as Atilla, whose blood is in these Lecter veins? It is a wonder that we are a conquering race; that we were proud; that when the Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar, or the Turk poured his thousands on our frontiers, we drove them back? 

“Is it strange that when Arpad and his legions swept through the Hungarian fatherland, he found us here when he reached the frontier; that the Honfoglalas was completed there? And when the Hungarian flood swept eastward, the Szekelys were claimed as kindred by the victorious Magyars, and to us for centuries was trusted with the guarding of the frontier of Turkey, and more than that, endless duty of the frontier guard, for, as the Turks say, ‘water sleeps, and the enemy is sleepless.’ 

“Who more gladly than we throughout the Four Nations received the ‘bloody sword,’ or at its warlike call flocked quicker to the standard of the King? When was redeemed that great shame of my nation, the shame of Cassova, when the flags of the Wallach and the Magyar went down beneath the Crescent? Who was it but one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground? This was a Lecter indeed. When we threw off the Hungarian yoke, we of the Lecter blood were amongst their leaders, for our spirit would not brook that we were not free. The Szekelys – and the Lecters as their heart’s blood, their brains, and their swords – can boast a record that mushroom growths like young dynasties and infantile countries can never reach. The warlike days are over. Blood is too precious a thing in these days of dishonorable peace; and the glories of the great races are as a tale that is told…” 

Hannibal set the book aside. Will got up from where he’d been resting and stretched. “Warlike days are over?” he asked, striding up to the count and settling onto his lap. “Your grandfather laments it. I would have peace.” 

Hannibal slid a hand up his back and played with his hair. “Heaven forbid a war disrupts our wedding plans. Reba would be devastated.”

“You’re enjoying it just as much as she is,” Will teased, drawing the knuckle of his index finger down Hannibal’s sharp cheekbone as the count set the book aside. 

Young. We’re both younger. How are we younger? Will examined Hannibal’s face closely in the candlelight. Hair darker, features sharper and more defined, the chest hair peeking up at the collar of his shirt showing no hints of gray. He could feel the litheness of his own body, feel the smoothness of his face beneath Hannibal’s touch. 

“I pray for a stretch of peace that encompasses our entire lives,” Hannibal said, leaning forward to rest his head against Will’s shoulder, drawing him further up on his thighs and into a tighter hold with a contented sigh. 

“Pray for peace, prepare for war,” Will said, stroking the back of Hannibal’s neck and playing with the collar of his coat. “That reminds me. We should spar again soon. If you’re willing to lose in front of your men.” 

He could feel Hannibal smiling into his collarbone. “I made the mistake of underestimating you exactly once, beloved. I will not make it again.” 

Will laced his fingers in Hannibal’s hair, longer and darker than he remembered it, and tilted his head back. “You were going easy on me?”

“I was. I didn’t want to break you on the field. Though I wouldn’t mind doing it on our wedding night.” Hannibal spilled them onto the thick fur rug at their feet, kissing Will’s neck and groping up his thigh with an insistent, powerful hand that made him gasp. 

Will retaliated by anchoring his heels on the tender spot where Hannibal’s calves eased into his ankles and squirming out from beneath him to get on top, working his knee between Hannibal’s legs, pressing his wrists against the floor. They were laughing, wrestling now like children until Will gave up, an act which had, he found, a definite sweetness. 

Hannibal slowly eased his grip, gazing down at him with a look of pure, hard-breathing adoration. He flopped over on his back and let Will cuddle in under his arm, resting his head on the place where his shoulder met his chest, clinging to him. Will slung a leg over Hannibal’s and pressed in even more closely, his breaths slowly evening out. 

“You can break anything of me you wish,” Will found himself saying. “Except my heart.”

Hannibal kissed the top of his head. “I would never hurt you. I spoke in jest.”

“Hmm,” Will murmured, stealing a hand down to cup Hannibal through his clothing. “Are you sure? What if I… wasn’t interested in your gentleness?”

“What if I wasn’t interested in yours?” 

Will tilted his head so he could kiss Hannibal’s neck, then drew his earlobe into his mouth. Hannibal’s shocked exclamation when he bit down was thrilling. 

Now he was trapped beneath his intended again, his triumphant laugh smothered by a forceful kiss, the sweetest retribution. “See?” Will gasped out as Hannibal groped him now, merciless, rubbing his hardening cock with the flat of his hand. 

See? See…?

Something warm and viscous dripped onto Will’s face, even as Hannibal was buried in his neck, kissing and sucking and biting along the collarbone he’d exposed by untying the neck of Will’s shirt and pushing it roughly off one shoulder. Will raised a hand to his cheek and wiped it away. 

Blood. 

He looked up to the ceiling.

The stone that soared above them, even above the second level library, was a sea of blood. In it floated the five women Will knew the Ripper had killed, face up, their organs bobbing about as they drifted away from their eviscerated midsections. 

Will tried to say Hannibal’s name, but no sound came out. 

Abel Gideon stepped into his view, sneering down at him, riddled with bullets, eyes glassy and dead. “When are you going to tell him about me, Inspector? I do hate being your dirty little secret…” 

The blood fell from the ceiling, the bodies with it, as if gravity remembered it existed. And the sea of blood washed over them in a swirling crimson torrent of cold gore…

Chapter Text

I pause and glance up from my reading. 

Will is asleep, laying half on his side on the lounge, wine only tasted, petal lips slightly parted, dark lashes feathering on his cheeks like downy shadows. 

I smile. It is a doting expression. We must have walked farther today than I realized. I am not tired. Never tired, not from physical exertion. Just the long stretch of a lonely, heartbroken existence. Where our hours of walking tired Will, they only fed and invigorated me. Ever since he stepped through the door of my home I have come back to life, suffering through all the joys and sorrows and agonies and delights of a living man once again. I had forgotten how powerful it all was. I had forgotten how much love I have to give. I had not fully understood the scale of the void inside of me until he came. 

I was not aware of myself until I became aware of him. Will Graham has awakened me to the world once more. It is simultaneously exquisite and terrifying. 

Now, I put the book aside and I watch him sleep. It’s dangerous, I know. I could barely control myself the last time I let myself gaze on him like this, in his sweetly mortal vulnerability. But he looks most like Iliya in moments like these. 

My eye wanders down the slope of his lissome throat and I see the mark I left behind. I chastise myself for the hundredth time today. I came very close to ruin. To showing him what I am before the time is right. That knowledge must be fed to him carefully, one morsel at a time. It could take years of careful planning.

Manipulation. Nothing is going to keep Will from loving me one day, and that includes Will himself. 

I must be patient. And the sight and smell of a little blood cannot bring me so close to disaster. I need to eat so that I am not so sorely tempted. I have avoided it; we must, by necessity, hunt far afield when opportune prey is scarce. I do hate to give Antony any credit for intelligent thought, but he’s right — the family must not go hungry, for Will’s sake. I make a note in my mind to speak with Chiyoh to see if she could bring something back for the others. 

I think about blood now, looking at him. About the sweet taste of his throat, the unique complexities of his blood, his incredible warmth. I want it all. I want to eat him. I want to fuck him. I want to eat him while I fuck him, and I want to love him and I don’t want to wait. 

What I need, I realize, is to leave the room. For both our sakes.

I rise from my chair to wake him and send him to his chamber. I wish I could carry him there without it raising questions in his mind about my strength, my ability to transport him so gently that he would not wake. 

I deny myself the privilege. Will has a brilliant mind, and he’s already asked about the mirrors. Tonight, I’m half-sure he’s started to question my lack of eating human food. All this, and the mesmerism. It has never failed me before. I can compel humans to do all sorts of things, wipe their memories clean or implant other ones that suit my purposes. I’ve been doing it for centuries. 

Yet another way that Will has intrigued and frightened me. His mind feels so wholly different from any I’ve manipulated before. It is almost as if he was aware of what I was doing, even as I erased his memory. I believe now more than ever that I was correct in my insistence to myself that I must not use mesmerism to make him love me. Quite honestly, I’m not sure it would work. 

I sink down on the edge of the lounge and reach out to shake him gently awake. 

It is then that I realize he is dreaming. 

Will begins to breathe heavy, panicked, trembling breaths. He sweats and keens out soft, sleepy whimpers. He is having a nightmare. Part of me, the detached, curious portion that has removed itself from humanity, would like to wait to see if he gets up and walks, to see what he looks like when he is in the liminal state. But my newly awakened heart won’t stand for it, and I touch his face gently, take his hand in my own. “Will. Will, wake up.”

It takes a few moments for him to claw his way back to me. His eyes fly open and for a moment I think he doesn’t see me. Then his focus returns, and he sits up, breathing hard. 

Leans into me, resting his forehead against the place where my shoulder and neck meet. I tremble. He grips my hand. I place my palm on the back of his neck, the skin there warm and velvety. He smells like sharp panic. 

“You’re awake,” I promise him. “You were having a nightmare.”

He settles with a shuddering breath and leans back on the lounge, reclaiming his hand to pass it over his face. He rubs his eyes vigorously and runs his hands through his hair, disheveling it as he steals glances at the ceiling. Suddenly, he is rapt once more, sitting up and putting a hand on my knee as if to anchor himself. “I need to tell you something,” he says breathlessly. 

“What is it?”

Will’s eyes are encased in tears. One falls, and he brushes it aside with his thumb. “There’s something wrong with me,” he says.  

He scrambles to explain, as if I’m interrogating him. He spent his early adult life as a policeman in London. Just a bobby, he says, patrolling, routine, no rank, not particularly good at it. Then — he is stumbling and backtracking in his narrative like a man trying to find his way out of a cave — one day a little girl found him on patrol and said her mum wouldn’t wake up. Will investigated and found the woman had been strangled and left in her bed. When the inspectors came, they wanted to blame the man living with the woman and her daughter. He’d been out at night and had no alibi. 

But Will somehow knew it hadn’t been a man, that man or any other. He’d investigated the scene while waiting for his superiors, interpreted the evidence — lack of defensive wounds, the woman’s missing childhood Bible she’d prized for nostalgia, not value — and he’d had something he could only describe as a vision. 

He saw himself as the killer. He walked in the killer’s skin, thought as they did, completely assumed their point of view. In his mind, he murdered the woman and stole her Bible, then let himself out and locked up with a key. He deduced that the murderer had to have shared the same childhood as the victim and had a key to the house. A few interviews later, and he had his suspect: the victim’s sister. 

While the inspectors were interrogating the dead woman’s drunkard paramour, Will went down the street and spoke to the sister. He asked her point blank if she’d done it, and she confessed. Everything she said about how she’d done it, and her motives, rang true to Will’s vision. 

And it terrified him. Because he empathized with her completely, and he couldn’t make it stop. He struggled against the desire to help her lie to the police or give her the means to escape the city. In the end, he’d taken her into custody and brought her back to the scene, handing her off to his superiors. 

Of course, they’d wanted to know how he’d done it. And Will, being young and naive, told them, as well as he could explain it. Scotland Yard knew talent when they saw it, and soon he’d been promoted and assigned to homicide, working closely with two partners, James Price and Brian Zeller. Their clearance rate was the best in the country. 

While on the surface the team was lauded as heroic by the press and their brother officers, Will was always treated as a kind of anomaly; word of how he did what he did not only burned through the law enforcement gossip circles, but was embellished and took on a life of its own. 

Will is breathless from speaking. I tell him he doesn’t have to continue, that I’m worried about him – he has a fever, and I am concerned about the ashen quality of his skin. He forges ahead regardless, telling me about a series of murders in the Whitechapel district of London, about a medical doctor turned killer named Abel Gideon whom the press called Jack the Ripper. This was in ‘88, a year before I turned my attention to London in earnest, though Antony had begun to collect books and materials about the city it to pique my interest. There were some cartoons in Punch that I recall, but I’ll have to look at them again later. 

Will enlisted the help of a young woman, an actress down on her luck, Mary Kelly. He had her pose as a sex worker and act as an informant and as bait for the Ripper. The Ripper found her before Will was able to intervene and slaughtered her brutally. Will walked in on the crime as it was happening and shot Abel Gideon to death.

His first kill. How I would have loved to have seen it. 

But assuming the Ripper’s point of view, Will believes, has permanently altered his mind, and he is broken and malformed. Half made. Quasimodo. And I needed to know the whole truth about his previous life, because who would want to be close with someone so monstrous? 

My mind spins, rocking back and forth, tossed about like a ship in a storm, undulating between shock and joy and agony on Will’s behalf, deadly anger toward those who exploited his gift and made him feel like an outcast. 

He’s begging for my forgiveness. That he didn’t tell me before. And now he is staring at me with his soul bared, silently pleading with me through the agonized light in his eyes, the anguish of his expression, the way his hand steals away from me in case I decide to get up and leave, perhaps for my own safety. 

My thoughts spiral, reform, disintegrate. There is nothing coherent but the wellspring of love that floods every part of me. 

God is fascinating indeed. I have to admire his inventiveness. First, he tortures me with the greatest tragedy of my life. As a response I reject him and embrace dark forces that transform me into an undead monster. I kill his children to sustain my unnatural existence and I spread that darkness with progeny. And yet, after four centuries, not only does He return my beloved to me, but He also gives this incarnation of Iliya the incredible gift of pure empathy. The kind of mind needed to love a monster such as myself. It is impossibly generous, and I would do well to be suspicious if I weren’t so enamored, bursting with joy.

He can love me. He has the capacity to love me the way I want to be loved, not in spite of what I am but because of it. 

To say this moment is a revelation is a horrific understatement. 

And look at him, trembling before me, pale and perspiring and pleading silently with those beautiful blue eyes not to reject him. My darling Will, beloved—

Before I have had a conscious thought complete itself, I’ve cradled his face in my hand. I mirror the motion on the other side, holding him and his gaze tenderly. I can feel his pulse under my fingertips, the dulcet heat of his fevered skin. 

“Will.” I can barely hear myself over the tempest of racing thoughts that echo from one side of my mind to the other, galloping in a thunderous, primal beat that matches the rhythm of his heart pulsing through my touch. “There is nothing wrong with you.” 

I have lost my meticulous plan, my immortal’s patience. All my calculations are scrambled, the abacus smashed to the floor, beads spilling everywhere. 

I welcome the chaos.

I kiss him. 

Not a chaste press of lips gently requesting his romantic attentions. I am not a gentleman in this moment. I am barely a man at all; I am unmade. I come for him ravenously and only pause to savor his taste and I can’t be sure, because it has been so many years, but my heart tells me he tastes just like Iliya, the same texture of his lips and the way his tongue touches mine, always hesitant at first before growing bolder and bolder. 

I let go of his face only to push him back on the lounge at an angle and now I am arched over him, poised to… I spin between desires – eat, fuck, love –

In that moment of indecision Will decides for me. He does this merely by looking into my eyes with an expression of naked, cherished gratitude. He hooks his hands into my clothing and pulls. I am too stunned to move, so he uses the leverage to lift himself to me instead. I melt into his embrace as he kisses me hard. Harder. My darling, my life—

His warmth is a treasure — it has been so, so long since I have been warmed by another—

Too warm. His heart isn’t just pounding. It is racing — straining, his breaths rapid and shallow. I am so reluctant to break our kiss that it feels like a mortal wound, but I do, passing my hand over his brow. “You’re running a fever,” I tell him. 

“My head,” he admits, rubbing his eyes. I lean back and help him sit up. 

“You need rest.” 

“Hannibal…” he enunciates each syllable with an earnest longing. He doesn’t want the moment to end, but while I enjoy immortality, I know he is human. As delicious as his fragility is, I am also terrified. Perhaps that is the cosmic joke. Give me everything I could ever want only to have him catch some benign chest cold and die in my arms. 

“You need rest,” I say, firmly, to both of us. 

“Hannibal, I, ah… I’m…”

“Will,” I insist, and he relents, letting me take him to his room. I leave him to prepare for bed and return with my medical bag. He is half asleep when I slip through the door, stubbornly trying to fight it to see me again. 

“You’re a doctor?” He half-smiles weakly from his pillow. 

“I’ve read widely,” I promise him, administering laudanum to a glass of water for him to drink. 

“I’m sure I’m in, uhm… good hands,” he murmurs. 

“Sleep, Will.”

“Stay with me,” he begs, eyes dropping shut.

I move a chair to his bedside and stroke his forehead until I know he sleeps. 

I wish I could remain at his side, but my fangs throb in my jaw. I must eat or risk losing control. As soon as I arrange Chiyoh. Peter, and Avigeya to take turns keeping watch, I become a bat and fly as far as I can while leaving myself time to return before dawn. 

The coach is on the road, headed for Bistriƫa. Normally none of us would ever hunt so close to home and along such an obvious route, but I am desperate. I follow the conveyance until the next stop. A young woman, Avigeya’s age, steps away to relieve herself in the woods. I appear before her in my man shape and catch her with my gaze.

Follow me. 

Unlike Will, she sinks into my control with seamless ease, plunging deeper into the woods, hurrying to keep up as I glide through the undergrowth. 

When we are far enough from the road, I turn and open my arms. She comes to me without hesitation. I snag my hand in her hair and wrench her head to the side, severing her spinal column. She goes limp in my arms, moments from a quick death. I tear into her throat and drain her in great, searing gulps until there is nothing left. I change forms, becoming the wolf, and I rip her corpse apart. Should anyone find her remains, it will look like an animal attack. 

And she will not rise as a revenant.

She was young. Healthy. Not pretty, but sturdy. She would have made someone a good wife, had children and grandchildren, perhaps. Her parents and siblings will likely never know what happened to her. She will be missed.

I feel nothing but full and satisfied. With this feast, I have a heartbeat, and blood finds its way into every thirsty corner of my body. Now my beloved is safe from any moment of weakness that might overcome me. 

God kills indiscriminately, guided by needs, whims, spite — all of it unknown to us. He has his reasons, or he doesn’t. I think of my own killing much the same way. Though whenever possible, I prefer to eat the rude.

Chapter Text

“He still looks pale.” Avigeya’s voice. Will stirred when she pressed her cool hand to his forehead. “Do you think he’ll be all right?”

“A fever can help.” Peter, gentle, accented with the differing cadences of his brain injury. “A fever can hurt.”

“When do you think he’ll wake up?”

Will stirred, turning over on his other hip, weighed down by several blankets. He felt clammy and powerfully thirsty and the light from the window hurt his eyes. 

Avigeya was at his side now, speaking to him gently. But now, for some reason, he couldn’t understand her. His muddy brain slowly untangled itself; she was speaking Romanian. 

They’d been speaking Romanian. How in the hell had he translated so quickly, without even thinking? 

He was sick. His head hurt. He must have been imagining what they were likely talking about and his mind imposed it over their voices. Peter came to his side now and helped him sit up, sticking another pillow behind his back as Avigeya poured him a cup of water from a pitcher on the table. 

Peter excused himself and left, probably to see to the animals. Avigeya tried to give Will breakfast in bed, but he refused and sat stubbornly at the table, though he declined her offer to practice English and Romanian during the meal. She left with some of his clothing to wash after feeling his forehead one more time. 

“Mulțumesc mult, Avigeya… uhm, spasibo vam bol'shoye…” 

She smiled with a tilt of her head as she left. “You’re welcome, Will.”

By the time he was finished eating, Peter was back, motioning for him to follow. Will threw on some trousers and the dressing gown and hurried after him. He thought something might be wrong with one of the animals, or one was doing much better, and Peter wanted to show him – it was hard to tell. What he found was a hot bath in an old-fashioned brass tub in the kitchen before the fire, privacy screens set up around it. 

Will was elated. It was just what he needed, and he hadn’t had a full soak since arriving. Transylvania was not England, but he still wanted to be presentable. 

He scoffed a laugh at himself as he lowered into the tub. “Presentable.” As if he wasn’t thinking of Hannibal in the context of having a clean and pleasing body. 

As he soaked, Will allowed himself to remember what had happened the night before. His memory was hazy in some sections and crystal clear in others. It had happened again — the dream about being in love with Count Lecter, though set in a kind of fairytale past. The sweet moments, as usual, interrupted by intrusive nightmares. He remembered waking up in a kind of fevered agitation, and had, for some reason, felt the powerful compulsion to tell Count Lecter about the Ripper case.

And instead of reacting the way Alana had, treating Will like he was pitiable and damaged and possibly dangerous, Count Lecter had kissed him. Passionately. Made it unequivocally clear that he wanted Will. 

If he hadn’t been running a fever… Will wondered what might have happened next. 

And the more he wondered, the more he thought about touching himself now, cradled in the warm water. He scolded himself; he was alone but who knew for how long. And it wasn’t something that gentlemen did. He’d been taught from a young age it was a sin and would lead to moral degradation. Will didn’t particularly care about sins or morals at this point in his life, but it was hard to violate ingrained values like that. 

Good God, though, that kiss… it’s been so much more than any other he’d received, not that he had many to compare it with. Even with Neal Frank, who wasn’t afraid of pleasure, and Alana, whom he had strong feelings for — nothing he’d experienced could compare. It felt like an awakening. 

It felt like love. 

Not that you’d know, he chastised himself. 

All right, fine, he wasn’t deeply experienced personally, but he knew how Hannibal made him feel. Seen. Listened to. Cared for. Their connection was so immediate, and so powerful, despite the strange circumstances of their meeting. Will had seen enough in Whitechapel to be done with God in the Judeo-Christian sense, but he couldn’t help but feel like something metaphysical had guided them together. 

Yes, the kiss had been a revolution, surely. But the way Hannibal had marked his neck, leaving a love bruise in his wake-

Wait.

That hadn’t happened.

Will’s fingers hovered over the fading mark on his neck. He’d cut himself shaving. Hurt himself in a liminal state. He didn’t remember doing it.

Then why had he felt so sure for such a long moment that Hannibal had left the mark? It was like he’d dreamed it, but in even more vivid detail than the fairytale dreams that morphed into Ripper nightmares. 

It was damned inconvenient that he happened to be losing his mind just now. Why had all the symptoms of madness returned now, after five years out of law enforcement? He wasn’t even in London, not walking past all the places where the bodies had been found, not dodging Winifred Lounds or praying he didn’t run into Mary Kelly’s family anywhere. Perhaps Count Lecter could love him despite how he solved crimes, but who would want to be with someone with no grasp of reality, haunted his entire life by violent visions, sliding in and out of the past and present? 

Will caught movement out of the corner of his eye. For a long, terrible moment he thought he saw Abel Gideon’s figure outlined behind the privacy screen, casting a long and menacing shadow. Gideon’s final laugh echoed against the hearthstones and bricks and tables of the kitchen, usually such a warm and inviting place. 

Will held his breath and sunk down in the tub, soaking himself entirely, then surfaced, rubbing water from his face. 

There was nobody there. 

The water wasn’t cold yet, but he’d had enough. He got out, dried off in front of the fire, and put on the dressing gown and boots. Returning to his room, he was partially dressed, shirt hanging open, when there was a knock on the door. Must be Avigeya to collect him for the midday meal they normally ate together in the courtyard with Peter, though he’d slept late and taken a bath – they might have eaten without him already. He hadn’t checked the time since he’d gotten up. “Aici vin,” he called, working lazily on the buttons. 

It was certainly not Avigeya who opened the door. 

It was Bedelia du Maurier, wearing a red gown that flowed down to the floor, her tiny waist cinched into a ruffled white blouse with bell sleeves that dwarfed her delicate long-nailed hands. Her hair was perfectly curled over one shoulder, exposing her arched throat, nearly as white as her neckline. “Good afternoon, Mr. Graham,” she greeted, deliberately sweeping her gaze over his half-buttoned shirt and damp, tousled hair. Her brow twitched and Will sensed a simultaneous disdain at his unprofessional state of dress coupled with… something else she wanted to hide. Surely, she didn’t think he was… 

It didn’t make sense, because overtly, the undercurrent of energy seemed sexual. Yet the label still didn’t feel right to Will. It was like she was physically hungry and was being tempted by something she wasn’t supposed to eat. But there was no food in the room, no scent but his own. 

She was so small; she didn’t look like she ever ate a damn thing anyway. Yet if he let himself slide into her point of view through the whirr of the ambient pulse, the golden pendulum, he knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to get closer. To touch him. He saw her nostrils flare, inhaling his scent. And he sensed her own disdain coating it. She did not like him, but was drawn to him, nevertheless.

Hannibal had described her as a friend, so Will pushed all this aside and treated her with as much deference as he could despite the dislike that spiked in him as well. And the pettiness, he acknowledged, of the fact that she was Hannibal’s former lover. 

None of that, now. He had no claim to Hannibal Lecter. 

“Excuse me,” he apologized, hurrying to button up his shirt and stuff it into his trousers. “I wasn’t, uh… I was expecting Peter.” 

“If you could join me in the library when you’re… presentable? Please bring the documents with you.”

He nodded quickly, and she left, shutting the door behind herself. 

 When she was gone, Will uttered a grumpy curse and finished getting dressed, pawing through the clean clothes Avigeya had hung in the wardrobe. He put on his waistcoat, watch and chain, and struggled through adjusting his collar and tying his necktie correctly before shrugging on his jacket. There, a proper solicitor again. 

He shouldered his satchel and made for the library. Bedelia was already there, standing by the window, gazing out at the river, absorbing the view that always gave him vertigo. The small table near the chairs and the fireplace where he usually ate with Hannibal had a formal tea service arranged, complete with little sandwiches, though the bread and contents were more rustic than any Will would have seen in London. 

“Mr. Graham,” she greeted as he entered. “Please refresh yourself as needed during our discussion. I anticipate this might take some time.”

“Thank you.” He helped himself to tea and a sandwich. “Can I, uhm… fix you a cup, Ms. Du Maurier?”

She shook her head dismissively, then asked to see some of the paperwork he and Hannibal had been working on.

“I’m Count Lecter’s solicitor. I mean, I represent Mr. Brauner w-who represents Count Lecter. What I mean is—”

“Count Lecter and I are of equal standing in this household,” she said coldly, folding her small hands together. “And his interests are my interests. I do not plan to sign anything in his stead. I merely have questions about the particulars. This transition to London affects Mr. Dimmond and me, naturally.”

“Naturally,” Will repeated in a dubious tone. “Why not ask Count Lecter for the particulars?”

Bedelia came closer to where he sat in his usual chair. He stood instinctively, but even though he looked down on her physically, she felt ten times his size. 

And she knew it. This tiny woman was trying to intimidate him. “He doesn’t know them because he hasn’t asked you the relevant questions yet, Mr. Graham. He is down in the village today and I would like to see progress made on our endeavor, even in his absence. You may answer my inquiries hypothetically, if that soothes your professional integrity.” The way she said ‘professional integrity’ made it clear she didn’t think he had any. 

Will stared hard at her for a long moment. She was ready to either move to London with the count or have the count leave so she could be in charge, he wasn’t sure. He wanted to deny her again, but he remembered what Hannibal had said — Bedelia was one of his oldest friends. He’d spoken fondly of her and seemed to trust her. 

“Ask away,” he relented after draining his tea and joining her at Count Lecter’s desk, which held the map and the drawings and deeds to Carfax. 

“Could someone in England have two solicitors or more?” she inquired. 

Will wanted to take offense immediately. Did she think he wasn’t doing his job? That Mr. Brauner wasn’t doing good work? He swallowed back his injured pride. “You could have a dozen if you wish. But it-it isn’t wise to have more than one solicitor engaged in one transaction, Ms. Du Maurier. Only one can act at a time, and to change would be certain to… militate against your interests.”

She nodded, and seemed thoroughly to understand, and went on to ask if there would be any practical difficulty in having one man to attend, say, to banking, and another to look after shipping, in case local help were needed in a place far from the home of the banking solicitor. 

Will wrinkled his brow, studying her smooth, lofty expression. “Can you… give me a situation you’re thinking of, or explain more so that I don’t… mislead you in my response?”

Bedelia’s nostrils flared again, and she moved further away from him, over by the window, where the strong light illuminated her golden hair into an icy halo, though the sun was coming from the wrong direction to shine directly into the room. “I shall illustrate. Your employer, Mr. Brauner, from under the shadow of your beautiful cathedral at Exeter, which is far from London, buys for Count Lecter – through you, Mr. Graham – a property in London proper. Now, suppose Count Lecter wishes to ship goods, say, to Newcastle, or Durham, or Harwich, or Dover. Might it not be that it could with more ease by consigning to one in these ports?”

“Solicitors in England have a system of agency one for the other,” Will said, folding his hands together behind his back and straightening his shoulders. Professional. If she wanted to test his knowledge of the law, let her test it. Will had an eidetic memory and rarely consulted his law texts anymore. “Local work could be done locally on instructions from any solicitor, so that the client, simply placing himself in the hands of one man, could have his wishes carried out by home without further trouble.”

 “Yes, I understand,” she replied crisply. “However, one could be at liberty to direct oneself and one’s own affairs. Is it not so?”

“Of course,” Will replied with a nod. “Such is… often done by men of business. Those who would, ah… prefer that the whole of their affairs would not be revealed to any one person.” Especially criminal organizations, he did not add. But it was true – it was safer for them to operate in such a way that nobody knew the extent of the business except the leader and maybe one or two members of his inner circle. Nobody else had the complete picture. 

“Very good.” Bedelia went on to ask about the means of making consignments and the forms to be gone through, and of all sorts of difficulties which might arise, but by forethought could be guarded against. Will explained all these particulars to her to the best of his ability. 

When she paused to process the answers to the questions, hands folded over her skirt and glancing out the window again, he said, “You’d make a wonderful solicitor, Ms. Du Maurier. There’s, ah… nothing you haven’t thought of or foreseen.”

She smiled, thin and vicious. Her expression telegraphed her message through the empathy pulse: the very thought of a gentlewoman having an occupation, heaven forbid. Will didn’t like it, but he was remarkably impressed with her intelligence. For someone who was never in the country, had been gone from France for many years, and who did not evidently do much in the way of business, her knowledge and acumen were wonderful. 

“Have you written since you’ve arrived at the castle, Mr. Graham, to your employer or otherwise?”

Will blinked in surprise at the question, swallowing back the bitter taste in his mouth that wanted to ask her what business it was of hers. “I have,” he said. 

“Did you inform him when you planned to return?”

“No,” Will said. “Just that Count Lecter and I were working through the details of the purchases and tying up loose ends.”

“Hmm.” He blinked again, and somehow, she was closer to him than she had been, though he hadn’t tracked her movement or heard the scrape of her hard-soled shoes on the flagstone floor. “And the sweetheart you mentioned the first night you came? Surely you have some family or… others of personal importance that may be wondering what is taking you so long to return home?” 

“I wrote to my family, yes.” He wasn’t giving her more than that. “Just to say I’d arrived safely.”

“It’s been quite some time. Don’t you think there are people in London awaiting your return, or for some word?”

“My employer and my family understand that postal service in this part of the world might be… spotty,” Will said, studying her carefully, trying to use his empathy to pick up whatever she was driving at. 

“Then write now, Mr. Graham,” she said, spreading her pale, spidery hand on his shoulder. “Write to Mr. Brauner and your family and tell them you’ll be home soon.”

Back to London. Will’s heart grew cold at the thought. “You’d like this business wrapped up sooner than later,” he said flatly. 

“I desire it much, Mr. Graham. When your master, employer, what you will, engaged that someone should come on his behalf, it was understood that Count Lecter’s legal needs were to be consulted. All he needs from you is a solicitor’s advice. Is that not so?”

Will felt color flood his cheeks. He had barely seen this woman in the time he’d spent in Transylvania; she hadn’t seen him interact with Hannibal that he knew of. So how did she know…? 

The only explanation was that Hannibal had told her, which was infuriating. He hadn’t specifically asked for discretion but had figured Hannibal wouldn’t be so forthcoming with his ex-lovers about the way he and Will had been… what? Courting? Falling for one another? Sharing indiscretions?

Hannibal clearly trusted this woman, and while Will didn’t want to cause unnecessary strife in the house, he instinctively wanted to resist anything she wanted him to do. 

“Count Lecter and I have yet to finish going over the various contracts and finalizing the purchases,” Will said. “It’s a lot of money, Ms. Du Maurier. I’m trying to represent my employer to the best of my ability.”

“I see. Does Mr. Brauner often recommend you attempt to serve your clients in every way? Things in England must have certainly changed since I left that part of Europe.”

Jesus Christ, she was calling him a slut. 

“Not so much,” he found himself saying with a kind of cool cruelty. “It’s still heavily… frowned upon for an unmarried person to cohabitate with two… wait, three similarly unmarried people for so long. Ruins the reputation. Makes people wonder who you’ve… gotten close to over all these years. Chiyoh? Antony…?”

“You righteous, reckless, twitchy little man,” she hissed at him with sudden unmasked venom. “Perhaps I should write a letter to Mr. Brauner and let him know just how you service your client. Tarrying where you don’t belong and losing all sense of professional boundaries. I don’t think it would take much to ruin your reputation, would it? Perhaps the newspapers would be interested in this kind of story?”

She had a point. Will hated to admit it, but the last thing he needed was Winifred Lounds writing about the man who caught Jack the Ripper caught himself now, tangled in a scandal with a foreign count, making love when he was supposed to be doing business. Mr. Brauner would ask him to leave the firm. Hannibal would arrive in London and have a stain on his name already, which Londoners would be willing to believe on rumor only considering he was a foreigner. And Alana…?

What could he do but bow acceptance? There was that in Bedelia’s eyes and in her bearing which made Will understand that he didn’t have a choice. 

Bedelia must have seen victory in Will’s bow, and her mastery in the trouble of Will’s face, for she began at once to use them, but in her own smooth, resistless way.

“I pray you will write, though briefly. It will doubtless please your friends to know that you are well, and that you look forward to getting home to them. Is it not so?” As she spoke, Bedelia handed him three sheets of notepaper and three envelopes. They were all of the thinnest foreign post, and looking at them, then at Bedelia, and noticing her quiet smile, Will immediately understood as well as if she had spoken that he should be careful what he wrote, for the imperious little woman would be able to read it. 

Will sat at the desk with her hovering over his shoulder and wrote short, formal notes to Mr. Brauner and Alana. When he had written the letters, he left them on the table and returned to his usual chair by the hearth. 

He watched as Bedelia opened the desk drawer for more paper and wrote several notes. Then she took up Will’s two letters, and placed them with her own, and put by her writing materials. 

There was a knock at the door. It was Avigeya entering softly. Bedelia rose and glided over to her, instructing her to stay in the hall. They stepped out for a moment and Will could hear them talking in slow but steady Romanian, not a first language for either. 

Will got up quickly and looked at the letters, which were face down on the desk. Unethical? Yes, but under the circumstances he felt that he should protect himself in every way he could. She wanted him gone. He wanted to stay.

One of the letters was directed to Samuel F. Billington, No. 7 The Crescent, Whitby, and another to Herr Leutner, Varna, the third was to Coutts & Co, London, and the fourth was to Herren Klopstock & Billreuth, bankers, Budapest. The second and fourth were unsealed. Will was just about to look at them when he saw the door handle move. He sank back in his seat, having just had time to replace the letters as they had been and to resume his previous posture before Bedelia, holding still another letter in her hand, entered the room. She took up the pile of letters on the table and stamped them carefully, and then, turning to Will, said, “I trust you will forgive me, but I have much work to do in private this evening. You will, I hope, find all things as you wish. The girl is preparing your supper.” 

Will said nothing, just fixed her in a baleful stare as she made to leave. At the door she turned and after a moment’s pause said, “Let me advise you, Mr. Graham, nay, let me warn you with all seriousness, that you should finish your business as soon as possible and return to London. I’m sure Count Lecter has charmed you. He tends to do that, and he does it well — making people feel like they’re the most important thing in the world to him. Antony and I both came by that knowledge firsthand. I tell you this to protect you from joining us here in the capacity in which we now live.”

Will said nothing, but he could feel his hand clutching the arm of the chair with white knuckles.

“Be warned. Keep the promises in your letters and be careful with your trust. But if you are not careful in this respect, then…” Bedelia finished her speech in a gruesome way, for she motioned with her hands as if she were washing them. 

Will, again, did not respond, and only dared to breathe once she’d left the room. His chest felt compressed as a net of gloom and mystery seemed to close around him. 

I find the village in an uproar when I descend the mountain not long after rising from my crypt, Chiyoh waking me with forceful insistence. The residents are gathered in the town square, milling about in agitation or gathered around a small cart left near the town’s well. Katerina hurries to me as soon as I appear. “Count Lecter, thank God you’ve come. Something terrible has happened.”

In the cart are two bodies: an old man and a boy no more than twelve. Their families are wailing, demanding answers, hurling accusations, impervious to the comfort the priest tries to fling their way with his hollow assertions that this was God’s plan.

It was a plan, but whose is up for debate. Antony’s, or Bedelia’s? A wandering revenant? I can smell vampire on the bodies, though whoever it was didn’t use their teeth to kill. A blade instead, the blood spilled and consumed. 

It takes me all day to investigate their deaths. The boy disappeared the night before, and the old man was found dead in his bed the next morning. 

Things are complicated by Katerina’s assertion that a strange auburn-haired young man has been seen in the vicinity. I ask her about timing, and after a while I assure myself, he cannot be a vampire. His presence is also troubling, though unrelated. 

As night falls, I conclude that these kills are a message for me. 

The old man’s name was Vilhelm. The young man had dark curly hair and blue eyes. It is a reminder that I have promised my brood freedom. They grow impatient. They see my interest in Will as a barrier to getting what they want. 

What they don’t see, what they are too young to see is that the fate of this village is tied directly to our fate in the castle. We need these humans, their unquestioning loyalty. How does Antony think we are able to get books, his English newspapers, have his poems sent away to editors and their eventual rejection letters returned to the castle for him to burn? How does Bedelia think we receive her perfectly tailored dresses and French perfumes? Most of all, what they do not realize is that without the village here, we have no reason to be in the castle. Our presence there makes little sense if I have no lands to govern. Once we are but ghosts haunting a ruined keep, the rumors will start. We will have nothing to eat but the monster hunters. And when those expeditions fail to return, they will come until we cannot fight them anymore and are thus destroyed. 

The village is off limits. They’ve all been told. I’ve been disobeyed and with Will Graham here there is little I can do about it now. A confrontation would be loud and bloody and with Will’s ability to resist mesmerism coupled with his investigator’s attention to detail, he would suspect something amiss. 

I will have to go to London. Now I must convince Will to come with me, either knowing what I am, or without any suspicion. It will be hell to manage. But I can’t let him go alone. Fate has robbed me of my beloved once, and I won’t let him out of my sight. 

Another thought. Should my gambit fail, if I am robbed of my unnatural life by leaving the borders of my homeland, I will have lost him again. 

For the first time in centuries, I don’t know what to do. 

Chapter Text

Will steps out into the courtyard, pulling his jacket more tightly around himself. The moisture in the misty air makes his curls delightfully erratic; with no barber except the one in the village, his hair has grown out, feathering over the tops of his ears and spilling down the back of his neck. He looks more like Iliya every day, or what my beloved husband would have looked like at this age if he hadn’t been taken from me. 

I watch him from the kitchen window, waiting to make an opportune exit to run into him. We haven’t spoken since that wild night in the library where he fell asleep while I was reading only to wake up from a nightmare desperate to tell me his truth; he is a former inspector for Scotland Yard, and he solves crimes by empathizing with criminals. Specifically, murderers. His final case was to catch a man called Jack the Ripper who murdered sex workers in Whitechapel. Will had enlisted the help of an actress to use as an informant and, eventually, as bait. She’d been killed and Will blamed himself, even though he put an end to the murders by unloading his firearm into the Ripper himself. 

I don’t know what prompted him to tell me all of this. Needless to say, it was welcome news, knowing that we murderers are all in good company now. 

The only thing that worries me is his health. His mental agitation, the sleepwalking, the nightmares and visions and fevers – I know now that part of why he smells so delicious to me is because there is something amiss with the chemicals in his body. The darkness in him has reawakened, and as much as I would love to nurture that darkness, feed it, watch it grow under my careful hand, I will not let it consume him if it means he will lose himself entirely. 

Or die.

I am stalling. I know what Bedelia and Antony want, what I promised them, and I know that I cannot leave him now. He cannot travel like this, with or without me. 

A solution must present itself. I have not come so far to lose him now. Will has not come so far to lose me. 

So, I bide my time, and I focus on other matters. The boy, for one. His name is Nikolai. I found him skulking in the woods outside the castle, spying on Avigeya as she hung out the washing. I thought, perhaps, he was a typical brigand, lying in wait to rob or rape. But there was something in his eyes that caught my attention, and I did not rip his throat out immediately. 

I was curious, so I mesmerized him. He told me his sister was murdered by the Shrike, and he has followed Avigeya all the way from Russia, across these mountains and lands, and found her at last. He wants answers. Avigeya’s father is dead, but Nikolai is determined to find the Daughter of the Shrike, a girl who looks so much like his sister, who tricked her off of a train at a deserted stop so that the Shrike could murder her. They honored every part of her, from meat to hair to bone, consuming her entirely. 

One must admire this boy’s persistence, though he is still working up the courage to confront Avigeya. 

I let him go, erasing his memory of me and leaving encouragement in my wake. I nurtured the righteous seed in him, whispering to it as it slumbered in the rich, fertile earth of his heart, helping it blossom. I think Avigeya has more than a chance to face him herself, and it would be best for her to do so, instead of relying on me to make this problem disappear. After all, I may be going to London soon, and she must learn to care for herself. There may be more vengeful relatives on their way. I want to do right by her; spreading her wings must be encouraged.

I increase her chances by mesmerizing her as well, so that she will always carry a knife. I’m interested to see how things go. It’s important to give children some responsibility as a path toward independence. I remember doing similar things for Mischa. Granted, they didn’t involve murder, but the spirit is the same. 

Now I watch Will greet Avigeya as she returns from Peter’s lodgings. The knife on her belt makes me smile. Will asks her what it’s for, and she says she’s going into the woods now to find mushrooms. Will notes that the weather isn’t good; the day is misty and dim. She says she doesn’t mind. They are speaking almost entirely in Romanian now. My beloved has a head for languages, it seems. 

A talented tongue. I’ve discovered that to be the case, certainly. 

It was no easy thing to leave him that night, but I did it. I think I showed a remarkable amount of restraint. 

That restraint, however, is wearing thin. I want him again. And I want more. Of everything. 

Will finds the one-legged duck trying to walk by balancing on the tips of its wings. He picks it up and places it in the shallow trough of water Peter has for this purpose. The duck quacks gratefully and begins to splash about, cleaning itself, ruffling its feathers with such enthusiasm that Will is sprayed with moisture. He smiles and wipes his face with his sleeve. When he is unobserved, or thinks he is, he smiles much more easily. 

When he turns back toward the keep, I am there, waiting for him. He smiles when he sees me, but it’s not the same unbridled thing I’ve witnessed. His coloring is off; the bruise on his neck stands out lividly against his pale flesh, though it has gone from purple to red and yellow. I don’t care for the shadows under his eyes. Still, he tempts me, even like this – especially like this, the grateful way he looks at me for protection. 

“Will,” I greet, reaching for his hands. He folds his palms against mine. “How are you feeling?”

“Better.” He’s lying. Yes, the fever’s gone down, but I can see his suffering etched in the lines of his face. “I thought a walk might help. I’m, ah… I’m glad you’re here.” 

“It’s best you have someone with you, in case you’re too weak to return, or have an episode away from the castle,” I reason. 

“Well, yeah, all of that, and, uhm… because I wanted to see you,” he admits. 

Such a simple admission, and I am buoyant on my hopes again. I will find a way to solve my household’s predicaments. I will make him mine. I do not trust destiny, but I will use what I have been given and manifest a future where I have my heart’s desire. 

“Will,” I say, deeply reverent. I lean in and press our foreheads together. I close my eyes, breathe in his mouthwatering sent. I gift myself a long silence where I simply engage in the human action of breathing, though it is not required to survive. 

“It’s all right,” he says, voice small and crumbling with each word. “You can just tell me.”

I force my face to remain mild, my voice even, as I lean back and look into his eyes. They’re red-rimmed and pained. “Tell you?” All the powers of darkness at my disposal, all my years of cunning, and I have no idea what he’ll say next. Bright panic flashes over my mind, constricting my throat. Does he know? By touching his mind with mesmerism, does he now have access to my thoughts? What has his empathy told him about me?

“This is the part, uhm… where you say we made a mistake. And we shouldn’t have… done… what happened in the library.” Will releases of my hands and steps back. “And you say it’s because we’re too different, that it would never work, and it’s best to-to nip this in the bud. And you’ll always treasure our friendship.” 

I am completely dumbfounded. “Will,” I say slowly, stepping closer again, resting my hands on his arms. “Do you regret what happened? What has been developing between us for some time?”

He shakes his head miserably. “But now you know about me,” he says, just above a whisper. “About what I did. And what I can do.” 

Enough. I can’t bear this heart-rending misunderstanding of the quiet moment we just shared. Another layer of anger settles in my heart, curdling around the concept of his adopted sister, this Miss Bloom. She has trained him to think he’s unlovable. That after every intimate moment where he has hope for love and understanding, a time will come when the rug is pulled out from under. 

No more.

I haul him roughly into my arms and kiss him. He makes a little mewl of discomfort; I used more strength than I should have. But that melts into a sweet little moan, and his hands are around my waist now, hovering indecisively until I slide my tongue in his mouth. Then they climb up and down my back, feeling the stitching of my vest, lingering on the trim of fur at the neck. His fingers are in my hair now, stroking, alternating with gentle grasps and tugs that communicate his desire. 

A splashing and angry quacking interrupts Will’s attention. He does love animals, almost as much as Peter does. “She can’t get out by herself,” he laughs, cheeks pink, looking over my shoulder at the one-legged duck in the swimming trough. I release him and he lifts the bird out, helping her over to the crate with the clean straw where she rests. 

He returns to me with a mended expression on his face and I take him into my embrace more gently this time. “The future is unknowable,” I tell him. “But I tell you know – and I want you to listen,” I cup his face, ensuring he is looking into my eyes, for earnestness’ sake, not mesmerism. “There will never come a time where I regret that evening. Any part of it.”

He wants to look away, but my grip on his face shifts down to his chin so he can’t. “I meant what I said,” I remind him, “when I told you there’s nothing wrong with you, Will. You are alone because you are unique.”

“I’m as alone as you are,” he says, stroking a hand from the back of my neck to the front of my shoulder, his other gripping my clothing as if the spinning world might fling us apart. “Even with people around.”  

“I should never forget how perceptive you are,” I say, both to him and to myself. 

“I don’t feel alone when I’m with you. And you… don’t feel alone when you’re with me.” Will says the second part of his statement with a hint of uncertainty, but that evaporates when I nod in agreement. 

This pleases him. It is so nakedly evident on his face. I wonder how he survived his previous life, neck-deep in the teeming slums of his metropolis. It seems impossible he’s never put his empathy to use in manipulations of his own. Unless I am falling victim to them right now. The thought is remarkably arousing. Clever boy. I’ve yet to see how clever he truly is.

What I do know is that he is unpredictable. And that is thrilling. 

I let go of his chin to drift the backs of my fingers down his cheek. He kisses me again. We are both gentle with one another, now that the panic is gone, and we are surer of each other. I want him to be sure of me, to trust me before anyone or anything else, even his own perceptions and senses. 

At last, we part, lest our interaction becomes too passionate for the time and place. I put his arm through mine, and we walk into the forest, keeping along one of the many paths. It is misty, and the woods seem quiet with a mysterious serenity that I adore. I can tell that Will likes it, too. He curls a hand around my bicep, and rests the other next to it, pressing against me as much as he can. 

“Where were you yesterday?” he wants to know as we pause to watch a flock of small birds settle in a half-bare tree teeming with buds. 

“There were matters in the village that needed my immediate attention,” I reply. He might go to the village at any time and speak to the residents, so I think it best to tell him enough that he doesn’t think I’m hiding something. “There were two deaths, a boy and an old man.”

“Some kind of accident?” he says. I can hear the hope tinge his voice. Better an accident than murder. 

“I’m still trying to understand the details of what happened.” Sins of omission. I do what I can to always tell the truth in my own way. “The citizens were shocked. It is a rare occurrence.” 

He opens his mouth, but I squeeze his arm, arresting his voice. “Before you offer to investigate, please know that I won’t allow it. Not with your health the way it is. It’s a generous offer, but in good conscience, I cannot accept it. Do you understand, Will?”

He nods, presses his cheek against my shoulder for a moment, a trusting gesture that I know what is best for him. It’s best for both of us that he does not use that gift of his to investigate these murders. 

“Bedelia and I… met in the library,” he says as I pause to pick a wildflower for his waistcoat. 

I had no idea, but I don’t let the shock show on my face. No doubt she tried to bully him into finishing the paperwork and leaving. “Oh?” I say instead.

“We went over a few things. She had some… questions about hiring multiple solicitors, and-and shipping. I assume shipping all of your belongings to England, but she, ah… wasn’t specific.” He pauses. “She was specific on how she feels about me,” he reveals, looking at his feet as we walk. 

My anger coils tightly in me, a constricting snake squeezing the life out of my imago of Bedelia du Maurier. Perhaps she killed the villagers. I think it more likely that Antony did it, and she used my resulting absence to her advantage. It was well played, and I have to acquiesce that she was clever. She likely tied up several legal loose ends regarding the shipment of earth boxes that I had been remiss of. I could forgive it, admire it even, if she hadn’t found it necessary to be rude to Will. “Was she?” I say lightly, as if her opinion matters to no one at all. 

“She accused me of being… unprofessional,” he says, pausing to let me lift a thin tree branch out of his way. Immediately he clutches to me again; I cannot generate my own warmth, but I can feel his radiating through our clothing and invigorating my skin. “Can’t say she’s wrong, I guess.”

“Do you agree?”

He scoffs, a self-deprecating little sound. That is a Will noise; Iliya never made one similar. “She’s not wrong. My first assignment as a solicitor and I’m, ah… kissing my client. Not even my client — my employer’s client.”

“Imagine,” I say, “if Mr. Brauner had come instead. The universe blessed us with his gout, I fear.”

This makes Will smile genuinely. 

“I find your unconventional professional methods most enjoyable. As your client, I’m very satisfied.”

Now a genuine laugh that sounds more like one of Iliya’s. “She implied I was doing some… other kind of solicitation.”

“Bedelia has an extraordinary mind,” I say, “which gives her the power to be insulting in ways that one could argue are inventive.”

“That’s one way to put it.” 

“Will.” I pause near a fir tree. We are enveloped in its clean, sharp scent mixed with turned wet earth and old needles. Will looks at me as I take my time brushing his hair away from his forehead with the edge of one finger before kissing him again, firm but closed mouthed. Chaste as it is, I can still hear the subtle catch in his breathing when I pull back. “I’ve been shattered by fate and circumstance,” I say as he rests his hands on my shoulders — at last, with the confidence that I want them there — “but that same fate and circumstance sent you to me instead of your employer. Have you ever seen a teacup fall and break against the floor?”

Will nods. 

“I feel as though time has reversed,” I tell him. I fight against the tears that want to creep into my throat. “That the teacup is reassembling itself, piece by piece.”

This admission earns me his arms around my neck, pulling me to him again. The kiss he gives me communicates painfully sincere gratitude wrapped in unchecked lust. Once his tongue has greeted mine it pushed further in and he dares to pull my hair a little near where it curls at my collar along the back of my neck. I can feel his pulse in his lips beating in time to the rapidly increasing thud of his heart. He curls his palm now along the side of my face and I allow myself to trace the dimensions of his hips. He feels slenderer than he looks dressed. I’d like to test my theory.

He parts our lips to say, “I want to be with you.”

Six deceptively simple words. They could mean anything. They could mean everything. They are both a priceless treasure and a puzzle. 

He says, “I don’t want to leave. Go b-back, I m-mean.”

“Then don’t,” is all I have time to say before he kisses me again. “Besides,” I add a minute or two later, “I won’t permit it. Not until you’re well enough to travel. Even with an escort, I wouldn’t want to risk the strain on your health.”

“What about the paperwork?” He steps back, putting air between us, though we still have our hands clasped. “It needs to be filed so things are ready for you when you arrive in London.”

“If we must, I’ll have it taken by paid courier. All the way to London and placed directly in Mr. Brauner’s hands.” Speaking of hands, I want to kiss his, and I raise one to my mouth to fulfill my wish. “Let me shoulder these concerns and any others you may have. Concentrate on getting well.” I give his arm what I hope is a reassuring squeeze. “Bedelia’s tongue is sharp, but her desires are understandable. She is anxious to move on with her life; we can’t begrudge her that.” 

And as if by some magnetism we are close again. I nose along his neck, breathing him in before hovering my lips over his. “Don’t you crave change, Will?”

His answer is a kiss, a tighter grip on me. 

It is a miracle that over the sound of his rushing heart and my complete concentration on his delectable warmth and taste that I hear, in the distance, an angry male voice and a fearful female response. Excellent. It couldn’t have happened at a better time. My mind methodically examines various scenarios at a rapid pace, settling on one that will serve my purposes perfectly, drawing Will even closer, binding him to me even more tightly.

“Listen,” I say, cocking my head, the image of wariness on my face. He looks around us, then starts when he hears more distressed cries and angry shouts. 

His eyes widen and his grip on me grows desperate. “That’s Avigeya,” he says, his mouth tight and fearful. 

“This way.” I indicate the path, and we rush down it. I let him set the pace, then increase my speed just a little. Despite his bodily weakness, he finds the strength to race to her rescue, and I admire that immensely, but worry about the toll it might take after this little drama has played itself out. High risk, high reward. 

We come to a misty clearing. There is a slender figure backed up against a waist-high rock, sobbing into her hands. As we near, the tableau comes into focus; Avigeya, stained with blood but relatively unharmed, and the boy, Nikolai, gutted on the mossy ground, Avigeya’s knife sticking out of him. My heart threatens to burst like a dam after a flood, I am so very proud of her. Not only did she kill him, but she also used the skills her father taught her, opening him from navel to the base of his ribcage. The Shrike would be proud. 

What the humans cannot see is that he still has a tiny spark of life left in him, his breaths too shallow for them to observe. If I move quickly, Chiyoh might have a meal. It’s been too long since she’s eaten well, sipping from the prisoner in the catacombs, just enough to get by. I call out to her with my mind to come quickly but not let herself be known until I am finished with Will and Avigeya. 

Will races to the girl, his voice weaving between English and Romanian. “Are you hurt? Let me see–” he pulls her hands away from her face and examines her for injuries. There’s a lot of blood, but it’s not hers. 

“He tried to kill me,” she says, wiping her nose and eyes with her apron and then letting Will embrace her tightly. “He attacked me. He said I killed his sister, but I didn’t! I don’t know how he found me…” 

“Avigeya,” I say from where I have knelt at the side of her victim. “This is very serious. This boy’s sister was one of your father’s victims, was he not?”

Avigeya nods miserably where Will is holding her. His expression goes from one of soothing comfort and relief that she is unharmed to something wholly confused, groping for understanding. “Y-your father killed that boy’s sister?” 

“He thinks I helped.” Oh, clever girl – she’s playing right into Will’s empathy. I couldn’t ask for a better partner in this situation. The Shrike would be just as proud, I’m sure. “My father was a monster, and everyone thinks I am, too!” She buries her head in Will’s coat and sobs miserably. All he can do, of course, is hold her, stroke her hair, press his cheek against the top of her head. 

Perfection. Will certainly knows what it’s like to be thought of as monstrous. “She came here to escape the angry family members of her father’s victims,” I explain. “I provided her with sanctuary. Apparently, I wasn’t able to fully protect her.” I hang my head as if this weighs heavily on me. “We’ll have to be more careful going forward. Right now, we have to decide what to do about this.” I indicate the boy. If we hurry, he can still feed Chiyoh. But the situation is delicate. 

“He was going to kill me,” Avigeya says, half-muffled by Will’s shoulder. 

I sigh, examining the body further. The almost-body. “You butchered him, Avigeya.”

Will is nodding, though his mouth is drawn down in a mix of horror and woe. He’s seen people gutted before this. And he knows what kind of crime this was. Perhaps Nikolai threatened her, came too close. But he completely underestimated this pretty little girl, and she carved him up like a hunting prize. 

I can tell from Will’s heartbroken face that he is aware of the degree of overkill. 

“I can help you, if you ask me to,” I say, getting to my feet and approaching them. “It’s better, I think, if this boy disappears completely, and we never saw him anywhere near Castle Lecter.” 

“H-he was in the village,” Will says, clinging to Avigeya protectively. “He was stalking her, Hannibal, he’s been planning this…!”

“All the more reason to make sure no one knows what happened,” I say softly. Go gently, now, even as the light is fading from the dying creature behind me. “He was seen watching Avigeya in the village; if anyone comes looking for this boy, the villagers will, through no fault of their own, connect him to you.” I look at the girl, her face a mess of tears and blood. Then I study Will carefully, reaching out to put a hand on his arm, my other on Avigeya’s shoulder. “Are we agreed? Here, now, we vow our silence?” 

Avigeya nods eagerly. I look at Will.

“She was defending herself,” he says thinly. “It’s not murder.” Even as the words fall from his lips, he lowers his head and presses it to Avigeya’s hair as he hugs her closer. “No witnesses,” he murmurs with a resigned sigh. “God…”

Avigeya steps out of Will’s hold and takes one of his hands, and one of mine. “Please help me,” she pleads in clear English, looking from me to Will and back again. “Please…”

Will presses his free hand to his eyes a moment. Then nods yes. 

“Very well. Will, take Avigeya back to the castle. Enter through the kitchen and try not to let anyone see you. Help her clean up. Then go about your business as if nothing is amiss. I’ll take care of the body.” 

He nods, and puts an arm around her shoulders, hustling her away back toward the castle. 

They are barely out of sight when Chiyoh is suddenly at my side. A nod from me and she has her fangs buried in the boy’s throat as he breathes his last. Just in time. An opportune day all around. Pity so much blood has been spilled on the ground. Still, it revives her significantly. When she finishes, I hand her my handkerchief to wipe her face with. 

“Keep an eye on things,” I request. “I don’t want Bedelia or Antony anywhere near this.”

She nods and disappears back into the forest. 

I haul the carcass into my arms, making sure I’ve picked up any organs that may have slipped out, and carry it far away, around the side of the mountain to a cave I know of. I deposit him there and strip off the remains of his clothing, gathering it into a bundle with his boots. I retrieve a girl’s ring from a chain around his neck and slip it into my pocket. The wolves will eat tonight as well, once I inform them where their meal is being kept, nice and cold and fresh for them. 

I take the boy’s things several more miles away and hide them in a hollow tree. I wash my hands in a stream and check my clothing for blood. A spot here and there I scrub away, and then I go down the mountain to the village. 

Normal life has resumed, but the citizens are subdued, grieving. They do their best to welcome me cheerfully. I appreciate the effort. Katarina is summoned from tending her bees and meets me in a room above the tavern. I ask her to recall the day Will Graham came to the market with Avigeya and Peter, and how he spotted a stranger in their midst. She remembers well and tells me that the auburn-haired youth was seen by others that day, but never since. 

I tell her that the stranger murdered the local boy and the old man, and then fled to Bistriƫa, where he killed again, but was caught in the act. The victim’s family ended him before the authorities could intervene. But he is dead, and the town is safe once more. 

She is glad to hear it. I leave it to her to tell the village the news; I’m needed at home. By the time I arrive, it is dark. The kitchen hearth is blazing, but there is no food being prepared. Instead, Avigeya’s skirts are stretched out on the line, drying in the fire’s warmth. I don’t see her blouse; it must have been beyond saving. Burnt, I suspect. Will’s jacket also hangs on the line. 

I find them in the library, seated at the table near the stacks, a lamp nearby, English and Romanian dictionaries in front of them, though they aren’t really studying. There is a plate of bread and soft cheese, and a salad made of some of the first greens of the season. Neither of them has eaten much. They both look impossibly weary, though they try to stand at my approach. I wave them down. “Eat,” I order. “You need your strength. Avigeya, did you bring Peter his dinner?”

She nods yes, picking at her salad. 

“Everything’s, uhm… taken care of. On this end,” Will says after he dutifully eats a piece of bread and cheese to please me. 

“On my end as well,” I tell them. Wrapped up very nicely, in fact. The wolves are, at this moment, consuming most of the evidence. “Does Peter have any idea…?”

Will shakes his head. “Nobody saw anything. That we could tell.”

“Consider the matter passed,” I suggest. 

Avigeya gets to her feet and comes to me. I wipe the fresh tears from her cheeks. “It’s over,” Will promises, getting up as well. “You’re safe. I keep telling her she’s safe,” he says to me. He is desperate for her to be all right. If she can be all right, if she can be resilient, so can he. 

I hold her face between my hands and look her in the eyes. Just a little push against her already willing mind. “You’re strong, Avigeya. You’ve always been strong. One day this will all be like a bad dream. But it’s very important now that nothing changes. Do you understand?” 

Calm yourself. Do not speak of this. 

That’s my girl. I’m proud of you. 

These messages sink easily into her consciousness. Unlike Will, she absorbs them with no friction at all. 

She sniffles, then ceases weeping. She is not facing Will, so she can give me a knowing smile. 

Avigeya enjoyed wielding the knife for once. I see the murder through her eyes, how Nikolai came searching for closure, wanting her to admit what she’d done. He’d planned to take her back down to the village and make her tell the truth, hold her in custody there so that he could travel back to Russia and tell the other victims’ families. As a collective, they would return for her, and justice would happen then. Closure for all of them. 

How dull. What happened instead was far more interesting. And now Will is even more tightly bonded to this place, to her, to me. Another piece of the teacup reattaches itself. 

“Get some rest,” I advise, brushing her hair behind her ear. “Everything will feel different in the morning.”

She looks back at Will. He nods in agreement. She gathers up the plates and leaves us. 

When she’s gone, Will all but collapses back into his chair. I can tell he’s been holding himself together for her sake. Today was physically and emotionally draining for him, and as perfectly as it went, I acknowledge the ache seeing him like this brings me. “Come and sit closer to the hearth,” I advise. The weather is warm now, but we are high in the mountains, and the castle will never not be drafty, cold emanating from its very stones. I position Will on the lounge and pause to build up the fire before I sit next to him. 

I remove my jacket and drape it over his shoulders. He accepts it without any resistance, sliding his arms into the sleeves and pulling it tightly around himself. I like the way the fur trim on the collar caresses the side of his jaw, how much smaller he looks in it, his fingers poking out of the sleeves. Iliya used to wear my clothes all the time, after I’d worn them, because of how they smelled. After he died, I would lay in our bed and bury my face in his pillow for hours, praying for my own death even after I defied the natural order, becoming what I am now. I did this until I burned the pillow and case, along with so many other things of his. 

My attempt to bury the teacup so I wouldn’t have to see its shattered remains. I would have left this place, tried to outrun my grief, if I had not been tied to the earth of my homeland. Without that option, I tried to cleanse my home of Iliya. I appreciate, now, Reba’s ability to save a few treasures, including his ashes. 

I bring Will some plum brandy and watch him drink it. His hands are shaking. It’s a slight tremor, but I notice it on the surface of the liquor as he clutches the glass. “What did you do… with him?” he asks me after a time, looking into the fire. 

“I hid his body in a cave,” I tell him. “The animals will take care of the remains. How did Avigeya fare?”

“She’ll be all right eventually,” Will tells me after a sip. “She’s made of… sterner stuff than me, I think.”

“And you?” I take his empty glass and refill it, watch him sip this one more slowly. “Please tell me how you are, Will, and don’t minimize.”

He takes a shaky breath. “I haven’t seen… a murder in, uhm… five years. Since Mary.”

“And Abel Gideon,” I remind him. 

He makes the connection I’m striving for without any further prompting. “Yeah. And Abel Gideon.” He looks down at the glass in his hands and I can guess what he is thinking. If Avigeya is a murderer, so is he. They have both killed because they had no other choice. Seemed to have no other choice. “I… hope it doesn’t make it worse.” He shakes his head. “You never forget that smell. The blood.” He takes a drink. “I’ve been seeing so much… in my dreams. Things that are… worse than what we saw today. I’m, uh… I’m scared. Because I didn’t really… feel anything when I looked at him.”

“All you cared about was Avigeya.”

Will nods. “Even though… like you said. She butchered that boy. She doesn’t have a mark on her, Hannibal.”

“Did the Ripper leave a mark on you?”

He drains his glass and sets it on the table with an audible clank. “No,” he says firmly. “He didn’t. Not on my body, anyway.” 

Will’s body. I shouldn’t start down that road, but I’m out of patience for denying myself. I put my arm around him, drawing him close. He rests the side of his head against the place where my neck meets my shoulder, tucks it there. He feels secure. “We are on our honor to protect her,” I say gently, my lips moving against his hair before I smooth it down. “We are her fathers now. We have to serve her better than the Shrike did.” 

Will brightens at the thought. It is so overt I’m tempted to be jealous. He’s never spoken of children; this is a fascinating reaction. “Fathers?”

I tell him more about how Avigeya came to me, how she was orphaned, fleeing the accusations that she helped the Shrike murder the girls that looked just like her. “She didn’t have a choice, then,” Will says. “It was those girls, or her.”

What he doesn’t know is how much she enjoyed it. That hunting with her father was the best time of her life. 

“Family’s a… an idea to me,” Will says. “Not a practice. I never connected to the concept.” 

“You were never offered the connection,” I correct him. I like my version better. He was never given the opportunity and I will never forgive these Bloom people for robbing him of that, picking him up like a stray animal and then treating him like one. As usual, he assumes that the fault lies with him. “Are you feeling paternal, Will?” 

“Aren’t you?” he challenges me even as he presses in closer, letting his hand drift to my thigh. 

“Children transport us to our childhoods,” I say. 

“Not somewhere I’d like to be.” He is so raw and vulnerable with me now; it’s hard to imagine how guarded he was when he first arrived. 

“It changes men when they become fathers. It affects the way they think. Their perceptions of the world.”

Will moves out of my grasp now, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, staring into the fire. “I know what that feels like,” he says. “In-in a way. After the Ripper… I didn’t see the world the same way anymore. You can never…unsee.” He sighs. “You haven’t… absorbed what happened today yet. I’m worried how it might affect you. I’ve seen this kind of stuff before, and it stays with you. Pops up… when you least expect it.”

I want to hold him again. He’s too sweet, worrying about me. Thinking I’ve never seen a man gutted before — it’s precious. I, who impaled my enemies on stakes while they still lived, drinking wine and watching them twitch and scream and writhe and die. 

“Fathers can be killers,” I say. 

He looks at me, full of raw hope. 

“What kind of father would you be, Will?” I brush a curl behind his ear. His skin is very warm. Dreadfully inviting. 

He half-smiles. “I would be a good father.” He says it with the confidence of fact but without any boast, nor even a whisper of pride. How quickly he has formed an attachment to Avigeya. He thinks they are bonded by killing when it was kill or be killed. I wonder. 

“Children help us discover who we are,” I say, bringing him another brandy. 

He takes it from my hand. Our fingers touch and he looks at me with those clear blue eyes, brows furrowed and earnest as he considers. “H-have you ever been a father?”

“I was to my sister. She was not my child, but she was my charge. She taught me so much about myself. Her name was–”

“Mischa.” Will and I say it together. 

Despite the warmth of his closeness and the fire in the hearth, I feel a chill travel up my spine. 

“H-her name…” Will says, just as surprised, seemingly, as I am. “Y-you must have said it b-before.”

I have not. I never said.

Did Bedelia tell him? Antony? Why? And why did Will’s face drain of color, then, when we echoed my sister’s name together?

“Was…?” Will ventures. 

“She’s dead,” I say, refocusing. “Avigeya reminds me so much of her.” My sister, too, was a prodigious killer, though her murders were condoned by man and God, as they happened in battle. “After our parents died, I know she felt lost.”

“Avigeya feels lost,” Will tells me, and I don’t doubt it. 

“Perhaps it is our responsibility, yours and mine, to help her find her way,” I suggest as he sets his empty glass aside again. He smiles like he’s alone with his thoughts, considering my words. Absently, he removes my jacket and lays it on the lounge next to him, near where it curves up. He’s flushed – is the fever back? Or is it this brand of intimacy – the promise of family – that has sent the blood rushing through his body? 

I can hear it calling to me. Singing to me, begging me to taste, despite my efforts to remain sated. I do not want to taste him because I’m hungry, to eat for eating’s sake – I want him inside of me, beating through my veins, bringing my heart to life in every way. I think back to the shaving incident and it ignites me. His blood is off limits but there are other things I could have. 

I let my hand rest on his lower back for a few moments before drawing it up to circle his shoulder. I drape my other over his thigh, higher than ever before. His touch trembles against the side of my face but becomes more firm and sure as I angle in to kiss him, tenderly — it has been a trying day, after all — before I cannot keep myself in check. And Will welcomes my hunger, almost matches it, using this intimacy now as a clutch for balance. 

I pluck his hands from the side of my face and my shoulder respectively and it is like it always was with Iliya — I do not think, I only follow my desire and let the stars align. I kiss him down against the lounge again, like we were the night before. Except now I am holding his wrists tight, tighter. He makes a delightful little sound when I press his arms above his head and gather his wrists in one hand. I can hold him easily and he doesn’t fight it. 

In fact, his breath becomes almost frantic with desire as a result. Interesting. So too does his kiss change. He’s getting rough with me. It threatens to split open something primeval, and that is unwise. I draw my mouth away, but he comes after me, pushing against my hold. 

Finding that he can’t get out. Not easily, in any case.

The edifice chips away. He loses pieces of his insecurity and his culture’s repression. I watch them crumble to the floor with a sense of victory. 

How can I deny him now? I work my lips against his again, feeling that new sense of passion. He is more unrestrained while being restrained, unbridled whilst bridled. I let my mouth drift along his jaw, then round the edge and plunge into his neck. Not a place where I should be, but he responds to it beautifully. My free hand occupies itself opening his shirt, and soon enough it falls to either side, showing me that expanse of sweet skin again. Now I let myself touch, and he moves up into my hand as I open it over his chest, arching up his back. 

I lose myself in it, this hedonistic moment, and let him out of my hold. He grabs me instead, a handful of hair and clothing, his lips open and panting as I taste the edges of his clavicle, edging them with my teeth, though my fangs remain politely sheathed. For now.

My touch roams. He is so warm, human skin supple and pliable and deliciously alive. He shivers as my undoubtedly cold hands slide into his open shirt and caress his hips and back, greedily feeling out the bumps of his spine and his shoulder blades. There, my fingertips trace the ridge of a scar, a straight cut with puckered edges. A blade. I can tell without looking, though I hope to examine it more closely later. Kiss it, lick it. So many parts of him I want to taste, and I want them all, now, while at the same time savoring their slow revelation.

His chest is mostly smooth, a few more hairs than Iliya had, coarser with age. His breaths come faster now as I circle the pad of my thumb over his erect nipple, daring to tongue the other, teasing it with a combination of breath, suction, the edge of my duller teeth. He moans audibly, then catches himself as if the sound surprised him into self-consciousness. Too late — that slip of audible desire has pushed me too far. My fangs extend for a moment, and the edge of one grazes the skin. I retract them instantly before he sees, but there is just the tiniest bead of blood that breaches the surface. I close my lips over it and suck with more force than is needed. He bites his lip to keep his moan in his throat this time. Then breathes my name helplessly as I caress with my tongue. 

His blood is sunlight and warm earth, salt and life. This, to the symphony of his pleasure. 

I am moments away from telling him not to bite his lip when we hear a knock at the library door. “Will?” It is Avigeya. Well, perhaps it was for the best that he restrained his wanton noises. Next time I will have him moan for me again, long and loud and without hesitation, like Iliya used to. 

Will scrambles out of my hold and shrugs on my jacket as I slide away to sit on my chair instead, hoping this position will not betray the prominent outline of my arousal. Just in time as Avigeya tentatively opens the door. It’s a good thing she’s only thinking of her own comfort and not examining Will closely — he is flushed, a fine sheen of sweat on his brow, lips swollen from my kisses, hair awry. I’m sure I’m in a similar state. 

She approaches us hesitantly as Will attempts to regulate his breathing. “W-what’s wrong?” he asks in Romanian, the language as natural as his native tongue slipping along mine. 

“I’m afraid to go to sleep,” she admits. “I’m afraid of nightmares.”

“We’ll help you with the nightmares,” I promise gently as she sinks onto the lounge next to Will and buries her face in her hands. We are her fathers; of course, we are there when she can’t sleep. Just as I used to comfort Mischa. Just as no one ever comforted Will.

Chapter Text

“Hannibal!”

Will hurried along the castle corridor, chasing after the broad, shapely back that was turned his direction. Hannibal was walking quickly with Mischa at his side, their heads bent toward one another, talking in hushed tones. 

“Hannibal, wait!” Will rounded another corner, then gave up decorum and good sense and broke into a run, catching up with them before they could disappear down the hall toward the main staircase. 

“I’ll join you in a moment,” Hannibal said to Mischa as Will skidded to a stop in front of him, not far from the door to the west wing depicting the Tree of Life. Hannibal smiled, opening his arms, and if anyone else had been looking, Will thought, they might have assumed the expression was genuine. But since arriving at the castle, and especially since the engagement had become official, Will had been an eager student of everything about his future husband; he was quickly learning the smallest changes in emotion evident in Hannibal’s face.

Something was wrong. He could see it. Sense it in his bones.

Will embraced him tightly and accepted the warm if distracted kiss. “I’ve been looking for you all day,” he said. “Didn’t, ah… anyone tell you?”

“My apologies, beloved, I’ve had duties to attend to.”

Will pulled back, crossing his arms over the blue doublet he wore, fingers twitching against the gold stitching. He’d asked Marissa to have it ready this morning because he knew how well it brought out his eyes, and he wanted Hannibal to see it as well. See it, admire it, think about what it would look like crumpled up on the floor of the bedchamber. It was a silly excuse to see his beloved, of course – they’d been making silly excuses to be together ever since Will had arrived.

Again, he was struck by the detached way Hannibal was with him now, even his kiss seeming like it was holding something back. The contrast was jarring.

“Reba says a messenger came this morning, just after dawn,” Will tried, then waited. Hannibal just looked at him. “What message did he bring?”

“Nothing of immediate concern,” Hannibal reassured him, though woodenly, lifting Will’s hand to his lips for a perfunctory kiss. “I’ll see you tonight, beloved, I have to arrange a few details, and then–”

“Stop,” Will ordered, pulling his hand away roughly. “Don’t lie to me.”

Hannibal’s eyes went dark. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“You’re not saying something, then. That’s a lie.”

“I’ve told you the truth in my own way,” Hannibal evaded. “For now, can you trust me?”

“Do you trust me?” Will demanded, raising his voice. A pair of maids at the end of the hall poked their heads around the corner, eyes wide. Will ignored them. “Evidently not.”

Hannibal took a step closer, squaring his shoulders. If he wanted Will to back down simply by making his presence more robust, it wasn’t going to work. “Tell me what’s going on,” Will demanded, the stone walls around them ringing with the firm cadence of his voice. 

“It’s nothing you should concern yourself with. There’s nothing to be done about it.”

“If that were so, you wouldn’t be… in pain,” Will said, uncrossing his arms and inching forward, as if he might startle Hannibal and drive him away. 

“Let it be,” Hannibal warned him. “When the time is right—”

“Now,” Will insisted. 

Hannibal’s hand shot out and caught his chin roughly for a moment, his grip trembling with anger. But within seconds, looking into Will’s eyes, he melted, relaxing his hold and cupping Will’s cheek instead, stroking it with his sword-roughened thumb. “I didn’t want to burden you,” he said softly as Will came to him, sliding his arms around Hannibal’s waist, pressing in close. 

“We’re going to be married in a few months,” Will pointed out. “I refuse to be bonded with someone who-who doesn’t think I’m capable… of sharing the burdens life heaps on us. I know you’re older than I am, but I expect to be treated like a partner, Hannibal, not some… delicate thing.”

“My love—” 

Will knew he was being rude, but he cut Hannibal off again. “Your burdens are my burdens. Marriage means we share them.”

He paused his onslaught, watching Hannibal’s throat work, the way he put one hand on the wall for support, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together forcefully as if this was his only means of expressing the turmoil inside of him. “If you don’t want to tell me,” Will said, getting closer, though carefully, “Then don’t tell me because of a… real reason, not that you’re trying to-to… spare me some kind of… I don’t know.” He shrugged helplessly. 

Hannibal closed the distance that remained. He stroked Will’s hair and the side of his face, though his own expression struggled to settle on an emotion. 

Then he kissed Will, with forceful intensity, backing him up into the carved door hard enough that when Will impacted it, he sucked in a little breath of surprise and discomfort — the carving was digging into him. This turned into a very different noise when Hannibal kissed his neck, splaying a hand on his chest, the other pressed against the door. 

“You’re right,” he admitted between forceful assaults of his lips along the slope of Will’s throat, pawing down the edge of his jacket and shirt to find more skin as Will gripped his hair and shoulder. “I didn’t want to trouble you. The wedding…”

Will caught Hannibal’s face between his hands and lifted it away from himself so he could look him in the eye. “Tell me.” It was a command but said tenderly. 

“After…” Hannibal edged out of Will’s hold and snagged his mouth with his own again, executing another thrilling kiss that almost made Will consider giving in. 

But he had to be firm. Or this would happen again. 

He braced himself against the door and waited until Hannibal eased up just a little, then slid under Hannibal’s arm and grabbed him by handfuls of shirt and jacket, shoving him into the door now, reversing the situation in a smooth, dexterous movement. He couldn’t stop the smile from twitching the corners of his mouth. He was never the biggest man in a fight, but he was the fastest, surely, and knew when to take a chance. 

“Not after,” he said. “I’ll happily get between your legs, but not until you tell me.”

“I should throw you in the dungeon,” Hannibal smirked as Will slowly released his clothes and took a step back. There was a glint of good humor, anyway – that was a start. 

“You can throw me anywhere you’d like–”

“The bed, I think–”

“After you tell me.” 

The lighthearted glimmer evaporated from Hannibal’s expression. It was replaced with one of grieved tenderness. He sighed, and Will went to him, held him close. “You win, beloved.”

“It’s not winning. It’s not a competition,” Will scolded softly. “Whatever the weight is, I want to help you carry it. Just… let me.”

“My uncle Robertus is dead,” Hannibal said against the side of Will’s hair as they embraced. 

Will held him tighter, breathing into his neck. “I’m sorry. I know… he did his best to care for you when your parents died.” 

“Admittedly, I am closer with Murasaki,” Hannibal said after allowing a few soft kisses along his face and lips. “My heart hurts more for her. With the snow, I don’t see how we would travel that far before his burial. I suppose the next time I see her will be the wedding, and I feel guilt, celebrating my happiness in the face of her despair.”

“We won’t make it before the burial, but we can see her before the wedding,” Will reasoned. “It won’t be an official visit, maybe, with the honor and… decorum that’s called for, but we can get to her. All I need is a dogsled and two good teams, and I can get you there. If we keep the expedition small… travel light…?”

“It’s risky,” Hannibal argued.

Will shrugged. “If we’re buried in an avalanche, we’ll be frozen together for all time. Sounds… lovely, actually.” He pressed into Hannibal again, arms around his neck. “Unless you’d get sick of me?”

“I would spend a thousand eternities with you, beloved.”

It was Hannibal’s turn to surprise him, twisting his body and pushing Will against the door again, this time with his chest pressed against the Tree of Life. 

“I just noticed this pretty thing.” Hannibal traced his hands along Will’s hips and midsection, feeling the soft blue fabric, fingers exploring the gold stitching on the shoulders now that formed the silhouettes of birds with outstretched wings and flared tails. 

“Finally,” Will huffed, then sucked in a laugh-gasp when Hannibal reached down further to cup him through his clothing. 

“I’d like to give you my apology now,” Hannibal requested in his ear, breath tickling the curve of it. 

“I suppose I’ll… uhm, allow… that-!” Will fiddled with the secret latch, panting as Hannibal rutted against him from behind.

The Ripper’s whispery laugh floated through the air, wrapping itself around Will’s head, the auditory embodiment of a slimy eel. 

“Not now,” Will snapped at Gideon’s specter as he fumbled with the latch. 

Will woke up.

It was a dull fading and refocusing. The world was there, not there, there, nowhere.

He didn’t want to close his eyes. Didn’t want to open them. He could feel the Ripper’s presence, but he could also feel Hannibal’s body holding him. Slowly, that sensation faded. But he could still sense the carvings on the door against his forearms and cheek. 

Smell of dust and old wood. The rasp of his breathing. Somewhere far away, Peter’s goat bleating for its midday meal. He could feel his feet in his boots, the stone floor beneath. Slowly, he opened his eyes and lowered his hands to his sides.

He’d been pressed up against the door with the tree carving, just like he had been in the dream. Shame and confusion and desire soaked him in sudden conflicting torrents; he frantically looked at himself and was relieved to find he was fully clothed. Trousers on, if a bit tight. 

He leaned against the hallway wall opposite the door and slowly sank down to the floor, knees bent protectively, arms wrapped around them. He forced himself to do nothing but breathe for what felt like several minutes, pausing only to dot sweat from his forehead.

He wasn’t wearing his pocket watch, but the window at the end of the hall suggested it was late afternoon or early evening. He and Hannibal had been up late (for Will anyhow) with Avigeya until she’d at last fallen asleep on the lounge using Count Lecter’s coat for a pillow. Hannibal had sent him to get some rest, a caring directive he’d tried to follow. But sleep wouldn’t come. All he could see was the gutted boy lying on the forest floor, Avigeya sobbing, smeared with blood. 

He’d given up after dawn had broken across the sky, and gotten dressed again, settling at the table to make a few notes in his journal. Nothing incriminating, but some details he didn’t want to forget. Old investigator’s habit, coded in his own particular form of shorthand. He must have fallen asleep at the table – Will remembered leaning his head into his arms for a moment just to rest his eyes from straining in the dull morning light. 

And now he was here. His body, in the liminal state, had carried him back to this door again. The door to the west wing, which he’d been specifically told was unsafe to enter. 

He stared at the door, his gut a swirling mixture of curiosity and fear, studying each branch of the tree, each empty place where something decorative had been inlaid only to be pried out or destroyed later, the worn figures in the intricate border that surrounded the arboreal outline. He thought he saw the little warrior with the daggers, just like in his dream, but he couldn’t be sure. 

Well, he had seen the door before. For some reason, his subconscious had supplied the concept that one of the figure’s weapons was a secret latch. 

He could try it and find out. And then feel very silly when there was nothing there. 

Or it would work. 

Then what would he do? What the hell did that mean? If there was truth to the secret latch, what truth was there in this fairytale version of his relationship with Hannibal, all their interactions seemingly happening to someone else entirely, in a time long ago when neither Will nor Hannibal could have lived through? 

It had to be some kind of delusion. His mind grasping desperately at a romance with a version of Hannibal that was so very clearly - very, very, very clearly – completely in love with him. A fantasy where they were engaged, where they fought and made up so sweetly–

His heart was pounding again, in rhythm with his temples. Will lowered his forehead to his knees and closed his eyes, listening only to his own breath. 

That had to be it. His mind was fracturing, creating an entire timeline that had never happened in order to compensate for the returning horrors of the Ripper case that this journey had awakened in him. The good parts of the dreams were his brain’s protection against the darker horrors that eventually could not be kept at bay. 

It was a good theory. Dr. Chilton would be impressed, Will thought. Right before he tossed Will into an asylum cell for the rest of his life. 

And yet. 

If the door didn’t open, it would lend probability to his theory. His mind constructing a romantic cushion for its decline. 

If the door opened, and it led where Will thought it did – into a bedchamber and its side rooms, just like in the dream…

He didn’t know what that meant, except that somehow, through dreams, he knew things he shouldn’t know. Couldn’t know. 

The door wouldn’t open. There was no conceivable way the door would open if he pushed the latch. What latch? There wasn’t going to be a secret latch. This was all in his head. When he and Alana had played games of pretend as children, running all over Hillingham spinning tales of adventure, wasn’t there always some hidden door with a secret latch? They would pretend that moving a book in Mr. Bloom’s study opened a passage leading to a dungeon or laboratory. They’d spent hours and hours spinning their fantasies. Surely this was leftover inspiration from one too many games of prince and princess. 

That had been one of his favorites. Sometimes the prince and princess were brother and sister, kidnapped by an evil wizard. But sometimes, they were in love, and were going to be married once they escaped the dragon’s keep. Either way, young Will enjoyed the notion that he and Alana were on equal footing in status. Both royalty. He was good enough for her, in those childhood imaginings. 

A rustle of skirts accompanied the sound of a woman’s footfall. Will’s head shot up from his knees and he looked one way, then the other. The steps were now accompanied by a strange dragging sound and a kind of wet squelching, along with the spatter of liquid hitting the stones. 

At the end of the hall, where it intersected with another, Annie Chapman walked slowly past, carrying her intestines over the crook of one arm, dribbling blood as she went. She did not stop or look at him, but once she’d crossed the hall, he could still hear her terrible walking. 

Will dropped his head against his knees again, folding his arms over. 

When he lifted his head once more, it was much darker. Time had passed without his knowledge. He must have fallen asleep. 

Will considered the door, but he didn’t have it in him. Not now. Avigeya would be wondering where he was; it had to be near suppertime. 

Will got to his feet with a soft groan. He was stiff from sitting so long. Well and good – that meant he hadn’t been walking around in his sleep this time. He stole a glance down the hall toward where he’d seen Annie Chapman, her specter, his hallucination, whatever the hell it was, but there was nothing there. No stains of blood, no movement. 

He turned away and moved down the long hall in the other direction, headed for the turn that would bring him back towards the main staircase and the library. At the end of the hall was a small, thin window providing light to the castle’s closed interiors, and he paused here, looking toward the south. 

There was a sense of freedom in the vast expanse of wilderness, bathed in the soft peach-rose sunset. In the soft light the distant hills became melted, and the shadows in the valleys and gorges of velvety blackness. The mere beauty cheered him; there was sudden peace and comfort in every breath he drew. Will opened the casement and swung the diamond-paned panel open, peering out and inhaling deeply of the spring scents that rolled along the mountains. 

As he leaned from the window, his eye caught something moving a storey below. Will tracked it but pulled his head part of the way back in, leaning out just enough to see what it was. 

It was Antony, sticking his head out the window below much in the same way Will had been, evidently enjoying the evening breeze. Will had never seen a light on in that room; in fact, he seemed to recall that the door he thought probably led to those apartments was so old it was sealed shut with age, rust, and ancient wood. How had Antony gotten in? Will couldn’t see Antony’s face, but he assumed the identity based on the hair color and texture that was, he realized, much like his own. Will watched him lean out as if feeling the breeze on his face. Will was just about to turn away – who the hell wanted to talk to Antony? – when he realized what Antony was doing. 

Will almost cried out – to, what, beg him to stop? – as he saw Antony emerge all the way to his waist, thinking he was about to jump out the window and fall into the wooded expanse below. But his shock and instinct to protect were overshadowed by a thick cloud of repulsion and terror as the whole man slowly emerged from the window and began to crawl down the castle wall, face down, his frock coat spreading out around him like great wings. 

No. This wasn’t real. This wasn’t happening. Annie Chapman wasn’t roaming the halls of Castle Lecter, and Antony wasn’t climbing out of a window like a spider. Will rubbed his eyes furiously and looked again. Was it a trick of the failing light, some weird effect of shadow? 

Strange, the details. Will could see Antony’s fingers and his bare toes grasping the corners of the stones, worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years. He used every projection and inequality to move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves along a wall. 

Will backed up a step or two. Slowly, he closed the window and latched it. He felt like he should want to cry, to scream, to make some kind of sound. But there was nothing in him. No fear left; he’d used it up. He felt hollow, like if someone were to pierce his chest there would be nothing there but a black expanse of stars and darkness, a silent sky of dead light. 

Like this, barely feeling the movements of his own body, Will walked back to his chamber. He pushed open the door and sat on the bed, staring at nothing, his mind fluctuating between a whirring tempest of gruesome images and sharp-edged questions and a numb white silence that was snowy and complete. 

“Will?”

It was dark now. Will glanced up to see Hannibal standing in his doorway. 

“I waited in the library. Avigeya brought your dinner – are you all right?”

Will tried to answer, but his lips didn’t want to move. 

“Will.” Hannibal stepped into the room, pushing the door the rest of the way open to admit himself. “Will, what’s the matter?” Shutting it behind him now. 

The moon was bright, and the curtains were open. Will studied Hannibal, the tan coat he wore today, lined with subdued buttons, the way his white shirt lay against the cords of his neck, the unique shadow of his cheekbone and the faint glimmer of his eyes in the curious lighting. Of particular interest suddenly was the way his hair fell over his forehead, resting in a feathered curve. 

“You’re sitting here in the dark?” Hannibal edged closer. Will still felt frozen, locked within himself, like his eyes were barred fortress windows. 

It was only when Hannibal’s hand touched the side of his face, sliding up to run his fingertips through the hair at his temples that Will was, at last, able to move. He slid over slightly on the bed, offering Hannibal the space, which he took without hesitation, their thighs touching, Hannibal claiming his hand immediately and holding it between his own. “You’re cold,” he said, though Will’s hand wasn’t warmed between Hannibal’s palms, which were smooth and cool. 

“You said…” Will’s voice felt tiny and barbed in his mouth. “You said there was nothing wrong with me.” He inhaled and let it out slowly, reclaiming his hand from Hannibal’s grip. “There is. There is something wrong with me.”

“You’ve been ill,” Hannibal said, as if that could come close to explaining it. 

“You deserve to know,” Will told him. He was quietly shocked how even and steady his voice sounded. “Because when you hear it, you won’t want me anymore. And I understand. I won’t hold it, uh… hold it against you.”

Hannibal’s brow furrowed and his proud mouth turned down. He looked offended. “Nothing you say would make that happen,” he vowed. “Nothing. Will, do you hear me?”

“You say that.” Will felt his features mold into a tired smile. Moving his facial muscles felt like trying to shape wet clay. “You’re… good to me, Hannibal. It’s all right if you decide that I’m wrong.”

“All I can ask,” Hannibal said, taking Will’s hand again in his earnest grip, “is that you tell me.”

Will nodded. “I’m having a hard time thinking. I’m losing my mind. And I don’t know what’s real. W-when I do what I do to solve murders… b-before the Ripper, I would take all of the evidence available at a crime scene and… extrapolate. I would reconstruct the thinking of the killer. But to catch the Ripper I had to… think of myself as the killer.”

“You told me becoming Abel Gideon did something permanent to your mind,” Hannibal confirmed, sliding closer on the bed and putting a reassuring hand on Will’s shoulder. “Altered you. You empathized completely with this killer.”

Will took a shaky breath. “I… lost myself… in him,” he said. “And then I got Mary killed, and I killed… I killed Gideon. And then I started to fade. After he was dead… I’d still see him. Everywhere. Hear him whispering to me. And the women — the victims. I didn’t know what was real. The nightmares came into the day. S-sleepwalking. Everything just… bled together and I… lost my foothold. I needed… a paddle, an anchor. I was drifting.” 

Now the numbness was gone, and a deep, unrelenting ache spread through him, melding liquid against his bones. “The Blooms wanted to put me in a facility l-like the Purfleet State Hospital for the Criminally Insane but, ah… that wouldn’t do. Hero inspector who killed the Ripper, no-no-no… a private hospital, and it was all arranged. But Alana…” 

He felt the tiniest spark float up through the darkness in him, like an ember fleeing a fire up into the black milk sky. “Alana wouldn’t let them send me away. So, she took care of-of me. And I got better.” Alana and her swarm of nurses she’d hired, keeping watch on him at all hours, making sure he rested, ate, kept him from sleepwalking. He knew she’d consulted Dr. Chilton regarding his care, but insisted he remain at home and had the doctor make house calls. He’d been on a strict regimen of fresh air, brisk walks, hearty if tasteless food, and distractions to keep his mind focused on wholesome things. Adopting and training more dogs, fishing, reading pleasant texts. Alana had tried to teach him watercolor painting but that had been a laughable failure. Still, spending time with her and making ugly paintings had helped.

And he had recovered. Enough to stop sleepwalking. The dreams slithered back into the black chasm of his mind, the hallucinations evaporated, and he was functional again. 

That was when he’d quit Scotland Yard and chosen a respectable but benign profession sure to keep him away from murder – real estate law. 

“She wouldn’t let them take me away. And I got better. I quit the force and I started as a solicitor and…” he trailed off, losing the thread for a few moments to appreciate the warm, concerned affection he could see in Hannibal’s eyes. Sure to leave soon. “It’s happening again,” he said at last, practically spitting the words out to make sure he said them. “I’m seeing the Ripper and-and the victims. I’m hallucinating things that can’t possibly be real, and these dreams I’m having – it’s like my mind is… inventing another life w-where I’m happy and using that to try and put a… bandage over the wound. But the Ripper… he always gets through. The blood always, uhm… always seeps in.” 

Hannibal had gone very still – almost preternaturally so. “Another life?” he said at last. 

Will nodded. He could feel tears clawing up his throat. “W-when I killed Gideon, for some time after I would feel like… he and I were becoming the same person. Like we were doing the same things at the same time – bathing, eating, walking – even though I knew he was dead, I couldn’t make… couldn’t force us to separate. It took a long time. N-now, I’m not Gideon. I’m someone else – just in my dreams – but I’m also… myself.” 

“But you’re happy. In this… other world? In this other life?”

Will’s tears spilled over even as he managed a pained half-smile through them. “Because I’m with you,” he whispered, each word cutting him more deeply. 

Animation seemed to return to Hannibal’s body. His face worked through a kaleidoscope of emotion before settling on a small smile, a curve of hope built on a foundation of sorrow. 

Despite it, Will said, “I need to leave here.” He swallowed thickly, scrubbing his sleeve over his eyes. “Maybe Chiyoh could come with me and make sure I get back to London. I can’t stay here and… be your burden. W-we need to finish the paperwork tomorrow and-and I’ll get packed.”

“No, Will.”

Will got shakily to his feet, running his knuckle over his lips, deliberately not looking at Hannibal. “You don’t have to pretend. We promised we’d be honest with each other. I… appreciate all you’ve done for me already. But I can’t ask you to… I can’t see how you’d still want…” he motioned to himself, then to Hannibal. “This,” was all he could think to say to finish his thought.

“You’re staying.”

Will looked up. Hannibal was on his feet now, having somehow moved without creaking the bed or rustling his clothes. His tone was imperious, though brittle with emotion. 

“Don’t feel obligated—”

Hannibal cut him off, which Will had never seen him do. “Don’t feel like a burden. It’s a lie you’re telling yourself, fueled by the way you’ve been disgracefully treated your entire life by those who claim to care for you.” He edged closer. The flow of emotional energy in the room shifted and Will felt all the hairs on his arms raise up. His stomach flipped over itself and heat seared his neck and face as the count came ever closer, eyes fixed on his. “I want you, Will. My invitation is not conditional, nor is it negotiable. You’re staying, because I want you here with me.”

“Prove it,” Will challenged brusquely. The utterance was blurted, unintentionally gruff. 

But Hannibal took him up on it, catching his wrists tightly in either hand and kissing him, holding Will’s arms between them and edging him back into the wall against a hanging tapestry. The press of lips and intermittent tongue was sweetly forceful, oscillating between reverential and possessive. One thing was perfectly clear in Will’s mind as he slipped into his ambient pulse; there was no doubt that Hannibal wanted him here. Desperately. The uncertainty was extinguished, and the smoke cleared away by the bright breeze of these kisses, the way Hannibal held his arms and wouldn’t let go even when Will gave a few experimental tugs.

For a moment, he was reminded of the prodigious strength of Chiyoh’s grip.

Hannibal let him go to pull Will to himself, resting a hand in his hair and on the small of his back. Will clutched at him, infinite gratitude pouring out of his heart, caressing Hannibal’s sharply cut cheek, relishing the ripples of pleasure and pain that came from how Hannibal pulled his hair to angle his jaw to the side.

Without warning, Hannibal used that same incalculable swiftness and strength to deposit Will on his bed. With that, everything between them broke loose; pawing off clothing, helping one another with buttons and buckles. Will only managed to get one boot off before Hannibal was on him again, pressing him into the bed with his thigh between Will’s legs, mouth exploring and conquering his neck and shoulders, licking the flat line of his sternum. 

Will arched his back against the bed, writhing under the treatment. He tried to sit up, pulling at Hannibal’s shirt that was unlaced but still on. Hannibal reared back on his knees to toss it off but stretched out a splayed hand to keep Will on his back. He pulled his palm away slowly, as if Will would try to escape, then lifted Will’s booted foot, resting the sole against his shoulder to unlace it. “Believe me now?” he asked through a faint smirk as he worked the laces open, tossing it and the stocking somewhere off the side of the bed. 

“Getting there,” Will breathed. Hannibal’s response was to unbuckle Will’s belt with swift, expert hands and peel off the rest of his clothes, tossing them away just as heedlessly, a gleam of hungry mischief giving his eyes the luster of obsidian. He parted Will’s knees around himself, kneeling between them, gliding his hands along Will’s legs from his calves and up his thighs, taking a long, deliberate, relishing look at his nudity. Though he didn’t touch Will’s cock with his hands, Will could feel it being stroked by his gaze, and it responded in kind, hardening to the point of unadulterated frustration. 

Hannibal bent to bring his mouth against Will’s inner thigh, one hand groping the flat plane of his stomach, the other still fondling the opposite leg. Will’s heart slammed into his ribs in a heady rhythm, and he hitched a syncopated breath in anticipation of what might come. Hannibal glanced up at him, kissing the tender skin there, tonguing it, moving ever closer to the center. 

When Hannibal opened his mouth and drew Will inside, he couldn’t stop himself from making a sound that would have caused the Whitechapel sex workers to blush, grasping at the pillows and arching his back against the bed. Hannibal’s mouth was velvet soft and oddly lukewarm at first until he began his work in earnest. The count’s methods were simultaneously precise and unbridled, and he apparently had no gag reflex whatsoever. Will couldn’t believe how deep he was, Hannibal’s proud lips touching against the origin, his breath tickling Will’s hair and his hand still caressing his chest and stomach, thumbing his nipple, the other grasping his thigh hard, harder, in that unnatural grip. 

