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Will wheeled himself out onto the uneven stone of the patio and into the gray drizzle that had been falling since dawn. Winston and Wig followed him. Wig found a stick larger than she was and brought it over for him to throw. He tossed it down the hill, watching as they both dashed after it.

Hannibal had gone to the market without him. It was the first time they'd been apart for any significant length of time since he'd picked Will up at the airport. Will felt the absence in his stomach like hunger. Hannibal had checked his list three times before he left and come back into the house twice on the pretext of having forgotten something he'd deliberately left behind.

Will rolled along the poorly tended paths in the kitchen garden. He picked the herbs that Hannibal had said he'd want for lunch. He looked over the chard that seemed to have grown wild, half in the beds and half out. The leaves were riddled with holes, and the snails were everywhere. One leaf had been divided neatly in half, and a snail was working its way down the center of the stem.

Will's mind was equally divided, half concerned about their mutual dependence, half sloshing with ungainly joy that Hannibal felt it as keenly as he did. He picked a few of the less holey leaves, and then paused to throw the stick again when Winston returned with it in his mouth and Wig close behind him.

Maybe it didn't matter. Maybe it was even a good thing. He'd expected to be sick of Hannibal's hovering by now. Back in DC, it had been a struggle not to snap at Beverly. He'd been sure it would be worse with Hannibal. He hadn't expected it to be a relief.

It was easier to be with him than it was to be alone. That knowledge didn't fit right in his mind. It kept sliding around the edges and coming back to startle him when he wasn't expecting it.

He gathered more chard and removed incidental snails. The rain started to pick up. He pushed himself along the gravel path and back onto the patio. When he whistled for the dogs, they came running, Winston with the stick and Wig with something furry and half decomposed. Will groaned.

"Drop it," he said. Of course she didn't, even when he held her still and made it plain that he wanted to take it from her. He'd been neglecting her training, and Hannibal spoiled her. He finally wrenched it free as she growled at him. "I guess I know what we're doing today," he said.

By the time Hannibal got back from the market, Will was pretty sure Wig at least knew what he meant by “sit” and they were working on “stay,” though it would take some time to get her to actually listen to him. And of course she was gone the second the front door opened, racing over to jump at Hannibal's ankles.

Will stayed where he was, on the floor in front of the fire with Winston draped over his legs, but his eyes tracked Hannibal as closely as Wig's did. Hannibal set down the shopping bags in the kitchen and scooped her up, seating her in the crook of his arm and holding her while he put the food away one-handed.

"You should be the one training her," Will said.

"I don't know anything about training dogs."

"Put her down and tell her to sit."

Hannibal set her down on the floor and held her still for a moment until she calmed. "Sit," he said. He looked so serious that Will had to hide a smile behind his hand. Wig sat and panted up at Hannibal.

"Tell her to stay," Will said.

"Stay." Hannibal even used the hand gesture that Will used with Winston. Wig stayed for roughly two seconds and then wandered off to sniff at something on the floor.

"It's a work in progress," Will said.

"She is young." Hannibal finished putting away the food and folded the shopping bags before placing them in their drawer. He walked over to Will. "How was your morning?"

Will leaned against his leg in unwilling relief at the contact. "Not bad. I got your herbs. And some chard. It was all full of snails though. There wasn't much."

"Was it?" Hannibal said with more interest than Will thought snails deserved.

He tugged at Hannibal's pants until he stopped looking toward the garden and sat down. Wig immediately raced over and tumbled herself into his lap. Hannibal stroked her ears with light fingers. He treated her with a sort of offhand, almost careless tenderness. Sometimes Will envied her.

In that moment, Hannibal wrapped an arm around Will's shoulders and slid a hand up into his hair and stroked him as he'd stroked Wig. Will almost laughed, but it wasn't quite something he could laugh about.

"What is it?" Hannibal said.

Will stared into the fire until his eyes ached. "You'd never hurt her, would you?"

"Of course not."

"There's no reason to," Will said.

"And you still think I might find a reason to hurt you."

"I didn't mean to -- sorry." He rested his head on Hannibal's shoulder. "I don't want to do this. I didn't mean to say anything."

Hannibal sighed into his hair. "I missed you."

"You didn't have to go." He slid both arms around Hannibal's waist to hold him there at his side.

"I did," Hannibal said.

"I know." Codependent wasn't even the word anymore. He'd thought he was doing better than Hannibal. Right up until Hannibal walked out the door. "It'll be fine."

"Your faith in the longevity of this relationship has always surprised me."

Will smiled to himself. "I like surprising you."

Wind rattled the windows and sent a hard spray of rain against the French doors. The world outside dissolved into a smear of grays and greens. A flash of lightning brightened the gloom, followed immediately by a long rumble of thunder. Wig stood up in Hannibal's lap and started barking, high-pitched and urgent.