Neal had known a thing or two, but this was entirely beyond Will’s imagination. He’d never considered such an act was physically possible, but Count Lecter, it seemed, was extraordinary in every way. The undulations of his tongue, the way he slipped Will in and out only to open up entirely, pressing Will’s cock deep and deeper. Will had never felt the entirety of someone’s throat like that, the distinct ridge of the back of Hannibal’s tongue and the powerful but perfectly relaxed muscles that ringed the end of his mouth at the cusp of his neck. 

“Oh God…!” he managed through his rapid, amorous breaths.

The hand on his leg tightened to the point of bright pain as Hannibal squeezed his muscle against bone, digging his remarkably sharp nails in. Will sucked in a breath, instinctively biting his lip, then marveling as the pain filtered into the pleasure, like woodsmoke melding with London fog, becoming one great gray mass. It dovetailed so powerfully that he felt his orgasm gather itself to push towards the surface. 

He meant to warn Hannibal — it seemed polite, and Neal always had — but the release was so sudden and powerful that it robbed him of his ability to speak. Or think, for that matter. 

As the tumult of pleasure rolled through him, he was acutely aware that Hannibal had consumed his emission with perfect grace and was kissing the raw places on his thigh where he’d dig his fingers in. There was a half-moon shaped puncture on his inner thigh where Hannibal’s thumbnail had pierced his skin, and Will watched, breathlessly entranced, as Hannibal kissed this wound as well, then, after a moment of seeming indecision, closed his mouth over it, pressing his tongue against this raw spot a moment before depositing a robust suck-bruise that had Will gasping all over again. 

He still couldn’t form words. His legs quivered and sweat drenched his back where it rested against the bed. He realized how hard he was clutching the pillows and slowly relaxed his grip to embrace Hannibal, who was creeping up his body and covering it with his own, his hooded eyes velvety, his lips shiny and slightly parted. Will cradled his head between his hands, still breathing hard, urging him closer for a kiss. 

Hannibal dragged his lips up Will’s jawline, grazing it with his teeth, before rounding his chin and at last settling their mouths together again. Will tried to form words. “That… what you… d-did…”

Hannibal stroked his damp hair back from his forehead, his expression radiating a secondary glow in the wake of Will’s peak, as if it had satisfied him just as much. However, the outline that pressed into Will’s groin, still trapped by clothing, said otherwise. Will was dragged out of his relaxed, mind-numbed state, the tranquility replaced by the burning desire to reciprocate. He tried to get on top, but Hannibal easily prevented him. “Let me,” Will insisted. 

“Will, you’re not well–”

“I’m fine,” he insisted. 

“Relax,” Hannibal suggested, though the firmness of his touch felt more like an order. Will remained on his back as Hannibal freed himself from his clothes in a few graceful movements and draped his body over Will’s. Will let his hands roam appreciatively as Hannibal visited his neck and collarbone again, inhaling his scent. His body felt deliciously solid and strong, the skin everywhere almost unnaturally soft, marble encased in silk. Will worked his hand between them so he could run his fingers from Hannibal’s navel to his neck, gliding his touch through the expanse of chest hair, wooly in appearance and flecked with steel, but also unbelievably silky to the touch. His nipples were so hard Will could feel them push against his skin as Hannibal rutted against him where his groin met his hip, finding a divot when Will bent his knee and put the bottom of his foot against the quilt beneath them. Will clasped Hannibal’s shoulders as he began to thrust, holding Will’s hips against himself by a hand around his backside. Will hadn’t gotten a perfect look because of the way Hannibal was backlit, but based on what he could feel, Hannibal’s cock was like the rest of him – solidly and beautifully made, simultaneously powerful and supple. 

Hannibal leaned into his neck, then kissed his swollen lips, breathing his moans into Will’s mouth to accompany his tongue and murmured half-formed praises in broken Romanian. Will’s mind gave him the words. My sweet one. Beautiful. My treasure. Will felt him tensing to finish and encouraged him by reaching down to grope his backside as if assisting with the movement of Hannibal’s hips, his other palm lingering on the side of Hannibal’s neck, feeling the muscles and tendons there as they rose prominently against his skin. 

Hannibal’s finish pooled on Will’s chest and stomach and was immediately pressed between them as Hannibal collapsed on him, draped between his legs. He tucked his head under Will’s chin and rested there, holding him with a firm, sure, grateful post-coital affection. Will mirrored the sentiment, stroking his hair and the sweet expanse of his shoulder blades. 

Will tensed suddenly, waiting to hear the Ripper’s laugh or be confronted with abject horror. He scanned the room, looking for shapes in the moonlight. 

There was nothing. All he could hear was the soft wind against the window and the sound of his breath and his hands slipping through Hannibal’s hair. He felt safe. He felt whole and clear and sane and safe. 

After a long time, Hannibal got up to retrieve a damp cloth from the washstand. He patiently, lovingly cleaned Will’s chest and stomach, then stood to take care of himself before bringing Will a cup of water from the pitcher he kept on the table. Will drank it quickly so he could collapse into Hannibal’s arms where he’d slid between the sheets and heavy quilts on the bed. 

“You’re so warm,” Hannibal murmured as he pulled Will close with smooth, tireless strength. He curled around Will from behind, holding Will’s hand pressed against his own chest. Will felt a flood of deep connection as they lay together in bed, something he’d never done with someone else. Among the other firsts of the night, this one felt the most significant, being surrounded entirely by Hannibal’s bare body and his scent, cradled like this in a place of perfect security. He heard himself sigh out a thoughtless breath of unrestricted happiness, like a child holding their first puppy or kitten. The sound made Hannibal smile against the back of his neck where his lips were pressed. 

“Are you convinced,” Hannibal whispered, “that I want you, or must I demonstrate again?”

“I get it,” Will said with an exhausted smile. “But if you want to show me again, I’m not gonna stop you. Just, uh… give me a few minutes.” 

Hannibal exhaled a doting chuckle and pulled him even closer. 

That few minutes turned into hours of perfect, dreamless sleep.

Chapter Text

Just when I think I have endured the penultimate test of my mental and physical fortitude, lived through the darkest times these centuries have visited upon me, survived despite it all, I am presented with the dire trial of the dawn. It comes. I hear the rooster crow. I can feel it’s harrow dragging over my heart. I must return to my crypt and sleep in the earth of my homeland.

But Will Graham is asleep in my arms. We are in bed together. Last night, we made love and it rivaled the exquisite sweetness of the first time I had Iliya, the very day we received the message from Albescu. Every taste of him — his body, his blood, his scent, his mouth — is deliciously familiar and I fear I will never have enough. 

If I saw him every day forever, I would remember this time. If I live another hundred centuries, until this humble planet disintegrates, I will remember this first night we spent together. Remember him as he is now, sleeping in my arms, wrapped in sweet, untroubled serenity, the way his lashes rest against his cheeks. He sleeps with a tiny smile on his face that wasn’t there before. Iliya used to do the same thing when he slept in the wake of an orgasm, even if it was only a brief nap before resuming our respective days. 

He barely moves. If he dreams, he doesn’t stir. It is as if his exhausted body is finally able to really rest, as if my presence is a balm to his mind’s wounds. He is unconscious, but he knows I am here. When I realize it, how safe he feels in my embrace, I angle my head away and drag my hand over my eyes. I am weeping, my tears stemming from the purest joy. They leave blood-tinged contrails on my arm that I’ll have to wash away before I see him again. 

It is as I told him. The teacup is coming back together. Tonight mended a large piece, its jagged edges smooth again. It won’t be long before it can hold tea once more, a few drops at least. If fate wills it, every shard will be returned to its rightful place. 

I can feel the gray fingers of the dawn settling a chill over my skin, even as I am nestled here with Will beneath the blankets. He is so deliciously warm. If he is feverish, I cannot tell – all I am aware of is the incredible gift of this heat that comes from his bare body pressed into mine. 

That I should have to leave this bed is a catastrophic injustice. And not just for me; when Will does wake up, I will not be at his side. What will he think? Will he fall back on his assumptions that he is damaged and unlovable, that I fled the bed because I regretted making love to him? That won’t do at all.

It is a travesty, but I must wake him. Otherwise, his misgivings and his cruel mind will convince him that he’s wrong, or done something wrong. I won’t let him labor under that assumption, not even if it is only for a matter of hours. 

“Will,” I say softly, turning him in my arms, kissing him awake. It takes more than a minute; slumber holds him like quicksand. At last, he groans softly and rubs his face. Seeing me, his sleep-flushed countenance breaks into an unselfconscious smile. I fear I will come apart at the seams as he whispers my name in the pre-dawn gloaming. He sees himself as half-made. And yet, he unmakes me by simply saying, “Hannibal.”

He tries to get closer, and it feels like amputating a part of myself to hold him back. “I have to leave,” I tell him. “But I’ll see you again as soon as I can.” I lean in and kiss his forehead. “Go back to sleep. Someone will watch over you.” 

Will takes my suggestion and burrows back into the bed. I retrieve my clothes and put them on as I find them, and fold his neatly, leaving them within reach on a chair. I can hear him breathing the cadence of sleep again, and he is curled up so tightly I can’t see his face. I do regret not having a final look, but it means I can open the window and become a bat, making my return to the crypt much easier.

 The sun has not breached the horizon yet. I have all the powers of darkness until that very moment. It is unpleasant, to say the least, when one is flying and suddenly becomes a man. I once dropped a good twenty feet and would have broken my neck if I wasn’t already dead. Those were the early days of exploration, pushing my limits, learning the boundaries of what I had become. 

Chiyoh is already in her crypt, the stone lid rearranged for privacy. But Antony and Bedelia linger in the ruined chapel, sharing a few words before retiring to their stone sarcophagi. Antony always sleeps fully dressed, including his fur-trimmed frock coat, but Bedelia observes the decorum of her noble upbringing in France, changing into her silk nightgown and tying her hair back at the nape of her neck with a satin ribbon. 

They are plotting, no doubt, and cast baleful glances my way as I approach. “Bedelia,” I greet, reaching for her hand and depositing a cold kiss that delivers only rancor. “Thank you for assistance in moving our legal matters forward. I trust you also encouraged Mr. Graham to write home and say he’d be returning shortly.”

She inclines her head in a not-quite-nod that acknowledges my assertion. Antony smirks, arms crossed, hip against the ruined altar. 

My grip on her hand tightens. If I wanted to, I could break it, crush it like a songbird in my prodigious grasp. I let this communicate my threat. She endures it as long as she can before making a tiny sound of discomfort. I release her and she turns away, gliding to her crypt. 

That just leaves Antony, who has sidled up to me, running a finger over the buttons of my jacket, head cocked to the side. I can imagine what he’ll say next. Something about Will, about how clearly he is suffering, about the sleepwalking. If he says one word that implies there is something wrong with my beloved, I will kill him, here and now, defiling our place of rest with no regret.

But he doesn’t. He does lean in close, daring to put a hand inside my jacket, running it along the shape of my hip. I endure this rigidly. “Something’s different,” he murmurs, then angles his head down to breathe into my neck. With a viciously knowing smile, he steps back. “I suppose congratulations are in order. How was it? Was he agreeable to all your filthy little desires? Couldn’t have been difficult to get his legs open. I know how persuasive you can be. Probably didn’t need to mesmerize him; he’s looked like he needed a good fucking since he stepped through the door. A bit tense. Twisted up – did you help him un-twist?” 

I only reach into my coat pocket and bring out a small booklet showing up-to-date maps of the various arrondissements of Paris and hand it to him. It includes public transportation schedules and advertisements for the prominent places of business. “You’ll want to study this, since you’ll be visiting soon,” I say with a doting little smile. 

He takes it from my hands, exuding a sudden wariness at my perceived warmth. Turns away toward his crypt.

“Antony.”

He glances over his shoulder. 

“It’s difficult to enjoy Paris without a head attached to your shoulders.” 

His eyes glitter his anger, but he does not respond, only climbs into his crypt and slides the lid shut. 

Deep in the catacombs, I can hear our one-legged prisoner crying softly. This is my lullaby as my mind dissolves into our deathlike slumber. It cradles me, as does the smell of Will all over my body, its deliciousness cutting through the dank scent of grave-earth. 

When I wake again, it is past midday, and I am refreshed enough by my tomb to rise again. The rest of my family slumbers on in their personal darkness. I wash, only to remove the grave dirt from my hands. I want Will’s scent all over me. I’m loath to change clothes, but it is expected. 

Outside, I find Peter giving his goat a bath. The very sight of me causes the creature to faint, but there is no helping it. I ask him – Peter, not the goat – if he was able to retrieve a long package from the village yesterday. He was and brings it to me. 

Perfectly timed. I thank him and apologize for frightening the goat. When I enter through the kitchen door with my packages, I find Will and Avigeya seated at the table, practicing English and Romanian, their hands busy with the day’s tasks – Avigeya plucking a chicken, Will peeling and chopping vegetables. The scene is so tranquil and domestically winsome I loathe myself for interrupting it while simultaneously feeling blessed to have witnessed it at all.  

Will puts down his knife and gets up, trying to temper the wide smile he wants to give me, unsure how to greet me in Avigeya’s presence. For her part, the girl bids me good afternoon and leans against my arm when I place a fatherly hand on her shoulder. “I’ve brought you something,” I say to Will, placing it on the chopping block. He looks delighted but confused. “Open it,” I suggest as Avigeya sets the chicken aside and brushes feathers from her apron, peering over Will’s shoulder as he unties the twine holding the parcels closed. 

I watch his face as he realizes what each item is: a fishing rod, reels, hooks, a basket and net. He blushes; shy gratitude becomes him. Avigeya catches my eye without him seeing and drops a wink. Even if she had not seen anything that night in the library, she is a perceptive, clever girl. Reading people has brought her this far, a necessary skill fleeing from place to place to escape her father’s long shadow. The light that emanates from me and my love for Will is more than enough to cast the Shrike away. 

It is a new life for all of us. 

I remind Will of a stream and pool he’d noticed on one of our walks that he’d said would be good fishing. I watch in complete satisfaction as Will readies his pole and line and hooks with practiced hands while Avigeya packs a basket of provisions. I leave them to their enjoyable tasks and finish plucking the chicken and cutting the vegetables. It is lucky that they are both absorbed in their work — it has been centuries since I have done either of these things, and even as a human it was a rare occurrence, only when traveling or on hunting expeditions. I briefly savor a memory of preparing food with Iliya on such a journey, how he teased me for not knowing how to cut an onion without making myself cry. 

And now Will teases me, though more gently than Iliya would have. I’ve diced everything unevenly. I was enraptured by him and how he assembled the pole and line and readied everything for our venture. Avigeya gives me another knowing glance. 

We set out in the mid-afternoon. Will doesn’t expect to catch much this time of day, but that is not the purpose of the outing. The day is fair and bright, the breeze as warm and tender as we are for each other. 

I spread out a blanket beneath a tree that is in the process of losing its blossoms, trading them for virginal leaves opening up at last to admit their lover, the sun. The ground beneath us a carpet of fallen blooms still delivering their heady scent. Will and Avigeya turn over stones at the edge of the pool in search of bait. They are far enough away that mortal ears could not hear them over the trickle of the stream, and I delight in my eavesdropping as Will shows Avigeya how to prepare the hook. I don’t know if he knows he’s slipped into Romanian. It’s astonishing how fluent he’s become.

As if he’s spoken the language before…?

“Wrap the leader around the tippet. Four, five, six times. Tuck the end between the lines. Tighten. And... trim. It's called a blood knot.”

He lets Avigeya try; it takes several practices before she manages to master it. 

She is our blood knot, Will’s and mine.

“Last thing before casting a line: name the bait on your hook after somebody you cherished.” He holds up the impaled worm on the palm of his hand. 

“To say goodbye?” Avigeya wonders. 

“If the person you name it after cherished you, as the superstition goes, you will catch the fish.” Will cocks his arm and casts the line expertly into the center of the pool. He hands Avigeya the pole and positions her arms and hands to the correct angles, complimenting her on how quickly she learns. 

“Hmm,” she says, watching the cork bob on the surface of the pool. “And what did you name it?”

Will’s eyes flick my direction, just for a moment, a half of a moment, less than that. “Pickles, of course,” he lies. Pickles is the one-legged duck that Peter keeps.

“We won’t catch anything, then,” she says with a shake of her head. “Pickles only loves Peter.” It’s true; the bird sleeps on his lap whenever he has a free moment, its head tucked under Peter’s arm. 

They laugh. Avigeya hands Will back the rod and watches him as he reels in a little, then settles in to wait, a sweet and easy peace stealing over his entire body, uncoiling every tense fiber. After a time, he reels in, and the worm is gone but there is no fish on the hook. “Told you,” Avigeya says. “You should do it right this time.” She steals a glance over her shoulder at me, and he notices her look. I can see the color gather on the back of his neck. 

Will smiles, an unconscious reflex I catch as he turns his head to her to say, “All right.” 

She hands him a worm and he baits the hook and casts. “Off you go, Hannibal,” she says to the worm, punctuated by a giggle. 

Now Will stands at the shore, fishing, his curls lifting every few moments in the gentle breeze. Avigeya is next to me, eating a piece of bread spread with soft cheese. We drink cool white wine from humble clay cups. The filtered sun sparkles on the water.

“Are you still going to London?” Avigeya asks me in soft Russian. A language, presumably, that Will hasn’t mastered just yet. 

I don’t know how to answer. “I’m not going anywhere without him. And for the moment, he cannot travel.”

“Let me come,” she suggests. “I can watch him.”

“If I leave,” I say, “I will not be able to travel with you by the usual means. You would be alone with him day and night. He would need at least two other traveling companions working in tandem to keep him safe.” 

“Peter?” she offers.

“Peter is a possibility. But I’m sure there are animals in his menagerie that would perish without his daily attention. Would you ask that of him?” 

Avigeya shakes her head no. There is one thing that every creature in Castle Lecter can agree upon, and it is that Peter is precious and must be protected.  If Bedelia came across a wounded bird, her first instinct would be to crush it. She cannot stand weakness. And yet, on the rare occasions where she and Peter interact, she is as close to kindly as a woman like her will ever be. Even Antony, who sustains himself with spite as much as he does with blood, leaves him alone, though I know he, too, would see all of Peter’s pets put out of their misery. 

Peter has been loyal, and Will feels a strong affinity to him. I couldn’t ask him to abandon his creatures and then try to explain to Will why I would do such a thing.

“Maybe someone else from the village?” 

“I’m considering my options,” I assure her. I do not tell her that there are two vampires murdering villagers to hurry my decisions along. That they would murder her if they thought it would encourage progress toward their freedom. 

“I want to go with you,” she says after finishing her food and taking a sip of wine. 

“I’m aware,” I tell her. She pouts. I reach behind her and give her braid a playful tug. “I know you would be a great help to me, Avigeya.” 

And the further she can flee from her crimes, the better. 

Will has a fish on his line. We watch him reel it closer to shore, calling for Avigeya. She hurries over with the net, casting off her shoes, and wades into the shallows to snag the catch. It is a trout, a beautiful specimen, and full of life. 

I suppose that means that I cherish Will in return. Avigeya murmurs something similar to Will as he subdues the fish and again, that priceless smile, the flash of teeth, the way it reaches up to his eyes and illuminates them just so. 

As if we needed a fish to confirm how we feel about one another. Still, I am more than pleased. I don’t want him to have any doubts. 

Will must name every worm after me, because he catches three more fish before the sun begins to set. We walk back just before nightfall, Avigeya carrying the fish basket. Will has his pole in one hand, leaned back against his shoulder, but his other is free for me to take as Avigeya walks ahead of us. 

Will slows, letting her get farther away. “Thank you,” he says, an adorably tentative curl to one side of his mouth. “This, uhm… it’s perfect, all of it. I’ll… give you a lesson next time.”

“The pleasure, for me, was watching the two of you,” I say, giving his palm a squeeze. I secret this day in my heart under careful guard, locks and keys, for it is another dear treasure I wish to keep close. If I saw them every day forever…

In the kitchen, Will prepares to clean the fish. I watch him pick up the knife from where I am working the mortar and pestle, crushing the herbs and salt Avigeya has given me. Will hesitates, his breath catching, sweat glimmering suddenly on his hairline, lost in some sudden reverie. A fearful shadow crosses his brow, and his hands are shaking. He sets the knife down and backs away from the table. Avigeya glances up from where she is buttering a clay dish. One nod from me and she picks up the knife, looking at Will, the blade held in her hand with practiced surety. 

I’m behind him now, a hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t you explain it to her, and Avigeya can try it on her own,” I suggest. I’m tempted to use the slightest touch of mesmerism, to try and understand what it is he’s seeing in his mind, but I hold myself back. 

Will nods gratefully. I can hear his heart as it stumbles along, too fast, slowing and becoming more rhythmic as he merely instructs Avigeya instead of wielding the knife himself. 

Was he empathizing with the Ripper again?

Or was he becoming Avigeya in his mind, as if the fish was Nikolai? 

After one fish, Avigeya knows what to do. She is an expert at gutting things, after all. Will relaxes as the filets are prepared and placed in the oven, the scraps given to Peter’s cats and birds. We invite Peter in, but he says the goat doesn’t like him to be away long. Avigeya sends him along with his dinner and we sit down at the humble table to eat.

For them to eat. I do my best to feign consumption, moving fish and vegetables around on my plate. Will excuses himself for a few minutes at one point, and Avigeya quickly scrapes some of my food onto her plate, then returns the dish to me without any sort of question or explanation. 

I hadn’t considered that she knew what I was. A miscalculation on my part. The girl is intelligent and has known from the beginning that I do not eat. Perhaps she doesn’t know the entirety of my situation, but she certainly understands that Will thinks I am human, and she is more than willing to help me keep up the charade. She says nothing but quickly eats the extra food before Will returns. 

The humans’ bellies are full. The three of us retire to the library, and Avigeya tries to teach us a card game. We play until it is late and the girl yawns. I send her to bed; she goes without hesitation. If she worries about nightmares, or has had any, she hasn’t told me. 

We say goodnight. I escort Will back to his rooms, as I have done a few times before. But now it means something else entirely, and Will’s hand in mine is warm from anticipation, his cheeks blooming. 

The moon is covered by clouds tonight. They’d begun to blanket the sky as we ate Will’s fish, and the room is very dark, I’m sure, to human eyes. I shut the door behind myself and Will gropes his way to the table where he strikes a match, touching it to the candles there. It is at last warm enough in the mountains that it seems a fire is not required for him to be comfortable. 

When he turns from his task, I am there, relishing our solitude and the freedom it brings. I touch his hair first, then the side of his face with the flat backs of my fingers as he rests his palms on my waist. “Tell me, Will,” I request, trying not to sound overeager, “when you held the knife tonight, what were you seeing?” 

Will goes pale. Perhaps this was not good foreplay, though it does nothing to diminish my desire for him. “The boy,” he admits, stepping closer to rest his head against my shoulder. “Like… I was Avigeya. And then it… changed. I was the Ripper… but just for a second.” His trust is arousing, as if he’s touching me intimately. “And, ah… then I was me. Sort of – I was in the forest w-with a knife. A dagger, I mean – it was a weapon, not a kitchen tool. But it didn’t feel like a memory. It felt like the empathy, when I can… assume a point of view. I-I don’t know.”

In the forest. With a dagger. Himself but not himself…?

Will wants to forget it, all of it, and he is clutching me now and using his mouth to change the subject. Though not with words. Just as convincing, if not more so. I am drawn sweetly from my whirling thoughts and connections by his kisses that only grow in intensity as he takes me by my hips and backs me up to his bed. I let him push me onto it and position himself over me, content to lay back and let him have his way. 

He pulls the laces of my shirt open and kisses me there, nuzzling my collarbone and the hollow of my throat; it is obvious how much he appreciates my body hair; he can’t stop touching it. In the same way I can’t stop touching him, gliding my hands up and down his thighs and backside, his hips and spine. I try to be patient, but I eventually touch his outline through his clothing, which makes him break his mouth away from mine to inhale sharply, as if it was the first time someone had ever groped him there in this state of arousal. 

I know that no one can be fully aware of another unless they love them. It stands to reason that the reverse is also true – without awareness, love cannot pay a visit. I know Will is not fully aware of me and what I am, but the way he traces his fingers over my brow, looking down at me now with such evident adoration, touching my cheekbone and chin, running his fingers through my hair, it makes me wonder. “This is real, isn’t it?” he asks, and while one could assume his disbelief comes from unfettered happiness, I fear his stems from a true lack of surety. 

I know he dreams of me. His dreams bleed into reality at times. No wonder he’s unsure. 

“It’s real,” I promise just before he kisses me again, his lissome body pressed over mine, a comforting weight that I allow myself to experience aesthetically, since to me, he could weigh nothing at all, should I employ my powers. “You’re awake,” I vow, my voice catching as he works his thigh between mine, giving me something to grind slowly against. 

He rests back on his heels now, taking off his jacket and unbuttoning his shirt just enough to slip it over his head. I grasp him by the hips, enchanted by the view from my angle on the bed. He reduces me to incomplete sentences, and his skin is so warm, marked with beautiful human imperfection, mortal delight. I want to feel it against me in its entirety. I bend at the waist to get out of my own shirt and jacket, so impatient to feel him that I wrap my arms around his back and force him against me, chest to chest. He melts into my hold and relinquishes his position easily enough, providing no resistance as I shift him under me now, letting go only to strip us free of the rest of the tiresome barriers that keep us apart. 

Skin on skin on skin, warmth against my cool flesh, the pound of his heart against my silent ribcage. I have no interest in stopping the sounds I make as I rut directly against his cock now, and he tilts his head back to moan for me. He’s putting himself in danger, showing me this much throat, but he doesn’t know it, and that secret excites me. 

He is so beautiful. I wish I could call on God, both as a blasphemy and in praise. 

I help myself to a fistful of luxurious curls and pull, hard enough to elicit a whispered intake of breath, tipping his chin up further. Lavishing my attention here. Wolves lick the flesh of their prey to soften it before they bite. Take care, now. Control is advisable. Better to kiss his mouth — safer. And I do, hand still in his hair, my knees on either side of his hips, still thrusting against him with slow, sultry movements while he grips my backside and ribs, clutches desperately at my hips. 

His mouth is hot and succulent, and I confirm to myself that yes, he tastes like Iliya. I should never have doubted myself. I would know it anywhere. Yes. I run my tongue along his lower lip before penetrating with it again. He emits one of Iliya’s moans now as well, timed with my hand as it stroked him from neck to hip, around his bottom curve, gripping his thigh again. 

And I have to remind myself to take care again. He is bruised from our last encounter, the shadow of my hand evident in discoloration. I might regret it if he hadn’t enjoyed it so much. 

He breathes out my name once, twice, shifting beneath me. It makes me want to hold him down harder, but I let him lift a hand to my face. He presses his fingertips over my mouth to get my attention. “Will,” I plead. If he wants to stop, I cannot predict what I will do. 

“I want to…” he reaches between us and strokes my length, his tongue briefly curling between his lips. 

“Whatever you want, I’ll give you.” This promise, impulsively given, extends to our lives outside of the bedroom as well, but he doesn’t know this, won’t know until I prove it to him. 

“I want to give you something,” Will says with a quirk of his lips. “But, ah… you have to get off me first.”

I savor the slow act of letting him go, making him wait for me to shift and set him free. He sits up as I kneel in front of him, his adoring supplicant. Will gathers me to him, kissing me, guiding my body where he wants it, sitting against the pillows. I am glowing with anticipation and treasuring the way he blushes yet moves with a sudden certainty, crawling toward me on his hands and knees, looking into my eyes until he isn’t looking at them anymore; they are hooded and heavy with desire as he admires my cock, hard for him — all of him, not just his touch or how it feels to touch him, but stemming from his entirety, body and soul, a soul he may have shared, in some way, with my beloved Iliya. Such an inarticulate incarnation of this tapestry of feeling, but the way he looks at it makes me want to believe he understands the dimensions of my love for him. 

And I do love him. How could I not?

Four centuries of the powers of darkness and he burns it all down, reduces me to a being of the purest simplicity. How does he do this? He leans in, stroking my thighs, and he opens his mouth, welcoming me into the wet, warm cradle of his tongue. I cannot stop the sounds I’m making; so warm. So soft and wet. I can’t think, but I can feel the undulations of his tongue along my shaft. He’s done this before. Granted, as a human he does have the bodily reflexes I do not, but he is still intent on bringing me as deeply as he can for blissful moments I had only dreamed of. It is the perfect combination of practiced and unpracticed and beneath the act an unquestionable desire to please me. 

I am in a place of pure instinct. I stroke his hair, tug it gently, my other hand locked around the snarl of quilt I’ve caught in my grasp. He has his hand resting on my pubic bone, thumb and first two fingers massaging the base as he works. 

This is pure idolatry for both of us. He treats the act like worship, and I can only pray to him, panted words of praise, humbly simple. I tell him he is perfect, that he is beautiful, that he is good. He catches these sparks and becomes a fire as any last shreds of self-consciousness burn away. He drags his lips down my shaft on one side, then the other, glancing up at me intermittently and catching my gaze, those moments of brutal and gorgeous connection. Licks the head, tongues the slit, brings his mouth back lower to the base, fondles me everywhere else front to back. I cannot keep my hand out of his hair, tracing down the back of his neck and along the flat expanse of his shoulder blades, finding the scar again and teasing it with my fingertips.

He is somehow tireless. I tremble and I plead with him – I won’t last like this. I am dimly aware that if I finish in his mouth, he might see or sense the thin strands of blood that accompany my emissions, just as my tears are tinged with it. I’m also unclear what it might do to him. The last time a human did such a thing for me, I had already begun the process of making him a vampire. 

He is pitiless, looking up at me with those eyes, clear and blue like the bits of stained glass that have survived in the chapel windows, the azure folds of the Holy Mother’s gown. Instead of stopping, he swallows my cock as far as he can, fighting his reflex, then slowly slipping me out, a line of saliva dangling between his shining pink lips and the head, stretching until it breaks at last. 

He smiles up at me and dives right back in, stroking my stomach and my thigh before gathering my cock in his hand again and only pleasing the tip. I sense the touch of his teeth and it sends a jagged shudder through my body. I can feel heat pooling in the center of my passion, the muscles threatening to tense. 

I take him by the arms and trap him under me again, locking my hands around his wrists to keep him still. He gasps in thrilled surprise. I kiss him, tasting myself now as well as the familiar essence of my beloved. He pushes against me. Testing my strength, I think — but it serves to fuel all my desires. Eat, fuck. Love. Iliya used to do the same thing. He knew I liked it when he made a show of resistance with a little smile that betrayed his true intention — not to escape, but to get my blood pumping, encouraging me towards wilder passion. I wonder if he knows what he is doing or if this is all instinct, some shadow of knowing cast by Iliya’s memory. 

I should ask how he likes it, if he’s even had enough experience to know. Will is a different person and this is only our second time. But I have an abundance of instinct as well. I think — I know he wants it rough. I thrust against his cock with my own; we are trapped between our bodies, undersides together, assisted by the beads of moisture that have already worked themselves out of us and where Will has left me wet. He arches his back, lifts his elbows and flexes his hands as if he cannot contain his pleasure, is a slave to its whim. Pleasure I am giving him. There are many luxuries of humanity that I sorely miss. Having the strength of twenty men, however, is convenient, especially when making love. I am tireless, my muscles never cramp, never quiver, and I can give him as much as he can take all while holding him down. 

Will climaxes and I catch his moan in my mouth with a kiss, drinking it in. What comes out of him and slicks between us is, like the rest of him, delightfully warm. I lose control – again, so very dangerous – and orgasm. I press my face into his neck under the pretext of muffling my own noises, but I unsheathe my fangs and let one razor tip just graze the side of his throat near the slope of his shoulder. It is a shallow wound, no more than a cat scratch, but at the cusp of my passion I close my mouth around it and bite down again, careful to retract my fangs first. Oh, the teeth marks Iliya and I used to leave on each other. 

I suck, hard, and taste just a hint of his blood. Somehow, I am still fully engulfed in my climax as I taste it, knowing that those ruby droplets had been in the chambers of his heart moments before, animating him, sustaining his life. The euphoria ebbs slowly and I savor every moment of it, of him, breathing in his heady scent and kissing him until I at last feel as though I could collapse. 

My first thought: this is the most satisfying sexual encounter I have ever had, as man or monster. 

I expect to feel guilty, that I am shaming Iliya’s memory, but the combination of being fearsome and undead and cursed by God and so terribly in love with a mortal man is a volatile mix and uncharted terrain. 

I am still treading in the deep waters of my flood of pleasure, feeling them ebb and eventually recede, leaving a fertile plain in their wake, when Will gets up to fetch the cloth and water this time. The light of the three candles is dim enough that I don’t think he can see much. I let him clean me this time by feeling alone. This brief interlude and he is back in my arms. I have never known such a singular peace, even when I was alive.

We lay facing each other; he cradles my face between his hands for a languid, exhausted kiss. He releases me and rests his head on the pillow now; I angle my arm so I can stroke his hair. He lays a palm on my chest and runs his fingers through my hair there as well, mirroring my soothing gesture. 

I’ve exhausted him, but he is radiating a light and a life I’ve yet to see since his arrival at Castle Lecter. 

“Was it good?” he asks after a moment’s hesitation. 

As if such a simple word could describe it. “I know a dozen languages,” I admit, “and I don’t have the words. Will…” is all I can say. 

He burrows happily against me. I can feel him relaxing toward slumber. Before he drifts off, I kiss him back to consciousness. “I’ll have to leave you at dawn again,” I tell him. “I won’t wake you.”

He makes a little noise of discontent. 

“I would stay if I could.” If only he knew how it breaks me to leave. 

“Can’t you stay?” he murmurs. 

“I’m sorry.” I hope he doesn’t ask me to explain further. He doesn’t; sleep is stealing over him again. “I’ll stay as long as I can.”

He nods and falls asleep in the crook of my arm. I hold him tenderly and try to forget that dawn will come at all. 

Chapter Text

Before Will had even opened his eyes, he knew Hannibal was gone. He felt the instant absence and resulting irritation for a moment before scolding himself for it. He’d had the count all night; if he had to leave in the morning to attend to things, Will had to accept that. He wasn’t clear on what needed so desperately to be done between the hours of dawn and mid-afternoon, but it must be important. 

Must be. Next, of course, came the creeping doubts that he wasn’t really wanted, or was being hidden, a dirty secret. That Hannibal was rushing back to climb into someone else’s bed. Again, he pushed it away. If Will wasn’t convinced that Hannibal wanted him, after what they’d done last night, his insecurities were bordering on ridiculous. 

Still.

Every time Alana had kissed him, he’d been sure, at least for a few minutes or hours, that she loved him, that they’d find a way to make a life together despite the differences in station and expectations. 

Waiting for the bottom to drop out was a hard habit to unlearn. 

The sheets smelled like them, Hannibal and Will and Will and Hannibal, their scents mingling together. Will burrowed deeper and drifted for a while as the sun became more insistent at the window. At last, he got up and opened the casement. It was going to be a beautiful day, full of lambs-wool clouds and sapphire skies. He gave himself a few moments to relive the previous night, resting his elbows on the windowsill. God, he was smiling like a little kid, couldn’t stop. 

Come what may, last night had been… one of the best nights of his life. 

He’d gotten up late again. He could see Avigeya across the courtyard hanging up laundry on the cleverly made lines Peter had constructed. Pickles watched carefully from her crate, pausing every once in a while to clean her feathers. As he watched, Will noticed Peter come out of his home with his hands held protectively against his chest, as if cupping something small. Avigeya put the laundry basket down and went to him. Together, they watched as Peter opened his hands and a sparrow, after a moment’s hesitation, lifted off, flying up and over the castle wall, back to its natural habitat. Avigeya clapped for the bird, as if she were giving it a standing ovation, then laughed at her own enthusiasm. Peter reached out tentatively and touched her arm. He nodded, a kind of wordless acknowledgement, and then went back inside, leaving her to hang up the clothes again. 

Will had a soaring feeling of pure elation, and then realized and acknowledged the moment. It was so strange, these undiluted experiences of happiness, woven in with the horrors brought by the return of the Ripper to his consciousness, the unending nightmares and bloody memories. It was hard to know how to feel from moment to moment. 

So, take it moment by moment, he told himself. If you’re happy now, be happy until you aren’t. 

Will got dressed, being sure to button his shirt up enough to cover the amorous bite-mark and suck-bruise that mottled his shoulder. He realized that if he had his druthers, he’d prefer to let it show. He felt chosen, marked, claimed, and that felt as good as any promise. 

He stopped by the kitchen. He’d missed breakfast, but there was some bread and cheese and cured sliced sausage sitting out as if waiting for him. He ate quickly, then went out to the courtyard to see Avigeya, who was now beating a rug with a stick to knock the dust out. 

“Want a turn?” she asked, offering him the stick. “It feels good.”

“I’ll pass,” he said as they shared a laugh. “I’m going just outside the south gate. If, ah… anyone’s looking for me.”

“You’re not supposed to be alone,” she said after whacking the rug a few more times.

“I’m not going far. Just to the willow tree,” he said. 

“Did you eat?”

He nodded, and she relented, turning back to her work, clubbing the rug with solid, rhythmic strokes. “You should try this!” she called after him. He just waved and smiled over his shoulder. 

Will found the willow tree not far from the smaller south gate. It grew where a stream must have once flowed, but the water had changed, no longer, perhaps, running at the surface. It was ancient and gnarled, and the fronds were summertime full. If you sat in just the right place, you could be beneath their canopy and still see out to enjoy the mountain vista. Will settled in with his back against the old trunk and reached into his jacket for his journal. 

         23 June 1893:

         No dreams last night. No sleepwalking. 

Will pressed the blunt end of his little pencil against his bottom lip, debating if he should continue. If he wrote in his investigator’s shorthand, it’d take a good amount of time for someone to decipher it. And who would be looking? 

Two nights like this. Could be because H was in bed with me. I didn’t ask if I tried to move, but he didn’t say either. 

I’m still thinking about the door carved like the Tree of Life. I never tried the latch from my dream. Now I don’t know if I should. H asked me not to go into that part of the castle. 

Today I feel well. Might not last, but…

Will suddenly got the feeling he wasn’t alone. He lifted his gaze from his journal and looked around, listened. Nothing but the birds and the breeze blowing through the willow boughs. 

He turned back to his writing and noted the weather. Then:

Today is Alana’s birthday. She and I are both 35 now. I’m sure Prudence is sniping at her right today about getting married and having or adopting children. Something about how she isn’t getting any younger. 

Summertime. Social season. I wonder how many proposals she’s had this year. Better hurry up, Parliament will be in recess soon.

All that feels so far away. I want to keep it that way. I want to stay here. I like the idea that I left London and just disappeared.

Wonder what Prudence would think if I married a count and moved into a castle. What would Alana think? 

Getting a little ahead of myself.  

“Just a little,” he scolded himself under his breath.

The feeling was back, on both sides of him now. Presence.

Will glanced up. 

There was someone there. Sitting right next to him, perched on a seat-shaped root of the willow tree. A woman with a long stick held loosely in the crook of her arm. The breeze lifted her dark hair gently from her shoulders. She wore a simple orange-red dress and a peaceful smile. Will was startled by her appearance, but something about her made him feel at ease, though he hadn’t heard her approach. She reached out to him, though her eyes were distant and unfocused. Will realized suddenly that she was blind and wanted to feel his face for his expression. He leaned in and let her run her smooth hand over his features. 

“You’re happy,” she said. “Feel that smile.”

“I am,” he confirmed. 

“Do you remember the last time you were happy, Inspector?” 

Will started and turned to his left. Mary Kelly was there, sitting on another root. To his relief, she was alive, dressed neatly in her clean but many-times-mended dress, a cap perched on her carefully styled hair. “No,” he said. 

She said what she’d told him during their first interview, when he’d hired her to act as his informant, going undercover in Whitechapel. “I’m happiest when I’m pretending to be someone else. That’s why I became an actress. Do you ever feel like someone else, Mr. Graham?”

“More often than you’d think,” he murmured his response, the same as he’d said that day in his office at Scotland Yard. 

He wasn’t afraid, but Will was terribly aware that what was happening couldn’t be real. Mary was dead, and he didn’t even know the other woman. He closed his eyes for a few moments, pencil still in hand, tip touched to a blank page in his journal. 

When he opened his eyes, the sun was kissing the edge of the mountains. 

Hours gone. 

Will’s breaths came short and fast as he tried to reorient himself. He was stiff from sitting on the ground, pain flaring along his lower back, and his hands felt cramped, strained. He looked down at them.

His journal was still clutched in his lap, held steady by one claw-like hand while the other, apparently, wrote. And wrote and wrote and wrote, turned pages and wrote, smearing pencil lead all over his hand and the sleeve of his shirt. 

The handwriting was his, but it was wild, changing in size and shape, not following any conventions of margin or spacing. Parts of it were written so forcefully the pages had torn. The pencil in his hand was no longer sharp, the writing end ground down to nothing. 

Pulse thundering, Will dropped the pencil and tried to flex his hand. He had a blister on his middle finger over his writing callus. Feeling slowly returned to his digits and they sang with fiery pins and needles. 

He flipped back through the pages to the last coherent thing he’d written about Alana’s birthday and his ridiculous dreams about being a count’s bridegroom. He turned the journal this way and that, trying to read what he’d somehow written in his waking sleep.

         Do you ever feel like someone else, Mr. Graham?

         I know who I am. 

         This is what it feels like – hunting the hunter. Not sure how I feel about being the bait. 

          I send you half the kidney of one woman preserved for you — the other piece I fried and ate.

          What if this Dr. Gideon isn’t the Ripper? Maybe I’ll marry him. Mother would love it if I snagged a doctor. 

          From Hell:

         I’ve got to do it – for the women out there. Dangerous enough for them on a normal night. 

         I may send you the bloody knife that took it out of her if you only wait awhile longer.

         I’m ready to catch a monster, how about you, Inspector?

         Catch me when you can.

         You get into these killer’s minds and let them into yours? 

         I write you a letter in black ink, as I have no more of the right stuff. 

         Until that changes, I can only be your friend.

         Will

         Do

         You

         Feel

         Unstable

         ?

Will snapped the book shut and tossed it on the ground next to him, rubbing his eyes furiously with a shaking hand. 

“Will?” 

His body gave a head-to-toe reflexive jerk at the sound of his name. He turned and saw Count Lecter parting the long boughs of the willow tree and stepping beneath them. They swished shut in his wake. Will rubbed his face again, this time with both hands, a slow swipe, and glanced up. Hannibal was still there, having knelt next to him now. He looked real, wearing his burgundy coat with the gold stitching. Will could see each individual pattern in the embroidery. Just as intricate and beautiful was Hannibal’s scent, now that he was near. 

“What’s the matter?” Hannibal sat on the seat-shaped root next to him. Where the woman in red and orange had been sitting, his foot resting right where her cane had touched the ground. 

How could he explain? “Uhm…” He floundered, looking at his pencil-stained hands before rubbing them in turn. They were still sore. “N-nothing,” he tried. “Just… thinking, I guess.”

Hannibal looked him over carefully, then reached out his hand. Will took it, and stood, wincing at the creaking of his joints. The tree was tall enough that they could stand beneath it like this, curtained off from the outside world at this angle. The look in Hannibal’s eyes crumbled any chance Will had of insisting nothing had happened. He took a shaky little breath and looked away for a few moments. When he met Hannibal’s gaze again, the count reached out to touch his face. Will leaned gratefully into his hand, then embraced him. Hannibal held him close, resting his cheek on Will’s hair. 

“Tell me,” Hannibal coaxed gently. 

“I, uh… I came out here after breakfast. I got up late b-but it was still morning. And… now you’re here and… I don’t remember anything in between.”

Hannibal pulled back and lifted Will’s chin, studying him. “You lost time.”

Will nodded. “I mean, maybe I was asleep…”

Hannibal rested his hands on Will’s arms as if to steady him. “Will,” he said, voice soothing but with a firmness and structure to it, “you had lunch with Avigeya here, under the tree. I spoke with her a few minutes ago. I came looking for you and she said the two of you had lunch under this tree and talked about fishing.”

“W-what?” A pit opened in Will’s heart, an unknowable abyss. Edging close to it felt like the vertigo he always experienced looking out the library windows. 

“You don’t remember.” Hannibal wasn’t asking a question.

Will slowly shook his head no. “D-did she say… was I acting…?”

“I asked her how you were today,” Hannibal told him. “She said you were well. A bit distracted. ‘Distant’ was the word she used.”

Will realized he was trembling. Hannibal took his hand between his own. “You chose a lovely place to spend the day,” he said. “Do you mind if I join you?”

Will scoffed out a miserable little laugh, a dry sound. “Sure.”

Hannibal lowered himself down where Will was sitting, back to the tree, and motioned Will to him. Will hesitated for a moment, then crouched down and let Hannibal position him, sitting between his legs and leaning back on Hannibal’s chest, the back of his head tucked against the count’s neck, Hannibal’s arms circling him with a firm, reassuring grip. 

“What was the last thing you remember?” Hannibal asked, lips brushing the back of Will’s ear. 

“I was… making a few notes.” Will indicated the journal where it had fallen amongst the tree roots. “Old copper’s habit. Then… I got the feeling I wasn’t alone. I closed my eyes and-and when I opened them… it was now.”

Hannibal lifted Will’s hand and examined the stains. 

“I… wrote some things.”

“May I?”

Will sighed, leaning out of Hannibal’s grasp long enough to snag the notebook and settle back in. “It’s…”

“Private?” Hannibal suggested as Will struggled for words.

“No. I mean, yeah, but…” he shook his head, watching the shadows grow along the mountain valleys. “You keep telling me that nothing’s wrong with me but I’m still… hesitant to… show you the full scale of how wrong I am.”

“You don’t have to show me.” Hannibal’s cool fingertips traced Will’s cheek, then traversed the lines of his throat. 

Will sighed and handed the book over. Hannibal held it in front of them both and Will guided him to the messy section he’d written in the queen’s English, not in his usual shorthand. Will wasn’t looking at him, but if Hannibal was disturbed by what he saw he made no indication. “Do these phrases mean anything to you?” 

“Some of them are things the Ripper wrote in his… letters to the police. S-some things Mary Kelly said to me. I… can’t say for certain but, ah… I think the other bits are from Alana.”

Hannibal hummed. “Why would your mind connect her to the Ripper case?” 

“Telling her about it, about how I caught him… she said that was why we couldn’t be together. Because it made me unstable.” He took the book back from Hannibal and slid it in his coat pocket. “I guess I was thinking about her. It’s her birthday today.”

There was no response from behind him. In fact, Hannibal had gone unnaturally still, his body rigid, still holding Will but somehow the embrace lacked the warmth it had held before. Then Hannibal’s arms tightened, and Will felt him press his face into Will’s hair for a moment. It felt sudden and possessive until his hold slowly relaxed. Will’s empathy pulse rumbled, again whispering to him that Hannibal was not fond of Alana, or at least the version of her he knew via Will. “How will she be celebrating, do you think?” he asked, pleasant as can be. 

“There’s usually a lawn party,” Will said. “Her friends and some of her mother’s people. Drinks, tennis, lunch.” He shrugged. “Maybe it’ll be a formal dinner this year. Prudence – Mrs. Bloom – likes to switch it up for… birthdays ending in five or zero.” He smiled with half his mouth, looking up at the willow boughs as they swayed above. “Lemon cake. Lemon cake every year, that’s non-negotiable.” 

“Her favorite.”

Will nodded. “And every year I have to eat a big piece and pretend I like it.” 

“Do you often tell her little white lies?” Hannibal wanted to know, each word carefully set in his mildly inquisitive cadence. 

“Not often enough,” Will muttered. 

“I don’t want you to lie to me, Will,” Hannibal said, running a hand along Will’s leg from his knee upward. “Small or large, white or black. No sins of omission.”

Will nodded, though the hand was extremely distracting. 

“Will there be a place for you at the table?” 

Will moistened his lower lip, watching a pair of cabbage moths flutter past in a whirlwind dance. “I would have been invited, yes.” He considered. “There might be an empty chair. Alana… is probably expecting me any day now.”

“Is she?” 

Will glanced back at him. “Bedel– Ms. Du Maurier. The day she had me work with her on some of the shipping details. She… strongly encouraged me to write letters saying I’d be home soon. She took them with her, so I’m… assuming they’ve been posted.” 

Will watched Hannibal’s hand pause on his leg, then form into a fist, the thumb and forefinger pressing together, hard enough so that the skin did not easily glide as it suffered the friction. “Bedelia,” he said, still as polite and mild as ever, though Will knew better, “is not the only person who can write letters. In fact, I think it’s time we accept that I’ll need to hire a courier to bring the documents back to London ahead of you. I’ll also pay them to deliver personal messages to whomever you’d like to know your whereabouts.”

Will sighed and put his hand over Hannibal’s. It relaxed into his grip. “It’s… scary, knowing I can’t… that I’m losing time, th-that I can’t travel like this, but…” He smiled reflexively. “I don’t want to go back,” he said.

“It’s settled, then.” Hannibal raised Will’s hand to his mouth and kissed the knuckles once, twice. “I’ll make the arrangements. You draft your missives and I’ll have them delivered along with the rest.”

“Thank you,” Will said, snuggling back against Hannibal’s chest, watching the last glow of sun as it dropped so far behind the mountains that only a glow remained to give them craggy halos. “I think I just need… time. When this happened before, and Alana took care of me, I got better.”

“How did she care for you?” There was that little sliver of ice again. Will wished he wouldn’t do that, think of her that way. He knew it was protective, and maybe even a little jealous, but if, one day, they all lived in London together, he would prefer if Hannibal and Alana got along. Maybe even became friends. 

“I rested. She made sure I ate, that I slept, I didn’t wander at night. And we… did other things. To distract me, get my mind off it all. And it worked. It took time, but it worked.” 

“If that’s all that’s needed,” Hannibal said, “I believe we have what we need here to cure you. And when you’re well, we’ll make the journey.”

“Will you bring Avigeya?”

Hannibal nuzzled the back of his neck. “I told you we are her fathers now. What kind of fathers would we be if we left her here?” 

“Peter will want to stay.”

“Yes,” Hannibal agreed. “Peter and Chiyoh will stay. Antony and Bedelia will leave as soon as I’ve made arrangements for them from London.” 

They got up to stretch, stepping out from under the boughs to watch the clouds turn red. Hannibal plucked several strands of willow from the tree and brought them back to where they’d been sitting. Will took his place back, turning a little to the side to cuddle in closer. “You won’t sell this place, will you?” he asked.

“I could never,” Hannibal told him, measuring the lengths of willow. He began twisting them into a cord. “These lands live in my blood; they have been in my family since before history began.”

“So, if you don’t like London, you can always come back,” Will reasoned. 

“And if you find you no longer care for it,” Hannibal told him, winding the strands into a circle. “We can come back.”  

Will’s stomach fluttered and then settled into a place of pure warmth in response. He didn’t have the words, so he said, “What are you making?”

Hannibal chuckled, holding up a crown-shaped weaving that fell apart as soon as he let it go, leaving Will with handfuls of twisted willow. “It was supposed to be a crown. Mischa used to sit under this tree and make them. She was an artist in her own way; I preferred sketching while she made weavings out of things found in the natural world. Wreaths and baskets, and sometimes spheres or creations that had no discernible shape.” 

“I didn’t know,” Will said. “I wouldn’t have…”

“One cannot avoid all beautiful things simply because they remind us of something we lost. If we did, there would be no beautiful things left, in the end.” 

Will hummed, playing with the woven strands of willow. “Maybe Avigeya knows how to do it. Girls are always doing things like that – daisy chains and cat’s cradle…” 

“And boys make ropes and chains for playing pirates or highwaymen.” 

“Or coppers and robbers,” Will said, shifting out of Hannibal’s grip and turning to sit on his thighs, knees on either side. “Like this,” he said, holding Hannibal’s wrists together and twisting the fibers into a pair of handcuffs. 

“How unfair,” Hannibal complained through a smile. “You didn’t give me a chance to run, Inspector.”

“I don’t think you would’ve run,” Will teased him, their lighthearted banter chasing away some of his time-loss horrors, and he was grateful, even if the relief only lasted a moment. 

Hannibal laughed under his breath and pretended to test the strength of the twisted strands of willow. “If you were the one chasing me, Will, I suppose not.”

“I don’t think it’s an accident. You let me catch you on purpose, didn’t you?” Will leaned forward, still holding Hannibal’s wrists together, and kissed him tenderly. “You, ah, didn’t have to do a crime to get my attention, Count Lecter.”

Hannibal pulled his wrists free, still wrapped in the willow, and slipped his arms over Will’s head and shoulders, resting them against his back. Then, in a swift movement, he reversed their positions, planting a knee on either side of Will’s hips, pressing his back into the tree. Hannibal sat up and freed his hands. Will breathlessly let him wind the natural cordage gently around his neck and then pull it just the tiniest bit too tight. “I think you enjoy my methods,” Hannibal murmured with a half-smile, giving the willow boughs a little tug before he buried his mouth against Will’s. Will felt his breath quicken when his teeth grazed Hannibal’s bottom lip on the inside, just the tiniest touch of an edge, just the most delicate taste. Then he pulled back. 

“I’ll play any game you want. Or no game at all. I want you to understand something.”

Will knitted his brows, and watched Hannibal unwind the cord from his throat. It left a couple of stray leaves on his jacket that Hannibal carefully brushed away. Will’s heart felt folded in on itself as he waited for Hannibal to speak, dreading what might come. “I want you to understand that I want you. Just you. Not your services as a solicitor, though they are what brought us together. Not your body, perfect as it is. Not even your wit, or your intelligence. You. Will Graham.” He lowered his luminous eyes shyly for a moment. “I’m sure you’ll find this sudden. Transylvania is not England, and things aren’t done in your country the way we’re doing them.”

Will swallowed, avoiding Hannibal’s gaze for a few moments. This was too much. He didn’t know what was coming but both hope and fear fought over his heart like dogs after the same scrap of meat. 

“I’ve met you at a very strange time in your life. You’re unwell and vulnerable, especially after what happened with Miss Bloom before your arrival.” Hannibal’s eyes were so softly earnest it was physically painful. Will repressed the urge to take him in his arms immediately. Listen, damn you.  “I’ve been impatient with having what I want and using physical gratification to say the words I’ve yet to summon the bravery to speak aloud.”

I love you, too, Will almost blurted, but managed to keep it in at the last moment. 

“I want you 'to know that we can sit here, watch this sunset, watch the stars, and talk all night. All night every night for the rest of the time we have together. And I would be happy.” He paused. “Do you understand, Will?” 

Will nodded, though he was frustratingly tongue-tied.  

Hannibal reached for him, and drew him into a crushing embrace, holding him so tightly that Will had to pause his breath. He could feel his heart beating against Hannibal’s chest as he encircled him in his arms. Will closed his eyes and tucked his head beneath Hannibal’s chin. They spent a long moment in this perfect darkness, listening the fading echoes of singing insects and the lilt of the wind as it caressed the tree above and around them. 

Hannibal released him ever so slightly and reached up behind his back and grasped a handful of his hair, gently tugging it to raise Will’s lips to his. When they finally separated at last, Will said, “I meant what I said when… I said I wanted to be with you. And I don’t give a damn about what they do or don’t do in England or-or Transylvania for that matter.” 

“I’m of a similar mind,” Hannibal told him, brushing a curl behind his ear.

“Will!” It was Avigeya, crossing the courtyard toward the South Gate, calling for him. “Will!”

“She has awful timing,” Will said through a smile that Hannibal mirrored before getting to his feet and helping Will up. “Coming!” he called back. 

Chapter Text

When they left the privacy of the tree boughs, Hannibal didn’t let go of his hand except to rest his palm on the small of Will’s back as they returned to the castle for supper. After, they enjoyed plum brandy in the library, Hannibal playing the harpsichord for them, a new composition. 

At Avigeya’s first yawn Hannibal sent her to bed, claiming she’d worn herself out beating the rugs and needed rest. She wasn’t gone five minutes before Will expressed weariness as well. 

This was, of course, a pretext to slip Count Lecter into his bedchamber again. 

As soon as the door clicked shut, Hannibal drew Will into his arms, giving him several savoring, lingering kisses, slipping his hand through Will’s hair as Will let himself explore around behind his hips, settling his grip against Hannibal’s buttock and lower back respectively. At last, the count lifted Will by his thighs, taking two steps to set him down gently on the bed. 

Will moved to make room for him. The count took his invitation and eased off Will’s jacket, leaving it at the foot of the bed and unfastening the upper buttons on his shirt in order to slip it over his head. “Would I be correct,” Hannibal inquired politely through a series of kisses along Will’s chest and neck, “that you didn’t pack your policeman’s handcuffs for this journey?”

Will laughed reflexively before he considered the question more seriously, warmth blushing across his skin. “Uh, no, I didn’t. Wasn’t expecting any trouble.”

“Would you like me to trouble you, Will?” Hannibal teased as he pulled off his shirt and slid out of his trousers. 

“I’m not with Scotland Yard anymore. But I could make… a citizen’s arrest… if I needed to...” 

Will reached for him, but Hannibal evaded with a subtle smirk and took him by the wrists. “I told you I’d play any game you wanted, Will. Is there something you’d like?”

“Uhm…” Will had absolutely no idea how to answer. He felt totally out of his depth and, despite an upbringing that valued purity above all else, woefully inexperienced. 

Not that he didn’t know about sex in its various incarnations. The Ripper investigation had required dozens of hours of witness interviews. Many of the people who knew the victims or had seen them on the nights they’d been killed had been sex workers. He’d learned more than his share about the London underworld, from the high-class courtesans engaging in upper-class dalliances to the desperate people turning tricks to survive. 

He’d also met a few sex workers who catered to a very specific group of clients. A former flatmate of Annie Chapman’s made her living entirely with her feet. Will had also met other professionals who specialized in scenarios where actual sex might not even take place, the clients asking to be tied up and subjected to various degrees of humiliation or pain. 

There was one woman in particular — very expensive, she’d informed him within a few minutes of their exchange — who Will had considered hiring, if he’d had the courage. She worked under the name Kali. He’d asked her the requisite questions about any customers she’d had that had gotten violent or threatened her who also had a medical background. She’d laughed at the notion that any of her clients would be rough with her. They paid her to be rough with them. Will had found himself asking more and more questions about her services. Kali had pulled out her appointment book at one point and was ready to pencil him in when he’d cut the interview short and fled, red-faced and half-hard in his trousers like a schoolboy spying on the girls at the beach in their bathing dresses. 

Will understood in theory what he wanted but didn’t have the words. 

He’d liked it very much when Hannibal held him down. 

“You,” Will answered, just to say something, and kissed him again. 

“And how would you have me, Will?” If he wasn’t mistaken, Hannibal was enjoying this discussion, savoring Will’s speechless blushing, his eyes shining, lifting one pale brow as he continued undressing Will and kissing and touching the new expanses of exposed skin. He paid particular attention to the bruises on Will’s shoulder and thigh. “Should I apologize for these?”

Will shook his head no. Very quickly, in fact, so fast he surprised himself. 

“Do you want to play a game?” 

“You, uhm… you have something in mind?” Will ventured, letting his hand trace the count’s remarkable crop of chest hair. 

“I do, but I’m here to please you.” 

Will emitted a silent, nervous laugh as Hannibal leaned him back on the pillows, draping his body over Will’s and rutting their hips together in a slow glide. “I’m, ah… sort of regretting… that I didn’t pack those, uhm… that we talked about earlier…?”

Hannibal nodded as if he understood completely. He got up from the bed and went to the window, drawing the curtains, and paused to touch a match to the three candles on the table, leaving the dim flames to be their only light source. He removed the woven cords used to tie the curtains back from their hooks on the wall. They were thick, silky things made of dark gold fibers braided together in a twist and tipped with tassels. He slid back onto the bed and draped them over his lap, then gathered Will’s hands in his own. “Do you trust me?”

Again, Will nodded quickly, instinctively. Will lay back on the pillows and let Hannibal tie his wrists together with the curtain cord. “How does it feel?” Hannibal asked him, his voice sweetly conversational, as if they were talking about the weather, as if they both weren’t stripped bare on a bed together about to do, Will dared to hope, something he’d never even let himself dream about. 

“Tighter,” Will said, then was mortified at his eagerness. “Uhm, you can make it tighter,” he tried instead. The cords were silk and slick, and he was sure the knots would slip. Hannibal just smiled and complied, then leaned Will back on the pillows again and guided his wrists up to the slats of the headboard, where he tied the tail end of the cords, giving Will a little slack. Then he sat back and just looked. Will felt horrifically self-conscious but also entirely thrilled. Just being in this position, being looked at with adoring, ravenous delight, made him hard. 

Hannibal sat on Will’s thighs and leaned forward, kissing his neck and chest, palming his cock. “Is this what you want?” he whispered. 

“Yes.”

Hannibal hummed, putting his finger to Will’s lips and let him suck it for a brief moment before taking it away again. Then he buried his face against Will’s hip, just above the divot of his bone, and bit down while stroking Will with alternating speeds. Will gasped, straining against the silken cords, feeling them give little by little as he imagined they would. Still, it was more than he’d ever imagined. The inability to touch in return was maddeningly arousing, and he’d come to realize that his body treated pleasure and pain interchangeably in the right context. Specifically, this context. 

Hannibal abandoned the sore spot on his side that he’d bitten and sucked, leaving a bruise and a little scratch behind, and ran his hand from Will’s navel up to his clavicle, seeming to relish the way Will was panting and testing the strength of his bondage. Hannibal put his hand around Will’s throat, and stroked his cock with the other, applying alternating pressure to each. Will moaned and pushed against his hand, strained against his bonds. 

“Do you want me to let you go?” Hannibal’s touch on his throbbing length lessened in pressure and speed. 

“Yes. And n-no,” Will managed. 

“You want to touch me.”

Will nodded. 

“You enjoy being prevented from doing so.”

Will nodded again, then gasped when Hannibal thumbed the head of his cock, moistening the pad of his thumb with Will’s initial pearls. 

“It’s a shame current culture has denied you the opportunity to understand what arouses you and how to ask for it,” Hannibal noted before descending to draw Will into his mouth. He slipped it out to murmur, “I like to say, ‘there is no morality, only morale.’”

Will couldn’t respond with anything except a few begging moans as Hannibal’s throat opened so easily to admit him to the root. Morale indeed. He shifted from one desire to the next, writhing against the bed, torn between wanting exactly this and wanting to trade places with Hannibal. Eventually the sweat on his hands let him wiggle free of the restraints and he sat up, grabbing Hannibal by the hair and reversing their positions. This, he sensed, Hannibal allowed. Will had come to understand that the count was much stronger than he appeared for reasons Will wasn’t questioning right now. He pushed Hannibal’s wrists into the bed and rutted against him from the top, rocking his hips, digging his fingers in hard, harder. It was Hannibal’s turn to be a writhing mess of moans and sighs, a delighted smile on his face, such an opposition to the cool, princely way he was handling Will before. It excited him, filling him with a furious, glorious fire, to see his lover lose his careful control like that.

His lover. They were lovers. Will had a word for it now, which was the beginning of a definition. He slowed down and let Hannibal go, choosing to just kiss him, unable to do anything else for a few moments as his brain acknowledged the word and the framework attached. 

When Will broke away for a moment, he saw Hannibal’s eyes were fiercely ravenous. And suddenly, so fast the room spun, he was beneath Hannibal again, the situation once more reversed.

“You can’t tease me like that,” Hannibal warned. There was a slice of play in the first two or three syllables, but by the time he’d finished speaking Will felt like he was serious. That something was inside of Hannibal the count was trying desperately to keep in check. 

Will tried to shift his torso, to pull his wrists free, and gave up. “I guess the game’s over,” he said. 

Hannibal slowly let him go, a semblance of sanity returning to his features. “Never,” he said. “Tell me what you want, Will.” 

Will felt confidence blossom, burning away the hesitation. He unknotted the cords from the top of the bed and indicated Hannibal should sit there against the headboard, back to the pillows. Wil settled on his thighs and tied his hands together — a fisherman’s clever knots, let’s see him get out of this — then lifted Hannibal’s arms and slipped into the ring created by them. He held onto Hannibal’s shoulder with one hand and used the other to bring their hard lengths together. Hannibal tossed back his head with a deep sigh of appreciation, stroking Will’s back as the bindings would allow but letting him set the movement and the pace, relinquishing control. Will came first but kept moving until Hannibal pulled him closer with his bound arms and pinned him to the headboard instead, even without the use of his hands, and rutted into him until he climaxed as well, burying his face in Will’s shoulder. 

Hannibal reclined gratefully, stretching out on the bed on his back, wrists still tied but Will in his arms, breathing hard into his chest. Will was half asleep in the soft bed of Hannibal’s body and the lingering glow of the deepest pleasure he’d ever known, when Hannibal spoke. “Have I earned my freedom?”

Will slid out from Hannibal’s grasp and sat back on his thighs, taking Hannibal’s bound wrists in his hands. “And then some.” The silk was stretched, and he fumbled with the knots. They shared a soft laugh at the predicament until Will was able to loosen the cords enough for Hannibal to slip his wrists out. Will examined his hands and arms and was relieved to find he hadn’t left any marks on Hannibal that he might have trouble explaining. Will’s own wrists were red, but the smooth cordage hadn’t done any real damage. 

“You’re good at tying knots, Will, have you done this before?” Hannibal asked from the washstand where he was cleaning up.

Will scoffed. “No. Never even… considered it. Fishing, boats. Makes for… good knots.” He slid into bed without bothering to get dressed again. “Have you…?”

Hannibal’s lips curved, another of his sphinxlike, closed lipped smiles. He didn’t answer. Maybe Will didn’t want to know. It was obvious that Hannibal was more experienced — he’d been married, and with Bedelia and Antony, maybe others… 

Will blinked. “Are you getting dressed?” he asked incredulously. 

“Yes,” Hannibal confirmed, slipping his shirt over his head and tying the laces. “I’m going to finish the paperwork and write a few letters. Tomorrow I’ll arrange the courier we discussed.” He shrugged on his jacket and kissed Will’s pouting lip. “Then there will be nothing to worry about, save your recovery. You should ready your letters for Mr. Brauner and anyone else expecting your speedy return.” It was terribly obvious that he had deliberately not said Alana’s name. 

“I’m holding you here,” Will said as Hannibal leaned over the bed to kiss him again. 

“I will always be tied to this place,” Hannibal said. “The land is fertile with the blood of Lecters. Our bones rest in this earth. This is my home, Will. It doesn’t pain me to delay my departure. Besides, I have a very handsome reason to stay.” 

Will exhaled through a rueful smile. “I’m… trying not to feel like a burden.”

Hannibal gave his hair a parting caress before standing up to leave. “Your burdens are my burdens.”

YOUR BURDENS ARE MY BURDENS. 

Will felt it echo from one side of his mind to the other, tangling with his empathy pulse and igniting his memory. The crush of déjà vu gripped him. He had said those words before, could hear them in his mind in his own voice. He’d said them. In front of the door carved with the Tree of Life. 

“Your burdens are my burdens,” Will murmured, matching the pattern and cadence and pitch from his memory.

He’d said those words before.

To Hannibal. 

Hannibal stared down at him; his expression was unreadable. Will might not have been able to discern any of what he was thinking or feeling from the set of his proud mouth or the shape of his eyes, but he knew, he knew, bone-deep, in that moment, a sweeping cascade of sudden sight, brilliant illumination, he knew. 

Hannibal had heard him say those words.

Somehow.

And Hannibal knew more than he was letting on. About Will. About their relationship, about why Will was here. But he wasn’t saying, had never said, sins of omission despite his pleas for Will to be entirely honest with him. 

Count Lecter was hiding something. And whatever it was, its implication was monumental. Will could feel the weight of it like he was being crushed under a stone. It hung between them now, and Will had no doubt that Hannibal felt it, too. 

Hannibal was the first to break eye contact. “Goodnight, Will,” he said, and left. 

“Goodnight,” Will replied reflexively, watching him as he shut the door. 

Will lay back and stared up at the stone ceiling, mind gaping and vacant. 

He didn’t know what to do. 

Sleep was a long time coming. 

Chapter Text

Will got up at the first sight of dawn. 

He’d managed to snag a few hours of fitful sleep, but the phrase he’d heard that had echoed in all the chambers of his heart kept repeating itself in his mind. Your burdens are my burdens. Your burdens are my burdens. He would never have had the pretext to say something like that to Hannibal. It made much more sense coming from the count, trying to convince Will to stop feeling like he was overstaying his welcome at Castle Lecter. Will had spent hours in the dark wracking his memory, trying to recall having said the phrase. His memory was eidetic, or it was when he was feeling sane – yet he had no recollection of ever speaking that phrase at all, to anyone. 

Then again, he didn’t remember having lunch with Avigeya yesterday. Apparently, he could carry on whole conversations during his blackouts. 

All through the fitful night of sleep, the door engraved with the tree had called to him. Just when he would be easing off into sleep, it would appear in his mind’s eye, oscillating between how beautiful it must have looked when it was new, and its ruined carcass stripped of precious stones and materials. Then he would start back into full wakefulness, his body starting violently as if he’d just stopped himself from falling. 

He’d felt sick, sweaty and feverish, alternating between hot and cold. He’d wished desperately that Hannibal hadn’t left and wondered if there was anyone watching his door in case he might sleepwalk. 

I was dawn, and the rooster was crowing; he thought nobody would be on watch. Now was the time that Hannibal always left him to attend to… something. Sleep somewhere else, he didn’t know. The count had always been intentionally vague, Will thought. Another way he hadn’t reciprocated the expected full honesty. Will had never seen Chiyoh, Antony, or Bedelia at any time between dawn and mid-afternoon. That could indicate that the four of them were together somewhere, but Will also knew from his days as an investigator that correlation was just that. Either way, he felt confident they were otherwise occupied. 

Peter would be up, doing his morning chores. Avigeya would wake in about half an hour and start breakfast. 

If he went now, and quickly, no one would know. 

If he went now, and quickly, his courage might not fail him. 

Will dressed as fast as he could: trousers, socks, boots, shirt unbuttoned at the neck, sleeves rolled up. He went to the library and retrieved an oil lamp, lit it, and crept along the passages until he reached the door carved with the Tree of Life. The daylight was growing steadily brighter, but he had no idea what the interior would be like. Assuming the door would even open. 

He chastised himself again. This was ridiculous. The secret latch from a dream could not exist. Couldn’t work. The door was old, and looked like it wouldn’t open, even if it was unlocked. 

But he had to know. 

Will drew the lamp along the decorative edge of the tree design until he found the little warrior armed with two daggers. He took his sleeve and wiped the dust away, then blew on it with a lungful of air before licking his finger and rubbing it over the surface, trying to see it more clearly. 

The little carved warrior wore breeches and a doublet, and was young, beardless, with curly hair. 

Will took a shaky breath and waited, listening for any kind of movement. For any sound, for the Ripper’s laugh, for any indication that he was dreaming or hallucinating. He felt awake. Tired and sleepless, stomach churning with anxiety, but lucid. 

“Just do it, and be done with it,” he whispered to himself. Reaching out with quivering fingers, he pressed on the carved warrior’s raised dagger. 

The little weapon popped back, sinking into the carving, leaving a divot in its wake. Something heavy and metallic clanked in the workings of the door. 

“Fuck,” Will breathed hoarsely, perspiration breaking out on his forehead, his chest suddenly tight. He dropped his hand back to his side, then looked at the door handle. Trembling, sweat rolling down the back of his neck, he grasped the ancient metal knob and turned it. With a soft grating noise and the groan of the rusty hinges, the door opened, revealing a dusty staircase. 

Will wanted to slam it shut and run. But he forced himself to slip within, purposely leaving the door open a crack, and examined his surroundings. The air was stale, and he noted, with an investigator’s sharp eyes, that the dust on the floor was thick and undisturbed, a little bit of daylight coming from the top of the stone staircase. There was clearly a room above. And if his dreams were to be believed…

He dragged his sleeve over his forehead and lifted one leaden foot, then the other, until he breached the top of the staircase. 

This was it. The bedchamber and anterooms from his dreams. 

Except now they languished in ruin. The bedframe was still there, carved to look like a tree, and the leaf-patterned bed curtains hung just as he remembered from his visions, though they were little more than tatters. “Oh God,” he murmured, swiping tears from his eyes as they obscured his vision. The furniture was rotted, collapsing, the fireplaces black and lifeless, the tapestries on the wall reduced to stringy clumps of dust, but he knew this place. The paintings had been covered with sheets to protect them, but these had long since become gray masses of cobwebs, shredded by vermin, looking now like the bridal veils of ghosts. 

This was their bedchamber, his and Hannibal’s. 

But it was utterly impossible. These rooms weren’t just unused and uncared for; they were the remnants left over after centuries of neglect. The large windows were curtainless, and the yellow light flooding in through the diamond panes softened the wealth of dust which lay over all and disguised in some measure the ravages of time and the moth. There was a dread loneliness in the place that chilled Will’s heart and made his nerves tremble. 

The castle, the indeterminate but clearly medieval time period of his dreams – how could he have known what this place looked like so long ago? He knew every inch. This was the part of the keep most protected, with the steep incline and the river below, designed to be occupied by the fair spouses of boyars in bygone days. It felt unaccountably his. 

Will went to the small chest of drawers next to the side of the bed and pried open the top drawer, suddenly knowing he would find a treasured chess set made of ebony and ivory. And there it was, the board warped but intact, the ivory pieces reduced to a dirty brown with age, the velvet bag that once held them nothing but a pile of loose threads, chewed apart by rodents. 

“This was our bed,” he murmured. “The bed he had made for me when I came, and-and there – that wardrobe, that’s where I kept my clothes and his were – in here…” he stumbled into the next room where the table and chairs were, and the lounge and armchairs where they’d discussed the wedding with Mischa–

Of course, Mischa was dead, that was hundreds of years ago. But then Hannibal should be, too. And so should Will, unless – he’d somehow traveled through time, but didn’t remember. But Hannibal did? His pulse pounded in his ears and his stomach dropped so quickly he thought he was going to be sick. Will crumpled next to the table, resting a hand on the ancient wooden surface to steady himself. 

None of it made sense. None of it was possible. 

His whirlpool of emotions drained at last, and he was numb, his mental landscape featureless, a desert. He welcomed it, getting to his feet. Perhaps everything he was seeing was a mirage. Perhaps he was sleepwalking again. Perhaps a lot of things. But he was tired of being acted upon by others, by his own mind, by shadows of the dead. He wasn’t backing down, not this time. 

He couldn’t trust himself and his perceptions, but he could trust his gut, and his investigator’s instincts. Those had solved actual murders that he knew were real and brought real justice for real victims. He had to gather evidence. The interpretations could come later. 

He wiped his eyes and forehead again on his sleeve and set the lamp on the table. That was when he noticed the armored box, still flecked with dirt from where it’d been dug up out of the ground the night he’d arrived. Chiyoh had placed that very box in the calèche with them, presumably finding it beneath a supernatural blue flame. Will had seen the flame, and felt his observation was supported by the fact that the box appeared, and that Hannibal had later told him of the legend of the treasure. 

Will set the lamp nearby and examined the box further. The lid had once been sealed, but it had been pried up. The metal was scratched as if by the claws of some large animal, sinking into the metal seals and tearing them open. His mind wanted to demand how that was possible, but he was easily able to shut it up. No interpretation. Only evidence. 

Inside the box was a collection of strange objects. Ancient horn document cases holding papers rolled into scrolls were nestled in one area. Books so old he was afraid to touch them were stacked in another. Metal glinted – maybe some jewelry? And an urn. Will knew what it was by instinct. Someone’s ashes in a decorated urn, with an ancient rosary wrapped around it. 

Will left that alone and pulled out one of the scroll cases, gently working it open and uncurling the contents on the table with trembling but careful hands. Some were small papers that had been folded and sealed with wax, though as soon as he disturbed them at all, the seals crumbled. He adjusted the lamp and unfolded one of the papers. At first, it seemed like his eyes wouldn’t adjust. He blinked and rubbed them before trying again. The script was old-fashioned, and it was in Romanian — an antiquated version of a language he was still learning. He couldn’t hope to translate it, but maybe he could catch a word or two.

And then he was reading. Every word.

My love, it has been three days since I saw you last, and it feels like three years instead. You can’t have arrived at the borderlands yet. I feel like a piece of myself is missing. I begin every day in tears, then wipe them away and put on a strong face. 

I promised to tell you my dreams. Last night’s was very strange. I was with a woman I’ve never met. Blue eyes, dark hair. I felt as though I cared deeply for her, but she kept telling me that I was unfit to be loved, that there was something wrong with me. I don’t know who she was, but I felt my heart breaking. Then I became aware that I was dreaming and began to laugh, because I didn’t even know her, and why would I care about whether she loved me when I am married to my soul mate? I laughed aloud in my sleep and woke myself up. I’d much rather dream of you than some strange woman who treated me so callously. 

Will picked up a few more of the smaller papers and opened them carefully, angling to read them in the light of the lamp and the steadily rising sun that peeked in through the large windows, unhindered by glass, as many of the diamond panes were missing. 

Last night I dreamed about dogs. I lived in a little cottage with seven dogs of all different sizes and breeds. It was a passing dream; I felt content watching them run. Reba says that since I felt the dogs were mine that they represent loyalty and affection, and that seven was an auspicious number. I will forever be loyal to you, husband, and as viciously protective as any good dog would be. 

Beloved, last night I had a dreadful nightmare. I thought while you were gone that all my nightmares would be about some ill fate befalling you, but this was so entirely different that I am struggling to shrug off its horrors. I walked into a small room. On the bed was a woman, or the remains of one. A man was sitting on her hips with a bloodstained knife in his hand. I had caught him in the act of a brutal murder. He was a large man with a square face, wearing a dark cape. He turned and looked at me and it was as if I knew him. As if I had seen the world through his eyes, that I understood his compulsion to murder this innocent woman. I empathized with him at the same time I was revolted by his twisted logic and the violence he’d done. He laughed when he noticed me there, interrupting his butchery. 

I lifted my arm and shot something at him. It was some sort of weapon, the likes of which I’ve never seen. But it tore him open with a series of loud noises. He fell against the wall and slid down, leaving a trail of blood. “See? See?” he whispered. I wish you were here. You would be able to help me understand these visions. I’ve never dreamed like this before, as you know. I imagine it has something to do with my cold and lonesome bed. Every part of me from bones to soul misses you, aches for you. I pray to the Holy Father for hours every day in the chapel for your safe return and your victory. I love you, Hannibal.

Last night’s dream was just as perplexing. I was a child in a busy marketplace full of people of all races and colors. I was chasing crabs that kept escaping the merchants’ buckets, returning them, playing with other children. A woman came and I hugged her waist. She wiped my nose with her apron and said she would be back before sunset. She gave me a hunk of dry yellow bread to eat. I felt she was my mother, and, in truth, she looked much like my mother in waking life, dead for so many years. It startled me even as I was dreaming as the child. 

It was still afternoon in the dream when a carriage stopped. A little girl with blue eyes pointed out the window at me. Then a man got out of the carriage and approached. He had a bag of sweets and offered me some. I got into the carriage even as the crab merchant told me not to. And we drove away. 

We went to sumptuous, well-appointed rooms. I was given a bath and new clothes, fed delicious food, then told to play with the little girl and her dolls. We played, but evening came. Sunset. I wanted to go back to the market because my mother would be looking for me. But the man and the woman, the little girl’s parents, said I couldn’t go, that my mother wasn’t coming back. That she had abandoned me. I cried and demanded to go back, but they wouldn’t permit it. I thought perhaps I would go home in the morning, so I dried my tears and resumed playing with the little girl. 

Just when Will thought he had a hold on reality, on himself, determined to observe and not analyze until later, the world slipped out of his hold like a fish determined to live. 

These letters were ancient. Hundreds of years old.

Someone long ago had been dreaming about Will Graham’s life. Events that had not happened yet. 

Memories he himself had forgotten, been forced to forget. 

“She didn’t leave me,” he whispered, thick tears choking his throat and rolling down his cheeks. 

If this dreamer had seen the future as accurately as he’d seemed to with the other dreams, Will’s mother hadn’t abandoned him.

The Blooms had stolen him. 

Will dropped the letters and pressed his hands against his face, trying to stem the wild sobs that threatened to erupt. He wanted to scream until his voice dried up. He wanted to tear at his hair and scream and scream but if he started, he wouldn’t be able to stop. 

All impossible. And yet. 

Maybe he was asleep right now, and none of this was real. Or he was awake but hallucinating. And yet. 

The recovered memory of his mother and being taken by the Blooms unfurled in his mind's eye over and over and over. They’d assumed he was a street urchin. They hadn’t believed him when he said his mother was coming back.

Or they didn’t care.

Alana had her hand-picked playmate, and the Blooms had their living example of God’s grace and their holy charity. 

He’d been told the story from the Blooms’ point of view so many times he’d replaced his true memory with their version. The dream retelling rang so deeply true it was as if his entire body was a tolling bell vibrating with revelation. 

“I can’t…” he whispered into his hands, covering his face, backing up into the wall until the stones dug into his spine. 

You can, his heart responded. You must.

After so long, that voice – his mother’s voice. 

Will lowered his hands to his sides, then lifted his sleeve to wipe his eyes and forehead again. He was a sweating, clammy, sniveling mess. He took a few deep breaths and told himself to man up. This moment, right now, might be the most important in his life, more important than killing Abel Gideon or meeting Count Lecter. 

He wrestled himself under control. 

Will knew enough that reading more of the letters depicting… someone’s dreams of his future life would destabilize him. He would wait. He could take some with him. For now, he had to make use of his time. The sun was higher in the sky. Avigeya would be wondering where he was, and the longer he stayed, the more intricate his lie would need to be. 

Will went to the window near the bed to get a breath of fresh air, chasing the dust and ancient rot out of his nose. 

He reeled, reaching out with a sweat-slicked hand to catch the nearby bed frame. Out the large window was a view much like that visible from the library – a dizzying drop into the river far below. 

There was a ledge outside the window. Will recognized it from his dream. The dream where he’d killed himself, falling into the blackness along with Abel Gideon, his mirror image. 

See? See…?

He backed away from the ancient casement and granted himself another moment to rest, willing the vertigo to stop. When he opened his eyes, his gaze fell on a covered painting that hung above the fireplace in the bedchamber. Will considered; he did not remember there being a painting above the mantle in his dreams. He knew this room at its finest, knew every decoration and article of clothing should be. Before, there had been a tapestry above the mantle of a fair maiden with a unicorn resting its head in her lap. 

Hannibal and I used to make jokes about how horny the creature was, Will recalled. They could see the tapestry from the bed when the curtains weren’t drawn. 

So why was this painting here?

Will gathered his courage again, which felt like picking up fistfuls of marbles and trying not to spill them. He approached the painting and pulled the ruined sheet away. It came with a shower of dust as the ancient fabric disintegrated. Just then, the sun breached the outline of the mountains, and shone into the room in full force, illuminating the canvas in front of him. 

Will gaped. He felt his breath stick in his throat. It was like trying to breathe sand. His pulse hammered through his veins, a telegraphed message of existential dread. 

The painting was old, yes. Weathered and cracked. But there was no mistaking it.

That was him. His own face staring back at him. 

His eyes. Younger, maybe – no facial hair, rounder cheeks, hair longer than he kept it, painted in perfect brown ringlets. The version of him in the portrait was wearing a blue doublet with a ruffled white collar, the image capturing him from mid-chest upward, face slightly turned to the left. 

This painting was ancient, as old as the rest of the dilapidated rooms. 

His mind worked to rationalize. He’d never known exactly where his mother was from. His father’s people, at least from what he remembered, were Arcadians who relocated in Louisiana. Perhaps… it was as likely as any other explanation… his mother had been Romanian in background and this was an ancestor. 

An ancestor. He almost laughed aloud. The likeness was exact. 

It was, like everything else, impossible. 

The tarnished plate attached to the base of the splintery frame read ILIYA ALBESCU LECTER. 

HUSBAND OF COUNT HANNIBAL LECTER.

“God’s teeth, Inspector.”

Will whirled around.

Abel Gideon stood at the top of the stairs, blocking his way out of the suite of rooms. Eyes blue and vacant, chest full of holes, black cape trailing the floor yet leaving the dust undisturbed. Bloody knife in his hand, and a sadistic smile on his face. 

“You managed to trap me, even if it cost you Miss… Kelly, was it? Irish girl? But you did it. I simply can’t imagine how you plan to solve this one.”

Will pressed his hand to his face, pushing against his eyes until he saw flashes of color. Lowering them. Gideon still there, closer now. “What kinds of twisty little leaps and backflips does that clever mind of yours have to do to make all of this make sense?” At this, he gestured to the suite of rooms, the letters, the portrait. 

“Maybe Hannibal and Mischa are family names,” Gideon reasoned, tracing his knife along the edge of the splintered wooden box that had once been a wardrobe full of clothing – Iliya’s clothing. “You might be able to convince yourself that your Count Lecter is a direct descendant of the Count Lecter who cherished sweet little Iliya there.” He jerked the knife toward the portrait. “And that you are, let’s say, somehow related to Iliya, and that explains the resemblance. If you stretch your consciousness – be careful now, Inspector, like a roll of dough, it’ll split eventually – you could try a theory like, oh, the memories are somehow genetic. You’re remembering Iliya’s life because of some sort of connection to your heritage.”

Gideon was close enough that Will could smell him, his rotten breath and the iron scent of old blood. The dead doctor glanced at the papers spread out on the table. “But there are so many other pieces of this puzzle that just won’t fit, no matter how hard to try to hammer them in. Why was Iliya Lecter dreaming about your life, Inspector? Hundreds of years ago? Remembering things you were forced to forget?”

Will felt his muscles twitching all over his body, his skin slick with sweat, vision darkening as a searing pain spread through his head. It felt like needles in his eyes piercing through to his brain beyond. He couldn’t breathe…!

“I’ve known many women like your mother.” Gideon pressed the knife against Will’s chin. It felt simultaneously there and not there, a phantom wound. “Are you prepared to remember the rest? That after your father died out on his shrimp boat in the storm that she turned tricks to keep the two of you alive?” He lowered the knife, tracing it along the curve of Will’s Adam’s apple. “Don’t you see, Inspector, why you just had to catch me? Even if it cost you your sanity? Even if you had to throw Mary Kelly right into my lap, knowing what would happen?” 

Tears leaked from Will’s eyes, spilling over in hot rivulets. He was frozen, his body locked up and quivering from head to foot, vision blackening at the edges. 

“Sad little son of a whore,” Gideon said in a cadence of mock pity. “No wonder you fell for the Count so quickly. It’s in your nature to spread your legs, isn’t it? And who wouldn’t want the fairytale ending where you marry well? I think we’ve all heard this story. Slut with a heart of gold saved by a good man.” 

Will tried to speak, to move. His eyes rolled up into the back of his head. 

But he could still hear the Ripper speak. 

“But is your beloved Count a good man? What’s he hiding from you, sweetheart? I can’t wait to find out. He is the devil, Inspector Graham. He is smoke. And he is in you, as they say.” 

Everything went black.

Will floated up through the black, starless expanse, rising as if suddenly buoyant, fighting up to the surface of a dark, bottomless lake. He felt the heaviness of sleep, the pain in his head, his limbs like bags of sand. Images kept popping up next to him as though they, too, were floating up from waters far below, bubbling across his mind. 

Iliya Albescu Lecter.

His mother. The Blooms had stolen him.

The Ripper. Calling Hannibal the devil. 

His head and his body hurt so much, Will mentally splashed the thoughts away from himself, hoping they’d be swept up into a current and flushed downstream.

He wasn’t alone. 

He sensed he was laying on his side, half-curled up on something soft but gritty that smelled of dust and mice. And the unmistakable presence loomed at his side, hovering near the bow of Will’s back. 

He forced his eyes open. They didn’t come willingly. 

The light had changed, the chamber awash with the mellow gold of late afternoon. He was laying on the ruined bed he’d once shared with Hannibal, facing the center of the mattress, knees bent, arms askew as if he’d been unceremoniously lifted and deposited there. 

The presence shifted and Will could feel the weight of someone sitting on the bed next to him. There was a hand on his thigh, hard and cold, sliding higher by a few inches as a deadly, honeyed voice spoke. “There he is… did you have a nice rest?”

Antony.

Will managed to force his depleted body to turn. There indeed was Antony Dimmond, dressed as always, though he’d removed his signature coat and left it on the foot of the bed, clad now in his old-fashioned waistcoat and shirtsleeves, uncuffed and rolled up. 

“We’ve been worried sick,” Antony said, cloying and vicious. “Looking everywhere for you. Why, even now, Hannibal and Chiyoh are out in the woods trying to track you.”

Will was seized by a dreamy fear as Antony smiled, showing off brilliant white teeth, the late rays of sun glinting in his great green piercing eyes that seemed to snare Will in their gaze. 

He felt a melting ice sensation in his brain. It was somehow familiar, and Will reeled in the sudden slap of déjà vu. Antony was… doing something to him. Something he’d done before…? Silently, through his gaze alone. Will could feel it, the pressure building, a monumental shift in his already turbulent mental atmosphere. 

“Alone again at last. I’ve been waiting to have a little heart to heart with you, Will.”

Antony touched Will’s hip now, fingers teasing up the edge of his shirt. Will was consumed with a kind of longing and at the same time some deadly fear. 

Don’t touch me, he wanted to say, but he felt so heavy, and the pressure on his brain kept him woozy and compliant. Will felt in his heart a wicked, burning desire that he didn’t understand. He wanted to kiss Antony of all people. The desire felt forced, foreign, implanted in him, unnatural. He tried to coil his mind around it and choke it out but couldn’t get a hold. He was simply too exhausted. 

He felt himself sitting up, running his hand up Antony’s arm and grasping at his shoulder, trying to pull him close. Antony laughed—such a silvery, musical laugh, but as hard as though the sound never could have come through the softness of human lips. It was like the intolerable, tingling sweetness of waterglasses when played on by a cunning hand. 

“I find it utterly fascinating how hard you try and fight this,” Antony said with a tilt of his head, even as Will settled a trembling hand on his leg. He reached out and stroked Will’s face, thumbed his bottom lip open. “I’ve never once encountered this much resistance in a human mind. No wonder Hannibal’s been courting you. It’s probably easier for him to convince you that he’s in love than try and mesmerize you.”

“...stop,” Will managed to say, his voice miniscule, fueled by less than half a breath. 

Antony’s eyes just seemed to glitter and glow more luminously, still boring into Will’s mind. “Lay back, darling.”

Will obeyed him, breathing heavily as he lost his hold and gave in for a few moments, trying to rally any remaining shreds of his mind’s strength. He lay quiet in an agony of delightful anticipation. Antony mounted the bed and bent over Will till he could feel the movement of Antony’s breath upon the side of his face. Sweet it was in one sense, honey-sweet, and sent the same tingling through the nerves as his voice, but with a bitter underlying the sweet, a bitter offensiveness, as one smells in blood.

Antony paused to stroke Will’s damp hair back from his forehead, simply gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as Antony arched his neck, he licked his lips like an animal, till Will could see in the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth. Lower and lower went his head as the lips descended, pressing against Will’s mouth now.

At the dreaded, desired touch, Will bucked against Antony’s mesmerism with everything he had left. He twisted his mouth away and pushed up with his hands and knees. “Get the fuck off me,” he snarled. “I’ll fucking kill you!”

But Antony was not to be moved. His body was hard as marble, and he only laughed, catching Will’s wrists and anchoring them to the ancient mattress, laying his longer body over Will’s to weigh him down. The strength in these limbs was not just monumental, it was humanly impossible, and it sparked an inferno of terror that roared through Will’s heart. 

 He struggled vainly, grunting and cursing, as Antony easily grasped both of his wrists in one prodigious grip, angling them over Will’s head and grinding them into the base of the splintery wooden headboard. Antony hooked a finger around the top button of Will’s shirt and tore it open with one movement, caressing him licentiously with an infuriating smile. He leaned back on Will’s hips enough to take a good look at what he’d uncovered. “You two have been busy,” he said with a wry twitch of his eyebrow, pressing his fingers into Will’s array of amorous bruises. “Good to know you like it rough, because this will in no way be about your pleasure, I’m afraid. Especially if you keep fighting me.”

“Hannibal–” Will tried to threaten.

“Isn’t here right now,” Antony finished for him. “He’s miles away trying to find you. Thinks you wandered off in your sleep.” He tsked. “Do you think he really cares for you? I was you once, my darling, a pretty little fool so ready to believe anything that came out of that serpent mouth. Silver-tongued like the devil, he is, and frightfully good in bed, don’t you think? Had me wrapped around his finger for years. Until he grew bored of me. The same way he did with Bedelia. The same way he’ll tire of you.” Again, the predatory smile. “I should drain you dry to repay him in kind. Or maybe I’ll fuck you instead.” 

Antony kissed him, hard, bruising Will’s lips as he attempted to keep them shut. “You’re making this very difficult with that little head trick of yours,” he pouted as Will writhed in his grip. He laughed as Will tried to head-butt him, moving out of the way easily. “You’re going to tire yourself out, sweetheart. You could just lay back and try to enjoy it. I’ll do it just like Hannibal does. You’ll love the way I untwist you.” Antony’s lips slid below the range of Will’s mouth and chin and seemed about to fasten on his throat. Then he paused, and Will could hear the churning sound of his tongue as it licked his teeth and lips, suffering the breath on his neck. Then the skin of Will’s throat began to tingle as one’s flesh does when the hand that is to tickle it approaches nearer—nearer. 

“That fever of yours smells so delicious,” Antony murmured. Will could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the super-sensitive skin of his throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there. Will closed his eyes in a languorous ecstasy and waited—waited with a galloping heart, feeling his body give up in a state of complete exhaustion, his mind folding in and empathizing with Antony, making him believe that he wanted this. He heard a heady moan escape his lips and Antony’s soft laugh in response.

But at that instant, another sensation swept through Will as quick as lightning. He was conscious of the presence of the count, and of his being, lapped in a storm of fury. Will saw a strong hand grasp Antony’s neck and with giant’s power draw it back. 

It was Hannibal, maroon eyes transformed with fury, his teeth bared with rage, and the sharp cheeks blazing red with passion. Never had Will imagined such wrath and fury, even to the demons of the pit. His eyes were positively blazing. The red light in them was lurid, as if the flames of hellfire blazed behind them. His face otherwise was deathly pale, and the lines of it were hard like drawn wires. With a fierce sweep of his arm, he hurled Antony away from Will, slamming him into the remains of the wardrobe and the stone wall beyond, reducing the former to a pile of splinters with an ear-splitting crash. 

With a strength no human could possibly possess.

And hell, Will thought. None of this could be real. Each thing more impossible than the last. When would the Ripper and his victims arrive?  

In a voice which, though low and almost in a whisper seemed to cut through the air and then ring round the room, Count Lecter said: —

“How dare you touch him? How dare you cast eyes on him when I had forbidden it?” 

As he spoke, Will saw Chiyoh and Bedelia appear, hurrying up the stairwell, though he hadn’t heard their feet on the stones. Chiyoh held some kind of weapon in her hand, large and metallic with a rusted blade that gleamed at the edges. It seemed like it would be too heavy for her to wield, but the way she moved with it made it seem like an extension of her body. 

Impossibly, Antony was getting up from the pile of timbers on the floor. His arm was twisted, clearly broken, but he shook it out, the bones cracking like dry twigs as they snapped back into place. He adjusted his collar with a laugh of ribald coquetry.

“You yourself never loved; you never love! You’re incapable, Hannibal, and that – that, above all else is what makes you a monster.” Such a mirthless, hard, soulless laughter rang through the room that it almost made Will faint to hear; it seemed like the pleasure of a true fiend. Then the Count turned, looking at Will's face, his proud countenance melting away into a drawn expression that so clearly emoted a broken heart. 

“I love him,” Hannibal insisted. “He is Iliya returned to me.”

“Wasn’t that what I was supposed to be?” Antony demanded. His eyes were flame-lit gems, hard cut and blazing sapphire, catching and reflecting the dying light. The sun was about to set, Will realized, as he managed to make his aching muscles move, crawling back on the bed toward the window. 

His only possible escape. But dear God, he was afraid. 

But what was it to fall? All of this was real, or none of it was. What did it matter in the end if the river swallowed him whole? Then, maybe, it would stop. It would all stop. 

“Chiyoh,” Hannibal said, holding out his hand. His face had coalesced back into a rigid, aristocratic countenance, his eyes flinty and unforgiving. 

Chiyoh stepped forward. At the same moment, Bedelia was suddenly at Will’s side, holding him by the arms as he tried to slide off the edge of the bed. She shared the same impossible, prodigious strength enjoyed by Antony and Hannibal and Chiyoh, despite her petite frame. Will struggled for a moment but gave up, his eyes fixed on Chiyoh as she handed Hannibal the weapon. 

It was a heavy war axe. Will had seen them in the British museum under glass. The blade was tarnished but the edge looked razor sharp, and Hannibal wielded it as easily as Chiyoh had, wrapping his hands around the thick wood and metal handle.  

“You wouldn’t,” Antony spat. 

He was wrong.

Hannibal moved with a liquid grace, sweeping the axe through Antony’s neck, separating it from his shoulders in one blow. 

Blood spurted up in a great fount, splashing the ceiling, raining on Hannibal’s face and clothing. The head rolled across the floor until it came to a stop in the dead fireplace, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. 

Will clamped his hands over his mouth, unable to look away, as Hannibal clasped the headless body to himself in a kind of final embrace, burying his mouth against the gushing stump. Drinking the blood. Will could see his throat work as he swallowed. Chiyoh was there now, clamping her small body against the headless thing and opening her mouth, revealing long, sharp fangs that she use to puncture the side of the massacred neck, her eyes drifting shut in ecstasy as Hannibal let the axe clatter to the floor. 

He looked up as the body’s spurts died down, removing his bloodstained mouth and looking their way. “Observing, or participating, Bedelia?”

Bedelia slowly let Will go, then joined them, drinking from the neck stump, letting blood flow down her chin and stain into her pale lavender gown, ruining the silk entirely. 

Hannibal left them to it and approached Will. The bloodlust and fury were draining out of him even as his pallid complexion warmed. 

“Beloved,” he murmured, reaching out with one bloodstained hand. Will shrank back, tears pouring from his eyes now though he remained wholly silent. 

Behind Hannibal, the women had Antony’s body on the floor, tearing at his wrists, stripping off his clothing to bite at the crooks of his elbows to reach the last drops of blood. Chiyoh drove her hand directly into his ribcage with a sickly splintering sound, and tore out his heart, squeezing it into her crimsoned mouth to catch every scarlet morsel. 

“He was right,” Will whispered, barely audible. “You are a monster.” 

Tears came to Hannibal’s eyes as well. They were tinged with red but washed clean rivulets through the blood that smeared his cheeks. “Will…”

He reached out, but Will shied away with a pained intake of breath.

The one person that had made him feel safe.

“Will, please…”

Will inched back toward the window.

“Look into my eyes, my love,” Hannibal begged. Moving too fast for Will to respond, he caught Will by the chin, his heavy gaze toppling the last dregs of Will’s resistance, sapping his final strength. 

“You saw none of this,” Hannibal told him, voice mild now, calm, cool, gentle. “You saw none of this…”

Will slipped away, cradled by Hannibal’s silken voice.

Chapter Text

Will collapses at last, submitting to my power, his tortured mind swept free of the entire day, sleep overtaking him. I catch him easily in my arms, a fragile bundle of sweet, fevered flesh, dampened with sweat. Somehow, an errant spray of Antony’s blood found its way to his cheek and forehead. One can never tell which way spurting blood will go. 

I am breathing out of necessity for once. I am gorged on blood and it demands my lungs’ work; I am panting as a result of my labors. Will’s resistance to mesmerism has only grown stronger since the last time I was forced to use it on him. And now I am the keeper of a horrid cascade of images and feelings and wild bursts of terror and ecstasy that I took from him. Usually, when mesmerizing humans, I can see what I want to sponge from their memories and make it disappear, touching the experience only briefly with my own consciousness. Will’s memories of this day cling to me like burrs and I cannot brush them away without serious effort, strength that I do not possess. 

I see what he saw, his hallucinations of this Jack the Ripper. I know he read some of Iliya’s dreams he wrote down to share with me when I returned from fighting the Turks, letters I never opened for fear of the excruciating grief that would crush me, letters that Reba saved. I know that Iliya dreamed of Will’s life before Will existed, that these dreams only began when it seemed his doom was imminent. As if he and Will were It is true. Will is Iliya Albescu Lecter, returned across oceans of time to find me. Against science, religion, reason, the order of the natural world, despite it all. My beloved husband has returned.

I know that all things conceived of are possible. How else was I able to become this thing that I am?

This monster, as Will so aptly described?  

Lucifer below, he thinks I'm a monster. 

Ah, there’s the cosmic joke. I discover that there is no doubt he is Iliya on the same night he realizes that I am an inhuman fiend. 

I sink onto the side of the bed as if my body is weak. It is weak, with the weight of this soul and these burdens, with my yearning love for him and the word monster hanging around my neck like a chain. I hold him to me, listening to his fluttering heart and incomplete breathing, inhaling in the dulcet scent of his burning fever. 

I am, all at once, consumed with fury. The same riot in my heart that prompted me to abjure God and embrace darkness in the wake if Iliya’s loss.

I will not lose him again. He and I belong together, even if he, at this moment, is repulsed by my true nature. Nothing will stand in my way, even Will himself. 

I stand and arrange his limp body on the bed with tender hands. I can take a chance and leave Will with Bedelia and Chiyoh; they are both sated, glutted on Antony’s blood, a vampire’s essence being worth ten times a human’s. I’ve never questioned Chiyoh’s loyalty. Ever since Murasaki sent her to care for me after hearing news of Iliya’s and Mischa’s deaths, I have been under her protection. Murasaki, of course, couldn’t have known what I’d become in the wake of losing Iliya, but Chiyoh had her orders. She was my first progeny, and she never wavered. 

Well, almost never. Once she became a vampire it took ages to coax her to kill. She realized, however, that if she was going to uphold her promise, that she would have to sustain her immortal life. 

And Will should be safe from Bedelia as well. She is now well aware of what will happen to her if she touches him. 

“It would help immensely if the two of you could clean this up.” I am pleased to hear how even and calm my voice is. “I would appreciate the assistance.”

Chiyoh gets to her feet, wavering a bit, blood drunk. Nods. 

“I’ll return shortly.” The night has come. I open the casement and stand where Iliya stood. 

As Iliya did, I step off the ledge. For those few moments, my dearest love felt what it is like to fly. 

I change into a bat before I hit the water and fly back along the river until I find the waterfall that cascades down from the mountains. I change beneath the rush of water and let the melted snows of the Carpathians pound over me in icy torrents, washing me clean, clothes and all. Back to bat form again, and I return to the castle to swiftly change out of my wet things. 

 Avigeya is in the library, nibbling at some bread, trying to read but distracted by her worries that Chiyoh and I have not returned, and Will is still lost. 

She leaps to her feet and hugs me as soon as I step through the door. “Did you find him?”

“Yes,” I say, but temper her joy with, “but he is gravely ill. I’ll do what I can with the tools of modern medicine, but I need you and Peter to go down to the village. Wake up Katerina, the bee woman, and bring back some of the royal jelly from her hives. She claims it can cure any ailment.”

Avigeya arches her brow. “You believe her?”

“I believe Will needs a miracle. I’ll do anything to save him.” My statement asks her a silent question — could she say the same?

Tears fill her eyes, and she nods. “Go swiftly, but be careful,” I warn her. “I can’t have you in danger as well. Don’t worry about the wolves; if they travel with you, it is for your protection.”

Her eyes widen but she agrees, hurrying off to get her boots and a lantern and wake up Peter. 

I fly out the library window and return to Will’s side. Chiyoh and Bedelia have already disappeared with Antony’s body. And his head. They will have to return for the blood. Everything needs a good scrubbing, and we cannot ask the humans to do it. It pleases me to think of Bedelia, my scheming, aristocratic Bedelia, on her hands and knees with a brush and a bucket. 

I gather Will to me again and descend the stairs to the door engraved with the Tree of Life. I press it open with the toe of my boot and carry him down the hallway as if he weighed nothing, a bundle of heat and sweetness, eyes lightly closed, mouth slackened. 

In his chamber, I place him on the bed and light a fire in the hearth to warm the room and his kettle of water, grateful to find fresh cloths and towels nearby. I try not to covet him as I take his pulse and listen to his breathing. When the water warms, I pour some into the wash basin and bring it to the bedside. Antony must have ripped his shirt open; some of the buttons are missing. I ease it the rest of the way off and set it on the table. It is smeared with dust and soaked in sweat, but I think a good washing and new buttons can save it. The rest of his clothing is also dirty but otherwise intact. I gather it into a bundle for Avigeya and place his boots by the door. 

I clean him gently with his hunk of soap and the warm water, washing his hands free of the dust and grime from our ruined apartments. He has scrapes along the backs of his hands and wrists. I pluck out a long splinter from the tender flesh near his knuckle and wash the wound thoroughly. Will has bruises on his hips, wrists, and forearms from being held down, ones I did not give him, and he did not ask for. I rub the cloth along his legs and feet and again, try to keep myself in control. I am awash with blood, and it is vampire blood. I have never consumed so much in a single moment and it is hammering through my veins, heating me up as though I lived again, thumping my heart along fast, faster, demanding that I breathe and breathe and breathe. I try to ignore it pooling in my lap and igniting my passion, but my thighs are fiery, and my cock is filling out against my will as I gently sponge his neck. His skin there smells of Antony and I won’t have it. 

I let myself revel in the kill for a few moments as I guide one of his hands against my knee to try and edge the grime out from beneath his nails. I’ve always enjoyed killing. I enjoyed it as a human on the field of battle, and I never had any qualms about murdering once I became a vampire. Dismembering Father Davies after he uttered such hateful things about Iliya is still one of my fondest memories. Punishing Antony, and at last fixing a mistake I made decades ago, is satisfying. Again, I wonder at the strange twists of fate that allowed today to happen, that encouraged me to arrive just in time to save Will. Had Chiyoh not thought she heard Will in distress coming from the broken window where Iliya flung himself to his death, we never would have interrupted whatever Antony had planned – some version of violence, it seemed. 

I do not receive sexual gratification from killing. But the blood in me and the fire of righteousness, of protecting my beloved does fuel desire and I am going to lose my battle if I do not stop. 

Instead of leaving, I lean over him and drag my tongue along the splatter of blood on his face, the last remnants of Antony Dimmond mixed with Will’s signature taste. I wash him clean of his tears and the dust on his cheeks, dampen his hair and comb it with my fingers. 

I return the bowl of water to the table and prepare to slip him into his nightshirt and tuck him in bed. 

But before I can do these things, Will’s eyes open. 

I had not anticipated this. 

He looks at me, still laying very still on the pillows exactly as I left him, one arm at his side, the other resting on his flat stomach. Doesn’t speak. His pupils are blown wide, and I am not entirely sure he is truly awake. 

I sit on the bed and take his hand. “Will?”

He turns to me attentively but doesn’t move otherwise. Doesn’t speak. 

“How do you feel?”

Still no answer. He doesn’t seem distressed. Attentive but… blank. As if waiting for something. 

“Sit up,” I say.

Now he moves, obeying instantly. 

“Do you know what happened?” I ask cautiously, trying to ignore the way the moonlight casts my shadow on his bare body. It must be very dark in here for him with only the fire, but he makes no indication. 

No answer, but the edge of his mouth curls up, a gentle, pleasantly expectant expression.

Waiting for a command. 

I test my theory. “Hold up your left hand.”

He does so, facing the palm in my direction.

“Very good, Will,” I say, and I am astonished at the smile it brings to his face, that simple praise. 

Antony must have tried to mesmerize him before we arrived. Didn’t have the mental fortitude but wore down Will’s resistance so that I could succeed later, though I still felt him fighting me tooth and nail. 

The strain of it all has reduced him to a fugue state, the lingering liminality of unimpeded control. He is a pliant, agreeable puppet. 

I hope I haven’t broken him. Another cosmic joke, to have him reduced to a mindless if pleasant-tempered shell of his former self. 

Despite my horror upon this revelation, I also entertain a base part of myself that finds the concept erotic, especially in my current state of suffering. 

“Kiss me,” I order before I can stop myself.

He slides closer to me on the bed and plants a virginal kiss on my lips, then sits back as if awaiting the next command.

“Kiss me with your tongue,” I try next. Much better. He puts his hands on my face and shoulder and locks lips with me, busily moving his tongue in and out and accepting mine in return. I grope his damp bare body shamelessly. 

I am a monster, after all. 

And his body is responding. Yes, I’m aware it is likely a physical reflex or a shred of memory, but I pretend it isn’t. I pretend he wants me because I saved him from Antony and that he doesn’t care what I am, doesn’t care about the gallons of blood and the centuries of murder. He is warm and wet and fever sweet and I am weak, I am base and licentious and sinful, and I should stop but I can’t. 

I must drive away the memory of how he looked at me when he saw what I was. His whispered words. 

“Undress me,” I break away from his lips to say. 

He helps me slide off my jacket and climbs into my lap to untie the laces of my shirt, sliding it up and over my head in a brisk, businesslike fashion. I stand and so does he, unbuckling my belt. “Get on your knees,” I order, a hoarse, filthy whisper. He obediently folds down to kneel and resumes undressing me when I nod for him to continue. He unlaces my boots and pulls them free and peels off the rest, leaving it in a heap on the floor, working calmly and dutifully even as my blood rages and my body demands release. I stroke his hair and say, “Good boy.” 

And he smiles, just that faint little grateful quirk. 

“Give me oral pleasure.” And the feeling of watching him open his mouth and comply instantly is intoxicating. He employs a range of skills, some of which I haven’t seen before – massaging my hips, backside, caressing my legs and up my abdomen, stroking my testicles with confident fingers. He is unbound by any kind of bashfulness. In this liminal state he exists only to execute my commands. Only the sight of the wounds on his wrists and hands as he creeps his palm up my chest allow the tiniest bit of guilt to seep in. 

The fever makes his mouth even hotter than last time and I arch my head back, giving my murmurs of pleasure to the ceiling above us, my hand in his hair. I praise him again before I tell him to stop. 

“Lie down on the bed. Face up.” I keep my commands simple. He complies and waits for me there. 

“Open your legs,” I say, taking him by the ankles and guiding his knees apart, setting his feet flat on the bed. “Good. Find pleasure in this.” I kiss and lick his inner thighs before lifting his hips into my lap and devouring everything in turn, his cock, crevice, tonguing his tight round hole. It seizes involuntarily until I order him to relax. His entrance goes entirely slack, and I have it in part of my mind that I could easily fuck him like this. 

Through the monstrous haze of red that envelops me, comes Mischa’s voice in a memory, discussing what Iliya and I might do before the wedding. The first penetration is significant. I want him to remember it. 

He is finding pleasure, as I instructed, making unbridled sounds; his complete lack of self-consciousness in this state has its claws hooked deep inside me. He has not been ordered to temper himself or let the ideals of England seep into his enjoyment of what I am doing for him now. He squirms, sighs, grabs the quilts beneath him, clamps his legs around me. 

I can feel his release gathering, and I am inspired. “Don’t finish yet,” I command. 

He makes a pathetic little whining noise, but holds on, even as I penetrate him with my tongue and thumb his slit, wetting his shaft with the moisture that has leaked free. Fell creature that I am, I want to see how long he can last, denying his anatomy, how his body was designed. He gives a valiant effort as I edge him closer and then stop, again and again. It must be maddening, but he doesn’t complain. Can’t complain. 

“Do you want to finish?” I ask him.

He can’t answer that. It isn’t a command. 

“Say please,” I instruct.

“Please,” he begs through a gasping breath. 

“Come,” I suggest.

And he does, on command, without any further ado or action on my part. 

Delightful. I may hate myself for this later, but I’m starting to doubt it more and more. 

“Get on your hands and knees,” I direct him after the most powerful throes have passed. 

He turns on his stomach and lifts himself, head hanging wearily as he pants. He’s so beautiful like this, in an unexpected way, pliant and simple, his prodigious intellect muzzled. I swipe his emission back into his cleft to join my saliva and his sweat and slide my cock into his crevice, running along the base of his cheeks. I fix a firm hold on his hips and thrust, hard and fast, just to watch the way the back of his head bobs each time. I use him until I climax, collapsing over him. He tries to stay upright; after all, he hasn’t been told to move. I tell him to embrace me, and we rest in the fire-flecked dark. 

“Do you love me?” I ask. Surely, he can’t lie. Not in this mindset.

But he can’t answer. I know this, yet I still asked. 

“Tell me you love me,” I say instead.

“I love you,” he says easily. 

I take a deep breath. “Say it again,” I request softly. “And use my name.”

“I love you, Hannibal,” he says as I hold him close. 

“Tell me you’re mine.”

“I’m yours,” he vows instantly. 

“Sleep,” I command, and he falls unconscious. 

Chapter Text

“Mama!”

Will rushed into his mother’s open arms. She lifted him into a hug and then set him down. “Oh, that nose just won’t stop,” she said, lifting the edge of her apron to wipe it for him. “Bonjour, Francois,” she greeted the crab man as he haggled with a customer. 

“Aft’noon, Lottie,” he called during a lull in the negotiations. 

“Oh, there’s one runnin’!” Mama pointed out a crab that had climbed over the edge of one of Francois’ buckets and was scuttling towards freedom. Will leapt after it and captured the creature, mindful of the claws, before returning it to captivity. That was his job, after all. He watched Francois’ crabs while Mama worked. 

“Now, I’ll be back at sunset,” Mama said, pulling a hunk of cornbread from her pocket. “You be a good boy.”

“Billy, come play with us!” It was the beignet-baker’s children, bouncing a ball on the wet cobblestone street. 

"You better be watchin’ those crabs,” Mama warned after him as he raced off to play. 

Lottie.

Lottie was short for Charlotte. 

Always Lottie, never Charlie, God help you if you called her Charlie. 

“God help you if you call her Charlie,” Will murmured. “God h-help you… if y-you call her…”

The hand stroking his hair back from his forehead twitched each time Will repeated the Lord’s name. Will stopped talking. He needed that hand, so sweetly cool and satin-smooth against his hot, aching skull. Will tried to lick his brittle, chapped lips; his mouth was a foul-tasting desert. His eyes felt like they were orbs made of splintery wood rolling around in his sockets and gouging the inside of his eyelids every time he moved them. 

Still, he forced them open. His vision was grainy, and he was forced to blink several times to get any indication what he was seeing. At last, the quilts of his bed swam into view. He could feel himself beneath them, clammy with sweat yet freezing cold, the chills wracking his body and jangling his bones in a constant sickened tremor. 

His head felt like the skin was about to boil off it and he grimaced at the sharp ringing in his ears. He tried to swallow, but there wasn’t enough moisture. His hair hurt. Even the tiny bit of moonlight that snuck between the drawn curtains was enough to jab into his eyes and he closed them with the hollow shell of a moan. 

“Will.”

Hannibal’s voice, a rumble of distant thunder, the pressured threat of rain. 

Strong arms gathered him up, inching him higher in the bed. Will had his eyes shut again, even though the lids touching each other also ached – his fucking eyelashes ached – but he could tell Hannibal was holding him, both in Will’s bed. He wanted to tell Hannibal to stop, that just moving hurt so much he couldn’t bear it, but no sound came out when he tried to speak, just a rasp of a cough. 

The clank of china. Hannibal brought a cup to his lips. Will let the water flow into his mouth, a precious relief. “Slowly,” Hannibal instructed, holding him up easily with one arm, Will tucked into the crook of his elbow so that his head leaned back at just the right angle to drink and let gravity do the rest. Will tried not to gulp it down. Hannibal only let him have a few sips, then took the cup away. He moved his free arm; Will could feel the opposite motion of his chest. The tiny jostling was broken glass to his nerves. It was only then he realized how miserably sore his muscles were on top of everything else. 

Hannibal brought the cup to his lips again. Now the water tasted like laudanum. “You need to finish this one, but slowly,” Hannibal instructed softly, releasing a little bit of the bitter, medicinal liquid into his mouth at a time. Will’s stomach heaved, but he swallowed as much as he could. He told himself that he only had one task ahead of him – keep the medicine down. 

“Very good, Will.”

Through the pain came the tingle of warmth of praise, even doing this basic action. 

The words sounded like an echo, the way the other phrase had. Your burdens are my burdens. But this particular grouping of words made so much more sense being heard again from Hannibal’s lips, never in his own voice. Still the familiarity tickled along his consciousness. 

Thinking hurt. No more thinking. 

He drained the cup and heard Hannibal set it to the side. Will grunted softly as Hannibal rearranged him in his arms, head resting on his shoulder and neck. He pulled up the blankets and tucked them in close, then rubbed Will’s back in a busy fashion to generate heat. 

In tiny increments, the pain receded as a deep weariness stole over him. The blankets and Hannibal’s arm felt heavy on him like wet sand. 

He couldn’t express the gratitude he felt as the aches dulled as a result of the opiate, the pure pleasure of having enough spit to swallow. 

Sleep. 

He is in you. 

He is in you, as they say.

He’s the devil, Inspector Graham.

“He is smoke,” Will whispered, his throat and mouth so dry no sound came out. 

Light. He rolled over in bed, hiding his face from it, making noiseless mewls of strain as the ache settled over his bones. The sounds of the curtains closing, candles being blown out. 

“Will?” Avigeya’s voice. He could feel her hand on his shoulder. “Will, can you sit up?”

He rolled onto his back and tried to open his eyes. They fluttered as he squinted against even the tiny light of the fire in the hearth. Cold. He felt damp all over, the bedclothes and his nightshirt sticking to him. 

Avigeya’s arm under his shoulder, guiding him more upright against the pillows. “Drink this,” she requested, lifting a cup to his lips. He added his hand over hers, guiding it to his mouth. He drank a syrup that tasted of honey, ginger, and an unidentified tart berry mixed with a healthy dash of spice and something earthy like parsley. When he’d drained it, Avigeya traded it for a cup of water and instructed him to finish that as well. 

He still couldn’t see straight. “More,” he begged. 

“Are you in pain?” He heard her get up and pour water into the cup from the pitcher.

He nodded, though gently. Moving was still agony on his pounding head.

“Here.” She put the cup to his mouth, and he drank again, tasting laudanum. 

“W-what happened to me?” His voice had returned, in part. The honey mixture had done wonders on his throat.

“You’re very sick,” Avigeya told him, sitting at his bedside and taking his hand. “Just rest.”

“I don’t r-remember…” he tried to think back to the last thing he did remember.

Sad little son of a whore.

“Don’t try,” Avigeya scolded him. “Close your eyes. Are you warm enough?”

“No,” he said as she helped him back under the covers. Will could feel her lift the blankets at the foot of the bed and withdraw something, then swap it out for something else heavy that made the mattress creak. A wonderful warmth climbed up through the blankets to where he was curled up in a ball. 

“Be careful, I put a hot brick in your bed,” she said. “It’s wrapped in cloth but don’t touch it.”

He nodded, wincing at the way his head scraped against the pillow when he did so. 

Sleep. 

You yourself never loved.

You never love…

“You n-never… you never…”

Cool palm on his forehead. Heaven. “Will?”

He opened his eyes, but everything was black. Will blinked furiously, raising a hand to his face and passing it over, trying to find an obstruction. “...I can’t see,” he murmured, tone strangely placid despite the growing panic that unfurled in his chest like a flag snapping in the wind. “Am… am I blind?”

“Will…”

“Did I go blind?” There was the edge of fear. He could hear his voice bouncing off the stone walls around them. 

Hannibal slid out from where he’d been holding Will in his arms. Will could hear his bare feet patting on the stone floor. A crack and a hiss as he struck a match, touching it to a candle. Everything was blurry, but Will breathed easier. He could see now. It was night, the curtains were drawn, and there was no fire; the room was very dark. 

“You’ve said the light feels like needles in your eyes,” Hannibal explained. He was wearing soft-looking white shirt and brown trousers, no socks or shoes, collar open at the neck, sleeves rolled back. 

Will blinked, rubbing his face. He still felt a dull pounding in his temples. Every movement made him feel weaker than the last. He let his hand collapse back on his abdomen and tried to catch his breath. That small amount of activity and speaking left him winded. 

He watched Hannibal open a stoppered glass bottle and pour something syrupy into a cup, bringing it to Will. He gently lifted Will into his lap to lean back against his chest and put the cup in his hand. Will drank it down — more of the ginger honey stuff, more laudanum, then more water. 

Will rested back on Hannibal’s chest, tucked under his chin, feeling his body relax as Hannibal’s arms circled him close, a hand resting over his heart. “Are you in a lot of pain?” Hannibal asked him softly, lips touching Will’s hair. 

“My… head’s in a vise…” Will said, the volume of his own voice hurting his sensitive ears. “I feel like I had a row… and somebody knocked seven bells out of me.” 

“In Transylvania, we call it a bone-break fever,” Hannibal told him, hand a comforting weight against Will’s sternum.

“What’s… the honey stuff…?”

“Katerina’s specialty. Royal jelly and herbal remedies.” Hannibal hummed softly. “You’re getting better, Will. I can’t say it’s her medicine for certain. But progress is slow. You must rest. Conserve your strength.”

“Nothing left to conserve…” Will felt his world tilting as the laudanum seeped into his blood and made him float. 

“You’re incredibly strong, Will. I know there are reserves you can tap into.” Will got the sense that Hannibal said it through a smile, but the words were wrapped in a tight wire of anxiety. He didn’t believe what he’d just said, not entirely. Hoped, perhaps. But wasn’t confident. 

“Can’t do anything but try,” Will murmured, his head lolling to the side as he was no longer able to keep it upright on his own. Hannibal shifted him so he was on the pillows, then formed a spoon shape behind him after tucking the blankets in tightly. “Only other option is to curl up and die, I guess.” He didn’t know why he said it, the dark thing that was lurking in his mind. Shouldn’t give voice to notions like that, form the words, give them power. But his tongue felt loose and fuzzy and everything was pouring out of him. He felt like he was spilling. 

“Come what may,” Hannibal promised him, his voice suffering the same trembling of a moth dancing toward a flame only to veer away from the danger. “You will not die. I won’t allow it.” 

Will laughed. He couldn’t help it. “You gonna fight the reaper for me?”

“I’d win,” Hannibal said. “In fact, we haven’t any quarrel between us. He and I are old friends.” 

Sleep. 

Observing…?

Observing or participating…?

“Obs… observe…” 

The light was back. It still hurt to look at it, but it wasn’t the same level of excruciating. The window was open, and he could smell a sweet, fresh breeze, the warmth of a mild afternoon. Something heavy was wedged in the crook of his arm, and it meowed when he shifted beneath it. One of Peter’s one-eyed cats had found its way to him, and apparently enjoyed the free heat he was likely emitting. 

Peter was at the table, something small and furry tucked in his hand, feeding it milk out of a glass dropper. Will felt as helpless as the tiny thing — a baby squirrel, maybe? — and just as reliant on the kindness of others. He was grateful. 

The cat shifted and began to purr. Will focused on the rhythmic rumble and used it to forget about the aches that still wound themselves around his limbs. 

Sleep.

I was you once, my darling.

I was you.

“You weren’t,” Will murmured. “Because he was me…” 

He coughed suddenly, instinctively bringing up his hand. Someone steadied him by the shoulder. He was sitting up in bed, upright enough for Hannibal to sit next to him in a chair and feed him something with a spoon. 

“Don’t try to talk,” Hannibal said, setting the bowl on the bedside table and holding up Will’s chin, bringing the spoon to his mouth again. 

Will swallowed with a grimace. “Soup isn’t very good.” It was bitter and brightly herbal with a gamey undertone.

“I won’t tell Avigeya you said that,” Hannibal chided softly. “More herbs prescribed by Katerina, and bone broth. Full of marrow.” Will shied away when Hannibal tried again. The flavor was one thing, but the way it splashed into his empty stomach was utterly painful. “You have to try, Will.”

“It hurts,” he said, in blunt, childlike refusal. 

“You have to try,” Hannibal insisted again. 

Will fought against the rising tide of nausea. He would try. As long as he didn’t have to look Hannibal in the face, see the suffering etched there. It was evident, even without enough mental strength to use his empathy pulse, that Hannibal wasn’t sure Will was going to survive. 

He ate as many spoonfuls as he could before collapsing back onto the pillows. 

Sleep. 

Look into my eyes, my love. 

There was music, soaring, dancing, frenetic music.

And the howling of wolves in perfect accompaniment.

Look into my eyes. 

“L-look i-into… my love…”

The music stopped, not bluntly by any means, finishing the phrase of notes. The wolves gave one last lonesome cry and silenced themselves as well. Now all Will could hear was the crackling of a fire. 

He anticipated pain – shooting pain in his head, hot spikes in his eyes, deep aches in his bones. He felt stiff, like he’d been in one position far too long and needed a stretch and a brisk walk, but that was the extent of it. His stomach was queasy, gurgling with emptiness. And he was wet. Soaking wet, clothes and blankets sticking to him. He could feel moisture running down his face from his plastered hair. 

He opened his eyes, squinting, again anticipating the biting light. But while they took a few long moments to focus, he could see clearly, was able to look at the nearby fireplace without wanting to sew his eyelids shut forever. 

“Will.” 

Hannibal knelt at his other side opposite the fire. Will struggled to turn over and Hannibal helped him, supporting him to sit. Will realized he was in the library on the lounge, close to the warmth of the fire. It was deep night, the moon pouring in the windows that always made him dizzy, so bright that Hannibal must have been using it to see his harpsichord music, for there were no other lamps lit. 

Hannibal was smiling, stroking Will’s hair, damp as it was. His face was awash with naked relief. “Can you say something?” he requested.

“Something,” Will murmured.

Hannibal smiled, flashing just the edge of his teeth, tears in his eyes. 

“I’m all wet,” Will said groggily, trying to move. He was wrapped tightly in the blankets and sheets and couldn’t get out, not as weak as he was. 

“The fever broke,” Hannibal said, keeping one hand on Will’s chest and using the other to loosen the tightly stretched linens that had kept him secured and immobile on the lounge. He pressed his palm on Will’s forehead and then on his face. “How do you feel?” He freed Will’s arm and held his hand between his own, palms dry and cool. Will was overwhelmed by the Byzantine perfume he wore, strong notes of frankincense. He inhaled deeply in unabashed enjoyment, and then grimaced, thinking about what he must smell like. 

“My head isn’t screaming at me,” he said, voice little more than a groggy rasp. “I’m sore, achy, but, ah… it’s not… I just feel weak.”

“You haven’t eaten in many days,” Hannibal told him. “It’s no wonder. Here.” He got up and brought Will some water, allowing him to take the cup in his trembling hand and drink on his own. “Try to finish that. I’ll be back in a moment.”

Hannibal returned shortly with a clay cup of broth. “This is strictly bone broth. It shouldn’t be as unpalatable as the herbal infusion. I will have you drink this first.” He gave Will another dose of the honey medicine, then let him drink the broth from the bowl. “Slowly,” he advised. 

Will tried, but he was so thirsty, his body crying out for any kind of sustenance.  When he finished, his belly felt pleasantly full instead of nauseated. “I’m tired,” he admitted, fighting sleep again already. 

“I’ll return you to your bed. I had hoped music might bring you back to us.” Will tried to swing his legs over the edge of the lounge, but Hannibal just chuckled. “You’re not strong enough to walk, Will.” 

“But…” If he’d been healthier, Will felt he would have blushed when Hannibal lifted him so easily into his arms, even though they were nearly the same height. He admitted defeat and put his arm around Hannibal’s neck to be carried back to his bedroom. 

Hannibal set him on the bed and unwrapped the sweaty blankets and sheets. He gave Will a cloth to attempt to dry himself with and helped him strip off the damp nightshirt. Will was suddenly aware of his nudity and tried not to care, dabbing himself dry. He noticed the fading marks of bruises on the backs of his hands and wrists, on his hips and knees. He didn’t remember those. But the faint shadow on his hip he knew. That was the remains of a love bite Hannibal had given him.

“Did I fall?” Will asked tentatively as Hannibal shook out a shirt from the wardrobe and helped him into it. It was one of Hannibal’s, with the old-fashioned lace up neck, long enough to cover him to his upper thighs if he stood. It smelled like the count. 

“You’ve had several misadventures during your illness,” Hannibal told him, folding back the clean bedding and helping Will slide in. He slipped off his jacket and footwear. “Do you want me to build up the fire?”

“No,” Will said. The wracking chills were gone. He could feel his own body heat beneath the pile of quilts making a difference. He felt sleepy, but anxious to know the answers to several questions including what day it was. “How long — was I…”

“Not now,” Hannibal soothed. “Rest. That’s all.” Hannibal slid between the sheets as well. They lay facing each other, heads on the pillows. Hannibal took Will’s hands in his own and kissed them each twice. Will smiled sleepily and sighed, letting his eyes drift closed. He wiggled closer and Hannibal folded him against his body, wrapping him in a firm, reassuring grip. 

Sleep. 

Why would I care whether she loved me when I am married to my soul mate?

Why would I care…

Whether or not she loved me…

She loved…

“Loved…” Will murmured against the pillow.

Hannibal was gone. His grasping fingers felt nothing. Will opened his eyes and sat up. It took him a second to realize he’d done it on his own, without help. 

Time had passed. He remembered sleeping and waking, always with Hannibal. The constant diet of bone broth and the bee woman’s medicine was paying off. He was stiff again from inactivity, but he wasn’t in pain. In fact, this was the best he’d felt since falling ill, whenever that was.  

Avigeya was seated at the table, sewing a button onto one of his shirts. She looked up when he moved, then hissed softly and stuck her finger in her mouth where she no doubt pricked herself on the needle. “Will? Are you awake?” 

He was sitting up, but supposed that her question was fair, considering what his body was able to do while he was asleep. “Far as I know,” he muttered, rubbing his face. 

When he lowered his hand, he saw Avigeya sink onto the edge of his bed, a wide smile on her face. 

“What’s it like,” she asked, “to be back from the dead?”

Will scoffed out a humorless sound. “I was dead? ‘Spose so.”

“Practically,” she informed him. “I’m glad you aren’t.”

The moment felt strange, but she gave him a hug and he accepted it. “Hannibal was really worried,” she informed him, getting to her feet. “He was with you all the time, most of the day and all night. You’d be shaking with the fever and talking nonsense and he’d just lay there and hold you.”

“Until dawn.”

She shrugged. “Everyone has to sleep sometime. Like now.” She motioned to the window. It was morning, by the look of the sun. Avigeya brought him some water and watched him drink it. “Broth?”

“Something else, if I can,” he said. He was suddenly ravenous. 

“I’ll make you something. Try to rest.” She went to the door and lifted a key from her apron pocket, fitting it into the lock to let herself out. 

“Why are we locked in?” Will furrowed his brow as he settled back on the pillows. 

“So you don’t wander off,” she explained easily. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

He wanted to say something else, but she was gone, shutting the door behind herself.

Locking it.

Will sighed. Probably for the best. Who knew what the hell his body had been doing without his permission. He didn’t even know what day it was much less what had happened in the interim. Just bits and pieces, Hannibal holding him and taking care of him, and a few blurry memories of Peter and Avigeya nursing him as well. 

His belly warmed as his mind slid over some watery recollections of Hannibal treating his illness in a very different but satisfying way. They’d made love and somehow Will had had the strength to get on his knees and–

Wait, that couldn’t have happened. 

The intimate images in his mind were just as detailed – or just as murky, really – as the rest of his memories he’d swept together of his illness, but he had no recollection of being in pain during the encounter, of his head pounding, his blood boiling, the chills and aches that had plagued him. He remembered being ordered to his knees and sucking Hannibal’s cock with dutiful enthusiasm, the images completely untouched by memories of physical malady. 

Tell me you love me. 

Will took a shaky breath and rubbed his eyes, dragging his hands through his wild hair. Didn’t seem right. Too real to be a hallucination and too fuzzy and incongruent to be real. And too sexual to think about right now. 

Avigeya came back with porridge, simple but so hearty and good that she had to remind him to take it slowly. He felt so much better after eating he could have wept from relief. Avigeya took the dishes away, dutifully locking the door behind her again until she returned to sit with him, taking up her sewing. 

“How long… what day…?”

“You got sick, really sick… ten days ago, I think,” she told him. Will tried to remember the date — the last date he remembered — the last thing he remembered?

He remembered waking up in the morning, at dawn, feeling lonesome for Hannibal who had made love to him and left after to arrange the courier.

He remembered the vague discontent. And he remembered some kind of… resolute feeling, like a decision… 

If I go now, go quickly, no one will know…

Where had he gone? Had he gone anywhere?

Probably not. He did recall feeling sick and feverish that night, tossing and turning without Hannibal in the bed. 

“That’s… a long time,” he said. “I don’t remember much.”

“You were delirious. You said strange things,” Avigeya told him, finishing the button. “Hannibal, though — it’s too bad you don’t remember.” She sighed. “He was so worried. He didn’t want me to be scared, but I could tell.”

Will smiled widely, then tried to temper it. “Hmm.”

“You should rest,” she suggested. 

“I feel like I’ve been asleep for a year,” Will groused, but he lay back in bed and tried to relax. With a full belly, he slept again within minutes. 

Say it again and use my name. 

Someone was touching his cheek. Will opened his eyes. “Hannibal,” he said, struck through the chest by how the count was looking down at him. Hannibal was a master at a tightly controlled face, betrayed, Will thought, only by micro expressions. But there was nothing small or muzzled about the ache of relief that radiated from his features, eyes shining and utterly soft. 

He sat down on the edge of Will’s bed, near his hip, and watched Will sit up a bit higher on the pillows. Will thought he’d never seen anyone look so starkly fragile before, as if he were afraid that what he was seeing — Will on the mend – was an illusion about to be ripped away. 

All Will wanted to do was comfort him. He reached out and put his hand on Hannibal’s forearm. 

The contact, even through the fabric of Hannibal’s shirt, was enough to breach the dam. All at once he was wrapped in Hannibal’s arms, the count’s face pressed into his neck, cradling the back of Will’s head, the other hand groping along Will’s spine and ribs as if to test the realness of his physical form. 

By the time the embrace ended, Hannibal had his face sorted again and was merely smiling as if enjoying pleasant weather. “Your color’s much improved,” he said. “Avigeya said you ate.”

“I could eat again,” Will admitted. 

“That’s a good sign. I’ll see to your needs.” Hannibal retrieved him a cup of water and told him to rest again until Hannibal came to collect him. Will agreed, but something gnawed at his heart as he watched Hannibal produce the key to the door to let himself out and, again, lock Will in. 

Where did I go?

Did I hurt myself? 

Did I hurt someone else?

He didn’t think he could bear it if he’d hurt someone else. Well, maybe Bedelia deserved a good shaking. Would benefit from a slap. Wouldn’t mind punching Antony in the face, especially after what he’d said – that Hannibal was going to tire of Will someday, the same way he’d tired of Bedelia and Antony. And then kissing Will like that, forcing him to–

“What the hell…?” he murmured up at the ceiling of the room, furiously rubbing his face again to clear his mind. When had that happened? Had it happened? Maybe while he was sleepwalking? The images shared the same undefined and simultaneously certain truth of the memories of the sexual encounter with Hannibal that couldn’t have happened. 

Will got out of bed. He knew he shouldn’t, and his body was weak as he tried to stand, legs shaking. But he got up and went to the wardrobe for his jacket. It was hanging inside, brushed and pressed and aired. He fumbled for the inside pocket and found his journal where he always kept it. 

He managed to return to the bed, resting for a few moments until his heart stopped beating so fast. Then he opened the little book and flipped through to find the most recent entry. It was the page with all the strange writing he’d done while in a liminal state. That morning, however, there was a normal entry about Alana’s birthday. June 23rd. He moved forward to the next blank page and wrote. 

I don’t know what day it is. I’m estimating it’s July 3rd or 4th. I fell ill in the wee hours of the morning on June 24th. I’ve been told I was prone to trying to sleepwalk, talking in my sleep, etc. I had what I can only assume was a high fever which may have caused me to hallucinate. I also remember dreaming. I can’t be sure what was real and what wasn’t. But here are the fragments that feel like memories but have the irrational quality of hallucinations or dreams.

Hannibal and I made love at some point, but I wasn’t feeling ill at all, which doesn’t fit with the timeline as I can recall (which is admittedly hazy and confused). 

Antony confronted me somehow. But he kissed me. Writing it out makes it seem even more ridiculous. I don’t understand it. 

Something about Louisiana. Something about my mother. 

I know I saw the Ripper. I know that can’t be real, but I think I was beyond the door with the Tree of Life. Was I there? Did I open it?

I was reading letters, but they were about me. There’s more there but I can’t grasp it.

Bedelia? She grabbed me, trying to stop me from doing… something. 

Could it have all been the fever? Hannibal and Avigeya said I nearly died. If I wasn’t breathing enough, I might have been hallucinating from lack of oxygen as well. 

This is stupid. I was ill, I’ve hallucinated and had blackouts in the past, after the Ripper. I can’t trust my memory or my eyes. 

And yet. That instinct… the copper instinct, that Inspector Graham part that just won’t go away. Sending up red flags. But if I was interviewing myself as a witness there’s no way I would consider myself even remotely credible. I don’t know what the hell all of this means. 

I do know they’ve been locking me in. 

Will slid his pencil into the little book. He hesitated and decided not to return it to his jacket. For reasons he couldn’t fully explain, he tucked it against the wall and the bedpost near the bottom and covered it with the ruffled dust cover that edged the mattress. He could reach it more easily from bed, he reasoned, if he kept it there.

There was no reason not to trust his caretakers. None. He loved them, all of them.

And yet he left the journal there, even as he chastised himself. He was too tired to fight the instinct. 

Hannibal returned a short time later, his presence announced by the clank of the key in the old-fashioned lock. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting. I think you’ll forgive me when you see what took me so long.” He opened the wardrobe and pulled out the maroon dressing gown and the sheepskin boots, watching attentively as Will slowly put them on. Will breathed heavily through the surprising exertion of such simple acts. 

Hannibal moved to pick him up and carry him, but Will held up a hand, cheeks coloring with a heated prickle. “Please, no,” he said through a rueful smile. “I, uhm… I don’t think my dignity can take it.”

Hannibal nodded as if he understood, giving Will’s shoulders a reassuring squeeze. All the sudden, the empathy pulse, dormant or overexerted since Will’s illness began, whispered back to life, analyzing the situation, Hannibal’s tiny expressions, the shimmer of his eyes. He was disappointed, Will realized. He liked carrying Will around like a spouse over the threshold on the wedding night. 

I didn’t let him do it then, either, he thought errantly, the inner monologue sounding like his own voice, but the thoughts deeply alien. I picked him up and stepped over. Then he carried me up the stairs. 

Will shook his head, a quick jab to the side. “Cold,” he said by way of explanation, covering the motion with a shiver. “Not as bad as with the fever, but…”

“I have just the thing.” Hannibal offered him a gentlemanly arm Will was happy to take. Together, they made their way down to the kitchen. Will couldn’t stop the sound of pleasure he made upon seeing the full bathtub, the steam rising from the surface of the water. 

“Are you pleased, Will?” As if his reaction hadn’t been completely obvious.

Will felt a flutter of self-consciousness as Hannibal helped him slide off the boots and dressing gown, stabilizing his arms so he could settle into the tub. He could tell Hannibal was looking, not in a sensual way, but more of an assessment of the damage wrought by the illness. Will realized how much thinner he looked, hips jutting out, the bumps of his sternum more visible. 

“Damn…” Will breathed as he slowly sank into the water, feeling its delicious heat envelop him, burning away any bodily shame. “That feels… so good…”

He tipped his head back against the edge of the tub and lowered his arms under the water in increments. 

“I’ll be nearby,” Hannibal said. But he made no move to leave Will to any kind of privacy, as after-the-fact as it was. 

“You can stay,” Will offered. Hannibal’s smile betrayed his pleasure, edged with triumph. He took a kitchen chair and sat behind Will, a wooden cup and a glass bottle with a label on it at his side on the prep table. He also handed Will a hunk of soap. 

The room was quiet, save for the soft sounds of Will moving in the tub, dragging the soap over his body, trying to find the energy to make a lather. After a time, Hannibal used the cup to moisten his hair for him, then poured some of the liquid from the bottle into his hand. It was a golden color, lightly scented, floral. It smelled like something Alana used on her hair. 

Alana wasn’t expecting him to come back anytime soon. Nobody was. It would be months before he was truly missed, when inquiries would be made. And assumptions. That he’d died, somewhere far away, among strangers. 

Nobody waiting for him. 

And he was living behind a locked door. 

Why was he worried? It was for his own safety, the safety of others.

Hannibal and Peter and Avigeya cared for him. Saved his life, just as surely as Peter saved the baby squirrel or the kittens or the one-legged duck, through instinctive, diligent, stubborn nurturing. Love. Who was he to question it?

Hannibal massaged the liquid soap into Will’s hair. Will stopped thinking about anything besides the feeling of Hannibal’s fingers working along his scalp, gently rubbing away the tension and ghostly afterimages of the terrible pain he’d suffered. Hannibal treated him to this for a long time before at last tipping his head back to help him rinse. He then abandoned the chair and knelt beside the tub, rolling up his sleeves. 

“Better?” he asked, wearing a smile that was more than a little self-satisfied. 

“Much.”

Next Hannibal readied him for a shave. Will thought about protesting this, too, but realized how hard it would be to do himself with no mirror and no arm strength. He rested back and kept his eyes closed as Hannibal gently ran the razor over his skin.

Take care. Take care how you cut yourself.

…Antony? When did he say…?

Hannibal finished, leaving him to splash water on his face, rinsing off the last of the soap. He hadn’t been this smooth in ages, ever since Antony had broken his mirror—

Hell’s bells, what was his mind…?

Maybe the fever had cooked his brain. Maybe the damage was permanent. 

More not-quite-memories that felt authentic but had no business being. 

“Will.”

He mentally shook himself. “Thank you,” he said. “Feeling much, much better.”

Hannibal paused for a moment, then reached out with a long white hand. His cool fingers gently brushed the hair from Will’s damp forehead and traced it with the lightest touch. “It feels ill-advised, celebrating too soon, perhaps,” he said. “I don’t want to give voice to it, but I’m having trouble resisting the urge to say something to you, Will.” 

“Something like…?” Will prompted, head still tilted back on the edge of the tub, relishing the last warmth of the bath and Hannibal’s touch. If he was being honest with himself as well, he’d enjoyed this attention. He simply wasn’t used to being so reliably cared for by people who seemed to truly give a damn. 

It had felt good when Alana had done it. The hired nurses, not so much, but when Alana was there…

Hell, he was having a devil of a time focusing. He still had a long way to go before his wits returned.

“I was…” Hannibal paused, as if searching for the words. He reached into the bath. Will tensed, a sudden reflex, only because he wasn’t sure exactly what Hannibal was reaching for. It turned out to be his hand. “There were times where I feared for your life, Will. You gave me – gave us all – quite a scare.” 

Will held his gaze for a few moments before he turned away, shutting his eyes again. “Avigeya told me,” he said after a while. “I probably would have died, if all of you hadn’t been taking care of me so well.” He chuckled. “Maybe it was the bee lady’s stuff.”

“What I want to say,” Hannibal continued, brushing the hair back again, letting it fall into place. Will opened his eyes to look at him, “is that I’m having a difficult time imagining my life without you in it.”

The empathy pulse ground to life again and swept across his mind. Will was instantly privy to Hannibal’s point of view. He was deeply earnest. Desperately so. And he’d been terrified of losing Will. 

It was a terror that extended beyond the concept of Will’s illness and possible death. More about being rejected than Will shuffling loose the mortal coil. 

“Well, you can get used to me being around.” Will’s voice was gruff with sudden emotion he tried to hide. As if he would reject Hannibal, would walk away from this… whatever it was they had, lose its pleasures and safety and depth of understanding and connection. The potential for real love. “I’m not going anywhere. Literally can’t. And… you know I don’t want to go home.”

Hannibal sat up a little straighter with a confident smile, releasing Will’s hand into the water. “I may not be able to spare you the eventual return to London, Will, but at the very least, we’ll be there together.” Hannibal leaned forward, put a cool hand on one smooth cheek, and kissed Will on the mouth. A sudden sweet moment of cold meeting warm, of gentle pressure, a lovers’ kiss. 

Will broke it off after a few moments with a near-silent, rueful laugh. “Careful. There are, uhm… parts of my body that are suddenly feeling much better.”

If Hannibal was surprised at his admission, he certainly didn’t show it. “Which parts?” he asked with an innocent turn of his head, though his naked hunger was purely evident. He reached out again and smoothed his hand down Will’s neck and thumbed his nipple gently, blatantly enjoying how it stiffened under his touch before Hannibal took his hand away.

“...that would be one of them,” Will admitted, lifting a hand out of the water to grip the side of the tub. He was exhausted, yes, depleted, warm and relaxed all over, but with the return of any kind of health or vitality, he was doomed, it seemed, to respond to Hannibal’s ministrations, as subtle as they’d been so far. 

“If I were to do that again, what would you do?” Hannibal asked him, reaching out slowly and taking Will’s warm, damp hand. He enfolded it on his own, spreading coolness over the smooth skin. 

Will looked at him for a long moment, then cracked a half-smile, “Nothing I can do about it.”

Hannibal let go of his hand, one finger at a time, and placed his palm against the side of Will’s flushed neck, the other caressing down from Will’s collarbone, headed for the other nipple. He leaned in close and kissed Will again, gently at first, but quickly rising in a crest of feverish intensity. And Will kissed him back with just as much raw enthusiasm, his cock also responding with a similar sudden fervor. 

Will sat up in the tub to be closer together, and after an elongated pause where they shared breath (cool and hot), Hannibal snaked a hand down Will’s chest, headed for his groin. 

Will exhaled sharply and put a hand to his mouth to stifle the sound as Hannibal began moving Will’s cock through his fist, creating ripples of water, pausing to thumb the slit and fondle him back further, fingers sure and focused on Will’s pleasure. He kissed Will’s lower lip gently as he worked, then buried his mouth against Will’s, gripping the back of Will’s neck leverage. When he pulled back once more, they were both breathing hard, and Will was close, feeling his weak legs tensing regardless of their lack of muscle strength.

Hannibal leaned in again, twining his free hand in Will’s damp hair. A gentle kiss, another, teasing, edging Will back, radiating his enjoyment of how hungry for it Will was, as if he found the whole situation adorably arduous. Hannibal abandoned his lips, and traced his tongue and mouth down the side of Will’s neck, then paused at the base of Will’s throat where it merged into the shoulder. Just the tenderest little press of teeth as he coaxed Will back to his climax.

“You are feeling better,” Hannibal said as Will lay there with his head tipped back, eyes closed, breathing hard. 

“Now I am,” Will laughed, running a hand across his forehead as Hannibal got to his feet and arranged a towel for him to stand on when he got out of the tub, and others to dry off with. Will rubbed his hair while Hannibal bent and lovingly dried his legs and backside, then wrapped him in his dressing gown again. 

“I fear you’ve overexerted yourself.”

Will chuckled as he let Hannibal steady him. “I think you overexerted me, Count Lecter. In, ah… the best way possible.” 

“In all seriousness,” Hannibal said, “you need rest. Are you tired enough that your dignity can survive another attack?” He held out his arms. 

“Oh, for God’s… all right, fine.” Will let Hannibal pick him up, again with such ease. When he made a small sound as if hefting something heavy, Will could have sworn it was for show. Hannibal had the strength of a dock worker in his prime, a coal miner, someone who did nothing but hard labor for twelve-hour shifts, or longer, day in and day out. But he’d never seen Hannibal do much more than take walks. Was that part of what he did in those hours between dawn and two or three o’clock in the afternoon? Why? He could swing an axe like a–

When in hell had Hannibal used an axe in front of him? 

Will was still thinking about it when they returned to his chamber, trying to find the memory, or understand why he would make such an association. “I’m having trouble thinking,” he admitted as Hannibal set him down, letting him pull on a clean nightshirt on his own while Hannibal hung up the dressing gown and took off his own boots and jacket. 

“You are?” Hannibal frowned, folding back the bedcovers. “I had assumed your confusion would clear when the fever did.”

“It did. I mean, it has. In some ways. But, ah… I’m still – still having these moments of déjà vu. That’s the best way to explain it. Something will remind me of something that I-I think happened at some point, or something I heard, but– when I think about it… try to c-chase it down, it either doesn’t make sense, or it couldn’t have happened, or…” He shrugged helplessly, letting Hannibal guide him back into his bed, plumping the pillows for him. 

“Don’t exert yourself by trying to puzzle it out now,” Hannibal soothed, getting in with him. “You need to rest and eat, regain your strength. I’m sure your mind will clear further.” He eased Will into his arms, cradling him from behind. “Inevitably there will be things you’ll remember, or think you remember,” he said, and Will noted the strangely careful tone and word choice. “But you can’t trust your memories, Will. You were gravely ill, sleepwalking, hallucinating… I’ve no idea what your mind was seeing, or thought it was seeing, during these moments of fracture.” 

“I didn’t hurt anyone, did I?” Will’s voice felt tiny in his throat. 

“No,” Hannibal soothed, holding him tighter. “You gave us all a fright, but you weren’t dangerous.” 

“Good.” Will paused. “Did I… say anything?” 

Hannibal hummed. “Fragments. Some of it was unintelligible. A little singing.” Will flushed. “Nothing that seemed like you were agitated. Some things were, more than anything, sweet.”

“What did I say?”

Hannibal brushed his hair behind his ear. “If you meant them, I’m sure you’ll say them again.”

Will snuggled in closer, tipping his body to fit tightly against Hannibal’s. He was greeted with the knowledge that his bedmate was half-hard still from their earlier escapades. He turned with a smirk. “You’re in a little predicament, huh?”

“Ignore me, Will,” Hannibal requested after depositing a kiss on his lips. “I didn’t do what I did in order for you to reciprocate.” 

“What if I wanted to?”

“I would refuse.” 

“That’s funny,” Will said, “that you think that you could.” 

Hannibal relented with a knowing nod. “I do have very little self-control where you’re concerned,” he admitted. 

“Must’ve been a long ten days,” Will teased, rotating his hips a little bit to rub Hannibal’s bulge with his backside. 

“You have no idea.” Hannibal slid his hand down Will’s chest and palmed his soft cock, cupping it in his large hand, a warm, intimate comfort. He sighed against the back of Will’s neck and rutted against him once, twice, before stopping. “You can provide me relief tomorrow. You need to save your strength.” 

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Will said with a wry little grin. He shifted and ground himself back into Hannibal again, chuckling under his breath at the helpless little exhale that came from the Count’s proud mouth. He made matters worse again by reaching back and sliding a hand between them, running it over Hannibal’s growing outline. “Guess we, ah… better say goodnight, then.”

“You must be feeling significantly better,” Hannibal murmured as Will fondled him with more intent. 

“I don’t know about significantly,” Will said, “but I can’t let you try and go to bed like this. Weighs on my conscience. I don’t think I could sleep.” 

“Will.” His name in the cadence of soft begging as he rotated his hips back again, his hand drifting around Hannibal’s ass and fondling it, holding him there so he could continue to press himself back against Hannibal’s cock. 

“What if I promise not to do any of the work?” Will tried. “I’ll just… relax and you can…”

With a sudden flourish, Hannibal whipped the blankets back and pressed Will onto his stomach, edging up his nightshirt to expose his cheeks to the cooler air of the bedchamber. “You drive a very hard bargain,” he admitted, hurrying out of his clothes in between kisses and caresses on Will’s backside and the top of his pelvic bone. 

“‘Hard bargain,’ that’s new, I’ve never heard anyone call it that before.” Will had no idea where this playful banter was coming from. He knew he was exhausted, half-starved, on the tail end of what could have been a mortal illness. It felt like whistling past a graveyard. It also felt completely natural, like something he and Hannibal always did, a dynamic unearned by the actual passage of time. 

“Promise me you won’t lift a finger,” Hannibal requested as he helped Will pull off his nightshirt and toss it away. “And after this you’ll go to sleep.”

“Promise,” Will grinned into his folded arms, making himself comfortable on his stomach, despite his own “hard bargain” that was somehow filling out again. Hannibal’s doing. He was irresistible. Inevitable. 

Will pressed his mouth against his forearm as Hannibal cupped his cheeks then spread them. He wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but he’d agreed to lay still, and so he did. When Hannibal’s tongue touched his crevice, he jumped, but then eased his muscles, moaning softly against his forearms where he rested his weary head, letting the world go fuzzy with pleasure. Hannibal’s tongue roamed his anatomy from one end to the other before visiting his entrance – a place so secret, private, shameful, and therein lay its attraction. Will was drunk on the intimacy of it as he was treated to licks, soft and more sensually brutal, Hannibal’s tongue even breaching that first tight ring a few times. 

God, it was good. This was so good he entertained the idea that he might be able to come from the sensations alone. 

Was this… that? Was this… it? Now? God, he didn’t care. If that’s what Hannibal wanted, then Will was more than amenable, provided his strength held out. He wondered vaguely if it would hurt. It was his first time–

Instead, Hannibal did part him, but pressed his cock in between the supple twin rises and began sliding it along, aided by the remnants of moisture he’d left behind. He grunted softly and increased his speed, pressing Will’s buttocks together with his hands to provide his preferred friction. 

Will hadn’t seen this in Whitechapel, hadn’t seen it in the pages of the pornographically illustrated Arabian Nights. He lifted his head and glanced over his shoulder just for a moment to see Hannibal’s corded neck, the wonderful soft lust of his lips and hooded eyes. They made eye contact, and Hannibal spent without any sort of warning, his hands gripping Will with sudden fervor, hard enough to leave red finger marks behind. He soaked Will’s back with his emission, slowly moving himself through the cleft even as he climaxed. 

At last, he rocked back on his heels and eased off the bed to get to the wash stand and take care of Will as well. “I was just clean,” Will pretended to complain even as Hannibal spread himself over Will’s back and kissed his shoulders and neck appreciatively. 

“I’ll heat you another bath tomorrow,” Hannibal promised, embracing him. Then, “And what’s this?”

It was Will, hard again in the wake of the experience, something he never would have imagined in any kind of titillating fantasy, being so wonderfully used for another’s pleasure. Hannibal’s talented tongue hadn’t helped matters, or the way he’d looked worshiping Will’s backside. “Your fault,” he murmured. 

“I take full responsibility.” And Hannibal was flipping him over, kissing his stomach, and suddenly swallowing Will’s cock for a swift and ravenous devouring that made Will’s entire body seize. The second orgasm was gentle, but a pure delight.

He didn’t have a choice. A few exhausted kisses and Will plunged headfirst into sleep, sinking like a stone into night waters.

Chapter Text

Will Graham lives.

He lives and he is still a mortal man. This was my dearest hope in the sorrowed-hollow days following Antony’s death and Will’s brain catching fire. 

Will asked me, in one of his lucid moments during the ordeal, if I would fight the Grim Reaper for him. I told him that Death and I were old friends, and we are. For all the souls I’ve sent plunging into darkness, Death has paid back the favor. He drew his skeletal hand away from Will’s neck. Knowing, perhaps, that I would never let him have my beloved. 

I had not considered exactly when I would make Will a vampire. I know that moment must come within the next decade or two at the most. I suppose I thought that slowly, over time, after he’d fallen in love with me, I would reveal my nature. Then, when he was ready, I would transform him, and we would be together forever. I didn’t want his changing to be painful or traumatic, born of desperate need. I wanted him to choose me, and by extension, monstrousness; I still do.  

That moment was nearly lost. If Will’s heart or breathing had stopped, I would have had to change him right then, lest he die. Waiting another 400 years for Iliya to be reborn again is not an option. The year 2293? I shudder to think what the world will be like and how another stretch of cursed, lonely years would affect me. For the sake of morale, Will’s death had to be avoided at all costs. 

But if he rose as a vampire, what would he think of me? Would he hate what he’d become, hate me for saving him from death's grasp in this way? Would I be doomed to spend the rest of eternity chasing him around the world, trying to make him love me once more? 

And at the core of all these veins of thought; I saw Iliya’s body, I held it in my arms. But I could not watch it burn. And I did not see him die. If I watched Will expire, even to rise again, I would break open.

No, the best possible events have come to pass. Will lives. 

Well, nearly the best. The force of mesmerism I had to use to erase his memory of what happened in our old apartments not only nearly killed him but was also faulty. He has pieces of memory, mixed with hallucinations and dreams and memories and knowledge that I suspect have somehow come through time directly from Iliya’s consciousness. I don’t know what he will remember or when, or what kind of credence he will give those memories. I am sure to remind him as often as I can that this has happened, to some extent, before — in the wake of solving the Ripper murder. If I want my secrets kept, it is vital that he doesn’t trust his mind again for some time. 

It’s unreasonable, but what I dread him remembering the most is compelling him to tell me he loves me. A desperate act. Ill advised, the whole encounter, but that moment specifically makes me want to snarl. Such weakness. Pathetic. Of course, he’s going to love me — he is Iliya, and we’re meant to be together. Fate and circumstance demand it. The teacup is coming back together.

But I wanted to hear him say it, even if he wasn’t ready. Even if he doesn’t love me yet. The power he has over me is frightening — he is fragile and mortal, and the keeper of all meaning in the world. I must take care. 

I must have him say it again, of his own volition. 

A few days have passed since I pleasured him in the bathtub and again in his chamber after he let me use him. I’ve done my best to keep our interactions chaste since then — as much as I want him, think about it nearly every moment we’re together, he needs to recover his health. Despite these wise and prudent thoughts my first instinct upon waking in my crypt is to imagine him riding my cock. Here, just like this, enclosed in my tomb, surrounded by the earth of my homeland from whence I draw my power, the two of us fucking in the dirt amongst the grubs and worms and bone fragments of dead Lecters. 

I break free from the yoke of these fantasies and rise. 

Bedelia is in her favored corner of the chapel, awash in the fragments of colored light thrown by the half-broken stained glass, brushing her hair, eyes focused on nothing. She has been very quiet since I killed Antony. I imagine she’s lonely without a co-conspirator. To whom can she vent her frustrations? Certainly not Chiyoh, who has just stepped up next to me, buttoning her coat. I can smell the prisoner on her breath. She’s had a quick bite for breakfast, it seems. I myself am still well sated after drinking most of Antony, reclaiming the immortal blood I gave him. 

“How is he?” Chiyoh asks softly after I brush the back of her hand with mine, a miniscule gesture laden with meaning. 

“Better each day,” I say, eyes on Bedelia even as I speak to Chiyoh. “Strong enough to travel soon, I expect. Perhaps another month, if he continues to improve.” 

Chiyoh nods. We leave the chapel together, stepping out into the fair mountain-summer day. Good weather for Will. He should get outside, let the sun help renew him. I knock on his chamber door, and Avigeya answers, unlocking the door to admit me. Will is dressed, properly dressed, with boots on, even, sitting at the table next to the open window with a cup of tea and a book in front of him. Shakespeare’s tragedies. Avigeya was doing a bit of mending and listening to him read. I see Romeo’s line on the page. I am fortune’s fool!

Will smiles when he sees me, but I watch him watch Avigeya as she puts the key to the door back in her apron pocket. All the more reason we should walk; I don’t want him to feel like a prisoner. 

“Dressed and ready. It’s as if you anticipated why I came,” I say.

“Was hoping to get outside,” Will admits, looking longingly out the window. 

“Of course.” I offer him my arm and we go down to the courtyard. He stops halfway down the staircase and leans on me for a few moments, steadying his breathing. He still tires very easily, but his constitution strengthens each day. I bring him through the side gate to the willow tree but elect to sit on the carpet of lush grass rather than beneath the boughs. He needs the warmth of the sun. I watch him lean back on his hands and close his eyes, relishing the rays on his pale skin. He is especially lovely illuminated like this. 

We talk. I ask him how he feels. He talks about dreaming and not dreaming, how the boundaries are becoming clearer. 

“Maybe I could fish a little bit,” he suggests after a stretch of comfortable silence. He is a little tired; I am sitting with my legs outstretched and his head rests in my lap, face up, hands folded on his midsection. 

“We could try tomorrow, if the weather holds.” He may have to permit me to carry him to the pool he prefers; that would please me, though I know it needles him. 

“With Avigeya.”

“She can carry your things,” I suggest.

He sighs. “I feel like I’m a hundred years old.”

He means in the mortal sense. I know what it feels like to be 100 years old and it’s more about existential horror than being feeble. “It won’t last forever,” I promise. “Think how much stronger you are than you were yesterday, or the day before that.”

He sighs and closes his eyes as I trace my hand through his hair, beginning at his forehead and combing the curls back. 

“Patience, Will.”

He hums. “Well, I must’ve gotten a little exercise while I was sick. Sleepwalking is still walking, right?”

I smile. “I suppose so.”

Will shifts a bit, bending a knee and placing his foot flat on the ground. “So, where did I go — o-or where did I… try to go?”

Dangerous territory. “What do you mean?” I feign an innocent question. 

“Like was I… trying to go to a specific room? Or outside?”

“You were dreaming. I don’t know what you saw in your mind’s eye.”

He considers a moment, looking up at me. “A couple of times,” he says, “I went to the same place. Before I got sick.”

“Did you?” As if Avigeya hadn’t told me. 

“Yes. A door that leads into the west wing.”

“Did you ever try and get through?” As if I didn’t know. These aren’t lies; I’m asking questions.

“I… I’m not sure,” he says. “I just know that I… slept-walked there. More than once. So maybe I wasn’t… going somewhere in a dream. Maybe I was going there.” He pauses. “On purpose. But in my sleep. For some reason.” 

I let the words dribble from him until he’s finished, looking up at me with those eyes, laden with hope and full of familiar mystery. “Are you referring to the door carved to look like a tree?”

He nods, his hair moving against my trouser leg. 

“I’m sure I told you that section of the castle is unsafe.”

“I know,” Will says. “I didn’t… consciously go there. But I went there. I just, ah…” He takes a breath. “I feel like I went in. But I don’t remember.”

Damn. Something in the way his brain was forged makes it slick, oily. Mesmerism, it seems, may not stick, sliding away one piece at a time. 

Luckily, I prepared for this. “Would you like to go to the door?” I ask softly, stroking his hair again. “Would it ease you, somehow?” 

“I keep… remembering things that didn’t happen,” he blurts. I can feel his agitation and he sits up a moment later. Too fast. He raises an unsteady hand to his head, but I am there to support him. I give him a moment and ask if he’s all right. He nods, and I relax my hold. “This didn’t… it wasn’t like this after the Ripper, not exactly. With the Ripper case, I would get the sense that Abel Gideon was still alive, and he and I were doing the same things at the same time. Then I started seeing him, seeing the victims, reliving the crimes. Now I’m remembering things like they happened to me – either now, or-or… somehow, a long time ago – but it’s not possible.” 

“The brain is an intricate organ,” I say. “Peter is a perfect example of how trauma to it can result in changes in speech, behavior, ways of thinking…” I deliberately trail off, letting him make the connection. One of the things that has always attracted me to Will is his prodigious intellect. Now, it is my enemy. However, I have hundreds of years of practice manipulating humans – with or without mesmerism – on my side. “I’ll take you to the door, Will. Whatever you need.” 

“Can you take me now?”

“I’d love to hear those words uttered in a different context,” I purr as I help him to his feet. 

He reddens. I make a note of this, and his delicious shy smile. I have my ways of upsetting his intellect. Distractions are key. 

Without waiting for a response, I offer him an arm and he takes it. We return to the castle, greeting Peter on the way as he walks the goat past us. This time it manages not to faint, though I can see the creature trembling. Prey animals will do that. 

Will and I do not speak as we climb the stairs and turn to the west, headed for the door to the rooms I once shared with Iliya. I can tell he’s nervous, can smell it on him. His heart is beating faster, and I hope the experience doesn’t endanger his already weakened body. Calculated risk. He needs to feel as though I am not hiding anything from him. 

At last, we stand opposite the door. Will lets go of me and examines it. He tries the handle, but the door won’t open. He takes a moment, head bowed, then touches the secret latch. 

I am not prepared to see him use Iliya’s tiny dagger this way, to watch him go through the motions exactly as my beloved would have done, using the secret only he and I shared. I know that is how he gained admittance when I found him in the bedchamber during Antony’s attack, but it still threatens to shatter me. 

Will presses on the latch, but it does not indent. It is as if the switch was never there at all. 

It caused me great pain to do so, but I disabled it and fixed the wood so that the switch no longer sank into the door when pressed. I have also barred it from within. “Was this in your dream?” I ask. 

“There’s… there’s a switch here.” He kneels and looks at the little relief of Iliya brandishing his daggers. “See, you can – it’s a mechanism. You-you push it a-and it… unlocks the door.”

“It seems broken.”

He murmurs in assent, still examining it. “But this section of the carving is clean. Somebody used it, or tried to, recently. Licked their finger and cleaned the dust off.” 

“You just tried it.”

“I know, but I mean… before now.” He stands back and lets me look. I pretend to examine it. 

“Perhaps you tried this same thing in your sleep,” I suggest. “There are some fainter fingerprints in the dust here.” I indicate some of his other prints he left during other encounters with this door, led here, I can only speculate, by the ghost of Iliya inside of him.

“Yeah, maybe.” He scratches his stubble. “Can you try it? And the door? If you’re, ah… strong enough to carry me, maybe…”

“Of course.” I give a good show, I think. The door, of course, does not move. 

“What’s in there?” I should have known he would ask. 

“Old rooms,” I say. “In ruins. The very floors and walls are unsafe.” I take his hand. “Have you seen enough? The light is fading.” The sun has dipped behind the mountains, and the angle isn’t good to see much in the hallway now. 

“Who lived in there?” Will wants to know as walk back toward the library for talk and supper. “I mean, when it wasn’t ruined.”

“Whoever occupied those rooms was the most precious treasure in the castle,” I say. “It’s the most defensible section, or it was in the castle’s heyday. Arrows cannot reach it because of the slope, and there is the natural barrier of the river.” 

He is thinking. I can practically hear his thoughts clicking, marching along like ants in a line. When we reach the library, I kiss him unexpectedly the second we step through the door, spreading my hands against his waist. He grasps my arms above the elbow and hangs on to steady himself. I step him backward so he softly impacts the door I’ve kicked closed behind us. 

And then I let him go, all but one arm, all chivalry, and lead him over to our usual table and chairs where I bid him sit while I light the lamps. He has an incredulous little smile that is very dear to me, watching me as I fill the library with soft illumination. 

Avigeya joins us. We eat and we talk about Shakespeare. Avigeya has developed a fondness for the filthier jokes. “You’ll have to learn to behave like a proper lady,” Will tells her through a chuckle, “when you get to London. Otherwise, you won’t, ah… marry well.”

“I don’t know if I’m going to London.” Avigeya pouts in my direction. 

Well played, daughter. If I refuse, I have to justify myself to Will. If we are her fathers, how could we leave her behind? 

“Of course you are,” Will says immediately, then looks at me, a sudden worry-line bisecting his brows. 

“Of course she is,” I have to say. It isn’t much to acquiesce. It was likely to happen, but I have not finalized my plans, and I don’t know when I would send for her or if she were to travel with Will or alone. Train stations are not the place for the Daughter of the Shrike. Her former hunting grounds. I fear she may be recognized. 

But now it is done. Clever, clever. She doesn’t understand the danger. But she’s gotten her wish. 

Avigeya retires early these days. She oversees Will from just before dawn until I am able to rise after noon, and she is required to rise early and be well rested. I’ve told her it is imperative she not fall asleep while caring for Will. She asked me why and of course I answered with pleas for Will’s safety, that he might wander off. But what I neglected to mention is that Will might use a catnap to break out of his room and attempt to put some of his memories to the test. 

Will and I walk slowly back to his room when we’ve had a little brandy and a few more stolen kisses. On the way, I catch him stealing a glance at the opposite staircase, the one that leads to the west wing. 

“You’re still thinking about that door,” I say. 

He admits that I am correct. “There’s just something about it,” he says. “It’s… beautiful. Unique. But it’s more than that, it’s like… I recognize it.” He looks down, not at me. “I’ve seen it in a dream,” he confesses. “In a few of them, actually.”

“Are these the dreams where you feel as though you’re living someone else’s life?” I question gently, unable to help myself. “Where you and I…”

He nods. “Other dreams, too,” he says. “Some that aren’t as good.” A pause. “There’s something there. I feel like I… need to see it. I know it sounds crazy. I know how I sound, Hannibal, but I need to see if it looks like I remember. Like I dreamed,” he corrects himself. 

Shakespeare once said that to be wise and in love exceeds men’s might. I must take away his ability to be wise. 

“In your dreams,” I inquire, palming the side of his face. Warm, but not feverish. “Do we make love?”

Oh, that lovely blood-soaked crimson of his blush, the way his eyes glisten – I have my answer. 

“Dreams can come true, so it seems. Assuming they began before we coupled,” I say, watching him go a shade darker and rub his hair to have something to do with his free hand. 

“They did,” he mumbles. 

So, his dreams of Iliya’s life predate our first encounter. 

“When did they begin?”

“Can we not talk about this?” he tries as I produce the key to his door and unlock it for us. 

“Right after you arrived, then.” 

“Stop,” he orders me through an adorable half-smile, distracted enough not to grimace when I lock the door behind us. Even as I slide his jacket from his shoulders, he asks, “Where did that door come from? Do you know when it was installed? Which ancestor of yours…?”

“Concerning yourself with the decorative decisions of ancient Lecters when you have a living one right in front of you?” I skim my hands around his hips before gathering a handful of his backside, pressing into him. I am amorous – I always am where Will is concerned – but part of my lack of patience comes from trying to get the door and the west wing off his mind. He hangs his arms around my neck but turns his head when I try to kiss him. Now he’s teasing me, because he has something I want. He’s a child dangling a string in front of a cat. I have claws, but I won’t use them. 

I settle for his neck – as if it were settling – and bury my face there, kiss and taste and press my human teeth against his skin, though gently. Soon, I feel his whole-body trembling as I lavish attention on the line of his clavicle, sliding a hand up his chest to cup the side of his face, fingers playing in his dark stubble. Gently, I bring my mouth to his. Will grabs me with a sudden, all consuming passion, his entire body burning for my touch. It’s my turn to deny him, holding him back a few inches so that he can’t kiss me. “Easy, Will,” I say softly, trailing my knuckles down his neck and playing with the collar of his shirt. “The night is young.”

This makes him tremor again. I skim my fingers along the hem of Will’s shirt, then lift it slowly over his head. I leave his arms tangled in the shirt for just a moment and steal several burning kisses. “Hannibal,” Will murmurs with obvious delight, drinking in my attentions. With the lightest touch, I guide Will onto the bed, and he presses back against the pillows. I pause to light the candles and bring them to the bedside. I want him to see me as I see him, all golden and glowing, his creamy skin and rosy nipples, the sweet trail of hair leading down. 

I stand beside the bed and slide free of my jacket and shirt. Will’s eyes darken and his lips part at the sight of me. I am on top of him now, straddling his hips, kissing the contours of his chest, trailing my tongue up to the hollow of his throat. Will is suffering against his impatience, powerless, it seems, to stop his hands from where they roam along my shoulders, back, ass, tracing the imprints of my spine.

I kiss his mouth again, so sweet, so unhurried even as I can sense Will’s mounting hunger, and open his trousers, breaking us apart only to strip him and come back together, both of us free of the hindrance of clothing. We are skin to skin and I am drowning in his warmth and his scent, the remnants of fever-sweet still there, and even without a fever, his living warmth is my dearest treasure.

I will miss it when he is undead. I vow to cherish it as much as possible in the time he has left.

We tangle together. Will’s patience is at an end. Though his body is not fully healed, he seems unable to feel its weakness. He rolls over on top of me and twines our legs together, his kisses and caresses becoming more arduous, desperate in their passion, possessive. 

I have an idea. Something that’s sure to rob him of his wisdom, perhaps for longer than just this night. 

“Will,” I say his name like a caress itself as he kisses my neck. “I want to give you something.”

He sits on my hips, looking down at me, backlit by the candles. The way he looks at me feels like victory already. I can feel his thighs melting against my touch; I stroke them as we speak. “More like I want you to do something for me.” Purposeful restatement. He can’t un-hear the first attempt. Nods for me to continue. “I’d like to be penetrated,” I say, straddling the line between confidence and the appropriate bashfulness like he’s straddling me now. 

He draws his bottom lip into his mouth, just a taste, passing his teeth against it, eyes velvet-dark and brimming with lust and affection. “I’m not, uh… overly experienced–” he begins but I put a hand on his cock and work it into further hardness, which dries up his unneeded explanations. 

Still, he seems incredulous, even as I make my desires evident. “You really want…”

“You inside of me, yes.” I rarely interrupt, but I am the one who’s impatient now. This began as a conceptual distraction and now I’m very much looking forward to it. It was a capital idea all around, it seems. I’d love to see him – feel him – let himself take what he wants from me, no regard for my own pleasure, assuming a measure of control and demand. It is titillating, being forcefully desired. Iliya used to give me moments like this and I always encouraged him to be as rough as he wanted, to claim me the way I claimed him. There were certainly times, depending on his mood, where my blushing bridegroom, all pink cheeks and tumbling curls, used to make love like a man possessed by demons. 

Will likely needs time to discover that part of himself. From what I hear of London, the mention of sex alone is enough to ripple shame through the room. Will once told me that the denizens of Queen Victoria’s realm refer to piano legs as “limbs” to avoid saying the word, and have been known to put skirts on them, as if the instrument itself should be ashamed of how its artisan made it. We’d laughed at the concept, and then I told Will the same was true regarding the human body – was it not ridiculous that we should be ashamed of how our artisan made us? He’d deflected and said he had to stop looking at my harpsichord because it was indecent. 

My simple admission has certainly gotten his blood pumping. He kisses me his thanks, seeming to leave his indecision behind, and is very direct with his next actions, which are to kiss me, my neck, pull my chest hair – though gently – tease my nipples one after the other, then give my cock a quick visit before pressing his fingers further back to my entrance. They are a warm, soft heaven against the puckered skin there and I have no interest in stopping myself from the sounds I make. 

This is the physical manifestation of the empty place inside of me where I was once filled by Iliya, a sexual metaphor for the vast chasm his loss caused in my heart, the ceaseless void. It surprises me how easily I wrote off this request as a manipulation when clearly, there was something inside of me that awakened and demanded to be expressed. 400 years and I can still lie to myself, not be fully aware of myself. Does this mean that part of me does not love myself? I have never felt the need to be anyone else, to apologize for who and what I am, even as a monster. I’ve never asked for forgiveness for my crimes and have no interest in absolution. I know my worth as acutely as I know these lands and this castle, like I know the freckle on Will’s neck and the shape of his hands, like I know Iliya’s taste and scent. 

Is there some kind of – and I recoil from the word – moral conscience in me that judges my actions and existence and prevents me from full knowledge, awareness, and love for who and what I am?

Now I am the one that needs to be distracted from my mind’s workings, and Will is more than adept as he tongues me, lifting my cock out of the way so he can lick and massage and devour, his other hand clutching my hip, briefly drawing a testicle against his lips before diving back in. “You taste so good,” he is sure to tell me, to ease any apprehension I might have about this intimate place. I haven’t any, but I appreciate the gesture. He is diligent about moistening me as thoroughly as one can with spit alone, but does stop to ask, “Do you have something you want me to use?”

He probably means oil, but the question is open for prophylactics as well. I decline either. Whoever his partners were in the past, they must have required lengthy preparation; as an undead monster, he can’t hurt me, and I can relax myself entirely, mastering the body’s reflexes one and all. Still, I let him massage me open, inserting tentative fingers that I welcome with moans and praises and the reverent repetition of his name. 

His ministrations are infinitely sweet, his frequent questions about my comfort stroking my heart with the same patient love he shows my perineum and rings of muscle. What a gentleman, holding back his obvious impatience, ignoring his leaking, swollen cock and the hot flush that covers his body, a flag of anticipation. Ironic, that the immortal’s patience is at an end. “I’m ready, Will, please…” 

I hadn’t expected to beg for it. The things this boy does to me.

He spreads my legs a bit wider and brings up his cock, angling his head so he can see in the shadow-strewn candlelight, lining it up with my hole. I hear myself begging softly again as he presses the head in, so gentle and careful with me. I wish I could tell him what I am right this second so he knows he can’t hurt me. Show him my fangs and say, my darling, you can fuck me as hard as you’d like, and I want you to.

His moan is half-feral, his lips snarling back and exposing the white line of his teeth as he eases in. I can’t abide this delicate treatment. I curl forward and grasp his ass and haul him forward so that he spears me to the hilt. He cries out, loud and unchecked, curses, delightful filth. “Oh fuck, Hannibal, that – you feel so good…!” 

Lock and key, we fit together, and I am perfectly filled, the void gone, whole once more and all I can do is keep begging, keep moaning his name and closing a leg around his hips and rocking against his cock, my hands groping his back, his shoulders, twining in his hair. 

“Are you – is this…” 

I will go mad if he asks me again about my comfort. “Will, you can’t hurt me,” I insist, desperate now. “And even if you did, I would adore it, please–”

He responds beautifully, grabbing a handful of chest hair for a sharp tug before rearing back on his knees and gripping my upper thighs to fuck me in earnest, the licentious slaps of skin a symphony harmonized with our sighs and moans. He is devastatingly beautiful at this angle, damp with sweat, lips softly parted until they curl into a brief growl, eyes closed and then open, staring down at me with possession and lust before going soft with affection once more. Right now, in this light, his expressions this way, I can’t tell the difference. He is Will. He is Iliya. He is my beloved. 

I don’t know if he’s at the right angle for my inner pleasure, but just looking at him, without touching my cock, I climax. He drops against me, spreading my emission between us and kisses me as he drives in for the final thrusts even as I am shaking and clenching. “... in me, Will, please…”

He fills me, drenching me inside with several waves of liquid warmth that set me on fire. 

We do not speak because there are no words. They are not needed. 

This exertion has exhausted him, and he sleeps almost instantly, spread over my chest. I try to move him as little as possible to drape the quilt over us. 

I don’t want to leave at dawn. But when I do, I will have his remnants with me, what remains inside. 

He wakes when I have to slide out from beneath him. For a few minutes, I think he’s gone back to sleep. But as I unlock his door, he stirs and looks at me. “Hannibal.”

I pause, the key in the lock the same way he was in me, a perfect fit, as if we were forged for one another. 

“Where do you go at dawn?” I see that petulant lower lip. He thought, perhaps, that I would stay this time, considering the significance of our sex act. I don’t answer for a moment. If I open my mouth, I am going to tell him the truth and I cannot afford to do so. It is not time for him to know. 

He speaks before I can gather the threads. “Is it Antony?” he asks. “O-or Bedelia? You can tell me. I just, ah… I need to know. I need to know if you’re going to someone else.” 

“No, I am not rushing off to the arms of another.” I would be offended if he wasn’t so clearly in pain. It galls me that he’s had to labor under such an assumption; it couldn’t be avoided, but I would have spared him the suffering. I cross the room, leaving the key in the lock, and sit on the bed, stroking his hair. He was ferocious and brazen when he fucked me and now, he’s back to questioning his worth and questioning my ability to love him, raw and vulnerable. I don’t know what to say to fix this. “I go to the chapel,” I say. This is sure to lead to more questions I don’t want to answer, but the truth feels like a relief. 

“Oh.” He knows how I feel about God, about the hypocrisy of organized religion. I can see the wheels turning in his mind; he knows I do not go there to pray. “Your husband is buried there,” he says softly, spreading his palm on my thigh in a gesture of understanding. 

“No,” I say. “He isn’t.”

His lips part to breathe or speak but he does neither. 

“He wasn’t permitted to be buried on consecrated ground,” I say, swallowing back the sudden saturation of emotion that unhinges me. “He committed suicide.”

“Oh God, Hannibal, I’m so sorry.” Will sits up and I pull him tightly into my arms, face pressed into his neck, then his hair. 

“He received a false report of my death.” I feel the need to explain. Iliya never would have done what he did if not for the lies told to him, the alleged proof provided. 

“I shouldn’t – I shouldn’t have asked you.” His hands are fairly clawing at my back, desperate for my forgiveness, which I readily give him. And he does not ask me again why I leave him at dawn. I know I haven’t sufficiently answered his question, but for now, he will certainly hesitate before asking again. All accomplished without lies, just the careful application of the truth. 

            He kisses me, and I leave, locking the door behind me.

Chapter Text

Since Hannibal had confirmed Avigeya would be accompanying them to London, England was all the girl wanted to talk about, quizzing Will daily on social conventions, food, historical monuments, politics, and travel, going over the maps of the city with him just as carefully – if not more so – than Hannibal had. She insisted that he speak English with her as much as possible and could be heard repeating phrases over and over again as she worked.

Stirring a pot of soup. “Hello, my name is Avigeya Heraskova, it is a pleasure to meet you. Hello, my name is Miss Heraskova, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” 

Hanging out the laundry. “Yes, thank you, I will have the steak and kidney pie and a cup of tea, please. Good afternoon, can you please tell me how to get to Piccadilly?” 

In the courtyard. “We are having pleasant weather, aren’t we, Mr. Duck? Excuse me, could I have two tickets to the evening show, please?” 

Will had helped her send away for some more newspapers and magazines, and while they waited, she pored over what the library already had. 

Will had spent the morning helping Peter, who had come back from the village not only with a pile of mail for Avigeya, but a basket of kittens that had to be dropper-fed every few hours. Will could tell the duck and the goat were jealous and offered to assist with Peter’s duties when he could. 

After finishing a feeding, Will left Peter to rustle up something for them to eat, and brought it back to ensure that the Transylvanian St. Francis didn’t forget to feed himself, too. They ate a quick meal, the usual salad, soft cheese, and bread, and then Will went inside, set to meet Avigeya to see what she’d gotten in the mail. 

Will was surprised to hear voices within the library already, both feminine. He entered to find Bedelia seated at the large table with Avigeya, a pile of advertisements and magazines spread out before them. They featured drawings of various ladies’ fashions, hair styles, and cosmetic products.

Avigeya was closely examining an advertisement from a corset company. “How are you supposed to breathe?”

“You’d be surprised,” Bedelia said, “how comfortable they are. If you purchase a quality product, of course. I’m sure Count Lecter will see that you are properly attired. He’s always had exquisite taste.” She paused, glancing up at Will as he entered. “In clothing,” she said, deliberately amending her previous statement. Her features, which had been pleasant and mild, bordering on friendly, hardened immediately upon Will’s arrival, her eyes suddenly full of glittering ice. 

“Will!” Avigeya beckoned him over. He approached, and Bedelia got to her feet, a clear indication that she didn’t plan to stay long. “Ms. Du Maurier helped me make a list of everything I need to dress like an English lady, but I need you to help.”

“I don’t know how much help I’ll be,” Will said, taking the paper Avigeya handed him, covered with her writing. “Yeah, none at all,” he confirmed. “You will, uhm… you will want to add an umbrella and a mackintosh to this list.” 

“Mackintosh?”

“For the rain,” he explained. “There’s… a lot of rain. It looks like…” He picked up a periodical and flipped through it. “This.” He showed her some illustrations of smiling women wearing black rubber raincoats that were custom made to accommodate their bustles. 

“The weather in Paris is far more agreeable.” Bedelia’s glacial smile indicated that she thought the company would be as well, assuming Will stayed in London. “If you will excuse me…” 

Will was spared her cold exit by Avigeya, who dragged him over to examine the floor plans for Carfax. She had many questions about what it would take to make the old house livable again, and how she might find out about decorating and finding furnishings. 

“There’s something else,” she said after asking him several questions about wallpaper he didn’t know the answer to. “I think I might change my name.”

“Your name?” He frowned. “What’s wrong with your name?”

“It’s not English,” she said. “It’ll be hard for people to say. I think I’ll be called Abigail Hobbs.” 

“Hobbs? Why?”

She shrugged. “It’s short. Easy to spell. I’m going to have a new life. I think I should have a new name.” 

“Avigeya Heraskova is dead,” Will said with a crooked smile. “Long live Abigail Hobbs.” 

“You should start calling me Abigail, so I get used to it. Will you?”

“Fine, just, ah, don’t be cross with me if I forget once in a while,” he said as she flitted back over to the advertisements, examining the idealized feminine images from a foreign culture that she meant to try and become. It made him a little sad. There was nothing wrong with the rustic girl in the brown dress who wore her hair in a braid. 

“You need to talk to Hannibal about his clothes, too,” Abigail said, bringing Will back again to the table full of newspaper advertisements. She pointed out the menswear, all suits and ties and top hats, great overcoats, trousers and tuxedos. “His hair is too long,” she said. “Come to think of it, both of yours are.” 

Will pawed at his unruly curls. Without any mirrors, he could only guess how it looked. “We can go to a proper London barber when we arrive,” he said. 

“I think Count Lecter should step off the train looking just right,” Abigail countered, showing Will an illustration of a gentleman in a top hat with a cane and overcoat. “And I’ll be wearing…” she picked up another page, showing him an evening gown. 

He smiled. “That’s for parties, not riding on trains.”

“Oh.” Her face fell. 

“There are a lot of rules about what to wear and when,” he explained. “It’s… maddening, really. Transylvania is not England. We’re… free here, in a lot of ways we won’t be free in London. Not without consequences.” 

“But…” she chewed her lip. “Theatre. Opera. Art museums. Parties with music and dancing.”

“You miss being around people your own age,” Will said. She tried to protest, as if she’d offended him, but Will just chuckled. “That’s normal… Abigail.”

She bit her lip, then smiled broadly at his use of her new name. 

Just then, the library door opened, and Hannibal stepped in, looking very much the old-fashioned country gentleman in riding wear; pale trousers, boots, and a green jacket with tails embroidered in gold. Perfectly un-London, Will thought. Perfect. God, he was handsome, to the point of complete distraction. 

Avigeya called, “Hannibal! Come and see what came in the mail.”

Hannibal admired the pile of fashion drawings for the requisite time before turning his attention to Will. “I thought we might take a ride today. Are you comfortable on horseback?”

Will nodded. “I’ll admit it’s been a while.”

“I’m sure it’ll come back to you. My horses are well trained.” Hannibal motioned to the door and Will nodded to Abigail, who was already engrossed in her catalogs again. In the hall on the way down, Hannibal put a hand on the small of his back, then snuck it around his waist. They paused to kiss on the landing where the staircases met. “In London,” he said, “did you ride for pleasure?”

Will chuckled as Hannibal released him to kiss his hands. “Not very often, no. I prefer to do it here, actually.” 

“I’d be happy to give you some lessons,” Hannibal said as Will rested his palms against his chest and angled up for another sensual kiss. “But you’re already quite skilled.” 

“Practice makes perfect,” Will said softly against Hannibal’s ear, giving his backside an affectionate squeeze.

“It’s tempting to skip this outing and find ourselves somewhere alone,” Hannibal said, “but I already asked Chiyoh to ready the horses.”

“Rude to make her wait,” Will agreed. 

They made it as far as the front door. Will had his hand on the knob. “I suppose you’ll need a team at Purfleet. Have you thought about hiring some help when you get…” he trailed off as Hannibal caught his hand and gently pulled it away from the door knob, taking it in his own. 

“It’s being arranged.” Hannibal brushed Will’s dark hair back behind his ear. “I’ll need as many horses as necessary to go to London every day and see you.”

Will embraced him with a smile. “Once you try the trains, ah… you might like them.”

“Of course. I do want to be a proper modern Englishman.” Hannibal drew back to run a hand down Will’s jawline and thumb his chin. “So many things you’ll have to show me once we arrive.”

Will put his hands around the small of Hannibal’s back and kissed him, slipping his tongue in. Hannibal pulled away suddenly and pressed his face into Will’s neck, inhaling deeply. “Your scent mixed with the fresh mountain air of my lands. I admit I will miss that in particular.”

Will opened his mouth to say something, but Hannibal had him by the arms, and pushed him back swiftly into the wall with a soft thud. A painting was jostled in the process and swung dangerously on its hook; the Lecter ancestors depicted were scandalized as Hannibal easily forced Will’s wrists against the stone at shoulder height. 

“Han—” Will half-protested as Hannibal nuzzled his throat, running his teeth over the flesh. He tried to wiggle free, push back. His wrists came away from the wall an inch, a liberty granted. Hannibal was granite-strong, as always. Warmth spread up from his groin and a shiver snaked through his body as his lover grazed his neck again. 

“You can’t escape,” Hannibal breathed through a playful smile. “Haven’t you learned that by now?”

Will smirked, and tried to pull away, knowing he couldn’t succeed. 

“You’re a terrible influence, Will. How you tempt me.” Hannibal dragged his teeth over Will’s Adam’s apple; he nuzzled into his collar, dropping his mouth along the curve, then sucked hard without biting. Will exhaled a sigh of pleasure, rocking his head back against the wall. “Are you trying to upset my plans?”

“You’re the one that has me pinned to the wall,” he murmured. 

Hannibal nodded and released him reluctantly. “I assume full responsibility.”

“Good. Chiyoh’s… one of the last people I’d like irritated with me.” Will was still breathless, but followed the count as he went outside, through the courtyard to the stables. Chiyoh was there with two fine charcoal-colored horses saddled and ready, rubbing their snouts and murmuring to them. Peter was nearby, curry-brushing one of the others. 

The horses clearly knew Hannibal, though Will had never heard him talk about riding. They nuzzled his shoulder and wanted to be petted. “Do you ride very much?” Chiyoh asked Will by way of a greeting.

“I used to. Not much anymore,” he said, petting one horse’s dark flank. 

“They can sense indecision. And fear.” Chiyoh handed Will the reins of one of the horses. “This is Konoshita.”

“Konoshita,” Will repeated as the horse sniffed his hand, filling it with its warm breath. 

“And Matsukaze,” Hannibal said, stroking the other’s neck. 

“And the others?”

Chiyoh made the closest thing Will had seen to a smile since he’d met her. “Daisy and Star.”

Will mirrored the expression. “You let Peter name them.”

Chiyoh nodded. She held Will’s mount’s bridle while he swung himself into the saddle without excessive clumsiness, while Hannibal mounted with the grace Will had come to expect. They set off through the front gates. Will hadn’t been back down this main road since the night he’d arrived at Castle Lecter. The scenery was breathtaking – Will hadn’t understood the full extent of its majesty, the soaring mountain range skirted by sweeping emerald valleys and swaths of mighty woods now in full foliage. 

“The night I came it was snowing,” Will recalled. “And so dark. I had no idea. It’s…” He shook his head in a mix of wonderment and disbelief. “I keep telling you, you’re going to miss this place.”

“Undoubtedly,” Hannibal said. “These lands will always be part of me, even if I am far away from them. I will carry them with me to London. With ancient, deep connection comes obligation. Stewardship. But the world is changing, Will, faster each day. It’s best for my family and my people that I bring the Lecter name into the modern era.” He swept his princely gaze over the vista that opened before them. “I know I’ll return here in time. I’ll be called home.” 

They turned off the road to follow a much rougher path that sloped down for a quarter of a mile or so before leveling out. “Do you think you’ll ever return to America?” Hannibal asked him now as the canopy of trees stretched overhead, the leaves clasping hands over the trail. “To the swamps of your youth?”

Will sighed. “I… don’t know. Maybe. Louisiana… doesn’t feel like it belongs to me. Not the way your home belongs to you.” 

“Perhaps, Will, home for you is meant to be a place of your choosing.” 

Will glanced over at him to respond, but his voice lingered in his lungs, unwilling to interrupt the moment. The afternoon sun had absorbed a delicious gold-bronze, filtering through the trees, casting dappled shade on the count’s aristocratic countenance, the curve of his proud lips and the striking cast of his bone structure, the way his steely hair ruffled in the breeze, the slightest hint of natural texture brushing over the back of his high collar. Will’s heart was spilling suddenly, overflowing. 

“More like the person…” Will began before trailing off, shying away from the threat of vulnerability. He cleared his throat awkwardly only to catch Hannibal’s secret smile out of the corner of his eye. 

They arrived at their destination, and Hannibal had not been exaggerating when he’d said it was beautiful. Tucked in a little emerald valley, surrounded by small trees, was a pool of clear water edged by pale rocks. Will thought the arrangement of the stones looked deliberate, as if someone had arranged them around the pool to reinforce the sides. The water within had to be spring-fed, and Will swore for a second he saw tendrils of mist curling up from the surface. 

Hannibal dismounted, then held Konoshita’s bridle as Will managed to get down from the tall animal’s back. Will looked around for a tree to tie off the reins, but Hannibal had tucked his back up and allowed Matsukaze to roam untethered. Will shrugged and did the same with his mount.  

“Beautiful,” Will said, surveying the scene. 

He turned back and Hannibal was looking directly at him. Particularly, his backside. “I was thinking the same.”

Will exhaled a short laugh. “Seriously, though. You’re going to trade all of this for factory soot and rain and pea-soup fog, a-a dirty river known for being just, ah… full of trash and dead bodies?” 

“I have so many memories here,” Hannibal told him, stepping closer and linking their hands together. “And that can be both a treasure and a crushing weight. I want to make new ones. I want to be somewhere in the world where I do not know every inch of land. Where I don’t see the past around every corner.” He exhaled slowly, taking a long look at the picturesque valley around them. “I am here, but others are gone, and I feel their silence like a draft.” 

Will hummed, looking at his feet, working on his courage. “You don’t talk about him,” he ventured softly. “Y-your husband, I mean. You can. If you want to. If you think it-it bothers me… i-it doesn’t. I know it’s not the same, but I never had anyone to talk to about Mary Kelly and… my guilt got twisted up in me, curled around like a… parasite.”

“When I was a younger man, I found the idea of death comforting. The thought that my life could end at any moment freed me to fully appreciate the beauty and art and horror of everything this world has to offer. After death, of course, came Heaven, or so I’d always been told. Joining God in His kingdom was a reward, of course, but more importantly, I would be with those I loved once more. But then I was told my husband would not be there waiting for me.” Hannibal took Will’s hand and they sat on a nearby boulder, flat like a bench seat overlooking the pool. “If I have refrained from speaking of him it’s because I worry you’ll think I’m comparing.”

Will nodded as if he understood, was perfectly calm about the situation, which was absolutely untrue. He didn’t know what to feel, except that he didn’t want to be compared. He knew he’d fall short. Broken. 

“I think many labor under the assumption that each of us has only one great love in their lifetime. Your Queen Victoria has certainly propagated the notion.” Hannibal reached out very slowly and stroked Will’s cheek with the back of his knuckles. “I don’t believe that anymore.”

Will closed his eyes, opened them, then turned to Hannibal, who began to play with his hair, brushing it behind his ear. “I don’t know what I believe,” he said, “but I know I want to be with you.”

“And I want you, Will,” Hannibal murmured, sliding the back of his knuckles down Will’s cheek, thumbing his bottom lip open just slightly. “Do you believe me?” He leaned in for a gentle kiss, his hand tracing down to Will’s neck, where he was sure to feel the insane pulse that thundered through his veins. “I hope we understand one another.” 

“You haven’t seen London yet,” he said quietly. “Lots of people there. T-to choose from.”

“Do you think me inconstant in my affections?” Hannibal questioned, dropping his hand and leaning back. “Have I given you reason to doubt me?”

Will hesitated but forged ahead. “Antony said you got… tired of him.”

“When did this conversation occur?”      

Will opened his mouth to answer, because of course he knew the answer. 

Nothing.

He couldn’t answer because… he didn’t know. Closed his mouth. Tiny fragments like grains of sand swirled across his mind’s eye. He’d been afraid of Antony at that moment, and extraordinarily angry. But the mortal fear… where had that come from? When he tried to picture them, where they’d been having this conversation, the disturbingly familiar headache pinched the nerves behind his eyes, making him wince. 

Something had happened. He couldn’t remember it all, but he’d written it in his journal the first day he’d been lucid. 

Antony confronted me somehow. But he kissed me. Writing it out makes it seem even more ridiculous. I don’t understand it. 

“I don’t remember,” he had to admit.

“Did it happen before you took ill?”

“… I don’t know,” Will murmured. 

“Will,” Hannibal said softly, the hand of ivory sneaking out to stroke the warm neck before him. “Dreams often manifest the things that frighten us. They attempt to prepare us for waking life.”