Hannibal stroked her back. His hand was large enough that it covered most of her small body. "Sit," he told her. After a few repetitions, she did, growling under her breath. "Is she afraid or angry?"

"Fear and anger aren't that different. Especially if you have a brain the size of a walnut."

Hannibal looked at him, both eyebrows raised. Wig sat alert on his knee, clearly guarding him from the weather. He stroked the top of her head with his thumb.

Will turned his head to watch the water pouring down the windows. "Or even if you don't."

Hannibal rested a hand at the back of Will's neck. He squeezed gently and then pressed his thumb into the taut muscles there. It was the same touch he often used after Will's nightmares: a point of contact and comfort but easily shrugged off. Will rarely shrugged him off anymore.

"Can you build me a cage?" Hannibal said.

"It'd be easier to just lock you in the back room."

Hannibal ignored him. "It doesn't need to be large. Perhaps three feet long. Screened on the top and ideally on the sides as well. Metal screening. Not plastic."

"Yeah, sure," Will said slowly. "You're not going to tell me what you want it for?"

"I would prefer to show you."

"And it's not for your dog, right?"

"Certainly not," Hannibal said. The curve of his hand over her back might almost have been protective.

"Okay. I've got a roll of screening left over from fixing the bedroom windows. I can do it today if you want."

"And you will satisfy your curiosity sooner."

"You mean you'll satisfy my curiosity sooner."

"That as well," Hannibal said. He squeezed the back of Will's neck and kissed his jaw and down his throat.

Will tipped his head back. Hannibal pressed a hand to the center of his back and set his mouth on Will's neck, open and hot, tasting his skin. He unbuttoned Will's shirt, just two buttons at first, then three, and then all the way down. Hannibal pulled back and looked at him. He pushed Will's shirt off one shoulder and arranged the drape of the fabric around his upper arm.

Will had to smile. "Are you done? Do you want to get a camera?"

"The camera is an imprecise instrument. I would prefer to draw you."

"You can draw me or you can have your cage. Which do you want?"

"The cage," Hannibal said. "I can draw you another time. If you will permit me."

"I'll think about it."

"By which you mean yes."

Will raised his eyebrows. "Yeah?"

"You like it when I watch you. I don't think you'd object if I did want to take photographs. You'll certainly let me draw you." He brushed the backs of his knuckles down Will's chest. "Nude, I think. In the light from the fire."

Will fought to keep both his body and his face unmoved. "Kind of cliche, isn't it?"

"Classic. It will suit you."

Will kissed him. He never knew what else to do when Hannibal got like this. Some part of him still registered it as mockery, though he knew Hannibal meant every word. He put a hand on Hannibal's chest and pushed him back, licking his lips. "I better get to work."

"And I should start lunch. Is there anything you'd like?"

"You're asking?"

Hannibal hesitated, eyes still on Will's mouth. "You like it when I ask."

Will leaned in, cheek to cheek with him, breathing out disbelief and pleasure against his neck. "Yeah, I do."

"Even though you seldom have an answer for me."

"Not the point. And I don't have an answer this time either."

"Herb-stuffed trout, I think," Hannibal murmured, lips touching his skin. "A white wine sauce. Perhaps with the morels and wild garlic. Do you have additions or subtractions?"

"More of that squash from last night?"

"That would go nicely, yes. How long will it take you?" Hannibal asked.

"The cage? Not long. Maybe half an hour."

"Do you need help?"

"No, I can manage."

*

He did manage, though it took him longer than he'd predicted. He worked in the back room, the one that Hannibal had proposed as Will's office. It was currently a mess of sawdust and chipped tile. No point cleaning it up until he had the bookcases built. The weather was too uncertain to work on them outside.

He didn't have anywhere to set up the circular saw that he could reach from the wheelchair, but it wasn't that hard to do it by hand. The cage's frame took the most time. Stapling on the metal screens took all of five minutes. Hannibal was watching from the doorway by the time he was done.

"You didn't want it stained or anything, right?" Will said.

"No, it's only temporary."

"Some kind of rabbit trap?"

"Lunch is on the table," Hannibal said.

"It would take about ten seconds to tell me."

Hannibal leaned over him and kissed him, hands on the arms of the wheelchair, the quick imprint of teeth on Will's lower lip. "Indulge me a little longer if you can stand it."

Will leaned his forehead against Hannibal's. "I guess I can."

They sat next to each other at the table, Hannibal at the head and Will on his right. They were still using the plates from the rented house. "I was looking at dishes online," Will said.

Hannibal cast a wary look his way. "Yes?"

"Just plain white. That's what they use in restaurants, right? So the focus is on the food?"

"Many restaurants, yes."

"And yours weren't that fancy in Baltimore. They didn't look that fancy anyway."