“It… doesn’t feel like I dreamed it,” Will said tiredly, rubbing his eyes. “But… I, ah… can’t say it happened either, can I?”

Hannibal reached out with the other hand and took Will by the wrist. “You don’t have to concern yourself,” he said. “I’ve had other relationships, as I’m sure you have. But those connections were not meant to last. They were not you.”

Though his body quivered for more than this soft, reassuring touch, Will resolved to stay focused. There were more fragments coming together, forming images that he swore were memories, not scraps of nightmares. 

Blood. Everywhere. 

A head rolling along a floor, leaving a trail of crimson in its wake. 

The horizon darkened as Hannibal leaned in, one hand on his neck, the other around his wrist, pressing his lips gently on Will’s. “You don’t have to be afraid of losing me,” he said in between kisses. 

“It's not that,” Will said quickly. He pulled his mouth away reluctantly when Hannibal tried to kiss him again. “I mean, it is, but that’s not… I’m having…”

Will tried to stand up and found he couldn’t. Hannibal’s white fingers were clamped around his wrist like steel, though they eased a few moments after Will began to pull. He remained seated. “Where is Antony?” He blurted the question. “I-I haven’t seen him since…” The image of Antony crawling down the wall of the castle in lizard fashion wormed into his mind. Will’s pulse was suddenly racing. 

“I wasn’t aware the two of you had spoken privately,” Hannibal said.  

Will rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m… not… certain we did.” He exhaled, a rough sound of frustration, shaking his head. “I’m, uh…” Another breath, trying to steady his jangling nerves, the sharp spike of anxiety that seemed to accompany the moments he had to admit he hadn’t been grounded in reality. “Either way, whether we did or didn’t, I think he and I… and maybe Bedelia… oughta talk. I know we’ll be leaving, and they’re not coming with us, but we might as well attempt to be adults about this whole situation. Bury the hatchet.” 

A smile of deep amusement graced Hannibal’s features. “I’ve always enjoyed that particular idiom,” he said. 

“What do you think? I don’t want to leave things…” Will shrugged. “Let’s make peace before we leave. Clean break.”

“That’s very generous of you, Will.” Hannibal reached up with graceful hand and passed it through his steely hair. The intermittent silver strands glimmered there like frost. “Unfortunately, Antony is gone.”

“He left?” Will’s eyes widened. “You said he wouldn’t leave. He can’t support himself – he’ll just come back asking for money.”

“I don’t think he’s coming back this time,” Hannibal said.

“Why not?”

“We had an argument, and he threatened you. Lost his head over it,” Hannibal said, thumb stroking Will’s wrist. “You don’t need to concern yourself with him anymore, Will. He was a mistake and continuing to support him was my way of paying for it.” 

“When did this happen?” Will asked.

“You were ill,” Hannibal told him. “Do you remember hearing our row?”

“I don’t know,” Will growled, wiping perspiration from his forehead. "Memories, dreams, hallucinations… it’s all… twisted up. I’m getting tired of being a crazy son of a bitch.”

“Will.” Hannibal let go of his wrist and rested his hand flat on Will’s back, just below the base of his neck. “Please be gentle with yourself. I understand the lost time and the blurred lines of perception must be infinitely frustrating.” He paused, and Will felt a betraying heat rise to his face, a stirring between his legs. He looked down, away from Hannibal’s earnest gaze, taking in the details of the pool instead. 

“What are you so afraid of?” Hannibal asked softly. He reached out and gently tilted Will’s chin back up to look him in the eye. 

Will took a breath. “I fear not knowing who I am,” he said bluntly.

“I know who you are.”

“I know,” Will said. “I guess I misspoke. I’m afraid of myself. I can’t explain it further than that.”

“Let me make this very simple for you.” Hannibal stretched out a hand. After a long moment, Will took it, surprised again at its cool velvety texture. “You are beautiful. You are fascinating. I feel a connection to you that I haven’t felt towards another person in years. It is a connection I cannot fully explain, but there it is.” He paused. “I want more of you, if you’ll have me. And no matter what Antony did or didn’t say, I hope that you believe what I’m saying to you now.”

Will was quiet a long time, his mind an ocean of white noise. Finally, he said, “I believe you.”

“Good.” Hannibal guided Will to his feet and pushed his jacket from his shoulders, laying it neatly on the rock seat, then removed his own and placed it nearby. 

He started on Will’s shirt buttons and was halfway down before Will let a nervous little laugh escape. “Uhm, what are you…?”

“We’re going swimming.”

He untucked Will’s shirt from his trousers, but Will instinctively chased his hands away, looking around. “We’re outside,” he said.

“Yes.” Hannibal unlaced his own shirt and pulled it over his head. 

“Anybody might come along.”

“Doubtful, but they might, yes.” Hannibal sat on the rock again to unlace his boots. 

Will was frozen for a few moments, torn between hammered-in bodily shame and enjoying the show he was being treated to. “It’s, ah… not that warm out.” This high up in the mountains, and with the tree cover, swimming in a mountain spring likely fed by snowmelt was going to be brisk, at best. 

“Do you trust me?” Hannibal asked, pushing down his trousers without hesitation. Will’s eyes were immediately drawn down, but he quickly made eye contact again, trying not to stare. He caught a subtle smile on Hannibal’s face. 

Will found himself mirroring the expression. He plopped down on the rock and took off his boots. Hannibal strode over to the smooth stones at the edge of the pool and stepped over them, extending one long, shapely leg, and lowered himself into the water. He held out a hand to help Will do the same. 

Will braced himself, expecting it to be cold – his nipples were already hard, for a multitude of reasons – but the water was deliciously warm, warmer than the baths he’d enjoyed at the castle. “This is a miracle,” he said through a breathy laugh. 

“The water comes from deep underground,” Hannibal flashed another self-satisfied half-smile as Will inhaled sharply, then let it out slowly at the sudden change in temperature. “It’s rich in mineral deposits, which, of course, makes the local people believe it has healing properties. Indeed, it does encourage wounds to heal faster. I thought it might do you some good.”

Will slowly lowered himself into the water, which was crystal clear and wonderfully warm. The bottom of the pool was made of smooth pebbles, but someone had submerged several larger rocks into it where a person could sit and rest their back against the edge. It was big enough for four to set knee to knee, submerged to the neck. “Shit, that feels good,” he sighed, reclining back and closing his eyes. 

Hannibal murmured an assent, trailing his fingers through the water in gentle strokes, rippling the surface. “The bareness of your body should not make you feel so exposed. Man’s religions have twisted what is natural and made it shameful. I assume the Anglicans taught you to feel ashamed?” 

Will nodded, leaning back against the stones with a little sigh. “Everyone’s… Transylvania is not England. Piano legs, remember?”

“How scandalous. Limbs, please, Will.” They shared a laugh. Will suppressed a shiver, despite being up to his neck in hot water. The way Hannibal was looking at him was more than scandalous, his sensual lips and expressive eyes communicating pure sex.         Will was suddenly boiling in the calm waters swirling around them, the heat leaching the stress from his body while simultaneously driving his desire. And a strange craving, one that was familiar yet terrifying. The desire to lose control. To submit utterly. 

Will sighed, feeling his body relax a few fibers further, felt the rush of wanting and letting it come. 

“Come here.”

Will obeyed instantly, and let Hannibal draw him onto his lap, one leg on either side. The count circled the small of his back and caressed his thigh. Will trustingly put his arms around Hannibal’s neck, and he couldn't suppress a tremor at the touch of that cool flesh, so unyielding, yet smooth.  

“Will,” Hannibal murmured. His right hand left the water with the slightest ripple and crept along Will’s cheek, around the corner of his jaw, thumb stroking his lower lip. “It means a great deal to me that you wanted to make peace with my household.”

How dare you touch him?

Will startled violently as the fragments coalesced suddenly, individual shards mending themselves in his mind. Hannibal tearing Antony away from Will by the neck. Relief morphing into horror. 

“Will?”

“Hmm?” Will clamped his mouth shut and mentally shoved the memory-vision away. Couldn’t have happened. Antony couldn’t have gotten up so quickly after being thrown into the wall like that. 

“Will. Just look at me.”

Will fixed his gaze intently as Hannibal lifted his chin gently with his marble hand, as if examining him for the first time. Will’s skin crawled at his touch and something inside him seemed to rend and tear and he jerked his head back suddenly out of Hannibal’s grasp, tried to move away. 

“What’s the matter?” Hannibal caressed him again, and this time Will leaned into his hand with a small sound that was a cross between pleasure and a plea for help. He put his hand over Hannibal’s and pressed his lips to the stony palm. 

 How dare you cast eyes on him when I had forbidden it?

“It’s happening right now. Remembering… things that didn’t happen. Couldn’t have happened.” Will kissed his hand again, but a great tremor passed through his body, and a tear slipped from either eye.

“You’re safe.” Hannibal ran his hands through Will’s hair and kissed his damp forehead, lips warm for once, though Will was the only one flushed from sitting in the water. That, and the growing tide of desire.

Hannibal drew him closer still, and leaned forward with patient slowness, giving Will time to move away or refuse. At last, he put his lips on Will’s, moved them, and accepted Will’s warm tongue into his cool mouth. Will’s fingers crept up his throat and splayed out over the side of his face. Hannibal gripped the back of Will’s neck on a sudden desperate caress, and then severed their kiss. “This is real. I promise.”

Hannibal kissed him again, desperately, crushing their bodies together, moving his lips down the supple, heated flesh of Will’s neck, his shoulder. Will let himself slide into a place of total sensation, the warmth and pleasure of the water and the growing need his cock demanded. He let the rest go. He let his mind dim, and the sound of his heartbeat consumed him, footsteps fleeing into darkness, no past, no future, no vision, only the dulcet darkness behind his eyes. And Hannibal. 

Hannibal was holding them both in his hand under the water and moving his hips as he could with Will sitting on his lap. Will adjusted his grip on Hannibal’s back and began to thrust in earnest, Hannibal tipped his head back and let Will take control of the movement until they climaxed within moments of one another. 

When their breathing had slowed and the tremors evened out, Hannibal gathered Will’s head in his hands for a kiss. Just before he closed his eyes and leaned in, Will saw a memory-face transposed over the living one in front of him. 

Hannibal’s chin and mouth smeared with blood; mouth full of feral fangs. 

“Will,” the count murmured softly after the kiss broke. “Are you all right?”

Will tried to smile. It felt like it was going to split his jaw from his face. “Yes,” he lied.

Chapter Text

Will has been studying reincarnation. 

It began with the requisite religions: Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, the Gnostic texts. We discussed karma, what we might have done in our previous lives to earn our current situations. I entertained his theories, though I certainly do not share them. If the forces of Karma existed, Will should not be here. 400 years of murder as an inhuman monster should not have earned me Iliya’s return. The concept is simply another way to reinforce prosocial behavior that benefits society at large. A magical means of exerting control over the uneducated masses. Spiritual blackmail, like the concepts of Heaven and Hell. 

Yet, the concept that a person’s soul could be reborn again in another body – I have living proof here, right in front of me. And his sudden interest in the subject makes me think Will is beginning to suspect – to entertain the idea that he lived a past life. With me. 

I know he read some of Iliya’s letters, saw the portrait. I had to take those memories from him. Yet there were things that came to him before that night in my old chambers. Even as Will battled the resurgence of his Ripper and the shadows of the mad doctor’s victims, he was given happy dreams and visions of an alternate world where he and I were in love. That alternate world was the past. He remembers being Iliya, to some extent.

He knew Mischa’s name. He knew how to open the secret latch on our door. 

I want to take him back to the chamber I once shared with my husband. Show him the box and our bed and the portrait and make him remember. Let Iliya and Will collide, coalesce, my love fully returned to me at last, reforged for this modern world. But giving in to this temptation risks dire consequences. Will’s mesmerism continues to erode. And as the lines between memory, hallucination, past life, and reality continue to blur, his health suffers. 

Last night he tried to sleepwalk again. Luckily, we were in bed together and I simply held him until he settled once more, sweating and muttering before finally drifting off again. Once he’d returned to natural sleep, I let my tears overtake me. I am at an impasse. It seems the truth is unavoidable, but the shock to his already delicate body may bring him to death’s door again. And then I will have to make him a vampire. But it is not time. 

Once I have ridden my despair for a while, I plan. I resolve to reveal the truth to him in increments. 

First, let him know that he is my beloved, returned to me from the great beyond. That bond must hold us together when the rest of the truth comes out. Once he is wholly certain that he loves me, and that I have loved him for 400 years, the rest will be of little consequence. 

I feed his interest in past lives and reincarnation. I bring him books from the occult library I keep in the catacombs beneath the chapel, my secret shelves full of books of witchcraft, ghosts, alchemy, demonology. I have several recently published spiritualist monographs on the subject, and he devours them. Saturating himself in this literature sets the stage perfectly for me. I only need to wait for the right moment. 

It never seems to come. I’m neck-deep in preparations for the relocation to London – things that were set in motion before Will showed signs of a relapse. Abigail is a constant presence. Will’s headaches carve out large portions of the day, and when he is feeling well, he’s focused on his research. The only time I seem to have his full attention is when I do things like toss his book aside and open his trousers right there in the library to slide his cock into my mouth. 

All right, then, the perfect time will never come, and I should simply broach the subject or tie him to a chair until he listens to me. 

I hesitate because I am afraid. I loathe this weakness. But if I reveal everything to him about his previous life and he doesn’t love me…?

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. 

Will sleeps fitfully every night now. He runs intermittent fevers, tries to sleepwalk, murmurs and thrashes and dreams. I will say that when he does wake, realizes he’s been dreaming and sees me there, I do love how he clings to me. His kisses of relief are some of the sweetest I’ve ever tasted. And his fever-scent is back, which makes it even harder to resist him. 

I ask him to tell me his dreams like Iliya used to. He says they are only fragments that he doesn’t understand. Sometimes he dreams of us making love, and I am more than happy on those nights to make his dreams come true. Though I do wonder what he really sees behind his eyes – does he remember encounters I had with Iliya, or is he recalling the night I used him while he was pliable and compliant in the wake of mesmerism? 

I shouldn’t have touched him then. I know that now. My weakness for him made the situation unnecessarily more complicated than it already was. 

I sincerely wish I could have had the time to torture Antony in a leisurely fashion before killing him. The axe to the neck was too quick. He deserved far more agony for all the trouble he caused cornering Will that day. 

And Antony Dimmond’s stubborn phantom continues to haunt us. 

Tonight, Will is dreaming, more violently than usual. His arm flails out involuntarily, slapping against my chest as his breaths become ragged with terror. I try to hold him, but he fights me, clawing at my face until I pin him down. It takes everything I have not to shake him awake. Instead, though I am restraining him, I murmur soft promises that he is safe, begging him so gently to wake up. 

At last, he does, his eyes flying open with a sharp gasp. He looks at me without recognition until my identity breaks through the fog of his nightmare. For a moment, he looks relieved. Then the fear creeps back into his features. 

“Let go,” he says, a hoarse whisper.

I comply immediately. He sits up in bed, rubbing his face with shaking hands, beads of sweat catching the moonlight that streams in through the open window. I watch him stumble to his feet and come to a halt at the casement, steadying himself against it, his bare body heaving with his labored breaths. I want to go to him, but I don’t dare move. The moment feels like a honed blade. 

At last, he turns back to me, dragging his forearm over his forehead. “Where’s Antony?” he demands. 

I prop myself up on my elbow and look at him. “He’s gone,” I say patiently despite the riot clamoring in my heart. “Why?” It’s in Will’s nature to crave approval, despite any outward prickliness; I can use that to my advantage. “Do you miss him, Will?” I give the words a subtle flair of jealousy.

“What-? No!” He pours himself a glass of water from the pitcher on the table and bolts it down, then rubs his mouth. “I keep… having this dream. A-a dream that’s not a dream, a dream that feels like a memory. W-where you kill Antony.”

“Do these dreams also feature your old friend Jack the Ripper?”

“Haven’t seen him since I got through the worst of the fever,” Will says, going over to the washstand to wet a cloth and run it over his face. I am momentarily distracted by the beads of moisture that run down his neck and chest.

“Did this murder take place in the alternate life you’ve experienced in liminal states?” 

“No,” Will insists. “N-no, that’s different – those dreams feel… like memories, too, but from a long time ago. No, this-this…” He trails off in a moment of realization. He knows how crazy he sounds. The visions he has are extremely difficult to categorize, I’m sure. 

“I just need to know if it’s real. I need to know. I need you to tell me.” He leans against the washstand, burying his head in his hands. I feel a sensation of severing – that he is pulling away from me. It sears me like a physical burn. I want him. All of him, his body, his love, his mind washed clean of doubt and overflowing with acceptance. I want him to love me for who and what I am, not in spite of it. I want him to choose me. I have no outlet for this, and the power of my feeling can do nothing but further injure our bond at this moment. 

Another thought: I could take him by force.

But it twists in my gut and tastes unpleasant in my mind. After so many years of numb existence that even murder cannot breathe life into, I’ve found Will. He is my window to the light. His life and his presence in mine are a sacrament. I’ve told myself time and again that Will is mine and he has no choice in the matter, though it would be far more fulfilling to have him choose me willingly. Now I doubt my conviction. Now I feel as though if he runs from me, I will have no choice but to let him go and die of my broken heart. 

In the interim, his agitation has melted into despair, the sorrow wrought from living with a mind that is intermittent chaos. He sets down his cloth and looks at me with wet eyes, the pain evident in his face. I want to make it go away. 

“Will,” I say, getting out of bed. “I will always protect you.” 

There is a thick silence. I approach him slowly, my posture and face soft and gentle. Will faces me directly, hips against the washstand. I reach for him with that same slowness. I want to give him time to refuse, to pull away. He does not move, but I can hear his breath quicken. The loveliest color comes to his lips as they part, showing me the slice of his teeth and the warm tongue within. 

I touch his face, let my cool fingers linger on his feverish cheek, then stroke his chestnut hair back along his forehead. “Don’t be afraid,” I beg him softly, “of me, or of yourself.”

“Not sure I trust… either of us anymore,” Will admits, and it slashes my heart like he’d taken his straight razor to it. Yet he reaches for me and puts his hands on my hips. I can feel his fingers trembling. I am entranced by the way the light illuminates the side of his face, making his pale iris on that side nearly white. 

“The only thing I fear is losing you,” I say, raw and honest like an exposed nerve. I try to keep my voice quiet and steady, but I am suddenly flooded by my blood thirst and viper-like desire snakes through me. Gently, go gently. 

“I… hate that I… asked, that I’m doubting…” Will is a mess of indecision and pain, his eyes fever bright. I trace my fingers along his throat, touching the shadows of love bruises. He is responding to my touch; if he feels his body is betraying him, he makes no indication. 

“Do you want me to leave?” Calculated risk. 

“No,” he breathes.

“Come with me.” I take him by the shoulders and bring him back to bed. We stand at its edge, facing one another, our skin glowing in the moonlight. I slip off my last garment and when I straighten my spine, he already has his hand extended to touch me. I go still and wait to see what he will do. 

His warm, trembling fingers touch the side of my face gingerly, then my hair, as if testing its texture. “You feel real,” he whispers. “And I… what I feel for you is real.”

“Trust your senses,” I encourage him, using a vast amount of willpower to keep my hands only resting on his shoulders. His neck is crying out for me. I can hear his pulse beneath that fever-sweet flesh. I want to own him, love him, eat him, fuck him, tear him open as easily as he rips me apart.

He winds his fingers around the back of my neck. “You’re so beautiful,” he says, and the sudden naked honesty disarms me entirely. It cracks my sense of myself like a hammer against old plaster, revealing the bone structure of lathe underneath. I am not in control of this moment or any other. Everything hinges on Will. All of existence. 

“In the d… in the vision, y-you looked beautiful even covered in blood. Even as you were killing him.” A tear slips from one of Will’s eyes. 

I forget to be careful. I take him by the waist and press into him. He puts up his hands to keep us apart, a startle reaction. Perhaps.

“I won’t hurt you,” I find myself promising. 

Will relaxes into my embrace, as if compelled, no choice in the matter. But I am not mesmerizing him. Not even the gentlest touch with my mind; I wouldn’t dare, especially at this moment. Something else drives Will into my arms. He draws me closer by his warm hands on my hip and the back of my neck, bringing our lips closer together. “What if I want you to?” he breathes against my mouth. I can feel the desperate recklessness that threads through his words, the string holding together the pearls. 

“Whatever you wish,” I say just before our kiss connects, feverish and fraught with fear and passion. I lift him by the hips and push him down on the bed. We break our mouths apart for a few moments, adjusting our positions, then come back together, a sweet return. I wedge my thigh between his legs, feeling his mounting desire, then scoop him into an embrace, bathed in his incredible warmth. I cannot stop myself from caressing as many inches of exposed skin as I can find.

Will tenses beneath me as if to reverse our positions, but there will be none of that. I press his wrists over his head, crossing them against one another and locking them in place with both of my hands. Leaning into them. Will’s lips curve into a debauched little smile as he begins to resist, at least superficially. I abandon his mouth and kiss his throat over and over, tempting myself and tempting fate and ruin, finding a delicious place in the hollow where his clavicles meet. 

I constrict my hold tighter, tighter still as he continues to play at escape. But perhaps it isn’t playing so much as it is a test. “Still don’t understand how you’re so bloody strong,” Will manages through his labored breathing, a current of unease beneath his evident desire like an underground water source. 

I ease up immediately, then re-establish my grip when he pants, “Don’t stop.”

I smile, trying not to show my teeth. My fangs are threatening to extend any second. 

Will tips his head back with a long exhale as I shift to hold him one handed. He almost gets free before I close my grip again. His struggling excites me to an ultimately dangerous degree. I wrap my hand around his cock and move it, now in coordination with his hips as they rise in desperation. Will gasps and arches his back, pushing himself through my hand and against my grip on his wrists in tandem. As his pleasure mounts, I can’t stop staring at the smooth flesh of his neck. I read it like a map, examining every muscle and tendon, every dark vein beneath his pale skin.

I can’t stop what has begun, but I have the wherewithal to obfuscate. It takes fractions of a second to turn Will over on his knees, still stimulating him, my other hand locked on the back of his neck holding him down. I rut against him, rocking him forward through my hand while at the same time pushing my cock into his crevice where I can thrust along the base of his groin. 

I’m desperate to taste him, more than the tiny hints of blood from shallow scratches. I want to taste him like I did when he cut himself shaving, the full spread of blood on my tongue. I kiss his back, pass my teeth harmlessly over it, watching his hands knit into fists full of pillow and blanket. I slide my arm under his and clutch his chest, hold him to me, still thrusting. Will fucks into my grip, damp with sweet and saturating the air with his sugared fever scent. 

My tongue finds the scar just above his shoulder blade, tastes the knotted tissue there. He’s never told me where it came from. I moisten the spot, delighting in the moan it coaxes from him, and I bite down. 

Hard. With my human teeth, yes, but I feel my fangs descend and it is a living miracle that I don’t let them penetrate as deeply as they can. They retract back into my upper jaw as I close my mouth over the superficial but openly bleeding wound. Will makes an exquisite sound, a combination of anguish and pleasure. I let his blood spread over my tongue with delicious copper heat, the essence of his life, of life itself given by a God so cruel and blissfully generous. He tastes even better with a fever and I press my tongue over the wound, close my lips again, and suck, bringing more blood to the surface. 

“Let me go,” Will demands through his labored breaths.

“Do you want me to stop?” I ask, praying for the answer I want.

“No, I want to touch you. Let me go.”

I smile and I am sure to lick all the blood from my lips before I consider his request. I snake my fingers into his hair and pull hard enough to bring a sharp sound from his throat, then release him. He turns on his back, ignoring the half-moon wound that is leaving dots of blood on the blankets, and pulls me to him. He’s as ravenous as I feel, taking me by the back of my head and the rise just below my hips to press our bodies tightly together. If I breathed, the air would be forced from my lungs. My skin is on fire from his burning flesh, and I want to be consumed by his human warmth. The sensation of being wanted is utterly intoxicating.

“Why are you always cold?” Will questions me now even as we move together in a desperate frottage. His question should be unwelcome, but his face now, gazing up at me with hooded, loving eyes, his petal lips parted, he sounds as if he is marveling at the sensation, enjoying it. 

“I need you, Will. I need you – to keep me warm…” 

And he gives me more warmth, climaxing and gifting me with his emission, hot and vital and perfect, and it makes me orgasm. We are a call-and-response song. 

And the last verse has ended, we are in the space between notes, we are a measure of rest. 

I hold him against my chest, curving my body around his, looking at the bite mark on his shoulder next to the scar. I tip my head forward to kiss them both, fingering the knot of scar for a moment. 

Will answers my unspoken question. “Mary Kelly’s brother stabbed me,” he half-whispers, his voice syrupy with satisfaction and exhaustion. “When I came to tell them the news. ‘Cause I got her killed. ‘Cause I was reckless with her life.”

He’s shivering now. I pull the blankets around him and try not to steal his heat. 

“‘N I had my revolver… came at me and I pulled it ‘n… I couldn’t… I couldn’t shoot him.”

“You let him stab you,” I murmur against the damp curls at the back of his neck. 

Will nods. “I deserved it,” he whispers. 

“He could have killed you.”

“I deserved it,” he repeats. 

“Will,” I say. 

No response. He is asleep. Deeply. He barely moves until it is almost dawn. Doesn’t wake when I clean him up and wrap him in a dressing gown and tuck him back beneath the sheets. Avigeya – Abigail – comes to relieve me. I am dressed, sitting at the table, as if I have merely been watching over him as he sleeps. I know she knows better – she’s a clever thing – but she keeps her secrets as I keep hers. 

When I am able to rise again from my crypt, I go to Will immediately. Abigail is there, thumbing through her magazines and advertisements, making her lists for when we arrive in London, and what can be done before our departure. Already I have taken her measurements and sent those along to one of the finest dressmakers in London and sent my own to a similarly well-respected assortment of tailors. My agents have begun the renovations of Carfax. Soon it will be time to move the earth. 

“He’s still asleep,” she says.

“Has he eaten?”

She shakes her head. “I managed to get him to drink two cups of water, but that took some doing.” She pauses. “He’s getting worse again.”

“Don’t worry,” I tell her with a wooden smile. “It is a minimal relapse. We were in such a rush for him to resume normal activities that we’ve overwhelmed his body again. I know you’re excited for London, but we have to be patient.” 

“I will be,” she vows, though I see her eyes dance over to her pile of fashion pictures for a moment. Her allegiance is to me, not to Will, though he’s none the wiser. I know she enjoys his company, but I am more her father. She and I are cut from the same bloody cloth. But when Will accepts me for who and what I am, he will certainly extend Abigail the same grace. 

We could be a family.

My heart is a stone sinking in dark waters. I’m foolishly far ahead of myself with these fanciful imaginings. 

“Go on to your other duties,” I instruct. “Come back in an hour and bring some food. I’ll see if I can wake him long enough to eat it.” Nodding, she leaves, locking the door behind herself again.

I partially undress, sliding off my coat and boots, and crack open the window to let in the mellow afternoon air and a little bit more sun. “Will,” I croon softly, sliding onto the bed next to him. “Wake up.”

He is slicked with sweat, pale and dreaming. I can hear his hitched breaths, the puffs of air escaping his lips like frightened rabbits bolting for their warren. “Will,” I try again, touching his face, kissing him, gently rubbing his arm before turning him over on his back. Kissing his face, his slackened lips, brushing back his damp hair. “Will. Wake up. Wake up. I need you to wake up.”

Please. 

He must wake up.

Tears find their way out from beneath his closed eyelids, making gossamer dew on his lashes. I realize his heaving breaths are sleep-suppressed sobs. Whatever he is dreaming of is breaking his heart.

“Will,” I beg.

At last, his eyes flutter and he opens them. They’re bloodshot. He looks at me, sucks in a hitching breath.

“You’re awake,” I promise him. 

He doesn’t speak. I get up and bring him some water. He sits up on his elbow and drinks it, accepts my handkerchief, mopping his eyes and his forehead, then climbs reflexively into my arms. I hold him tightly as if he might disappear or spill away from me, his head tucked under my chin. “I had a dream that wasn’t a dream,” he says, his voice groggy and rough. “Another dream that… w-wasn’t.” 

I internally recoil. I fear what he will say next. 

“I remembered – I saw – the day the Blooms found me in N-New Orleans,” he says, and I can feel him quivering in my arms, shaking as if he suffers extreme cold. Yet the heat that radiates from his body is startling. It feels delicious yet I know how dangerous it is. “M-my mother… she told me to wait for her. She was coming back. At dusk. A-and they tricked me into coming with them and when the sun set a-and I said I needed to go back to the market – b-because m-my mother was coming – they told me she wasn’t coming back, that she’d abandoned me. But she didn’t – she wouldn’t’ve…! I remember her, I remember crying for her.” 

Of all the things he should remember now, after all that’s happened. I’m infinitely relieved. Pleased. It wouldn’t surprise me at all that he was kidnapped by these Bloom people, plucked up from the street because their darling daughter took a fancy to the little boy with the big blue eyes. I’m sure they saw his ragged appearance and assumed he was orphaned, or that no one would miss him. 

I make a solemn promise to myself. The Blooms will pay, and dearly, for what they did to my beloved. My heart aches for that little boy. It also thrums with righteousness. Perhaps now he can knock this Alana down from her undeserved pedestal. 

“I think you may have recovered a repressed memory,” I say, trying to keep the eagerness out of my voice. “I'm sure the Blooms fed you a different narrative. For so long it replaced your real memory. Perhaps it’s true. Does it feel true?”

He nods miserably against my shoulder. 

“I’m sorry, Will,” I say. “To think, all these years, they were lying to you. Claiming an act of charity when they stole you from your family. Took you halfway around the world only to treat you like a poor relation.”

Will sits up slowly. He turns and puts his hand on my chest, easing me back against the headboard. I don’t understand what he is doing. It feels seductive, but the emotional devastation on his face says otherwise. He sits on my hips. I instinctively lay my hands on his thighs to steady him. He is weak and swaying but his eyes are bright and alert. Twists one hand into the fabric of my shirt and places the other, quivering, against the side of my face, his gaze searing me with bloodshot blue. 

“Why is this one true,” he whispers, a weakly furious hiss, “but the others aren’t?”

“Will—!”

“I’ve had dreams — visions — just like this, l-like memories, like déjà vu all mixed up in my head. You tell me over and over again that I can’t trust my own mind. But this… this one, you tell me to believe. This one y-you tell me might be real.”

Clever boy. Half-dead and plagued with fevered hallucinations, starving and sweating and he sees right through me. Damn his fearsome intellect. 

“If this one could be real, then any of them could be. And you might’ve killed Antony.” His voice is soft and silky and deep with cold anger. He is shaking, another shade paler than a few moments ago. 

With deliberate slowness, I say, “Do you want me to leave?”

A tear slips from either eye. “No,” he says.  “Please… don’t leave me.”

He wavers for part of a second, trying to be brave. Then he collapses on me, clutching me. I cradle him, kissing him, his slackened lips and his face and hair. “I told you to believe that memory about your mother because I want to believe it,” I confess. “Will…”

He is asleep again, a feverish bundle in my arms.

Chapter Text

Will had the sense he was looking in a mirror. But there were no mirrors in Castle Lecter. 

He raised his hand to his hair and touched it, feeling the trembling curls, then passed his fingertips over his cheek. Will dropped his hand to his side, and his reflection did as well. But only after a long second where their movements were not in sync.

This man was him, was Will, and wasn’t. He was dressed in a blue doublet, something from the Henry VIII era perhaps, stitched with gold, paired with dark breeches and high boots. There was a golden ring on his finger. His smile was somehow different too, though Will couldn’t explain how. 

“You and I,” he said, offering Will this beatific smile, “have begun to blur.” 

Will opened his eyes, then immediately closed them. The light shone through his lids, filling his vision with bloody red. It took him a long time to open his eyes and be able to keep them open and accepting of the sun.

Peter sat at the table near the window. Will could hear a few tentative mews; his friend had a basket in his lap and was feeding the kittens. Through the open window, which unfortunately admitted the sun but also the warm fragrance of mountain summer, Will could hear unfamiliar sounds of labor and a multitude of voices. 

He lay for a moment, looking at the ceiling, cudgeling his brains, trying to put memories and visions and thoughts and dreams in order. It hurt. Thinking hurt, and he abandoned it quickly. He was sick again, that much was evident, weak and trembling and feverish. 

“Will,” Peter said, noticing that he was stirring.

“Finish feeding them,” Will said, his voice hoarse like he’d been screaming. “I can wait.” 

Peter settled back in, dipping his dropper in a cup of milk. 

“What’s going on…? Out in the courtyard?” Will asked, pulling himself up higher on the pillows. It felt like a Herculean effort. 

“S-some of the villagers are-are here,” Peter told him, eyes on his work. “Working on the chapel.” 

“The chapel? Why?”

Peter shrugged. “It upsets the animals,” he said. Of course, that would be the extent of his knowledge, and Will didn’t hold it against him. 

The chapel, as far as Will knew, was abandoned. The stained-glass windows were mostly broken, boarded up, some partially intact but not long for the world. The heavy doors looked old and rusted shut. There might be another door, but Will had never been on the other side of the building that faced away from the courtyard. The tower was a rotting skeleton, the bell long gone. He couldn’t see any holes in the roof but the whole building looked forgotten, disused. 

What was in the chapel, and why were villagers working in it now? Repairing it? That made no sense. Unless Hannibal planned to take the bones of his ancestors to London, which also seemed implausible. 

I go to the chapel.

Hannibal’s voice in his head. Of course, Will couldn’t be sure if those words had ever fallen from those aristocratic lips. Reality was a sliding scale. 

He wasn’t permitted to be buried on consecrated ground.

Of course not. Will’s own thoughts intruded. I threw myself in the river, despair overwhelming the threat of Hell.

I threw…

HE threw himself.

The correction didn’t feel right.

When Avigeya relieved Peter, she brought Will some thin corn mush, tea, and broth, hoping, he figured, to get some of it into his stomach. He forced himself to the table to eat, wrapped in the dressing gown and a quilt, so that he could see what was going on in the courtyard. 

There were villagers indeed, setting up a kind of work camp. Will could see them coming and going through the main gate as well as putting up tents and lighting cook fires. He recognized a few faces from their trip to the market that seemed like it was ages ago, when the apple blossoms were in bloom. 

“What are they doing?” he asked Avigeya, who was reading through Hume’s The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar, to the Revolution in 1688. 

“There are some things in the chapel Hannibal wants sent to London,” she said, not looking at him, licking her finger to turn the page. 

“Like what?”

Avigeya shrugged. “Whatever it is, it’s heavy. He hired half the village, and they brought people to cook for them. I guess they’ll be staying awhile.” She smiled at him suddenly, a bright beam. “Look at you! Finished your breakfast.”

Food made him feel a little less shaky and weak. It also gave him a pretext to be alone. “Can I have some more?”

“Of course.” She took his tray and unlocked the door, slipping through and locking it behind herself. 

Will retrieved his journal from its hiding place and wrote furiously in it until he heard her steps in the hall, documenting everything, half-remembered dreams and visions, conversations, all of it in his swift inspector’s shorthand. He managed to hide the book again before she entered, then attempted to eat the rest of the food she’d brought, though he didn’t get far. The secret writing had exhausted him, and he could feel the looming storm of a monstrous headache. 

Avigeya gave him some laudanum and he slept without dreaming. Despair had its own calms.

Sleeping, waking, dreaming. The horrors of the Ripper and his victims were gone now. Instead, he killed Antony in his dreams, cut off his head with an antique weapon. Lowered his mouth to the neck stump and drank the blood. Or he was in the fairytale realm, with Hannibal, hunting and dancing and feasting, fucking, and fighting. Over and over again he killed the highwaymen that had waylaid their caravan in the mountains and turned to Hannibal to see his face of adoring approval. 

When that particular vision melted and he woke, Will was always saturated with gratitude, so happy he could burst. He felt known, seen, and loved because of who he was, not in spite of it. If Hannibal was in bed with him at that moment, he always snuggled closer or kissed him until he was too exhausted to do so, drifting back into dreams. 

Pain. Laudanum. Hannibal holding him close. The key in the lock. Sounds of work outside. 

Morning. Hannibal gone. Avigeya – Abigail – not in the room. Will pried his eyes open by force and lifted himself to sit on the edge of the bed, rubbing his face, trying to ignore the churning nausea of his stomach. He heard a cracking of whips and pounding and scraping of horses’ feet up the rocky path beyond the courtyard. Will managed to get up and stumble over to the window and saw drive into the yard two great leiter-wagons, each drawn by eight sturdy horses, and at the head of each pair a villager, with his wide hat, great nail-studded belt, sheepskin, and high boots. The leiter-wagons contained enormous, rectangular boxes, with handles of thick rope; these were evidently empty by the ease with which the villagers handled them, and by their resonance as they were roughly moved. They were all unloaded and packed in a great heap in one corner of the yard. Will could also hear a far-away muffled sound as of mattock and spade.

The sound of the work and the cheerful voices – Abigail’s among them, as she was down in the courtyard talking to a pair of strapping young lads sweaty with their labors – began to grate on his ears, the pounding throbbing along with his headache. He closed the window and pulled the curtains, then climbed back in bed to suffer until sleep returned. After a time, Avigeya came back, made him drink a bowl of soup, and gave him more laudanum to ease the pain. 

Sleep. 

Will woke again, sweaty and disoriented. He was wet enough that he thought the fever might have broken again. It wasn’t the deluge he’d experienced the first time, but he felt mildly better. There were still voices outside, but the work seemed to have ceased. He was alone in the room. 

Will got up on shaky legs and went to the window, pushing back the curtain. The courtyard was alive with campfires, the villagers enjoying a meal after a long day’s work, drinking and laughing. He saw Hannibal among them, playing host, looking very much like a count in his green jacket with the gold stitching, pristine white shirt peeking out from the high, stiff collar, rings on his fingers. 

Avigeya was there as well, sitting around a fire with young people, a cup in her hand. She had their rapt attention, telling them, perhaps, about her plans to relocate to London, clearly enjoying the attention. 

Will wanted to be with them. Among the living. But he was dizzy from this momentary activity. As the sun disappeared, leaving only a red stain behind, he shambled back to bed and got in, focusing on his breathing and trying to ignore the pain that gathered behind his eyes. Sleep didn’t come. He wanted someone there with him. Hannibal in bed, holding him, making potentially empty promises that he would survive this second bout with his illness. Turning on his back, Will looked at the window. He’d left the curtains open. 

He began to notice that there were some quaint little specks floating in the rays of the moonlight. They were like the tiniest grains of dust, and they whirled round and gathered in clusters in a nebulous sort of way. Will watched them with a sense of soothing, and a sort of calm stole over him. He reclined comfortably in bed so that he could enjoy more fully the aërial gamboling.

Something made him start up, a low, subdued howling of wolves somewhere far below in the valley. Louder it seemed to ring in his ears, and the floating motes of dust took new shapes to the sound as they danced in the moonlight. Will felt himself struggling to awake to some call of his instincts. His soul was writhing in some demonic grip, and his half-remembered sensibilities were striving to answer the call. 

The melting ice feeling in his brain. He knew it now. It was something Hannibal could do, his own ambient pulse, pushing against Will’s mind. It was hypnosis, a kind of mental assault aimed at his senses, thoughts, memories. Quicker and quicker danced the dust; the moonbeams seemed to quiver as they went into the shadows of the darkened bedchamber. More and more they gathered till they seemed to take on a dim, phantom shape. 

Will’s whole body gave a massive twitch, flinging him broad awake and in full possession of his senses, such as they were. The shape, which was gradually materializing from the moonbeams, was that of Bedelia du Maurier.

She spoke. The phantasmal mouth did not move. But he didn’t hear it with his ears. She was in his head.

“It would be so much easier if you would just die.” 

The command echoed through his consciousness, pressing against him like a physical weight. His heart thudded irregularly in his chest and his lungs burned, paralyzed.

For several long moments, staring into her phantom eyes, he couldn’t breathe.

Then Will pushed back. The golden pendulum, instead of bringing him into Bedelia’s point of view, lashed out, a phantasmal slice. The pressure was suddenly gone. His lungs filled with air and his heart regained its strength. 

Instead of being afraid, Will was angry. Maybe this was a hallucination. Probably was. Impossible, the figure of the cold little woman appearing to him as a cloud of dust captured in a beam of moonlight. He didn’t care. “Get out,” he ordered. When she didn’t move, he leaned over and fumbled open a box of matches, lighting the bedside lamp and cranking up the wick, filling the room with as much light as he could.

When he looked back, she was gone. 

He scrabbled weakly beneath the bed ruffle for his journal and tore it open to a fresh page.

No idea what day. 

Bedelia du Maurier is a murderous bitch. And NOT HUMAN. 

Whatever she is, Hannibal is. He made her like him. Chiyoh. They can do impossible things. Antony, too. But I think Antony’s dead. I don’t know what to do. 

He tucked his pencil back in and secreted the journal away once more, snuffing the lamp. If Bedelia wanted him dead she was going to have to do it the old-fashioned way. 

Whatever he’d done, it’d exhausted him, brought on the dull ache behind his eyes that signaled another migraine. He lay there, helpless to the increasing pain and pressure, until Hannibal finally came. The camp outside was quiet, the villagers asleep in their tents, presumably, tired from the day’s labors. Will lay quietly beneath the blankets. He knew better than to try and feign sleep and watched Hannibal as he took off his boots and jacket, poured warm water in the wash basin from the kettle on the fire, and brought Will a fresh nightshirt.

Will allowed Hannibal to help him sit up and lifted his arms dutifully to assist in being stripped. Hannibal used a cloth and some soap, helping him refresh himself before dampening Will’s curls and combing them back against the pillow. Re dressed, Will settled into Hannibal’s arms. They hadn’t spoken. Some weighty silence stretched between them on a taut string, thin as wire. 

“What are you thinking about?” Hannibal asked him as they lay face to face, Hannibal stroking his hair and neck. 

“You,” Will said, and Hannibal leaned in to kiss his damp forehead. “Always you.” He felt drunk in the wake of fending off Bedelia, languid and broken open. This is what it felt like to accept that one was either going mad or living in an impossible world full of dark miracles. Hannibal was one of those dark miracles. Whatever he was, it wasn’t human. Yet a simultaneous truth existed – Will loved him. Even if he’d killed Antony. The empathy pulse told him everything he needed to know about that moment when Hannibal took Antony’s head – it was a righteous kill. He was protecting Will. 

Out of love?

Perhaps this was a gingerbread house and Hannibal was the cannibal witch, fattening Will up to feast on. Cruel to make someone love you only to kill them, but he couldn’t hope to guess the count’s intentions.

If he was going to be dinner, so be it. He loved Hannibal Lecter, had loved him in some way from the first second they’d met, and his voice had seemed so familiar. Loved this place, felt it was home the moment he’d arrived, an impossible affinity.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Hannibal’s hand on his back slid lower, resting just above his pelvic bone, his hand a cold but comforting weight through the thin fabric of the nightshirt. You seem different, Will read in the small frown, the vast darkness of his pupils. 

“Something happened,” Will murmured, his eyes heavy. He dipped them shut briefly to relish the feeling of Hannibal’s hand on his cheek. “But it doesn’t matter. You’re here now.” 

“I’m here,” Hannibal confirmed, sliding his arm behind Will’s head so he could rest against his shoulder, tucked under his chin. Hannibal pressed into him, a solid embrace, then kissed him with a sudden hungry need. It left Will laboring to breathe.

Hannibal gently arranged him again so they were spooning, Will tucked against him. He put his face against the back of Will’s head, the little place where his neck began. Will felt a kind of lunatic calm settle over him. Just before he drifted off to sleep, Hannibal said, “Tell me what happened.”

“Mmm,” Will murmured, “if you tell me why the villagers are here.”

“Quid pro quo?” Hannibal was smiling. Will could feel it against his upper vertebrae. “They’re assisting me in the preparations for departure to London. I have many valuable possessions I need transported to be sold when we arrive, personal effects notwithstanding.” 

“Personal effects? From the chapel?” 

“Yes,” came the simple response. The best lies were simple or silent or both. 

“You said my burdens were your burdens… a-and your burdens w-were mine,” Will said softly into the dark. “But you aren’t sharing them, not really.”

“Then show me how it’s done,” Hannibal countered. Clever. “Tell me what happened.”

Will sighed, then turned in Hannibal’s arms, facing him, watching the moonlight play over his sharp cheekbone. “Bedelia came into my room on a moonbeam and tried to kill me.” His voice was labored, breathy. So tired. His body ached. 

Hannibal went rigid for a moment, his eyes snapping obsidian anger for part of a second before a look of soft benevolence replaced it. He drew Will’s hand to his mouth and kissed it several times, his lips cool like petals. “You have a fever again, Will.”

Will nodded. 

“Please try and rest.” 

Will smiled with half his mouth, too tired for a full grin, closing his eyes as Hannibal stroked his damp hair behind his ear. “This is the part where you tell me I was seeing things.” His voice was barely audible over the low thud of his heart, footsteps fleeing into silence.

Hannibal kissed him softly, kissed his forehead, held him as close as he could. Teeth grazed the warm clean flesh just below his jawline. Another kiss, light as air. “Sleep, beloved,” he said, a distant echo as Will slipped beneath consciousness’s velvet cape. 

Chapter Text

These may be the last words I ever write in this diary, so you’ll forgive me if I get a little prosaic. I slept till just before the dawn. When there was enough light to see, the villagers broke camp, done with whatever it is that Hannibal hired them to do. Now, as I write there is in the passage below a sound of many tramping feet and the crash of weights being set down heavily, doubtless the boxes, with unknown freight inside. There is a sound of hammering; it is the box lids being nailed down. Now I can hear the heavy feet tramping again along the courtyard, with many other idle feet coming behind them. Down the rocky way the roll of heavy wheels, the crack of whips, and the chorus of the villagers as they pass into the distance.

I’m going to try. Today’s as good as any other and if Death comes for me, he’ll find me ready. 

I have to know. I must understand. I’ve already given up on sanity and rationality and self-preservation. 

I need to know who I am. 

Will hid his journal at the first sound of Abigail’s footfalls in the hallway, collapsing back under the blankets and feigning sleep. He listened for the key in the lock but did not move or make any indication he was awake. He heard her come in and set down a tray, then approach him. Pressure on the bed, a hand on his shoulder. “Will?” He didn’t move. She tried again. “Will?”

He moaned piteously and hid his face from the light. 

“I’m sorry,” she apologized quickly, drawing the curtains. “Is it bad today?”

“Abigail,” he rasped, then pretended to drift off again, purposely breathing shallowly and playing up the wheeze in his lungs. 

If his ambient pulse was to be believed, his empathy trusted, she was suddenly spiked with anxiety. “Here, let me get you some water.” She tried to help him sit up. He feigned helping but left her with almost all of his is dead weight. She put the cup to his lips, and he choked, wracking his body with coughs. 

It was early morning; she wouldn’t know what to do, and Hannibal was unavailable. Just as Will had planned. 

“Let me get your medicine,” she suggested, voice tight and thin.

“No more laudanum,” he begged thinly. “It d-doesn’t… it doesn’t do anything…” He coughed again. “The bee lady. Her medicine. That… m-must be w-what… what helped l-last time.” 

“We don’t have any more,” she said, passing her cool hand over his forehead. 

“Please,” he managed before dissolving into another coughing fit. 

“If I hurry, it takes over an hour to get there. Find the woman and come back…?”

He closed his eyes, contorted his face in pain. “It helped last time. My throat…” He coughed weakly. “If it wasn’t… so sore, maybe I could eat more.”

“All right,” she relented. “I’ll tell Peter to come up and sit with you.”

“No, he’s… morning feeding…” Will coughed again, accepting help with drinking and managing not to choke. He took several thankful breaths. “I’m… s-sleep… until you get back.” 

“I’ll go as fast as I can.” She patted his hand and left, locking the door behind her. 

Will waited until her steps retreated down the hall. Then he got out of bed and crept over to the window. His legs were weak, but he was not as incapacitated as he’d led the girl to believe. Peering out, he saw her disappear briefly beneath the arch that would take her to Peter, then re-emerge, hurrying along with her skirts clutched up. 

Will took a couple of bites of corn mash, forcing them down with some tea. He needed his strength. Dressing in trousers, boots, and shirt, he paused and dug around in his satchel. There it was, tucked in the corner of the bag beneath the edge of his legal files. Will slowly lifted the blue-beaded rosary out of the darkness and held it up to the morning light, examining the tiny silver Christ stretched on the cross that dangled from it. 

He didn’t believe in God in the traditional sense. Wasn’t Catholic or Orthodox – according to Prudence Bloom and his Anglican pastors, this little charm was idolatrous. 

“Transylvania is not England,” he murmured. 

Take it! Take it, sweet boy! For your mother’s sake…

And he’d told the innkeeper’s wife that his mother had abandoned him. Well, that wasn’t true. He knew that now, knew it in his bones, though it failed every test of logic, every scrutiny of science. These analytical skills, it seemed, were of no help anymore. Perhaps they never had been. Not in this place where the past and future collided and reality and dreams merged and coiled around one another like the serpents on Hermes’ staff. 

He put the rosary around his neck and tucked it into his shirt. If its protection was only granted to those with true faith, he was in trouble. But if it operated under some other magic, maybe it would help somehow. Anything was possible. If he’d learned anything at Castle Lecter, it was that. 

Next, he retrieved the dinner knife he’d kicked under the bed when Avigeya wasn’t looking, and the strips of metal he’d pried from various hinges and pieces of furniture. He was tired already, but stubbornly opened the blinds to give himself some more light and went about picking the old lock. The things you learned as a bobby that you never thought would come in handy later, he thought. 

He’d learned from a thief he’d caught, a young woman named Georgia. She’d taught him some of the secrets of her trade and he’d let her go in exchange for her knowledge and the names of her higher-ups. It really was too bad she’d had to leave town to avoid their retribution when Scotland Yard took down the housebreaking ring. He’d thought she was pretty, and she’d seemed to genuinely like him, too. 

The lock was sturdy, yes, made of fine materials, but it had been forged in a simpler time. Georgia had said old doors were easiest, and she wasn’t wrong. It only took him a few minutes to pop the lock and open the door. Will slipped his makeshift tools into his trouser pocket and went down to the kitchen. He found himself sneaking, even though there shouldn’t be anyone about – Hannibal, Bedelia, and Chiyoh were… indisposed, whatever it was they did between dawn and around two or three in the afternoon, Peter was most likely in the stable or in his home, and Avigeya had gone to the village. 

He found what he was looking for in the pantry – a kerosene lantern and a box of matches. He stuffed the latter in his pocket and stuck his head out the kitchen door. The ducks and chickens were out, pecking at the cracked stones of the old courtyard, finding morsels of food from when the villagers had been camped there. Peter was nowhere in sight. Good. Will didn’t want to involve him at all or make him feel like he’d been duped or hadn’t done his job keeping Will safe. 

Soon, he was kneeling in front of the old wooden chapel door. It had once been carved, probably with religious designs, but time had worn everything away leaving only vague shapes behind. Still, it was impressive, studded with metal and shaped in a high gothic arch. He knew it opened, because the villagers had gone in and out of it doing whatever work they’d been assigned. He tried the handle. It was locked, but again, old locks were easier to manipulate. 

Will knelt and began his work, sweat gathering on his forehead. The scanty breakfast he’d forced himself to eat churned in his stomach. He was expending too much energy, the headache gathering like a storm cloud behind his eyes, but he had to do this. He’d sent Avigeya; that gambit wouldn’t work twice. It was now or never.

And he had to know. 

The lock opened. 

Will kept his tools with him. There might be more locks on the inside. Surprisingly, the hinges had been recently oiled – probably by the villagers – and he was able to slip inside, shutting the door behind him with a truncated thud. 

The chapel was a ruin, to be sure. The pews were nothing more than piles of splintered wood, barely recognizable. The altar was intact, but there was no crucifix or any adornment. In fact, everything remotely Christian seemed to have been wiped from the place. There were pedestals where saints’ statues might have stood but were long gone; the murals on the walls chipped away to obscure the faces of the Biblical figures and any shape that resembled a cross. 

Will set the lantern on the nearby marble baptismal font, missing its cross-adorned lid, and reached into his pocket for the matches.

The world bled away in front of his eyes, the vague colors of the remaining stained glass draining away until he only saw in grayscale. The headache lifted away, a cloud blown off the moon, just as his vision went dark. Will felt himself stumble back against the door behind him, desperate for something to hold onto now that he was blind.

He blinked rapidly. The color came back, seeping along the scene in front of him like a cloth thrown over a puddle of spilt wine, its fibers slowly filling with plum-red. So much color. 

The windows were whole again, radiant sunlight spilling through them. The altar restored, topped with the carved and painted crucifix, the gentle Christ with his face tilted down toward the congregation. 

Congregation. The pews were full of people, dressed in fairytale finery, doublets stitched with gold and silver, women in flowing gowns. Candles glimmered everywhere, adding to the joyful sunlight, bringing out the rich colors of the murals depicting the Stations of the Cross, tiny flames scattered at the feet of the statues of the saints, illuminating their beatific expressions. He could almost feel their gaze and their blessing on this day he’d been waiting for. 

Will looked down at himself. He was dressed in a soft white tunic and breeches, his boots shined to perfection, a thick leather belt around his waist tooled with silver and gold designs. Clutched in his hands was a bouquet of wild mountain flowers, blue and purple alpine species interspersed with little white blossoms. He could smell their summer sweetness, and the holy incense, the scent of melting wax and his own carefully applied perfumes and oils. 

There was a man at his side with a wide smile and a face red from emotion and the close warmth of the chapel. Will had never seen him before, but also knew him for who he was – his uncle and guardian, Lord Albescu, who had taken him in when his beloved aunt Louisa had died. She who had raised him when he’d lost his parents. She would have loved to see this day.

The pride in his uncle’s eyes was pleasant, to be sure, but Will only cared about one person in the room. The man standing at the altar, waiting for him. Count Hannibal Lecter, also wearing white, flowers pinned to his doublet, hair brushing the back of his high collar. Will couldn’t stop his face from breaking into a wide smile of pure gratitude as his uncle formally escorted him to stand in front of the priest.

Hannibal’s eyes were already wet, and the ceremony hadn’t even begun. The prayers were a dull murmur outside of reality – all Will knew was that he was standing next to his husband, that at last they would be bound in front of God and everyone. 

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness the union between Count Hannibal Lecter and Iliya Nicolae Albescu…

I, Iliya Nicolae Albescu do take you, Hannibal Lecter…

Or should it be I, William James Graham…?

You and I have begun to blur.

The names grew together in his mind, two vines twisting around the same tree until you could not tell one from the other. The Tree of Life. 

For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health…

And even death could not part them, ultimately. 

He lived again. Were they still married?

Do you enter into this contract freely and wholeheartedly, without coercion?

Will thought of Bedelia trying to hypnotize him. Of Hannibal’s eyes, glimmering with some kind of preternatural power. His Hannibal, interposed over this younger version that stood before him now, struggling with his joyful tears, holding Will’s hands in his own. “I don’t know,” Will whispered.

Look into my eyes.

Hannibal spoke. “I promise to love and honor you every day of our lives.” 

Mischa, attired in a well-made but subdued blue gown, stepped forward, handing Hannibal two golden rings, and accepting Will’s flowers from him. Hannibal took Will’s hand in his own and said, “Let this ring be a sign of my love and fidelity in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

Will felt a tear escape, threading down his cheek and lingering a moment before dropping off. He took the other ring and slid it over Hannibal’s finger. “With this ring, I thee wed, and with it, I bestow upon thee all the treasures of my mind, heart, and hands.”

They drew closer, fingers still clasped. Hannibal’s expression was so sweetly vulnerable, and he was so beautiful, so adorably hopeful, that Will felt every fiber of fear or resistance in him melt away. Hannibal put one hand on Will’s cheek, the other twined in his grasp. Will rested his fingers against the small of Hannibal’s back, and drew them closer together. Gently at first, in a shy, almost virginal way, their eyes, blue and auburn-amber, closed, and their lips came together in soft bliss.

Will couldn’t contain the love in his heart. He felt on the edge of implosion at this penultimate moment when they were at last joined in front of God and everyone. 

The sounds of happy applause and joyful shouting and the congratulations of their friends and relatives dimmed, melting together and running off like mountain snow, uncovering the bare earth beneath. What was revealed was a soft, agonized weeping. 

Who was in pain on this day, this beautiful day?

As Will pulled back, looking up at Hannibal, he turned his head, glancing around the glowing chapel, looking for the person who wept so bitterly. As he did, the color and light bled away again.

He was at the altar alone, Hannibal disappearing like a wisp of smoke. Will’s hands fell back to his sides, his embrace suddenly empty. He stumbled and put a palm on the ruined altar to steady himself. 

Iliya Albescu Lecter.

Hannibal’s husband who had committed suicide. The portrait in the West Wing… he remembered it now. The painting that looked just like him. 

He looked down at his left hand, where his wedding band should have been, and was momentarily crushed to find the finger empty. He wanted Hannibal to replace it, this symbol of their vows. Time didn’t matter, the centuries between – they could be together…

The crying started again, then dribbled away. It sounded like a grown man losing his battle with sorrow, chasing his tears away, and then succumbing to them again. 

Antony? Will didn’t think it was Hannibal – he felt he would have known if it was, felt it the same way he’d feel his own sadness. As if they were conjoined. 

Will forced himself to move. The strong light of morning had dimmed – he’d lost time again, who knew how much. He was going to run out of time before he was missed, before the hour when Hannibal might appear. 

He retraced his steps back to the baptismal font near the door and retrieved his lantern, lighting it and giving the chapel a more thorough search. The altar itself held a wash basin, and a man’s toiletries – shaving items, an antique silver comb, stack of cloths and towels. There was also a fine armoire made of cedar against the back wall. Will opened it and found clothing – Hannibal’s and Bedelia’s hanging together neatly. It felt intimate, seeing their things together, and he was powerless to ignore the wave of jealousy that overtook him, a green breaker tumbling over his body. 

An alcove near the altar was barely furnished with odd things; the furniture was something the same style as that in the rest of the castle. There was a woman’s vanity, with a stool but with no mirror, and here Will found hair pins and a brush and a velvet box full of jewelry. Next to this was a bookshelf full of various baskets and boxes covered with cloths or lids.

Will peeked inside, holding up the lantern. He found great heaps of gold—gold of all kinds, Roman, and British, and Austrian, and Hungarian, and Greek and Turkish money, covered with a film of dust, as though it had been here for ages. None of it that Will noticed was less than three hundred years old. There were also chains and ornaments, some jeweled, but all of them old and in need of cleaning.

At one corner of the sanctuary, to the left of the altar, was a heavy door. It was open and led through a stone passage to a circular stairway, which went steeply down. Will paused at the top, lantern raised. Again, he heard the faint echoes of weeping. 

He thought about shutting the door and walking away, leaving all the mystery unknown and undiscovered. Let it be enough. Let himself love Hannibal until death parted them again. No more questions, no more trying to crack the cipher of his dreams, hallucinations, memories. Walk away. 

The cries came again, weakened, pitiful.

Will hesitated. 

Someone needed help. That was enough to tip the scales. He hadn’t gotten there in time to help Mary Kelly. But this time was different. Someone needed help and so he would lean into knowledge and away from happy ignorance. 

Will descended, minding carefully where he went, for the stairs were dark, being only lit by the faint light from the sanctuary door and Will’s lantern. At the bottom there was a dark, tunnel-like passage, through which came a deathly, sickly odor, the odor of old earth newly turned. As he went through the passage the smell grew closer and heavier. At last Will pulled a heavy door which stood ajar the rest of the way open, and found himself in the catacombs, the vault that no doubt held the remains of Lecters long dead. The dripping stone walls were lined with recesses large enough to hold the honored dead, and Will could see dusty skeletons in repose. There were also heavy stone sarcophagi that lined the space on either side, some carved and decorated, others so old and covered with mold and moss it was impossible to tell if they bore any words or decoration. 

One of them was open, the great stone lid pushed aside enough for a person to climb in and out, though it would have taken several people to even move a slab that heavy. 

One section of the catacombs had been excavated, the stones removed, the ground had dug over, and the earth taken out, though it was nowhere to be seen. That must have been what the villagers had been hired to do, though Will couldn’t see why. The lantern's dim light struggled, and Will was overtaken by a sense of deep unease, that he was trespassing somewhere dangerous. There were three other recesses on the left-hand side, and another stone arch opposite where he was standing, just past the open sarcophagus. 

Though Will had, to himself, claimed to abandon his ties to reason and logic, he couldn’t stop his investigative instincts from materializing in his mind. He looked at this place, this underground tomb, as a crime scene. 

Interpret the evidence.

He investigated the other alcoves that had yet to be dug apart but saw nothing except fragments of old coffins and piles of dust; in the third, however, he made a discovery. A box full of earth, coffin fragments, tiny bits of ancient bone, like the wooden boxes that Will had seen the villagers bring, the rectangular ones with rope handles. By the side of the box was its cover, ready to be nailed down. 

In the dirt inside the box was a carefully created hole, long enough for a person to lie down and stretch out comfortably, surrounded on three sides by the earth. 

A portable grave.

Will turned away, pausing again as he heard the faint cries. It took everything he had not to rush on, but he forced himself to be cautious, listening to the stone of dread in his gut. Next, he examined the open sarcophagus. It chilled him to do so, but he leaned over the edge and cast the light within. The stone box was lined with dirt, but otherwise empty. Will caught sight of a few discarded papers and stretched his arm out to collect them before wiggling himself out of the tomb. Setting the lantern on the half-removed cover, he held the papers up to the light and examined them. One turned out to be a recent map of Paris folded up to pocket size. There were a few pages of what looked like handwritten poetry with various words crossed out and rewritten. The final note, which was typewritten and in English, was crumpled as if someone had balled it up in their fist. Will smoothed it out to read. 

Dear Mr. Dimmond,

We regret to inform you that the editors of the Evening Mirror decline the chance to publish any of the poems you have sent us. In fact, if you would kindly refrain from sending any more, it would be much appreciated. If you insist on sending them, please consider moving away from the long-winded, overly romantic Byronic style you seem to prefer. We recommend you find inspiration in the works of Yates or Longfellow.

Sincerely,

Mr. Algernon C. Baker, Poetry Editor

Will couldn’t stop the little triumphant sneer that crossed his face for a moment. It wilted when his mind caught up with his mouth. Why the hell was Antony writing poems and looking at maps of Paris in an open tomb? 

And the crying had started again, soft and tragic, floating gently through the dark. Will felt strange and lightheaded, as if the color would bleed out of the world again and he was moments from stepping unwittingly into the past once more. He edged away from the open tomb and turned to the shadow-drenched archway at the far end of the catacombs, the only section he’d yet to explore. 

He was sure, now, that the crying was coming from there, materializing out of the dark, beckoning him, pleading for him to come. 

Will crept along the passage, wincing at the sepulchral chill and moldy damp that enveloped him the further he went. The passage narrowed and Will shivered as slimy water dripped onto his shoulder from the moss-covered stones above. His lantern felt tiny, dwarfed by the darkness, and his breath hitched in the dank air. Fear prickled along his skin even as it burned with the need to find whoever it was that needed to be saved. 

This one he could save.

At the end of the passage was another heavy door, thick but rotted in places, its metal fittings rusted. It stood half open. He smelled human waste now, the stench rising above the cold stone and decay. 

Somewhere within the room beyond the door, a chain rattled. A faint voice called out in Romanian. “H-hello? Who’s there?”  

Encouraged by this, Will stepped around the edge of the door and entered the room, which wasn’t much more than a dungeon, complete with a drain in the floor and chains and manacles hanging from the walls. One pair was occupied by a raggedly dressed man with a thin face and a wild beard, curled up in a ball against the wall next to a sleeping pallet and a bucket that he must have been using as a toilet. Aside from the rudimentary facilities, his pallet was clean, though the whole place was damp with the underground moisture and charnel atmosphere. 

The man was wearing Antony’s coat, the cream-white frock trimmed with fur. It seemed someone had tried to launder it, but the collar was rust-colored and there were similar maroon spatters all down the sleeves. 

Blood. Because Hannibal had decapitated Antony while he was wearing that coat. The coat this prisoner now huddled around himself to fight the chill of this subterranean hellhole. 

The prisoner’s large dark eyes widened when he beheld Will, and a smile grew on his wan, bloodless face. “You… you’re not one of them,” he said, happy tears springing to his eyes. He used the chains to pull himself up to his feet, shaking with the effort. While he didn’t seem particularly emaciated, the man was clearly weak and very pale. 

As Will neared, he realized that by feet, he’d meant foot. The man’s leg had been amputated above the knee; the stump was carefully bandaged. The dressings looked clean, as if someone was changing them regularly. 

“Please, for the love of God, help me,” the man begged, fresh tears spilling over his cheeks and soaking into his scruffy beard. “You have to get me out of here before they come back.”

Will set down the lantern and hurried to him, lowering him back to the floor. They knelt together and Will fumbled with the manacles, trying to find some way to open them. As he held them up to the light, trying to understand the mechanism, the man continued, a torrent of nightmares flowing from his mouth. “They’re not human – the old stories are true about the moroi, they do dwell in these mountains – blood drinkers, they master the wolves and the bats and the low creatures – don’t look them in the eye, that’s how they hypnotize you — I watched the wolf eat my Maria, tear out her throat–”

As Will fumbled with the manacles, he paused and pushed up one of the man’s sleeves, revealing a series of puncture wounds on his wrist and in the crook of his elbow. They were small but deep, bruising the skin around them. Some were scabbed over; others had healed but left dark marks in their wake. “My blood,” the man explained, his voice shaking. “They drink my blood.”

“Who…?” Will’s mind showed him every moment Hannibal had bitten him during sex, hard enough to break the skin, even if it was no more than a shallow scratch. Was it about the blood, not showing Will how pain could activate pleasure? Was it not about marking, claiming? 

The bites on this man, if that was what they were, seemed different, not half-moons of teeth but instead deep punctures as if from a nail or large needle. 

“The moroi — the monsters — the devil and his demon brides! A tall man, two women… there was another, but they must have killed him.” The man indicated the bloodstained coat he was wearing. “What day is it? It was St. George’s Night when the wolves came… we were searching for the treasure…”

The night Will had arrived. This man had been here for months.

Hannibal. Hannibal and Bedelia and Chiyoh had imprisoned this man, cut off his leg, and tortured him. 

Will felt a cascade of numbness that was immediately overwhelmed by a burning fear and then a fathomless sorrow. 

Antony climbing like a lizard down the walls. Casting no reflection. Bedelia traveling on a moonbeam. Chiyoh’s prodigious strength despite her slender body. 

And Hannibal… 

Will had died and returned. Hannibal had persisted on earth, waiting. A creature of long, unnatural life. 

Whatever Chiyoh and Bedelia were, Hannibal was. Because he was here first, in the castle, and they came to him. 

He’d changed them.

“Hurry,” the prisoner begged, tearing Will from his reverie. 

“I-I can’t get these open,” Will admitted. “Is there a key?”

“The dark-haired woman keeps it,” the man said. “Cut off my hands, I don’t care, just get me away from this place!” 

“You won’t survive that.” The prisoner had already suffered one amputation, and if his blood was being consumed, spilling more seemed unwise. “I can dislocate your thumbs. It’ll hurt like hell.”

“I don’t care, please – do it, for God’s sake!” 

Will lay the prisoner down and extended one of his hands. He leaned his knee against the man’s bite-mottled wrist and grasped his thumb, giving it a mighty jerk with strength he didn’t know he still possessed. The man cried out, but Will was able to shove his hand through the iron ring and pop his thumb back into place. The hand immediately began to swell. 

“Good, good, yes – the other one!” the man begged, cradling his injured hand to his side. 

“Hold still–!” Will repeated the process. It took several tries to dislocate the thumb on this hand, as the muscles were stronger on the dominant side. Finally, he shoved the mangled appendage through the manacle cuff, and helped the prisoner to his foot, slinging his arm over Will’s shoulders and holding him about the waist to support him. 

“Thank you,” the man sobbed. “Thank you, thank you, God bless you!” 

They’d taken a few hopping steps when the door to the dungeon flew open so hard it impacted the opposite wall. The man’s leg buckled, and Will, nowhere near his full strength, was dragged down with him. Will tried to angle himself so that the prisoner wouldn’t take the brunt of the fall. They landed on the slimy floor in a heap. 

A hand closed around Will’s arm just above his elbow, yanking him away from the prisoner. Will let out a sharp cry of agony; he felt his shoulder joint separate, the ball of his bone coming free for a moment before popping back into place with a sick snapping noise. Pain bloomed over his arm and down his side and back, sinking its claws into his stomach and roiling it; he heaved but didn’t vomit. He hadn’t been in this much pain since Mary Kelly’s brother had stabbed him. Same damned shoulder. 

Will twisted and flipped on his back only to be snared in Chiyoh’s dark gaze. Her eyes were glittering daggers of obsidian that stared directly into his mind, cleaving his defenses. Bedelia’s power had been a joke compared to whatever Chiyoh wielded. Will felt her mind like he would a razor-tipped arrow slicing through his head and embedding itself in his brain. 

“Chiyoh.”

Hannibal’s voice.

The searing agony stopped as suddenly as it began. The familiar headache replaced it; the dull throb that made even the lantern’s tiny light hurt his eyes. Will scrambled backward on the dirty stones, panting, clutching his shoulder, until his back hit the wall. 

“Will…” Hannibal moved closer, his face drawn, pained. He knelt in front of Will, slowly stretching out a hand. And God help him, Will wanted to take it. His husband. His love. Safe. Home.

Will’s attention shifted, tracking the small blonde figure who stepped into the room, her gown flowing over the fetid stones. Bedelia lifted the sobbing prisoner by the neck like he weighed nothing at all. He tried to grab her wrist with his injured hands, gurgling for mercy. Will’s heart plunged, breath arresting in his lungs. 

“Stop,” Chiyoh warned.

Hannibal turned, but too late, it seemed. Bedelia wrapped her grip around the lapel of Antony’s jacket and opened her mouth. Feral fangs descended from her upper jaw. Will watched in frozen horror as she buried them in the prisoner’s neck, simultaneously crushing his vertebrae with her pale little hand. Her eyes met Will’s in a moment of violent significance. 

See? See…?

Hannibal caught Will by the shoulders and moved to block his view as Chiyoh snagged her fingers in Bedelia’s hair and wrenched her head back. As they grappled, the prisoner, his throat a ragged mess of blood, crumpled to the floor. 

Chiyoh flung Bedelia out the door and back into the crypt, slamming it behind, leaving Will and Hannibal alone with the twitching body. 

“Will,” Hannibal tried again. 

Will heard his voice, but he was looking at the heap of flesh and bone that had, just moments before, been the stranger he’d tried to save. The man’s dull eyes stared at him, through him, and Will’s mind erupted in cascading images, one after the other, of every murder victim he’d ever examined to try and find their killer. Mary Kelly, Catherine Eddowes, Polly Nichols, Elizabeth Stride, Annie Chapman, all the way back to the woman in the bed, strangled by her sister, his first case. Her name had been Dolores Fields, and her child had been trying to wake her, clinging to those cold hands and weeping. 

Will had never learned this man’s name. 

Hannibal leaned in as if to embrace him, placing a tender hand on his cheek. “Will, please.”

Husband. Lover. Monster. Friend. Murderer. Soulmate.

Will reached up with a shaking hand. Hannibal’s eyes softened in anticipation of a touch. But Will’s fingers did not seek out Hannibal’s hand or his face for a reassuring caress. 

Instead, Will reached into his shirt and pulled out the rosary, yanking it free from his neck and shoving it against Hannibal’s sharply cut cheekbone. 

It seared into the Count’s flesh with a branding hiss, as if the crucifix was red hot. Hannibal recoiled with an inhuman growl, rocking back on his heels, his eyes glowing with some unearthly light, fangs descending from his mouth. 

The sense of present and past, of worldliness and otherworldliness, the radiating ache in his skull, needles in his eyes and now, now the torturous breaking of his heart. 

Will couldn’t breathe. 

The awful light faded from Hannibal’s eyes and his fearsome fangs retracted. The cross-shaped burn mark on his face slowly evaporated like breath on a mirror. 

“Do you know who you are?” Hannibal’s voice was soft and pleading. “Do you know that I love you?” 

“I’m who I’ve always been.” Will’s hand was shaking where he clutched the rosary. His voice was choked, barely a whisper. He could only just hear himself over the frantic roaring of his heart. “The scales have fallen from my eyes. I can see you now.” 

His vision feathered black and closed in like a camera’s aperture. The world went dark to the litany of Hannibal saying his name.

Chapter Text

For the first week, I do not visit Will as he languishes in his sickbed. Chiyoh understands me entirely; she takes over the night vigils, though I assume she watches Will from a chair and does not hold him all night in a lover’s embrace. Abigail tries to ask me why I keep my distance; I have no answer for her. I am incapable of using language to describe the feeling of that crucifix against my cheek, the helpless panic as I saw Will fully realize my nature and try to ward me off with a blessed string of beads that couldn’t have been his. I’ve no idea where it came from, but he wielded it like a weapon against me. Now, its beads are scattered on the floor of the prisoner’s cell, the charm fallen from Will’s hand when he lost consciousness. How could he exploit my weakness like that? The pain of betrayal is dizzying.

Abigail finds me in the library as I pretend to read, staring at the page with the events in the catacombs playing on an endless chorus in my head. I am desperate for a coda that eludes me. 

“He’s been asking for you,” she says, arms crossed, hip jutting out.

This erodes my pride entirely. And so, I go to him. 

He’s asleep again, shaking with fever, though Abigail says she thinks he’s improving, giving credit to Katerina’s royal jelly concoction. If his condition is considered better now, I shudder to think how poorly he was before, when I was too hurt to see him. 

I slide out of my footwear and jacket and sit next to him on the bed. The motion of the mattress rouses him, and he opens his eyes, vision hazy and unfocused. But he smiles when he recognizes me, just for a moment, and gone, gone are the scars of betrayal and the pain of rejection. “My lord,” he rasps through a languishing throat.

“Your excellency,” I respond automatically before tears come to my eyes. Iliya and I used to greet one another by our formal titles, always in jest. 

He reaches for me and I draw him into my arms, resting him securely against my shoulder, tucking the blankets around us. He’s deliciously warm again, but I fear it; his fever is prolonged and dangerous. “Can I get you anything?” I ask softly against the top of his head. “Have you had Katerina’s medicine today?”

He nods under my chin. “Marissa gave it to me,” he says. 

Marissa. The chambermaid that had helped Reba save some of Iliya’s things from my fiery purge. She’s been dead for 400 years, but I do see the resemblance between her and Abigail. Marissa would have made a perfect victim for the Shrike. 

He has Iliya’s memories, but they are unsteady, past and present quilted together, the pieces beautifully stitched but different patterns and fabrics entirely. 

Not entirely. I am a constant, as are Castle Lecter and my ancestral lands. 

Will struggles up and looks down at me, smiling, tracing my cheekbone with the pads of his fingers, then my brow and lip. Then his soft gaze hardens, and he moves away from me, trembling, severing our touch connection. “Why’d you cut his leg off?” Will asks me, eyes narrowing, voice suddenly gruff with disdain. “What, s-so h-he couldn’t-couldn’t run? I think the, ah, manacles were sufficient. He was chained to the wall.”

“The leg was broken,” I say, trying to control my expression. I move as little as possible so as not to frighten him. “I set the break, but the wound turned septic. If you noticed, I performed a successful surgery, and he was on the way to a full recovery.”

Will smiles again, but it is disbelieving and cruel. “A full recovery,” he says, and I know what he means. Really? Did you hear what you just said? 

And then the hardness in his expression melts off. I think of the day I met Iliya, how the spring snow was melting. The day I met Will, a late spring snowstorm melted the next day by the hasty sun. Now he is all warmth, getting close again, playing with the chest hair he can reach where my shirt is open. Kissing me. I know he’s confused and hallucinating and ill, but I don’t stop him. Instead I pull him into my lap to deepen our kisses, and stroke his hair and back until he folds down against me, muscles shaking from the exertion of being upright. Then I hold him. 

He sleeps, murmurs, twitches. 

I want to ask him a thousand questions. Does he remember Iliya’s whole life, or only the significant events? Does he remember death, what comes after? When did he realize that he was both Will Graham and Iliya Albescu Lecter? 

Does he love me, feel the aching connection between our souls? Or has that been lost? Does he fully understand what I am and what I must do to sustain my unnatural life? 

But I stay silent as the days pass, and he wavers in and out of consciousness and the past and the present, dreams and waking, adoration and disdain. 

One night, we are in the library. I have him wrapped tightly in blankets, on the lounge near a large fire. I am playing the harpsichord for him. In between pieces, I glance over and see that he is awake, watching me with a sweet little smile. I adjust my sheet music and stand, crossing the space between us and settling into the chair at his side. Even if he is not awake, I often read to him. 

“How do you feel?”

“Head hurts,” he admits, accepting a drink of water and some soft bits of buttered bread, followed by the honey medicine. Then, “Do you remember that day in the forest when the highwaymen… w-when they ambushed us?”

One of my most treasured memories. “Yes,” I say eagerly, setting his cup to the side. “Do you?”

He chuckles, looking at me up through his lashes. “How could I forget t-the… first time I killed somebody?” He pauses, wrinkling his forehead. “But that was… that wasn’t it… I thought Gideon was my first victim.”

I raise my brows. “You consider Gideon your victim?”

Will pauses, looks at the fire, then back at me. “I consider him dead,” he says, and I can’t stop myself from kissing his hand in response. 

“That day in the forest, you looked over at me,” I recall, “terrified. Not because we nearly lost our lives, but because you had killed two men in a matter of seconds. And you thought I would find you monstrous.” 

“But it was beautiful,” Will reminds me. 

“When you killed the Ripper,” I say, “you were similarly worried.”

“I thought… I’d opened a door. T-to a part of myself…” Will sighs. “Killing Gideon felt just. And it felt like the ugliest thing in the world.”

“Did you really feel so bad that killing them felt so good?” I murmur, stroking back his hair. 

Will’s lips tremble. I see tears in his eyes, but I don’t understand why. “...I liked killing Gideon,” he admits to me, voice wavering. “And I liked killing those men in the forest.”

“Killing must feel good to God, too. He loves it. He does it all the time. And are we not made in his image?” 

Will reaches up to rest a hand on my leg. My heart sinks when I see that even his hands have become thinner and paler. “You never used to talk about God that way. W-we used to…” he coughs, “k-kneel down by the bed and say our prayers.” 

“That was before,” is all I can say. 

“God didn’t like killing me,” Will murmurs. He’s fading out again. “I did it to myself…”

I stop myself from erupting into a thousand denials. Yes, but He let the Turks lie to you, let them rob Mischa as she lay dying, all of this after I defended Christendom. I bite back my words and raise his hand to my lips again. 

Strange. He has black smudges all over the edge of his fingers and the heel of his hand. They smell like pencil marks. I don’t know when he would have been writing. I will have to ask Abigail. 

“Will?” He doesn’t answer. I try to memorize how the firelight moves over the side of his face, the warm honey tones it illuminates in his hair. I whisper his name again, dotting perspiration from his forehead with my handkerchief. “It was beautiful, Will,” I assure him softly. 

I gather him up to bring him back to his bed. Once we settle in, he stirs again, resting his left hand on my chest. He looks at it suddenly, thumbing the skin of his third finger. “Where’s my ring?” 

His wedding ring. 

I don’t know if I can survive the Herculean labors, each of the twelve a fresh sorrow. 

The ring might be at the bottom of the river. It might have been on his finger when he was cremated. It might be in the box. In those first few weeks after becoming a vampire, I remember very little except killing and drinking and languishing in my unfathomable grief. “I’ll search for it,” I say. 

He relaxes, satisfied. 

Once he is more deeply asleep, I ask Chiyoh to relieve my vigil and make my way to the door carved with the image of the Tree of Life. It’s been barred from the inside, but I dissolve into a mist and pass through the crack at the threshold, rematerializing on the other side. I move like a shadow to the box, lifting the lid. Each thing I remove and set to the side is another twist of the knife of loss in my heart, the fear of another potential loss, but I force myself to search. 

And I find them. Both of them, his and mine, stowed safely together in a small wooden box carved with the black stag of my family’s crest. Impossible, but here they are, nestled on a decaying velvet cushion. Reba was a good woman, and I hope the last years of her life were comfortable. 

When I return to take Chiyoh’s place, she pauses next to me in the hall. Lays her hand on my shoulder in silent solidarity. With Bedelia’s latest betrayal, it feels even more like it the two of us face the yawn of centuries with only one another to fully trust. 

I wait until Will wakes again. It is nearly dawn. I wash him all over with warm water, comb his hair, tend him in every way. He kisses me, thanks me, eases into repose. 

I kneel at his bedside and take his hand. Slide the ring on his finger.

Perhaps it is my imagination, but I think he sleeps more easily now, his fair brow free of worry. 

The time is coming. I can rest in the comfort that he knows who he is. It will make his Becoming easier. I will have to watch him die. But then, I have the gift of watching him rise from his grave. And Death will never touch him again.

Chapter Text

Will rose to consciousness with the gentle grace of apple blossoms fluttering free of their branches and drifting lazily to the velvet grass below. The curtains at his window were half open, and through the diamond-shaped panes of glass he could see a sweet, blush-pink dawn. 

Looking at the light didn’t hurt. He was thirsty and his body was sore with disuse, but the weaves of blinding, nauseating pain seemed to have passed. Will sat up slowly and waited until the feelings of lightheadedness passed, then pushed the blankets aside. They were clammy and wet, as was his hair. His nightshirt was soaked and clinging to him, see-through with moisture. 

“My fever broke,” he murmured. 

As he moved the damp blankets away from his legs, the morning light caught something metal on his finger, reflecting a brief flash of rose-gold. He stopped moving, transfixed, staring at his hand. There was a gold ring on the third finger of his left hand, a thick band engraved with floral and leaf designs. It seemed old, medieval in its design, but in perfect condition, cleaned and buffed to a glowing luminosity. 

It fit his hand perfectly. His left hand. His ring finger on his left hand. 

It was a wedding band.

Flashes of the chapel, full of warm light and smiling faces, Hannibal waiting for him at the altar. Let this ring be a sign of my love and fidelity in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Will rubbed his face, desperate for the clarity he’d enjoyed for a few moments to return. When he examined his appendage again, reached out with his right to touch the golden band, he saw pencil smears all over the side and heel of his hand, the kind a child might have when learning to write. 

He didn’t remember writing anything, not recently at least. Maybe something about the villagers coming to work on the chapel? His memory wasn’t just murky; there were pieces of it simply missing, an oil-painted landscape with holes chewed into it by time and vermin. 

Will eased down and retrieved his journal from the hiding place. Why had he started hiding it? He was lucky he remembered where it was. Flipping through it, his eyes widened, and a slow spread of fear clutched his neck like a phantasmal hand taking its time choking the life out of him. The journal was nearly filled with pages and pages of his handwriting. Entries he didn’t remember, that weren’t written in shorthand. The entries reminded him of the Spiritualists that practiced automatic writing, claiming they were transcribing the spirit world, their whorls and loops slowly becoming words bearing messages from the beyond. “Bloody hell,” he whispered, eyes flying over page after page, trying to make sense of it. 

He is a monster. This is the being I am helping to transfer to London, where for centuries to come he might, amongst its teeming millions he will eat — make more. How would I kill him if I could? I would use my hands. It would be intimate. He deserves that much. But I would never be strong enough, no one is strong enough.

I must get on a train. I must get to a train station and get away before nightfall. He’s the devil, he is smoke. God doesn’t grant mercy, but it might be more than what I’m offered here and I would die as a man and not as one of them, but would I just come back again? I’m not allowed to die? 

GET OUT. YOU HAVE TO GET OUT.

Will’s mind reeled. His memories and visions and dreams were a house of cards, each one a different image of the past or present, of reality or illusion, the entire structure collapsing. The deck was a chaos heap now, face up, face down, the suits and numbers and face cards jumbled together. 

Trying to make sense of them brought a white-hot surge of pain that crackled through his brain like low-horizon lightning. 

GET OUT. YOU HAVE TO GET OUT.

There it was, in his own handwriting, written with such emphasis that the pencil had cut through the page. 

Will looked at the ring on his finger for a long time. He considered taking it off, leaving it behind, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He only had the strength of heart, body, and mind to get out of bed and get dressed. He would take his satchel but leave everything else. 

Avigeya came in with a tray just as he finished tying his boots with fumbling fingers. “Will,” she exclaimed, clearly surprised to see him up and moving. “You look better. Come eat something.” She set down the tray and locked the door behind her, palming the key into her pocket. 

“My fever broke,” he said, standing up and sliding on his jacket. He picked up his journal and stuffed it securely in the inner pocket. She poured him a cup of tea as he slipped his satchel over his shoulder. 

She paused, setting down the teapot, eyeing him with canny suspicion. “What are you doing?” 

“I’m leaving,” he said. Two words, and there were tears threatening the back of his throat. 

She regarded him warily. “Leaving? You’re feeling good enough for a walk?” Abigail paused, studying him carefully. “You should wait for Hannibal.”

“Not a walk,” he said, trying not to crumble. He felt weak just standing here but couldn’t tell if it was all because of his illness, or if his body was physically repulsed by the idea of leaving this place, home despite the horrors. “I’m going back to London.”

“Now?” Her brow furrowed. “Are you sure you’re well enough? Is Hannibal going with you? I haven’t even packed.” 

“I don’t know,” Will said. “All I know is that I have to go. A-and, I, uhm… I think you oughta come with me, Abigail.”

“Come with you…?”

“I don’t think Peter will leave the animals,” Will said, blinking rapidly against the rising tide of emotion. “And-and I don’t think anyone’s gonna hurt him. I… God, I hope not. But you could come with me and be safe. You and I both know… what they are. What he is.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her eyes shifted. She was lying. She knew. How much, he wasn’t sure. 

“Just come with me,” he begged. “Please come with me. You don’t… you don’t know. You never saw… them kill. Please come.”

“Will, you need to go back to bed,” Avigeya argued. “You’re having an episode.” Her voice was tender, but she made no move to come closer to him or help him back into bed. Instead, she read the danger and edged toward the door. Clever girl. 

“Open the door,” he ordered. “If you won’t come with me… j-just open the door. I’ll come back for you; I promise.”

“Will, you’re not well.” A stern voice now, as if she was bigger than she was. “You don’t know what you’re saying. You and Hannibal are close. You really want to just leave without telling him?”

“Open the door,” he repeated.

Now she shrank down, blinking her large eyes innocently. “Will, please, you’re really scaring me,” she begged, biting her lip. “Please just get back in bed. I’ll bring Peter and he can talk to you, all right? Let’s just wait for Hannibal.”

“No. I have to leave now.” Timing was important. He only had a handful of hours before Hannibal would emerge from… wherever he spent the brightest hours of the day. 

His tomb…?

Will shook his head, nausea clawing his stomach. 

“You’re shaking,” she said, indicating his trembling hands. “You’re sick. You’re going to die if you leave. Please, Will, I don’t want you to die. Hannibal won’t survive it, please–”

“Oh, he’ll survive it. He’s lived through it before,” Will said, anger flushing him in a sudden rush and grating into his voice. “Open the damn door, Avigeya.” 

“No,” she challenged, tossing her head and tilting up her chin. “I promised Hannibal. Are you really going to hurt me to get this key, Will? You promised you’d take care of me. And you promised Hannibal. So, get back in bed, because I’m not giving it to you.”

He raised his sleeve to his eyes for a moment, then steadied himself with a series of deep breaths. When he lowered his hand, he felt his face go stony, resolute, his heart fossilizing. “I’m going to ask you once more. Give me the key.”

“No,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. 

He nodded. “All right.” Took a step toward her. Another. Reached out a hand.

She pulled her knife from where it was attached to her belt, the sheath hidden under her apron. “Stay back,” she warned. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Is that what you told Nikolai?” Will wondered, his eyes hazy with red. 

She set her jaw. Nodded. 

He knew what she was capable of. He wanted to cry, to crumble, to beg her forgiveness, but in that same moment was swept into the ambient pulse. He saw her design. She’d gutted the boy without a second thought. Maybe not even a first thought. 

What was he capable of?

Will slipped his hand into his satchel and pulled out his loaded revolver, letting it dangle at his side in a loose grip. “Open the door,” he said, softly dangerous. 

“Will,” she breathed. “You’re not yourself.”

“Not sure how you’d know,” he said. “Not sure… how either of us would know.” 

Her eyes were flinty, furious, her cheeks florid. But she put the knife back in its sheath, smoothed her apron, and reached into her pocket for the key. He saw her eyes flick toward the window, then the space beneath the door. She couldn’t swallow it; it was enormous, as long as her palm, but she could fling it out of either of their reach, forcing them to stay in the room until Hannibal or someone else arrived. 

“Don’t,” he warned, raising the revolver. He wasn’t pointing it at her directly, but it was up. He thumbed back the hammer. “Unlock it.”

Begrudgingly, she followed his order. “You’re going to break his heart,” she said. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because everyone is lying to me,” he bit back. “Except for myself. And I may not know what’s fucking real or not, but I know I’m not lying to me.” 

“Will–”

“Don’t lie to me,” he growled, making her wince. 

She backed up from the door, leaving the key in the lock. He edged over and removed it, taking one last look at the girl he would have called family. Slammed the door shut and locked it behind himself. 

Will set the key on the floor nearby and rushed down the castle corridors until he was out in the courtyard. Peter was with the goat, talking softly to it, but he didn’t notice Will slip by him, headed for the stables. 

Will replaced the gun in his satchel and found Konoshita, hoping the horse would remember him and at least be halfway cooperative. He didn’t ride much since becoming an inspector and then a solicitor, but in his younger days he and Alana engaged in the pastime, and he’d had horses of his own. He was no master rider, but he knew how to put in a bit and bridle and saddle his own mount. As he worked, he could hear the faint shouting of a female voice. Avigeya, leaning out the window of his chamber, no doubt calling for help. 

By the time he was finished, he was exhausted from the effort, slicked with sweat, head pounding. He splashed some water on his face from the horse trough and shouldered his satchel again before mounting the coal-colored mare. He trotted her out into the courtyard, heading for the main gate. 

Peter was there, standing in the way, looking frightened, holding the goat in his arms. “Will,” he said. “Y-y-you locked Avigeya up?”

“I had to,” he said, and it sounded pathetic in his ears. “I have to go. Peter, you should-should get your animals, take them down to the village – find someone to take care of them and-and leave.”

“I thought you w-w-were happy here,” Peter said, not looking at him, face buried in the goat’s back, stroking it in a calming rhythm. 

Will’s threatening tears filled his eyes again. “I am. I was.”

“Then why are you…”

Will turned the horse before he could lose his nerve and dug his heels into her flanks, kicking her into a canter. He fled down the twisting mountain road he’d traveled with Chiyoh in the calèche all those months ago. And he let himself cry now, as he succumbed to a great and terrible severing, an amputation in his soul. 

Amputation. 

The prisoner in the catacombs. 

Will rode as fast as he dared. The road dipped and sloped, edging up to cliffs he hadn’t seen on the ride up because it’d been so dark. He was terribly thirsty and weak, head pounding, slicked with sweat, wishing he’d paused just for a moment to pack some water. There were streams nearby, but he didn’t dare stop. Not with the sun where it was in the sky, high noon. 

Without realizing it, he’d veered off the main road and traveled along a switchback, and it took almost an hour to retrace his steps. Any time now, he thought, Hannibal, Chiyoh, and Bedelia would rise. He was forced to slow down as the jostling of the horse’s gait left him nauseated, each movement stabbing into his aching head. Everything hurt, everything ached. He dry-heaved and then vomited bile, collapsing on the horse’s neck, intent on just staying in the saddle. The creature slowed to a walk. 

Will could do nothing but focus on staying on the horse and urging her forward every so often. But he could tell she was becoming less and less compliant the farther from home they went. The wind picked up and clouds scattered themselves across the sky, bubbling and growing across the spread of mountains. He groaned when he heard the rumble of distant thunder. The horse whinnied a warning, no doubt feeling the shift in the wind. She wanted to go home, knew the weather was about to turn. 

Without the clear sky, he didn’t know when exactly the sun would set. And yet, when it did, he could feel it, a rush of chill that climbed over his body, a fevered frost. It was incredibly dark, the clouds obscuring any remaining light from the sunset and any chance of a moon. Will had no idea how far he was from the main road that stretched between Bistriƫa and Bukovina but remembered from his journey that little villages were interspersed throughout. Villages that had no allegiance to Count Lecter, where someone might shelter and help him. 

A lantern would also have been a smart item to grab on his way out. 

As the shadows grew, so did the long, mournful howls of wolves from the wooded valleys, call and response, the cries carrying messages across the primeval landscape. The rain began, gentle at first, then soaking him to the skin. He shivered, hands turning to claws in the reins. Before he had been able to at least see the road. Now everything was a mass of rain and mist and shadow. 

The horse stopped in her tracks, whinnying and tossing her head, whipping Will with her wet mane. “C’mon,” he tried, forcing himself upright and pressing his heels into her flanks. “C’mon, Konoshita, c’mon, girl…”

The horse walked sideways instead, coming to a stop under a tree that provided some shelter from the rain. “No,” Will scolded desperately. “N-no, no, no, no…!” 

Try as he might, the horse would not move, eventually growing annoyed with his attempts. She brushed him deliberately against the trunk of the tall tree and he lost his balance. Will managed to grab a nearby branch and hold on before dropping to the ground in a heap. 

The horse snorted, then trotted off into the gloom, headed back the way they came. 

“Fuck,” he cursed, stumbling to his feet, using the tree for support, panting from the exertion of staying upright. Thunder sounded again; the heart of the storm was closer now. Lightning split the gloom, and for a moment, his surroundings were illuminated. He could see the muddy road and the silhouettes of the jagged Carpathians, the thick foliage of the trees in the valleys. 

It seemed insane to try and walk on in this weather, but Will didn’t know what else to do. Just when he worked up the strength to begin, swaying and shivering, the lightning flashed again, and in its brief illumination he saw a multitude of yellow eyes glowing through the gloom, attached to hulking, furry shadows that seemed to be slowly bearing down on him. 

After the rumble of thunder died away, on its auditory heels, came the lonely, lilting howl of a wolf, joined in chorus by innumerable others. 

Will pressed his back up against the tree, then tried to run for it, stumbling through the slick grass toward the muddy road. 

Wolves everywhere, pouring from the shadows of the forests and peaks. He saw the white wolf, the mother of the pups he’d visited that spring among the masses of the tan-brown European species, the colossal pack speckled here and there with black-furred canids. The ranks parted, and an enormous male wolf stepped out onto the road. It was charcoal gray-black, its coat textured and shaggy, gathered on its ruff and shoulders like a lion’s mane. Even soaking wet, the creature looked gigantic. Will couldn’t imagine how massive it looked when its fur was dry. Its eyes were an otherworldly pale gold and seemed to flash red when they caught sight of Will. 

Will thought his heart would stop, that he would lose himself entirely to terror. But instead, a dreadful sort of calm washed over him, beating against him like the sheets of rain and soaking through his every fiber. 

He knew the feeling. The sweet and easy peace in the moments just before and after he’d killed Abel Gideon. And the highwaymen.

Will slipped his hand into his satchel and drew his gun, thumbing back the hammer. 

The giant wolf shied back for a moment, though the rest of the pack didn’t seem to register the action as a threat. Then it lowered its head, eyes still fixed on Will, and stepped forward. 

Will pulled the trigger.

The first shot embedded itself in the mud just in front of the wolf’s front paw, splashing muck up onto its fur. The second caught the creature in the shoulder. Will knew he’d hit it – he saw the round hole appear in the hide, saw the blood suddenly outlined in a flash of lightning as it splattered out. The wolf winced and let out a growling whine, but continued to stalk slowly towards Will, even as the rest of the animals fled, then trickled back one at a time to form a ring around Will. 

Now he was afraid. Will wrapped his other hand around the butt of the gun to steady it and fired again. Just as he squeezed off the slug, another wolf attacked him from behind, sinking its teeth into the sleeve of his jacket. Will expected to feel pain, but the creature wasn’t biting him to wound him. Instead, it jerked his arm so that the shot went wide, and the revolver fell out of his hand, bouncing among the gnarled roots of the large tree he’d been sheltered under. Then the creature let his arm go, unharmed, though the sleeve of his jacket was shredded. 

Will’s breaths tumbled in and out of his mouth and lungs as the large alpha wolf pressed forward, despite the bullet in its shoulder. He backed up until his heel hit another of the tree roots and he stumbled backward, knocking his head against the rain-slick trunk. A quick glance revealed the ring of wolves was all around the tree. He looked for the gun but didn’t see it. 

He slowed his breathing and waited. 

The great gray-black wolf closed the distance, uncanny eyes fixed on him. At last, it was close enough to touch, having come beneath the canopy of leaves and right up to Will, sitting on its haunches next to his outstretched legs. 

Will reached out a shaking hand. The wolf nudged his palm with his nose, licked it. Will’s eyes were hot with tears and he laughed – or was he crying? – running his hand through the creature’s wet fur, stroking its velvet ears as it stepped closer and licked his face. 

This couldn’t be real. He was hallucinating again, divorced from reality again, probably dying on the side of the road after falling from the horse. He was cold and miserable and wet and out of options. The wolf closed its jaws gently around the strap of his satchel and pulled, guiding Will to lie down in a hollow place beneath the tree. Will obeyed, curling up on his side. The wolf lay down right next to him, blocking him from the wind. Another, the white wolf, got between his back and the tree and snuggled in close, and a third settled down over his legs. 

He was warm. Impossibly, he felt himself relax, a drowsiness stealing over him. Will adjusted his position slightly and slid his arm around the great gray wolf. The fearsome creature whined miserably, then went quiet. There was nothing but the rush of the rain.

Will slept and woke. 

The storm was over, and the night was clear now, the stars and moon unfurled, and the tiny light on the horizon promised a coming dawn. In the dripping shadow of the tree, he saw the paw prints of the wolves, but the animals themselves were all gone, leaving only the fading warmth of their bodies and the distant echoes of their howling. 

Will found his revolver and got to his feet, sliding the weapon into his satchel. Three out of six rounds down, but he didn’t have the energy to reload. It didn’t matter, anyhow. 

He was damp all over from the night before, the rain and his sweat, and consumed with a bone-deep weariness. It was tempting to lay back down and sleep, come what may. 

YOU HAVE TO GET OUT.

That’s right. He was fleeing… something. So many things. Everything. Hannibal. Himself. The truth and the lies. The living and the dead. It all died away in the gloom. Will’s remaining energy sharpened down to a pinpoint of purpose. GET OUT.

He limped back out onto the muddy road and continued down the mountain, breathing raggedly, forcing himself to take it one step at a time. 

The sun was up by the time he reached the crossroads where the coachman had handed him over to Chiyoh, known to him then only as the sentinel. At the corner was a faded sign, indicating that Bistriƫa was one way, Bukovina the other. He tried to remember which one was closer, think back to the maps he’d studied in preparation for the journey. Bistriƫa. Bistriƫa was closer, and there were villages on the way. He gathered the crumbs of his remaining strength and forged onward, arms wrapped around himself, shivering. He could tell it was warm out – he was down the mountain, and the sun was up, but still his teeth chattered. Fever. Bone-break fever, again. 

He suddenly longed for Hannibal, his kiss, his touch, the safety of a shared bed.

GET OUT. YOU HAVE TO GET OUT.

Hours. Miles. He didn’t now. He fell, landed hard, scraped the side of his head and bruised his cheek. Got up. Kept walking. Vomited nothing. Fell again. Hours. Miles. Kept walking. 

When the coach rolled up behind him, coming from Bukovina, he thought the clatter of hooves and the jangle of traces was his imagination. But there it was, the very coach he’d taken all those months ago. Same driver with the enormous mustache, slowing down now and staring at him, eyes saucer-wide, face pale. Like he was looking at a ghost. 

“Please,” Will tried to say, but no sound came out. He held out his hand imploringly. “Please,” he tried again. It came out as little more than a squeak. “Help me…”

The coach pulled to a stop. As Will lurched closer, he heard a clamoring from within the conveyance, passengers shouting angrily at the driver to go on. “He was Count Lecter’s guest, don’t you remember?” a woman shouted. “He’s been tainted by the devil! Drive on before he kills us all!” 

“That girl from Bukovina was ripped apart by the devil’s wolves!” another added. “Drive on!”

Several hands emerged from the coach windows, giving the two fingered sign that warded off the Evil Eye. The coachman climbed down from his perch and approached Will warily, holding his driving whip in a posture that made it very clear he would use it on Will if he had to. “What happened to you, Herr Englishman?” he demanded. “What are you doing on the road?”

“Please,” Will begged again, coughing and trying to find his voice. “Help. I… need… to the next village… anywhere, please…” 

“Stay back,” the driver warned. Will stopped in his tracks, wavering on his feet. The man motioned with his whip. “Take off your jacket.”

Will’s mind tried to comprehend. Was he getting robbed, now, of all times? He thought of the gun in his satchel, wasn’t sure if it would fire after being out in the rain all night. Slowly he took his satchel off his shoulder and shrugged off his jacket with a pained groan, dropping it on the ground next to his bag. The coachman stepped forward warily, then snatched Will’s shirt collar. He tore it open, popping off a couple of the top buttons, and shoved the cloth aside, one way, then the other. “Did he bite you?” the man demanded. “Did any of his minions bite you? The Sentinel?”

Will couldn’t answer. He wanted to say, no, of course not, you sound crazy, but it wasn’t crazy. It was, however, intimate, and Will couldn’t make himself say the words. He just stood there, shaking, lips parted, breaths shallow and labored. “Please,” was all he said at last. 

The coachman backed away from him, still brandishing the whip. Then he made as if to climb back up onto his seat. 

“Wait!” A blond head poked out of the conveyance. Then the door flew open, and out ran a little dog. The dog that looked like Allegra. Will recognized the strongly built, square-jawed man from his original journey, the one that the coachman hadn’t wanted to stop for because he was traveling with a dog. “You saw yourself, there are no marks! He’s hurt – let him ride with us.” 

“He’s been at Castle Lecter,” the woman’s voice within argued. “He’s tainted. Unclean. Unclean!”

“So much for your Christian mercy,” the man with the dog shot back. “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself!’” He marched over to the driver and dug into his pockets, pulling out a fistful of coins. “There’s his fare. We have room, and he’s coming with us.”

The dog barked, trotting up to Will and putting her paws on his leg. She was a tiny thing, but the small pressure almost knocked him over. 

The passengers stared in furious but resolute silence as the fair-haired man helped Will back into his jacket, picked up his satchel for him, and led him over to the coach. The stranger tucked him into a corner seat and sat next to him, the dog in his lap. 

“Thank you,” Will croaked after he was given a drink of brandy from the man’s pocket flask. “Thank you…”

The man patted Will’s hand reassuringly where it rested limply on his knee, then seemed to note the gold band on Will’s finger. “Don’t worry,” he said cheerfully. “We’ll get you home to your beloved as fast as we can!” 

Will’s ears were filled with a loud rushing sound. Again, the terrible feeling of severing. His heart bellowed its agony and bolts of pain fired through his head as he struggled to breathe. Hannibal.

“What’s the matter?” his new friend’s voice was far away, growing fainter by the moment. “Hey, can you hear me?” 

Will faded away, wading into the quiet stream of unconsciousness, embracing the black. 

Chapter Text

Dear Miss Bloom: —

I write by desire of Mr. Will Graham, who is himself not strong enough to write, though progressing well, thanks to God and St. Joseph and Ste. Mary. He has been under our care for nearly two weeks, suffering from a violent brain fever. He wishes me to convey his well wishes, and to say that by this post I write for him to Mr. Leonard Brauner, Exeter, to say, with his dutiful respects, that he is sorry for his delay, and that all his work is completed, the documents having been sent back by paid courier. He wishes me to say that he has not sufficient money with him, and that he would like to pay for his staying here, so that others who need shall not be wanting for help. He cannot travel alone, so it would be best if you sent someone to escort him home and see to his health.

                        Yours, with sympathy and all blessings, 

                               Sister Agatha

                               Hospital of St. Joseph and Ste. Mary, Budapest

                               August 12, 1893

PS: My patient being asleep, I open this to let you know something more. He has told me all about you, and that you are the closest thing he has to family. He has had some fearful shock—so says our doctor—and in his delirium his ravings have been dreadful; of wolves and poison and blood; of ghosts and demons; and I fear to say of what.

Miss Bloom, I pray you be careful with him always that there may be nothing to excite him of this kind for a long time to come; the traces of such an illness as his do not lightly die away. We should have written long ago, but we knew nothing of his friends, and there was on him nothing that anyone could understand. 

He came in the train from Klausenburg, and the guard was told by the stationmaster there that he rushed into the station shouting for a ticket for home. Seeing from his violent demeanor that he was English, they gave him a ticket for the furthest station on the way thither that the train reached.

Be assured that he is well cared for. He has won all hearts by his sweetness and gentleness. He is truly getting on well, and I have no doubt will in a few weeks be all himself. But be careful of him for safety’s sake. There are, I pray God and St. Joseph and Ste. Mary that you will return safely to your home in England.

16 August: — Budapest

My dearest Mother,

I know you will be anxious to hear all that has happened since we parted at the railway station. Well, I got to Hull all right, and caught the boat to Hamburg, and then the train on here. I feel that I can hardly recall anything of the journey, except that I knew I was coming to find Will, and, that as I should have to do some nursing, I had better get all the sleep I could... I found our boy, oh, so thin and pale and weak looking. All the resolution has gone out of his eyes, and that quiet dignity in his face has vanished. He is only a wreck of himself, and he does not remember anything that has happened to him for a long time past. At least, he wants me to believe so, and I shall never ask. 

He has had some terrible shock, and I fear it might tax his poor brain if he were to try to recall it. Sister Agatha, who is a good creature and a born nurse, tells me that he raved of dreadful things whilst he was in a delirium. I wanted her to tell me what they were; but she would only cross herself and say she would never tell; that the ravings of the sick were the secrets of God, and that if a nurse through her vocation should hear them, she should respect her trust. 

She is a sweet, good soul, and the next day, when she saw I was troubled, she opened up the subject again, and after saying that she could never mention what my poor dear raved about, added: “I can tell you this much, my dear: that it was not about anything which he has done wrong himself; and you, as his dear relation, have no cause to be concerned. He has not forgotten you or what he owes to you. His fear was of great and terrible things, which no mortal can treat.” 

I do believe the dear soul thought I might be jealous, that Will and I were romantically involved, and I would be devastated if he should have fallen in love with any other person. The idea of my being jealous about Will! I am now sitting by his bedside, where I can see his face while he sleeps. He is waking!...

When he woke, he asked me for his coat, as he wanted to get something from the pocket; I asked Sister Agatha, and she brought all his things. I saw that amongst them was his inspector’s notebook and was going to ask him to let me look at it—for I knew then that I might find some clue to his trouble—but I suppose he must have seen my wish in my eyes, for he sent me over to the window, saying he wanted to be quite alone for a moment. Then he called me back, and when I came, he had his hand over the notebook, and he said to me very solemnly: —

“Alana— I have had a great shock, and when I try to think of what it is I feel my head spin round, and I do not know if it was all real or the dreaming of a madman. You know I have had brain fever, and that is to be mad. The secret is here, and I do not want to know it. I want to take up my life back in London. Are you willing to share my ignorance? Here is the book. Take it and keep it, but never let me know; unless, indeed, some solemn duty should come upon me to go back to the bitter hours, asleep or awake, sane or mad, recorded here.”

He fell back, exhausted, and I put the book under his pillow, and kissed his forehead.  

Later, I took the book from under his pillow, and wrapped it up in white paper, and tied it with a little bit of pale blue ribbon which was round my neck and sealed it over the knot with sealing-wax, and for my seal I used my ring. Then I showed it to Will, and told him that I would keep it so, that I would never open it unless it were for his own dear sake or for the sake of some stern duty. 

Good-bye, Mother. I shall post this at once, and, perhaps, write you very soon again. I must stop, for Will is waking — I must attend to him.

Your ever-loving daughter, 

Alana Bloom

“Will.”

Will’s heavy eyelids pried themselves open. For a second, his mind’s eye was stained with the view from a different bed, in a different room, in a different time, in a different world. A bed carved to look like a living tree, hung with curtains quilted like a canopy of leaves. The image faded, replacing itself with the bare and humble little hospital room where he’d been convalescing. The window was open, and a fair breeze blew in, ruffling the white curtains, and the sun was long, streaming in, glinting off of the brass crucifix that hung on the wall opposite the bed. His eyes were too fuzzy to see the details, but he felt the tiny Christ stared down at him with disapproval. 

He shifted in the bed and blinked a few more times, letting the figure sitting at his side to come into focus. It wasn’t one of the nurses, or the chaplain. It was Alana Bloom, sitting patiently in the chair next to his cot, wearing a subdued green traveling dress with two rows of bright buttons, her dark hair twisted up off her face and held with combs. She had a book in her lap. 

He sat up a little higher, and in doing so, realized he was bare to the waist. The weather was warm, and he’d removed his nightshirt before going to sleep the night before. The sheet was discreetly draped, but he still felt his cheeks turning pink. “I feel compelled to cover myself,” he said with a wry little exhale that might have been part of a part of a laugh. 

“We’re family,” she said. “How did you sleep?”

“Fine. Was, ah… your hotel all right?”

“Lovely,” she said. “I’ll get you a cup of tea.”

“I’d like my clothes, actually,” Will countered. Alana sighed, setting aside her book, and getting up to fetch his discarded nightshirt. Will clawed it on as she poured them each a cup of tea from a pot the nurses had no doubt supplied them with. 

“The doctor should be coming by shortly to give you a final once-over,” Alana told him, settling down in her chair and handing him his cup. “If all’s well, I’ll go to the train station straight away and book our passage back to England.”

Will nodded, bringing his cup to his mouth. It was good tea. The food here had also been exceptional during his stay. Maybe for the average Hungarian it was just convalescent meals but compared to what he dreaded eating again in England, they were delicious. 

He could tell himself over and over again that these little things, like the food or the weather or the architecture, or the freedom from England’s stricter societal norms were reasons why he dreaded going home. But those were just excuses to explain the deep ache, the severing, the amputation. He felt the pain of a phantom limb that had no recourse. Going back to England didn’t feel like coming home, it felt like leaving home behind forever. 

“Be careful, Will, your jubilation will tire you,” Alana said dryly, but with a warm smile as she set her cup back in the saucer. 

He shook himself. “Thank you,” he said. He wanted to mean it. She’d looked after all seven of his dogs the entire time he’d been gone. With the help of the stable boy, no doubt, but the fact remained. Alana knew each dog’s individual needs, and she’d fed them the fresh meat, vegetable, and rice mixture he cooked for them. No scraps for his pack. It’d been months, and she’d seen to this for him, knowing how much the dogs meant to him. And she’d arrived here with detailed notes in her diary about each one, about Buster catching a skunk and needing a total of 8 baths to lose the smell, about Zoe’s health and the special balm she had to have on her paw pads, how she’d done her best to cheer Winston up, the dog spending every night sitting by the door waiting for Will to come home.

She came to Budapest herself. A fine London lady from one of the most illustrious families in the city, a modern-day princess, had packed her things and raced to a foreign land the second she’d gotten word that he needed her. Hadn’t sent a proxy, an attendant, wasn’t even traveling with a lady’s maid. And she’d been here, in Budapest, at his side constantly until his health had stabilized. “Thank you, Alana,” he tried again, averting his eyes and looking at his cup instead. “For all of it–” 

She held up her hand. “Will. Of course I came. I wouldn’t… I couldn’t just leave you in the care of strangers in a foreign country. I took care of you last time and now…” She smiled and leaned forward to clasp his hand where it rested on the mattress. “We’ll get through this.” 

Sympathy. 

Pity.

I’m insulted on your behalf, Will.

He mentally shook himself and accepted her offer of more tea, trying not to think about the journal he’d asked her to keep from him, the one she’d wrapped up and sealed, vowing they wouldn’t open it unless it was absolutely necessary. Better, she said, to put all of it behind him, whatever had happened. All he’d told her was that he’d been ill at Castle Lecter, and had, after finishing his business with the count and departing for home, become disoriented and lost. 

He was telling the truth when he said he didn’t remember how he ended up at the hospital in Budapest. 

“I do have to thank you for choosing this particular city to convalesce,” she said warmly, getting up to look out the window. Will tried not to think about how the sunlight illuminated the clear azure of her eyes from the side, showing him in perfect daylight clarity the features he’d memorized, watched develop over the years. More beautiful by the second. The first time he’d seen her upon waking, he thought he’d died. “I took a walk this morning before I came, a longer one along the river to see the bridges and the Parliament building. It’s so lovely. I’ve half a mind to come back sometime.” Alana returned to her seat and opened her handbag, withdrawing a folded piece of thin, gossamer fabric stitched with intricate blue designs. She unfurled it and held it up for him to see. “Look what I saw in a shop window. I had to have it. You’ll have to forgive a woman’s weakness for something pretty.” 

Will blinked, then scoffed out a little laugh. “I almost bought you that exact same shawl,” he admitted. “I, ah… I walked right by that same shop window.” He paused, moistening his lower lip. “That couple of hours before my train left, I did some exploring.” 

She laughed. “Well, then, I suppose it was fate.” she tied it around her shoulders and smoothed the tassels. “What do you think?”

“Matches your eyes,” he blurted before he could stop himself. Then, “I didn’t buy it for you that day because… it didn’t seem appropriate. After our… conversation.” 

Alana removed the shawl and folded it neatly, sliding it into her handbag again. “I want you to know I wasn’t deliberately avoiding the subject, Will. I was waiting until you were feeling better. The doctor says you’re supposed to avoid strong emotions.”

He exhaled wanly through his nose, shaking his head, not looking at her. “‘Spose not.”

She shifted her chair closer to take his hand again. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” she said softly. “Will, you’re my dearest friend. We’re family. You know I care about you and I always will.” 

He didn’t respond, but let himself make eye contact, as much as it hurt to do so. 

“I also… acknowledge my role in this situation. Fully acknowledge it,” she went on. “I’ve crossed the line a few times over the years.”

A few? he wanted to snap, but kept his mouth shut. 

After the trials of the past few months, the horror of dreams, hallucinations, brushes with death, the mysteries of Castle Dracula that he still didn’t fully understand, he hadn’t expected this. He was still hurt by her rejection. It surprised him. That knife had been honed sharper in the interim. 

“Neither of us are children anymore,” she said, letting go of his hand and leaning back in the chair, folding her grip primly in her lap. “And, as much as I detest admitting that my mother is right about anything… I think, in light of what happened before you left, that… it’s time for me to marry.”

Will’s eyes widened. His hand twitched where it’d been holding hers. He coughed, and drained his teacup, just to have a moment to absorb the information. “Really?”

She nodded. “I’ve got maybe five more years where I can still have a healthy pregnancy. I’ve traveled, studied, explored my interests, had my freedom. It’s time to think about the future.”

A future where it was clear that she and Will were never to have feelings for one another again. A definitive break. A matrimonial guillotine blade. 

He swallowed, rubbing the back of his head, then his stubble. “Got your eye on anyone? Or, ah, who’s got their eye on you? I’m sure there are plenty of buyers if you’re on the market.”

She rolled her eyes at his snark. “I’ve been seeing a few people, yes.”

“Prudence-approved?”

She laughed gently. “Prudence-approved,” she confirmed. 

“Anybody I know?”

“Yes, actually. Dr. Frederick Chilton is one.”

Will wasn’t sure what expression to make. He tried his damndest not to look incredulous or disgusted. “The administrator at the Purfleet Hospital for the Criminally Insane?” 

Trading wolves for lunatics, then. I wonder if they howl similarly.

Alana nodded. “You remember him. He made a few house calls… last time. After… you wrapped up the investigation.” That could only be code for the Ripper murders. The first time he’d lost his mind and she’d cared for him. “That was how we met initially. Mother was considering a charitable gift to his hospital and I decided to take a tour. Fascinating place.”

That was one thing he loved about Alana. She wasn’t afraid. Didn’t believe in the idea of a lady’s delicate sensibility. Of course she went to the asylum and took a tour, probably talked to some of the patients there. She’d always been that way. 

“I met Dr. Chilton during some police work,” he said. “Had to interview a witness. I… sort of remember those house calls.” Enough to remember he thought Chilton was a pompous ass, but maybe he’d just been a smidge grumpy from suffering hallucinations and being haunted by the ghost of Abel Gideon. 

“He’s very intelligent. Always lively conversation. And I’m interested in psychology myself.” 

A hospital attendant came with Will’s breakfast then, and one of the sister-nurses stopped by to administer some medicine. “I hear you will be leaving us soon,” she said to Will in Romanian. 

Without thinking, Will answered her in kind. “Tomorrow, maybe. It depends on what the doctor says.”

“We’ll miss you, Mr. Graham, but I’m glad God has granted you your health again.” Bobbing her head politely, she excused herself. 

Alana’s eyes glimmered when he caught her gaze again. “I’ve always known you were brilliant, but that’s awfully fast to learn a language,” she said with a doting smile. “Was it easier to discuss the terms of the real estate contracts with Count Lecter in Romanian?”

Beloved. My treasure. Will. 

Will dived into his breakfast tray, wrestling his mind to the present. Taste the food, chew, swallow. “He spoke English fine,” he grunted through a mouthful of corn mash. “So, are you gonna marry Dr. Chilton?”

“I haven’t decided yet, silly,” Alana chided him. “It’s good to see your appetite so strong, Will, but you’ll have to remember your English manners when you get home.” She laughed behind her hand as he shot her a look. 

He finished chewing, swallowed. “So, who else?” He didn’t like this conversation, didn’t want to hear about who she was considering spending her life with, shoving him to the borderlands, but it kept him from thinking about Transylvania. Transylvania is not England. 

“Beverly Katz is back in London,” Alana said with a sly wink. “And she’s been calling on me. Often.”

“Beverly Katz?” Will smiled reflexively. Definitely a better choice than Chilton. Beverly was the heiress of a Texas oil fortune and had expanded her business into cattle as well. Two seasons ago, she’d been in London on business, setting up trade deals for her oil and beef, looking for a shipping firm with refrigerated cargo holds. With business, of course, came the obligation to socialize, and she came to Hillingham on several occasions. Will liked her. She was down-to-earth, enjoyed the outdoors, and shared his disdain for the tight reins of London societal conventions. She was also a dog person, telling him all about her favorite cattle dogs and how she was working on breeding the best shepherds in North America. 

“I knew you’d be pleased,” Alana said, watching him finish his food. She lifted his tray away and set it back on the table by the door. “I have one other I’m seriously considering. Certainly, you remember Margot Verger?”

“Oh shit,” he said before he could stop himself. 

“Will!” Alana scolded. “Don’t tell me you’ve fallen into profanity on this trip as well.”

“Sorry, I was just… surprised.” The Vergers were American also, from the Virginia-Maryland area, and their empire was pork. That was how the Verger family also knew Beverly Katz – they were both livestock barons. Mason and Margot Verger had been educated at an elite boarding school in London. The headmaster had been a close friend of the Blooms and brought students of certain social castes to visit prominent London families and refine their manners. 

Mason Verger had been a holy terror. The few times he’d come to Hillingham had not made a good impression on anyone. In fact, Will had caught him out on the lawn laughing and threatening his sister with a broken lawn tennis racket. They’d been twelve or thirteen. Will wasn’t big by any means, but he was quick, and he’d tossed Mason off Margot and relieved him of his weapon before delivering him a quick but significant punch to the nose. 

Mason had looked at the blood pouring out into his cupped hands and just laughed maniacally. 

It was Will who was punished by the adults, however, taking lashes on his backside with a switch at Mr. Bloom’s direction. 

But Margot didn’t forget what Will had done. Just before her graduation from the boarding school when they were nearing twenty, and he was preparing to join the police force, she’d come to visit him. Just him, not Alana, not Mrs. Bloom. He had thought it strange that she came alone, slipping through the gate unannounced. 

Her purpose in arriving at his little house was, apparently, to take his virginity, and then go back to America. He hadn’t seen her since and didn’t dare pursue it. It was so very clearly a one-time thing, and he had no interest in getting tangled up with the Vergers, especially Mason. 

“Margot Verger,” he repeated. “Back in London?”

Alana nodded. “Emigrating. I think you can guess why.”

“To get away from Mason,” he said darkly. 

“She’s acquiring some companies here and building her own empire,” Alana told him, a little glow coming to her cheeks seemingly at the thought of Margot’s business acumen. “She’s been investing in Beverly’s ventures as well.”

“You want Mason as a brother-in-law?” He raised a skeptical eyebrow. 

“He comes with the package, unfortunately,” Alana shrugged. “But now that she’s struck out on her own, Margot rarely sees him. Their father died and Mason’s very busy running the stockyards. He’s got a new branch near Chicago and is acquiring slaughterhouses.”

Will sighed, adjusting the sheet on his legs. “Sounds like you’ve had your dance card full.”

“I’m looking forward to spending more time with each of them,” Alana said, “and I’d like it if you did, too. You mentioned Mason potentially coming into the family. Whoever I marry will gain you as a kind of in-law, Will.”

In theory, he knew, but not in practice. He wasn’t really a Bloom. He was nobody. 

Your excellency.

He rubbed his hair again, trying to think how to respond. Luckily the doctor chose that moment to step in. Alana, thankfully, withdrew, and gave them the necessary privacy for the final examination. Will was proclaimed fit to travel, the only reminder of his bodily trauma a lingering weakness that food and rest would cure, and the shadows of bruises old and new on different parts of his body. The doctor left to tell Alana the good news and send her to book passage for their return.

As Will got dressed again in solitude, he glimpsed himself in the mirror on the wall by the window. 

There was one particular set of fading bruises on his back that he hadn’t had cause to examine closely since he’d awakened in the hospital. He backed closer to his reflection, looking over his shoulder at the place near his knife scar, where Mary Kelley’s brother had stabbed him. 

The ring of blood shadows looked like a bite mark. 

Will quickly put the rest of his clothes on. If he’d learned anything in Transylvania, it was that reality was flimsy, and the truth was made of lace. If he didn’t look at it, it didn’t exist. If he never acknowledged it, never questioned it, it never happened. 

The wound would heal. One day the knife scar, the reminder of the price he’d paid to catch Jack the Ripper, would again rest alone on that patch of skin. A price he’d been willing to pay, that Scotland Yard had been willing to pay, but had been far too dear for Mary Kelly and her family. 

The next morning, after a final visit from his regular nurse, Will washed himself ritualistically, as if he could cleanse away everything that had happened since he’d left London. He shaved with the new kit Alana had procured, as all his luggage except his satchel had been lost. He let the razor hover over a place on his neck, just for a moment. 

Take care how you cut yourself.

Will busily finished his shave and got dressed in an older suit of his clothes that Alana had brought with her. He was just tying his tie in the mirror, trying not to look at his own face when there was a soft knock at his door. 

“Come in,” he called.

Sister Agatha, the head nurse, slid in and shut the door behind herself. She was a tall woman, his height or taller, with an olive complexion, spectacles, and thick, black eyebrows. Apparently, when she’d learned that he was English, and possibly connected to a prominent family, she’d overseen most of his care herself when she was on the ward. She’d been the first person he’d seen when he’d regained a semblance of consciousness here in Budapest and had patiently answered his questions. She was no-nonsense, steely, all of it covering a certain warmth and devotion to equity that made her good at her calling. She’d held his hand when he was mad and raving, prayed over him, and comforted him when he sobbed like a child. He only remembered bits and pieces, but enough to be more than grateful she’d taken it on herself to watch over him until Alana arrived. 

“It seems it’s time for you to leave us,” she said, clasping her hands in front of her pristine white apron. “Your sister is waiting in a carriage out front to take you to the train station.”

Will bit back the reflexive response. She’s not my sister. She was. That was the most she’d ever be and that was the end of it. “I want to thank you,” he said, shouldering his satchel. “I know I was a lot of trouble.”

“God be with you, Mr. Graham,” she nodded. “Your health is all the thanks I need. Although Mrs. Bloom did make a sizable donation to the hospital that more than covers the cost of your keeping.” 

Will laughed softly. “Thought she might.”

“Mr. Graham, there’s one more thing before you go.” Sister Agatha reached into her apron pocket and withdrew a sealed envelope. She handed it to him. Will lifted the edge and tore it open. Inside was a gold ring, etched with floral and leaf designs, gleaming dully in the light from the window. He slid it out and hefted it in the palm of his hand. 

“Do you remember this?” she asked.

Will nodded silently. 

“You asked me to keep it a secret from Miss Bloom. I have done so.” She paused. “If you were married on your journey, Mr. Graham, and it was witnessed by God, the union is still valid, even if you were too ill to remember. Especially,” she raised a hefty eyebrow, “if it was consummated.” 

He looked at the ring on his palm, tongue stealing out to touch his lip. He remembered. It was impossible, but he’d quit trying to justify it with logic or science. 

Sister Agatha reached into her pocket again, and withdrew a chain bearing a holy medal. She handed it to him, and he examined it. St. Christopher, this version complete with the dog’s head, Christ on his shoulders. “The patron saint of travelers. To ensure you don’t get lost on your way home this time.”

“Thank you,” he said. 

“Be safe, Mr. Graham.” She gave him a strange look before going out the door. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but it felt like a warning. 

Will opened the clasp on the chain and slipped the ring onto it. He hung it around his neck and stuffed it securely into his shirt, adjusting his collar so it wouldn’t show. The gold warmed against his heart. 

Chapter Text

Dr. Chilton’s Diary

(kept in phonograph)

15 August: — Ebb tide in appetite today. Cannot eat, cannot rest, so diary instead. My courtship with Miss Alana Bloom has thoroughly distracted me from my work here at the Purfleet Hospital for the Criminally Insane, and though I am reluctant to mention any personal matters in my official records, for the sake of full disclosure, I feel I must. Any day now, I know the time will be right for me to make my grand proposal, and the details of taking her as my wife have been swirling through my mind, making little things such as hospital administration seem rather a bore. 

Ah, Alana Bloom! Those flashing eyes, her lovely smile, they are my obsession. How convenient, also, that she happens to be the heiress of Hillingham. Not that I have an eye on her fortune, no, of course not! I have a very respectable hospital to run and am well-appointed. No, my delight lies in her brilliant mind and ravishing beauty. I’ll have an opportunity to see her again in a matter of days. I have received an invitation to a welcome home party for her family’s ward, Mr. Will Graham, formerly Inspector Will Graham. Yes, that very Will Graham that caught Saucy Jack the Ripper and sent him straight to Hell, only to be trapped in the mental landscape of Abel Gideon, chained to the man’s ghost, as it were.  

Now, Will Graham practices real estate law. I know, it’s shocking – many of us chase a reputation like this our whole lives. And yet, once he rids London of one of its most fearsome killers, all he wants is to disappear into obscurity.

Well, I suppose it is in his nature to avoid attention. He’s always been an abrasive, antisocial sort of man with no breeding to speak of. Everyone knows his origin story – street urchin of New Orleans scooped up by the Christian charity of the Blooms. Even surrounded by manners and grace, being fully educated and trained, alas, he is still not a gentleman. I digress –  

On his way home from a business trip, Will Graham took ill with a brain fever. Sweet Alana says in her letters he was exhibiting symptoms like those that befell him after the Ripper case, and that I should prepare to make house calls to Hillingham if need be once they return from a restorative holiday by the seaside.

I believe Miss Bloom and her charge should be arriving in Whitby tonight where Mr. Graham will continue to convalesce, invigorated, I hope, by the sea air. Once he’s at his full strength, they will at last return to London. 

Alana’s always had a soft spot for the family’s foundling, part of her caring nature that will make her a wonderful wife. At the moment, I admit a certain disdain for the man, as he is keeping us apart, but in the grand scheme, if it wasn’t for him losing his mind after the Ripper case, I never would have had cause to visit Hillingham. Now I may have cause again, opportunities to win Miss Bloom’s hand. 

Furthermore, I’ve always had a fascination with Will Graham’s mind, as have many in London’s psychiatric circles. He’s a great topic of conversation, and many of us are fascinated by his particular brand of pure empathy. If he were to, say, need to spend some time in a facility to reestablish his sanity, I have no doubt Alana would entrust him to my care. And that… that would be a rare opportunity indeed. I could write a book about him!

Alas, I am getting ahead of myself. Tonight, my mind was swirling with thoughts and notions, fancies and dreams of romance. As I knew that the only cure for this sort of thing was work, I went down amongst the patients. I picked out one who has afforded me a study of much interest. He is so quaint that I am determined to understand him as well as I can. To-day I seemed to get nearer than ever before to the heart of his mystery.

I questioned him more fully than I had ever done, with a view to making myself master of the facts of his hallucination. In my manner of doing, it there was, I now see, something of cruelty. I seemed to wish to keep him to the point of his madness—a thing which I avoid with the patients as I would the mouth of hell.

I will now share my observations. Randall Tier — 26 years of age. Sanguine temperament; great physical strength; morbidly excitable; periods of gloom. He’s been my patient for the last three years, having been committed by his family. As a child he was known to be obsessed with predator animals, particularly wolves, bears, and big cats. While most of the time he was a calm and obedient boy, in moments of stress he would lash out, his preferred method being to savagely bite others. Sometimes these others were the source of anguish: a schoolyard bully, his elder sister, a Sunday School teacher (that was an interesting story; she’d told him animals don’t have souls and therefore do not go to heaven, which earned her a chomp on the arm). 

Other times, those receiving his attacks are random strangers. As he grew older and cleverer, he learned to be more socialized and did not ever exhibit his animal behaviors in front of friends, schoolmates, or family. However, once he left his parents’ care and began his apprenticeship articulating skeletons and preparing taxidermy for the Natural History Museum, Randall Tier’s obsession took a dark turn. He began stalking people in the countryside or in the parks, lurking about as though he were a predator on the hunt. At last, one night, he could no longer fight his urges, and attacked a wagon-driver on the road between London and Purfleet, dragging him off into the woods. He was dressed in a home-made costume of animal furs, with fully articulated hand braces that had been fitted with razor-tipped claws. Damn near killed the poor fellow; the driver was able to get in a lucky shot and threw Randall off him. Tier’s head struck a rock, and he was stunned long enough for the man to escape, covered in gashes and bite marks. 

Consequently, my interesting patient was apprehended, tried, and delivered into my care. I must find out what drives these urges, and see if I can alleviate them, cleanse his mind of his animal instinct, and, someday, return him to society. He is one of the most fascinating lunatics in the country, and to think – he’s in my hospital. Well, I’d best be off and see what he might be able to tell me.

(End of Recording)

Chapter Text

The household staff scattered as Will stormed into the castle, casting off weapons and armor; cloak, tossed onto a chair, greaves clattering to the floor, chain mail falling in a heap. He unbuckled his belt and let it drop just before the staircase, barely tracking the boys behind him that scurried to pick up his things as fast as he shed them. Daggers and sheaths in the hallway, and then gauntlets, one after the other thudding against stone as he reached the door carved with the Tree of Life. 

Will pushed the secret latch and listened for the clank of the mechanism, then threw the door open and pounded up the stairs. 

Hannibal sat in a chair by the fire, Marissa busily working on the buckles of his greaves as Reba mixed herbs in a bowl with a mortar and pestle, filling the air with their pungent scent. One of his husband’s eyes was blackened and swelling, and his proud bottom lip was split. He had a gash on his cheek just below his injured eye, crusted with blood. 

Hannibal was already smiling by the time Will reached the top of the stairs, likely knowing the sound of his steps like his own shadow. 

Marissa got out of his way as Will took two great steps forward and slapped Count Lecter across the face. “How dare you?” he growled, pressing his mouth into a brittle line. He could feel his lower lip trembling already. “How could you?”

Marissa crept over to Reba and took the mortar and pestle from her hands, setting it on the mantle and quickly ushering her out of the suite. This was going to be a lovers’ quarrel, and it was clear she had no interest in either of them being collateral damage. 

“It’s wonderful to see you, too, beloved.”

“Don’t,” Will warned, pointing an aggressive finger at Hannibal’s armored chest. “Don’t mock me. Don’t make light of this. You were supposed to wait. Your men were nearly there. You should never have gone into that cave alone.”  

Hannibal regarded him with wary warmth. There was something in his expression, in the glimmer of his eyes that somehow straddled the line of benevolence and cruelty. Something else had happened in that cave, beyond bloody necessity. “Help me understand, beloved. Are you angry with me because I risked my life or because I enjoyed killing them?”

A thrill of chill desire mingled with otherworldly fear trickled down Will’s spine. “...what?”

“You heard me.” Hannibal got to his feet. In his armor he was an enormous presence. Will almost wished he would have remained in his own battle array for this meeting. Hannibal reached out with a bloodstained hand and curled his fingers down Will’s flushed cheek. 

The moment broke, and Hannibal sat down with a groan, unbuckling armor and kicking off his boots. Will stood there, frozen, yet trembling and furious, before breaking the spell and helping him remove the final pieces. Beneath, Hannibal’s tunic was bloodstained and soaked with the sweat of his efforts. Will lifted it over his head and tossed it away, examining the bruises that mottled his husband’s chest, the blood that splattered up his neck and soaked his hands red. 

“Do you remember,” Hannibal said conversationally, as if they were merely discussing an upcoming feast or how many horses needed to be shod that day, “when we were waylaid by similar cutthroats on our way to visit my aunt two summers past?” 

Will drew his bottom lip further into his mouth and brushed his teeth against it, casting his gaze to the side as Hannibal helped himself to the fortified wine on the nearby table. Of course, he remembered. Men on both sides had died that day. Most memorably, two that Will had slain with single dagger blows, his body obeying his muscle memory, dealing death as naturally as he would give a kiss or a friendly word. He’d looked at Hannibal then, gripped with constricting terror. Would Hannibal know how much he’d enjoyed it? How beautiful it was? What would he do if he knew? 

Misplaced fears. Hannibal had embraced him, praised him and praised him, comforted him endlessly when he was wracked with guilt, even as he reveled in his righteousness. 

Hannibal raised his wine to his lips, taking a long drink before standing again. “Do you remember the zest you felt when you killed those men?”

Will nodded with a grimace. Even now he felt a little sting of guilt, despite Hannibal’s complete love and understanding. Thou shalt not kill. 

“Doing bad things to bad people feels good.” Hannibal ran a hand through his sweat-slicked and blood-streaked hair, stepping closer, giving off every indication that he was an unleashed animal of mythic proportions, a kraken released by the vengeful sea god. “It was a feeling I wanted, and so I claimed it. My only regret is that you weren’t there to see it.” 

Will’s lip quivered. He stepped forward, drawn closer to his husband, whose golden wedding band glimmered red with the blood that soaked his hands and saturated the room with its smell of metal and death, mixed beautifully with the natural scents of exertion that Hannibal exuded, all complimented by smoke and forest. 

“To answer your, ah… previous question, my lord… I’m furious with you because you put yourself in danger. Though I see my fury is, uhm… misdirected.” Closer. “Five men,” he said softly, letting his fingertips rest on Hannibal’s collarbone for a moment. “Tell me how you did it.” These words a lust-laden whisper. 

A honey-slow smile spread over Hannibal’s bruised mouth. “The first was a posted sentry. I slit his throat so he couldn’t scream, then watched him die. To say he was surprised would be an understatement.”

Will reached up and ran his fingertips now along the arterial spray that bloomed over the side of Hannibal's face and neck. The count nodded. 

“The next man came to relieve the watchman. I let him see the body before I cut his throat. I wanted him to know I was coming.” Hannibal rested his hands on Will’s hips. With each word, he gathered up another inch of Will’s brown tunic into his grasp, then easing it up and over his shoulders. 

Will felt a predatory smirk slice across his face. “And then…?”

“When neither returned, the other three emerged, fully armed.” Hannibal smoothed Will’s curls away from his forehead, combing his bloodstained fingers through his hair and down the back of his neck. Will inched closer, sliding his hands around the small of his husband’s sweat-dampened back. 

Will’s mind calculated quickly, pulsing into Hannibal’s design, assuming his point of view as a killer. “You weren’t expecting three.” 

Hannibal nodded, his tacky hands sticking in Will’s hair as he stroked it, pressing them together at the hips. His outline was hugely evident, and it pumped Will’s gut full of butterflies. “I wasn’t expecting three,” Hannibal confirmed. 

Will traced his thumbs along Hannibal’s stained neck. “But it didn’t matter, did it…?”

Hannibal leaned into him harder. “Not in the end, no.”

“And then?” Will tried to kiss Hannibal’s split lip, but his husband held him back by the hair, hovering the wound teasingly over Will’s mouth. 

“I saw red,” Hannibal said, simple as you please. Now he angled to kiss Will, who retaliated by driving his thumb into the mottled bruises on Hannibal’s side, earning a sharp, pained grunt. 

“And this?”

“There was resistance, naturally.” 

“But in the end, it didn’t matter.” Will lifted Hannibal’s hand to his mouth and slowly slid his index finger into his mouth, sucking it clean. Iron and death and victory now wrapped in his warm, wet tongue. Hannibal gulped in a breath and let it out slowly. The exhale ended with a savage little half smile, a glimpse of teeth. 

“It certainly didn’t.” 

“You were inevitable.” Will slid out of his grasp and onto the bed, lifting his foot and resting it on Hannibal’s shoulder as he turned to him, digging his heel into another bruise. Hannibal bore the pain and unlaced his boot with bloody fingers. Will lifted the other for footwear removal. “Was it over quickly?”

Hannibal cocked his head as he undid the knots. “For the first two, yes. For the last, not as quickly as he would have liked. I displayed his body by the crossroads of the Borgo Pass as a lesson for other highwaymen who might consider hunting our roads.” 

“Displayed it…?” Will waited as Hannibal sat on the edge of the bed to remove his own boots. 

“Yes. I had the men cut down a young tree. Sharpened both ends with an axe. I drove the stake into the ground and then I drove the man onto the stake.”

Will shivered as Hannibal's blood-stained fingers curled around the edge of his breeches, drawing them down and off. “Was he still alive when you did it?” He whispered, simultaneously thrilled and terrified by what the answer might be, enraptured either way. 

Hannibal nodded as he climbed onto the bed and gathered Will in his arms, surrounding him with the musky sweet copper of battle and death.

Will arched up to pull him closer, kissing his bruised mouth and tasting fresh blood now as his passion agitated the split lip. The visceral tang made him gasp. The sound was repeated when Hannibal’s bloody hand touched him, fingers drifting back to press against his entrance. “I think I’d like to impale something else.” 

“Why would I reward you?” Will challenged, catching the roaming hand by the forearm. “You caused me… a great deal of disquiet today. You ought to, ah… make it up to me, don’t you think?”

Hannibal raised his bruised eyebrow, his expression miffed until it softened once more. “You were worried.”

“Yes, I was damned worried,” Will insisted. “Put yourself in my place, Hannibal – h-how would you feel if I did the same? Insisted on clearing out a nest of bandits alone and almost getting myself killed just for… the zest.”

“I would understand,” Hannibal challenged him. “But I would be disappointed I wasn’t invited along.”

Will scoffed, rolling his eyes, though he was smiling as Hannibal kissed his neck roughly. “Well, there you have it.” He snaked his fingers into Hannibal’s hair and yanked his head back. Hannibal growled at him. “Listen to me, damn you – you’re not allowed to be reckless like that. Hannibal!” Hannibal had pulled out of his grasp and was biting his thigh. “I’m serious!” 

Hannibal stretched out over him, resting his chin on Will’s chest, bloody hands folded over the expanse of milk-white skin, and looked him in the eyes. 

“What would I have done if you’d been killed?” Will asked him this in a cold monotone, not touching him now. “What recourse would I have besides my own death?”

Hannibal just looked at him. All the ego had drained out of his expression. 

“So, you see. Y-you don’t just hold your own life in your hands. You didn’t just tempt your own fate today – you tempted mine as well.” 

Hannibal still didn’t speak. He ran the flat part of his thumbnail over his bottom lip, then winced as he nicked the split. 

“You’ve said you find the concept of death comforting, because it… encourages you to appreciate all of the horror, the beauty, and the art the world has to offer, but Hannibal…”

Hannibal sat up and shifted their positions, pulling Will on top of him now and resting his arms around him. “No need to say more, beloved,” he murmured. When Will sat back to look at him again, he was smiling once more. “Let me make it up to you.”

“Oh, I’ll certainly let you,” Will said, poking his bruised rib again, making him wince. 

“Perhaps you’d like me to give you something you’ve asked for, but that I haven’t permitted.” 

An astonished grin spread over Will’s face. “You’re joking.”

Hannibal shook his head. 

“You will?”

Hannibal nodded. 

Will grinned. “You must be really sorry then.”

“Terribly. I’m consumed with guilt.” Hannibal smiled back but dropped the expression for a moment. “Beloved. I am sorry you were concerned.”

“Out of my mind,” Will corrected him. “But it might have all been worth it.” He leaned in and kissed Hannibal again, but carefully, on the corner of the mouth. 

“Lie back,” Hannibal suggested. Will did, trying not to touch himself, watching Hannibal open the bedside drawer to find one of their vials of oil – the Roman recipe, Reba called it, a special blend of olive and clove oils with a few secret ingredients she said she’d take to her grave. If she hadn’t been so devoted to her friends at Castle Lecter, the woman could have supported herself exporting the stuff. Hannibal handed it to Will to hold. He toyed with the vial, watching Hannibal finish undressing himself before taking it back. 

Hannibal lowered his head between Will’s legs and sucked his cock, though slowly, with tantalizing applications of tongue and pressure. Will was so distracted he barely registered Hannibal uncorking the vial of oil and slicking some on his fingers, reaching between his own legs and applying it liberally to his crevice. Will’s mind was a whirling, frantic blur, a blizzard of anticipation, crystals on a sharp wind. He trembled in anticipation as Hannibal dropped his cock out of his mouth and spread his muscular thighs, slowly lowering himself onto Will’s erection a little at a time. Hannibal’s eyes were closed, and he had one bloody, oily hand spread on Will’s stomach, the other making sure his aim was true. 

Will moaned loudly, his throat unbridled; this, followed by begging breaths and murmurs of pleasure, half-formed words of worship as Hannibal’s body relaxed and accepted his cock. He was encased in his husband now, in deep, clutched in hot, tight warmth. Will thought he might lose consciousness, it felt so good. And then, beaming down at him with velvet, hooded eyes, his husband began to move, flexing his muscles, defined by training, riding, hunting. Killing. Will grasped at his thighs, feeling the muscles beneath the skin tense and release in his grip. 

“Does it feel…”

Hannibal adjusted his angle, leaning forward and clutching the carved headboard with one hand and propping himself up with the other. Will tried to stay still and not roll his hips or try and thrust up. When Hannibal began moving again, he called out to God. 

Something shifted in Hannibal’s expression. Will reached out to stroke his cock where it rested between them, leaking. “No,” Hannibal breathed. “Wait…” His movements became faster, sweat beading up on his brow and trickling over his bruised eye, dropping onto Will’s chest. Will could feel him tensing, the cords in his neck standing out. He suddenly quivered in the apparent grip of a kind of full-body crest. Will felt madness embrace him as he was able to see Hannibal’s face change, engulfed in so much pleasure, the sweat of lovemaking cutting through the dried blood of his kills. 

When the wave finally passed, Hannibal fell forward on Will, finding his mouth and devouring it. “I told you…” Will said in between his panting breaths as Hannibal resumed riding him. “I told you it was better than anything…” Now Hannibal didn’t stop him when he massaged Hannibal’s still-hard cock as he continued to ride, harder and faster now, rearing back to let Will see the full magnificence of him. Will moaned, gripping his hips, then sized in his own finish, Hannibal trembling in response, perhaps to the feeling of being filled. The count came again, soaking Will’s chest. 

Hannibal collapsed forward, crushing Will beneath him in an embrace, breathing heavily into his ear. “I don’t regret killing those men today,” he murmured. “I regret causing you distress. Truly, I do. But…”

Will laughed softly. “Well, if you hadn't needed to apologize, you never would have experienced…”

“The Lord moves in mysterious ways,” Hannibal settled on, which made Will laugh again. “To think we’ve been married nearly two years and I had yet to…” He trailed off sleepily. 

“I told you it felt good,” Will chided him. “I hope you enjoyed your deflowering, Count Lecter.” 

“Iliya,” Hannibal murmured, stroking his hair. 

Will opened his eyes. 

It happened again. For a moment, juxtaposed over his true surroundings, he saw his bedchamber at Castle Lecter, the one he’d shared with Hannibal, with the unicorn tapestry above the fireplace and the leaf-patterned hangings decorating the enormous carved wooden bed. 

He blinked and it was gone, leaving only a sick, hollow feeling, and the shapes of his true surroundings: the dusky rose walls of his room at the Bloom’s house on the Crescent. It was morning, the sun seeping through the gauzy curtains that covered the large windows that overlooked the ocean view. 

He sat up, rubbing his face, the only sound the scrape of stubble under his fingers. Decorum strongly suggested he should shave. He didn’t feel like it. Sitting up, Will looked at the wedding band on his finger. With a sigh, he slipped it off and secured it on the chain with the holy medal and hung it around his neck. 

He rang for wash water and tea and was almost dressed when there was a knock at the door. “Mr. Graham?” It was Hilda, the private nurse Alana had hired to stay with them in Whitby. 

Will suppressed an audible sigh. “Come in,” he muttered, meaning the exact opposite.

The large-framed nurse bustled in with her bag, setting it on the table next to his cup of tea. “I don’t know why you dressed, Mr. Graham - I need to examine you, and you should be resting on any account.” She pulled out her stethoscope and beckoned him over to sit on the bed again. He tried not to roll his eyes. The woman was just doing her job, but she was so sourly disapproving of everything about him that he couldn’t stand her presence. She listened to his heart and frowned, then took his pulse, looking at the watch she had pinned to her dress. 

“How is my heart?” he challenged. Will felt good — better than he had in a long, long time — physically. Part of his loathing for Nurse Hilda had to do with her wanting him to be sick, in order, he thought, to keep this plush appointment. His empathy pulse was still sharply tuned. Still awake and thrashing about, giving him a constant stream of other people’s points of view.

“A little better today,” she relented. “But I insist you need to stay home for the morning and rest. At least until Miss Bloom returns.” 

“Where is she?”

Nurse Hilda pressed her cold, chapped hands on his throat to feel for swelling. His skin crawled. “A social call. Morning tea with the Jacobis.”

Will knew that part of coming to Whitby for his convalescence would require Alana to make social calls for the families on holiday there that they were acquainted with. He’d just hoped more of them would have returned to London by now, as the season was almost over. “Tell her I’ll be in our spot,” he said, pulling on the light beige summer jacket Alana had packed for him and slipping his hat on. He picked up his new journal from the desk and stuffed it in his jacket pocket with a small pencil. 

“Mr. Graham!” She had the audacity to stand in his way. 

“We came to Whitby for the goddamn sea air,” Will growled. “I’m gonna go sit in it.”

With a scowl of disapproval, she stood aside and let him pass. Will stalked out of the townhouse and onto the cobblestone walk, ignoring the passerby and cheerful good mornings he was wished. The Blooms had spent holidays at Whitby for years, owned their own townhouse on the crescent. He and Alana had had many summer visits as children. People knew him here, and he couldn’t stand their whispering. Will Graham’s gone loony again, lost the plot just like after he caught Saucy Jack…

Will’s sour mood didn’t last. Whitby was a lovely place. The little river, the Esk, ran through a deep valley, which broadened out as it came near the harbor. A great viaduct stretched across, with high piers, through which the view seemed somehow further away than it really was. The valley was beautifully green and the houses of the old town—the side away from where their house sat—were all red-roofed, and seemed piled up one over the other anyhow, like pictures he’d seen of Nuremberg. Right over the town was the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes. It was a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits that he and Alana had explored many times during their holidays over the years. Of particular interest, always, was the legend that a spectral white lady could be seen in one of the windows. St. Hilda. Will grimaced, thinking of the Hilda he was being subjected to daily. No doubt she also had the power to turn creatures to stone. 

Between the ruins of the abbey and the town there was another church, the parish one, St. Mary’s, around which unfurled a full skirt of ancient tombstones. In Will’s mind, it was the nicest spot in Whitby, providing a full view of the harbor and all up the bay to where the headland called Kettleness stretched out into the sea. The area descended so steeply over the harbor that part of the bank had fallen away, and some of the graves had been destroyed. In one place part of the stonework of the graves stretched out over the sandy pathway far below. There were walks, with seats beside them, through the churchyard; and people often sat there all day long looking at the beautiful view and enjoying the breeze.

It was here Will went, finding the bench he and Alana had long ago designated as their favorite, having chosen it because the grave beneath it belonged to a man named Graham Will. Three old local men, all square red faces with crops of white hair, sat nearby, murmuring to one another, watching the ships come and go. Old sailors, Will thought. 

The harbor lay below him, with, on the far side, one long granite wall stretching out into the sea, with a curve outward at the end of it, in the middle of which was a lighthouse. A heavy seawall ran along it. On the near side, the seawall made an elbow crooked inversely, and its end too had a lighthouse. Between the two piers there was a narrow opening into the harbor, which then suddenly widened.

It was nice at high water; but when the tide was out it shoaled away to nothing, and there was merely the stream of the Esk, running between banks of sand, with rocks here and there. Outside the harbor for about half a mile was a great reef, the sharp edge of which ran straight out from behind the south lighthouse. At the end of it was buoy with a bell, which Will knew sounded in bad weather, and sent in a mournful sound on the wind. Locals had a legend here that when a ship was lost, bells were heard out at sea.

Will settled in, soaking up the sun and the distant sounds of ships, bells, and breakers, and pulled out his notebook and pencil. He considered what to write for a long time, listening to the call of the gulls and the whisper of the ocean, before at last putting the pencil tip against paper. He wrote in his inspector’s shorthand; this was not for the prying eyes of the passerby. Or a curious – or concerned – Alana. 

18 August: —

If I wear the ring at night, I have the dreams. There is no doubt in my mind now, though. They’re not dreams. They are memories. The Ripper isn’t bleeding into them anymore; he’s exorcized, somehow. Now the memories are pure and untroubled, showing me another life. I used to be someone else, someone who lived at Castle Lecter. There are millions of people in the world right now who actively believe in reincarnation; fine. But if I was reincarnated, how is it that I was married to Count Lecter – Hannibal – all those hundreds of years ago? The religions can’t account for that. Unless he is also reincarnated, but with the exact same name and bearing? 

I can’t trust anything I remember. I can’t trust what I was told happened. I can’t be sure anything was real. I also can’t be sure it WASN’T real. 

I want to think that my love for him was real. Is real. 

If I let myself have the memories – a few more each night – maybe, I’ll understand. Maybe it’ll make sense. 

I miss him. I can’t bear to consider it, but chances are, I’ll never see him again. I can’t imagine him here in England – in London. I can’t see us together here. It’s… un-envision-able. 

I’m going to get well. Strong again. And then I’m taking my dogs, and I’m getting aboard a ship for America. Not Louisiana. That’s not my home anymore. Somewhere else. I don’t care. But I can’t be here anymore. 

I don’t know what happened to me. Part of me wishes I hadn’t survived the brain fever. 

A hand on his shoulder. Will jumped a mile, his pencil making a dark, jagged mark on the page. He looked up to see Alana seated at his side on the bench, dressed for walking in a light blue striped dress and a wide-brimmed hat, the hand on his shoulder encased in a pristine white glove. 

“I see you’ve escaped your jailer,” she said with an amused curve of her lips. “You really should listen to her, Will – you’ve had too many close calls with your health.”

He pocketed his journal deftly, not looking at her. “I feel fine,” he said. 

“I’m glad to hear it.” She was trying to get him to look at her. “The dogs are well. I had a letter today from Beverly Katz.”

He raised an eyebrow. “And, ah… what’s your love letter got to do with my dogs?”

Alana sighed as if he was a difficult child. “She’s taking care of them until we return to Hillingham. She comes by every day to give them exercise and oversees their care.” 

Will wanted to think that Beverly’s offer to do so had a lot more to do with wanting to propose to Alana than it did helping him out, but based on the little he knew of her, Beverly Katz was honest to a fault and didn’t play games. The Texan must have genuinely wanted to help. “When you write back,” he said, “tell her I said thank you.” 

Alana brightened. “I will.” 

They sat together as they always had on holiday, summer after summer, looking out over the ancient graveyard and the lighthouses, the looming form of the ruined abbey nearby. This same bench had held Will as a lad, a young man, a novice copper and an inspector and now… whatever he was. A solicitor, he supposed, though all of that felt thousands of miles away and decades ago. 

“You forgot something,” Alana said, reaching into her matching handbag. She withdrew a slim, well-loved volume, its bindings faded, the gold leaf flaking, the pages over-thumbed. Will took it from her outstretched hand with a smile. It was their copy of Sir Walter Scott’s Marmion. 

“You’re right. I did.” It was something they’d started as young people – sitting here, on this bench, and reading their favorite canto. The book fell right open to it – the section of the epic concerning Constance de Beverly’s trial and subsequent death sentence. An inventive, cruel execution – she was walled up alive in the convent, and her screams could be heard for weeks until she finally expired. The convent in the story was a dead ringer for the ruins at Whitby, and they’d both scared themselves silly thinking they heard crying on the wind or pounding on the stone walls, the ghost of Constance still crying out for someone to save her. 

I was born, that’s all. Constance is a virtue that requires strength in the heart and soul, wouldn’t you agree, Count Lecter? I would rather be known for being loyal to my friends and constant in my faith.

Will’s eyes were watering, smearing his vision. Alana took the book from him and began to read aloud. 

A hundred winding steps convey

That conclave to the upper day;

But ere they breathed the fresher air,

They heard the shriekings of despair,

And many a stifled groan:

With speed their upward way they take,

Such speed as age and fear can make,

And crossed themselves for terror’s sake,

As hurrying, tottering on:

Even in the vesper’s heavenly tone,

They seemed to hear a dying groan,

And bade the passing knell to toll

For welfare of a parting soul.

The steps mentioned in the poem matched perfectly to a prominent feature of Whitby Abbey. They led from the town up to the church; there were hundreds of them—Will didn’t know how many—and they wound up in a delicate curve; the slope was so gentle that a horse could easily walk up and down them. Will had scaled them a thousand times with Alana at his side, stopping every so often to listen for the anguished cries of Constance de Beverly’s ghost. 

The old men nearby had wandered over and were engaging Alana in conversation. Will murmured a few responses, then let his mind ease away from the moment, taking the book back from Alana and reading the familiar lines of the second canto over again. 

Constance de Beverly was a killer with a design, assuming she would have succeeded in poisoning her romantic rival, Clara. And it had always been exceptionally easy for Will to empathize with the former nun. She’d broken her vows to be with Marmion, who promised her everything. And he’d tossed her aside like trash to try and woo Clara, who was just as beautiful as Constance but had a large inheritance coming. He’d ruined Constance and then abandoned her because she was penniless. 

She’d left God for love and was then cast aside by both. 

He sighed, reading through the canto again while Alana chatted with the old sailors. It struck him this time in an entirely different way. He’d always identified with Constance and felt the injustice of her fate deep in his bones, but now – now the poem felt like a raw wound, bleeding afresh, possibly mortal. 

The Blooms – Alana – she’d chosen him out of all the other boys – had enticed him away from his mother. Promised him a better life. Given him material comforts, but never love to replace the love they’d taken from him. Alana had promised that love, dangled it in front of him over and over with her stolen kisses, with those moments of intimacy with him over the years. Now it has been snatched out of reach for the final time. He was being formally abandoned, given up, as it were, to the judicial powers of the church to be tried and executed. Cast aside for someone with an inheritance. 

Will excused himself quickly and pocketed the book, leaving Alana to her conversation, headed for the majestically forlorn ruins of the abbey. Soon enough he was within its carcass, the gothic ruin a ribcage. The place was deserted, luckily, because there were tears in his eyes that he had trouble wrestling back. 

He leaned against a pillar of old stone and opened the book again, its pages ruffling in the sea breeze. 

When thus her face was given to view—

Although so pallid was her hue,

It did a ghastly contrast bear

To those bright ringlets glistering fair—

Her look composed, and steady eye,

Bespoke a matchless constancy;

And there she stood so calm and pale,

That, but her breathing did not fail,

And motion slight of eye and head,

And of her bosom, warranted

That neither sense nor pulse she lacks,

You might have thought a form of wax,

Wrought to the very life, was there;

So still she was, so pale, so fair.

When faced with her crimes, Constance’s accomplice had fallen on the ground and curled into a ball like a dog waiting to be beaten. Constance, on the other hand, had stood stone-still and faced her judges and her fate with cold bravery. She didn’t beg, plead, or try to explain herself. What she did was speak the truth, explaining Marmion’s plot to capture Clara and her role in it. And in the end, she threatened the abbey with his wrath, laying a curse on them that she might be avenged. 

“Then shall these vaults, so strong and deep,

Burst open to the sea-winds’ sweep;

Some traveler then shall find my bones

Whitening amid disjointed stones,

And, ignorant of priests’ cruelty,

Marvel such relics here should be.”

Fixed was her look, and stern her air:

Back from her shoulders streamed her hair;

The locks, that wont her brow to shade,

Stared up erectly from her head;

Her figure seemed to rise more high;

Her voice, despair’s wild energy

Had given a tone of prophecy.

A body was a body. Bones were bones, and if you didn’t know who they belonged to, a sinner and a saint were the same. 

“Will?”

Alana approached, her skirts whispering over the grass. “You should have waited for me. Not everyone can simply truncate a conversation. I’m expected to represent my family.” She smiled benevolently and put a hand on his arm. “Did you hear Constance de Beverly wailing? Come to check on her?” She took the book from his hands and slid the slim volume into the pocket of her dress. 

Will took a breath, letting his eyes have the required moments to really take in the shape of her face, the way strands of her hair escaped from beneath her fashionable hat, dancing in the sea breeze. “What do you remember,” he said, “about the day you found me in New Orleans?”

She smiled, brushing a lock of her dark hair away from her neck. “I remember being in the carriage. My father and his associate were talking about the obligation of charity and how one might extend it responsibly to the poor. We were driving past the French Market and saw a whole band of ragged street children. I pointed you out and begged my father to show charity by bringing you home with us.” 

Will considered, glancing out over the expanse of sea, tracking the sails out on the water. “Why did you choose me?”

“Because you had blue eyes like mine,” Alana said patiently, though he could tell she was trying to be gentle, wondering why he was asking her to tell this same old story. “And dark hair. You looked like you belonged in my family.” 

Will didn’t look at her. Instead, he put his hand against the ruined wall of the abbey, feeling the crumbling of centuries in the stones’ marrow, the ancient cold. “So, you took me. But how did you know… how did you know I’d been abandoned? How did you know my mother wasn’t coming back for me?”

Alana paused. She turned her head, eyes narrowing slightly. “What do you mean, Will? I was a child, your age. I… my parents must have inquired. You were half-starved and dirty. I remember how much cake you ate—”

“Do you… know that they, ah, inquired?” Will demanded, anger spiking up his throat. 

“Will… what is this about?” She crossed her arms. “I’m sure they did. I don’t know. You’d… have to ask Mother.”

“Oh, uhm… now that’s a conversation I can’t wait to have,” he said, dripping with sarcasm. 

“I was a child. Just like you.” She paused, stepping closer with the gentle whisper of her skirts. Alana threaded her arm through his and leaned her cheek against his shoulder. “All I can tell you is what I remember. I remember a skinny little boy with a dirty face that looked like he was suffering. And I wanted to help.” 

“You wanted someone to play with.” The funeral-bell toll of the significance of those words echoed only in his heart, he was sure. 

“Yes,” she agreed, as if it had been that simple. Perhaps to a child, the only daughter of a wealthy family, it was. She wanted. She received. 

And could Will really blame her for that? Alana was right. She had been a child, the same as him. She’d experienced pity and wanted to help and delighted in a devoted playmate. Any other child would have done the same. 

If there were villains to be found, they were Mr. and Mrs. Bloom. Mr. Bloom was dead, but Prudence could still be confronted. He’d have to wait for another day. 

“I’m famished,” Alana said, lifting her head from his shoulder. “We’d better go, or you’ll be carrying me down all those steps.” 

Will nodded and they left, stepping out of the shadows of the ruined abbey. 

Chapter Text

“Your breathing’s better,” Alana told him as they climbed the hundreds steps up to St. Mary’s to claim their usual seat. “Your color, too.”

“The sea air,” he said, hands stuffed in his pockets, just a hint of irony. In truth, he did feel better. His thoughts were clear. Memories did surface, but they didn’t come barreling up from his unconscious mind like a steam engine with an accompanying roar. He didn’t try to suss out what had happened at Castle Lecter, didn’t torture himself with trying to understand why and how, what was real and what wasn’t. He locked it all away, like Alana had bound up and hidden his journal. All he wanted to do now was get out of England. Away from Alana and her suitors. 

Once he confronted Prudence Bloom, and demanded she tell him the truth about his mother. He knew it in his heart, but he wanted to hear her say it. 

They settled in. Will had his journal out but wasn’t writing. Alana had a stack of letters to open and asked if he would mind if she did so now. 

“Go ahead,” he said, sketching a line on his page, wondering if it would become a letter. A letter H. 

Alana did so, dutifully reporting Prudence’s well wishes. Will perked up when she opened a letter from Beverly Katz. “The dogs are very well. She’s looking forward to seeing you again, Will. I think the two of you will get on famously. Do you like her?”

Will nodded. “Down to earth. Unconcerned with convention but not in a way that’s abrasive. Good sense of humor. Uhm, likes dogs. What’s not to love?”

“And beautiful,” Alana reminded him, smiling down at the letter. “Do you think you’d get on well with her if I married her?” 

He shrugged, deliberately not meeting her gaze. “The idea isn’t… disagreeable to me.” 

She giggled, shaking her head. “That’s as close to a Will Graham blessing as I’m going to get, isn’t it? But surely, you’d get on with Margot. We were all children together.” 

Will paused, stopping the words that were about to tumble out of his mouth. It was instinctive, wanting to hurt Alana, after she’d rejected him. Petty, but instinctive. He had to hold that part of himself at bay. She was right. It was never going to work out for them, and it was better if she married and moved on. He was going to leave the country soon, anyway. At least he’d be able to rest easy knowing she was happy. And so, in that moment, he decided never to say anything about having sex with Margot all those years ago. “I don’t want Mason for an in-law,” he settled on.

“They’re practically estranged. He lives an ocean away.”

Will snorted. “Not far enough.”

“What would be far enough for you?”

“Six feet under,” Will growled. 

Alana laughed gaily, as if he were joking. Will acknowledged that the ratio of joke to serious in this matter was 50-50 at best. 

“What about Christmastime? What about the wedding?”

Alana patted his knee. “I’m not going to derail my whole life just because I’m afraid of Mason Verger. Besides, Margot and I have you to protect us, don’t we?” 

 He wasn’t going to be around to protect her. But if Alana was dead set on marrying into the Verger clan, that was her choice. “Sounds like Dr. Chilton’s dropped in the running,” he said. “Or is he the, ah, dark horse in the race?”

“Frederick’s a fascinating man. I’m very interested in his work. And I thought the way he treated you last time really seemed like a miracle.” 

“If by fascinating you mean pompous and full of himself,” Will shot back, then took a breath against the bitterness. 

“Nobody would spend their days caring for unfortunates and have a heart of stone.” Alana folded up her letters and replaced them in the sunny yellow handbag at her side, made to match her large-shouldered dress. “His reputation in professional circles is growing.” 

“Definitely a reason to get married and have his children.” Will couldn’t stop himself this time. 

“I say that because it reflects on his accomplishments and what he has to offer the psychiatric community.” She sighed, adjusting her plumed hat. “So that’s a ‘no’ vote for Frederick, hmm?”

He sighed, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, hands clasped in front of him. “Just be happy,” he said. “Don’t worry about what I think.”

“You’re my closest friend,” Alana argued. “You’re my family. Why shouldn’t I care?”

“Because I won’t be around.” Again, his mouth betrayed him. 

Alana was quiet. The gulls cried in the distance, and the fair breeze brought them the clanging of a distant ship’s bell. “Why’s that, Will?”

He didn’t answer, and was saved by the appearance of the old sailors, who made a beeline for Alana, intent on engaging a beautiful woman in conversation. Will suppressed a sigh. The first two old sailors descended to feed on Alana’s politeness, and Will excused himself. But there was the third old sailor, a hatchet-faced man with eyes that glimmered hard with canniness. “Cigarette?” he asked, stepping off the path and standing amongst the graves instead. 

Will saw Alana shoot him a disapproving look, so he said, “Y-yeah, thanks.”         

The old man’s gnarled hands handed him a smoke and lit it for him with a box of matches. Will took a drag and coughed, watching the old man exhale through his nose like a grumpy dragon. 

“You must be Mr. Graham, th’ mad inspector what caught Saucy Jack,” the man said. “That’s a legacy. Not as brilliant as th’ one Jack’ll leave behind, o’ course. Nobody’ll remember you. They’ll remember the butcher, though.”

Will considered. The old man was abrasively forthcoming. He liked it. “You’re not wrong,” he said, taking another drag. The smoke burned beautifully this time, especially when Alana clandestinely shook her head at him. “And you are…?”

“Lawrence Wells.” They shook hands. Will had seen him several times on their walks and overheard his conversations with his cronies. If he couldn’t out-argue them, Mr. Wells preferred to bully his companions, and then took their silence for agreement with his views. Quite frankly, he was an old curmudgeon, but Will didn’t hold that against him if he was being honest. And that was what the man was – brutally honest.

They watched the other two men chat with Alana, who was looking sweetly pretty in her yellow lawn frock. She was so sweet with old people, Will thought, and always had been; it seemed like they fell in love with her on the spot. 

“You lived here a long time?” Will asked.

“My whole life.”

Will got him on the subject of the legends, and he went off at once into a sort of sermon. “It be all fool-talk, lock, stock, and barrel. Ghosts and devils and spirits, faeries – that’s all for women n’ children. They, an’ all grims an’ signs an’ warnin’s, be all invented by parsons to get folks to do somethin’ that they don’t other incline to. That’s the point of legend’s, lad – cautionary tales. It makes me ireful to think o’ them. Lies is lies is lies.”

“That’s the truth,” Will said with a wry little smile, looking at the cigarette as it curled smoke between his fingers. 

“Why, it’s them that, not content with printin’ lies on paper an’ preachin’ them out of pulpits, want to be cuttin’ them on the tombstones. These tombstones be tumblin’ down with the weight o’ the lies on ‘em. ‘Here lies the body’ or ‘Sacred to the memory’ wrote on all of them, an’ yet in nigh half of them there bean’t no bodies at all; an’ the memories of them bean’t cared a pinch of snuff about, much less sacred. Lies, all of them, nothin’ but lies of one kind or another!”

“The dead can’t even earn the truth,” Will agreed, realizing, however, that the sour old man was likely a vision of his own lonely, bitter future. 

“Quite a scene, won’t it be, on the day of Judgment when they come tumblin’ up in their shrouds, all tangled up and draggin’ their tombstones with them to prove how good they was; some of them trimmlin’ and ditherin’, with their hands so slippy from lyin’ in the sea that they can’t even keep their grip o’ them.”

“You… paint a picture with words,” Will said dryly. But the man did. Against his will, he could envision exactly what the old man described – the dead rising from their graves here in this very churchyard, the drowned ones swollen and distorted, skin discolored, trying to hold onto their tombstones with fumbling fingers trailing seaweed. Will could see from the old fellow’s self-satisfied air and the way in which he looked round for the approval of his cronies that he was showing off, talking loud enough to invade the other conversation. Alana and his companions had ceased chatting and were listening to him instead. 

“Oh, Mr. Wells, you can’t be serious. Surely these tombstones are not all wrong?” Alana asked.

“There may be a poorish few not wrong, savin’ where they make out the people too good. And then what do they need a stone for? What we do for ourselves dies with us, n’ what we do for others lives beyond us. The whole thing be only lies.” 

Will nodded, though Alana was making a face like she’d licked a lemon. That didn’t stop Mr. Wells. “Then that be just where the lie comes in. Why, there be scores of these graves emptier n’ my pockets.” He nudged Will and wheezed a laugh. “And my God! How could they be otherwise? Look at that one, read it, lad.”

Will bent over and ran his fingers along the faded words etched into the stone. “Edward Spencelagh, master mariner, murdered by pirates off the coast of Andres, April, 1854, aged 30.” 

“Who brought him home, I wonder, to hap him here? Murdered off the coast of Andres! an’ you think his body lay under! Why, I could name ye a dozen whose bones lie in the Greenland seas above”—he pointed northwards—“or where the currents may have drifted them. There be the signs around ye. Ye can, with your young eyes, read the small-print of the lies from here. This Braithwaite Lowrey—I knew his father, lost in the Lively off Greenland in ’20; or Andrew Woodhouse, drowned in the same seas in 1777; or John Paxton, drowned off Cape Farewell a year later; or old John Rawlings, whose grandfather sailed with me, drowned in the Gulf of Finland in ’50. Do ye think that all these men will have to make a rush to Whitby when the trumpet sounds?”

“But,” Alana interjected, “surely you are not quite correct, for you start on the assumption that all the poor people, or their spirits, will have to take their tombstones with them on the Day of Judgment. Do you think that will be really necessary?”

“Well, what else be they tombstones for? Answer me that, miss!”

“To please their relatives, I suppose.”

“To please their relatives, you suppose!” This he said with intense scorn. “How will it pleasure their relatives to know that lies is wrote over them, and that everybody in the place knows that they be lies?” He pointed to a stone at Will’s feet which had been laid down as a slab, on which the bench was rested, close to the edge of the cliff. “Read the lies on that one,” he said. The letters were upside down to Will from where he stood, but Alana was more opposite to them, so she leant over and read: —

“‘Sacred to the memory of Graham Will, who died, in the hope of a glorious resurrection, on July, 29, 1873, falling from the rocks at Kettleness. This tomb was erected by his sorrowing mother to her dearly beloved son. He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.’ Really, Mr. Wells, I don’t see anything very funny in that!” She spoke her comment very gravely and somewhat severely.

“Ye don’t see anythin’ funny! But that’s because ye don’t know the sorrowin’ mother was a hell-cat that hated him because he was born crippled – an’ he hated her so that he committed suicide in order that she mightn’t get an insurance she put on his life. He blew nigh the top of his head off with an old musket that they had for scarin’ the crows with. ’Twarn’t for crows then, for it brought the horseflies and the maggots to him. That’s the way he fell off the rocks. And, as to hopes of a glorious resurrection, I’d often heard him say masel’ that he hoped he’d go to hell, for his mother was so pious that she’d be sure to go to heaven, an’ he didn’t want to addle where she was. Now isn’t that inscription a pack o’ lies? And won’t it make Gabriel laugh when Graham comes pantin’ up the gates with the tombstone balanced on his hump and asks it to be took as evidence!”

Will was silent. He was thinking of deep, dark rivers, of window ledges and flying that transformed into falling, of black waters heavy over his head, that last moment before his body opened his mouth and sucked water into his lungs.

Alana turned the conversation as she said, rising up: —

“Oh, why did you tell us of this? It is my favorite seat, and I cannot leave it; and now I find I must go on sitting over the grave of a suicide.”

“That won’t harm ye, my pretty; an’ it may make poor Mr. Will gladsome to have so trim a lass sittin’ on his lap. That won’t hurt ye. Why, I’ve sat here off an’ on for nigh twenty years past, an’ it hasn’t done me no harm. Just know lies is lies and lies are no legacy. It’ll be time for ye to be getting scared when ye see the tombstones all run away with, and the place as bare as a stubble-field.”

“You certainly have a… way with words, Mr. Wells,” Alana said diplomatically. 

They were saved by the tolling of the church bells; it was nearly suppertime. The old men collected their pedantic friend and hobbled away toward the vast stretch of steps that separated them from the town. 

Alana and Will sat awhile, watching the soft evening grow velvet. After a time, Alana slipped her gloved hand into his. 

At last, “I’m sure supper’s ready.”

Will looked at her as she pulled her hand out of his gentle grip. “You go ahead.”

She frowned, getting to her feet with a rustle of skirts. “Will…”

“I won’t be long. I just need…” He sighed, unable to finish the request. 

Her lip curled. “So, you’re going to stay here sitting on the grave of a suicide, all alone?”

Will considered the notion, a sick sinking in his heart as his mind showed him the dark snake of river at the base of the incline, atop which sat Castle Lecter. “He doesn’t deserve to be alone,” he said. “He had enough of that in his life, sounds like. Enough pain and… rejection.” 

“Will…” 

He tried a smile. “Just a few minutes with, uhm… my thoughts.” 

“Don’t be long.” She took up her handbag and folded parasol and walked away. He watched her disappear down the staircase, then turned back to the sea. His mind was silent for a long time before the ambient pulse stirred like a sleeping dog having a rabbit dream. He thought about Graham Will the cripple. The Quasimodo who ended his life because everyone saw him as broken. Damn the divine consequences. Heaven must be full of the self-righteous and judgmental, those saved from sin because they were never faced with sin as a means of survival. It’d been a survival mechanism for Charlotte Graham. Socrates said death was a cure, and so suicide for Graham Will had been his own means of survival. 

As gentle as a bubble surfacing, a memory came to him.

Hannibal’s mother’s crucifix. Bloody, the chain tangled and knotted. Wrapped around an arrow bearing a bloodstained letter. 

Profound loneliness settled over him with each wave of the sea that washed ashore below. He wanted Hannibal. His kiss, his touch, the cadence of his accented voice, his scent, his body. 

The clock struck nine. Will saw the lights scattered all over the town, sometimes in rows where the streets were, and sometimes singly; they ran right up the Esk and died away in the curve of the valley. To his left the view was cut off by a black line of roof of the old house next to the abbey. The lambs bleated in the fields away behind him. The band on the pier that performed at night during the summer season played a harsh waltz in good time, and further along the quay there was a Salvation Army meeting in a back street. Neither of the assembled groups heard the other, but up here Will could hear and see them both. 

Will had a moment of pure and pulsing ache where he wondered if Hannibal was thinking of him. 

He went back to the house on the crescent. Alana was waiting with a cold dinner. They barely spoke as they ate. He went up to bed and she didn’t encourage him to sit up with her. 

A quick, unpleasant exam from Nurse Hilda and he was in bed. Will slipped the chain from his neck and removed the wedding ring, sliding it on his finger before closing his eyes. 

“Again.”

Will was breathing hard, slicked with sweat. He paused long enough to rip his tunic over his head and toss it away, squaring his stance and trying to prepare himself. It was nearly dark, the sun far behind the mountains, and the rest of the men had gone inside for their supper. Still, Will and Hannibal remained, the Count trying to teach his husband a particular unarmed throw that would allow him to escape the clutches of a larger opponent. He’d successfully done it a couple of times, but now he was tired; they were both sweaty and hard to hold. 

“One more time,” Hannibal insisted. He grabbed Will from behind. Will executed the correct maneuver, but he was too tired, and his grip kept slipping. Finally, he gave up, panting, still held fast from behind. 

Hannibal let him go and he stumbled on the sandy training ground. The count caught his wrist and righted him, but Will shrugged him off, stooping to retrieve his dirty tunic and balling it up in his hands. 

"I did it twice,” he growled. “I don’t understand why I can’t do it again.”

"We’ll keep at it,” Hannibal said, running his forearm over his brow. “Tomorrow.”

Will tossed his tunic down on the ground again. “No, now,” he insisted. “I’m not giving up.”

"Beloved, it’s late–”

Will pushed against his broad shoulders. “Come on,” he challenged. 

“It’ll be too dark to see–”

Will pushed him again, rocking him back on his heels. “Come on, I said.”

Hannibal just looked at him, head cocked a few degrees to the side, mouth a thin line.

Will’s anger and frustration dovetailed. “You wanted me to learn it, now come on!” He made to shove Hannibal again, but was caught in a sudden, steely grip, his husband’s hands clamped around his wrists. 

“My treasure,” he said patiently. “You’re being a brat.”

“Don’t treat me like a child.” Will stopped resisting, but Hannibal didn’t let go. 

“Don’t act like a child,” Hannibal suggested.

Will curled his lip and narrowed his eyes. “Again,” he ordered, soft but dangerous. 

Hannibal dared to smile at him. Will tried to pull free, and almost got loose before Hannibal grabbed him from behind. 

This time, he executed the maneuver perfectly, dropping Hannibal into the dust with a meaty thud. Will winced at the sound; Hannibal hadn’t been expecting it and landed on his back with full force. Will’s hand flew to his mouth for a moment before he slowly lowered it with a grin.

Hannibal was laughing, sitting up and rubbing the back of his head ruefully. He snagged Will’s arm and pulled him down onto the ground as well, rolling on top of him, both laughing now. “That,” he said between breaths, “is going to cost you, Iliya my love.” 

Whatever it cost, Will was more than happy to pay it later in their bedchamber. It was a delicious torment, the price Hannibal demanded – pounding into Will with exquisite roughness, covering his lips and neck with kisses and half-painful bites. All the time, the crucifix hanging between them like a diviner's pendulum. 

Chapter Text

Dr. Chilton’s Diary

(kept in phonograph)

18 August: — The case of Randall Tier grows more interesting the more I get to understand the man. He has certain qualities very largely developed: instinct, secrecy, and purpose. I wish I could get at what is the object of the latter. He has not once mentioned his inclination to dress and act like a predator and has indeed shown no interest in doing so since arriving here at the Purfleet Hospital for the Criminally Insane. He seems to have some settled scheme of his own, but what it is I do not yet know. 

His redeeming quality is a love of animals, though, indeed, he has such curious turns in it that I sometimes imagine he is only abnormally cruel. His pets are of odd sorts. Just now his hobby is catching flies. He has at present such a quantity that I have had myself to expostulate. To my astonishment, he did not break out into a fury, as I expected, but took the matter in simple seriousness. He thought for a moment, and then said: “May I have three days? I shall clear them away.” Of course, I said that would do. I must watch him.

19 August: — He has turned his mind now to spiders, and has got several very big fellows in a box. He keeps feeding them with his flies, and the number of the latter is becoming sensibly diminished, although he has used half his food in attracting more flies from outside to his room. 

On a personal note, I have had a letter from Alana Bloom. Will Graham is recovering well physically; they daily climb the 199 steps up to the churchyard – but she is still concerned about his mental wellbeing. She reports that he seems preoccupied with the darker side of life, speaking with her on two separate occasions about suicide. Not his own, but the topic, whether she really thought that someone in so much pain that they wanted to end their life deserved to burn in Hell. I believe Mr. Graham has always had an inclination toward the melancholic and the morbid, which attracted him to his original line of work. It will be interesting to see his mood at the welcome home party scheduled for their return. 

Ah, I await the day with a palpitating heart. I count down the minutes until I might see Alana’s sweet face again!

20 August. — Randall Tier’s spiders are now becoming as great a nuisance as his flies, and to-day I told him that he must get rid of them. He looked very sad at this, so I said that he must clear out some of them, at all events. He cheerfully acquiesced in this, and I gave him the same time as before for reduction. He disgusted me much while with him, for when a horrid blowfly, bloated with some carrion food, buzzed into the room, he caught it, held it exultantly for a few moments between his finger and thumb, and, before I knew what he was going to do, put it in his mouth and ate it. I scolded him for it, but he argued quietly that it was very good and very wholesome; that it was life, strong life, and gave life to him. 

“You’ll allow me to be a predator to the low creatures, won’t you, Dr. Chilton? I must be allowed to stalk and kill some prey. No one will miss a fly or two.”

This gave me an idea, or the rudiment of one. I must watch how he gets rid of his spiders. He evidently has some deep problem in his mind, for he keeps a little notebook in which he is always jotting down something. Whole pages of it are filled with masses of figures, generally single numbers added up in batches, and then the totals added in batches again, as though he were calculating some account, as the auditors put it.

No letter from Miss Bloom today. I have written to her mother, Prudence, to see if I may be permitted to stop by after my hospital rounds tomorrow night to pay a visit. One must be well-acquainted with one’s future in-laws. 

21 August: —There is a method in Randall Tier’s madness, and the connected idea in my mind is growing. I kept away from my friend for the morning, so that I might notice if there were any changes. Things remain as they were except that he has parted with some of his pets and got a new one. He has managed to get a sparrow and has already partially tamed it. His means of taming is simple, for already the spiders have diminished. Those that do remain, however, are well fed, for he still brings in the flies by tempting them with his food. And so, his collection grows, as do the figures he is calculating in his little book. I have also noticed that he has been doing some drawing. The images he sketches look like rudimentary schematics. 

22 August: — We are progressing. My friend Mr. Tier has now a whole colony of sparrows, and his flies and spiders are almost obliterated. When I came in, he ran to me and said he wanted to ask me a great favor—a very, very great favor; and as he spoke he was deeply serious and seemed incredibly lucid. I asked him what it was, and he said, with a sort of schoolteacher’s tone in his voice and bearing: —

“A kitten. I could play with it and teach it to hunt. The young cats learn to hunt through play. It’s like that with all predators.” I was not unprepared for this request, for I had noticed how his pets went on increasing in size and vivacity, but I did not care that his pretty family of tame sparrows should be wiped out in the same manner as the flies and the spiders; so, I said I would see about it, and asked him if he would not rather have a cat than a kitten. His eagerness betrayed him as he answered: —

“Oh, yes, I would like a cat! I only asked for a kitten lest you should refuse me a cat. No one would refuse me a kitten, would they? There are droves of abandoned kittens all over London. Spare one and give it to me.” I shook my head and said that at present I feared it would not be possible, but that I would see about it. His face fell, and I could see a warning of danger in it, for there was a sudden fierce, baleful look which meant killing. The man is an undeveloped homicidal maniac. I shall test him with his present craving and see how it will work out; then I shall know more.

10 p. m.—I have visited him again and found him sitting in a corner brooding. When I came in, he asked again for a kitten or a cat, and was very logical and reasonable with his request, but in a way I could tell was slyly manipulative. I was firm, however, and told him that he could not have it, whereupon he went without a word, and sat down in the corner where I had found him, going over the figures in his notebook. Before he left, he said, “Dr. Chilton, do you know what’s wrong with me?”

I said, “I am a professional, Randall. I need time to examine your case and get to know what it is that makes you mad. Then we will go about rehabilitating you. But whatever you can tell me to enlighten me to your state of mind would be helpful.”

He said, “Think of a map, Doctor. Think of the rivers and roads, the lines designating the counties. The jagged edge of the shoreline, the pinpoints labeled with towns with ancient names. Think of a body, all full of veins and borders and seas and coastal shoals.” I didn’t like the captivated, hungry look in his eyes and began to edge back toward the door. “The internal map of my body does not match what you would call reality, Dr. Chilton. You’re a professional. You’re the master here. You tell me what that means, and how you plan to fix it.”

I shall see him in the morning early.

23 August: —Visited Randall Tier very early, before the attendant went his rounds. Found him up and humming a tune. He was spreading out his sugar, which he had saved, in the window, and was manifestly beginning his fly-catching again; and beginning it cheerfully and with a good grace. I looked around for his birds, and not seeing them, asked him where they were. He replied, without turning round, that they had all flown away. There were a few feathers about the room and on his pillow a drop of blood. 

“Randall,” I cried, “have you eaten your birds?”

He turned to me slowly, his dark eyes shining. “You left me no choice,” he said. “I’m a predator, Dr. Chilton, and I have to eat.”

11 p. m.— I gave Randall a strong opiate to-night, enough to make even him sleep, and took away his pocketbook to look at it. The thought that has been buzzing about my brain lately is complete, and the theory proved. My homicidal maniac is of a peculiar kind. I shall have to invent a new classification for him and call him a zoöphagous (life-eating) maniac; what he desires is to absorb as many lives as he can, and he has laid himself out to achieve it in a cumulative way. He gave many flies to one spider and many spiders to one bird, and then wanted a cat to eat the many birds. What would have been his later steps? It would almost be worthwhile to complete the experiment. It might be done if there were only a sufficient cause. 

Men sneered at vivisection, and yet look at its results today! Why not advance science in its most difficult and vital aspect—the knowledge of the brain? Had I even the secret of one such mind—did I hold the key to the fancy of even one lunatic—I might advance my own branch of science to a pitch compared with which Burdon-Sanderson’s physiology or Ferrier’s brain-knowledge would be as nothing. If only there were a sufficient cause! I must not think too much of this, or I may be tempted; a good cause might turn the scale with me, for may not I too be of an exceptional brain, congenitally?

How well the man reasoned; lunatics always do within their own scope. I wonder at how many lives he values a man, or if at only one. He has closed the account most accurately, and to-day begun a new record. How many of us begin a new record with each day of our lives?

If I only could have as strong a cause as my poor mad friend there, that would indeed be happiness. I am wasting away waiting for Mr. Graham’s health to improve and sweet Alana to return to London! I shall make my proposition as soon as I can. Already I have heard rumors of Beverly Katz and Margot Verger. I cannot hope to compete with their fortunes, but Alana has shown such an interest in my field of psychology that I have no fear. A vast intellect such as my own can outwit an heiress or two! 

(End of Recording)

Chapter Text

Everywhere, death. 

Highwaymen splayed out on the road and in the forest’s undergrowth, some groaning out their final breaths. Hannibal’s men, those who survived, moved from body to body, finishing them off. 

Will wrenched his dagger out of the first of his victims. It was an act of desperation; he wanted his weapon, not entirely sure the fight was over. The dagger was comforting in his hand, a contrast to the way his stomach roiled at the sight of the dead man he’d torn it from. The blood. The look of shock on the man’s face, the vacant eyes. Will reached out and touched his face. Still warm. Hot even. He snatched his hand away.

Will stumbled over to his other kill. This one was younger, his age. Pretty face. Peaceful, much more peaceful than the other man’s death mask. Her hand was still wrapped around the hilt of his dagger that stuck out of her throat. 

When he touched it, she gave a great gasp, and her eyes flew open. Blood poured from her mouth and she choked on it, coughing, the scarlet staining her teeth. Her large dark eyes were pools of disbelief. 

This woman would have killed him without a second thought. Still, he felt sick. 

It had happened so fast. Instinctive. Not one second’s hesitation. What made him sick wasn’t remorse. It was his lack of remorse. 

She was beautiful like this, choking to death in front of him. It was all beautiful. 

But it shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be beautiful. He should not feel so disastrously, recklessly alive. It was ungodly, this feeling, wicked and sinful–

And there was his bloody hand, wrapping around the hilt of his dagger and pulling it out of her neck with a wet, suctioning sound. Blood gushed out in a greater torrent, and he watched, in a kind of fascinated ecstasy, as her eyes dimmed, and her choking breaths went silent. 

He stood, his breathing coming hard again, slicked with blood and sweat, floating in womb-like waters of a kind of pure presence, soaked in righteousness. 

“Iliya!” 

Will turned to see Count Lecter, fine riding clothes disheveled, a bruise on his cheek and one eyebrow split, leaking blood, a similarly stained sword in his hand.  The look on Hannibal’s face was one of complete shock. Will could only imagine what he was thinking. He half expected Hannibal to rip off his wedding band and throw it on the ground. No one should enjoy such a brutal act. Will was subhuman, incapable of being loved.

What have I done? he thought. How dare I delight in such wickedness? Thou shalt not kill! 

“Hannibal,” was all he could manage, and the name was nearly obliterated by the groan of another dying man not far away. 

Hannibal’s smile lit up his face. He opened his arms and waited. Will rushed into his embrace. “My clever, vicious boy,” Hannibal murmured through a disbelieving chuckle, words tickling against the side of Will’s sweat and blood-dampened hair. “You were magnificent.”

Will pulled back to look at him, the world wavy through the swollen tears that poured out of his eyes in a sudden torrent. “It’s beautiful,” he admitted through a smile of his own as Count Lecter thumbed away a tear, then leaned in to kiss him. 

There was blood on Will’s lips and they both tasted it, sharing the metallic bitterness between their mouths. Feverish now, grasping one another with greedy hands, bodies tangled together. Hannibal groped his backside in a possessive grip, pulling at his hair to tip his head back and kiss his throat, dragging his tongue over a crimson spray. “Am I not… damned to Hell for enjoying it?” Will breathed through the rising tide of desire. “Killing is supposed to be the ugliest thing in the world…”

“Darling,” his husband breathed against his neck, tickling the shadow of his kiss. “When we die, wherever you go, I will follow, even if I follow you into Hell.” 

“If the two of you are quite finished!” It was Mischa, wiping her sword on a bandit’s scarf before tossing it on the ground. “We have good men to bury.” 

As they gently laid their comrades to rest in a beautiful forest glen, Will felt his voice constrict as they prayed. Was God not offended? 

Hannibal squeezed his hand as if he knew Will was troubled, and Will managed to speak the words again. 

It would be nightfall soon. Will examined the gifts they’d been hauling with them, making sure none of the treasures they were bringing Lady Murasaki were ruined. A couple of bottles of wine had broken, but otherwise, their cargo was intact. When finished, Will rejoined Hannibal, who was overseeing some kind of work. The remaining men of their retinue had tied ropes to the hands and feet of Iliya’s victim, the woman, and stretched her body between two trees. The rest of the dead bandits were piled beneath, stripped of anything of value, like a pile of discarded trash. Already Will could hear the cries of carrion birds as they circled overhead. 

Hannibal put an arm around his shoulder. “What do you think?”

Will felt sick again for a moment, but Hannibal’s kiss fixed that. “I don’t think we’ll have trouble with bandits on this road again.”

“Hmm.” Hannibal reached down and took Will’s dagger from the sheath at his side. “Bowels in, or bowels out, my love?”

“Out, I think,” Will said with a little smile. 

Even as they were losing the light, the caravan forced itself another mile down the road away from the circling buzzards and the pile of offal offered to the forest like a pagan sacrifice. There, they made camp, ate a hasty dinner, set watches, and bedded down for the night.

Will was alone with Hannibal at last in their tent. He’d managed to wash his hands and face in the cook’s dishwater, but he still had blood on his clothes and stuck to his neck. He undressed to his undershirt and added his clothes to Hannibal’s pile of laundry.

Hannibal welcomed him onto their two-person bedroll, tucking the blankets and furs around him. Will melted into Hannibal’s arms with an exhausted sigh, delighting at the kiss planted on his forehead. 

“I never want you to be anyone but who you are,” Hannibal told him, stroking his hair. “I never want you to change. I want you to embrace every part of yourself and know that it is beautiful and that I find it exquisite. Do you promise me?”

Will nodded against his chest. 

Hannibal was quiet a moment, tracing his fingers down Will’s back, finding the end of his tunic and hitching it up to caress the soft skin of his lower back. “And I hope you understand me in a similar way?” There it was. Will’s ambient pulse whirred. Hannibal was afraid. Terrified that if Will thought himself monstrous, he must think the same about the ease with which Hannibal killed. How he enjoyed the sprig of zest that ending a life bore, a final gift.

“The only thing I would change about you,” Will said with a playful little smirk, “is how loudly you snore after you’ve had too much ale.” 

Hannibal pinched his backside and Will yelped. “Ssshhh,” Hannibal scolded him. “Our poor comrades are trying to sleep.”

"You might have to gag me,” Will teased as Hannibal disappeared under the blankets to nuzzle his thighs. 

Another beautiful dream. 

And this time, he couldn’t keep his hand away from himself. 

After, Will rang for wash water and got partially dressed, having learned to wait for Nurse Hilda to examine him before putting on his shirt and coat. 

“Where’s Miss Bloom off to this morning?” he asked. “The Jacobis again, or the Leeds’?” 

“She’s not off anywhere,” Hilda replied after she’d finished taking his pulse. “As far as I know, she’s still in bed.”

Will furrowed his brow. “Huh.”

“But breakfast is ready. Now, I want you to march yourself straight down there and have a good, hearty breakfast. Show me how much you can eat, there’s a good lad.”

Will gritted his teeth but was happy enough to finish getting dressed and escape to the dining room where the breakfast was laid out under covered dishes – the customary eggs, bacon, sweet rolls, jam, and blood sausage. Will poured his own tea and ate a bit, waiting for Alana to come down. Any time now, surely – he was the one who had been a slug-a-bed recently. 

He was nearly finished when she at last appeared, in her smart navy blue and white summer gown, not a strand of hair out of place. Yet Will immediately noticed the shadows under her eyes. “What’s wrong?” he demanded immediately. 

“I’m sorry I kept you waiting,” she apologized, fixing her tea. “Have you been up long?”

“Almost an hour. Everything’s cold,” he said, watching as she helped herself to a roll with butter and jam. “Are you, uhm… feeling all right?”

“Yes, of course,” she said, spreading butter primly. “I simply had a restless night, that’s all.” She set the roll down in favor of her tea and cracked a smile. “It’s the strangest thing. I haven’t had a case of sleepwalking since I was a child. You must have passed it on to me.”

“What?” he demanded, putting down his fork with a clatter.

“Don’t be silly, it’s not exactly like yours. I was only having a laugh.” She still hadn’t touched her breakfast. “Do you remember how my father used to wake up at night and dream he had to go into the office to oversee some transaction? Mother would find him in the hallway fully dressed down to his pocket watch.”

Will vaguely remembered, so he nodded yes.

“I must have tried a similar thing,” she said. “I woke up half dressed, with a lot of my clothes out of my wardrobe, draped over chairs, like I was trying to choose something to wear.” 

“Maybe you should let Nurse Hilda look you over.”

She smiled thinly. “Don’t try to pawn her off on me.”

Will chuckled. “What, you don’t want a share of the wealth?” 

They laughed, more easily than they had in a long time. “I’m fine,” Alana insisted. “You know, I did have some kidney pie at the Jacobis’ that tasted like it was moments from turning. I’m sure it was just indigestion.”

“Maybe we should stay in today.” 

“Nonsense,” she argued. “We have another canto of Marmion to read. The sea air, remember?”

Will was still quivering from his release as Hannibal appeared from the depths of their bedroll, wiping his mouth, lips shiny and plumper than usual from his labors. Seeming to hear Will’s silent prayer to kiss them, he crept back up and pressed his mouth to Will’s for several long, sweet moments, letting Will taste himself. 

“You made me very proud today,” Hannibal told him, stroking his hair back from his forehead. 

“Proud?”

“You’ve proven yourself in real combat. Left the training ground behind. Not a scratch on you.” He kissed Will again as he grinned, beaming in response. “What would you like? Slow and gentle, my love? Or are you pent up from the fight?”

“You certainly are,” Will said, very aware of Hannibal’s cock against his thigh, hard and insistent. He smiled up at his husband as Hannibal pulled off his tunic, baring him the rest of the way. “Rough.”

That meant finding the bottle of Reba’s Roman recipe, but that didn’t take long. Will loved how it smelled, how it felt on his skin, knowing what it would bring. Hannibal applied it generously, sight unseen, knowing Will’s every part by touch alone in the dark warmth of their blankets. Hannibal kissed his neck from the tip of his chin to where it met his shoulder, then found the bony place where his collarbones met to leave his mark. Simultaneously came a thrust, not at Will’s entrance but along the length of his own cock, aided by the sweet slickness of the oil. Will tipped his head back and gasped, forgetting to be quiet. Canvas tents weren’t known for their auditory privacy. Hannibal was not helping things by licking his nipple, circling it with his wide, wet, powerful tongue before delivering a bite that bordered on excruciating, making him moan again, as loudly as he pleased. 

Hannibal positioned the head of his cock and pressed in, further, more. Will groped Hannibal’s back, delighting in the undulating muscles that moved beneath the smooth skin, the rises of his vertebrae. 

“How does it feel?” Hannibal asked him, a dark whisper. 

“I asked for rough,” Will pretended to pout. “Unless you’re too tired, old man…”

Hannibal growled in his ear and gave him what he asked for, thrusting into him hard, harder, burying to the hilt just as he’d buried his sword in their enemies. “Too tired…?” He growled again, before opening his mouth and biting down on Will’s other shoulder and sucking a bruise onto the skin. Will tensed, then trembled with a little whispery laugh. His speed increased and Will couldn’t have stopped the noises he was making if he wanted to. Hannibal was pulling his hair, the other hand pinning his wrist down, pounding into Will’s oiled hole hard enough Will was sure he was going to have hip bone bruises in his inner thighs. 

Will felt something building in him he’d never felt before. Could it be…? The stablemasters back at Albescu’s castle, the ones he’d questioned for all they knew about sex, talked about an internal pleasure from anal penetration, spinning tales of its intensity and scope, how it gathered pleasure and spread it throughout every inch of the body. He’d started to think it was a myth. He and his husband had spent a year exploring carnal pleasure and had yet to—

“Oh GOD…” Will gasped uncontrollably as something in him activated every time Hannibal thrust against it. Spurred on, Hannibal fucked him hard and fast, breathing labored, dripping sweat onto his chest. 

And then it happened. His vision went white, and the orgasm radiated out to every corner of his body, as promised. His cock leaked onto his belly, flowing between them. “Hannibal…!” he managed. 

Hannibal kept going, Will keening at the overstimulation until Hannibal finished with a deep moan of his own, collapsing onto him, then moving to the side to tuck Will under his arm. “A day of firsts, it seems,” he said with a self-satisfied grin. 

Will tried to speak, but there was a hollow creaking sound, like a wooden floor…

Will opened his eyes. 

It was deep night. His room was lit only by ambient moonlight that managed to find its way through the gauzy curtains. 

Creak… creak…

Hesitant footsteps in the hallway outside of his room, as if someone were shuffling along, trying not to be heard. Now a brush of fabric against his door. 

He waited for the knob to move, not sure who or what he should be expecting. But the differences between sleep and awake were more defined now, and he was sure this wasn’t a dream. 

The knob didn’t turn. The steps shuffled by toward the end of the townhouse’s short hall, where there was a window. 

Alana? Why would she be sneaking around?

Nurse Hilda or one of the domestics? Same question. 

Intruder. Not probable, but possible. 

Will got out of bed and slid on his dressing gown, pocketing the letter opener from his desk. He crept across the bedchamber to the door and eased it open, peering out into the hall. 

It was Alana. She was standing at the hallway window, her back straight and her body very still, facing away from him, illuminated by the moonlight that came in much stronger from this direction and the lack of curtains at the hall casement. Will caught his breath and tried not to think about how long it’d been since he’d seen her in something as casual as a nightgown, the strange, exaggerated shapes of her fashionable dresses suddenly out of the way. The way the moon was glowing, he could see her hips outlined perfectly against the gossamer fabric. Her long hair was loose and wavy, trailing down over her shoulders, and her feet were bare. 

He waited, then cleared his throat, wondering if she would turn. She didn’t.

“Alana?” he called softly. Then louder. “Alana?”

No response. 

He left the safety of his doorway at last and came up behind her, touching her arm. “Alana?”

She only stared out the window, face frozen, eyes blank. 

The twilight state. 

“Alana, you’re asleep,” he said, then paused. Dr. Chilton had always said that those caring for him after the Ripper case shouldn’t try and wake him, that it might do something dangerous to his mind. Will took her hand and tried to lead her away from the window. She stretched out her arm but didn’t move, and he couldn’t shift her without tugging on her with more force. 

Out of options, he put her arm around his neck and lifted her at the knees, suddenly overwhelmed by the weight of her living body, and the tiny barrier of fabric between them. No corset stays, no petticoats, and her scent was human, warm, familiar, a bit of her floral perfume left but more of her natural body, sweetly feminine but real, not cloying or chemical. She tipped her head against his neck and he could feel her hair on the side of his face. Will slammed the door shut on these observations and held his breath as he carried her down the hall to her bedroom and placed her back on the mattress. She lay there quietly, her eyes still open. Will pulled up the blankets for modesty’s sake, then stood at her side, bound by indecision. 

At last, he went to her window and opened the curtains, letting in some more moonlight to see by, then hovered by the door. There was no reason she might not get right back up again and do something far more dangerous, like fall down the stairs. He thought for about half a second about waking one of the staff or Nurse Hilda, then simply went to his own room and grabbed a blanket and a pillow, making himself a place on the admittedly uncomfortable sofa in Alana’s room. The last thing he did was turn the key in the lock and put it in the pocket of his dressing gown. 

Where he lay, he could see Alana’s face. She had, thankfully, closed her eyes and shifted her position, appearing far more relaxed and natural than before, an arm thrown up over her head, face turned toward Will. 

She wore her expressions of sleep just as he remembered. Naps on picnic blankets when they were children. She often fell asleep on his shoulder on long train rides. When he’d wake from a fever and see her asleep in the chair next to him. 

He shouldn’t be looking. It was too intimate. He rolled over and faced the wall.

Will expected to dream about the people he killed, but his mind had been a blank, starry expanse of velvet all night. He’d awakened only twice to shift his position, pausing for a moment before going back to sleep just to look at Hannibal’s peaceful face, the bruises left by the outlaws, the way his hair fell over his forehead. 

Now it was morning, and there were lips on his, on his neck, soft nuzzling along his shoulders. He made a little hum of pleasure, feeling his husband’s large, warm hands palm over his body, sneaking up his thigh to cup his buttocks. 

“I can smell breakfast,” Hannibal whispered against his ear. “Stay here. Let me bring you some water.” 

“Music to my ears,” Will murmured, snuggling back down into their bedroll as Hannibal braved the morning chill to fetch them both some warm wash water. 

Hannibal watched him as he toweled himself off and got dressed. “You look different,” he said, tying his boots. “Overnight you’ve grown lovelier.”

Will laughed. “Oh? Some kind of black magic? Am I a moroi, drinking up your youth?” 

Hannibal opened the tent flap and led him to the fireside where breakfast was waiting. There was plenty to go around; provisions had initially been calculated for more men. The camp was quieter this morning, surely. Will felt somber until Hannibal began playing with the curls at the back of his head while he ate. “I’m unsure if you’ve physically become more beautiful, or if my eyes see you differently now.”

Will swallowed, taking a swig of tea from an earthenware cup. “Because I killed someone,” he said softly, suddenly morose. 

Hannibal chased the feeling away by pulling Will into his lap where he sat on a tree stump by the fire, Will’s thighs over his so they were facing each other. “Yes,” he said simply. “Yes, I think that’s it.” The soft adoration in his expression was so powerfully intimate, Will couldn’t help but smile and bite his lip, a gentle touch of teeth, feeling a flush rise to his cheeks. 

Hannibal kissed his throat, just at the base of his jaw. “Remarkable boy,” he murmured.

A gentle hand on his arm. “Will.”

He dragged open his tired eyes. Alana was kneeling at the side of the couch, wrapped chastely in her large blue dressing gown. The light of morning poured through the curtains he’d opened last night, backlighting her like a visiting angel. He groaned and rolled away from the vision. Not his to see. Raising a hand to rub his eyes, he realized in a sinking second he was still wearing his wedding ring. 

Quickly, he pulled up his blanket and pretended to snuggle down into it with a groan. Deftly, he palmed the ring and slipped it in the pocket of his dressing gown. It clanked next to the key to the door, which he pulled out and handed to Alana. “Looking for this?”

“We’re locked in?” Worry crossed her brow. 

Will sat up and tried to massage the crick in his neck. “I found you wandering the halls last night. Sleepwalking.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake,” she sighed, passing her pale hand over her brow and plopping down on the end of the couch next to him. He pulled his feet away quickly. “I’m so sorry, Will, I didn’t mean to disturb your rest. You’re meant to be convalescing.” 

“It’s fine.” He really should get up. Leave the room. This wasn’t safe. But they were simply family, weren’t they? 

Alana had the key in her hand, twisting it between her fingers as she brooded. “I don’t understand why this is happening.”

“Maybe it’s contagious. I, uh… gave it to you.” He didn’t want to leave. This felt good, being close to her again, with the barriers lowered. Like when they were younger. She gave him a wry but loving look. 

“Do you… feel all right? Did you… dream about anything?”

She considered, leaning her elbow in the carved back of the couch, running her fingers through her hair. “I’m tired, but it’s mild. I don’t feel particularly well rested. As for dreams…?” She shook her head. “I don’t remember anything in particular. More like a… feeling.” 

“A feeling…?

She nodded. “A sense. Everything was dark, but I felt like there was someone… out there, wherever there is, far away, sort of… whispering to me. Coming closer and closer. I had a notion that something or someone was coming, slowly, steadily, towards me.” She shook her head. “I’ve never had a dream like that, if you can call it a dream. Perhaps I ought to write to Frederick and see what he thinks.”

Will snorted, though it was mostly silent. “Remember what he used to tell me? That I’d overtaxed my brain. So, what’s, uhm… what’s taxing you?” He paused. “Is it… being here with me?” 

“No, not at all,” she said quickly. “We’re in Whitby; it’s complete relaxation. And you’re nearly recovered, so what do I have to worry about?”

“I don’t know,” he said, picking at a stray string on the blanket that was still resting on his lap. “You don’t, ah… tell me everything like you used to.” 

She gave him a softly sympathetic smile and a little sigh. Reaching out, she placed her hand over his where it fretted with the string. “I’m sorry, Will. I’m trying to keep… I’m trying to stay your friend, your family, without…” 

He nodded. She didn’t need to say it. 

“Emotional intimacy can breed the desire for…” 

He nodded again, looking away, wishing she’d just stop talking. 

She wasn’t looking at him, either, choosing instead to glance at their hands together, their joined weight resting on Will’s knee. He could feel their contours through the blanket, through the dressing gown. Her palm was soft, like always, warm, like always. 

Alana was leaning closer. 

His mind skittered, scrabbling for a foothold. It was happening again. It was fucking happening again, after everything…!

The hand over his drifted to his cheek instead. 

“The wedding,” he said suddenly, looking at her with firm directness, struggling out of the riptide that threatened to sweep them together. “You’re… anxious about the wedding. About having to-to choose between Chilton and Beverly and Margot. It, uh… it must be h-hard, knowing someone’s going to get hurt.”

Alana let go of his cheek like she’d just touched a hot stove and sat back. “Yes,” she said through a falsely wide smile. “That must be it. There are so many factors to… consider when making a life-changing decision.”

“We, uhm… we should go home soon. So you can decide,” Will suggested, getting to his feet, hefting up the balled-up blanket and his pillow. “Then you can rest more easily.” 

She was looking at him from her place on the sofa, her clear eyes encased in the sheen of tears. Still, she smiled. “Yes, you’re right, of course. Well, why don’t you have Nurse Hilda examine you, and then we’ll have our walk in the sea air?”

“She should do the same for you,” Will suggested. “I mean that seriously. Just to, uhm… make sure. That you’re all right. That it’s just anxiety. That it’ll go away.”

“Of course. Please, send her my way when you’ve finished.” Alana got up and unlocked the bedroom door, leaving the key in the lock. “See you for breakfast.”

22 August: — Whitby

Dear Mrs. Bloom,

Here, at your request, is an update regarding the health of Mr. Will Graham. The patient is progressing nicely. He eats and sleeps well and takes daily walks to absorb the sunlight and sea air. He’s gained back some weight and his color is very promising. He still sleeps later than is wise, but this could also be his body demanding the requisite rest to fully heal him. He is not exhibiting any of the symptoms I was initially warned about: the confusion, disorientation, or sleepwalking. His obsession with the morbid seems to have come to a logical conclusion, and he smiles more often. His demeanor is sour and disagreeable, but I have come to learn that such presentation is his natural state and has nothing to do with his health. God bless you for taking in a ward such as him. I can only imagine the kind of unruly child he must have been. 

I must, however, mention my concerns regarding your daughter, Miss Bloom. She has now taken to sleepwalking, as if such a condition was contagious and Mr. Graham has given it to her. I am not well-versed in the field of psychiatry, but it seems to me that perhaps the suggestion of such behavior as an outlet has unduly influenced her subconscious. 

I have been tasked with sleeping in Miss Bloom’s room, the staff having moved my bed into her chamber. I keep the key to her bedroom in my dressing gown pocket to prevent her from wandering the halls. Two nights now she has risen in her sleep and gotten out of bed. She tries the door, and, finding it locked, seems to search around the room for the key. At this point I am usually able to get her back to bed, but for some time she lays with her eyes open, as if she were watching me. Before closing her eyes and drifting back to sleep, she whispers. Two nights ago, I did not hear it, but last night I leaned closer. She said, “He is coming… he is coming…”

In my opinion, Mr. Graham is fit to return to London at any time and resume his work as a solicitor. While I think it best that you consult Dr. Chilton on such matters, I imagine that once Miss Bloom and Mr. Graham are no longer residing under the same roof, Miss Bloom’s ailment will shortly resolve itself. She shared with me that she is dreading making a final choice between suitors, and this undue stress may be causing the episodes as well. 

         Please respond with your next instructions. 

                           Sincerely, 

                           Hilda Andersen

Chapter Text

Or of the red-cross hero teach,

Dauntless in dungeon as on breach:

Alike to him the sea, the shore,

The brand, the bridle, or the oar.

Alike to him the war that calls

Its votaries to the shattered walls,

Which the grim Turk, besmeared with blood,

Against the invincible made good;

Or that, whose thundering voice could wake

The silence of the polar lake…

Will lowered his copy of Marmion, using his finger to keep his place. “If we’re to be destroyed,” he murmured, “I want to die at your side.”

Again, the double ringing, the echo. He’d said the words before. Another piece of his past life returned to him. It was a Turkish arrow that had come into the castle that night. Not through his bedchamber window, no, that was out of arrow range, but into the hallway down from the door carved like the Tree of Life. The same window he’d looked out of to see Antony crawl down the wall like a lizard. 

He didn’t try to make sense of it, just tucked the images away, dividing and categorizing them. The message had lied, boasted of Hannibal’s death, providing the crucifix as proof. And thus, he had chosen to fall. 

Idly, he considered throwing himself from the cliffs in front of him, to die dashed on the rocks. Maybe he’d come to rest where Graham Will’s body had. 

To distract himself, he put away Marmion and pulled out his journal, writing in inspector’s shorthand. 

August 23: — Last night was very threatening, and the fishermen say that we are in for a storm. I must try to watch it and learn the weather signs. Today is a gray day, and the sun as I write is hidden in thick clouds, high over Kettleness. Everything is gray—except the green grass, which seems like emerald amongst it; gray earthy rock; gray clouds, tinged with the sunburst at the far edge, hang over the gray sea, into which the sand-points stretch like gray fingers. The sea is tumbling in over the shallows and the sandy flats with a roar, muffled in the sea-mists drifting inland. 

The horizon is lost in a gray mist. All is vastness; the clouds are piled up like giant rocks, and there is a “brool” over the sea that sounds like some presage of doom. Dark figures are on the beach here and there, sometimes half shrouded in the mist, and seem “men like trees walking.” The fishing-boats are racing for home and rise and dip in the ground swell as they sweep into the harbor, bending to the scuppers.

I miss fishing. I miss my dogs. When I leave for America, I should consider somewhere I can fish widely, many different species. If I sell everything I have, that actually belongs to me, I could pay for my passage and set myself up somewhere as a fisherman. Buy a boat, a little place to live with the dogs. 

Will paused his writing as he noticed a hunched figure moving slowly through the mist. As it neared, he recognized Mr. Wells, the old man that seemed obsessed with the idea of legacy and the lies told on gravestones. He was alone, without his cronies, and was headed for Will’s bench over the grave of Graham Will. He looked stoic, resolute, and sad in a way he hadn’t the last time they’d seen one another. 

“Mr. Graham.” He lowered himself down on the bench with a heavy sigh. 

“Mr. Wells.”

They shared a long silence that was somehow completely comfortable. 

“I want to say something to you.” 

Will glanced his way. The old man was staring out to sea, or at least as far as they could see in the gloom. “I’m afraid, my deary, that I must have shocked you by all the wicked things I’ve been sayin’ about the dead, and such like.”

“The truth isn’t wicked,” Will said. “You’re right. A lot of these stones are lies.”

“I know I said lies is lies, but there are lies, and there are lies.” Mr. Wells changed around the emphasis. “Some lies are told to cushion blows to the heart, aren’t they?”

“White lies,” Will confirmed, sliding his journal back in his pocket. 

“I was wonderin’ if it was so wrong for Graham Will to be buried under a stone what says his mother loved ‘im.” He laced his gnarled fingers together. “She must’ve, at some point. Bothered to put a stone up, bothered to have ‘im buried here even when everybody knew he killed ‘imself.”

Will sighed. “I don’t know. I wish we, ah… lived in a more honest world. But the truth… doesn’t have to be brutal. We shouldn’t be brutal to the people we love.”

Mr. Wells nodded. “I been thinkin’ about legacy. I haven’t got much to my name, ‘cept the words I say and the way they strike a person’s heart. I didn’t mean what I said ‘bout the graves, and I want ye to remember that when I’m gone. We old folks that be daffled, and with one foot in the grave, don’t altogether like to think of it, and we don’t want to feel scart of it; an’ that’s why I’ve took to makin’ light of it, so that I’d cheer up my own heart a bit.”

“Gallows humor,” Will said with a nod. “I, uh… tend to do the same.”

“But, Lord love ye, son, I ain’t afraid of dyin’, not a bit; only I don’t want to die if I can help it. My time must be nigh at hand now, for I be old, and a hundred years is too much for any man to expect; and I’m so nigh it that the reaper is already whettin’ his scythe. Someday soon the Angel of Death will sound his trumpet for me.”

Will rubbed his bottom lip. “That’s true for anyone. When… I worked in London, I saw it all the time. Death comes. Doesn’t matter how-how careful you are, or if you lived a righteous life. One decision or another – or losing someone – it’s… inevitable.” He paused. “Easy for me to say, being younger than you, sir, but there’s something, uhm… peaceful about that guarantee.”

“If the reaper should come this very night I’d not refuse to answer his call. For life be, after all, only a waitin’ for somethin’ else than what we’re doin’; and death be all that we can rightly depend on. But I’m content, for it’s comin’ to me, my deary, and comin’ quick. It may be comin’ while we be lookin’ and wonderin’. Maybe it’s in that wind out over the sea that’s bringin’ with it loss and wreck, and sore distress, and sad hearts. Look! look!” he cried suddenly. “There’s something in that wind that sounds, and looks, and tastes, and smells like death. It’s in the air; I feel it comin’. Lord, make me answer cheerful when my call comes!” He held up his arms devoutly, and raised his hat. His mouth moved as though he were praying. 

“I don’t believe in God,” Will said, not knowing why. It seemed unnecessarily cruel, but it had already been said and he couldn’t take it back. “N-not in the, uhm… traditional sense.” 

“Life after death?”

Will nodded yes. “Reincarnation,” he said. 

“Livin’ over and over again?” Mr. Wells scoffed, but with a smile. “Sounds exhaustin’.”

“It is,” Will agreed.

After a few minutes’ silence, the old man reached into his sweater pocket and withdrew a collapsible spyglass that he extended and raised to his eye. “There’s a ship headed in,” he said. 

“In this weather?”

“I can’t make her out,” he said; “she’s a Russian, by the look o’ her; but she’s knockin’ about in the queerest way. She doesn’t know her mind a bit; she seems t’see the storm comin’ but can’t decide whether to run up north in the open, or to put in here.”

He handed Will the spyglass, and he raised it to peer through. The old man was right; there was the dark gray outline of a ship on the horizon. He handed the glass back, and Mr. Wells raised it to his eye once more. “Look there again! She is steered mighty strangely, like she don’t mind the hand on the wheel; changes about with every puff o’ wind. We’ll hear more of her before this time to-morrow.”

“Huh,” Will murmured. “Hope she puts in here.”

“You want a closer look at her?” the old man asked. “Lookin’ for a bit o’ vodka from a Russian sailor?”

Will just smiled thinly. He couldn’t answer. But he was suddenly consumed with the magnetic desire to see the boat come ashore. As if it would bring him something he needed as desperately as air. 

I am swaddled in earth, held safe in the gentle, rocking waters. This place is both a womb and a tomb from which I will rise and be born. When it is time, I will emerge.

I travel in this half-aware place, floating in a liminal state, pacing a twilight realm between sleep and awake, on the shores of dreams, dipping my feet in, but venturing no further. I have the sense that I might be swept out into a deep dreaming and would not return for centuries. But here I might cast my power about and see what it might tell me, a fisherman raising and lowering his net to see what he might catch. 

I can feel him. I can sense his mind, its unique signature. It takes all that I have not to try and read it, to submerge in it. He will know. He is utterly aware. There are no more hallucinations, no more lost time. If I join with him, if I try to read his thoughts, he will sense me. 

But she. She has no barriers. An ordinary human mind that offers no more resistance than a sheaf of paper trying to withstand a dagger. I break down the door to her mind like kicking over a kitchen chair. And through her, I may see my dearest love.

Will. 

I can feel his essence, his presence, and it makes me ache. I see him through her eyes as they sit on the bench in the churchyard atop the cliffs. He looks well and healthy, though his smiles are rare. I watch him as he gazes off across the water. I am desperate to know if he is thinking of me. If he misses me. 

The more I look at him through her eyes, the more I understand what he means to her. It is worse than Will explained to me back in Transylvania. She pities him, so much so I find it nauseating. She is so utterly sure of her own goodness, the charity of her family. She cannot, however, seem to deny herself anything; she is fully aware that she harbors sexual desire for him. She thinks him both innocent and damned, corrupted by violence and the bloodstains on his mind, and her desire to nurture him is rooted in a total lack of respect. 

For as loyally as she has nursed him back to health twice now, she has no care for what she’s done to his heart, making promises with her lips and breaking them over and over again, powerless, in her mind, to resist the temptation of the forbidden fruit. Years of abuse, all because she desires him and the thrill of having what she shouldn’t, what she’s been told her whole life is unacceptable, akin to slumming. Peeling back her layers, she is a spoiled child wrapped in a keen enough intellect to make her the most infuriating kind of hypocrite. 

But I stay with her, my mind submerged in hers, day and night. I linger there unseen, a botfly larva under the skin, feeding on what she knows about Will, and knowledge of her as well, mining her for whatever I can use to manipulate should the need arise. 

I am going to enjoy my first meeting with Miss Alana Bloom, I have no doubt. 

Closer. Closer. With each passing day, closer. 

I let Will go that night on the road to the Borgo Pass because I saw no other recourse. Not without breaking him. Not without making him hate me. So, I released him back to fate and faith, and I am confident now that I made the right decision; soon, we will be reunited. He was reborn to love me, and I have stayed on this earth for centuries waiting for him, defying God and Nature. There is no force on heaven or earth that can stop me. 

I am coming, beloved. I am coming for you. I am coming, sweet one, my treasure. 

I have crossed oceans and time to find him. Oceans of time. My love.

Will. I am coming for you.  

Chapter Text

24 August, Whitby: —

Dear Frederick,

Forgive a dot of jam here and there — I am writing over breakfast. Thank you for your fascinating letters! Your patient, Mr. Tier, sounds like a poor lost soul in need of your care. I’m very interested in hearing how you plan to treat and rehabilitate a person living under these kinds of delusions. He is lucky to have been placed under your supervision, and thus has a hope of emerging from his mind’s darkness. 

Thank you, also, for inquiring after Will. He is well, so much stronger and fitter than when I found him in Budapest; we are already preparing to return to London, and I look forward to seeing you at his coming-home party once we have our plans finalized and can fix a date for the event. Please know I have thought of you often during our separation and thank you ever so much for visiting my mother to keep her company in my long absence. 

That being said, I wanted to confirm with you one more time that Will is ready to leave his convalescence. We’ve had a strange turn of events here and I thought I ought to write and wait for your response before we finish packing our bags. 

Last night, we experienced one of the greatest and suddenest storms on record, with results both strange and unique. The weather had been somewhat sultry, but not to any degree uncommon in the month of August. Saturday evening was as fine as was ever known, and the great body of holidaymakers laid out yesterday for visits to Mulgrave Woods, Robin Hood’s Bay, Rig Mill, Runswick, Staithes, and the various trips in the neighborhood of Whitby. The steamers Emma and Scarborough made trips up and down the coast, and there was an unusual amount of “tripping” both to and from Whitby. 

The day was unusually fine till the afternoon. Will and I had walked up to our favorite seat on the cliffs when some of the old sailors who frequent the East Cliff churchyard, and from that commanding eminence watch the wide sweep of sea visible to the north and east, called attention to a sudden show of “mares’-tails” high in the sky to the north-west. One old fisherman, our prickly Mr. Wells, who for more than half a century has kept watch on weather signs from the East Cliff, foretold in an emphatic manner the coming of a sudden storm.

The approach of sunset was so very beautiful, so grand in its masses of splendidly-colored clouds, that there was quite an assemblage on the walk along the cliff in the old churchyard to enjoy the beauty, and Will and I explored the ruins of the abbey while we enjoyed the rich colors that saturated the sky.

Before the sun dipped below the black mass of Kettleness, standing boldly athwart the western sky, its downward way was marked by myriad clouds of every sunset-color — flame, purple, pink, green, violet, and all the tints of gold; with here and there masses not large, but of seemingly absolute blackness, in all sorts of shapes, as well outlined as colossal silhouettes. Will pointed out that many of the ships were hurrying home to the harbor, and that was a sure sign of bad weather to come. 

I thought we ought to get home, then, and it was suppertime besides, but Will did not want to leave. He lingered in the ruins of the abbey looking out over the sea in a state of excited distraction, barely responding to my entreaties that we should go home. With a strange suddenness, the wind fell away entirely. In its wake was a dead calm, a sultry heat, and that prevailing intensity which, on the approach of thunder, affects persons of a sensitive nature.

Will was thrilled by it. I could see his eyes shining, the color rising in his cheeks. Closer and closer he went to the cliff, giving me quite a start, though when I caught up to him, he was still a safe distance from the edge. There were but few lights in sight at sea, for even the coasting steamers, which usually “hug” the shore so closely, kept well to seaward, and but few fishing-boats were in sight. 

“Look,” Will said to me then, pointing out a ship out at sea despite the clear and unavoidable danger of the storm. “The Russian ship,” he said. “All her sails are set. Look, Alana, they’re trying to signal her from shore.” As far as we could tell, the ship did not respond to any of the lights or flags or other means of hailing her. She continued despite the danger, sails idly flapping as she gently rolled on the undulating swell of the sea, as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean.

I insisted we head for home. It was clear enough in my mind that the weather was moments away from turning dangerous, and the last thing I wanted to do was try and navigate the steps down from the churchyard in the driving rain with soaking wet petticoats. But Will wouldn’t listen. I do not mean that he argued; he murmured replies such as, “Yes, you’re right. We should go,” but then made no effort to do so, choosing instead to watch the foolhardy ship as it lingered on the preternaturally still sea. I, too, felt strangely transfixed by the view. It was as if the sky and the sea had drawn in a great breath and were holding it; we were in the space between breaths, desperate for something to happen. I took Will’s arm and we stood, watching the ship. 

Within a quarter of an hour, the stillness of the air grew quite oppressive, and the silence was so marked that the bleating of a sheep inland or the barking of a dog in the town was distinctly heard, and the band on the pier, with its lively French air, was like a discord in the great harmony of nature’s silence. And then came a strange sound from over the sea, and high overhead the air began to carry a strange, faint, hollow booming.

Then without warning the tempest broke. With a rapidity which, at the time, seemed incredible, and even afterwards is impossible to realize, the whole aspect of nature at once became convulsed. The waves rose in growing fury, each overtopping its fellow, till in a very few minutes the lately glassy sea was like a roaring and devouring monster. White-crested waves beat madly on the level sands and rushed up the shelving cliffs; others broke over the piers, and with their spume swept the lanthorns of the lighthouses which rise from the end of either pier of Whitby Harbor. The wind roared like thunder and blew with such force that it was with difficulty that Will and I stayed on our feet.

Below, we could see from our vantage point that the townspeople found necessary to clear the entire piers from the mass of onlookers, or else the winds might have resulted in fatalities as people were nearly blown into the water fully dressed. To add to the difficulties and dangers of the time, masses of sea-fog came drifting inland—white, wet clouds, which swept by in ghostly fashion, so dank and damp and cold that it needed but little effort of imagination to think that the spirits of those lost at sea were touching their living brethren with the clammy hands of death.

And yet, I had no desire to leave, not anymore. It was as if whatever had transfixed Will had caught me up as well. It was really an incredible meteorological event in any case, unlike any kind of weather either of us had seen before. And yet, I shuddered as the wreaths of sea-mist swept by. I looked at Will, worried he would catch cold, but he was smiling, his face placid and calm, not a single goosebump on his neck or hands. Even with our view spoiled by the fog, we lingered, haunting the ruins of the abbey like two ghosts ourselves. It seems silly now, but we played hide-and-seek there, as we did when we were children, calling to one another over the boom of distant thunder, losing one another in the fog only to practically collide as we played chase. 

At times the mist cleared, and the sea for some distance could be seen in the glare of the lightning, which now came thick and fast, followed by such sudden peals of thunder that the whole sky overhead seemed trembling under the shock of the footsteps of the storm. And when we could, we paused our games and stared out at the sea. The ocean was running mountains high, threw skywards with each wave mighty masses of white foam, which the tempest seemed to snatch at and whirl away into space; here and there a fishing-boat, with a rag of sail, running madly for shelter before the blast; now and again the white wings of a storm-tossed seabird.

At last, the rain came, lashing down in powerful torrents. And again, Will and I acted like children, infected by a kind of mania; laughing and chasing each other through the ruins of Whitby Abbey, soaked to the skin within moments. It was as if we celebrated a great relief; a break in the weather, the exhaled breath, the coming of the storm, it all felt like a beautiful release. 

We cavorted until we were both exhausted, almost too exhausted to walk. The rain was pouring down in steady torrents, though the mist seemed to be clearing. Breathing hard, as wet as if we’d fallen in the ocean, we managed to make our way home, much to the relief of our staff and Nurse Hilda, who were sure we’d been swept off the pier to our deaths. Indeed, being blown off the pier and dunked into the ocean would have been a more reasonable explanation for the state of our clothes. And yet Will and I remained in a light and charmed humor. After we changed clothes and ate a late supper filled with jokes, laughter, and childhood reminiscences, we went to bed. I slept like the dead, and Will reported much the same, stating that he barely moved all night.

It feels like we both underwent a kind of baptism. Today we are both in excellent spirits and health. I feel a kind of relief, as if both of us have set down a burden. But I must say, in recalling the events from last night, I am concerned about our behavior. Would you recommend we stay on in Whitby, or is it time to return to London? I want to say it was merely the weather that encouraged us to act as we did, and the desire to relive some of our fondly youthful memories, but I trust your professional opinion above all others. 

         If you could please telegraph your response. 

         Yours sincerely,

         Alana Bloom

Will dipped his brush in some brown and spread it over his paper. Cleaning off the color, he tried some green, then gave up and started painting a dog. It sort of looked like Winston, but he couldn’t claim it as a portrait. He chuckled at his pitiful efforts, then sat back in his chair, sleeves rolled up, letting the warm sun caress the exposed skin of his forearms and the fresh air stir his curls. 

He felt lighter. He couldn’t explain it. There was no accounting for it, aside from the invigorating romp in the rain the night before and the beautiful weather that followed the massive storm. Pleasant breezes, warm sun, and fertile air perfumed with flowers and fresh seawater cradled Whitby. The streets and buildings were washed clean, and Will felt the same, as though some kind of grime had been blasted away by the torrents of rain. 

Something wrong had become right again. A gap closed; a missing piece restored. He didn’t trust the feeling to last but resolved to enjoy it regardless. The small walled garden behind their townhouse was still glimmering with moisture, the grass and stone paths littered with fallen blossoms and leaves, strewn about not in a way that denoted wreckage or ruin, but like seeing confetti on the street after a wedding or a parade. 

The birds, the distant roar of the sea, the soft noises of town; all blended into a pleasing tapestry, weaving a soft shawl of peace that draped around his shoulders. He opened his eyes and picked up the brush again with a crooked smile, dipping it in the paint again. Truly awful. God, it looked like a child’s drawing. 

“Oh, Will, how lovely.” Alana’s voice behind him. He turned to see her emerge from the house and lift her skirts to avoid the little puddles still left on the paving stones. 

“Come and sit,” he invited, indicating the extra chair and her easel he’d erected next to his. “Had to blow the dust off of them, but, ah…” 

She settled into her own chair. He handed her a piece of watercolor paper to clip to her easel. The small table between them held the water, paints, and brushes. “That looks just like Max,” she said after a silent laugh, picking up her brush. 

“It’s Winston… I think.” He painted in a little bone on the rudimentary grass he’d sketched out. “What, you couldn’t tell? Don’t you think my, uhm… talents have… really blossomed, uh, in these past few years?” 

She was giggling now, like they were children again. Dipping her brush, she swept it across the paper, setting a pale blue background for her piece. 

“You’ve been out already?” he asked.

“Yes. I had a few letters to post.” She rinsed her brush and went for the green next. “I wrote to Dr. Chilton. I wanted to make sure, really sure, that you’re ready to return to life in London. I asked him to send a telegram with his recommendation.”

“Nurse Hilda’s given me a clean bill of health.” He said it for information, not to dispute what she’d done, and felt it came across in his tone.

“Your physical body, yes, but I want to be sure regarding your mental state.” Her skilled hands crafted the garden before them on her paper in beautiful detail. 

“Hmm.” He painted a little chubby dog next to the larger furry one. Buster, sort of. “Quite a storm last night.”

“Indeed,” she said. And that was the end of the discussion. And Will was satisfied. Something in him had uncoiled and a tension had been released, the same way the atmosphere now was clear and breezy instead of muggy and spoiling for a fight. 

Will was daydreaming about America when the door behind them opened, and one of the staff came out, clearing her throat gently to get their attention. “Mr. Graham? There are two men here to see you, sir.” She reached over his shoulder and handed him a pair of calling cards. 

Two cream-white cards of simple design. Inspector James L. Price. Inspector Brian T. Zeller. London Metropolitan Police.

Will felt his mouth go dry and his calm mind erupt with sudden questions with the swiftness and violence of the storm the night before. He froze, staring at the names, as if the letters might somehow rearrange themselves and tell him someone else had come. 

Alana glanced at him, then took the cards from the girl’s outstretched hand. “Price and Zeller?” she exclaimed. “What in heaven’s name are they doing here?” 

“I-I don’t…” Will stuttered.

“Are they on holiday, do you think?”

“Together?” Will scoffed. “I think, uh… Oliver might have something to say about that.” 

“Oh, that’s right, I’d forgotten Inspector Price had married.”

“Four children already,” Will murmured. The maid made another little sound to remind them that she was there. “Uhm… right, I’ll… just be a moment.”

“Have them wait in the formal parlor, Dorcas,” Alana instructed. The girl bobbed her head and hustled back inside. “Will? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” he muttered. “I’m just as lost as you are.” 

Will hadn’t seen either of them in the flesh since finishing all the paperwork and reports regarding Abel Gideon’s death and the subsequent investigations that confirmed the mad doctor had been the Ripper and Will was within his rights to shoot him. After Mary Kelly’s brother had stabbed Will, he’d heard Price and Zeller had paid the Kellys a visit, making it very clear that, in no uncertain terms, any further action against Will, whether it be violent or legal, would land them in a world of trouble. 

He’d received an invitation to Jimmy and Oliver’s wedding, but hadn’t attended. Sent a gift. He’d let Alana pick it out. 

Will got to his feet with a shake of his head. “Better go see what they want, I suppose.”

Alana followed him inside to the formal parlor. Sure enough, there stood his old partners from Scotland Yard. Zeller had filled out a bit and had a few flecks of gray in his thin beard. Price was much the same but had a kind of tiredness around his eyes and warmth in his smile that Will suspected was a result of having many young children. 

“Will. It’s good to see you.” Zeller offered a hand, and Will shook it, then greeted Jimmy. Zeller nodded respectfully to Alana. “Miss Bloom.”

“Your home here is lovely,” Jimmy complimented, clasping Alana’s hand gently. To Will: “Thank you again for the silver chafing-dish. We use it all the time.” 

Oh, so that was the wedding gift Alana had sent. Will nodded vaguely. 

“Would you care for some tea? Lemonade?” Alana said, filling in a small stretch of silence where the men regarded one another. 

“Thank you, Miss Bloom, but I’m afraid we’re in a hurry.” Jimmy paused and glanced at Zeller. Zeller nodded, and Jimmy smiled again, a tight-lipped little thing. “We need to speak to Will. Official police business.”

Alana’s eyes widened, and her hand seemed to instinctively find Will’s forearm, where it clutched. “Gentlemen,” she said after a moment to recover her wits – she did so quickly, Will marveled, even as his own mind was pure chaos. “Will is here not on a pleasure holiday, but because he is recovering from a brain fever he contracted whilst traveling for business. I’m not sure what it is you’d like to speak with him about, but you need to understand that great shocks to his system are a sincere danger to his health. Perhaps you ought to let me stay or tell me what the matter is so that I may, in turn, tell him in a delicate fashion.” 

“Just say it,” Will contradicted her, pulling out of her grip and crossing his arms over his chest. “Am I, uhm… under arrest, or is this about a body you want me to look at?”

“Will,” Alana said sharply, then checked herself. “May I speak to Will in private, please?”

Again, Will shook his head. “Just say what you came here to say.” He turned to Alana. “If I, uh, collapse under the strain, well, Nurse Hilda’s just upstairs, isn’t she?” His knife’s-edge anxiety had unsheathed itself at the sight of the two inspectors and came out of him in gruff rudeness that he realized Alana didn’t really deserve. “I’d like her to stay with me,” he said as a kind of apology. “She’ll swear to remain confidential.”

Alana nodded, threading her arm through his. “Let’s sit,” she suggested, motioning to the stiff, unappealing formal parlor furniture. 

They granted her this request, Zeller and Price perching on one horsehair sofa, Will and Alana on the other, Alana still holding his arm in her own, watching him carefully to see how he reacted as Price and Zeller spoke. 

Zeller began. “Last night, during the storm, a ship washed up on the shore here in Whitby.”

Will thought immediately of the Russian vessel that Mr. Wells had shown him with his spyglass. 

Price, now. “There was only one man aboard, and he’s… well, he’s dead, Will.”

Alana’s grip on his arm tightened, but Will felt nothing. He expected to be shocked, or outraged that Price and Zeller were here, about to ask what he knew they were going to ask, but for now, there was nothing but numb acceptance. 

“Local police sent us a message at dawn, when the craft was discovered. We came right away,” Zeller said. “We’ve done a cursory examination of the ship, but, um…” He looked at Price, eyes silently pleading for him to take over. 

“We need you to take a look,” Jimmy said, then winced at his own words. He knew, it seemed, what he was asking. The request was a terrible burden, surely. Calling Will out of five years of retirement, and on the heels of a great illness that affected his mind was no small thing.

Will cocked a half-grin. “You must be desperate, coming here like this.”

“Gentlemen, I apologize for the abruptness of what I’m about to say, but it must be said.” Alana got to her feet. “I’m frankly shocked that you would make such a request. I’m sure the crime is a gruesome one, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. I feel for the victim or victims, I truly do, but I cannot allow you to draw Will into your world again. Not now, not ever.” 

“Begging your pardon, Miss Bloom, but… I’d like to hear it from Will.” Zeller leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, looking directly into Will’s eyes with his own blues. He addressed his former partner directly. “You know we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t necessary.”

“We know what happened after the Ripper,” Jimmy said. “And… Mary. You paid a pretty significant price for saving London.” He chuckled, trying, Will thought, to ease the tension. “Do you know how many times we’ve been tempted to come knocking? But… we didn’t. We respected your decision to leave the force.”

“You wouldn’t be here if it was avoidable.” Will rubbed his mouth a moment, leaning back on the sofa. Alana stared down at him disapprovingly. “I’m guessing time is a factor.”

“Exactly,” Zeller said. “We’ve already got folks sniffing around for salvage rights. Or whoever really owns the cargo could show up at any time and confiscate our crime scene. We need answers and we need them now, Will. We might have a few hours, at most.” 

“And how convenient you were already in town?” Price said through a tight smile. Then, “Please, Will.”

“All right,” he relented, at the same moment Alana said, “Absolutely not!”

“Will!” Alana’s clear eyes glittered, and a high, furious color came to her cheeks. “You can’t do this. You’ve made so much progress! What happens if you have a relapse?”

“Then I have a relapse.” Will stood up. Zeller clasped his hand and clapped him on the shoulder, a wide smile on his face. He could make the excuse that they were partners, that he owed them loyalty, or that he wanted to see justice for whatever poor bastard had died on that boat. But the truth of the matter was, he felt compelled. Zeller and Price were his white rabbits, and he wanted to follow them. Had to follow them. 

“As we said, time is a factor,” Jimmy urged, getting to his feet as well. 

“Let me get my jacket,” Will said. 

“I’m coming with you,” Alana insisted. 

Will glanced at Price and Zeller, whose faces were wide-eyed and clearly said, bad idea.

“I don’t want you looking at the scene,” he said. “The body.”

“If Miss Bloom would like to accompany us to the pier and wait…?” Zeller suggested. “Then she’d be on hand if needed.”

“Will, I’m going to ask you one more time. Beg you. Don’t do this,” Alana was shaking with anger, her hand on his arm again. 

“I’m going,” he said softly.

Chapter Text

Tate Hill Pier teemed with activity, crowded with onlookers of every social class. Fine ladies in pale, lacy frocks protected themselves with similarly appointed parasols, accompanied by gentlemen in linen suits. Shopkeepers and blacksmiths mingled in the crowd, still wearing the aprons of their trade, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with fishermen and beggars alike. Children ran everywhere, playing in the surf or thundering along the pier in endless, inexplicable games of chase. 

The point of interest, of course, was the enormous, battered schooner that had pitched herself on that accumulation of sand and gravel washed by many tides and many storms into the south-east corner of the pier jutting under the East Cliff. The storm had apparently driven the massive cargo ship up against a sand heap, and there she rested now, beached like a dead whale, sails in shreds, rigging snapped and flapping in the wind. 

As they neared, Will caught sight of the name on the side of the ship. DEMETER.

The onlookers were kept at bay by a police cordon of uniformed bobbies, and Will could see the hats of a few other officers and inspectors on the deck of the ship. Something covered in a sheet rested against the ship’s wheel. 

As Price, Zeller, Alana, and Will neared the ship, Will caught sight of someone rushing through the crowd toward them, away from the point of interest, on a collision course. The day was bright and sunny, and the clear light gleamed upon the person – a small-boned woman wearing an obnoxiously-patterned, blue-striped dress and a dramatic, wide-brimmed hat. Her violently red hair bounced in tight curls on her shoulders as she hustled their way. 

Winifred Lounds.

“Shit,” Zeller swore, forgetting, Will thought, that Alana was close by. 

Freddie Lounds managed to elbow her way over, intercepting the four of them before they could reach the police line at the edge of the pier closest to the derelict. She had her signature pad of paper in hand, her pencil ready to take notes and sketch the lightning-fast, lifelike images that accompanied her newspaper articles. “Inspector Zeller! Inspector Price, and, as I live and breathe, Inspector Graham. Forgive me, it’s just Mr. Graham, now, isn’t it?”

“Step aside, Miss Lounds,” Price commanded, as if that would deter her. 

“What in the world could be on that ship? Something that would bring Will Graham out of retirement?” Freddie planted herself in front of them, refusing to get out of the way even as Zeller stepped closer. “There must have been a murder on board. Multiple murders?” Her canny eyes traveled from face to face in quick succession. “Multiple,” she confirmed, as if they’d spoken aloud, making notes on her pad. “So, Mr. Graham, was real estate law so dull you just couldn’t stay away from homicide?”

“Out of the way, or you will be moved,” Zeller threatened. He whistled and motioned to a couple of the bobbies working crowd control. They began to weave through the crush of people toward the reporter. 

“It takes one to catch one, doesn’t it, Mr. Graham? Do you have any words for Mary Kelly’s family? Who do you plan to sacrifice to solve your case this time?” She was sketching him, her eyes barely glancing down at the page, yet somehow reproducing his face down to the sour frown he wore on his lips. 

Will spoke without thinking, an instinctive reaction to his repulsion for the dogged, remorseless reporter that had ensured that everyone in London knew his face. “Miss Lounds,” he growled. “It’s not very smart to aggravate a man who spent most of his professional career thinking about killing people.” 

“Damn it, Will…” Price muttered, rubbing his forehead.

Will ignored him, staring her down. Lounds’ pencil flew as she abandoned the drawing and instead wrote down his quote, word for word, a smirk curving up her admittedly pretty features, finishing the very moment before the bobbies caught her by the arms and escorted her back to the end of the pier. 

“This is where we need to leave you, too, Miss Bloom,” Zeller said. 

Alana stopped Will as he moved to follow his former partners toward the police line. “Will, please,” she implored him one final time, looking up at him from under her hat, eyes wide and wet. “It’s not your fight.”

“I’ll be all right,” he assured her, not knowing where his confidence came from. Examining a murder with his empathy pulse might very well do the kind of damage Alana feared. And yet, he pulled his hand out of her grip and followed Price and Zeller to the small skiff at the edge of the pier. They were rowed over to the DEMETER and used a rope ladder to climb aboard. 

Instead of making a beeline for the sheeted figure that seemed draped over the ship’s wheel, Price and Zeller took Will over to a miserable-looking young man in a coast guard uniform. He sat on a crate near the bow of the ship, a silver flask in his hands, guarded by a uniformed officer. He glanced up owlishly as they approached. “This is Mr. Buddish. He was operating the new searchlight last night,” Zeller said. 

Buddish nodded, his pale face stark in the bright sunlight. “Can you tell our friend here what happened and how this ship came to be here?” Price requested. 

The man took a drink from his flask and wiped his lips, an exhausted gesture. “Are you an inspector from London, too?” he asked, voice gravelly as if he’d been speaking for hours. “You look familiar, Mr.…”

“He’s a consultant,” Zeller interrupted. “We’re just trying to get some of the details ironed out. I know you’ve told the story a dozen times, but I need you to tell it once more.”

The man sighed and nodded, licking his lips. “On the summit of the East Cliff the new searchlight was ready for experiment but had not yet been tried. The officers in charge of it got it into working order quick as we could when the storm came up. We knew it was going to raise hell.” He paused, looking at Will, who nodded for him to continue. “It worked. We avoided some accidents. There was a fishing-boat, with gunwale under water, that rushed into the harbor and was able to avoid the piers because of the light.”

“You did good work, Mr. Buddish,” Price said, putting a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Saved lives last night, my lad.”

Buddish nodded his thanks. “Before long the searchlight discovered some distance away a schooner with all sails set. This schooner,” he said, indicating the ship they’d boarded, the DEMETER. “The wind had by this time backed to the east, and there was a panic among the men when we realized the terrible danger she faced. Between her and the port lay the great flat reef on which so many good ships have suffered, and, with the wind blowing from its present quarter, it would be quite impossible that she should fetch the entrance of the harbor. It was high tide, you understand, but the waves were so great that in their troughs the shallows of the shore were almost visible, and the schooner, with all sails set, was rushing with such speed…” the guardsman shook his head, exhaling slowly, “she must fetch up somewhere, if it was only in hell.”

Will glanced at Zeller, and found his former partner looking at him, not the man speaking. Buddish took another drink from his flask. “Then came another rush of sea-fog, greater than any hitherto—a mass of dank mist, which seemed to close on all things like a gray pall. We couldn’t hear a thing o’er roar of the tempest, and the crash of the thunder. I kept the rays of the searchlight on the harbor mouth across the East Pier, just hoping they might avoid disaster. The wind suddenly shifted to the north-east, and the remnant of the sea-fog melted in the blast; and then, between the piers, leaping from wave to wave as it rushed at headlong speed, swept the strange schooner before the blast, with all sail set, and gained the safety of the harbor.”

“Lucky. Like threading a needle, I’d think,” Price said, and the guardsman nodded. 

“The searchlight followed her, and we saw… we saw…” Buddish nodded toward the sheeted form at the ship’s wheel. “L-lashed to the helm was a corpse, with drooping head, which swung horribly to and fro at each motion of the ship. I’ll never forget that sight as long as I live!” He shuddered and took another drink. “No other form could be seen on deck at all. Th-the ship… DEMETER… it found the harbor by the hand of a dead man!”

Will let his focus go soft and lowered himself inch by inch into the guardsman’s story, letting his imagination take over. There was of course a considerable concussion as the vessel drove up on the sand heap. Every spar, rope, and stay were strained, and some of the top-hammer must have come crashing down. He felt himself gripped by the superstitious and mortal terror the searchlight operator and his men must have felt, seeing this ship vomited up from the sea, piloted by a corpse, finding the harbor against all odds, a moth to the flame of the searchlight. 

Buddish continued: “But, strangest of all, the very instant the shore was touched, an immense dog sprang up on deck from below, as if shot up by the concussion.” He shuddered. “A huge, shaggy beast. I’ve never seen a ship’s dog like that, myself. Fearsome creature, wild. Running forward, jumped from the bow on the sand. Making straight for the steep cliff, where the churchyard hangs over the laneway, it disappeared in the darkness.” The guardsman pointed over to the cliff in question. Will could see the tombstones hanging at the edge. It wasn’t far at all from where he and Alana liked to sit in the churchyard of St. Mary’s, with the view of the ruined abbey. 

“We’ve got people looking for the dog,” Zeller comforted Will, a hand on his arm. 

Will nodded. To the witness: “Is that everything, Mr. Buddish?”

The guardsman nodded. “May I go ashore now?”

Zeller nodded yes and passed the man a few coins. “Look, there’s a lady over there selling pies. Opportunistic, but you look like you could use something hearty in your stomach.”

“Thank you, Inspector.” The witness pocketed the money and descended the rope ladder over the side of the ship. 

Will glanced around the deck after the witness had left. The surface of the ship seemed battered, anything that might have been on deck washed overboard. The boards themselves looked rough, as if they hadn’t been properly swabbed in days. 

Jimmy Price touched his arm. “Will? Are you ready?”

Will finished his examination of the deck and nodded. He felt strangely calm. This all felt so… familiar. The crime scene. The body. Price and Zeller at his side. The sections of his mind they needed opening like morning glories after being bound up in the dark, petals limp. It was momentarily shocking, how easy it was to get himself back into this mindset. 

Price and Zeller led him over to the sheeted body. “We’ve already taken photographs and sketches,” Zeller said. “Local PD and the two of us. After you take a look, he’s ready for the inquest.” 

Will nodded. Zeller and Price watched as he approached the ship’s wheel and slid off the piece of sail that had been used as a makeshift shroud. 

The man beneath was dead, of course. It was no wonder that the coast guard was surprised, or even awed, for not often can such a sight have been seen. The man was simply fastened by his hands, tied one over the other, to a spoke of the wheel. Will inhaled the smell of death, and while he acknowledged it was a sickly reek, it was also so deeply familiar that it didn’t entirely disgust him. 

Zeller and Price had gone quiet after shuffling the uniforms off the ship, leaving the three of them alone. They were dark figures on Will’s periphery as he examined the body, the world slowly darkening until there was nothing except himself and the dead man lashed to the ship’s wheel, a middle-aged seafarer with a handsome, rugged face, topped with a shock of white-blonde hair. Will noted his beard, about a week’s worth of growth, but untrimmed or cared for. He hadn’t been able to shave or make his usual toilet. Not enough time. 

Will leaned closer, gently putting his own hands on the ship’s wheel from the opposite side. Between the dead man’s inner hand and the wood was a crucifix, the set of beads on which it was fastened being around both wrists and wheel, and all kept fast by the binding cords. 

Will’s mind showed him, for a long moment, a memory – his hand drawing the blue-beaded rosary from his satchel, the one the innkeeper’s wife had given him. Sliding it over his head and tucking it under his shirt. 

It had burned like a hot brand against his skin…

Will’s mind shifted back to reality easily, like turning over the pillow in the middle of the night to feel the cool underside. The victim may have been seated at one time on a stool or a chair, but the flapping and buffeting of the sails had worked through the rudder of the wheel and dragged him to and fro, so that the cords with which he was tied had cut the flesh to the bone. The wheel was stained with blood around the places where his hands were tied, and the fibers of the rope had absorbed quite a bit of it, despite the lashing rain that must have soaked him at some point.

Will let his tunnel vision recede long enough to address Price and Zeller. “When he washed up, were they able to determine the time of death?”

Zeller pulled out his notebook and flipped the pages before answering. “Local bobbies called a doctor—Surgeon J. M. Caffyn, of 33, East Elliot Place—who came immediately. He declared that the victim’s been dead around two days, and that was this morning.”

Will stared into the man’s half-opened eyes — glassy, lifeless orbs. “A lot of the damage to his wrists happened after death,” Will told them. “But some of it was perimortem. Some of these injuries… had enough time to get infected before he died. He was here like this for days. Alive for at least three. Either of you bring a glass?”

Price reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a magnifying glass, which Will used to examine the dead man’s mouth, his cracked lips and strong, if yellowed teeth. “He tied himself to the wheel. Rope fibers between his teeth.” 

“Why the hell…” Zeller wondered without finishing his sentence. 

“He was already feeling weak. Fatigued, probably dehydrated. He wanted to be able to steer as long as he could. He felt… responsible for the ship. Even with nobody else on it.”

Zeller pinched the skin on the man’s exposed forearm. “Dehydrated, sure, but I don’t think that’s what killed him. Won’t be able to tell until the inquest, but if I had to guess…” He examined the man’s face and eyes. “Cardiac event. His body just gave out.”

“So, he tied himself to the wheel in order to keep steering… then he died, and his body went limp. The sea knocked the boat around and sort of… wiggled him,” Price said, making notes in his own book. “Adds up. We’ve got scuff marks on the boards here. A bit of broken crockery… maybe his water cup? Though he couldn’t have lifted it to his own lips…”

“He must have tied himself up after everyone else abandoned the ship,” Zeller said. 

“Lifeboats are both still on board,” Will contradicted. “If they abandoned ship, they jumped overboard. To their deaths.”

“Why would anybody…”

Will shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Do you think the captain might’ve gone mad?”

“You’ll have to read the ship’s log,” Will suggested. He leaned in and pressed his fingers against the man’s coat where it bunched at his armpit. There was something in the inner pocket. Gingerly, he withdrew a small glass bottle with a stopper. Inside was a folded piece of paper. “Zeller, look at this.” 

Zeller took it from him. “Message in a bottle. In case the ship sank.” 

“We’ll need to read that, and the log,” Will said, slipping into the dynamic they’d always shared – he was the leader, and they supplied him with what he needed to use his empathy to its full extent. “But I want to see the rest of the ship first.”

“Don’t want the log to influence your observations? Not a bad idea,” Zeller commented, slipping the bottle into his own pocket. 

“We just need to make this quick,” Jimmy reminded them as Will made his way below deck. “The coast guard were on the scene first, which means they can’t claim it as salvage, but somebody’s bound to come along and try to strip this thing for everything it's worth.” 

Will found the galley first. The place was full of broken crockery and spoiled food spilling from upturned barrels. The storm had knocked over anything that wasn’t secured, and the floor was an obstacle course of pots and pans and shattered glass. The DEMETER had had plenty of remaining provisions, more, Will thought, than should have been left at the end of a journey. Plenty of fresh water, if only the captain had been able to get to it. Eating had not been a high priority on board, which told Will that the sailors had faced matters so pressing they couldn't afford to stop and take a proper meal. 

“According to the harbormaster,” Zeller said, kicking aside a spoon as they left the galley and moved into the crew’s bunk room, “the first civilian on board has salvage rights. No idea who it was – some of the locals got on board before the police chased them off.”

“The rights of the owner are already completely sacrificed, his property being held in contravention of the statutes of mortmain, since the tiller, as emblemship, if not proof, of delegated possession, is held in a dead hand.” Will rattled this off in a monotone as he examined the crew’s bunks and hammocks. Everything was, again, in a disarray as if tossed about by the sea. 

“Well, well, mister solicitor,” Zeller scoffed through a smile. “I thought you were into real estate law.”

“He remembers everything he reads,” Jimmy reminded him. 

Will bent down and retrieved a photograph in a broken frame. The frame itself was small but ornate, made of silver and stamped with little flowers. It was a bit tarnished, all but one edge. Will held it in his hand and rubbed his thumb along the clean space. Someone on this ship liked to lay in his bunk and gaze at the photo – a lovely young woman in a lacy white dress, pearls at her throat, her hair piled high on her head. Will slipped the photo out of the little frame and flipped it over. He’d learned just enough Russian from Avigeya – Abigail – and his heart hurt very suddenly, thinking of her – to read the message: “To Dmitri, with love, Tatiana.” 

Dmitri, at least, hadn’t left the ship of his own accord. Even if he’d thrown himself into the ocean, Will thought, he would have taken the picture with him. Will set it lovingly on a little table near the bunk it seemed to have fallen from. “Some of them might have jumped off into the ocean. Madness – ergot – mutiny… but this man didn’t.” 

In the cramped hall leading to the first mate’s and captain’s quarters, they found dribbles of blood on the ground, splattered up along the walls and ceiling. 

“Not enough to kill someone, but a damned good start,” Price noted, scribbling in his investigator’s notebook. 

“Arterial spray,” Zeller noted, holding up a lit lantern from the crew’s quarters he’d apparently thought to bring. “Someone was stabbed in the neck, I’d say.”

The captain’s quarters were in a general disarray, similar to the crew’s. They found the logbook and Price stuck it under his arm. The first mate’s cabin, on the other hand, revealed an entirely different sight. When Will swung open the small door, he noted the broken lock, as if someone had kicked it in. Zeller and Price, however, seemed to notice first the stench of human waste that crept out into the cramped hallway. 

Through the light of the porthole and Zeller’s lantern, they were able to see in detail. The cabin wasn’t just a wreck, like the others; someone had holed up in here for a time. Empty food and water containers were heaped in a corner. A bucket for waste, overturned. But these things were not the most significant or the strangest. 

The room was papered in pages from the Bible. They were stuck to every available surface, particularly, Will noted, around the door. Until it had been kicked in, Will thought, the pages had covered the cracks surrounding the door, as if to keep smoke out, or small, crawling insects. Crosses had been carved into every possible with a blade of some kind. Whoever had inhabited the room – probably the first mate – had also written prayers over the bible pages and along the small mirror and other metal surfaces with some unidentifiable, filthy mixture. 

“All right, new suspect, I guess,” Zeller said, examining the torn pages and painted prayers. “So, the first mate goes insane, kills everyone on board, the captain kills him, and then lashes himself to the wheel?” 

“Depends.” Will backed out of the room and the others followed him down into the cargo hold. “I’m assuming the captain’s body is the only one?”

“Right.”

“Went mad, killed everyone else, threw them overboard, and then the captain killed him?” Price suggested. 

“The captain wouldn’t have tossed his body overboard. Needed for evidence. And the first mate would have had to have been sneaky about it. Picking them off one by one when they were alone. That’s a lot of, ah… stalking, for a man that has duties and watches.”

“Not a single victim could have cried out or made noise,” Price reasoned. “Otherwise, the game was over.”

“What cargo is she carrying?” Will urged Zeller forward with the lantern. It was dark down here, the large space filled with crates and supplies. Zeller found the ship’s manifest on a clipboard hanging by the door, unbothered. Taking it down, he squinted to read. “She’s Russian for sure. Picked up her load in Varna, Bulgaria. She’s almost entirely in ballast of silver sand. And then we have… crates of dirt.” 

Will barely heard him. He was drawn forward by an invisible thread that connected his heart to something deep in the ship. Again, out of nowhere, came the overwhelming sense of peace and joy that he’d experienced that morning after the rainstorm — during it, when he and Alana had… was frolicked the word? He found himself smiling. Almost in tears, how safe and wonderful he felt. 

Price’s hand on his shoulder made him blink them away. “Experimental earth,” he said, pointing to the nearest crate. It had been stamped and labeled in English, Russian, Romanian, Italian, French, and German. AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT DO NOT OPEN. DANGER! DO NOT OPEN. 

There was one large crate near the middle of the room, the cargo having shifted in the storm. Will went to it, Price and Zeller trailing behind. Will reached out and touched it, his fingers lingering over the rough wood in a kind of caress. His mind flooded again with the feelings of happiness and safety and he didn’t question it. He did, however, question the marks left on the box. “Knife marks,” Will said, tracing his fingertips over them. “Someone tried to, ah… open this one.”

Price beckoned Zeller closer with the lantern. “He was really whanging away on it,” Jimmy noted, drawing his own finger along a series of several deep scores in the wood. “When he couldn’t pry it up, he settled for stabbing it?”

“Probably that first mate,” Zeller reasoned. “Since he obviously was having a little trouble upstairs.” He pointed to his own head, then glanced at Will in a sudden expression of apology, wincing at his own words. Price elbowed him and he grunted. 

All this happening in the periphery. Will’s hands were spread now against the box. Lowering his head. Pressing his cheek against it.

“...Will?” 

Price stepped forward and did the same thing. “You think there’s something alive in there?”

This broke the spell. Will stood up, though he was loath to do so. “No,” he said. “Not alive.” 

Zeller and Price glanced at each other. “Are you… finished?” Price suggested. 

Will nodded, and the three of them trooped back up to the deck to look at the body again. There was a clamoring on the piers, and the crowd of onlookers had only increased. Now there were merchants selling taffy and popcorn as well. Will recognized Freddie Lounds by her hair. She was still there, watching them, smirking up from beneath her hat. Alana, too, waited below, though he saw her talking to the Jacobis, doing her best, he thought, to be cheerful. 

Price uncovered the body again, and Zeller opened the captain’s log. “You ready to…?” There really wasn’t a word for what Will did when they were partners together in London, and there wasn’t a word for it now, but all three men knew what it meant. 

Will nodded, leaning on a nearby barrel and crossing his arms over his chest. He closed his eyes and waited. 

Zeller began to read aloud to him, standing close enough that the crowd below couldn’t hear. 

LOG OF THE “DEMETER”

Varna to Whitby

Written 8 August, things so strange happening, that I shall keep accurate note henceforth till we land.

On 28 July we finished taking in cargo, silver sand and boxes of earth. At noon set sail. East wind, fresh. Crew, five hands ... two mates, cook, and myself (captain).

On 2 August at dawn entered Bosphorus. Boarded by Turkish Customs officers. Backsheesh. All correct. Under way at 4 p. m.

On 3 August through Dardanelles. More Customs officers and flagboat of guarding squadron. Backsheesh again. Work of officers thorough, but quick. Want us off soon. At dark passed into Archipelago.

On 4 August passed Cape Matapan. Crew dissatisfied about something. Seemed scared but would not speak out.

On 5 August was somewhat anxious about crew. Men all steady fellows, who sailed with me before. Mate could not make out what was wrong; they only told him there was something and crossed themselves. Mate lost temper with one of them that day and struck him. Expected fierce quarrel, but all was quiet.

On 7 August mate reported in the morning that one of crew, Petrofsky, was missing. Could not account for it. Took larboard watch eight bells last night; was relieved by Abramoff but did not go to bunk. Men more downcast than ever. All said they expected something of the kind but would not say more than there was something aboard. Mate getting very impatient with them; feared some trouble ahead.

On 8 August, yesterday, one of the men, Dmitri Olgaren, came to my cabin, and in an awestruck way confided to me that he thought there was a strange man aboard the ship. He said that in his watch he had been sheltering behind the deckhouse, as there was a rainstorm, when he saw a tall, thin man, who was not like any of the crew, come up the companionway, and go along the deck forward, and disappear. He followed cautiously, but when he got to bows found no one, and the hatchways were all closed. He was in a panic of superstitious fear, and I am afraid the panic may spread. To allay it, I shall to-day search entire ship carefully from stem to stern.

Later in the day I got together the whole crew, and told them, as they evidently thought there was someone in the ship, we would search from stem to stern. First mate angry; said it was folly, and to yield to such foolish ideas would demoralize the men; said he would engage to keep them out of trouble with a handspike. I let him take the helm, while the rest began thorough search, all keeping abreast, with lanterns: we left no corner unsearched. As there were only the big wooden boxes, there were no odd corners where a man could hide. Men much relieved when search over and went back to work cheerfully. First mate scowled but said nothing.

11 August: — Rough weather last three days, and all hands busy with sails—no time to be frightened. Men seem to have forgotten their dread. Mate cheerful again, and all on good terms. Praised men for work in bad weather. Passed Gibraltar and out through Straits. All well.

12 August: — There seems to be some doom over this ship. Already a hand short and entering on the Bay of Biscay with wild weather ahead, and yet last night another man lost—disappeared. Like the first, he came off his watch and was not seen again. Men all in a panic of fear; sent a round robin, asking to have double watch, as they fear to be alone. Mate angry. Fear there will be some trouble, as either he or the men will do some violence.

14 August: — Two days in hell, knocking about in a sort of maelstrom, and the wind a tempest. No sleep for anyone. Men all worn out. Hardly know how to set a watch, since no one fit to go on. Second mate volunteered to steer and watch, and let men snatch a few hours’ sleep. Wind abating: seas still terrific, but feel them less, as ship is steadier.

15 August: — Another tragedy. Had single watch tonight, as crew too tired to double. When morning watch came on deck could find no one except steersman. Raised outcry, and all came on deck. Thorough search, but no one found. Are now without second mate, and crew in a panic. Mate and I agreed to go armed henceforth and wait for any sign of cause.

16 August: — Last night. Rejoiced we are nearing England. Weather fine, all sails set. Retired worn out; slept soundly; awaked by mate telling me that both man of watch and steersman missing. Only self and mate and two hands left to work ship.

17 August: — Two days of fog, and not a sail sighted. Had hoped when in the English Channel to be able to signal for help or get in somewhere. Not having power to work sails, must run before wind. Dare not lower, as could not raise them again. We seem to be drifting to some terrible doom. Mate now more demoralized than either of men. His stronger nature seems to have worked inwardly against himself. Men are beyond fear, working stolidly and patiently, with minds made up to worst. They are Russian, he is Romanian.

18 August, midnight: — Woke up from few minutes’ sleep by hearing a cry, seemingly outside my port. Could see nothing in fog. Rushed on deck and ran against mate. Tells me heard cry and ran, but no sign of man on watch. One more gone. Lord, help us! Mate says we must be past Straits of Dover, as in a moment of fog lifting, he saw North Foreland, just as he heard the man cry out. If so, we are now off in the North Sea, and only God can guide us in the fog, which seems to move with us; and God seems to have deserted us.

19 August: — At midnight I went to relieve the man at the wheel, and when I got to it found no one there. The wind was steady, and as we ran before it there was no yawing. I dared not leave it, so shouted for the mate. After a few seconds he rushed up on deck in his flannels. He looked wild-eyed and haggard, and I greatly fear his reason has given way. He came close to me and whispered hoarsely, with his mouth to my ear, as though fearing the very air might hear: “It is here; I know it, now. On the watch last night, I saw It, like a man, tall and thin, and ghastly pale. It was in the bows and looking out. I crept behind It and gave It my knife; but the knife went through It, empty as the air.” And as he spoke, he took his knife and drove it savagely into space. Then he went on: “But It is here, and I’ll find It. It is in the hold, perhaps in one of those boxes. I’ll unscrew them one by one and see. You work the helm.” And, with a warning look and his finger on his lip, he went below. There was springing up a choppy wind, and I could not leave the helm. I saw him come out on deck again with a tool-chest and a lantern and go down the forward hatchway. He is mad, stark, raving mad, and it’s no use my trying to stop him. He can’t hurt those big boxes: they are invoiced as “clay,” and to pull them about is as harmless a thing as he can do. So here I stay, and mind the helm, and write these notes. I can only trust in God and wait till the fog clears. Then, if I can’t steer to any harbor with the wind that is, I shall cut down sails and lie by, and signal for help.

 ...

It is nearly all over now. Just as I was beginning to hope that the mate would come out calmer—for I heard him knocking away at something in the hold, and work is good for him—there came up the hatchway a sudden, startled scream, which made my blood run cold, and up on the deck he came as if shot from a gun—a raging madman, with his eyes rolling and his face convulsed with fear. “Save me! save me!” he cried, and then looked round on the blanket of fog. His horror turned to despair, and in a steady voice he said: “You had better come too, captain, before it is too late. He is there. I know the secret now. The sea will save me from Him, and it is all that is left!” Before I could say a word, or move forward to seize him, he sprang on the bulwark and deliberately threw himself into the sea. I suppose I know the secret too, now. It was this madman who had got rid of the men one by one, and now he has followed them himself. God help me! How am I to account for all these horrors when I get to port? When I get to port! Will that ever be?

“That’s the last entry,” Zeller said. 

“No,” Price argued. “Don’t forget the bottle we found in the captain’s pocket.”

Zeller handed Price the book, then retrieved the bottle and removed the cork. He teased out the rolled-up paper and read on:

20 August: — Still fog, which the sunrise cannot pierce. I know there is sunrise because I am a sailor, why else I know not. I dared not go below, I dared not leave the helm; so here all night I stayed, and in the dimness of the night I saw It—Him! God forgive me, but the mate was right to jump overboard. It was better to die like a man; to die like a sailor in blue water no man can object. But I am captain, and I must not leave my ship. But I shall baffle this fiend or monster, for I shall tie my hands to the wheel when my strength begins to fail, and along with them I shall tie that which He—It! — dare not touch; and then, come good wind or foul, I shall save my soul, and my honor as a captain. I am growing weaker, and the night is coming on. If He can look me in the face again, I may not have time to act.... If we are wrecked, mayhap this bottle may be found, and those who find it may understand; if not, ... well, then all men shall know that I have been true to my trust. God and the Blessed Virgin and the saints help a poor ignorant soul trying to do his duty....

Will closed his eyes now, the empathy pulse sliced across his vision. He let the pendulum swing, and watched as time reversed, the ambient slice of light removing the damage to the ship, the captain’s body, all signs of violence. 

In his own voice, in his mind, Will spoke, stepping into the mind of It. Him. The thing the men had all been so desperately afraid of. 

I cannot cross this ocean alone. I need these men to bear me to my destination. And yet, I also need something else from them. Something that I must take, and then cast them overboard. But like the casks of water and tins of food, what I take must be rationed, must last the whole voyage.

I wait as long as I can, for I know that with the first disappearance, suspicion will erupt on the ship. Not that there is anything these men can do. Their fates are already written. It is simply a matter of traveling in complete comfort held against the tiny percentage of a chance that I might be discovered. 

And so, I wait until I can wait no more, and I strike. The man disappears overboard when I am finished with him. After I have taken what I need. 

Now that I have emerged, I do not wish to spend every waking moment hiding. I am careful, but not as careful as I could be. In fact, I enjoy the mounting tension. It is amusing to hear the men fight amongst themselves. I am entertained by their vain prayers to a God that isn’t listening or doesn’t care. One sailor sees me taking a stroll on the deck. I delight in his fear and the ensuing chaos he must feel – a man who has seen a specter, a lone witness, whose experience cannot be verified. How abandoned and alone he must feel, and he is patient zero for an epidemic of mounting fear and paranoia. For me, it is like a Shakespearean tragedy; one knows the ending will be bloody and unavoidable, but the pleasure comes from beholding exactly how the tragedy unfolds. How will the dominoes fall?

I take another man, but not the one that saw me. I want to see what he will do. I am so, so curious. 

And another. It’s coming faster now. I know I should bide my time but closing the noose around these remaining necks provides me with such satisfaction I don’t care to stop. I weigh the danger of discovery with my pleasure, and I find that pleasure is heavier. The captain and the mates are carrying firearms now; how droll. I wonder if, balanced on the edge like this, they’ll jump at shadows to the point of shooting one another. Because my existence can’t be proven; I assume they’ll start to blame one another for the disappearances soon enough. Who will break down first? My money’s on the first mate. He thinks too much for his own good. 

I grow bored waiting for my entertainment, and I take two in the same night. The reasoning being, of course, that with fewer men to work the ship, sleep will become a luxury the crew cannot afford. Exhaustion will further shred frayed nerves, turn the men into hallucinating, paranoid creatures intent only on their own survival, not the collective. 

I love to see them collapse inward like this. Yet I must balance that with reaching my destination. I wait. And then I take the next watchman. 

I watch their sanity wash away like castles made of sand, eroding beneath my current. The captain is strong; I was right, the first mate is of a much shakier disposition. I wonder if he will kill the captain. Delightful. It’s anyone’s game. I must remove the final man and leave the two of them together, fighting fish trapped in the same bowl. 

The first mate has retreated to a place he thinks is safe; the captain won’t have it: kicks in his door, refuses this madness, tries to slap some sense into him. I’m delighted, hoping this will be the moment when they enter combat, but it doesn’t happen. The first mate only sobs on the floor, and the captain must take the helm. I’m mildly disappointed that they won’t try to kill each other. 

The first mate thinks he can find me in the boxes, thinks he can open them. I watch him try, a mouse trying to climb out of a bucket of water, destined to drown. And then I show him my face. I could kill him now, but I’m more curious what he will do, if he can convince the captain that he is not mad. He races to the helm, speaks briefly with his superior, tries to convince him to commit double suicide. Then throws himself overboard. 

A waste. Perhaps I didn’t let him go to waste. Perhaps I caught him on the way down and took back the pleasure of killing him. 

The captain is a man of more mettle than the others. He ties himself to the wheel. I leave him there. Whether I wish to or not is irrelevant. I do need him to pilot the ship. We are still a few days out. Either way, I let him be. I bring him water, even, but he is determined to resist me. Spits it in my face. I toss the bowl to the deck and let it shatter. 

Like a teacup.

And always I remain near, watching him as he tries to stay conscious. I show him terrible things. I let his fear weaken him. I play with him like a child might torture an insect in a jar until at last, he expires. 

For some reason, I leave him at his final post. I came onto this boat secretly and it would be best if I arrived in secret. A corpse tied to the wheel is not exactly subtle. But I leave him. I am forced to leave him. And when we reach Whitby, I go ashore. 

I am here, a trail of dead in my wake. 

This is my design. 

Will opened his eyes, squinting, letting them re-adjust to the bright sunlight. Zeller and Price were looking at him, Zeller stuffing the message back into the bottle and replacing the cork. 

“The captain didn’t do this,” Will said, getting to his feet. Gently, he replaced the drape over the body. “Neither did the first mate. All of this… was someone else’s design. There was another person on this ship who… preyed on these men. But, ah… he’s not here now. Soon as the ship came into the harbor, he jumped off. He’s out there somewhere.” He motioned to the town and cliffs behind them. 

“Bloody hell,” Zeller swore as Price groaned. “In all that rain, there won’t be shit for tracks to follow. Bloodhounds, maybe?”

“Scent’s probably ruined after the rain,” Jimmy said with an apologetic lilt to his voice. “Still, we’ll want to check the shore. Have the uniforms comb the beach.”

“There’s one other thing,” Will said, and his partners went still, looking at him with grim expressions. “This ship never had a dog. There were no scratch marks, no droppings, no hair anywhere. That dog the spotlight operator saw didn’t come here on this ship.”

“Then how’d it get on board?”

Will rubbed his mouth. “I don’t know,” he said.

Chapter Text

Will. 

I knew he was close. I could feel him with each passing mile of ocean, with each gust of wind or errant wave that brought us together. The storm I summoned hurried me closer and closer and I craved the shore just to be near him. And now he is here – not just here in proximity to the pier where the DEMETER has come to rest, but here. On board. Coming down to the cargo hold. 

The captain’s obstinacy, his insistence upon remaining at the helm, showing off his corpse like his body was a signal flag, has brought Will within inches of me, summoned here by his former partners who are desperate to understand what happened to the DEMETER’s crew. I alternate between rancor and delight. I don’t want Will to put any strain on his mind, but at the same time, I am thrilled. Not only is he so close to me, but he cvan also behold my design. To see how beautiful it is. What an exquisite gift. 

My darling, if only I could cast aside the barrier between us and hold you, kiss you, claim you in front of these men, in front of the entire crowd gathered on the pier, in front of your patroness. Watch her face as you embrace me, as your stubborn affection for her, your ingrained sense of self-sabotage masquerading as duty, burns to ash in my embrace. 

Will leans his cheek against the box and it is another of my shadowy miracles that I do not break free right then. I can smell him – no longer feverish, but so sweet and familiar. His heart, I can hear it. So near me. 

At the last second, when I think I cannot resist a second more, he goes back up the companionway and out onto the deck of the ship. I can still hear his voice, which is nearly the same degree of torture, but I am able to remain hidden. 

See me. Know me.

“All of this… was someone else’s design. There was another person on this ship who… preyed on these men. But, ah… he’s not here now. Soon as the ship came into the harbor, he jumped off. He’s out there somewhere.” 

No, Will, not out there. I am here. 

His presence above me settles into a dull ache that I wouldn’t trade for any other sensation in the world. He is near me. Will is here, he is healthy and well, and he sees me, my design, as he describes it. I don’t know what he remembers or what he thinks about his time with me at Castle Lecter, what he has accepted and what he hasn’t, but he seems lucid and sharp, deploying his vast intelligence to interpret the evidence. 

Will is still speaking with his old Scotland Yard partners when the harbormaster comes back on board. With him is a local solicitor, Mr. S. F. Billington of 7, The Crescent. He’s come to formally take possession of the goods consigned to him that are still in the hold of the DEMETER. He’s a good man, and thorough. Will and the others argue that the cargo is part of a crime scene, that the ship itself is under investigation. Mr. Billington, however, has expected such resistance, for he has brought with him the Russian consul to act on the behalf of the charter-party. 

Will and his partners speak in private, away from the others. “Listen, Will – we have to let them.”

“I know.” Will is well-versed in all kinds of law, even those he doesn’t practice. “Whoever sent this cargo, though… to have a good solicitor already waiting… they must have known something was going to happen on this ship.”

“Billington’s just acting in his client’s best interest,” Mr. Price argues. 

“Find out who he’s working for,” Will suggests. Ah, his intellect is again my adversary. Well played, cunning boy. “He’ll claim confidentiality, but you might be able to get the courts to force him to tell us. If not, then… other means. Have him followed.” 

“That’ll take time. By then, all of this cargo will be gone.”

“But if we know where it’s being sent, who it belongs to, we can trace it.” Mr. Zeller now. “That’s the best we’re going to do right now, unless we want to risk an international incident with the Russians.”

They all agree that would not help the investigation whatsoever and withdraw their objections. The Consulate pays the harbor fees in cash, and a representative of the Board of Trade is summoned. The woman who comes is most exacting and sees that every compliance has been made with the existing regulations to ensure there be no cause of after-complaint. 

At last, Will and his partners leave the ship. My heart goes with him. Soon, beloved. Soon.

Now, men are here to move the cargo, and it is left overnight at the train station. I am so, so tempted to go to him. It would be so easy. I tell myself I only want to look at him. That I will remain outside the window. 

I’m soaked in a wave of cold disapproval that feels almost like it originated with Bedelia, though I know it can only be from my rational mind. It is safer, far safer to delay that pleasure until I have been established in London. I had the power to let him go that night on the Borgo Pass; I can be firm and resolute now.

After the sun has set, I slip out of the train station and I become the wolf once more, racing through the countryside, tasting the hot blood of sheep and lambs. They barely slake my thirst; I simply want to hunt and rend and tear and chase. But in this form, my already keen sense of smell is heightened a thousandfold – I can smell Will on the wind, and I turn toward it, racing through the fields, the farmhouse dogs barking and howling as I thunder past, a red-eyed shadow full of moonstone teeth. 

I track Will’s scent up a long flight of stone stairs to a churchyard. The hallowed ground makes this form painful, so I transform back into my human visage, dressed in the simple, rustic clothes and boots I wore for the journey, my shirt loose and open, neck exposed, hair no doubt tangled and full of soil, my mouth still stained with the blood of sailors and lambs. 

The scent is stronger here, but old – I know Will is not here now. But this is where he and the Bloom woman frequent, where they like to read and talk and write, spending hours reciting poetry and taking in the sea air and its allegedly restorative properties. They have many memories here, on this very bench, and it makes me dangerously envious. 

On the bench above the grave – the corpse in question being a person named Graham Will, fancy that – sits an old man with a haggard face, his white hair lifting from his balding pate with each gust of ocean breeze. The moon is out, but the place is otherwise deserted; I see that he has dozed off and forgotten to walk home before sunset. 

I sit down next to him and pat his withered hand with my own dirt-smeared palm, filth crusted beneath my nails. “Sir. I believe you’ve tarried too long.” I haven’t spoken English in a while; I’m pleased with the state of my accent and pronunciation. 

He opens his eyes with a start and turns to me. I let him see me, the starved pallor of my ivory flesh, the fierce gleam of my eyes, the fang-teeth. I don’t touch his mind with a shred of mesmerism. I bare myself entirely. 

I expect him to be terrified. I expect him to try and flee, to bleat and scream like the lambs screamed in the moments before I tore out their throats. 

He doesn’t. His rheumy eyes go wide, yes, first in surprise, but then only in recognition, not fear. “At last,” he says with a wry smile. “You’ve come. Took you long enough.” 

“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.” I am polite as a reflex; I am destabilized by his reaction to the sight of me. Is he suffering dementia? Does he take me for someone else? But who could I resemble, with glowing eyes, mouth smeared with blood?

I resemble what he must assume a demon looks like. A fiend. 

Ah. I understand now. 

“Are you ready, then?” I ask. 

“Mor’n ready, sir,” the old man replies with a tired smile. “Wife’s gone. Left me for another man over 30 years ago n’ had his bastard to boot. I got no legacy left to speak of. All I c’n look forward to is a gravestone bearin’ a pack o’ lies. And even then, who’s to say anyone’ll pay to have it carved?” He heaves a sigh. “What was the point of it all, sir? I feel like I worked my whole life for somethin’ I never got.” 

“You were told to ignore your true desires by a religion and a society that constricted you,” I tell him gently. “You felt you were not free to pursue them. All honor was placed upon hard work and dedication to lining the pockets of other men. After your wife left, perhaps you could have found another more suitable if you hadn’t been confined to your life here. But who’s to say?” I smile. My fangs retract. I have no interest in drinking from him. “I’m sure many men in your situation feel regret.”

“But what’s the true meanin’ of it all? I want to know… why, sir. Why any of it, the good or the bad?”

I look out over the soft lights of the town below. Will is in the house in the Crescent, sitting down to a late dinner with Alana Bloom. I let myself see him through her eyes, just for a moment, and his beauty could rend the heavens. “God is capricious. He is a great lover of violence; we are all filled with it and we express it in his name, as we are made in his image. He is also capable of great generosity, though it seems to be bestowed with a kind of whimsical arbitrariness.” I pause. “The meaning of one’s life. It varies, from person to person,” I tell him. “For me, the answer is simple. Love.” 

He looks incredulous. “You… love?”

I nod. “I have been blessed with a great love. It transcends death and time. I would do anything to keep and honor it. And that is my purpose.” 

The man chuckles and pats me on the leg, a doting, fatherly gesture. “Well, you hold onto that, my friend. Don’t ever let it go.”

“I promise,” I say. 

He sighs. “I don’t suppose y’know if I’m headed upstairs or down.”

He wants to know if I’m sending him to Heaven or Hell. “I’m sorry, I’m not privy to that information,” I say. “But I can tell you this. My beloved died long ago, and he was reborn. I know the soul exists. You do not face an endless pit of black, a yawning stretch of nothingness. And perhaps you will live again.”

“Hope there’s a bit o’ rest in between.” The old man gets to his feet. “I’m tired.” 

I stand as well and tip his wrinkled chin up so he is looking into my eyes. I mesmerize him with the lightest touch of my mind and read him, his life flashing before me. It was as he said. And, as he said, he is not afraid to die. He would welcome it, even if it is painful. 

I always make it a point to reward courage like th– wait.

Just before I numb him everywhere to ensure his passage is a smooth one, I catch something black and writhing in the depths of his mind. Oh, it is dark, it is sinfully black – to think, I almost missed it. I dig deeper, my will forcing its way through his brain like the hooked needle the Egyptians used. And there it is. 

Legacy.

His wife was unfaithful, left him, bore the bastard son of another man. And all these years, he’s wished he could punish her and show them all. What that particular phrase meant to him, well… it’s unconscionable. Wicked. Inhuman. If he’d had the opportunity, and the heart and iron stomach, if he hadn’t been forced to work his hands to the bone, leaving no desperate energy unspent, he would have been magnificent. 

I draw it out of him and inhale his malediction through my own mind like a lungful of black smoke. 

What he dreamed of doing, but never admitted fully to himself, his priest, or anyone, was to kill. He would kill and kill and bury the bodies in secret graves near the beach. Some of his victims would be local people, people he knew. There is something beautiful about that ball of silence at a funeral, all those people around you, knowing that you made it happen. 

And when it was time, he would seek out that bastard son, kill him, and begin the construction of his monument. The physical manifestation of his legacy. 

I can see it in his mind, the way he pictured it. An obelisk of dismembered parts crowned by the mutilated body of the bastard. Peace in the pieces disassembled. Reassembled into a totem. 

My heart aches and there are tears in my eyes. This man’s vision, his… design, as Will would call it, is magnificent. It is both worldly and otherworldly, something out of Dante. I’m devastated the world will never see it, that he, this artisan, this beautiful dreamer never saw his vision come to life. If only someone had been able to nurture him, to whisper in his ear. A patron to cross coins along his palms so he might have the strength and energy to stalk and kill and bury and exhume and sculpt his masterpiece. 

“I’m sorry,” I say softly. It is truly a shame he will never realize his potential. “You could have been legendary, Mr. Wells.” 

With that, I do give him a gentle release, telling his mind that he feels no pain, only comfort. Pain doesn’t come from injury. It comes from the brain perceiving the injury, and so I only have to tell his mind that he is in a place of soothing comfort. 

Then I snap his neck. 

Gently, I lay him on the stone bench just so. The bench over the grave of Graham Will. I leave him for Will and Miss Bloom. Petty, I suppose, to soil their favorite seat this way. Miss Bloom will certainly be off put, which pleases me. For Will, the message is different. He cannot know what I know about Mr. Wells. If only. But I hope Will might somehow sense who the man really was. And that I will not allow Will to pass through his life without reaching his full potential in all facets of his existence. 

And this includes killing. 

No one can be fully aware of another human being unless we love them. By that love, we see potential in our beloved. Through that love, we allow our beloved to see their potential. I love you, Will. 

When dawn comes, I slip back into my place of rest. It is loathsome to me to leave Will’s proximity, but I must be patient. He will follow. Any day now, we will be back in each other’s physical orbit. 

I again traverse the shore of dreams, feeling for Miss Bloom’s mind. I slip into her consciousness and I use her eyes to see Will. Even as the cargo is bound for London, I keep myself perched in this place of observation, a man atop a lighthouse gazing toward the horizon. At night, when she sleeps, I call to her. I plant myself within her mind, a parasitic vine, and I wind through her thoughts and memories, impaling her with my thorns as I wish so that I can never be ripped free without doing her irrevocable damage. 

At night, she walks. I test my ability to manipulate her physical form while she sleeps. Practice makes perfect. And even as I am sent further away from them, to my new home in London, I nurture the connection. I find her in the dreaming. I use her eyes to look at my beloved, feasting on these images until I may see him again in the flesh. Soon.

Chapter Text

26 August: — Inquest completed yesterday. Price and Zeller sent me a copy of the report. Time of death was likely sunset of the 21st. As I thought, the wounds on the wrists didn’t kill him. Combination of exposure, dehydration, and a severe shock to the system. Already weakened, he was scared to death. 

Can’t help thinking about the crucifix in his hands. Whoever or whatever was on that ship would not have benefitted in any way from the DEMETER sailing into the harbor with a body displayed, unless it was meant as a message. But I don’t see that in the design. The captain thought the holy item would upset “His” plans, and I think he was right. Once that rosary was around his wrists, he couldn’t be removed from that spot, even after death. Not by the murderer, in any case. 

I can hear his voice. “Transylvania is not England.” England is not Transylvania, but… the DEMETER says otherwise. 

I’ve brought something back with me. And while it fills me with dread, some of that dread is born of wonder. 

The black dog is a continuing mystery. The SPCA hasn’t found it. No one has spotted it, apparently, since the spotlight operator saw it. Price says he found two other men who saw it jump from the bow of the ship. So, three witnesses total. Everyone else at the scene won’t talk about it. They believe the black dog is a creature known as the Barghest, a spectral dog with glowing eyes, known to prey on men in the Snickelways. To speak of such things gives them power; thus, they won’t speak. There’s a kind of logic to it, though the superstition is standing in the way of the investigation. The presence of a dog suggests the presence of a master. The master may have been “Him” on the ship, the one who killed every hand aboard and drove the exhausted captain to lash himself to the wheel with a crucifix. 

What I do know, what can be verified, is that something killed eleven sheep and lambs the night after the storm. An animal, based on the wounds, or so say the farmers. But the creatures weren’t eaten. Just slaughtered, like offerings. More offerings.

Every boat in the harbor lined up for the funeral procession today. Whitby thinks the captain is a hero. And he is, in his own way. He held his own against someone or something unthinkable. He threw a wrench in the plan, and he stayed with his ship. Fulfilled his last duty. What they put on his tombstone will be the truth, which Mr. Wells would have appreciated. More on him in a minute.

The coffin was carried by captains all the way from Tate Hill Pier up to the churchyard. I insisted on attending; killers often attend the funerals of their victims. They’re attracted to that… ball of silence that surrounds the mourners, knowing they made it happen. Alana came with me, and we to our usual seat, whilst the cortège of boats went up the river to the Viaduct and came down again. We had a good view and saw the procession nearly all the way. The captain was laid to rest quite near our seat so that we stood on it when the time came and saw everything. 

Alana was upset. I know she’s still furious with me for helping Price and Zeller. She seems constantly restless, as if being still bothers her, a burr on her skin. She’s worried about me relapsing, just when I was getting well. I keep telling her I’m fine; it’s a bit of a boy who cried wolf, because I know I’ve said those words to her too many times in the past and they were lies. But this time, swear to God, it’s the truth. Ever since the storm I’ve felt better than I have in ages. Sharp. Energized. More in control of the empathy. Not control, more like… something is softening the blow when it does go off unexpectedly. I can handle it. Process it. 

I have hope. 

I can’t explain it. Maybe it’s the idea of moving to America. That journey settling in as more than just a vague vision. I’m going to leave and have my own life. 

After I make Prudence tell me the truth about New Orleans. 

Alana’s also upset about our favorite bench, where we spent so many hours this holiday and many holidays before. She was already disconcerted to hear about Graham Will being a suicide, and now, Mr. Wells. He was found yesterday morning on the bench with his neck being broken. He had evidently, as the doctor said, lost his footing and fallen just so, the impact against the backrest of the bench snapping his neck. The other old men he used to spend time with – bully, if we’re being honest about his legacy, which Mr. Wells would appreciate – came by to share their condolences with us. 

They said when he was found he had the most peaceful look on his face. Guess he got the death he wanted after all. It’s not possible, but it feels like he died right here on purpose, to show us something – to show me something, or to upset Alana. I can’t account for the feeling, but I’ve learned to stop asking questions about my instincts. That’s part of why I’m doing so well. If you don’t fight the current, swimming is easier. 

Mr. Wells’ body feels like a dead bird left on my doorstep by a well-meaning cat. A gift from a predator, misunderstood by most, appreciated only by those who know the predator’s nature, can read his intentions. 

You can’t punish the cat for being a cat. You can only pet and praise it for showing its love for you, even if it is in a gruesome way. 

Offerings.

The whole conglomeration of things—the ship steered into port by a dead man; his attitude, tied to the wheel with a crucifix and beads; the touching funeral; the mysterious dog —will all afford material for dreams. And yet I haven’t had any nightmares at all. 

The ring makes sure I only dream of him. I dream of our life before this one, when I fell in love with him the first time, and that is part of why I feel so calm, I think, so healthy. I have him at night, when our lives intersected naturally, and I sleep well and restfully. 

That’s not the case with Alana. She looks pale and tired, and our lovely houseguest, Nurse Hilda, has taken to caring for her instead of me. Selfishly, I’m more than happy to pass Hilda on to someone else, but I don’t understand why Alana’s struggling with this now. It seems superstitious and unscientific in the extreme to think that sleepwalking could be caught or passed on like a plague, but something’s going on that I can’t explain. She’s been consulting with Dr. Chilton, and Nurse Hilda says aside from the sleepwalking she’s physically healthy, has a good appetite and such. 

We need to get back to London. Once she chooses her suitor, gets engaged, starts planning the wedding, she’ll be fine. I’ll be gone and she’ll be fine. 

Nurse Hilda has been sleeping in Alana’s room. I moved a mattress in there, so she’d be more comfortable, but she still complains, of course. It’s strange – apparently all Alana does when she sleepwalks is to try to open the door. Finding it locked, she starts searching for something on the tables and her dresser. I think it’s the key. She’s trying to get out of her room. 

The rattling around wakes up Hilda, and Hilda plops her back into bed. This happens at least twice a night. 

I’m not a doctor, but I think it will be best for her to go to bed tired out physically, so I shall take her for a long walk by the cliffs to Robin Hood’s Bay and back. She ought not to have much inclination for sleepwalking then.

Same day, 11 o’clock p.m. — Tired. We had a good walk. Alana, after a while, was in gay spirits, owing, I think, to some cows who came nosing towards us in a field close to the lighthouse, wanting to be petted. We had high tea at Robin Hood’s Bay in an old-fashioned inn, with a bow-window right over the seaweed-covered rocks of the strand. Alana called it a “severe tea” as we were so full after it was almost painful. I think the innkeepers recognized me; they didn’t say anything, but the way they looked at me, and then just kept bringing us more food, desserts on the house… I suppose I have damned Freddie Lounds to thank; who knows how many papers printed her story about the DEMETER and my consulting. She has declared that I’m “coming out of retirement to catch Captain Van Der Vecken of the Flying Dutchman.” As usual with Freddie Lounds, to call it hogwash is an insult to hogwash. Hogs deserve better. 

Then we walked home with some, or rather many, stoppages to rest, and with our hearts full of a constant dread of wild bulls. We were both full and exhausted, and intended to go to bed immediately when we got home. 

Alana had a telegram from Dr. Chilton waiting, giving her his recommendation that the two of us return to London immediately, that I am cured and that he needs to look after her sleepwalking in person. What a perfect excuse to find himself in a situation where he might propose before Margot and Beverly get a chance. Alana says we’ll arrange passage in the morning, and she’ll telegram Hillingham to let Prudence know we’re on our way home. 

Her home. 

Guess it’s time for me to think about how I want to broach the subject of Edward Bloom stealing me from my mother all those years ago. 

A problem for tomorrow. I’m going to put on the ring, like I do every night, and I am going to dream of him. Of us. 

Will was exhausted after hours of discussion with his Uncle Albescu. Of course, the boyar was pleased with the security provided by Castle Lecter’s men; one could not argue that any merchants traveling with guards trained by Hannibal would be exceedingly well-protected. It was their methods, Albescu complained, that were questionable. Immoral. Cruel. An affront to God. So alarming that Lord Albescu made the journey himself under the guise of a visit and could now safely say that the reports did not exaggerate.

Will promised to speak to Hannibal about the roadside displays, the bodies of bandits stretched out to rot in the open as a warning to others. Lord Albescu reported that some of his people had complained; certain merchants no longer wanted to make the journey up the mountain if forced to pass the increasing number of corpse-made warning signs. 

It was late and many of the household had gone to bed. Will thought he would find Hannibal asleep already. Instead, he found a note on their bed, along with two satiny lengths of wide ribbon.    

Good evening, my dearest,

I thought of you often today. I have a feeling I know what you and your uncle have been discussing, and I understand our need to take his requests under advisement. Albescu had you during the daylight hours; now that it is dark, I want my cunning boy to myself.

Never have I been as tender with anyone as I am with you, as fully aware of your needs ahead of my own. Had I never met you, I might have lived a selfish life; now, the choice between your wellbeing and myself is always an easy one. Believe me when I say that whatever you desire, I will give to you. I can only pray to our Heavenly Father that you feel a tiny fraction, a sliver of what I feel for you. 

That said, I have within me a kind of animal. I have a predatory nature that exists at the core of what I am. As a boy, no one was more skilled than I in the field, and hunting was my principal passion. I do not associate hunting with the grief of ending life. What is a partridge or a deer? I feel the same about a bandit or a marauder that would do harm against my people.

However, not everyone views these highwaymen the way I do. It is likely that your uncle has asked you to request I cease my work. Our work. Albescu is my family now, and I will honor his wish if I can. I have spent many hours in prayer and thought, and I believe I have a solution that might ease the beast in me – in us – that encourages our tableaus. And so I ask if, tonight, we could play a game.

I respectfully, and without expectation, ask for your consent. 

I have left you two ribbons. One is red, one is white. If you come to me with the white one tied around your arm, I will know that you don’t want to play the game I propose. This I will accept without comment or a request for a reason. I will come to you, kiss you, and take you back to our room and spend the night as you wish. Remember, I am here to serve you, my sunshine. 

However, if you’d like to play my game, wear the red ribbon. 

Be aware, I will play roughly, and I expect you to do the same. 

If you come to me wearing red, and change your mind, just say the word. You are in control. You can stop me at any point. 

                                     See you soon, my treasure. Take the path just south of the kitchen door and you will find me in the ruins.

                                     All my love – Hannibal

Will ran his fingers over the beautiful, spidery script, letting himself feel the texture of the words.

Be aware, I will play roughly, and I expect you to do the same.

A tremor moved through his body. 

Just the thing to get the taste of his meeting with Albescu out of his mouth. He ran his tongue over his lower lip and picked up the red ribbon. 

Before tying it on, he went to the wardrobe and changed in front of the tapestries, the unicorns staring blankly at his hard musculature. He switched the finery he’d worn to receive his honored guest for simple breeches and a dark brown shirt, and the boots he wore in the field. He then used one hand and his teeth to tie the red ribbon to his bicep. 

"Time to play,” he whispered to the milk-faced maidens that fawned over the magical creatures of the tapestried forest. Making very little sound, he slipped through the halls of the castle with the aid of a single candle and escaped out into the moon-strewn night.

Will followed Hannibal’s directions and found a stone path, nearly overgrown with age, that led him from the edge of Castle Lecter’s grounds through the wood. He moved silently, stalking, stopping occasionally to listen, every nerve on high alert. A buck with a huge set of antlers startled and ran across his path, bringing his heart into his throat. He watched the creature go until he lost its white tail in the darkness. 

After about a fourth of a mile, the trees cleared, opening into a field of tall grasses. There, on a stone-strewn hill, was the ruins of a small fort from ancient times. It had four rounded towers and was enclosed on three sides by stone walls, small rectangular holes gaping at purposeful intervals where windows must have been. The roof was long gone and the courtyard within was littered with stones, though blanketed with shriveled brown grass. The night was cold, but the wind was still, and the moon, nearly full, bathed the clearing with eerie light. Slowly, he picked his way forward through the grass. He was exposed here in the open, and he could feel Hannibal’s closeness, his gaze.

"Good evening, Iliya.” Hannibal stood high on the wall near the tallest remaining tower. He was a vision in the moonlight, his hair nearly the same color at this angle, dressed in dark breeches, a white shirt that fell open to the center of his chest, and a long black coat. “You have no idea how pleased I am that you’ve accepted my invitation.”

Are you ready for this?” Will called up, cocking his head playfully. “Because I’m not going easy on you, my lord.”

“I expected no less, your excellency.” Hannibal winked at him and stepped back off the stone wall. He dropped straight down and out of sight. 

Will took off running to the left to get some cover by the half-tumbled wall. He found a hole leading into the courtyard and wiggled through it just as Hannibal’s fingertips brushed the back of his neck, leaving cold contrails in their wake. Once inside, he hugged the wall, checking corners and the crumbling parapets above. He slowed his breath and listened. The slightest scrape of a heel against stone coming from above him. He whirled around and looked up at the rounded edge of the half-collapsed tower, expecting to see Hannibal standing over him. 

The tower was bare and serene in the moonlight. 

A hand struck out like a snake from one of the chest-high window openings and snagged his shirt, drawing him forward with such force that he knocked into the wall. Through the darkened opening he saw Hannibal, smiling without teeth, red-brown eyes alight with the thrill of the hunt. 

The blow knocked the air out of his chest, but he reacted quickly, driving his fist down on Hannibal’s wrist and twisting his body, planting a foot against the wall to push back. Hannibal lost his grip and Will was running again, the night air and the thrill of the chase coursing through him, fresh and cold and cleansing. He leapt up on a ruined part of the wall and ran along it until he reached another tower that blocked his way, swinging down into one of the old window openings and perching there in the shadows, all his senses on the alert. 

A steely hand grabbed him around the ankle from below and yanked him out of the arched opening. Will fell out of the old window, but his training took over — tuck and roll. The impact on the frozen, stony ground sent a shockwave through his back, but he spun to his feet and turned in the direction that he thought Hannibal might be coming from. 

He was wrong. Something solid hit him from the side. Hannibal pinned him to the ground, the black coat spilling over both of them like a cloth midnight. “I thought you said you weren’t going easy on me,” he chided as Will grappled with him, trying a reversal that failed due to Hannibal’s greater strength and size. 

Will laughed, then grunted as he tried to push Hannibal off of him. Yes, his husband was strong, but he didn’t know how to fight when one wasn’t the biggest and strongest warrior in the field. This was Will’s expertise. He planted his hip on Hannibal’s foot, then snaked his arm around his neck. Tensing, he brought up the opposite arm and hip, pushing with his other leg. He didn’t hold back, and the move flung Hannibal off him, sent Hannibal rolling along the grass. Will rabbeted again, heading for another opening in the castle wall and a smaller courtyard within that was built into a hillside. 

He went left immediately, looking for a way out. Hannibal appeared, running along the top of the thick stone wall, tensing as if to leap. Will faked a hard left and then changed direction. But Hannibal was there almost immediately, reaching for him. Will dropped one leg under him and slid right under the grasping fingers, rolled down then up, back on his feet. Faintly he could hear Hannibal’s laugh of delighted surprise at his evasive maneuvers. 

He realized too late, however, that he was being herded towards the hillside wall, and a dark archway of stone that seemed to open up into some kind of passage. At the last second, instead of darting through the opening, he decided to fight. Hannibal, eyes alight, reached for him, taking hold of his wrist. Will countered by pushing on Hannibal’s elbow in the opposite direction, forcing him to turn and lose his grip. He tried to snake around Hannibal, get back out in the open, but his husband, despite his size, was too fast. He reached out again to take Will by the throat, but Will got free again as he brought both hands together and swept them down in a hammer motion, then spun away. Over his pounding heart, he could hear Hannibal say, “Well done, beloved.” 

Will was in the tunnel now, and Hannibal stood in the doorway. Springing back up to his feet, he turned and ran down the dark corridor, deeper into the earth. He raced through several smaller rooms, likely storage cellars for when the fort had been inhabited. There was no place to hide, and he was pretty sure he was about to hit a dead end. He saw moonlight and ran toward it instinctively, the air in his lungs reeking of the foul dampness of the underground. He wiggled through a half-open cell door, only to find the small window barred shut. 

Trapped. And Hannibal was there, right behind him, stalking forward, taking his time. If he got close enough, Will had a couple more throws he might be able to try. Hannibal seemed to sense this and approached warily. “Nowhere to go,” he whispered. 

“That’s what you—” 

Before Will could finish his sentence, Hannibal was suddenly there, pressed up against him. The force of the impact knocked Will back against the dank dungeon wall. Will took him by the collar and shoved, bunching up his muscles and trying to push away from the wall. Hannibal paid this no mind and put his forearm up against Will’s collarbone with his right wrist still clasped in his powerful fingers. “You lasted longer than I thought you would,” he said, silken voice sliding over Will like the moonlight that streamed through the window. “But I’m afraid I’ve got you now, beloved. You’re mine.”

“Then come and take me, if you’re not afraid to get close,” Will challenged, raising his chin with a cocky jab. 

“Since you asked so nicely.” Hannibal pressed into him again, forcing him back into the slimy stone wall. He turned his head to the side and moved his mouth towards Will’s exposed throat for what was probably going to be an exquisite but painful suck-bruise.

But Will was ready. He was sweaty enough now to slip his wrist free from Hannibal’s grip. He pushed the opposite way again on Hannibal’s elbow and kicked out at his back foot, which was extended to steady him. It sent the count down on one knee, releasing Will outright. He slid out of reach and raced out of the gloomy cellars and back into the fresh night air. Hannibal was mere feet away from him, he knew it, giving a full-out chase. Will vaulted a lower stone wall and broke out across the field for the woods. 

Just when he thought he might be able to keep ahead of his pursuer, something bashed into him, pitching him forward. He stumbled and fell, more awkwardly this time, though he was up in a flash, disoriented. 

And Hannibal was there, a shadow with a loving smile, ramming him up against the thick, gnarled trunk of a centuries-old tree. He spun Will around and twisted his arm up against his spine until Will made a small sound of pain. The bark was rough against the skin of his face and the jig was up. He couldn’t get free, no matter how he struggled. Still, he tried, throwing an elbow back a couple of times, then bracing against the tree with his free hand. 

Hannibal breathed in his ear through the panting breaths of his exertions. “Clever. What wonderful surprises… you had for me.” 

Breathing hard as well, Will gave another heave, trying to push himself away from the tree and slide away, but Hannibal had one hand still locked around his wrist, his arm shoved up against his back. The other snaked into his hair, tugging hard enough to send ripples of pain and pleasure down Will’s skin. He tried to use his free hand to grab Hannibal’s wrist that pushed against the back of his neck. 

Hannibal’s mouth grazed his throat, hot with labored breaths. Straining, Will tried one last push, exhaustion threading through him. Hannibal gave a sweet, bemused laugh, and bit Will’s throat with a sudden, delicious savagery before the teeth eased up, the balm of tongue applied. It was heaven. Will cried out, and it dissolved into a different sound. 

After a few moments, Hannibal disengaged, spinning him around, and pushing him back into the tree again. Will’s hands clutched against Hannibal’s shoulders as his mouth came down a second time on the other side of his neck, then kissed feverishly up his throat to devour his lips.

Hannibal rutted into him, lifting him against the tree. Will closed his legs around Hannibal’s hips and pulled at his hair and clothing. Gradually, Hannibal eased up, lowering him down and, at last, stepping away from the tree. Will realized that he was barely standing, that Hannibal was partially supporting him. They stood there, in the moon shadow of the old fort in a kind of post-battle embrace. He could feel perspiration running down from either side of his neck, soaking into his soaked tunic. Will laughed up at the dizzying stars, then at Hannibal as he slung one of Will’s arms over his shoulder and supported him around his midsection. 

“Take a walk in the moonlight with me, my love.” Hannibal adjusted Will’s weight so he was bearing the brunt of it, and they crossed the field back toward the ruined fort. 

“Good game,” Will managed once he’d gotten his breath back. His head still felt submerged, body wracked with pain and the sweet exhaustion of his labors. 

“Thank you for playing,” Hannibal said, offering him a soft smile. They passed through the ruins, then back down the path, across a bridge, and through the woods. “You came so close.”

“I think I could have won.” Will stumbled over his own foot. He felt punch-drunk. Hannibal steadied him easily. “Well? Do you think that kind of chase can… sate your appetite?”

Hannibal shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. We will honor your uncle’s request but find a different outlet for our appetites. Still, it was more than invigorating. Wonderful foreplay.”

“You won,” Will said as they slipped inside and through the door to their chambers. “What’s the prize?”

Hannibal sat him down on the top of the stairs and removed his boots for him, then his own. “You’re the prize, of course.”

“What if I’d won?” 

Hannibal helped him to his feet only to pull him onto the bed. Will didn’t resist. “But you didn’t win,” he smirked in between pulling off Will’s sweaty clothing and nosing the damp skin of his chest and neck. 

“What if I win next time?”

Hannibal ignored this completely, kissing the marks he’d left on Will, the teeth marks and the bruises. Will could sense the coiled tension in him, or half-coiled – he’d released some of it through physical exertion, but he was a crossbow half-shot, impossibly suspended between time and space. It felt like borderlands, liminal and dangerous. He shifted Will onto his lap, cupping his ass, kissing his neck as Will played with his sweat-dampened hair, inhaling the night air and scent of exertion. Hannibal’s ministrations became more urgent; Will could easily sense how much difficulty he was having restraining himself. 

“You don’t have to be gentle,” Will told him. “You weren’t gentle out there… in the ruins. I don’t know why you assume I’d expect the same… here. Now. Like this.”

“Be careful,” Hannibal warned him, shifting Will beneath and seeming to loom over him, a towering figure of shadow and muscle and bone. “Be careful what you offer me tonight, beloved. My blood’s up.”

“I’m well aware,” Will said, stroking Hannibal’s rapidly growing cock where it twitched against his belly. Hannibal drew a shaking breath when he thumbed the slit, lips curling in a half-second snarl. “And I have… no interest in, ah… being careful.”

“You had a taste earlier,” Hannibal whispered, grinding into Will’s hand, “of violence. I can give you more.”

“You won whatever game it was we were playing,” Will teased him, slowing down and then removing his hand entirely, resting his wrists against the bed at head-height. “I concede, and acknowledge your victory, Count Lecter.”

And suddenly he was on his stomach, face pressed into the bed, arms drawn behind his back. He struggled instinctively for a moment before relaxing. Hannibal ripped down the cord that held their bed curtains aside and wrapped it around his wrists. The silken fabric didn’t make for tight bindings, and apparently Hannibal was aware of this. Will felt him lean off the bed for a moment and pull up his long woven belt, sliding it around Will’s chest and buckling his arms against his sides. So tight, pinching Will’s skin and making his joints cry out for relief. 

He managed a surprised, delighted little laugh that became a yelp and then an amorous whimper as Hannibal roughly fingered him, then tossed him unceremoniously on the bed. Kicking off the rest of his own clothes, Hannibal grabbed the Roman recipe as an afterthought, lazily dumping some into his hand and rubbing it against Will’s hole, though only for a moment before laying back on the bed and lifting Will by the thighs, positioning him over his formidable erection. “Sit,” he ordered. 

Will lowered himself down, going slowly. Hannibal helped with his aim but took him by the hips once the head was in and pulled him down on his cock remorselessly. Will keened softly and Hannibal let up the pressure just for a moment so Will had time to relax. Just a few extra seconds of keeping the beast at bay; Will knew he had to make his body respond, and quickly. 

He took a breath, and just in time. Hannibal had him by the hip and thigh again. “Take it,” he growled, and Will did, ignoring the initial discomfort. 

The pain and the submission and the beautiful languid feeling of his exhausted muscles, the fullness of being owned – it all dovetailed, and he felt compelled to moan, “... ‘m glad I didn’t win…”

How he loved Hannibal’s snarl-smile, loved being thrust into like this, half the movement coming from his exhausted muscles and the rest from Hannibal rolling his hips and using leverage from the mattress to fuck up into him. The belt was too tight; he couldn’t get a full breath, and the lightheadedness was unexpectedly delightful. He adjusted slightly, finding the right angle, and Hannibal indulged him, stroking him from the front. 

“Don’t tell me,” Hannibal managed through his breaths, “that you did not give our contest your all.”

“I did,” Will panted back. “I did; I went as hard as I could, and you still won.”

This ignited something further in his husband, who was supporting him by his hips and ribs, letting Will do as he pleased now. With the last of his strength, he rode Hannibal to his own crest of pleasure, then fell forward, caught by those same strong, purposeful arms. Not being able to breathe properly only enhanced the peak, and he was still panting rapidly as Hannibal slid out, flipped him on his stomach, and climbed off the bed to fuck him on the edge of it with hard, fast strokes. “I love you,” Will managed, turning his head to the side so his words would not be caught in the bedclothes. “I love you…!” 

“All of me?” 

Will knew what he meant. All of him – even the parts of his mind that compelled him to seek out and kill bandits and highwaymen and display them as a kind of gruesome but undeniably artistic tableau. The compulsion they would now have to keep secret. 

“All of you,” Will promised. “All of you, all of you, please…”

Hannibal stopped, his cock still inside, and undid the belt, freeing Will’s chest and shoulders. He breathed deeply as Hannibal flipped him over one more time and spread his legs wide, entering again and pounding at him until he came, shuddering, kissing Will, his face, neck, chest, stroking his hair and praising his goodness, his beauty. 

Turning him over once more. Will rested his head against the blanket, breaths demanding his attention, body languid and sore and shaky. A cold blade touched his arm, but he barely registered it. Hannibal cut the curtain cord from his wrists, then tossed the knife to the ground with a clatter, pulling Will into his arms. 

“Do you know how I know God exists?” he murmured. 

“How?” Will wondered, his head resting on Hannibal’s damp chest. 

“Not the scriptures. Not the priests. Not the hymns or the relics.” Hannibal pressed a kiss against his temple. “It’s you, Iliya. That’s how I know.” 

Someone was touching his forehead. Brushing his hair back, stroking it away from his forehead, running their fingers through it. Will made a soft noise of appreciation, a little smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Again, Hannibal? He thought. Insatiable…

As the hand continued its loving touches, tracing his forehead and cheek, the dreamworld crumbled away, collapsing ashes, revealing his bedroom at the Crescent. The person at his side, looking down at him, was Alana. Her eyes were open and unfocused, and the movements of her hand, while tender, were strange and mechanical. 

“Alana?” he whispered, shying away from her touch when she reached out again. 

No response. Her hand froze, hovering where his face had been a moment before. Sleepwalking. He sat up and moved away from her, more towards the middle of the bed, rubbing his face. Leaning over to the table on the other side, he struck a match and lit the lamp before turning back to her. 

She hadn’t moved except to lower her hand back to her side. In the soft light, he could see that the key to her bedroom was clutched in the other hand. Will got out on the opposite side of the bed, wincing at the wetness in his undergarments – the dream had certainly produced a physical effect in the real world – and pulled on his dressing gown, tying it tightly. He then walked slowly to Alana’s side, trying not to startle her. “Alana,” he said softly. “Let’s get you back to bed…”

She stood, blinking slowly, eyes focused on nothing. He took her hand and she walked with him this time, back down the hall to her own bedroom. The door was open, and he could hear Nurse Hilda sawing logs on her mattress. Will led Alana back to her bed and took her by the shoulders, easing her back down, then lifting her legs and sliding them under the blanket. She stared up at the ceiling like a corpse. After tucking her in, he crept over to Nurse Hilda and woke her up. 

“Wh-what? What is it?”

He held up the key. “Missing something?”

“Oh!” she took it from him, holding the blankets to her chest as if he cared about her level of modesty. “I was using it for a bookmark.” Will glanced down and saw her book open at her side. “She found it, I suppose.”

“You need a better hiding place.” He got to his feet. 

“I’ll keep it in my hand the rest of the night.” She stood up as well to lock the door behind him when he left. 

 Just as he passed through the doorway, he heard Alana whisper, “Will.”

He paused and looked back at her, but she had her eyes closed, her body relaxed into the posture of real slumber.

Chapter Text

The dogs were barking. Will vaguely registered it in the back of his mind as he peered through the gold-rimmed magnifying glass suspended from an adjustable arm anchored to the table in front of him. He carefully added another feather to his fishing fly, then wrapped the base with more thread, binding the feather to the rest of the lure. 

Dogs still barking. 

Someone knocking at the door of his house. “Mister Graham?”

“Just a minute,” he called, applying another feather with steady hands. 

The dogs were really barking now, Buster yapping loudest of all. “Mister Graham!” The voice was more alarmed now as whoever was at the door was likely being mobbed by his pack. They weren’t mean-tempered, not in the slightest, but they did like to lick faces and jump up with muddy paws. 

“Just a minute!” he called again. Wrap. Wrap. Wrap. There. Sighing, he got up from his chair and went to the cottage door, the same one he’d helped Old Beau paint sunny yellow, God, over 20 years ago? He yanked it open to reveal a footman with paw prints on his pristinely ironed trousers and dogs swarming around him like a school of fish. 

Will whistled once, and they all came to heel, plopping themselves down on the cottage’s little wooden stoop. They stayed, tails wagging madly, as Will descended the steps and stood in front of the footman. Behind the younger man, across a vast lawn, loomed the stately gray stone manor house he’d grown up in, but had never felt like his home; Hillingham. Evening was coming, but there was plenty of light left – yet many of the lamps in the house were lit, the windows illuminated and full of bustle and activity. 

“Mister Graham,” the young man said, clearing his reedy throat. “Mrs. Bloom requests you begin your preparations now.”

Will pulled his watch out of his waistcoat pocket. Guests wouldn’t be arriving for two hours, and that was if they weren’t fashionably late. “Now? How long does she think it’ll take?”

He cleared his throat again. “Mrs. Bloom requests–”

“Fine,” Will barked, bunching up his shoulders and shoving his hands in his pockets. The footman scurried after him as he crossed the lawn in long, agitated strides. They went to Will’s old chambers, the ones he’d stayed in as a lad but now never frequented, not since moving into Old Beau’s cottage when the kennel-keeper had passed away. The well-appointed rooms were just as unwelcoming and overwrought as he remembered, though the windows were open, and everything had been dusted and aired out. 

He had a bath and a close shave and was then forced unwillingly into a tuxedo – white shirt, tie, black trousers and coat. Ugh, with tails – he hated them, hated the shiny shoes and how tight everything was around his throat. This whole evening, he was sure, was going to be a goddamn disaster. He was going to be wishing he was back on the DEMETER staring at the dead captain’s blank eyes.

The truth of the matter was, he did think about the DEMETER. Not about the murders, or the dead man. He thought about the spirit that the sailors claimed haunted the ship. “Him” or “It,” the invisible devil. The dog. He thought about the feelings of serenity that wrapped him up the moment he stepped foot into that cargo hold, as if he was a ship himself threading the harbor-needle in a great and terrible storm to find safety.

Since returning to Hillingham he’d shut himself away in his cottage, content to spend time with his dogs, take them on long strolls through the grounds, and think about the DEMETER. And wear his ring and dream. 

But Prudence Bloom, of course, upset his plans, organizing an enormous dinner party in honor of his return, which meant, for once, he couldn’t decline one of her social invitations. Prudence, who had barely pecked him on the cheek when he’d returned before fluttering over to Alana to hear all the Whitby gossip – was throwing him a welcome home party. Knowing full well that he was going to hate every bloody second of it. 

He barely needed the empathy pulse to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that there was an ulterior motive behind this soirée. Wonderful. Nothing quite like having one’s brush with death provide a perfect excuse to have a lavish dinner party at the end of the social season. He could almost hear Prudence’s thoughts: At least he’s good for something, now that the bloom’s faded from the Ripper’s rose. 

When he came downstairs to Hillingham’s foyer to greet the arriving guests, Alana beckoned him over to stand with her. They lingered next to the heaps of potted ferns that Prudence had insisted fill the space, making it look like the carved elephant and jaguar statues were back in the jungle. Covered was a good way to describe the entertaining rooms of Hillingham: statues, paintings, curios, miles of velvet curtain, ornately carved furniture, and obnoxious spreads of damask wallpaper. It was suffocating. 

“Will, you look wonderful,” Alana insisted, adjusting his bow tie a centimeter or two. 

“I see everything fits,” Prudence said with the kind of benevolent smile one might give a puppy, if one felt morally obligated to do so, not because one liked puppies. Prudence Bloom was wearing a dress he’d never seen before (not that that meant anything), emerald green and covered in ruffles, her gray-streaked hair twisted up and held with jeweled combs. She was an older version of Alana in almost every way, but Alana had, luckily, not inherited her sharp chin or thin little bloodless mouth. 

“Bit small in the shoulders,” he dared to complain. 

“That’s the style,” Prudence explained. Will sensed the undercurrent, the one that was always there when she spoke to him: be grateful, foundling.

“And you, darling!” Prudence took Alana’s hands and kissed them before guiding her daughter in a twirl to see her dress, which was, Will had tried not to notice, extremely fetching. Sapphire blue to bring out her eyes, with an open neckline that draped perfectly down from the points of her shoulders, exposing her long white neck that was decorated with a wide collar made up of strands of seed pearls. 

Ah. Now he understood. Welcoming Will home was a perfect excuse to have a party. Where certain suitors would no doubt be invited. 

His suspicions were confirmed when their first guest arrived: Dr. Frederick Chilton. “Will! Welcome home.” Dr. Chilton shook his hand and put a steady, understanding palm on his shoulder. “I was terribly worried. After all you’ve gone through! Alana says you’ve made a full recovery, but I think you should still come by the hospital for an examination next week.” 

Saying this, knowing Alana would say, “We’d love for you to make a house call, Frederick.” 

“I’d be delighted.” Chilton clasped her hand, then kissed it. “Will, I’ll pencil you in for Thursday, if that’s amenable?”

“He hasn’t returned to work yet,” Mrs. Bloom supplied, oh so helpfully, “so I’m sure Thursday would be open. Thank you ever so much, Dr. Chilton, for everything you’ve done for us!” 

“Alana, if I may steal you for a moment.” Chilton still had a hold of her hand. Will could see his throat working as he swallowed, likely against a dry throat, hazel eyes bright and nervous, raising his fingers to his bow tie for a moment. 

Here it comes, Will thought, watching as Chilton drew Alana into the doorway of the nearby morning room. Taking both of her hands, he sucked in a breath and began to speak to her in low tones. 

But the footman was opening the door again, and here was their next guests. 

“Will.” Zeller offered him a firm handshake and a brotherly clap on the shoulder. Price’s face was soft, and his smile was warm, if a little sad. He looked like he wanted to hug Will but wisely decided against it. 

“Glad you could make it.” Will’s words were simple but genuine. No doubt Alana had talked Prudence into inviting them; policemen were usually not upper crust enough for gatherings at Hillingham. The last time they’d set foot on these grounds was for similar party Prudence had thrown celebrating Will’s catching and killing of Saucy Jack. Will had refused to show his face, and Price and Zeller had attended in what was essentially his stead. 

“This way, gentlemen.” The attendant that had helped Will get dressed showed Price and Zeller to a nearby parlor for aperitifs, giving Will an unobstructed view of Chilton and Alana again. Chilton’s cheeks were pink and his eyes shining, Alana’s hands still clasped in his own. She was smiling at him, but with a kind of apologetic warmth. 

Well, that settled that. Maybe Will’s opinion counted for something after all. 

Next, Hillingham’s closest neighbors, Baron and Baroness Komeda arrived. He was milquetoast; she fancied herself the next Lady Meux, complete with scandalous black dress and indecently large white fur stole, despite the late August heat. Will couldn’t stand them; they, in turn, had ignored his existence for most of his life. Now, of course, “William, it’s wonderful to see you!” Will tried not to breathe in the Baroness’s cloying perfume as she leaned in for air kisses. “You’re looking positively wonderful; we were devastated to hear you were unwell, darling. Thank goodness your dear Alana was able to rescue you from the wild East!” 

Speaking of, Alana was back at his side, her face a bit flushed, but otherwise calm and collected. Will saw Chilton slinking off to the parlor; Will had seven dogs but had never seen anyone with his tail so far between his legs. “He asked you, didn’t he?” he murmured as the Komedas fawned over Prudence before joining the rest of the guests for pre-dinner cocktails. 

“Yes, he did,” Alana confirmed out of the corner of her mouth as the door opened again. 

“I guess my opinion does matter,” Will murmured back. Alana snorted a little laugh before arranging her smile and welcoming their next guests – Will’s employer, Mr. Brauner, and his teenage son, Charles, who was on his way to becoming a solicitor himself, as well as a champion fencer. 

“Still staying for dinner, though? I mean, he could, uh… easily say there was a patient he needed to see at the hospital.”

“Frederick does love salmon in Dutch sauce,” Alana said softly just as the door opened again, and this time it was Will that had to stifle his laughter. 

The next to arrive was Beverly Katz, dressed in well-made and sharply cut clothing that was, at the same time, delightfully out of place. She wore knee-high tawny boots, beautifully stitched and studded, her dark brown trousers tucked smoothly inside. Over this, a white blouse, ochre waistcoat, and a duster-style coat. The entire ensemble was brought together with a turquoise-inlaid string tie and a chestnut-colored hat with a massive brim. 

Beverly removed her hat upon entering, revealing a long, shiny black braid, but did not let the footman take it to hang with her coat, electing instead to balance it on the head of a nearby Greek-style statue. “Will Graham, as I live and breathe,” she greeted, giving him a hearty handshake and a back-slapping half-hug. “Seein’ you here and well is sweeter’n stolen honey, my friend.” 

“Beverly,” he said through a genuine smile. “Thank you. For watching the dogs while we were in Whitby.”

“Think nothin’ of it. Good pack of hounds you got here, smart, too. Well, all but poor Buster; love him, but if a duck had his brains, it’d fly north for the winter.” Beverly’s warm brown gaze shifted to Alana, and Will smirked, more than happy to be brushed aside so Beverly could kiss Alana’s knuckles. “Miss Bloom…” She dropped Alana’s hands to press a hand over her heart as if struck by an arrow. “I have no words.” 

Alana’s eyes darted down to Beverly’s belt. “Bev… may I… hold it? Just for a moment.”

Will’s eyebrows shot up at the out of context remark, but it all made sense when Beverly grinned and whipped out an enormous Bowie knife from a sheath at her side and held it out for Alana to wield. “Just in case you run across a bear?” Alana giggled at her reflection in the massive, mirror-shined blade. 

“Just in case I run across any varmint that would give you trouble.” Beverly winked, then accepted the knife back and secured it once more before heading into the parlor. “Chilton! I haven’t seen you in ages, come have a chin-wag!” 

 Will had a feeling that Margot Verger was going to walk through that door, and thought he was prepared. He wasn’t. He hadn’t seen her since she’d come over and tenderly yet systematically taken his virginity. He would know her anywhere, yet she looked so incredibly different. Gone were the last remnants of childish softness in her face. Her posture then had been lax, somewhat submissive, as if she was purposely trying to diminish herself. Now her back was ramrod straight, her shoulders thrown back. Her eyes and mouth were much harder than he remembered, resolute, everything about her softening only at the sight of Alana. 

Tonight, she was dressed to the nines in a rich burgundy evening gown decorated with black beading, diamonds on her neck and gloved wrists. Her hair was perfectly curled and gathered half up with diamond clips, the rest spilling down her back. The dress plunged down in the front in a way that Will thought would be considered indecent if she wasn’t two very important things – rich, and beautiful. 

She was studying him now with similar thoughts running through her mind – if he’d changed and how, likely remembering their last meeting. “Will Graham,” she said with a secret smile he recognized. 

“Margot,” he said, not sure how to follow it up. 

“Time doesn’t wait for anyone, does it?” Her smile widened a little bit. “Seems like yesterday we were kids playing on the lawn?”

“It does, and it doesn’t,” he said. 

“I’ll never forget it,” she said, and he nodded, understanding perfectly the subtext beneath. She was still grateful for him standing up to Mason, and she was grateful for the short amount of time they’d spent together. The empathy pulse kicked up a brief dust-devil; she’d slept with him because she’d wanted to lose her virginity that day too. Though a woman’s maidenhead was, of course, highly prized for marriage, and all people were expected to wait until the wedding night, Margot had had to change plans back then. 

She’d wanted her first time to be with someone who cared about her. Someone gentle, who was also motivated to have a good experience. 

Because she must have known that someone who wanted to hurt her might use sex as one of his weapons. 

Back then, as teenagers, Mason must have tried to rape her, or seemed like he might try. Once they’d left England, maybe he’d succeeded. Will hoped not. God, he hoped not. 

No, an ocean away wasn’t far enough. Six feet underground was preferable for Mason Verger. 

He watched Margot greet Alana next. There was something very tender in the way they looked at one another; it wasn’t the besotted gaze of Beverly Katz. More of a kind of understanding, and the room for affection to grow if it was planted. A few murmured words, and Margot joined the rest of the party in the parlor and Will turned as if to follow. 

That had to be everyone. Even with all the leaves in the dining room table, Will couldn’t imagine any more guests could comfortably fit. 

But the door was opening again. Will looked at Alana, who had a confused expression on her face. Prudence, on the other hand, was smirking knowingly. This broke into a wide and welcoming smile as the final guests entered the foyer. 

Will’s mind went white, and a heavy blanket of hissing silence descended. His chest burned, reminding him to breathe, but he couldn’t, couldn’t move, couldn’t think—

Count Hannibal Lecter crossed the threshold, lifting a gloved hand to remove his black silk top hat. With effortless, aristocratic grace, he slid off his overcoat, surrendering both to the attendant. And then he looked at Will. His eyes seemed to glow from within, tawny embers ringed with red gold, holding Will’s gaze as if there was no one else in the room. 

At first, Will thought he was hallucinating. Seeing Hannibal, the way he’d seen the Ripper and his victims. But the details of the vision were so specific…! Count Lecter had transformed into a modern English gentleman. His hair was darker than before, threaded with more gold and browner than gray, as if he was younger than when Will had left him. Impossible, and yet. His locks45 had been cut to fit the fashion, parted on the side and arching across his forehead. He wore a tuxedo, the same as the other men here; it fit him exquisitely and he seemed utterly at home in it, the shirt crisp and white, the tie perfect, the tailcoat making his shoulders look even more broad and finely shaped. Gemstone cufflinks and a small gold lapel pin in the shape of a stag’s head with ruby eyes gave him the effortless glitter of old-money aristocracy. 

Will thought errantly that he might be in danger of passing out. His heart was stumbling along like a drunk and his temples pounded. But all this was nothing compared to the moment Hannibal's scent hit his nose. It was the same. The very same Byzantine perfume of amber and frankincense and woodsmoke, pine and woods, mountains and wilderness, pagan incense. 

Hannibal smiled. It was a reserved little expression, but Will saw how his eyes glimmered, on the verge of tears. He could feel the relief and desire and longing rolling off Hannibal like a tidal wave that soaked his heart through to dripping. 

“Will,” he said. Will suffered a whole-body tremble, his skin prickling with heat and desire and a sudden, desperate fear. 

“Count Lecter, it’s so good of you to come!” Prudence surged forward to clasp his hands. “Welcome to Hillingham — and you must be Miss Hobbs!”

Will was consumed again, his throat tight and his eyes misting involuntarily as Abigail stepped up next to Hannibal, handing off her evening wrap. She looked so much older. Will couldn’t believe the transformation from peasant girl to posh lady, both in her expressions and posture, not to mention the fashionable peach and pale pink dress she wore. The garment was full of ruffles and sewn with pearls. Her hair was pinned up away from her jaw and face, and the neckline showed off her decolletage and shoulders, freckles concealed with a layer of body powder. 

He recognized her better when she grinned and bounced over to him, ignoring decorum, and threw her gloved arms around his neck, pulling him into a hug. “Will! You’re all right! This is your house? It’s beautiful, it’s enormous!” she chattered in Romanian.

He embraced her, feeling himself cracking, crumbling, coming undone, his gaze still locked with Hannibal’s until Abigail pulled back and grinned again with a shy laugh, stepping back to stand at Hannibal’s side.

“You remember my cousin and my ward, Abigail,” Hannibal said.

Will tried to find his voice, and he could almost feel Hannibal urging him to keep himself together. He cleared his throat. “It’s… lovely to see you again,” he managed under Prudence’s suddenly baleful glare. “L-let me, uhm, let me introduce you to my… uhm, Miss Alana Bloom.” 

“A pleasure to meet you,” Abigail said in perfect English, her accent barely detectable with this phrase she’d practiced so much. To Prudence, “Thank you for your invitation.”

Now Hannibal was in front of him, holding out a hand. Will clasped it, and even through the glove, he felt the familiar weight and shape, this hand that had stroked his hair and his face, held him close, caressed his thighs–

“Are you surprised, my dear?” Prudence at his elbow now, a palm on his back. Hannibal, at last, released his grip and Will felt his hand fall bloodlessly to his side. “Imagine my own surprise when I met Count Lecter whilst lunching with Dr. Chilton two days ago! They’re neighbors now, it seems. Counbt Lecter had ever so many lovely things to say about your talents with real estate, and mentioned he hadn’t heard if you’d made it home safely. I thought I’d orchestrate a little reunion.”

And get filthy rich foreign royalty to dine at your table, Will thought reflexively, though his bitterness was a reflex, not a conscious mental note.

Hannibal. Here. With Avigeya. Modern Londoners now, both of them, as if their lives in Transylvania had been some kind of pastoral dream woven with a fairytale’s gossamer threads, as idyllic as the memories of his life as Iliya Albescu Lecter. Beautiful and bloody.

“You look well,” Hannibal said, studying Will intently. “Better than when I saw you last.”

Will managed to nod. 

At last, Hannibal moved, stepping away to shake Alana’s hand and charm her with his smile that crinkled the edges of his eyes. “Miss Bloom. A true pleasure. Will told me so much about you.” 

She smiled back, showing off her dimple. “All good things, I hope.”

“Wonderful things. I feel as though I know you so well already. As if I’ve seen the world through your eyes.” He held out a crooked arm to her, and Alana slid hers in to be escorted down the foyer hall to the parlor where the other guests chatted and drank gin and sweet vermouth. 

Abigail threaded her arm through Will’s and clutched it, pressing her cheek into his shoulder briefly. “I really missed you,” she said softly as Prudence hustled past them to play hostess. “Peter too. He wanted me to tell you that he trained the goat not to faint anymore.” 

God, it all seemed like a damned lifetime ago. 

He didn’t know what to say, so he said, “You look, uhm… you look very nice, Avi- Abigail.”

She smiled and bit her lip. “You like it? You should have seen how much it cost.” She was whispering in Romanian now as they stepped into the parlor. “I have my own maid; can you believe it? My own cook!” 

Will accepted an aperitif and drank it far too quickly, signaling the attendant for another as Abigail filled him in on how the renovations at Carfax were going, about her suite of rooms and how Hannibal was having a mural painted in his, and the harpsichord and horses and carriage, the vast grounds and how Will had been right, on certain nights you could hear the lunatics howling from the hospital, but it didn’t bother her one bit. “They’re quieter than the wolves always were,” she confided after taking a sip of her vermouth and making a face. 

Will was half listening, watching Hannibal as he worked the crowd with a gentleman’s grace, charming everyone with his uncannily good English, his dulcet accent, his impeccable manners, the way he had of making every person he was talking to feel like they were the only soul in the room worth his time. Every so often, between conversations, Hannibal would pause and glance deliberately in Will’s direction. His expression each time was soft and adoring, on the border of pleading. Not dissimilar to how the dogs had looked at him when he finally came home, Will thought, after all the barking and yipping and jumping was over, and they were all cozy around the fire inside Will’s cottage after so many months apart. 

And yet, Hannibal never approached him. Will did have to suffer through one conversation between his former client and his current employer; Mr. Brauner wanted to hear the details of how well his protege had served Count Lecter’s interests. Hannibal praised his work, and Mr. Brauner seemed, as Beverly Katz would say, “Happy as a hog in mud!” 

At last, it was time for supper. The dark coral dining room was covered with overwrought fern and floral arrangements, the table bedecked with silver and glowing with candles. Prudence, as hostess, sat at the head of the table, Will across from her as the guest of honor. Prudence kept Count Lecter at her side, of course, and placed Alana near the middle, with Dr. Chilton on one side and Beverly Katz on the other, directly across from Margot Verger. Will was lucky to have Price and Zeller flanking him, who knew enough to keep their mouths shut and be on their best behavior. 

First course: foie gras. Baroness Komeda: “Inspector Price, Inspector Zeller. I read in the papers that you’ve coaxed Mr. Graham out of retirement. What’s this about a ghost ship in Whitby?”

Zeller gave her his best smile. “We’re just doing our jobs, madam. I’m sorry, I can’t comment. It’s an active investigation.”

“Will happened to be in Whitby and we asked him to consult,” Price agreed. 

“Let me guess,” Will half-grunted. “You read about it in the Tattlecrime column.”

A few chuckles traveled the table. 

“How did a Russian ship end up in Whitby Harbor during that incredible storm?” the Baroness pressed. 

“We really cannot tell you any details,” Price deferred after he finished chewing and making a little sound of pure culinary joy. 

Second course: crayfish soup. Beverly Katz: “I heard that storm was somethin’ else. Fog worse’n y’all get up here in London, and unexpected, too.”

“It gave the coast guard a chance to test out their new electric searchlights,” Alana said, smiling as Beverly winked at her. “It was certainly a wild night.” She glanced at Will and he read her perfectly; that was all there was to say about it. 

Course three: salmon with Dutch sauce. Alana was right. Chilton ate every morsel even as Margot discussed her business expansion with Alana and Beverly. Count Lecter had appeared to have a few bites of soup, but refused this course, saying he was unfamiliar with English customs and had dined before he came. This, however, did not stop Abigail from cleaning her plate almost a little too eagerly. 

Course four: cold chicken salad. Will watched Abigail watch Alana to see what fork she used and how fast she ate, modeling herself exactly after the older woman’s manners. Count Lecter and Baron Komeda chatted about the history of Carfax and the previous owners of the land. Will pushed his chicken from one side of the plate to the other, trying to keep his eyes off Hannibal. Instead, Hannibal’s voice surrounded him like a velvet cloak and caught himself staring again in a daze of endless wonder. 

Hannibal was here. In London. In Hillingham. Sitting at the other end of Prudence Bloom’s stupidly long table. Might as well have been a thousand feet long. Will was simultaneously glad for the space and desperate to be rid of it, his heart and his mind still flailing for footholds. 

Course five: minced veal with bechamel sauce. “Never had this before,” Beverly said after taking a few appreciative bites. “Mmm. Melts in your mouth, doesn’t it?” She was looking at Alana with a flirtatious smile on her face. Will glanced at Margot to see if there was a reaction; there was none, though he caught Alana checking as well. When Will looked away from the women, a forkful of veal halfway to his mouth, he noticed Hannibal gazing at him. Will’s face blazed in a sudden rush of heat and he lowered his fork and his eyes. When he looked again, Hannibal was still watching him. Will thought of the Yuletide feast from their lives before, the way Hannibal had groped his leg under the table. Will raised his chin a few degrees, then stuck the veal in his mouth, drawing the fork very slowly between his lips, then licked them deliberately.

This time it was Count Lecter who looked away first. 

Course six: pheasant pie. Will thought of the meals Abigail used to make. Eggplant impletata. Venison stewed with green pepper and tomato sauce, served with rich dumplings, spiced with paprika. Chicken paprikash. The fresh salads and the soft cheeses, the wonderful local fruits, the fish he caught that day in streams so clear it was as if the water and the sky were one. So many London foods were joyless for him now that he’d been spoiled on the simple but delicious Romanian country fare. 

Course seven: compote of fruit. Abigail was speaking halting but clearly pronounced English with Charles Brauner, who was close to her age, and Will could tell, very interested in making her further acquaintance. He smiled reflexively, and caught Hannibal doing the same before Will turned to Jimmy and asked about his children. 

Course eight: raspberry tart. “Always Will’s favorite,” Prudence said, and she was right, for once in her damn life. 

Course nine: vanilla cream. It tasted like sand in Will’s mouth as he watched Mr. Brauner and Count Lecter discuss the property values in different areas of London. He’d known that Hannibal was coming to England, but to see him again like this, crammed in a room full of people, some of whom he barely knew, some of whom were trying to marry his… whatever Alana was… how dare he come now, like this? After everything that had happened. Or… not happened. Or that Will had imagined happened. Still. It wasn’t fair. They couldn’t really speak. Couldn’t be alone. Hannibal must have known how destabilizing it would be for Will to encounter him in this way. Will’s fury roiled through him like the low hollow booming sounds that they’d heard over the ocean before the storm at Whitby. 

Course ten: cheese straws. I love him. God help me, I do. 

After dinner, drinks were served in the drawing room, along with more relaxed, personable conversation. Hannibal was practically holding court with Prudence, the two of them on a small sofa with nearly everyone gathered around, save Charles and Abigail, who had wandered over to “look at a painting” but had their heads together, talking softly. Beverly Katz leaned against the sidebar, playing with the edge of her Bowie knife, drinking whiskey faster than Will was, which was too fast. 

Price and Zeller were obviously angling for a way into the conversation only to thank Mrs. Bloom for inviting them and then making their escape. As they waited, Will said, “What happened to the DEMETER?” 

“The Russian Consulate took complete possession of the ship,” Zeller told him. “And had it hauled back to Varna after the silver sand was delivered to Immingham.”

“And the agricultural experiment?” Will said. “The, uhm… boxes of clay?”

“The Whitby solicitor had them sent to London by rail,” Price told him. “That’s as much as we know at this point. He won’t tell us anything.”

“Are you having him followed?”

Zeller nodded. “So far, nothing. We’re working on some of the railroad employees and clerks. Local Whitby police did a search up and down the beach and all through the churchyard, rounded up the usual suspects trying to get information… nobody’s seen the dog or anyone that might be the boat’s killer.” 

“Will,” Price said patiently, a hand on his arm. “You’ve been off the force for five years. Do you think it’s… possible you were wrong?”

“What about the log? The captain had his wits about him,” Zeller argued. “Something happened on that ship that wasn’t just… sailors losing their minds.” 

“Keep at it,” Will urged. “Something… something will shake loose. Always does.”

Just then, Prudence suggested that Count Lecter play the piano for them. As everyone gathered around the shiny instrument – complete with a skirt around its legs, just as Will had said – Price and Zeller were able to make their exit. “We’ll be in touch,” Price promised as they slipped out of the drawing room. 

Often, after dinner, when a guest would play the piano, conversations would softly continue, people getting up periodically for drinks or to make requests. As Count Lecter played, the entire room was silent, every eye fixed on his broad, shapely back. Will stood where he could see Hannibal in profile, unable to stop himself from marveling at the new parts of his face and neck revealed by his haircut, the sensuous curve of his proud, aristocratic mouth, the way the lamps glittered in his eyes. 

He played his original compositions. Will recognized them, knew which parts he had tweaked and added to. The notes wove a spell over the assembled party, and Will could feel a kind of tunnel of sound forming around him, leading directly to Hannibal and the piano. The edges of his vision darkened; it was like they were alone again in the library at Castle Lecter, waiting for the wolves to chime in for the chorus. Will missed it terribly, ached for it, that quiet intimacy, that shared, insular heaven. Sitting at the harpsichord together, their legs and shoulders touching, sharing little smiles. Like the one Hannibal was giving him now, as if he knew what Will was longing for. 

During the applause at the end of a piece, Will fled. It was too much, that smile, that music — he’d been right there at Hannibal’s side during the process of its composition. Consulted on chords and phrases as if he was a musician of Hannibal’s caliber. Kisses after the final note had faded away. 

He slipped out through the conservatory into the garden, following the crushed shell path to a bench that sat beneath an arbor filled with flowering vines. Sitting here he could see the terrace, the lights of the drawing room, the music pouring out into the night through the open windows. He sank down and rested his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together, head bowed. Breathe. He straightened just long enough to struggle with his bow tie, leaving it undone but strung around his neck, popping open the delicate first button of his tuxedo shirt. 

Warm evening air caressed his exposed neck as he leaned back and tipped his chin up, looking at the sky. It has been a clear day, but the heavens were overcast now, the lights of the city reflecting down and obscuring the stars. A delicate mist had begun to gather in the garden, curling among the plants and trickling along the pathways. 

The music stopped. Will couldn’t imagine going back inside, but he didn’t want anyone to come looking for him, either. While locked in indecision, he saw someone step out into the long terrace that lined the back of the manor. It was Alana, leaning on the stone railing, looking out over the garden. “Will?” She called over the soft gurgle of the fountains. 

Will tried to work up the desire to respond to her. Before he could do so, the terrace door opened again, and Beverly Katz emerged. “Miss Alana,” she greeted. “If I could have a moment of your time?”

“Beverly. Yes, of course.” 

Beverly took Alana’s hands in her own. “Miss Alana, I know I ain’t good enough to regulate the fixin’s of your little shoes, but I guess if you wait till you find a man that is, you will go join them seven young women with the lamps when you quit. Won’t you just hitch up alongside of me and let us go down the long road together, driving in double harness?’

Alana laughed, gentle and gay. “I don’t know anything of hitching, Bev. I’m not broken to harness at all yet.”

Beverly kissed her hands, and said, solemnly, “If I spoke in a light manner, I hope you’ll forgive me, Miss Alana. I shouldn’t have done so on such a grave, such a momentous occasion.”

“What occasion is that?” 

Beverly smiled, but all of her confident brashness had left her, and a kind of stoic earnestness replaced it. “Miss Alana, I know you likely consider me an unserious character, perhaps even a flirt. But I’m here to tell you that my feelings for you are as true and honest as anyone ever felt for a woman such as yourself. I’ve never met anyone so sweet of nature, with such a powerful mind and somehow balancin’ the two. Why, when we’d spend those afternoons playin’ with Will’s dogs, I could just imagine the two of us with a pack of our own and some kids besides. I liked that future, Miss Alana. For me, it’d be a dream come true.”  

Two proposals in one day. Will wondered if Alana was setting some sort of record. Silently, he urged Alana to accept. If it had to be someone else… Beverly was his choice. 

Alana’s face was turned away from him, and he could only see the vague outline of her profile. But he could tell by Beverly’s expression that whatever Alana was emoting was not encouraging. 

“Alana, you are an honest-hearted girl, I know. I should not be here speaking to you as I am now if I did not believe you clean grit, right through to the very depths of your soul. Tell me, like one good fellow to another, is there anyone else that you care for? And if there is, I’ll never trouble you a hair’s breadth again, but will be, if you will let me, a very faithful friend,” Beverly said.

Alana bowed her head, and Will could see her shoulders quiver. She let go of Beverly’s hands to wipe her eyes. Beverly whipped out a large red handkerchief with white polka dots and handed it over so Alana could dry her cheeks. She looked Beverly in the face and said, with a kind of resolute bravery, “Yes. There is someone I love.”

Will’s heart took a desperate tumble and he virulently hated himself for it. 

“She has not told me yet that she loves me,” Alana went on. 

Will nodded to himself, breathing through his numb acceptance. 

Beverly reclaimed her handkerchief and said in a hearty way, “That’s my brave girl. It’s better worth being late for a chance of winning you than being in time for any other girl in the world. Don’t cry, darlin’! If it’s for me, I’m a hard nut to crack; and I take it standing up. If that other lady doesn’t know her happiness, well, she’d better look for it soon, or she’ll have to deal with me. Little girl, your honesty and pluck have made me a friend, and that’s rarer than a lover; it’s more unselfish anyhow. My dear, I’m going to have a pretty lonely walk between this and Kingdom Come. Won’t you give me one kiss? It’ll be something to keep off the darkness now and then. You can, you know, if you like, for that other good woman—she must be a good woman, my dear, and a fine lady, or you could not love her—hasn’t spoken yet.”

“Of course, Bev…” Alana sniffled, then stepped closer and let Beverly kiss her on the mouth for more than a long moment. At last, Beverly stood with Alana’s two hands in hers, and as she looked down into Alana’s face, she said, “Little girl, I hold your hand, and you’ve kissed me, and if these things don’t make us friends nothing ever will. Thank you for your sweet honesty to me.”

“Thank you for the treasure of your friendship,” Alana said as Beverly kissed her hands once more, and then went inside. Alana remained on the terrace for a few moments, drying her eyes with her own handkerchief, then straightened her hair and returned to the party herself. 

Will exhaled slowly, then rubbed his eyes, dragging a hand through his hair, shuffling it loose from its careful arrangement of curls. Well, damn. That just left Margot. If Alana wanted to be a Verger, she was going to have to deal with Mason at some point or another. 

But if what Alana had said to Bev was true – that she was in love with Margot – then, he supposed, she was willing to be in-laws with a fellow that made the Devil look like a gentleman. 

He wanted to be happy for them. He wanted to be able to get up from the bench and go inside before Prudence got her bloomers in a twist. But he just… couldn’t. Instead, he watched the fog thicken, swirling among the thick fronds of the ferns, curling between the vines that threaded themselves through the arbor around him, encasing him in cords and smoke. He leaned forward again and rubbed his face with a sigh. 

There was no warning, not a single sound of a shoe on the crushed shell walkway, the soft whisper of grass or the rustle of clothing. Will smelled him first and thought it was wishful thinking. But when he raised his head and straightened his back, Count Lecter was there, standing in front of him, gazing down at Will with hooded eyes, mouth curved upward at the edges in a tentative, hopeful smile. 

“Hello, Will.”

Will shot to his feet, but he had nowhere to go. The arbor closed him in on three sides, and the edge of the bench pressed against the backs of his knees. His blood felt like molten metal poured into the mold of his veins; he could sense it hardening inside of him, going rigid and cold as the heat bled away. “How… are you here? W-why… why like this?” His throat was so dry and so tight he could barely form the words, and he was shaking, all over, clasping and unclasping his hands in little frantic movements at his sides. Sweat poured down the back of his neck. 

“I happened to meet Mrs. Bloom while getting acquainted with Dr. Chilton. She extended the invitation.” 

Will raised his hand to his hair for a moment, threading his fingers in and twisting until the pain grounded him. He took a shuddering breath. There were words, a tide of them rising to his lips, but they ebbed before he could understand them, speak them. “I… don’t…” was all he could manage. He was being clawed apart by his very nearness to Hannibal, drawn and quartered between fury, love, sorrow, and lust. 

“Is it good to see me, Will?” Hannibal asked softly, just above a whisper. The painful hope in his eyes was palpable. 

Will jutted out his chin, a tear rolling down his cheek. “Good?” he managed. “No.” 

And he stepped forward, closing the distance between them, thudding his body against Hannibal’s in a desperate, starved embrace, throwing his arms around the count’s neck and kissing him, a forceful press that dissolved almost immediately into a sensual devouring. Will gripped him by the lapels of the undeniably well-made tuxedo jacket, pressing himself into Hannibal’s solid, comforting weight, one hand sneaking inside to feel his back through the stiff shirt fabric, desperate for the muscle and bone beneath. 

Hannibal melded to him instantly, murmuring between kisses in old Romanian, stroking his hair. The familiar scents and tastes, the cool smoothness of his princely lips against the hot flesh of Will’s neck, all these dark sensations were old friends, rare gems, lost scriptures found in jars in a cave. 

“Will?” Prudence Bloom called out from the back door this time. 

Hannibal drew him behind the arbor out of sight, lips still on his, penetrating with tongue, tugging at Will’s hair again. Staying silent was exceedingly difficult. 

“Will Graham, you come inside this instant – Alana’s got an announcement!” 

Hannibal let him go reluctantly. “Coming,” Will called, still locked in the Count’s honeyed gaze. Hannibal broke their ravenous eye contact only to quickly and expertly re-tie Will’s bow tie and smooth down his hair.

He offered Will his arm. “Let’s not keep them waiting.”

Will tried to slow down his breathing and adjust his trousers a bit as they crunched along the path toward the terrace. Prudence was there at the door, eyes glittering furiously, though her expression softened almost entirely to see her ward on Count Lecter’s arm. “Will was just showing me your beautiful garden,” Hannibal explained as they returned to the drawing room. 

Bottles of champagne were coming around. “Here he is,” Prudence said crossly, taking a place by her daughter, who stood next to Margot Verger. 

Alana laughed, blushing. “As you may have guessed, considering we just opened champagne, we have something very special to celebrate in addition to Will coming home at last.”

“My sweet girl’s getting married!” Prudence burst out, tears in her eyes, embracing Alana and then Margot. 

Hannibal raised his glass, and Will woodenly copied his motion, hoping his lips weren’t too swollen from their frenetic kissing, mind a blank canvas of driving snow. “To the happy couple,” Prudence said grandly. 

“Hear, hear!” the crowd responded, and drank. 

Hannibal tapped his glass against Will’s. “To the happy couple,” he repeated softly. 

Will raised the champagne to his lips and drained it. 

Chapter Text

Will returned to his house with his pack of dogs a sweaty, grass-stained mess. He’d taken them out to Hampstead Heath, a massive park and natural area that butted right up against the grounds of Hillingham, separated by a stone wall. The Heath was home to forests, paths, grassy meadows, and ponds, and the dogs had enjoyed a long, leisurely romp. Will had chased them, thrown them balls and sticks, run them through the tricks he’s trained them to do, and given them all the love and attention he could, trying to make up for lost time. He swore Winston was still holding it against him. 

Now it was time to eat. The dogs swirled around his legs, barking, until he sent them outside to wait while he cooked their meal, combining meat, herbs, and grains into a hearty mash. 

The dogs were lined up at their bowls, waiting. He commanded them to sit and wait until he’d filled each one, and then, at his word, they leapt forward and devoured their portions. Will lingered, sinking into an old wooden rocking chair on the lawn near his cottage, making sure nobody stole Buster’s share. 

He was just considering his own lunch when he tracked movement coming up the main drive towards the manor house. A white painted wagon pulled by a team of two clopped up to the main doors. The side of the conveyance read WEST-END FLORALS. 

A lad in a white apron and cap got down from his seat as a stable boy ran out to hold the horses. From within the wagon, the deliveryman wrestled out an enormous bouquet of flowers arranged in a huge bronze vase. Will watched, a bemused smile on his face, as the lad struggled up the front stairs of Hillingham to ring the bell, barely able to see over the ridiculously large blooms and ferns and fronds. Margot had spared no expense, of course, sending Alana something in honor of their engagement. 

The dogs were finished, licking their bowls. Will went inside and snagged an apple and some bread and cheese for himself. He was in the middle of it, a book balanced on the table where he could read and eat, when the dogs began to bark in their excited way that told him someone was approaching the cottage. He got up, dusting crumbs from his dirty clothes, and went to answer it before the visitor even knocked.

He opened the door to an explosion of colored blossoms. “Good afternoon, sir, I’m looking for Mr. Will Graham,” came a voice from behind them.

“…yeah?” Will furrowed his brow, then whistled at the dogs. They plopped down on the ground and quieted.

“Delivery, sir.” Will couldn’t even see the lad’s face, the arrangement was so big.

“Didn’t anyone answer you at the manor when you rang?” Will asked.

“They did, sir, and informed me that you live here, sir…” The arrangement quivered as the lad shifted his load to the other arm. “It’s quite heavy…”

Will took it from him, stepping into the house and setting it on the table next to his lunch and book. “These are for Miss Bloom, aren’t they?”

“For you, sir.” The lad handed him a letter as well, then waited expectantly. 

Will cursed, searching his bedside table for some coins. He found some cash and dropped it in the boy’s hand. Tip secured, the lad touched his hat and was on his way. 

Will watched him go, then turned back to the flowers that filled the little house with their exquisite perfume. To say that the arrangement was ostentatious was a total understatement; it contained bountiful bunches of yellow yarrow flowers, bursts of dwarf sunflowers, sprays of blue hyacinth, and long reeds of apple blossom, all stuffed in an overflowing abundance of pink, magenta, and white clusters of sweet William. 

Sweet William…?

The accompanying note was in an envelope of heavy cream paper, sealed with red wax. The design on the wax seal was the outline of a stag’s head with a rack of pointed antlers, a calligraphy L twined within the tines. Will’s heart tripped before regaining its footing. He took a breath and slid his finger beneath, cracking open the wax seal.

Within was a single piece of matching heavy paper. 

Mr. Graham,

It was my pleasure to call on you socially last night; now that our business is concluded and there is no conflict of interest, I hope I may have your permission to do so again. In Transylvania, we discussed many of London’s landmarks and cultural events; I am in search of someone to enjoy them with. 

Yours sincerely,

Count Hannibal Lecter

“There must be a mistake.”

Will looked up to see Prudence Bloom barging through his door without knocking. The dogs were silent; not just silent but long gone, lurking in the tree line. They had been thoroughly trained to stay away from Alana’s mother, and Will was envious of their ability to simply flee and hide at the sight of her. 

“Those are for Alana, aren’t they? From Margot? I told that dull stable boy not to let the delivery man bring them down here.” 

It was with a surge of triumph that Will handed her the note. He crossed his arms and waited for her to read it. “Will!” she exclaimed when she’d finished reading, her eyes flying over the little page again and again. “When he asked my permission, I thought he was confused about the customs, but he really does want to see you again!”

“Wait, what?” Will narrowed his eyes. “What… what did he ask you?”

“Before he left last night, Count Lecter pulled me aside and asked for my permission to see you. I thought he was attempting to clarify that the two of you could be social acquaintances now that you were no longer involved as his solicitor. But that’s not what he meant at all! Oh, Will, I don’t know how you managed it, but Count Lecter did mean to ask me if he had my blessing to court you!” She threw her arms around his neck and squeezed him to herself. 

Will kept his arms folded and edged out of her grasp the first chance he could. “...court me…”

“Yes! Oh, what fortune – my daughter engaged and now…” She beamed up at him and cupped his face for a moment in the palm of her hand. He had to force himself not to shy away like he’d been burned. 

Prudence turned to the floral arrangement. She chuckled, examining the flowers. “Well, he certainly doesn’t understand the nuances of sending flowers. But I suppose they don’t have florists in Transylvania.”

“Transylvania is not England,” Will murmured as she fussed over the arrangement, leaning in to smell the blossoms. “Wh-what nuances, uhm… doesn’t he understand?”

“Well, blue hyacinth for constancy, that’s benign enough. But dwarf sunflowers for adoration, yarrow for everlasting love? A bit like putting the cart before the horse, wouldn’t you say?”

Apple blossoms. “I prefer you above all others,” Will said softly, touching one of the flowers. 

“Exactly,” Prudence said. “And so much sweet William. A bit on the nose, don’t you think? Considering the two of you are only just getting to know one another outside of a professional context?”

Will couldn’t help but picture the professional context where he had his cock root-deep in Hannibal’s mouth, pushing into the back of his throat. Despite this, he nodded. 

“A foreigner’s mistake,” Prudence said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “The important thing is that he has expressed interest in you.” Her disbelief was so condescending he was unable to suppress the seething anger that sprang up in its wake. 

And that was the purpose, Will realized, of this ostentatious display, the reason that Hannibal had come to Prudence, as if Will gave a damn what she thought, as if she had the right to grant access to him the way she would a real son. Hannibal wanted the Blooms to realize that the glamorous Count Lecter valued Will. That he was a prize, despite his humble origins. 

Prudence was poking around his writing desk. “Don’t you have any decent stationery?”

“At the office,” Will said, reaching out again and dreamily touching a sunflower. 

“Here.” She beckoned him over and handed him a pen. “Write your response. I’ll have it sent tomorrow. Tomorrow evening,” she decided. “You want him to wait a little while. Make him think you have other social opportunities of some kind.” 

Will scoffed quietly as Prudence dictated the letter to him; a generic note of thanks and a suggestion that they could meet for tea and discuss further how Will might show the count some of London’s points of interest. No sooner had he signed it then she had whipped it out of his hand and slid it into the pocket of her dress. “Well done, Will,” she said with a bright smile. “Well done indeed. Will you come up to the house for supper tonight?”

“Uhm…” Will scratched the back of his head. 

“You must. Alana will want to hear all about this.”

He nodded. 

“Eight o’clock!” she called over her shoulder, gathering her skirts and hurrying over the lawn back to Hillingham’s main door. 

“Shit,” he muttered, then looked back at the flowers. He couldn’t help but smile, thinking of that day in Cerbul Negru when he and Peter and Abigail had gone to the market, and Hannibal had met them on the way back up the mountain to take Will on a walk through the apple orchard, the blossoms a blizzard of blush pink, their sweet scent everywhere. After that day, there was no doubt in Will’s mind that he was wanted. Desired. And now, it seemed, Hannibal was making it his duty to ensure Alana and Prudence understood the same. 

Strange, to think of courting and gallantry after they’d shared so much, known one another so intimately. 

But what, exactly, did Will really know? Hannibal had secrets. There was so much obscured in nightmares and visions and hallucinations, in the past and present melded together, in the constant barrage of the impossible he’d thought he’d left behind in Transylvania. There was still so much he didn’t understand. 

One thing, he mused over a glass of whiskey, watching the dogs romp across the lawn now that Prudence was gone, was that he was desperate for another kiss. 

Later, inside, Will put his palms on the table and leaned into the flowers, letting them brush his cheeks, a petal caressing his eyelid, another gliding along his lower lip. He inhaled deeply and let himself smile, a secret curve. 

To the truth, and all its consequences. 

The dogs were barking. 

Will had, at last, fallen asleep. He hadn’t worn the ring tonight; it seemed strange, having the flowers there on his table from Hannibal now, and then to desire to dream of him in another life… it invited a mental chaos that Will was trying to avoid. His mind had been active but clear as of late, and he didn’t want to coax back the turmoil he’d faced in Transylvania. But sleep was a long time coming. Every time the scent of apple blossoms wafted over, he was transported back to the springtime mountains. He ached for the Carpathians, even with Hannibal and Abigail here in London. 

Will got up and yanked on the same stained pair of trousers he’d been wearing that day, letting his nightshirt fall over them. “Buster! Max!” He padded barefoot over to the door and pulled it open. “Winston, hush!” 

The dogs were in the old hunting hound kennels that Beau had kept, doubled or tripled up for company, but instead of tracking Will the second he opened the cottage door, they were all looking at something else.

Something white flowed across the lawn of Hillingham towards the trees that edged this side of the vast property. As the moon rolled free of clouds and seemed to glow on the white figure, Will recognized Alana, wearing only her gossamer ivory nightgown, gliding into the trees with hurried but dreamy steps. 

“Fuck,” Will breathed. He ducked inside to retrieve a pair of boots and tugged them on. There was no time to think of what might happen; a vague, overmastering fear obscured all details. He grabbed up a blanket as well and went out after her just as the little clock above his fireplace struck one. She’d disappeared into the trees, but certainly she wouldn’t be able to scale the wall that separated their property from Hampstead Health…

Except she could. She was headed right for the tree she and Will once used to climb the wall as children; a twisted oak grown sideways that arched right up to the top of the wall. Certainly, the old rope they’d tied to one of the branches to help descend the other side was gone. She could fall eight feet or more to the ground. 

“Alana!” he shouted, but there was no response. Will plunged through the trees, headed for the oak, but by the time he got there, Alana must have already scaled it. He found a piece of lace stuck to a branch at the base of the climbing tree, then hurried up the curve, his body remembering all the footholds and knots from childhood that served as a ladder to the top of the wall. 

The old rope was still there and must have been strong enough to bear her weight. It was still swinging gently, and he could see a depression in the grass at the bottom as if she’d landed awkwardly and knelt for a moment. From his vantage point at the top of Hillingham’s wall, he looked out into the Health, across the meadow towards the wood and the path to the nearest pond. He couldn’t see Alana, but there was a clear trail through the dewy grass. 

Will didn’t trust the rope, so he scaled down the wall using the edges of the old stones and the branch for a handhold. The old stump was still there at the bottom as well, which always assisted in getting back up. So many games of Rapunzel and castle siege, or pirates defending the side of their ship…

There was a bright full moon, with heavy, black, driving clouds, which threw the whole scene into a fleeting diorama of light and shade as they sailed across. For a moment or two Will could see nothing, as the shadow of a cloud obscured the entire Heath. Still, he pressed forward, finding the wooded path that led to the pond and hurrying down it as fast as he could, tripping over an exposed root or two. As the cloud passed, he could see the glimmer of water come into view; and as the edge of a narrow band of light as sharp as a sword-cut moved along, the end of the path and the pond became gradually visible. 

At the edge of the still, idyllic pond, the silver light of the moon struck a half-reclining figure, snowy white. The coming of the cloud was too quick for Will to see much, for shadow shut down on light almost immediately; but it seemed to him as though something dark stood behind the bench where the white figure shone and bent over it. What it was, whether man or beast, he could not tell; he did not wait to catch another glance but flew down the path and across the open meadow toward the edge of the pond. 

Will tried to hurry, his hands clutched around the blanket bundled in his arms, but it seemed as if his feet were weighted with lead, and as though every joint in his body were rusty. Somewhere in the distance he could hear the bellowing of an animal at the nearby zoo, and a kind of primal bleating – maybe a monkey? He pushed on through the damp grass toward the bench at the edge of the pond. The white figure sat there in a relaxed posture, for now he was close enough to distinguish it even through the spells of shadow. There was undoubtedly something, long and black, bending over the half-reclining white figure. 

Panic balled in his chest and lashed out of his mouth. “Alana! Alana!”

The shadow figure raised its head, and from where Will was he could see a flash of white skin and red, gleaming eyes before the moon was obscured once more. Alana did not answer, and Will ran closer, feeling like he was in a nightmare, his feet tangled in the long grasses. Will came in view again as the cloud passed, and the moonlight struck so brilliantly that he could see Alana half reclining with her head lying over the back of the seat. She was quite alone, and there was not a sign of any living thing about. Will swept the dark heath wildly with his gaze, breathing hard, soaked in sweat, trying to track the shadow creature – man? – whatever it was. He felt watched, unseen eyes clawing at his skin. 

When he bent over her, he could see that Alana was still asleep. Her lips were parted, and she was breathing—not softly as usual with her, but in long, heavy gasps, as though striving to get her lungs full at every breath. As he came close, she put up her hand in her sleep and pulled the collar of her nightdress close around her throat. Whilst she did so there came a little shudder through her, as though she felt the nighttime chill. 

Will flung the blanket over her and drew the edges tight round her neck. He feared to wake her all at once but was clumsy in his anxiety and pinched or scratched her with his fingernails, short as they were, for by-and-by, when her breathing became quieter, she put her hand to her throat again and moaned. “Alana, it’s Will,” he said softly, sinking on the bench next to her and tucking the blanket more tightly around her. “Alana, can you hear me? You’re sleepwalking again.” 

She didn’t answer, her head lolling against his shoulder. When he had her carefully wrapped up, he put his boots on her feet and then began very gently to wake her. At first, she did not respond; but gradually she became more and more uneasy in her sleep, moaning and sighing occasionally. 

“Alana…” He didn’t know how he was going to get her over the wall again if she was asleep, and if they had to go around to the gate and wake the staff, chances were a stranger was going to see them. That was the very last fucking thing either of them needed; Alana newly engaged to a Verger and yet seen sneaking around in her nightgown with her “brother” in the middle of the night. “Alana. Alana!” He shook her more forcibly, till finally she opened her eyes and awoke. 

She did not seem surprised to see him. Alana, he noted, despite his desire not to, always woke prettily, and even at such a time, when her body must have been chilled with cold, and her mind somewhat appalled at waking unclad on Hampstead Heath at night, she did not lose her grace. She trembled a little and clung to him. “Alana, we need to go home,” he said softly, with a firm reassurance he didn’t feel. 

Something was still watching. Something close; he could sense it, a slithering in his mind that was at once disconcerting and strangely exhilarating. There was no time to investigate it now. Alana rose without a word, with the obedience of a child. As they walked through the meadow and then stepped onto the path, the gravel bit Will’s feet. 

Alana must have noticed him wince. She stopped him with a tug on the sleeve of his nightshirt. “Will, take your boots back,” she said dreamily. 

“What? No, no, don’t worry about me.” 

Fortune favored them, and they got back to Hillingham’s wall without meeting a soul. Alana smiled at the sight of the old rope and the tree where they’d once played. “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,” she sang with a soft giggle.

“I don’t trust this rope,” Will said. “I’m going to help you up, and I need you to climb down the other side. Make sure you’re careful.”

“I’ve done it a hundred times,” Alana laughed, as if they’d come here to play. She tossed off the blanket and grabbed the wall. Will tried not to think about how the dimensions of her body felt beneath her silk nightgown as he boosted her up. She grabbed the top of the wall and pulled herself up and over, using the tree for handholds. She disappeared and Will could hear the scraping sounds as she climbed down the other side. 

Will tossed the blanket over, then stood on the nearby stump, and used the few hand and footholds he could find in the stone to climb back up to the tree and haul himself over as well. He was relieved to see Alana waiting for him at the base of the oak, her arms wrapped around herself, shivering. Will scooped up the blanket and put it around her again, his heart thudding with the exertion of climbing and anxiety about Alana. 

Will took her to the terrace door that led into the drawing room, hoping it would be unlocked. It was, and they made their way to the kitchen, making the tiniest shuffling noises in the dark and silent manor house. Will lifted Alana by the hips and had her sit on a prep table so he could dampen a cloth and clean off her feet and his own, clearing them of dew and bits of grass. She laughed as if it tickled, and he shushed her harshly, which resulted in her lip protruding in a childish pout. 

“Come on,” he beckoned, taking her by the shoulders and sneaking back upstairs to her bedchamber. The door was open, the key turned in the lock. “Looks like someone’s going to have to start sleeping in here with you,” Will said softly, bringing her into her suite and closing the door. Alana’s chamber was done in various shades of blue, trimmed with gold. Unlike the rest of the house, it was barer and more tasteful, the walls decorated here and there with little framed watercolor paintings she’d done. And one that Will had completed during his last convalescence, post-Ripper. It was a fish, and it hadn’t turned out half-bad. 

Will closed the door and locked it behind him, slipping the key into his trouser pocket. Alana wandered over to the bed, tossing off the blanket and kneeling next to the mattress. “I should say my prayers before bed,” she murmured. “Come say them with me, Will.”

Anything to get her back under the covers. Will knelt next to her, like they were children again, and clasped his hands on the blanket the way she had hers folded. Alana led them in “now I lay me down to sleep” ending with “Amen.”

“Will,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder before he could get to his feet. “Don’t tell anyone about this. It’ll be our secret.” 

“Alana–”

“I don’t want Mother to worry,” she said. 

“Lie down,” he directed, folding back her covers. She slid in without protest and seemed to go to sleep immediately, turned away from him on her side. He tucked the blanket in, then built up a fire, hunkering down in front of it to warm up his hands and feet. Drawing a chair cushion beneath his head, he curled up and closed his eyes, trying to thaw out. 

The next thing he knew, the reflex of dawn had pierced the windows. Will groaned, sitting up, rubbing the crick in his neck. Alana was exactly where he’d left her, but it wouldn’t be long before the maid arrived. He got up and replaced the cushion, then crept up to where Alana slept, sitting on the edge of her bed and shaking her shoulder gently until she woke. 

“...Will?” she murmured sleepily. Then recognition – perhaps memory – flitted over her face. 

“Sleepwalking,” he explained. “Again. Uh, last night. Around one, I heard the dogs barking. Y-you… made it all the way over the wall and onto the Heath.”

“Oh God,” she groaned, sitting up and rubbing her head, then wriggling back under the covers quickly. “I thought it was a dream. We were playing again, like children…” 

“You used the old oak to get over the wall, just like… we did back then,” he said, and she smiled wearily. “Someone’s going to have to start sleeping in here with you.”

She groaned. “I suppose so. Thank you, Will, for fetching me. We didn’t see anyone, did we?”

He shook his head, thinking of the shadow and immediately dismissing it. Trick of the light. 

“You should go,” she suggested. “But come back up for breakfast in an hour. I want to hear more about Count Lecter.” 

He grinned, just for a moment, before he could stop himself. Nodded. Then he slipped out of her room, leaving the key in the lock. 

Chapter Text

“I shouldn’t be here,” Will says.

“No, you shouldn’t,” I agree, opening the door for him and ushering him inside. This is a house of ill-repute, but it is a very expensive brothel, one of the best in London, if I’m to believe the upper-class minds I’ve read at the gentlemen’s club where I am now a member. 

With his thief-mother’s blessing, I have begun the ritual of courtship. Will and I spent the afternoon on an open-air carriage ride with Abigail, seeing the sights of this teeming city. More importantly, all of London saw Will Graham with me, a red rose threaded through the buttonhole of his jacket, in a state of public adoration. I want every tongue wagging. I want well-bred maidens and boys alike to look at him with green-eyed envy, asking themselves how it is possible that the glamorous foreign count has chosen the former inspector turned solicitor, mongrel foundling of the illustrious Bloom family. 

Once I am satisfied that I’ve shown the whole city that Will Graham is precious and desirable, we drive Abigail home. She and Will have had a series of long, lovely conversations and I can see their bond reform. “I missed you,” she says again. She did, in her own way I suppose; her repetition of the phrase is at my behest – the lightest touch of mesmerism. Will cares for her, wants to protect her, and is still the keeper of her secrets; I would have him believe she feels a similar attachment, though I can see into her mind. She doesn’t. Will is an opportunity for her, and she understands very well how important he is to me. Therein lies his value in her eyes. 

Then, “Why did you leave, Will?”

That question was unprompted; I cross my legs and lean back in the seat, waiting for his answer, as I am curious to hear what he has to say. 

Will struggles for several long moments. He won’t look at either of us and there are patches of high color on his cheeks. “I felt like I had to,” is what he says at last. “I felt like… something was telling me… that I was in danger and I had to leave.” He pauses, looking at her. Abigail is twirling her parasol, waiting to hear more, though I catch her glancing at the street where many a handsome youth tips his hat in her direction. She knows how lovely she looks in her pale orange silk visiting dress.

“I was ill. W-when I, uhm… when I was in the hospital i-in Budapest, they said I had a brain fever. The… my brain was swelling, and it was making me… I couldn’t think,” he explains haltingly. 

“Well, you had us all very worried,” she scolds him, adjusting her pristine white glove and smiling at a passing girl in another carriage. 

Will glances my way, then down at his hands again. 

“We’re here now,” I say, and he looks up at me with a tentative smile. “In this beautiful city.” 

He nods, and the clouds lift from his brow. 

After we leave Abigail at Carfax, I tell Will we’re headed to Hillingham, but that is not our destination. He is aware almost immediately but says nothing; we are seated next to one another, our shoulders just barely touching. I can feel the heat from his body, the delicious, coiled tension. We exit the conveyance and walk through a quiet neighborhood to the unassuming house full of expensive sex workers. 

The parlor is full of beautiful ladies and young men in various stages of undress. All their clothes are lovely and fine, rich and sensual, debauched in the way they hang half-on and half-off, unbuttoned, corsets and garters showing, shapely necks and dimpled clavicles everywhere, miles of sweet flesh. 

I pay them no mind. There is only one person in the world whose flesh is of any interest to me, and he is blushing, hat in his hand, his face betraying the tangle of emotions and desires that are no doubt pulling him in several different directions. 

The madam descends the stairs to greet me personally, fanning herself with small but wild movements. “My dear count,” she simpers. “The room you requested is ready. Right this way.”

Will is looking at the floor and doesn’t take his eyes from it as we mount the carpeted staircase. At the end of a long hall full of doors is a final room, a suite, the finest they have, usually reserved for parties of several gentlemen and their rented companions. 

“Do you require anything else?” the madam asks as Will steps into the rooms, looking around as if expecting to be attacked, shoulders hunched and agitated. 

I note the bottles of wine, the trays of refreshment, the green flask of absinthe. All the mirrors have been taken out of the room. “Everything is just as I requested, Ms. Lenore, thank you.”

“Please ring if there’s anything else. Anyone else,” she suggests with a miniscule eyebrow lift. 

“Discretion,” I say, dropping a sheaf of paper money into her gloved hand. Her eyes shine and she smiles with a gentle curtsey. 

The door clicks shut, and, at last, we are alone. 

Will lets me take his hat and his jacket, watches me hang them on the hooks next to the door with my own. We are each in our shirtsleeves now; he is dressed simply in brown tweed with a white shirt, the sleeves of which he is busily rolling up to his elbows, a nervous sweat glistening on his brow. The enormous bed covered in red satin looms in the corner of the suite, beckoning; it is making Will uneasy, I can tell. I take a breath and remind myself to tread lightly. 

But sweet Lucifer, the things I want to do to him. 

“Are you sure this won’t get back to Prudence?” he asks, fidgeting with his collar. “I mean, if Freddie Lounds gets a whiff of this…”

“No one who saw us will remember,” I promise him. At the table, I prepare him a glass of absinthe, complete with a sugar-cube drip and a touch of flame. 

He watches me curiously and takes the glass with some degree of hesitation. “Doesn’t absinthe make you… lose your mind?” Will wonders, looking at the emerald liquid in his glass. 

“It inspires all kinds of illicit behavior,” I say, lighting my own glass. “Turns children into criminals. If the temperance women are to be believed, it encourages murder. And worst of all, loose morals.” 

He exhales a half-laugh through a shy smile as I touch my glass to his. We drink. I enjoy this; the anise and other herbs provide a complex flavor profile. 

He nods appreciatively, drinks again. Drinking too fast; he’s adorably nervous, as if we haven’t already shared so much. Transylvania seems like a lifetime ago, as close and as far removed as our lives 400 years past. I set down my glass and close the distance between us. Oh, that trembling lip — I crave its rosy sweetness. “I come by my loose morals naturally,” I say, playing with the knot of his necktie. 

His tongue’s sensual tip touches the inner ring of his lower lip. But then he steps back out of my reach. Finishes his drink. “Hannibal,” he says. 

I take his empty glass and set it on the table, placing the sugar cube and pouring the liquor over it, then igniting it for a moment. I do these things and wait for him to speak. 

He takes the glass from my outstretched hand and puts it to his lips again, then sets it aside. We are very close now; I can smell him and while his scent isn’t quite as sweet as when he was feverish, the anise mixes well with it. I reach up to touch his stubbled cheek, running the pad of my thumb beneath his eye. I should have waited for him to touch me first, but I can’t stand it, being so close and not touching, after so many months apart. 

He takes a trembling breath. “I can’t be with you,” he says, “until you tell me the truth.”

I release him, breaking the touch bond, though we are still in intimate proximity. I’m tempted to ask him what he means, the truth about what, Will? But I don’t have it in me. Not with his eyes like this, so clear and blue and vulnerable. 

“The truth,” I say, “is that I knew you centuries ago in a previous time. In another life. Your name then was Iliya. And I loved you.”

Will’s eyes are shining with tears now. I hear the wetness in his throat as he swallows them back. “And I loved you,” he says. “We were… married.”

I nod. “And you died. But you’ve returned.”

He furrows his fair brow. “How? How do you remember everything from… back then and I… only have b-bits and pieces?”

“Because I never died. I was never reborn. I’m the same man who loved Iliya. And I’ve been waiting all this time…” I had mistakenly thought I could speak of this without being overcome, but there are tears in my eyes now, too. They make my vision red. 

“How?” He is going to press me on this. I will not lie, but I can’t imagine he’s ready for the entire truth, either.

“When you died, I cursed God,” I tell him, lifting his hand to my mouth. I kiss his fingers where they curl gently around my grip. “I was given long life and perpetual loneliness. You have heard, perhaps, of the Wandering Jew? I think he is of my kind.”

He unfolds his hand from my grasp, and it settles on my cheek, his other on my shoulder. I hold his wrist, my thumb on his pulse. I have a pulse at the moment, too – London keeps me very well fed. So much so that I appear to have shaved some years off my appearance; I look much more like I did when I lost Iliya. 

“People die,” he says, just above a whisper. “Why did… why did you… turn your back on God?”

“I was told you weren’t going to heaven.” I feel his pulse increase in his veins at the mention of Iliya’s suicide. “I lost Mischa, and I lost you, all while fighting a holy war in God’s name. I defended Christendom and he took everything from me.”

“But… He brought me back…?”

“His whims are beyond mortal understanding,” I say. I release his wrist and slip my arms around him, drawing our hips together. “His ways mysterious. But I have no intention of questioning them. Not now that I have you again.”

I release him suddenly, knowing I will leave a shadow of want as he now grasps nothing. I take our glasses and sit on the curved lounge, not much different from the one at Castle Lecter in shape and design, though this one is a reproduction, and the upholstery is cheaper, easier to clean, I imagine. He comes closer, and I glance at the space next to me, a seat at the edge right before the upward curve. He sits, and I hand him his absinthe. Again, he drinks too quickly. 

“You remember,” I say. “Your dreams began when you came onto the soil of my ancestral lands.”

“They got… m-mixed up with… the Ripper.” His body is slowly losing its tension. Having never had absinthe, I don’t think he was aware of its higher proof, hidden in the herbal-sweet flavor. “Everything… collided. The past. The Ripper. The empathy. The fever.”

I nod. “But that’s behind you now. Behind us.”

I take his empty glass and hand him mine to finish. “A new city,” he murmurs. “A new life?”

I smile and reach for him, drawing his legs into my lap so he is reclining on the lounge, drink in hand. He sips, watching me as I tease open the laces of his shiny brown shoes. “What are you doing?” His voice is all velvet dreamy play and I feel a smoldering triumph spread warmth all through me, particularly to my cock. 

“They hurt your feet,” I tell him. 

He smirks as I slide them off, taking his stockings with, pushing up the hems of his trousers and working his feet between my hands to ease the alleged soreness. “Transylvania is not England,” he says ruefully. “I miss, ah… wearing my old boots every day.”

“I enjoy the rigid codes of dress.” I’m rubbing up his calves, my fingertips teasing the soft, curly hair. “A suit for the morning, for walks, for riding, for drives, for tea, and another for supper, back tie for the opera…” 

He groans in disgust, but he’s smiling. “All that dressing. Takes up time… better spent doing something else.” He sighs prettily as my hand curls around his knee and massages up his thigh through the frustrating barrier of tweed. “You know what else is, uhm, uncomfortable? This damned belt.”

I’m more than happy to unbuckle it, and his skin trembles as my fingertips brush the taut flesh of his belly. I draw his trousers down and he lifts his hips to help me strip him. I leave his undergarment on; it’s been so long, I am nearly at a point of full body combustion, but I am savoring the frustration and desire, dancing the prize out of our respective reaches. I give myself the little treat of tracing my fingertips up the inside of his thigh until my skin meets cloth and his breath hitches desperately. 

“I’ll admit,” I purr, turning slightly to angle more towards him, one hand still grasping his milky thigh, the other sneaking up to his necktie, “these high collars do frustrate me. But just think how well they hide certain marks one might have on one’s neck and shoulders.” This is true in Alana Bloom’s case, surely; I’ve bitten her now, tasted her blood, and begun what I plan to be a long, painful process that will leave her a husk, a shell of her former self; I’ve commanded her through mesmerism not to let anyone see her throat unless it is unavoidable, and I think it shall be easily done considering the high-necked dresses and collar-style necklaces women here favor. 

The mention of my bites and bruises brings a deeper flush to his face as I tease open his necktie with a few quick one-handed movements. I want to rip his buttons open, but I check my desires lest he must explain to someone how his shirt was mauled on a chaste, benign drive around the city. He drinks and watches me thumb them open one at a time until the garment is halfway undone. His backside is pressed into my thigh now, his legs draped over my lap as he reclines, drawing the emerald liquor between his lips, watching me as I stroke his neck with a tender touch, playing with the rise of his collarbones, the sweet hollow where they meet. 

“Do you remember how we met?” I ask him softly, drawing my fingertip down his sternum now, feeling the little waves of bone beneath. 

“I threw a snowball at you,” Will says with a laugh tickled with the tendrils of inebriation. “I… pretended it was meant for someone else, but…” 

“Why did you do it?” I ask him as he drains his glass and lets it fall haphazardly onto the carpet with a dull thud. 

“Because I wanted you to look at me,” he admits. “I, uhm… I didn’t think it through any further than that. Childish, I guess.”

“Oh, I looked at you,” I murmur as he slides an arm behind his head and puts his other hand over mine where it rests on his neck, my thumb finding the dimensions of his Adam’s apple. “And I wanted you.”

“Hmm.” He squirms a bit as my touch drifts up his thigh. “So, you wanted me. When did… you love me?”

It is supremely arousing, watching him dwell in these memories, reclaiming his power over me, tasting Iliya’s life and his confidence. “That evening, when I attempted to compliment your beauty and you told me constancy was a greater virtue.” 

He sucks in a breath as I touch him through his clothing, just the slightest hint of a caress. 

“And when did you love me?” I ask him. There is a wild part of me that is terrified that he doesn’t anymore, that he never did—?

“When you promised you would never leave me,” he says.

“And I never will.” A hasty promise, but a binding one. I slide out from beneath him and stretch myself over his body on the lounge, delivering the long-awaited kiss. His mouth is hot and delicious, as always, as it’s been since the first time I kissed him centuries ago. The cloying anise and herbal remnants of the absinthe are a perfect complement, a corresponding wine for a succulent piece of meat. He hums his pleasure, hands finding my shoulders and back, trapped as they are beneath my shirt and waistcoat. 

I kneel over him, sitting on his hips, and draw his forefinger into my mouth, then work my tongue in the fissures between his fingers as I unbutton his cuffs, and the sounds he makes are so beautiful I wonder why I bother to compose music. Now the other hand. He pushes his first two fingers in deep, testing, I think, how much I can take. His fingertips brush the back of my throat but there is no innate response except my exceptional suction, and he curses lovingly, grabbing at my backside with his free palm. 

I kiss his mouth again, his jawline, that long, tender neck, feeling the delightful texture of his stubbled skin, inhaling his scent, my fingers finding the remaining buttons of his shirt–

I hiss in pain, pulling back. He catches my hand and looks at the raw burn on the edge of my forefinger and thumb, then pulls a chain from around his neck, showing me the charm. It is a holy medal – St. Christopher – and I let loose an involuntary growl at the sight of it. It wards me away, and yet there is something else on the chain that attempts to negate its effects. 

Iliya’s wedding ring – Will’s ring. I hadn’t seen it on his finger since we met again in London and I feared it lost or stolen on his mad journey to Budapest. My own is locked in a strongbox at Carfax. 

“I keep it close,” he says, playing with the medal and the ring on the chain, looking at it, then up at me. 

“Wear it for me,” I beg him, my hands grasping at his thighs. 

“You don’t like this.” He touches the holy medal. “It’s the same as the crucifix…”

“Take it off,” I growl again, and the words are half-bestial. 

I worry I might frighten him, but if I do, he makes no indication. In fact, he smiles. “But what will, ah… protect me from you?” he teases. 

“Will.” His name as a heartfelt plea. 

Still smiling, he undoes the clasp from behind his neck and removes the ring from the chain. Lets the chain and medal fall to the floor. 

As soon as the necklace leaves his grip, I am on him, kissing him, rutting against his bare leg with my still-clothed cock. “Do you remember our wedding day?” I whisper lustily into his ear, hauling him up from the lounge by his open shirt and turning him to face away from me. I clasp his balled hand and ease it open to find the ring against his palm. Kissing his neck, sucking the skin, I take it from him and ease it back onto his finger. 

“Yes,” he breathes, leaning into my hold, letting me support nearly his whole weight, which I do easily. I nose the spill of curls at the base of his neck, holding his arms crossed over his own body, trapping him against me, my cock finding his backside’s sweet curve. “Do you remember our wedding night?”

“I’ll never forget it,” I promise. I swing him easily into my arms and I carry him, just as I did that night centuries ago. The way he looks up at me makes the past and the present bleed together, ink in the rain; I see him as Will and then as Iliya, the untroubled flower of his youth superimposed over the pain-wearied features of a man who was raised to think he wasn’t worth the cost of his keeping. He goes limp and lets me carry him entirely, head lolling, one hand gripping my shirt, the other circling my back, and I am happy to show him my prodigious strength, to make him feel little and cherished and protected if that is what he wishes. Anything for him. 

A few steps, and I spread him on the bed. He is flushed and still smells so sweetly of anise and herbs and his arousal, that delectable sheen of sweat. I can see how his body responds to me, every detail; the obvious outline of his cock down to the little tremor of his lower lip, the soft hooded eyes, the complete submission, his body languid and waiting for me. 

I stand at his side and patiently unbutton my waistcoat, watching him. He lifts a subtle hand and touches himself through his undergarment, making a nearly noiseless sigh as he watches me carefully strip myself to the waist. I climb on the bed now, kneeling over him, a leg on either side of his slender middle, a palm near his head to hold me up as I lean in to kiss him, stroking his face, his neck, the rounded part of his shoulder. He smiles into my kiss, a taunt – he is not touching me or himself. As if I didn’t know what he desperately desires, as if I could not feel him trembling and shaking, as if I could not smell the bead of moisture that is at the tip of his cock, soaked up by his undergarment already, as if I could not hear his heart thunder in his chest. 

I stroke his thighs again, my touch worshipful. I ease them apart, and of course he lets me. Helps me take off his last garment with the slightest lift of his hips. I spread his legs wider and his cock, now free, greets me in its attentive glory. It is perfectly shaped. So beautiful. But I move it aside to lick him everywhere else: inner thighs, his entrance, behind his shaft. He moans as loud as any whore in this place when I force my tongue against his hole, sliding it in as far as I can; it flutters open and shut.

He heaves a great sigh as I leave him again, strolling over to the table again as if he is not desperate for my return. I bring the bottle of absinthe and I raise it to my lips before I swallow his cock. I was right; everything of his tastes delicious with that herbal-sweet anise. 

“What I remember,” I tell him, even as he heaves another aching sigh, “is at last having what I’d waited so long for. During the engagement, because we were promised, we were allowed a certain level of indiscretion…”

“But you weren’t allowed,” Will pants, “to fuck me.”

I respond by drawing him between my lips again, holding him by the hips. He quivers, so close to spilling over, but I ease him back, kissing his stomach. He still isn’t touching me, choosing instead to wrench his hands into the pillow and the satiny bedcover. “Not until the wedding night,” I whisper against the moist plane of his stomach after I draw my tongue along it. I love it when he writhes like this, as if he might come apart at his seams or dissolve into nothing if I don’t give him what he wants. I move slowly, careful not to touch his cock as I climb up his body and kiss him. 

“It amuses me to think that you used something as cold as snow to get my attention,” I murmur, sliding my hand between his legs again, “when there’s nothing cold about you. Especially here.” I massage his entrance with the thick pad of my finger and feel him relax into my hand with a deeply sensual curse. He’s touching me now, has a hand on my shoulder half-clawing at my skin. I press in deeper, kissing him, whispering to him to relax. 

I pull my finger out to lift the absinthe bottle to my lips. I press my mouth over his and pass the liquor to him, marveling again at the flavors. “Tell me what you want, beloved…” I take another drink and give it to him again, chasing the chartreuse drops that escape the corners of his lips with my tongue, kissing it back into his mouth. 

“Fuck me,” he begs, and I can only smile and love him all the more. 

I leave him breathing hard on the bed again and undress the rest of the way. From my jacket pocket, I produce the vial of our dearly departed Reba’s Roman Recipe. I uncork it and slick some onto my hand. Will inhales the scent, then exhales a gentle sigh when I touch my fingertips against him again. “You remember this,” I say.

He nods. “It smells so good.”

“Its scent brings me delightful memories.” I am stroking him everywhere with the oil, up onto the head of his cock where I thumb the slit, then back down to massage his opening, coaxing away the hesitation. “Tell me, Will… have you experienced this before? What you’ve asked of me?”

He touches his tongue to his lip and the hesitation tells me all I need to know. I kiss him, so gently, and I slip my finger into him again, aided by the oil, and he takes a shuddering breath. “No,” he whispers into my hair as I kiss his neck.

“Not in this body,” I confirm. 

“I’m not afraid,” he vows. “I know how good it feels. I remember how you feel.” 

I want to weep. Looking down at him now, I feel as I did the moment the doors to the chapel opened and Albescu walked him down the aisle to me. Simultaneously smitten and terrified that I will never be good enough for him.

His little whispered, “Please…” is all it takes. I am his slave, his supplicant. Whatever is mine to give, he will have it. I gather myself in my hand and touch the head to his opening, and he relaxes his body, though I can feel his hands shaking where he grips my back and shoulder. Gently, I press in, past the first ring, the second. A tentative thrust, two. His breath catches and I force myself to stop. But now his legs are wrapped around me and he’s drawing me in, tossing back his head and offering up his neck. 

My fangs pulse in my skull. I’ve eaten so much recently; I shouldn’t be hungry, but my desire and my thirst twist together somehow. He is so warm. He smells so good and his taste, sugared with the remnants of the green liquor, threatens to peel away my self-control. I am thrusting in earnest now, my oiled hand moving along his shaft in time with my hips and when he peaks, he tenses all over, quivering, gripping me from the inside. It takes one more small movement on my part and I’ve spilled in him. There’s so much. I feel agony after agony of bliss. 

We lay in each other’s arms, for how long, I don’t know. I don’t care. When I open my eyes again, the light has changed, and he’s kissing my neck, thumbing my nipple. 

“Do it again,” he whispers.

Late that night, I can still smell him all over me. His scent sharpens my hunger. I cannot lay with him and have him in my arms until dawn as I did at Castle Lecter. This empty ache won’t do. And so, I hunt. 

London has been very, very good to me. The city holds me to her bosom and feeds me as though I am a helpless child at the most bountiful teat. Back home, we relied on travelers and highwaymen and the occasional criminal that might make a nuisance of himself in Cerbul Negru. We kept prisoners alive to feed from them. Discretion was key, and even with it the castle and my lands developed a reputation over the centuries. We ate to survive, not for pleasure. 

Now, I wallow in the luxury of choosing victims. There are millions, and I have the pleasure of blood as often as I wish. The first night, I killed indiscriminately, hunting purely on opportunity and easy body disposal. Now I’ve learned to be selective. I’ve learned to not only stalk, but to play with my food, if I wish. Mostly, I eat the rude. 

In the neighborhood near the Royal College of Physicians I catch a familiar smell – mid-grade men’s cologne, and the unmistakable scent of children – sticky hands, wet noses, milk, biscuits. I spot Inspector Jimmy Price speaking with a man in the door of a residential building for medical students. Lingering in the shadows nearby, I hear the conversation. Inspector Price is asking this man, Devon Sylvestri, if he has seen the brother of another student, a man named George. I read Inspector Price’s exhausted mind and learn that George is the son of a prominent alderman, which is why he’s out here in the middle of the night chasing down leads. I learn from Devon Sylvestri’s mind that he did, in fact, see George yesterday, and murdered him in the cellar of his flat, where his body is currently being kept on ice. He intends to do what he’s done with two other victims – sell their bodies to the medical school for dissection. 

Mr. Price is too tired to see the evidence of the killer’s lies and collects some paltry, useless information before going along his way. Devon Sylvestri disappears inside, then comes back out with a small bag of George’s things to dispose of. He’ll meet the body buyers in a few hours, but he’s twitchy now, skittish after the inspector’s visit. He makes for the Thames and tosses the dead boy’s clothes and books over the side. 

I step out in front of him at the end of the bridge. He nearly runs into me but stops short. He looks into my eyes, and that seals his doom. 

Go to the operating theater of the College of Physicians, I command him. 

He turns and walks back to the campus, headed for the brick building with the classical columns that rise on either side of its broad double doors. The watchman comes to ask him what business he has; I politely explain that we are here on official business of some kind. The words that come out of my mouth don’t matter. Do not see us, I command. He whistles and walks along his way as if we were never there. 

I become a mist and slide beneath the door, then unlock it for Mr. Sylvestri on the inside. He walks with a blank-eyed purpose to the operating theater. There, he strips off his clothes and places them on a chair in a tidy pile, then lays down on the table as I have commanded him. 

I have mesmerized him to lay there, unmoving, even as I pick up the scalpel from the nearby table and drag it along his chest, making the characteristic y-shaped incision of an autopsy. He convulses and tears leak from his eyes, drool and vomit from the corners of his mouth. I put my lips to the wounds and suck, drinking my fill before I press my fingers into the seams I’ve created and crack open his ribcage. He gurgles and dies. I know he’s dead because I watch his heart stop. 

I place the scalpel back on the tray of tools and wipe my mouth with my handkerchief before tucking it back into my pocket. There now. I’ve had my meal and I am sated on blood and violence, satisfied now in every way.

 And who knows? Mr. Sylvestri may yet serve another purpose. Certainly, the medical students could learn something from what’s left of him.

I walk home in the moonlight, humming the melody of a composition I wrote in Transylvania with Will at my side.  

Will Graham’s Journal

(kept in shorthand)

4 September: — Nurse Hilda’s back. Not for me, luckily, but for Alana, sleeping in her room to keep an eye on her sleepwalking. Chilton’s come ‘round, done a few tests. He’s prescribed a bland diet and laudanum, which she agreed to until he left and then flat out refused, not that I blame her. “I don’t see the point of being drugged to sleep and waking up in a fog,” she says. “I feel just fine.” 

Last night, Hilda reported that she got up twice, but I had breakfast with her in the morning and all her old gaiety of manner seemed to have come back. The rain cleared up in the afternoon and we took Buster and Max for a walk in Highgate among the old stones. Alana finds graveyards very soothing, though ever since Mr. Wells got me thinking about the lies written on gravestones. I find myself reading the inscriptions and wondering what the corpse beneath was really like. 

It was a good talk. It felt… intimate without making me think about our past, about the times I was in love with her. She told me all about the wedding plans, the design for her dress, the struggles of the guest list, and asked what I thought about the proposed cake flavors. And then she asked me about… him. About my time in Transylvania, if I’d known back then that the Count, in her words, “fancied me.” 

It never fails to amuse me, how little everyone here knows about Hannibal. About what we shared. About who I once was and what Hannibal is and what that means. Part of the reason I’ve kept it from her is that, on the surface, it sounds insane. And the rest? 

She won’t understand. Nobody ever will. And I don’t need them to. 

She asked me what we did on our outing yesterday. I told her we had a nice long drive through the city, and I showed him some of the landmarks. We had high tea and then he drove me home with a request to see me again as soon as possible. 

“A perfect gentleman!” she said. 

It was all I could do not to laugh like a madman. The things my “perfect gentleman” did to me on our “outing” ... 

God help me. I love him so much. I try not to think about what’s going to happen, what the future holds. What is the future when you might live forever?

Chapter Text

5 September: —

My dear Count Lecter,

Thank you wholeheartedly for your kind invitation to view the Perseids from your estate. No doubt Purfleet will provide a better view, being further away from the city lights. Unfortunately, my sweet Alana has struggled with her health, and Dr. Chilton says she must rest as much as possible to save her strength for wedding preparations. We have a dress fitting tomorrow afternoon, which would be the most activity she should be allowed.

However, Mr. Graham will be in attendance. I am sending him with his employer, Mr. Brauner, who also received an invitation. I am simply devastated not to be able to see all the renovations you’ve made to Carfax; I look forward to exploring your lovely home on a later date. I pray for clear skies tomorrow night!

                           Yours most sincerely,

                           Prudence Bloom

I know who you are and what you’ve done. 

I know the exact nature of your greed and cruelty. The first few bodies were fresh from the grave, stolen from their coffins. You ripped the jewelry from their fingers and necks and sold their mortal remains to the bodysnatchers. Come resurrection day, those graves will be empty, and your victims will arrive in heaven missing their organs, carved up like vivisected animals. 

So much work, though, isn’t it? As you pore over your books and struggle through your lecture notes, knowing that it will never come as easily for you as it does the sons and daughters of wealth and privilege. You fought to get here. You’ve paid your own way, but the money’s gone and tuition is due. 

And digging up graves takes up so much time. Watching for death notices in the newspapers. Lurking in the cemeteries. The digging. Much easier to get the bodies before they go into the ground.

Much easier just to make a body to sell. 

And killing, Mr. Sylvestri, was so much easier than you thought. 

You might have continued for years. Paid for your medical degree. But I knew who you were and what you’d done, and I wanted everyone to know. 

This is my design.

Will opened his eyes. Price was examining the bloody scalpel on the tool tray. Zeller was helping the photographer pack up his equipment. He stepped closer to the body again and looked down into the dead man’s face. While the face looked placid enough, there was something about the muscles around the eyes that betrayed a deep, existential terror. Yet the mouth and brow were smooth and untroubled. 

The Scotland Yard photographer left, and Zeller, Price, and Will were alone again in the operating theater. The inspectors had their notebooks out and were waiting for him, trying to seem casual and relaxed when Will could read them just as easily as anyone else – even more so, since they’d worked together for years even before the Ripper case. 

“Will,” Zeller began. “People are gonna want to know. I need you to be sure.”

“Medical knowledge,” Price reminded him. “Organs removed.” He indicated the liver and heart that had been sliced free and placed carefully on trays on the table nearby as if ready for the medical students to learn from them, sketching their dimensions in their notebooks. 

“It’s not the Ripper,” Will told them firmly. “Devon Sylvestri wasn’t a sex worker. The-the anger isn’t there. Gideon hated women. There was a pathology. This… it’s not the same. Whoever did this wanted everyone… to-to know what Sylvestri was doing.”

“So… somebody found out about the bodysnatching and the murders and made him pay.” Zeller shrugged. “Makes sense. Who are we looking for? Relatives of the victims?” 

“I want to say yes,” Will murmured, examining the victim’s hands. Jimmy gave Zeller a satisfied smile, as if to say, wonderful! That’s easy enough! It melted away when Will said, “But it wasn’t. There are no defensive wounds. Nothing under his fingernails. His clothes were removed with care and folded up. There’s… no indication of a struggle whatsoever.”

“So… a woman!” Price piped up, pointing his pencil at Will. “Lures him in here with a promise of… you know…” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Gets him to undress and lie down on the table…”

“And then… lay perfectly still while she dissects him? Excuse me, vivisects him?” Will scoffed. “No restraints were used.” 

“Drugged?” Zeller suggested.

“How would you get a drugged man past a watchman and into a locked building? And pickpocket the watchman for his keys, use them, and then replace them on his belt without him seeing a thing?” Will bent down to examine the blood that had pooled on the floor. There was remarkably little of it, considering the man’s chest was cracked open and his organs removed. 

“Snuck in,” Zeller tried, “and then drugged… and stripped…” 

Will shook his head. “Maybe the stomach contents will tell us something. If you find needle marks…” He sighed. “Whoever did this wanted to display him.” His mind flitted over bits of thought: cats, dead birds, offerings. “It’s like… the killer was a perfect stranger but also… simultaneously… knew exactly what Sylvestri had done. Wanted to autopsy him alive… to be clever. Because… he was curious what would happen.”

Price and Zeller exchanged glances. “So… how do we catch him?”

Will took a breath. “I’m not sure you do. I don’t think he’ll ever kill this way again. This is theater. We are in… a theater. An operating theater. He gave us a show.” 

“C’mon, Will, give us something to go on,” Zeller pleaded, tucking his notebook back into his coat pocket. 

“I talked to the man about an hour before he was killed,” Price said. “I’m feeling pretty damn inept right now. Isn’t there something…?”

“That’s when he saw Sylvestri,” Will realized, pointing at Price. “When he was on the stoop talking to you. That’s where I’d start. See if any of the neighbors noticed someone… lurking.”

Price nodded with an exhausted sigh. “All right.”

Will pulled out his pocket watch. “I have to go. I’m sorry.” 

Zeller leaned against the railing that separated the operating floor from the theater seats, and elbowed Price in the side. “Our boy’s got plans tonight.”

Will felt heat climb up his cheeks as he swung his jacket back on and buttoned it. 

“Really? Is it possible that Will Graham is looking forward to a social event?” Price teased as Will stalked back out of the theater into the hall and along a corridor of classrooms, headed for the side entrance. 

“I don’t know what you’re on about,” Will denied, putting on his hat. 

“You don’t? So, you weren’t invited to Count Lecter’s meteor shower lawn party?” Zeller put a hand on his chest as if he were a deeply shocked society matron. “That’s surprising, considering Jimmy and I were invited, and we barely know the bloke.”

“Alas, I am needed on the home front,” Jimmy said as they stepped out into the golden September afternoon. “And Zeller’s got a whole building of neighbors to interview, it sounds like.” 

Will caught himself smiling a little at their childish ribbing. “Good luck,” he said by way of goodbye. 

“You too,” Jimmy called after him. 

Will rounded the corner of another university building and almost smacked into Winifred Lounds. The reporter was wearing a less-than-subtle dark red dress trimmed with what looked like leopard fur but was probably a different creature’s pelt dyed to look exotic. “Well, well, well,” she smirked, pulling out her notebook. “If it isn’t Inspector Graham, who wrote to the editor of the Evening Standard to say my claims that he was coming out of retirement were categorically false. And yet here you are… leaving another crime scene.” 

“Get out of my way,” he said, voice low and taut with malice.

“Or what? You’ll threaten to murder me again?” She was sketching him already, damn it. “I heard the Ripper’s back. Maybe you shot the wrong man.”

“Shot the wrong – he was in the process of-of carving up M-” Will stopped himself before he said Mary Kelly’s name. “Goodbye, Miss Lounds.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, he set off down the street with long, fast strides, hoping to leave her behind. 

“Enjoy your retirement,” she called after him. 

Count Hannibal Lecter looked good in blue, Will realized. His suit was a bit too formal for a garden party, but was the loveliest cobalt, with a crisp white shirt beneath and a harvest gold waistcoat. Blue was good. Very, very good. Good itself was not the correct word. It was a bloody awful word for what the color did for Hannibal under the darkening sky, as his guests enjoyed refreshments on the neatly trimmed lawn of the Carfax estate. The grounds were all in much better shape than when Will had originally surveyed the property before traveling to Transylvania — a time that seemed pale and gray and very long ago. The house itself was also much refreshed. Only one wing of the structure had been restored so far, but scaffolding clung to other parts of the home, though the old chapel was yet to receive any attention aside from a new set of doors and boards over the broken windows. 

Will watched Hannibal move effortlessly through his lawn party, speaking with groups of guests in turn, now and then glancing Will’s way with a soft, knowing smile. 

Abigail was receiving a lesson on proper croquet mallet swinging from Charles Brauner as his father looked on with a mixture of worry and amusement. Will’s empathy pulse told him the man was concerned his son might be handling the girl too liberally, touching her shoulders and guiding her hands onto the mallet, but he was also charmed by the idea of his son being sweet on such a lovely girl — foreign, but with good connections, set to inherit, it seemed. Either way, Brauner’s attention was diverted.

Will casually leaned his own mallet against a nearby tree and made his way past the impromptu lawn tennis court, nodding to the Komedas as he went. Hannibal stood with Beverly Katz, Frederick Chilton, and a few other well-to-do individuals that Will had been introduced to but whose names he’d forgotten almost instantly. He was here for one reason only. And that reason radiated affection as he approached. 

Hannibal.

“Will. Good to see you.” Beverly gave his hand a vigorous shaking, knocking him out of his obsessed reverie. “How are the hound dogs?” 

“They’re well, thanks,” Will said with a genuine smile that showed teeth. He caught Hannibal watching the expression, drinking it in with more pleasure than he did his wine. “You should come by and visit. I think they miss you.”

“Yeah, well, the Broken Hearts Club here might not be comin’ by Hillingham for a little bit.” Beverly put her arm around Chilton’s shoulders and gave him a shaking that was… perhaps meant to be a hug of sorts? Either way, it left Chilton disheveled and adjusting his collar furiously. 

Imagine, Will thought, but didn’t say, that you were founding fucking member of the Broken Hearts Club and you had to live at Hillingham and see her every day. 

But the spite dissipated before it could bubble up, because Hannibal was speaking to him now, dark eyes so softly loving. “Will hasn’t seen the remodeled foyer,” he said, holding out his arm. 

“The whole place is comin’ along nice,” Beverly agreed. “Fine as boomtown silk.” 

Will hooked his arm gently through Hannibal’s, touching his fingertips to his bicep and letting them linger on the expensive fabric of his jacket; they turned toward the chimera-like manor, a building of stitched-together styles added on throughout the ages. Will stole a glance over at Mr. Brauner, but the solicitor was still enraptured by watching his son and Abigail play croquet. The empathy pendulum rippled, and he scoffed out a laugh. “Abigail’s your little accomplice, isn’t she?” 

“Whatever do you mean?” Hannibal asked with a lilt of innocence as they climbed the recently repaired stone stairs to the wide, arched front doors, slipping inside unattended. 

Beverly was right; the parts of the house that had been refurbished were impressive, to say the least, an exquisite representation of Hannibal’s taste, blending aspects of Castle Lecter with other aesthetics, specifically the intricate, stylized, rounded shapes currently popular in Parisian decor. The grand staircase and its wooden banisters showed off the style – similar, Will thought, to the interior of the new but instantly popular Maxim’s in Paris.

The last rays of sunlight filtered in through enormous rounded windows, the treatments also carved to match the staircase, showing detailed scrollwork, loops and whorls and a hint of exaggerated floral silhouettes. This fresh artistic vision was contrasted by ancient weapons displayed on the alternately stone and wood-paneled walls, and suits of armor on wooden dummies made of the same chestnut as the staircase. Their steps echoed faintly on the marble floors.

Hannibal showed him the dining room, painted cobalt blue accented by fabulously overwrought gold and white crown molding and a ceiling painted with heavenly clouds. They toured a wood-paneled drawing room with a fine harpsichord on one end and a piano on the other, and all the most luxurious modern furniture. This, juxtaposed against what must have been one of Carfax’s original medieval fireplaces, big enough to stand in, the masonry repaired and the old chimney no doubt cleared. Its rustic roughness was softened by a golden fireplace screen decorated with a crane motif. 

Hannibal slipped his hand into Will’s as they ascended the stairs, their steps muffled by the thick pile carpet. Immediately at the top of the staircase was a door standing open. Hannibal led him to it, and they stepped over the threshold into the library, a space not nearly as vast as the one at Castle Lecter, but, of course, well-appointed, with paintings on the walls in gilded frames, built-in bookshelves, and a cozy hearth with chairs and a sofa gathered around. Near the bank of large windows was a writing desk covered with Hannibal’s sketches. 

In moving toward the fireplace to examine the framed photographs atop it, Will tripped over the taxidermized head of a polar bear that was attached to the rug made of its skin, spread out before the fireplace. Hannibal steadied him and they shared a chuckle at its toothy snarl, as if it was irked by Will banging into it. “Abigail’s done that several times,” Hannibal told him. “She calls it the ‘naughty bear’ and claims it tries to trip her. I wonder if I shouldn’t have it removed, or the head at least.” 

Will just smiled, looking at the photographs on the mantle, comely portraits of Abigail only. “Camera shy?” Will asked. 

“When time allows, I’ll commission a portrait painter,” Hannibal said, adjusting one of the framed pictures an inch to the left. 

“Old-fashioned,” Will said. “Which, uhm… makes sense for you.” He paused, looking around the intimate but luxurious space. “No mirrors,” he murmured. 

“Just like home,” Hannibal said, reaching out to brush his hand along the back of Will’s neck, stroking the pads of his fingers up into the base of his curls for a lingering caress. 

…you shouldn’t put your faith in such trinkets of deceit…

“Then… how do you know if, uhm… you’ve got your shirt buttoned right?” Will touched one of the pearl buttons of Hannibal’s dress shirt, teasing it with the tip of his index finger as if it were something else entirely. 

“Abigail assists in that capacity. I find others’ perceptions to be more accurate than any reflection.” Hannibal was still brushing the hair along the back of Will’s neck, lifting it gently and running it through his fingers, short as it was. Will could almost feel Hannibal’s longing for Will’s hair when he’d grown it out in Transylvania. 

“Chiyoh,” Will said, surprised at himself for speaking something that had only been the seed of a thought in his mind. “And-and Bedelia. And Antony. They’re… like you, aren’t they?”

Hannibal nodded, though he seemed much more interested in drawing Will’s hair across his forehead and tucking the little bit of it he could behind his ear, then cupping his cheek. 

“How… did they curse God?” Will tried not to let the feel of Hannibal’s gentle, cloying touch distract him, even as he felt his own hands creeping along the count’s hips beneath his jacket. 

“I helped them,” Hannibal said. Simple. 

“How old… are they?”

“Chiyoh came to me,” Hannibal said, touching his tongue to his lower lip, “right after Iliya and Mischa died. She was my aunt’s handmaiden, and Murasaki wanted someone she trusted at my side during the span of my grief. She became a true friend. Family. Bedelia…” the change in his tone suggested that the situation was in no way similar, “found her way to me during the French Revolution, fleeing the Terror. And Antony, as I said, was dodging his creditors and happened upon the castle.”

“You didn’t want to be alone.” Will’s breath quickened a tick as Hannibal’s thumb traced the sweet little place beneath his lower lip where it curved down to his chin. 

Hannibal didn’t reply, choosing instead to lay his palm on Will’s shoulder and stroke his neck with the back of the fingers on his other hand. His skin was cool against Will’s blushed flesh. 

“Will they live as long as you?” 

“So many questions tonight,” Hannibal chided him gently. He leaned in for a kiss, but Will backed up out of his grasp, dropping his hands to his sides. Hannibal blinked, then said, “Yes.”

Will paused, letting the brutal, bloody images rise to the surface. Encouraging them, drawing them up like a bucket from a well. They were murky and waterlogged; the blood wasn’t so violently red. “But you… they… can be killed.” Will swallowed, his throat dry. 

“Not easily.” Hannibal moved with a languid sensuality in his limbs, taking Will in his arms again. This time, Will couldn’t resist tasting his lips for a long, dulcet moment. 

Then, “Where is Antony?” Will whispered.

Hannibal pressed his kiss on Will’s mouth again, cutting off his words. Then, “Antony is gone. You have nothing to fear from him.”

“He left the castle while I was sick.”

Hannibal nodded, palming the back of Will’s neck again, stroking his hair. “So much of our time there must seem like a series of dreams bleeding into nightmares,” he said, “and all woven through with memories beautiful and damned.”

“The details,” Will admitted, glancing away, and then back again, “are… hazy.” 

“I wonder if your perception of me has changed, now that you can see me clearly. Now that you can see yourself.”

“I know who I am,” Will said, the words firm in his mouth even as his resistance softened under Hannibal’s touch, in response to his nearness. 

Hannibal eased Will’s chin up with a feathery touch and kissed him again with the same sureness and clarity. 

Will broke it off to say, “Are you going to… finish the tour?”

“Finish it?”

“You haven’t, ah… showed me the bedchamber yet,” Will reminded him.

Hannibal exhaled a soft laugh. “I can’t. It’s under construction. I gave Abigail the first one completed.” 

“Where do you sleep?” 

“You’re not interested in sleeping,” Hannibal countered, taking Will’s hands in his own. Yet he guided Will out of the library and further down the hall, past Abigail’s rooms, done in feminine blush, peach, and blossom, and to a large door at the end of the hall that led, Will guessed, into another wing of the chimera house. Hannibal eased it open, revealing a grand series of rooms under construction, smelling of mortar and plaster and paint. “Perhaps,” he said, “you’d like to have input.” 

Will laughed, free and delicious. “But we, ah… we’ve only had the one drive through London, and a single garden party. How could you be so… forward?” 

“I’m afraid you’ve fallen into the hands of a Lothario,” Hannibal teased softly, opening a small door at the end of the final room of the master suite. Crumbling stone stairs led upward through a dark hallway. This, in turn, led to a trap door with a small, rotten ladder leading up. Will thought the slats looked dubious, but Hannibal climbed them nimbly and pushed the trap door open, disappearing through it. He extended a hand down and Will took it, feeling the rush of fresh night air on his face. 

They had emerged into what was once some kind of attic room, but the roof had rotted away or blown off long ago, creating a kind of three-sided balcony of stone and the remaining timbers. Will could see the edge of the scaffolding, and the builders had left neat piles of materials in this space, including a few crates with oiled tarps stretched over them. It was onto one of these that Hannibal sat and offered Will a place at his side where they could see the unobstructed sky through the ruined roof. Far below, they could hear the garden party, happy voices and the mellow tones of the cellist and violinist Hannibal had hired to play music throughout the night. The sky was perfectly clear, the stars impossibly bright. 

Hannibal leaned over the edge of the crate and somehow came up with a bottle of Romanian plum brandy. Will watched with a fond little smile as he pulled out the cork and poured them each a glass. He tapped his against Will’s and they both drank through curved lips.  

Will folded himself against Hannibal and listened to his heart, the gentle sounds of the party for a stretch before getting up and setting his empty glass to the side. “Does it taste like home?” Hannibal asked him, thumb grazing Will’s arm where he had him gently grasped. 

“I’m thirsty for something else,” Will said.

“As am I. Come here.” He drew Will closer, then lifted him easily so he could straddle his lap, resting his hands on Will’s lower back and around his backside. In the cerulean darkness, Hannibal’s eyes seemed to glow a warm honey, his lips opening like a flower to receive Will’s. Hannibal’s arms tightened around him, pressing them as close together as their clothing would allow, letting Will’s tongue roam gently against his own.

Will pulled back a bit and ran his fingers through Hannibal’s hair, brushing the strands away from his cool forehead. “You look more like how I remember you. When I was him,” he murmured, tracing a thumb over Hannibal’s lower lip, then stroking his fingertips gently down his long throat. 

Hannibal half smiled, cupping Will’s cheek with his smooth hand. “Time isn’t in all ways linear. Not for us.” 

“I wish I’d met you sooner,” Will admitted. “That I was… like him. Like Iliya. I feel like I had those years… stolen from me.”

“Don’t.” Hannibal guided him close again. “There’s nothing to lament. Time did reverse. The teacup came back together.”

Hannibal kissed his throat, one hand spread on the small of Will’s back, the other unknotting his tie and pushing open the collar of his shirt, caressing the newly bared skin. Petal soft brushing of lips, until his mouth became greedy, meeting Will’s skin with passionate roughness, then with the amorous pain of increasingly forceful bites and suck-bruises, all below where his collar would hide them. Will felt his heart flutter against the inside of his ribs like a bird trapped behind a window, leaving him flushed, impossibly warm. 

“Easy,” he whispered in Hannibal’s ear. “You’re… going to make me…”

“Make you what?” Hannibal disengaged his mouth from Will’s neck to speak against his ear.

“Unable… to return to… polite company…”

Gently, Hannibal fixed Will’s collar and tie around his neck to hide the mark. “Just as well. You won’t want to miss the next part.”

“Next part?” he panted, sliding clumsily off of Hannibal to sit by him again, pressing close under his arm. 

The sky was filling with falling stars, more and more as the meteor shower began. Hannibal squeezed him closer, kissing the top of his head, then drawing him back up to his lips. 

“Everything is beautiful,” Will breathed into Hannibal’s ear as they watched the sky explode. “Now, here, with you… and the past… our past.”

“And the future,” Hannibal promised.

Will unfolded himself from under Hannibal’s arm and turned to face him. He reached into his shirt and slowly drew out the chain he wore around his neck with the ring. Sans holy medal, now. Hannibal reached out and touched it, moving it along the chain with a soft sound like chimes that was almost lost in the happy chatter from the party below as the sky rained fire. “I want it,” Will said. “The future. With you. Because I do. I mean, I haven’t— but I’m saying now. Hannibal. I love you.”

“Beloved.” Hannibal smiled, the briefest slash of teeth in the dark. “You have me.” 

Will felt as though there weren’t enough kisses in the world to give Hannibal at this moment. 

More falling stars. Plum brandy. The evening was wearing thin. Hannibal reluctantly led him back down the passage. Will would have had to feel his way along, but all he had to do was hold on to the count, who walked without hesitation in the pitch black. There were no lamps lit in the library, but a member of the household staff must have come along and set a fire in the library hearth and closed the door, making the space cheerful and warm. 

Hannibal left him by the mantle and crossed to the door, turning the key in the lock. 

“I hope Abigail’s still keeping the Brauners busy,” Will said as Hannibal unfastened his tie and collar again, a pleased look on his face as he slowly revealed the marks to himself like he was unwrapping a gift. 

“Am I making trouble for you, Will?” Hannibal removed his own jacket and draped it over the nearby chair, then sat in it to watch Will, who had started undressing. Will noticed what he was doing and slowed his pace, moving deliberately through his series of buttons, glancing up every once in a while to see Hannibal gazing at him with such a feigned coolness that Will wanted to laugh. As if he couldn’t see the sable desire in his eyes.  

“England is not Transylvania,” Will repeated, toeing off his shoes but pausing at his belt buckle. He sank to his knees on the bearskin rug and crawled the last few feet to the chair, sliding his palms along the fine fabric of Hannibal’s trousers and playing with his belt instead. “You’re risking your reputation and mine.” 

“The social conventions here are inconvenient,” Hannibal relented. His concession of his point might have had something to do with Will opening his clothes and pulling out his cock, working it through his hand dutifully. He stroked his fingers through Will’s hair. “The irony is… we’re already married.”

This made Will open his mouth immediately and begin his loving work, eliciting a sharp inhale and mellow exhale from the count. Hannibal’s taste was simultaneously a return to something long lost and a deeply familiar essence. Will felt starved for it, a palm pressed into the count’s thigh, another spreading out over his chest, having crept under his shirt, feeling the expanse of stomach, the welcome delight of his body hair. Hannibal’s touches were tempered, trying to be gentle, though his greediness for Will’s mouth showed through with momentary tugs of his hair or a hand curling more firmly around the back of his head. 

He felt Hannibal tense and kept at it, a relentless level of suction and movement. The lovely and unhinged sound that his husband made mellowed into a hard-breathing silence as Will accepted the emission as graciously as he could. It had a distinctive flavor that was almost metallic – different from Neal’s, at least from what Will remembered. When he looked up, Hannibal was gazing down at him with a gentle upturn of brows, as if in concern. 

Will just slipped his soft cock gently from between his lips and warmed it in his palm for a few moments before it was tucked away. “I couldn’t stop,” Hannibal said, as if in apology. 

Raising a hand to his mouth, Will dabbed at the corner of one lip. “I’m not complaining.” He got to his feet only to be swept up into Hannibal’s embrace, kissed until he thought his brain would catch fire again, and then tossed (though gently, with play) onto the bear skin rug in front of the fire. 

Hannibal spread his body over Will’s, a long, comforting weight, slowly kissing his neck, his collarbone, the soft spot behind his ear. “I’ve decided the bear may stay,” he murmured as he traced his fingers along Will’s cool cheek and then traveled down his jawline. “Just now, in fact.”

Will laughed, wrapping his arms around Hannibal’s neck. The count kissed him, gently at first, and then with more force, a hungry need. He sat back on Will’s hips, running his hands along his chest and stomach. “Did you know,” he said conversationally, “how satisfying it is to watch a Texan beat Dr. Chilton in lawn tennis?” 

Will laughed again, harder this time, as Hannibal smiled lovingly down at him. “I can imagine,” he said. “But what the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing at all. I wanted to hear you laugh again.” Hannibal leaned over him and nuzzled along his collarbone until he came to the spot he was most persistent about kissing. Will’s breathing deepened as he ran his hands over Hannibal’s thighs where he perched. The sudden pain of a nipped bite, sweet but sharp, made him gasp softly. Hannibal leaned back up, running his tongue over his lower lip. “You don’t do it nearly often enough.” He slid down farther, stretching his legs behind him, and put his mouth against Will’s side, just above his hip. This time the bite was rougher, close to breaking the skin, Will thought, sending electricity through every nerve. He drew breath in sharply, stretching an arm up over his head to grab onto a chair leg. 

Hannibal moved his mouth up, past Will’s nipple, and down his left arm to the crook of his elbow. Will held his breath, desire and fear rippling through him. Hannibal had never marked him there before — oh God.

The painful but ecstatic sensation mirrored the way this treatment felt on his neck, and yet was somehow different, as if it had a direct line of nerves to his groin. “That’s going to hurt later,” he whispered through what felt like an idiot’s grin, chest heaving as Hannibal came up to kiss him on the mouth, then drifted his lips to Will’s neck. Will examined the inside of his elbow and was greeted not just with a bruise, but the indentation of a line of Hannibal’s upper front teeth. One of the canines had broken through the skin in a shallow puncture. It would certainly be massively sore in the morning, but at this moment, he couldn’t have cared less.

“There’s one more place I’d like to try,” Hannibal breathed back. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes, of course.”

Hannibal smiled, and peeled Will’s trousers from him, tossing them over the taxidermized bear’s head as if to prevent it from peeping. The count kissed down his chest, past his navel, and then stroked his knees, separating them. He leaned between Will’s legs and put his lips on his inner thigh. Will rested his hand lightly on the back of Hannibal’s head, stroking his hair, and then felt nothing but the exquisite, burning pain and pleasure crashing together as Hannibal bit into the skin of the inward muscle of his upper leg. As the wave crested, and receded, Hannibal swallowed his cock entirely, again showing off his lack of a gag reflex and powerful suction. 

All the foreplay made quick work of Will, and Hannibal was just as much of a gentleman as he always was, cleaning Will entirely with his mouth. Will felt liquified against the bear skin rug, slowly stroking the creature’s hide where his hand rested against it as Hannibal leaned over him for a kiss.

“Say it again,” Hannibal whispered in his ear, breath cool and soft. “Please. Will. Tell me again.”

“I love you.”  

Much later that night, Will woke to the sound of Buster whining. “Buster,” he scolded, half-asleep, curled up in his bed that felt large and lonesome. The dog didn’t listen and was pawing at the door. He sat up in bed to see all his canines on the alert, though Buster was the only one who had left the nest of beds by the hearth. 

He got up with a groan, feeling the painful pull of the skin-penetrating bite wound on his thigh and inner elbow. The wince on his face was wiped away by a smile as he recalled how, exactly, he’d come to have the wounds in the first place. He pulled a modest dressing gown over his nightshirt and slid his feet into his boots, then shuffled over to the door to let Buster out. “C’mon,” he urged the other dogs, in case they had to go, but none of them stirred, only stared, wide-eyed and alert, as if begging him not to go outside. 

Buster had already shot out onto Hillingham’s lawn and was barking. “Buster!” Will scolded. The little dog – not so bright, as Beverly said – was barking at the manor house like it was an intruder. 

“Buster, damn it.” Will hurried over to him, kneeling to scoop him up. When he bent down and gathered the dog in his arms, he happened to glance up at Alana’s bedchamber window. His heart plummeted. She was standing there at the open casement in her nightgown, staring out with blank, unseeing eyes, her gown and face the same hue. The manor was bathed in brilliant moonlight, and the soft effect of the light over the lawn, forest, and sky—merged in one great, silent mystery—was beautiful beyond words, and antithetical to the worry he felt seeing a sleepwalking Alana next to an open window. 

Movement caught his eye. Between Will and the glowing orb of the moon flitted a great bat, coming and going in great whirling circles. Once or twice, it came quite close, but was, Will supposed, frightened by him or the smell of the dog, and flitted away across the lawn, above the trees, and out over Hampstead Heath. 

Will looked back up at the window, and saw Alana closing it, even in her liminal state. She latched it and drew the curtains. He breathed in relief and took Buster back inside. When he slipped off his dressing gown to get back in bed, he paused to look at the wound on his inner elbow, the quarter-ring of teeth. He’d seen bite wounds on corpses working murder cases and knew every set of teeth were unique. But he couldn’t quite account for why Hannibal’s incisors left marks that didn’t seem to match the appearance of their size in his mouth. 

Certainly, they weren’t that long. Couldn’t… grow, unsheathing like hidden daggers from the roof of his mouth. Weren’t feral and sharp and meant for piercing flesh to get at the blood beneath. 

For a moment, a dream-memory bobbed up from the murky depths.

A ragged man chained to a wall, his sallow covered with twin sets of puncture wounds.

Will stubbornly slipped his wedding ring onto his finger and went back to sleep. 

Chapter Text

When Will passed the doorway of Hillingham’s drawing room on his way out after breakfast, he caught sight of an enormous puff of white spread over one of the couches, a ghost in his periphery. He did a double take and stepped back to peer through the doorway. “Alana?” he called tentatively.

The mass shifted, and Alana sat up on the sofa with a little groan, stretching up her arms, which were encased in sleeves of intricate lace. 

“Will,” she greeted with a little smile. “Help me, I’m turning into a snow drift.”

He approached with a chuckle, hands in his pockets, surveying the swaths of white fabric that practically buried her, the dress half-pinned and shaped. “What happened to you? Looks like you had a fight with a bedsheet. And lost.”

“The seamstress had to run back to the shop,” she said. “Left me in dire straits. I was supposed to keep standing but… I’m exhausted.”

“Sleepwalking? I, ah, I let the dogs out the other night and I saw you at the window.”

“Really? Hilda said I was in bed all night,” she mused, rubbing her forehead a moment. 

“Maybe she slept through it.” Will came to stand by her, sidestepping some scraps of fabric on the floor. What he could see of the dress was, he supposed, beautiful — cream white and lace, sewn with gold beads. Perhaps it was because it was unfinished, but Will thought Alana looked like she was drowning in it. It didn’t help that her face was pale and the circles under her eyes prodigious. She smiled at him, but it looked more like a crack than a curve; her fingers fidgeted with the high lacy neck of the dress as if it were irritating her skin. 

“Are you…” he ventured.

“I’m fine,” she assured him, reclining on the couch again. “There’s just so much to do before the wedding.” 

Will reached over and picked up a stiff lace collar, wide and rigid and flat like a snowflake with a hole in the center. “Channeling Shakespeare?” He slid it over his own head for a moment and she laughed gaily, bringing warmth back to her cheeks.

“I’m not even sure I’m going to wear it,” she said, reaching carefully for a cup of tea she’d set aside. “Mother’s dressmaker says it’s all the rage in Paris, but… I have the same reservations you do.”

“How’s Margot supposed to lean in and kiss you?”

Alana sipped her tea a moment and shook her head as if refreshed. “She’ll find a way. When she puts her mind to something…”

Will couldn’t agree more. Margot had shown up at his house all those years ago with one very singular idea in her head, and achieved her goal. 

“Tell me everything about the lawn party,” she requested, smoothing the swaths of fabric around her. 

Will shrugged, feeling heat gather on his neck and feather up his face. “It was a lawn party,” he said vaguely. 

“Will,” she chided. “You know what I want to hear… how was Count Lecter?” 

Sensual. Loving. Voracious. Enamored and vicious, insatiable. “The perfect host,” Will said. “The house is coming along. He has… taste.”

“Stargazing is rather… romantic…” Alana prompted, wiggling an eyebrow. “Did he sit next to you for the meteor shower?” 

Will nodded with a little half-smile, looking at the floor, then the window. When he glanced back at Alana, she looked like the cat that got the canary. “I think he’s a perfect gentleman,” she said. “Intelligent and charming. Talented. Undeniably handsome. Mother would mention his title, but I’d rather know… how does he make you feel, Will?”

Will just smiled again and ran his hand through his hair. “Probably a lot like how Margot makes you feel. And,” he added quickly, “I’m happy for you. Both of you.” He realized he meant it. There was residual pain there, but it was more of a reflex than anything acute. 

“Thank you,” she said, then raised her hand to brush away a stray tear. 

Will stepped forward carefully, avoiding the piles of silk and taffeta, and leaned in to plant a kiss on her forehead. 

Just then, Prudence Bloom and a retinue of seamstresses and dressmakers blew in. “Alana!” she cried. “Stand up, you’ll crease it!”

Will held out his hand and helped Alana stand. She gave him a grateful smile and stepped back up on the stool so the women could continue work on the dress. They swarmed her with measuring tape and pins, and Will took this as his cue to exit.

Prudence had other plans. “Will. I need to speak with you.” Without waiting for an answer, she marched into the morning room. He followed warily. “Shut the door, please,” 

When it was latched, she unfolded a newspaper from beneath her arm and threw it on the desk at her side. The page featured a sketch of Will looking almost ferally grumpy, leaving the Physicians’ College operating theater. The headline read INSPECTOR GRAHAM WANTS TO CATCH THE NEW RIPPER… OR WAS HE THE RIPPER ALL ALONG? 

“Bloody hell,” Will groaned.

“I wasn’t aware,” Prudence said coldly, ignoring his vulgarity, “that you’d left real estate and joined Scotland Yard again.”

“I haven’t,” he replied, just as icily. “This is Tattlecrime. It’s… highly, highly exaggerated. You know that.”

“I certainly do.” Prudence folded her hands into a tight little ball over her stomach. “I’m also aware that it doesn’t matter if what Freddie Lounds writes is true or not; true doesn’t matter when the story is sensational. And you know it.”

Will didn’t speak. The wound on his inner elbow throbbed suddenly as his blood pressure increased. 

“What are you doing with the police?” Prudence demanded. “Alana said the DEMETER investigation was over, and you were through reliving your glory days.”

“Reliving my…” Will couldn’t even finish, it was so ridiculous. He pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m consulting a bit. That’s all.”

“Well, stop ‘consulting,’” she said, and it felt like a slap across his face. Which she might give him if he kept running his mouth — she’d done it before. “Alana doesn’t need this kind of a distraction. The papers should be full of news about the wedding, not this… desperate cry for attention.” She sighed, softening. “You have a prospect, Will. God knows why, but Count Lecter seems to have an interest in you. That should be your focus now. I doubt you'll ever have another suitor… as eligible as he is.” She stepped forward and put her hand on his arm. “This is your chance. And I’ll help you, my dear — I’ll help you catch him, as soon as the wedding’s over.” 

Will felt an acidic fury rising in his chest, along with a spike of fear as he realized he was moments away from losing control. Don’t say it, he begged her silently. Don’t.

“You should be grateful.”

“Grateful?” Will thought he was going to shout, snarl, shake her. Instead, his voice was quiet, but spiked with iron nails. “Grateful. Gratitude. It’s always gratitude with you, isn’t it? Always has been.”

She pinched her mouth down into a tiny pucker, dark eyes glittering chipped obsidian.

“I know what you did.” He stepped closer. She held firm. “That day in New Orleans. I know what Edward did.”

The mention of her late husband shook her visibly. Her mouth dropped open a moment. “What do you mean? What are you going on about?”

Will moved closer still, close enough to smell her perfume and powder. He was taller than her, and while he wasn’t broad in the shoulders, he probably looked as menacing as he felt. “You – stole – me.” He said each word deliberately. 

Her face went white. Still, she demanded incredulously, “Whatever do you mean?” 

“From my mother. You know… exactly what I mean.” 

“I’m afraid you’ll have to enlighten me.” Her arms were crossed now, hands digging into the sleeves of her dress where she gripped them. 

“She was coming back for me.” He felt the tiniest flare of tears and swallowed them back so fast he could’ve choked. “Alana picked me out like a-a puppy in a… shop window and you couldn’t say no. Even when my mother c-came looking f-for me. Because she did look, didn’t she? She might’ve even… come to the hotel trying to track me down. But they threw her back out on the street.”

Will hadn’t known that; it somehow came to him, and he realized it was because he was reading Prudence Bloom like a murder suspect. Her victim — his childhood. 

“All you had to do was tell the police she was a madwoman or a drunk. They probably knew she was a sex worker. Easy enough to throw her in jail long enough for you to-to kidnap me and bring me here.” He took a great, shuddering breath, and pointed a finger at her lace-encased neck. “You had no right.”

Prudence looked for a moment like she might burst into tears. 

Instead, she split her mouth into a smile. And laughed.

“Poor little Will — what a tragedy. Plucked out of destitution and given a home and an education, everything he could ever want! Would you rather have stayed there, living on the street with your whore mother?”

He was shocked into silence to hear her actually say it. 

“Look around you!” Prudence’s voice was loud and shrill now. “Look at all of this, at all you have. At all you could have, with my help! You’d rather trade it for-for what? Dying of yellow fever before you were grown? Abused by whatever man your mother took just to keep a roof over your head? You were always a pretty boy; maybe you would have gone into the family business.”

He could have killed her for that. Will realized he still might. “My mother loved me,” he said. “She was coming back for me.”

“And what does that matter now?” Prudence challenged. “Perhaps she loved you. But she barely provided for you! You were filthy and half-starved; Alana saved you, you ungrateful creature!”

“I hate you,” he said, unable to stop himself. It was petty and childish and likely meant absolutely nothing to her. 

To his complete surprise and sudden, sinking dismay, tears flooded her eyes. They fell without a sound, and she spoke coldly through them, all full of razors. “You’re through with Scotland Yard. You’re a real estate solicitor. You’re going to report to Mr. Brauner tomorrow and begin working for him again. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll behave like a gentleman of breeding — breeding you don’t have — and trick that poor count into marrying you.” 

Will walked out of the room without another word or glance, banging the door into the opposite wall. It was that or put his hands around her neck.

Price caught up to him just as he came up on Westminster Abbey. “Will. Will!” 

Will had been going over his notes as he walked and only just then realized someone was calling his name. He paused and let Price catch up to him. “You were at the inquest,” Jimmy said once he’d caught his breath. 

Will nodded. “Wanted to hear the witness testimony. How Sylvestri was found. What the watchman remembered.” 

Price was wide-eyed, incredulous. “You know… Freddie Lounds must have seen you there.” 

Will shrugged, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “It’s likely.”

“I don’t understand…” Price stepped closer. “Will… are you working this case?” 

Will scratched his chin. “Do you… not want it solved?” 

“Not if it means you’re going to lose your mind again.” Price winced as he said it. “I know it’s been five years, but I would simply… caution you not to forget why you left Scotland Yard.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Will said flatly, slipping his notebook in his pocket. “You’re the one who sent me a telegram saying a man had been, ah… autopsied alive and you-you needed my help.”

“We do need your help,” Jimmy relented. “But Will, please be careful. You will, won’t you?”

“I’m fine,” he snapped. Then, more softly, “Thanks for the concern. I’ll be in touch.” 

“All right, then.” Price watched him cross the street and head away from the cathedral. It was about a four mile walk back to Hillingham, but the day was crisp and fine, and he needed to clear his head. 

Will set off for home, pleased with himself, thinking about what the morning papers would bring, when a hired cab pulled up swiftly in front of him, stopping in the street, the horses letting out irritated whinnies. The door to the hansom opened, and Count Hannibal Lecter stepped out onto the sidewalk. 

Will’s heart glowed with the pleasure of such a surprise. It was all he could do not to tackle the count, knowing he was strong enough to catch him. “Mr. Graham,” Hannibal greeted formally, removing his hat and pressing it over his heart. 

“Count Lecter,” Will replied, barely able to keep his smile appropriately benign. “What a… coincidence.” 

“It was certainly that.” Hannibal stepped aside from the door to the carriage. “May I offer you a ride home?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Will accepted the count’s gloved hand to ascend into the conveyance. And then they were within, the door shut, rattling through the streets of London. 

There were windows in the carriage, forcing them to sit on either side of the coach from one another. That didn’t stop Will from slipping his foot out of his shoe and sliding his stockinged foot up Hannibal’s leg and settling his toes between the count’s thighs, flexing them gently. Hannibal kept his expression blandly friendly as they drove along, stoking the back of Will’s foot as he used it to massage his cock through his trousers. 

“Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it?” Hannibal’s benign comment was in direct opposition to the bulge that was rapidly forming beneath Will’s toes as he teased them along the trouser seam. 

Will didn’t ask where they were going, but it should have been no surprise that the cab dropped them off just down the back alley from the secret entrance to Lenore’s brothel. Again, the madam ushered them upstairs, the room somehow ready for them: mirrors removed, champagne on ice, lamps burning low. 

Hannibal caught him from behind as soon as the door clicked shut, pressing his half-hard cock against his backside and giving it a slow grind before stripping Will’s jacket from his shoulders and tossing it away. “How long were you following me?” Will asked, tipping his head to the side to free access to his neck for kissing as Hannibal circled his arms around to hurry open his clothes. He still had his necktie on when Hannibal rushed his hand into Will’s trousers to cup and squeeze and rub, leaving him breathless.

“Long enough to see you leaving Scotland Yard,” Hannibal admitted, rubbing Will’s cock through his undergarment while Will managed to get his own tie off. When he tossed it aside, Hannibal hustled him out of his shirt and waistcoat with hasty fingers.

“So, you didn’t follow me from Hillingham this morning?” Will turned in Hannibal’s arms to undo his tie next between hungry kisses. 

Hannibal indicated no. 

“So, it was a coincidence? Saw me outside the inquest?”

“Would you believe I was guided there by my love for you?” The count lifted him by the hip and thigh with uncanny ease as Will wrapped his arms around his neck and brought their lips together again. 

“Depends. Is that something… you can do?” 

“Can’t you sense exactly where I am?” Hannibal was teasing. Maybe. He was smiling. Curious, Will thought. He sensed that Hannibal didn’t actually know the answer. 

Not curious enough to wait long before carrying Will to the bed and depositing him there, stripping him bare. “Can you?” Will asked. “Find me… no matter where…?”

Hannibal kneeled over him on the bed and boxed him in, stroking his hair back from his forehead. He paused, his hand going still as well, a line appearing on his brow. Thinking, Will sensed, about what to say. How much to tell. “Yes,” he said at last, then resumed his worship of Will’s neck with his lips. He pressed Will flat on his back and trailed his mouth along the tender skin above his navel, then below it, before grazing his tongue over the hip bone. Now his teeth, wracking Will with a shiver. 

“How?” 

Hannibal traced his tongue along the divot there, still not touching Will’s cock, caressing the tender underside of his thigh.

Will’s mind was temporarily conquered, but the question bubbled up again. “How do you… know where I am?”

Hannibal paused his ministrations and drew back to stroke Will’s knees. 

“Y-you were in Purfleet this morning,” Will reasoned. “And you came into London—”

“On the train,” Hannibal supplied. 

“On the train,” Will repeated, raising an eyebrow. “And you… knew where I was. Hailed a cab and told him where to go…”

Hannibal nodded, but his hands were roaming, drawing fingertips along the crevice, a light tease that made Will melt again for a moment. 

“Tell me how,” he persisted. 

Hannibal exhaled and sat back again, but his smile was benevolent. “Difficult to explain,” he said, but Will barely had a chance to deploy his lower lip before Hannibal added, “Better to try and show you, I think.”

Will watched him slide off the bed and open a drawer in the bedside bureau. From within he withdrew a length of red satin before beckoning Will to the edge of the mattress. It was as if Hannibal could sense his feather of hesitation. “Trust me.” It was in between a statement and a question.

Will nodded yes.

“Close your eyes.”

Will complied. He felt Hannibal slide the cool, silky cloth around his neck, and it made him tremble a moment before it migrated up to cover his eyes. Hannibal tied it behind his head with firm care. “Can you see?”

“No.” 

Will felt Hannibal’s hands on his shoulders and let himself be guided to lay back, propped up on the pillows. “I’m going to let you go,” Hannibal told him after a brief kiss. “And, without moving, I want you to find me.” 

“I don’t… how am I supposed to…”

“That’s all I can tell you,” Hannibal said. “Don’t move.”

“Or what?” Will teased.

He heard Hannibal’s doting smile in his voice. “Are you ready?”

Will nodded again, and felt the mattress move as Hannibal got up. Will listened for footsteps on the carpet, the rustle of clothing, anything to indicate Hannibal’s location in the darkness of the blindfold. He could hear the faint plinking of the piano in the brothel’s parlor. Laughter downstairs. The muffled noise is the streets below. His own heart. 

Of Hannibal, there was nothing at all. 

…yes, there was. 

The ambient pulse churned, slicing gold across his vision. And bit by bit, an image formed, bleeding like watercolor. Will saw the bed. He saw himself, laying naked with the blindfold on and a half-hard cock, as if he was standing in the corner of the room opposite the door, hand on the carved back of a horsehair sofa. 

Saw himself as though he were Hannibal, inhabiting his body. Seeing the world through his eyes. 

“You’re by the back of the sofa,” Will said softly. “Y-you have your hand on it.”

The image dissolved as if obscured with smoke. Then, from the bedside, “Very good, Will. It shouldn’t surprise me that this particular talent is one you master quickly.” Soft, loving. “We are connected, beloved. Across time and distance. Forever.”

Will reached up with a smile to remove the blindfold, but he felt the sudden grip of Hannibal's hand circling his wrist and arresting his motion. Will relaxed back in the dulcet darkness behind the blindfold and waited. He tried again to connect to Hannibal's point of view but was distracted by the reminder of his arousal. He felt the shift of the bed as Hannibal sat down on the opposite side from where he’d been a moment before. At last, the soft press of lips on his neck. The loss of his vision and the wake of his mental connection with Hannibal summoned a greater sensitivity of his other senses; the feel of Hannibal’s fingers stroking along his collarbone, his heady, complex scent, the soft sounds of the room and the thud of his own heart like footsteps fleeing into silence.

Princely, soft lips moving down his chest as the count’s hands gently parted his knees and slipped between them, those same hands caressing and stroking up and down his inner and outer thighs, but with maddening slowness, an amorous torture. Will writhed a moment, pressing the back of his head into the pillows and arching his spine, then forced himself to relax and rest his palms on the bedspread, giving in to the dark works of velvet sensations. 

Hannibal’s lips found the end of his sternum, moving with aching slowness for his navel then the little trail of hair that led south, encouraged it seemed, by the increased cadence of Will’s breaths. 

The cool, supple hands settled at last on Will’s hips, and he felt the brush of those full, plush lips over the head of his cock. Just the tiniest connection, the tip of a tongue. Lips on the side of his shaft now, a lovely, cruel tease. Hannibal pressed the tip of his tongue on Will’s underside near the base and drew it up slowly to the slit. Will couldn’t contain his sharp inhale and mellow exhale as he sensed the heavy fullness between his legs, aching for more of the heightened sensations. 

He felt Hannibal’s palms glide up his chest, and the shift in mattress weight. One hand lifted free. Bold fingers stroking and lifting him and then…! 

Will felt the head of his cock press into something firm and muscled that relaxed into holding him from within, deliciously tight, providing friction in just the right way. He tilted his chin back with a hitched moan and reached out instinctively to grasp Hannibal’s waist as he planted himself all the way down on with absolute ease, encasing Will completely. 

“… so good…!” Will managed before the words were swallowed in another moan that would have shamed the most seasoned whore in this place. For a few minutes, he did his best to remain still and let Hannibal move as he pleased, but before long he found himself gripping Hannibal’s hips and fucking up into him, hungry for that inner embrace. 

“You’re a little pent up, beloved,” Hannibal purred, leaning forward, anchoring Will down by the shoulders. “Do you find the blindfold frustrating?” 

Will grunted a wordless response, still rolling his hips up. Hannibal dismounted him with a swift movement and lifted the blindfold free. Will growled at the interruption, rubbing his eyes for a moment as he adjusted. 

“This is better, I think, for your needs.” Hannibal knelt and nodded over his shoulder. 

Will did not need a second invitation. He got on his knees behind and lifted himself to the correct trajectory before slamming back in. This still didn’t elicit any response from Hannibal besides a pleasured rumble in his chest. “As hard as you like,” he invited. “You can’t hurt me.”

Will took him at his word and let himself go, filling the room with the licentious slap of skin against skin. He reached around to stroke Hannibal, but the count gently moved his fingers away as if to say, don’t concern yourself with me. The invitation to be selfish felt phenomenally loving and he worked up a heavy sweat, pounding in until he couldn’t resist falling over the edge. Only then, it seemed, Hannibal let himself come, as if he’d had his orgasm pinned down like a squirming animal that was trying to escape and was suddenly released. 

Panting, he collapsed over the broad length of Hannibal’s back, slipping out after a long moment and rolling onto his side. Hannibal pulled him close and kissed his damp curls. 

“What’s the matter, Will?” Hannibal asked him in the soft afterglow, the words whispering across Will’s wet temple. 

“Nothing.”

Hannibal’s ensuing silence prompted him wordlessly. 

Will sighed. “Prudence Bloom,” he muttered, her name no better than a curse.

“Tell me what happened,” Hannibal requested, and Will did. 

His only comment was, “Not a gentleman of breeding? I’m very satisfied with the breeding you just gave me.” Will’s response was to suggest another go, to which Hannibal readily agreed.

Chapter Text

“All right, one more, one more,” Will relented, falling victim to his dogs’ pleading looks and begging eyes. His arm was burning, but he threw the rubber ball again and again until each dog had a chance to retrieve it. “That’s it! C’mon.” Will called the dogs back off the lawn of Hillingham and to the trough at the water pump behind the cottage. They swarmed it, lapping noisily. 

When Will brought them back around the front of the cottage, he was surprised to see someone in a very large hat peering into the front window, presumably to see if Will was home. It was Beverly Katz. “Well, howdy there,” she greeted with a grin as big as her home state, laughing as the dogs mobbed her, besotted with excited affection. “Hey y’all, did you miss me?” 

“They did,” Will confirmed, watching with a smile as Bev knelt and submerged herself in the churning sea of fur and sloppy dog kisses. When she managed to get back to her feet and adjust her hat, Will handed her the rubber ball. “If you really want to make them happy…”

Bev took the slobbery ball willingly enough and lobbed it across the lawn. The dogs trailed behind, a mass of wagging tails. 

“Did you come by to see Alana?” Will asked.

“No sir, I came to see you,” Bev replied with a sunny smile. “Wanted to make sure you were still feelin’ like your old self.”

Will wasn’t sure what exactly Bev meant by “old self” — he supposed his oldest self was Iliya Albescu, and yes, he’d been feeling more and more like that self each day. 

“Still fit and healthy?” Bev gave him a hearty clap on the shoulder that, if he hadn’t seen it coming, would have rocked him on his toes. 

Will considered his answer, and found that, yes, he was well. Sleeping deeply, dreaming of Hannibal, his mind sharp, hungry for the kind of stimulation real estate law couldn’t provide. He’d been reading and eating voraciously, and his body appreciated the consistent sexual gratification. “I feel good,” Will said. “Really good. Better than I have in a long time.”

“That’s good to hear. I know Alana was in a right state when she got that letter from the nuns sayin’ you were in a bad way.” 

Will nodded, watching the dogs trot around back for another drink. “I’m lucky I ended up at that hospital. They, ah… they took good care of me.” And kept my secrets. 

“And what’s this I hear about you bein’ struck with Cupid’s arrow?” Bev teased gently as the dogs came back around to the front of the cottage to join them. 

Will smiled reflexively at the allusion to Hannibal. “I feel like Saint Sebastian.”

Bev punched his shoulder this time, which must have been a Texas sort of endearment. “Good for you! You snatch that count right up. Don’t wait too long.” Her lively dark eyes took on a gentle hue of sadness. “Don’t let him get away.”

Will nodded, hands in his pockets. “I’m sorry she didn’t accept your proposal, Beverly. For what it’s worth, you were my top choice.” 

“Hey how, no need to wallow,” Beverly said, kicking the dirt beneath her boots. “I made a lifelong friend. Two, actually.” She grinned at him and Will smiled back. “So, as your friend, Will… I gotta ask — what are you doing messin’ around with Scotland Yard again?”

“You must’ve seen the Tattlecrime article.” Will crossed his arms, an indignant gesture.

“I did. So did the rest of London,” Beverly said. “I know Miss Lounds does love to sensationalize, but… you visited that crime scene at the Physicians College, didn’t you?”

Will nodded. 

“Might I ask why?”

“My partners needed my help,” Will said. 

Beverly tossed her braid over her shoulder. “And normally I’d support a man comin’ to the aid of his friends, but… Will, you just got well again after bein’ poorly. Don’t you think it’s best to leave well enough alone?” 

Will paused, the empathy pulse slicing over his mind. “Alana asked you to talk to me.” Not a question.

Beverly gave him a look, her hands on her hips. “Yes,” she admitted after a bloated pause. “She put a bug in my ear. But I was already thinkin’ ‘bout it after seeing the Tattlecrime column.” She sighed, moving a pebble from one patch of grass to another with her boot. “I mean, I like Price and Zeller. They’re good men doing good work and I’d want ‘em on my side during a scrap. I get that they needed your help in Whitby an’ you were there, but…”

“I appreciate the concern,” Will said. “I truly do, Bev… I know you’re… trying to be a good friend.”

“Then listen to what I’m sayin’,” Bev pressed. “Stay healthy. Stay sane. Enjoy life, Will, surrounded by the people you love. That’s all that matters.”

“Murder victims don’t get to enjoy that,” Will said, though with care. 

“I know, I know, but you ain’t gonna fix that about the world. You caught Saucy Jack and saved the city. You paid your dues and then some.” 

Will wasn’t sure how to explain to Beverly why he didn’t want to quit the Sylvestri case. It was a tangled mess of his own curiosity regarding how the strange crime occurred, the desire to help Price and Zeller, and defying Prudence Bloom out of pure, childish spite. 

“Will you think about it?” Beverly asked, clapping a hand on his beleaguered shoulder. 

Will paused, but then nodded. 

“We’ll all right then, that’s all I can ask. Say, you got Saturday free, or are you seeing the count?” 

Will smiled reflexively at the mention of Hannibal. “No plans yet,” he said. 

“I’m dyin’ to get out of the city for a spell — want to take me fishing?” 

Will’s heart brightened at the prospect. “Yeah. I’d like that.” 

“Pack us up a lunch and some beer and make a day out of it. Bring a dog or two.”

They’d just finished making plans when Alana emerged from Hillingham in her yellow walking dress, armed with a parasol. “I thought I heard that Texas drawl,” she called as she approached. Will whistled for the dogs and put them in their kennels before they could leave muddy prints on her dress, not that Alana ever seemed to mind. 

“Miss Alana, I was gonna drop in after I finished chatting with Will here.” Bev took Alana’s hand and gave it a fond kiss. 

“I’d love a walk,” Alana said with a cheerful smile that somehow didn’t reach her entire face. She looked tired, Will thought, her cheeks lackluster, circles under her eyes. “Mother insists I’m not to exert myself, but I feel like I’ll be a candidate for dear Frederick’s asylum if I’m not allowed out to take in some fresh air and nature.”

“We could do us a little loop through Highgate,” Bev suggested. “And if you get too tired, little girl, just let me know. I’ll happily carry you.”

Alana clasped Bev’s hand fondly. “I know you will, but not to worry, I’m feeling much better today.” The words rang hollowly in Will’s ears. 

They set off at a moderate pace, Bev and Alana chatting amicably. Evening was settling in and there was an autumn sweetness to the air. Will was content to walk a few steps behind and listen, taking in the peace of the woodland graveyard and its graceful if mournful statuary. Eventually, they came up on the bench where Will had found Alana reclining during her sleepwalking episode. The setting sun, low down in the sky, was just dropping behind Hampstead Heath; the red light was thrown over on the mausoleums and the old graves and seemed to bathe everything in a beautiful rosy glow. They were silent for a while, and suddenly Alana murmured as if to herself: —

“His red eyes again! They are just the same.”

“What’s that, darlin’?” Bev asked.

Alana didn’t answer, but her steps had become slow and plodding as they came up on that particular seat.

 It was such an odd expression, Will thought, coming apropos of nothing, that it quite startled him. He slewed round a little, so as to see Alana well without seeming to stare at her, and saw that she was in a half-dreamy state, with an odd look on her face that he could not quite make out; so he said nothing, but followed her eyes. She appeared to be looking over at the bench, whereon was a dark figure seated alone. Will was a little startled, for it seemed for an instant as if the stranger had great eyes like burning flames; but a second look dispelled the illusion. The red sunlight was shining on the windows of a large chapel-like family mausoleum behind the bench, and as the sun dipped there was just sufficient change in the refraction and reflection to make it appear as if the light moved. 

“That’s right uncanny-lookin’, the way the light bounces like that,” Bev remarked. 

The person, whoever they were, got up and walked away down the path, backlit, nothing but a silhouette.

“Alana?” Will said hesitantly. She became herself with a start, but she looked sad all the same; it may have been that she was thinking of that terrible night when Will had had to retrieve her from the graveyard. She never referred to it; so Will said nothing, and the trio returned to Hillingham, the conversation much more muted now. 

They returned and had tea, Beverly regaling them with stories of her childhood in Texas, and all the trouble she and her brothers used to get into on the ranch. Eventually, she had to say her goodbyes, and left, granting a last kiss to Alana’s knuckles, and bestowing a firm handshake on Will. 

As soon as the door closed, Will watched in vague dismay as Alana raised her fingers to her temples and rubbed them in a gesture of pained exhaustion. “I’m going to bed. I’ve got a beastly headache. Tell Nurse Hilda when she comes, won’t you?”

Will nodded.

“Thank you, Will…”

“Goodnight,” Will said as she climbed the stairs without another word. 

Later, on the lawn, Will caught Nurse Hilda when she returned to the house and let her know Alana had gone to sleep. “I told the maid to watch her until you got here,” he said, hands in his pockets against the little chill in the air.

“Thank you, Mr. Graham.” Hilda bade him a quick goodnight and hustled in.

It was a beautiful, clear night. Will grabbed his coat and made his way over to the old tree he and Alana used to scale the wall, and climbed it, dropping over the other side with the darkness to hide his ungainly landing. He walked aimlessly, following a few paths, thinking about the Sylvestri case and whether he should, in fact, step back from the work. He didn’t want to hurt Alana and Margot. He had no interest in stealing their publicity. It was Prudence he had the feud with. 

He should ask Hannibal. Hannibal would know what to do. 

He wandered, full of sweet sadness, missing him, even though he’d seen him less than a day before. They already had plans to see one another again… but it wasn’t enough. Will wanted things like they were in Transylvania. 

When coming home—it was then bright moonlight, so bright that, though the front of our part of Hillingham was in shadow, everything could be well seen— Will threw a glance up at Alana’s window, and saw Alana’s head leaning out. 

He thought that perhaps she was looking out for him and called up to her. “I’m home.”

She did not notice or make any movement. 

“Alana, I’m home…”

Just then, the moonlight crept round an angle of the building, and the light fell on the window. There distinctly was Alana with her head lying up against the side of the windowsill and her eyes shut. She was fast asleep, and by her, seated on the windowsill, was something that looked like a good-sized bird.

Or a bat. It took off as he approached. 

“Alana!” he called. “Alana, wake up!” 

If she crawled forward and got her shoulders through, she’d fall right out the window. “Shit,” he cursed, running into the grand house and dashing up the stairs. “Hilda!” he shouted, pounding down the hallway. The door to Alana’s bedchamber was locked from the inside, of course, the key around Nurse Hilda’s wrist. The household staff probably had another key but getting upstairs and waking them would take time he didn’t have. He banged on the door. “Alana! Hilda!” No response.

Will looked around wildly for something he could use. A vase on a table in the hall had silk flowers in it — with wire stems covered in green ribbon. He pulled one out and hurriedly stripped off the fabric. He called on Georgia Madchen’s long-ago lessons and managed to pop open the lock. 

Nurse Hilda was deeply asleep on her cot, mouth slackened, snoring. Alana was still kneeling at the window with her head resting on the sill, seemingly asleep. Will dodged Hilda’s cot and grabbed her from behind, drawing her to her feet. “Alana,” he said, softer now, some of his panic dissipating now that she wasn’t in danger of falling out the window. 

Alana didn’t answer. She gently pulled herself from

Will’s grasp, moving back to her bed, fast asleep, eyes closed, and breathing heavily; she was holding her hand to her throat, as though to protect it from cold. Will watched her fold back the covers and slide between them, her movements slow and dreamy. 

Will tucked her up warmly, then closed and locked the window. He took the wire he’d used to pick the lock and twisted it around the latch as many times as he could.

He heaved a sigh and checked on Alana again. She looked sweet as she slept on her side with her hand curled under her chin; but Will thought she looked paler than was her wont, and there was a drawn, haggard look under her eyes he didn’t like, as though she were fretting about something. 

The wedding. He thought. And, most likely, him. Prudence no doubt said something to Alana about Will and the Sylvestri case and Tattlecrime. As always, Alana was stuck mediating between her mother and Will. 

I should quit the case, he thought. 

Will went over to Hilda’s cot and shook her. Shook her again. Still, the woman didn’t wake. “Hilda. Hilda!”

At last, she stirred. “Mr. Graham? What on earth…?”

“I was out on the lawn and I saw Alana with her head hanging out the window,” he snapped. “I had to break in here and get her back into bed. You just… slept through all that?” 

Nurse Hilda’s eyes were wide, and she rubbed her forehead, then wrung her hands. “I-I must have… but I never sleep so deeply. I was having… a very strange dream and I felt as though I couldn’t move my body… that it was trapped against the bed…”

“Give me the key,” Will ordered. 

“What?” 

“The room key. Give it to me.”

“Whatever for?” 

He just stared at her, hand held out. After a moment’s indecision, Hilda slipped the key from her wrist and gave it to him. 

“There’s a couch in the music room,” he said. “Just… take the night off. I’ll stay with her.” 

“I don’t work for you,” Hilda sniffed. “I work for Mrs. Bloom.”

Will sneered. “Should we wake her up, then, and tell her what happened?”

Hilda waited. The empathy pulse betrayed her intentions to see if he was bluffing. “All right,” Will said, heading for the door. “I’ll get her.”

“Wait…!” Hilda sighed and got up from the cot, grabbing her blanket. “We’ll… discuss this in the morning. I’ll get some rest. Perhaps I’ve become… overtired.”

Will nodded. She gave him a sour look but left. Will locked the door behind her and checked on Alana. She was still sleeping peacefully. Will lay down on the cot and wound the key’s string around his wrist. Just when he thought he could easily stay up all night and keep watch, he fell asleep. 

Chapter Text

We got a lead,” Zeller said, accepting his cup of tea. “But it’s… not a lot to work with.”

“Yeah?” Will was looking at a photograph of the Sylvestri crime scene while Price fixed them a cuppa in Will’s rudimentary kitchen. 

“There’s a lady that lives under the bridge right near Sylvestri’s building. A real charmer, I can assure you–”

“Looks like you’re not long for bachelorhood, Zed,” Jimmy teased, handing Will his cup with the requisite sugars. 

“Oh, come off it.” 

“And what did the… bridge lady say?” Will prompted as Price returned to stand by the table with them. Three photos of the body in the surgery theater lay on its rustic wooden surface. 

“She said she saw a well-dressed gentleman talking to Sylvestri, and then they walked off together,” Zeller reported. “I mean, take it with a grain of salt. Ever since Saucy Jack, everybody sees monsters in top hats.” 

Will sipped his tea; it wasn’t sweet enough, but he ignored his tongue’s disapproval. “I… feel like it was a chance encounter. Something overheard when Jimmy was questioning him on the stoop prompted the connection. Whoever it was — w-whether it was this mystery gentleman or-or not — heard something in that conversation that… let them put two-and-two together. The killer somehow knew what he’d done.” 

“Far as we know, nobody knew exactly what this bloke was up to,” Zeller said, glancing over Will’s shoulder at the photograph. “If the killer wasn’t an accomplice and was a stranger, like you said, how would he have known to dole out such…”

“Poetic justice?” Price suggested.

“Yeah, that,” Zeller confirmed, pointing his way. “I mean, unless this killer can, I don’t know — read minds or something.”

They shared a chuckle. But as the echoes of it died away, Will realized that was exactly what it was like. It was as if the killer had looked into Sylvestri’s soul for inspiration. 

“Whoever did this was going to kill… someone that night,” Will mused. “And he happened to find Sylvestri. If it wasn’t him, it would have been someone else. But-but not displayed in the same way. I still think this was… an opportunity seized. More about the killer and-and the audience then Sylvestri himself.”

Price groaned. “That doesn’t give us anything to go on!” 

“That’s what I see,” Will insisted. “If you don’t like it, then find somebody else.”

Zeller scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “Here we go. Figured it was only a matter of time before you threaten to quit.”

“Oh, shut up, Zed,” Price retorted. “You know there isn’t anybody else.” 

Will gulped down his not-sweet-enough tea and set the cup in the saucer with a clatter as Zeller gathered up the photos. “How are things going with the DEMETER?”

“Ugh,” Price groaned, rubbing his forehead. “Don’t remind me.”

Zeller slipped the photos back into an envelope. “The Russian Consulate has shut down any inquiries. They’ve definitely got their claws out.”

“I still don’t understand why,” Will mused. “Wouldn’t they want to know who killed Russian citizens?”

“You’d think,” Price quipped. “And yet…”

“Certain influences from higher up in Scotland Yard have ‘gently suggested’ we stop investigating.” Zeller finished his tea and Price automatically picked up his empty cup and Will’s, taking them to the sink, a father’s instinct to keep breakable things away from grabbing toddler hands. 

“That’s… a good reason to keep going, don’t you think?”

Price and Zeller glanced at one another and nodded. 

Just then, the door to the cottage opened, and Alana stepped in. Will was immediately concerned with her appearance. While she was dressed primly in a high-necked dress of white lace, hair done up, pearls dangling from her ears, she looked more exhausted and drawn than ever. 

“Good afternoon, Miss Bloom,” Zeller was quick to greet, standing with his hands clasped in front of him, giving a demure head-bob. Price looked like he wanted to melt into the wall. The moment had an air of children caught sneaking sugar from the pantry. 

“Afternoon?” Alana looked genuinely startled. She glanced at the clock on Will’s mantle. Settling her features quickly, she smiled at them. “Inspector Price. Inspector Zeller. Forgive the interruption.”

“We were just leaving,” Price said eagerly, grabbing Zeller by the back of his coat and guiding him toward the door. “So, um, on Tuesday, Will, I’ll, ah… bring the kids over to play with the dogs, how’s that sound?”

They had most definitely not discussed this, but Will appreciated Price trying to make it seem like this was just a social visit. Too bad Alana was so observant, her mind too keen for such obfuscation. Certainly, she’d noticed the case file in Zeller’s arms. “Yeah, sure,” Will muttered as his two partners hastily exited the cottage and quit the grounds of Hillingham. Alana raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

“Did you just get up?” Will asked. 

“I did sleep a bit past my usual time,” she said, brushing it aside. “Will, I need to tell you something.” Without waiting for an invitation that might not have come, she sank into a chair at the table where, moments before, the images of a man autopsied alive had rested. The little sound she made indicated how much better she felt not bearing her own weight. 

Will sat opposite, and she reached for his hand across the table. He obliged. Her hands were very cold and dry. He wanted to gather hers in his own and warm them but didn’t dare. “Will, for some time now, my mother has been having heart trouble. She’s gone on as if nothing’s the matter. Dr. Golding’s been treating her as best he can, but after his last visit, he confided in me that… she doesn’t have long.” Alana’s eyes were dry but her voice quivered. 

“She… I had no idea,” Will admitted. He waited for some kind of emotion to form out of the miasma that fogged up his brain and heart. His first reaction, if he was being quite honest, was to be impressed Prudence had hidden it so well. There were dark shapes lurking that would certainly rise through the mist at some point – anger, guilt, confusion, relief, righteousness – but he turned away from the confusing mess and focused on Alana instead. 

“Yes, she’s hidden it quite well. For a long time, she hid it from me. But it’s time for us all to accept that she doesn’t have long. And, Will – I need you to understand. She can’t handle any more stress or pressure than is strictly necessary.”

The pulse stirred in his mind, and he knew what she was asking. “You want me to quit the Sylvestri case,” he said dully.

“Yes,” she said, eyes glimmering earnestly from her wan face, their blue irises ringed with threads of exhausted red. “I do. Just until the wedding. Then… if you insist on returning to police work, I won’t try and stop you.”

“You’ll have your own household to run,” Will said. “And… a family to start.” Will realized then that he was going to have to leave the cottage at Hillingham once Alana and Margot were married. The thought came to him like the unexpected tickle of an errant wave against the feet of a beachcomber not expecting the high tide just yet. Of course, Alana would never ask him to. But how could he remain as they adopted their children and began their lives? As much as he hated to admit it, Prudence would be his link to Hillingham and Alana after the marriage – his guardian, or whatever she was. If she was dead, then…

What was this pain in his heart? This place wasn’t even his home, never had been. Yet, he’d been a child here. It was hard to explain, and he didn’t have time to suss it out. But it felt like another rejection, another kiss followed by, the way I am isn’t compatible with the way that you are.

Alana was nodding as he managed to gather up his attention back to the matter at hand. “Can I count on you, Will? Can you wait until my mother’s seen me married, let her have that?”

Of course, he didn’t want to. He wanted to be petty, spiteful; he wanted to hurt Prudence Bloom, the same way she’d hurt him. He wanted to rob her of something precious. 

On the other hand, he had no desire to rob Alana of anything. 

He got to his feet, and she did the same, coming around the end of the table to stand in front of him. “I’ll stop,” he heard himself say. “I’ll quit the case.”

Suddenly, she was in his arms. He could feel her trembling slightly, whether it was with emotion or exertion, he couldn’t tell. He felt weak himself, in that he allowed his nose to drift closer to her to catch the familiar scent of her lightly perfumed hair. “Thank you,” she said against his shoulder. “Thank you, Will.”

After she’d gone, of course, his mind whirred with theories on the Sylvestri murder. He took out his diary and wrote for over an hour, trying to record everything. 

Forbidden things always taste better. Or, in Will’s case, captured his vast imagination in an inescapable snare.

Something was so intensely different about this murder. It was alien, monstrous, as though whoever committed it operated under thoughts that were utterly divorced from anything remotely human. There was no hesitation whatsoever. Price and Zeller were in over their heads. Scotland Yard needed Will if they were ever going to have a hope of solving it. He was left at an impasse. 

Will closed his diary and locked it in the top drawer of his desk. He was going to have to be very careful now. Nobody could know, especially that damned red-haired journalist.

The opera. 

I have read the librettos, played what music I could on piano and harpsichord, dreamed of how the productions might be staged. Never in my long, unnatural life could I have imagined the majesty and splendor possible. 

I’ve read everything there is to find regarding dress and conduct for such an event. Will and I are both in our finest black tie, with golden opera glasses, seated in the most expensive private box. I expect Will to grumble a bit, and he does make a comment about feeling as though he were on display, seated next to me, as though our relationship were an aspect of the dramatic production, both of us with parts to play. He’s not wrong, of course. But he relaxes and seems to enjoy himself. 

I am utterly captivated, mesmerized as though by my own powers. Tonight, we are treated to the premiere of Samson et Dalila; a tale of love and lust and betrayal, the sacred pitted against the profane. This, crowned with a final act of destructive suicide. I wonder if Samson went to hell; if Iliya was threatened with it for taking his own life, wouldn’t dropping a temple on oneself fit the bill, even if one crushed priests of Dagon in the process? I wonder what Father Davies would say; perhaps I should have offered the tale of Samson as an intellectual counterpoint to his claims about Iliya before ripping his limbs from his body. 

I am particularly titillated by the final scenes in the temple, where the heathen followers of Dagon dance and sing and twist in a wild bacchanale. The spectacle makes my blood sing, and I find my hand on Will’s thigh, much higher than it should be, and moving steadily higher. He grasps my hand to stop me, though his cheeks are pink, and his eyes are as savage and lusty as the music and dance on stage below us. I returned to myself long enough to realize that half of the audience is watching us, not the production. The railing is high enough that no one saw my grope, but Will realizes, I assume, that he can’t keep his face arranged. 

I hold his hand instead, our palms trapped in two sets of opera gloves, aching for a real touch. After a few moments I lean over to whisper in his ear. “Forgive me, I was momentarily overcome.”

Will scoffs out a chuckle of disbelief. 

But I am overcome. As the show ends, the final notes of the aria capture me, their chords and phrases and mournful refrains woven together like a net I feel constricting my body, my mind. Am I held prisoner, or cradled in a loving embrace? I can’t tell. I have only ever heard music like this in unsatisfactory recordings or imagined it in my mind as I read the libretto and the score. Magnificent, truly. 

As the audience applauds, and the performers file onto the stage to take their bows, I notice Will is not looking at them, but at me. He bears a misty-eyed expression of fascinated adoration. Fumbling in his pocket for a moment, he withdraws his handkerchief and hands it to me. “You’re… bleeding,” he says softly. 

I put the cloth against my face and then examine it. I’ve been weeping pure blood, and it is a boon that the audience’s attention is on the stage now for the curtain calls instead of scrutinizing London’s most talked-about couple. I’ve been eating so well since arriving that my tears, apparently, have transitioned from water tinged with blood to being fully sanguine. “Here, let me–” Will removes his glove and swipes his thumb beneath my eye to catch what I assume is an errant smear I missed. Without a second’s thought, it seems, or a moment’s good sense or hesitation, he lifts his thumb to his mouth as though he had merely blotted jam from my lip.

I catch his wrist, my gloved hand a bolt of ivory lightning. 

Will’s unspoken question hangs on his lips until I move his thumb to my mouth and suck it clean in a deft moment before releasing him. 

Will is blushing as he puts his gloves back on, that lovely orchard-blossom tint that flowers along his cheekbones and down his neck until my view is obscured by the stiff collar that decorum insists he wear to hide his throat from me. I can’t fault the fashion – it also hides Will’s passion-earned bite marks and bruises from the rest of the world. They are mine alone to see. 

After the performance, it takes us some time to escape. I know Will is desperate to be away from the press of the ornately dressed crowd, the vapid, gossiping elite he despises. But there are many barons and knights and entrepreneurs and socialites that want to make my acquaintance, and it would be rude to ignore their attempts at introduction. Almost all of them know the Bloom family and ask after Alana and Prudence in an attempt to open up the conversation; then, they interrogate Will about his status with Scotland Yard – the DEMETER, and the Sylvestri case, all reported so sensationally by Freddie Lounds. I can sense Will’s growing agitation, and though I want all of London – especially Prudence Bloom – to see Will as a prize that I’ve won, a treasure to covet, I can only take so much of his discomfort and disdain. I begin to mesmerize the humans that approach, cutting their conversations down to swift pleasantries, and we flee to the coach and disappear into the nighttime streets. 

Will heaves a great sigh, tipping his head back against the cushioned seat. 

“What a torturous ordeal,” I say. 

He laughs, rubbing a hand through his curls. 

“Thank you for obliging me.” 

Will sits up and looks at me, a little smile teasing his mouth, his eyes soft and loving. “I’d do it again. Any time you want.”

An appreciative warmth spreads through my chest. “You would?” 

He nods. “It was worth it to… see you see an opera for the first time. Your face, y-your posture, your… everything, it changes… when you’re so…” Will makes a hand gesture like he’s squeezing a ball. Or a neck. “Deep. In the music like that.”

I find this absurdly touching. I’d give anything to lean forward and snag him by his necktie, pulling him into my lap to give him a kissing he won’t soon forget. But even at night, the streets are populated, and other cabs pass by, their patrons glancing out their windows to see who is in each passing conveyance. 

Watchful eyes. Will warned me about this, and he’s right – there are times, many times, that I miss the ease of our lives in Romania. But this city. The blood. The art. The teeming millions. The opera. There is no comparison. It is a simple matter of planning ahead and outthinking our numerous but admittedly dull opponents. 

Therein lies the necessity of Lenore’s accommodations and her history of ultimate discretion. Hillingham is out of the question and Purfleet too far – thus the beauty of the brothel. And that is where we go again, to our rooms, entering through the back and disappearing from the greedy eyes of London. 

I’ve asked Lenore to provide Will with refreshment upon our arrival and waiting for him is a plate of cold meats and cheeses, and a bowl of late-season berries. Whiskey, champagne, chocolate, whatever he might desire. He helps himself as I remove some of our accouterments and eats as if he has no interest in what I’m doing. Slips a strawberry between his lips even as I open his necktie from behind and sneak my hand inside his collar to stroke the skin above his pulse, kissing his temple and the hinge of his jaw. He hums in appreciation, though I suppose I can’t be sure if it is my treatment or the flavor of the strawberry, its sweet ripe scent clinging to his mouth. 

Will picks up another even as I nuzzle him, curving my hand around his backside. “They’re perfectly ripe,” Will says. “You can taste… the sunlight.” 

“One could describe you the same way.” I tilt his chin my direction and kiss nature’s sugar from his lips. He’s right; they are perfect. 

“Then have one.”

I pick up the strawberry from his offering palm, bruise it gently with my thumb, and trace it over his mouth before kissing the remnants of juice from his lips and tongue, pressing deep, cupping the back of his head with my free hand. This leaves him breathless, and I am well pleased; the fruit complements the natural flavor of his mouth perfectly. This does temporarily distract him so that I may palm the berry and slip it under the edge of the plate, out of sight. 

Just when I think I’ve gotten away with it, he lifts my free hand, breaking the kiss to look at my empty palm. I close my fingers in his hair and kiss his neck, but he won’t be deterred. “Hmm.” He draws my stained thumb to his mouth and sucks on it to get the last remnants of juice. “Your sleight of hand is, uhm… excellent, Count Lecter.” 

“Sleight of hand?” Now he’s the one distracting me, bringing my index finger into his warm, supple mouth and working the strong muscle of his tongue against it. 

“You didn’t eat it.” 

I respond by pushing his fine tuxedo jacket from his shoulders and letting it crumple on the floor like a whore’s petticoat, and gathering him to me, the taste of the strawberry still lingering on his lips until I consume all of it through my ravenous kisses. 

“Hannibal–” he tries, even as I lift him onto the bed and pull off his polished shoes and his thin wool stockings, teasing my fingers along the tops of his feet and his ankles. “You didn’t eat it. In fact, you’ve… you don’t– oh God–!” 

Interesting. Will enjoys having his toes sucked on. I tease my tongue between the smallest and the second smallest. 

“You don’t eat!” he gasps suddenly, unable, it seems, to drop the issue or be delicate with it. “You-you blame it on-on Romanian customs, or you say you ate earlier in the day but I’ve never seen you–!”

“Eat?” I release his foot, climb between his legs, and open his trousers. “I’d be happy to eat you, Will. Happier still if you’d like to watch.”

He snags a handful of my hair. “Stop,” he begs. And I do. I’ve played my last card. 

“I don’t consume food, no,” I say, trying to deny my instinct, which is to nuzzle my face into the crotch of his trousers and tease him through the fabric. “I don’t need it to live.”

“Can you? If you wanted…?” 

I consider the last time I did, in order to pass as human in front of Bedelia, whose observational skills were simply too sharp for deception when we first met. A few bites, and several hours later I was wracked with pains and slept it off in my crypt. “Yes,” I say. “But it does not agree with me.”

“But liquids…”

“Most of them. Wine goes down easiest.” 

Will chuckled. “Not the easiest, I’d bet.”

He means his semen, and he’s not wrong. It has more of the properties of blood, I should think. “Will Graham,” I breathe against the soft skin of his belly before kissing it, “are you calling me a whore?”

“I would never!” Will laughs openly this time, trying to wiggle out of my grip, though I sense he has no real desire to. I hold him tighter by the hips, which is most likely what he hoped to gain from his vain attempts to be free. 

“Don’t you want to test your theory?” I ask him, pulling open his trousers and peeling them from those shapely legs I love every inch of. 

“You’re right, I should.” Will eases back with one arm behind his head as I draw him between my lips and in, a little at a time, making him sigh and squirm beneath my hands where I’ve clamped them against his hips. When his cock hits the back of my throat he moans and arches his back, taking a handful of the bedspread and pulling it so hard I hear the seams ripping, the musculature of his arms and neck sudden and stark. I bring him close to climax, and then release him, kissing his thighs on either side before encasing him within my throat, moving my tongue in agonizing flicks and undulations. He lets out a growled curse as I abandon him again just as his muscles begin to tense. A third time now, but at just the right moment, I drop him out of my mouth and into my hand. My grip moves just so, and when he moans out his agony of bliss, I bite down on the tender, hot flesh of his inner thigh, inches from his groin. 

Perhaps it is the aftereffects of the opera, my heightened emotion in response to the music, but I nearly lose control and let my fangs descend completely. As it is, I barely manage to angle my mouth away in time. Instead of puncturing him, I have only left two shallow cuts. I close my lips over them and suck regardless and feel the delightful warmth of his emission flowing over my fingers. Panting, an arm still behind his head, he watches me leave his thigh and lick him clean instead. “You’re right. It’s easier than wine,” I tell him, and he grins through his labored breaths. “Though I ought to repeat the experiment, don’t you think?” 

Will is more than willing to oblige me. I bring him some wine and a palmful of strawberries. I’ll be having him for refreshment instead, and take my time visiting every part of him even as he eats and drinks. Pressing my tongue into his hole elicits a second act and I readily bring him to orgasm again with my mouth. 

At the peak, I feel a tickle in the back of my head. In my mind.

It’s Will. He’s connecting with me the same way he did when he was blindfolded, trying to see through my eyes. I admit him immediately, and let him watch himself climax, let him feel what I feel; his warm emission traveling down my throat, the craven taste of it. And I feel the wake of his pleasure as if it were my own. I almost orgasm myself in this state of symbiotic ecstasy. 

“Did you feel it that time?” he asks, his voice breathy, low. “I gave some of it to you.”

“Yes,” I say, smiling openly in sudden unchecked wonder. “Yes, I felt it — you did that?”

“I… sent it. Not sure how — did you like it?”

“More.” I climb up to kiss his throat, turning my head down slightly to brush my lips over the curves of his collarbone, so sweet and vulnerable. What came through our connection was mind-numbing. Vaguely, behind the red tide of my lust, I wonder what else we could share. What limits we dare to stretch. 

“Don’t be afraid,” he whisper-pants into my ear, putting a hand against the back of his head. Is he speaking to me or to himself?

I sweep him up suddenly, kneeling upright, holding him against myself, my lips all over his neck as he gropes my back, pulls my hair. God help me, Will is so soft and pliable, languid with his spent ecstasy. So beautifully mine. I hold him with one arm and balance him on my lap as I kneel and spread him with my other hand. He plants his feet on the bed and lowers himself onto my cock before letting me bear his entire weight, able to admit me through the wetness of my eating him and his own relaxation.

It’s purely intoxicating, making love like this, face to face with him in my lap, so he can wrap his arms around my neck and kiss me, press his forehead into my shoulder when the pleasure becomes too much, give his cries to the curve of my neck. And I can stroke his hair, pulling intermittently, and tempt myself with that long, ivory throat. That cool, slithery, Bedelia-like voice that swims like an abandoned minnow in the shallows of my skull whispers to me. Perhaps not this time, but another, and soon – you will lose control. And then what will you do? The change, of course – but is he ready?

Are you ready?

I think of the strawberries then. After I have made Will a vampire, he will never crush another sunshine-ripened berry between his teeth and swallow it without facing painful consequences. 

I can give him a thousand gifts: preternatural strength, endless life, the power to control the wolves and the lesser beasts, to transform and fly. But the human experiences — things as simple as late summer strawberries or as complex as procreation — I will take from him. He will feel their absence as I felt it in the early days — still feel it from time to time. And I must be sure that whatever emptiness results from their removal I can fill with something else. Because Iliya — Will — has suffered enough emptiness. I would keep him safe from any yawning void that threatens.

He is certainly not empty now. Full of my love, in the most physical and emotional sense, to the hilt in both cases. And when, at last, I allow my release and ease him back onto the bed, I trap it within him, sliding my fingers inside to stroke another orgasm out of him. 

It is only sometime after, when I am reverently washing him clean with the provided soft cloths and warm, perfumed water that he murmurs his question. “Why do you cry blood?”

“I don’t know,” I tell him, and that is the truth. I have my theories, but God never said when he cursed me. 

I wonder what Will might ask me next, and how forceful his questioning will be, but instead, all he says is, “I love you.”

Will Graham’s Journal

(kept in shorthand)

17 September. — I feel guilty. Not even sure if that’s the right word, because it almost goes deeper than that. These days since Hannibal came to London… they rival the happiness I felt when we were in Romania. The good parts, I mean, before I got sick and confused. I think back to the walk through the apple orchard, fishing with Avigeya — Abigail, my apologies — and spending our evenings together talking and playing music and fucking like dawn would never come. Now we’ve found our ways around the rules of strict courtship without damaging either of our reputations… I’m happy, which is far too simple a word. I wake up in the morning and I feel grateful that I did. 

So, why am I wracked with guilt this morning? I almost don’t have the heart to write it down. Some sort of shadowy pall seems to be coming over Hillingham’s happiness. The whole household has been joyfully focused on Alana’s wedding. I was the odd man out, suffering under the remaining confusion of my feelings for her, and the knowledge that once Margot settles in here, I should probably make myself scarce, find a new place for the dogs and myself. 

A place like Carfax, maybe.

Point being the tables have turned. I have Hannibal and my health — I’m more than content. But now, everyone else is… darkened. Fading. 

Prudence Bloom’s days are numbering to a close. Allegedly, nobody knows this except for Alana and me, her doctor, Nurse Hilda, and the woman herself. Maybe it’s my empathy gone haywire, but I feel like everyone knows — the staff, the dressmakers, the florists, Margot, Beverly…

I don’t know how to feel. I know Prudence was party to my abduction. She likely victimized my mother when she came looking for me. Whether she really wanted to participate or was merely supporting Edward Bloom’s moves, I suppose I’ll never know. I don’t feel anything about her imminent death. Not righteous, not sorrowful. It’s just… blank. 

Because I’m so much more focused on Alana. She seems to be growing weaker. I do not understand Alana’s fading away as she is doing. She eats well and sleeps well and enjoys the fresh air; but all the time the roses in her cheeks are gone, and she gets weaker and more languid day by day. 

I’ve started sleeping in her room at night, on the cot. I know it’s improper, but now that I’m clearly being courted by Count Lecter and her marriage is right around the corner, maybe the staff will keep their wagging tongues fastened down. Nurse Hilda is now attending Prudence exclusively, and in the whirlwind of the wedding and her countdown, nobody seems to have remembered that Alana can’t be left alone while she sleeps. There’s her lady’s maid, Sarah, but the poor girl needs her own sleep and time to herself; it’s not fair to ask her to take up night vigils. I relieve her whenever I can. 

At night I hear Alana gasping as if for air, so loud that it wakes me up. Jimmy told me Oliver does the same thing – he’ll stop breathing for what feels like a worrying amount of time, then take a great gasping breath and go back to sleep. Jimmy says all he does is roll his husband on his side and puts a pillow between his knees and under his neck just right to help the airway stay open (and help him get some damn sleep, he says). I told Alana about it, and she says I’m welcome to do the same for her, though I hesitate to touch her while she’s sleeping. Despite everything, it feels too intimate. Something I both want to do and deeply do not want to do, which makes no sense at all, I’m aware. 

 I keep the door key always fastened to my wrist at night, but she gets up and walks about the room, and sits at the window, which I’ve kept wired shut. Despite that, last night I found her leaning out when I woke up. The wires had been untwisted from around the handles that open the casement and were just lying on the floor. I can’t imagine how she did that in her sleep. When I tried to wake her, I could not; she was in a faint. When I managed to restore her, she was as weak as water, and cried silently between long, painful struggles for breath. 

When I asked her how she came to be at the window she shook her head and turned away, touching her throat through the high ruffled neck of her nightgown. It’s cooler in the evenings now, and she knows I’ll be in the room as she sleeps, so she’s been wearing a lot more to sleep in than she did in Whitby, which is, I think, for both our sakes. 

The wedding can’t come soon enough. Maybe Margot will better know what to do about this. Dr. Chilton should be coming by tomorrow for a house call.        

Considering all of this, I told Alana and Prudence that I quit the Sylvestri case. I told Jimmy and Zeller I’ll send them letters and telegrams to their home addresses, and they can pass notes to me through Hannibal. Otherwise, nobody should know I’m still offering my assistance. If we must meet, it needs to be in secret, or in an open social setting where we’re allegedly interacting as old friends, not police partners. 

Hannibal cautioned me against overtaxing my mind, but I can’t let this go. And I want to start my own investigation into the DEMETER, outside of the restraints of Scotland Yard. If I can discover who hired that solicitor who showed up to claim the boxes of experimental earth and all the other cargo, I can follow the money. 

That must be all for today. Hannibal’s on his way; we’re having another of our proper public courting rituals; he’s taking me to the botanical gardens. While we look at exotic fauna, we’ll be examined by the passerby as carefully as the flowers themselves; we even appeared in a society column of the Evening Standard yesterday. It’s strange to be in the paper for something unrelated to homicide. 

And after tea at a fine restaurant frequented by Bloom family friends? Well, I hope we’ll slip away to Lenore’s to be together…

Chapter Text

Will paced the suite in Lenore’s brothel, glancing every now and again at the clock over the mantle. He’d thought Hannibal was only minutes away, and had already undressed to his underwear. Now he was wandering up and down the length of the room, waiting impatiently for the count to arrive. Hadn’t Hannibal once said to him it was in no way fashionable to be late? 

A crinkling sound. Will started when he heard it, then glanced at the door. Someone had shoved a slip of paper beneath, bearing a few words. Hannibal’s handwriting. 

Look under the pillow.

Will peeked out the door, but saw nothing, just an empty hall leading to the back staircase. With a half-annoyed sigh, he tossed the paper in the fireplace and did as he was told. Beneath, he found the blindfold, and a few lengths of soft, light cordage coiled neatly. Will felt his pulse tick higher. All right, then. Hannibal had asked him if he’d wanted to play a game today. 

Will put on the blindfold and sat on the bed next to the coils of rope, waiting as patiently as he could. In the dulcet blackness, he let his other senses flourish, and reached out first with his hearing, and then with the mental pulse, combing along his consciousness for his connection to Hannibal’s mind. 

He’d nearly found it when there were hands on him. Someone grabbed him, flipping him onto his stomach and pinning him to the bed with his arms behind his back. 

“Hannibal?” As if he didn’t know those hands, the way they felt on his body, that unmistakable scent. 

“Expecting someone else?” Hannibal’s voice was gritty, predatory, but all encased in satin. Within a moment he’d tied Will’s wrists and arms, looping the provided rope several times and securing it tightly with brutal strength, even as Will tried to nudge off the blindfold against the pillow beneath him.

“What are you doing?” 

“When I asked what you wanted next time we were together, you said ‘surprise me.’” Hannibal, already half-undressed by the feel of it, flipped Will on his back, straining his tightly bound arms. There was a rending sound in the dark as Will grunted and then struggled to breathe. The strength of Hannibal’s thighs was unimaginable, the way he used them to pin Will’s elbows directly to his ribs. An instant desire flooded him even in his half-panic befuddlement. The tearing noise, it turned out, was a pillowcase, and Hannibal stuffed a wad of cloth in his mouth before using a strip of fabric to secure it there.  

“I’ve been informed that we can easily be heard in the room below, where some of the professionals are currently sleeping,” Hannibal explained. “They apparently are at rest until half-past two.” 

“Sounds like they keep your hours,” Will tried to say, but it came out as unintelligible, muffled mumbling. 

Hannibal bent over Will and pressed his lips against the gag for a long moment. “Perhaps I’ll miss kissing you.” His words were strained with desire but laden with good humor as well. “But why do that when I can eat you instead?”

Will chuckled, then gasped into the damp cloth in his mouth as Hannibal delivered a stinging bite to the meat of his shoulder. Will’s sound was muffled by the gag as his mind grappled with the situation that had unfolded so quickly. Well, he’d asked to be surprised. Part of him was curious where his limits were. Their limits. 

Hannibal hummed, an adoring little sound, but in the same moment snagged Will’s hair and yanked it, hard, angling his head back to expose his throat. “I’ve missed you,” he growled into the meat of Will’s neck before licking a wet line from the hollow of his throat, over the rise of his Adam’s apple, and under his chin. “I love this city, but I do find our arrangement’s limitations frustrating. And these poor citizens, living their lives in puritanical denial of their sexuality — what a waste.” He gave Will’s hair another excruciating tug and snapped at the place below his collarbone, the favored spot, adding to its perpetual bruises. Will’s cry of agonized delight was again stopped by the gag. 

“Imagine how London might be if everyone was free to explore their desires. If, like you, they welcomed experimentation and surprises.” Hannibal raked his teeth over Will’s nipple, and he pitched beneath him, arching his back against Hannibal’s strength to no avail. The anguish dissolved as Hannibal put his mouth there, caressing with his tongue. 

“I imagine Paris, perhaps, is more in touch with its base desires.” Hannibal wrapped his mouth around the side of Will’s abdominals and bit down with agonizing force. Will felt himself tearing up, so aroused now that it hurt, on top of the other physical pain. It all threaded together like a tapestry of suffering. “Bedelia always spoke highly of it – perhaps we could visit. Next spring, I should think.”

He pulled Will’s last clothing from him roughly, tossing it away, and turned him on his stomach again. “Get on your knees,” he ordered, one steely hand wrapped around Will’s bound arms. There was no play in his voice, but there was tenderness, and Will obeyed him instantly, without a second thought. The position was excruciating in its own right; without his arms free for support, he was balanced mostly on his shoulder and the side of his head, cranking his neck at a painful angle. 

Hannibal alleviated some of the pressure by holding him by the arm restraints and reached his other hand around to grasp Will from the front, touching, at last, his straining anatomy. He pressed his cock between Will’s thighs and began the movements that forced Will to thrust himself through Hannibal’s cool hand. “I’ll need to brush up on my French, of course,” he said casually as Will moaned into the gag. “Will you help me practice?” 

Will peaked within moments and Hannibal timed the bite perfectly this time, abandoning his hold on the restraints to take Will by the hair and drag him back, leaving a suck-bruise on the base of his neck. Will felt himself swept out to sea, trapped in an undertow of some of the deepest physical pleasure he’d ever known. Everything flashed a blinding white before the world bled back into his vision in time for Hannibal to bend him forward again and come, streaking Will’s belly and thighs with his emission. 

Will could feel the force of it, in the way Hannibal’s unyielding body trembled against his, and in his mind, the kind of wordless transfer that had become more and more common between them. Yet his lover did not collapse, managing instead to lower Will softly onto his stomach and remove the gag from his mouth and the blindfold from his eyes. “I’ll get you something to drink,” Hannibal said, sliding off the bed. Will turned his head to the side to watch him pour water into a cup from the pitcher on the sideboard, his arms still tightly fastened behind his back. 

Hannibal brought him the cup and held it out with an innocent smile. 

“Tosser,” Will growled.

Hannibal’s smile widened and he relented after a long moment, setting the cup to the side and untying Will’s wrists, kissing the red places, then guiding him to sit up and drink. Will rested, sipping, watching Hannibal clean up before dutifully assisting Will as well, dragging the cloth along his bare belly, collecting the spray of blood-threaded ejaculate that Will was still getting used to seeing. 

“Think we were quiet enough?” Will asked. “Wouldn’t want to disrupt anyone’s beauty rest.”

Hannibal dipped the cloth in the wash basin and rung it out, the mellow afternoon sun glowing through the closed curtains and making all his hard edges soft. He returned and swiped it gently up Will’s inner thigh, being careful with the sore spots. 

“You keep the same hours,” Will said, watching him. “Is that why you always left right at dawn? Needed your beauty rest?” 

Hannibal smiled, a gentle, doting thing. “I have to be in my place of rest when dawn comes. I sleep until I feel restored, which is, as you say, the same hours a sex worker keeps.” 

“What happens if you aren’t… resting then?” Will pressed as Hannibal went to the basin again to wring out the cloth. He took another drink of water, trying to seem casual, though he was on tenterhooks waiting for Hannibal’s response. 

“Pain,” was all Hannibal said. Then, “Indescribable pain, body and soul. My kind needs rest and renewal, just like you do.”

“You prefer the night,” Will murmured, feeling a touch of their connection glimmer in his mind. 

Hannibal brought over a clean towel and dabbed it against his freshly washed skin, then stroked his hair back from his forehead, kissing it. “I prefer the night,” he said. 

Will thought Hannibal might dress then, but instead, he abandoned the cloth and got back on the bed, resting his head on Will’s midsection, arms around him, twining their bare legs together and stroking the soft place just below Will’s navel, now clean and a little damp. “I have letters for you,” he said after a time, nuzzling against Will’s sternum a moment as Will ran his fingers through his hair. “From Mr. Zeller. Regarding the Sylvestri case?”

“Probably.” That was just about the last thing on Will’s mind right now. His body was languid, muscles lax, tingling with spent pleasure and the sting and pinch of the bites, though a cursory examination suggested Hannibal hadn’t broken the skin – at least where Will could see. 

“It must be a challenge to investigate a murder through the mail.”