"They couldn't be compared to the ones in the shop we visited the other day, certainly."

"Yeah, those were something," Will said. "Anyway, look." He pulled over Hannibal's tablet and unlocked it to show the plates: simple white plates with faintly raised concentric circles around the edge. He watched Hannibal's face as he looked them over, though he wasn't sure what he was watching for. "Don't say yes if you don't like them."

"You've said yes to things you didn't like that I wanted. That is the nature of compromise."

"If you're talking about killing Walter Drake, that's … really not the same as buying plates."

"No, it's not. We'll live with the plates every day." Hannibal wasn't smiling, but the light in his eyes said he thought he'd made a joke and a good one at that.

Will rubbed a hand across his mouth. "Not funny." Except that it was, just a little.

Hannibal didn't call him on it. "I think they'll do nicely. Simplicity will suit the table and the surroundings better than elegance."

"I can't tell if that's approval or an insult."

Hannibal pushed the tablet back to him with a amused look. "Get the plates."

Will bookmarked the page and set the tablet aside to concentrate on his fish.

*

After lunch, they went into the garden. Hannibal set the cage down between the beds and laid chard leaves in the bottom. He moved from plant to plant and plucked the snails from each to set them in the cage. He seemed to pull them from nowhere, long fingers turning over leaves and curling around shells that Will had missed entirely. His gaze stayed fixed on the chard leaves and the few other wild greens where the snails clung. He moved quickly, stooped from the waist,  graceful despite the awkward position.

"Are we going to eat these?" Will asked.

Hannibal flashed him a quick smile, so bright that it peeled decades from him. He perched on the edge of a raised bed, balanced on the balls of his feet. His hair fell across his forehead, and he left a streak of mud behind when he pushed it aside. "In time. We must feed them first."

"They haven't eaten enough?"

"What they eat will affect their flavor when we eat them."

Will's mind leapt immediately to Hannibal's diet in the past. It made connections he didn't want it to make, connections that left him staring at Hannibal with a question he wasn't sure he wanted answered.

Hannibal tilted his head a fraction. His smile held a shadow of his old cruel amusement. "Do you wonder if I ever fattened my victims before I killed them, or do you wonder if that was my intention with you?"

The last possibility hadn't even occurred to Will. His hands tightened on the arms of the wheelchair.

Hannibal's expression softened. "It wasn't. I invited you to my table solely for the pleasure of your company."

Will made himself breathe again. "But other people?"

"I thought of it, but the practical considerations made it unworkable." He clasped his hands between his knees and waited.

"Practical considerations?"

"It would require full control of their diet. They could not be kept sedated if they were to eat and drink, but they would have to be kept calm. Fear has a terrible effect on digestion. They must, then, either be unaware of their fate or indifferent to it. Both extremely difficult to achieve."

Will felt divided once again, half of him almost drowning in relief that this was something he didn't have to imagine Hannibal doing and the other half looking for a way to make it work. "Psychopaths have a lowered fear response," he said.  

Hannibal's eyes warmed with affection. "That did occur to me, yes. But they are seldom terribly interesting guests. I always judged the risk too great and the reward too small."

Will's brain wouldn't stop, and he wasn't used to keeping his mouth shut around Hannibal anymore. "Someone could do it to you," he said.

"Someone could, yes. Is someone considering it?"

"Not funny," Will said. This time he meant it.

"It is, but it's serious as well. You gave me permission to consume you if you die before I do. Would you do the same?"

"My cooking wouldn't do you justice."

"You could learn," Hannibal said.

"You'll be too old and stringy by then."

Hannibal's eyes went distant and thoughtful for a moment. "That is a problem that merely requires the right recipe."

"Hannibal. I'm not promising to eat your dead body, no matter how many recipes for stringy old men you come up with."

Hannibal nodded solemnly. "I understand."

"Would you really want me to?"

"You must understand the appeal of the idea."

Will looked down. Hannibal caught his hand and stroked a thumb over the lines on his palm. "I'll think about it," Will said.

Hannibal kissed the inside of his wrist. "You can start with coq au vin. It was a recipe designed to make the toughest of old roosters edible."

Will shook his head. "Let's wait till I can reach the kitchen counter again before you start trying to teach me anything. What are you doing with the snails?"

"I will feed them, give them water, and keep the cage clean. In two weeks, they should be ready to eat. Perhaps I will serve them with the chard if it lasts that long. That seems appropriate."

Something about the process, the preparation for the kill, didn't sit well with Will but, considering what else he'd eaten at Hannibal's table, snails didn't seem like the right place to draw the line. He looked down at them, oozing slowly across the chard leaves, waving sticky antennae. Maybe he didn't actually care that much.

"I saw snailshell patterned flatware at a shop in Marseille," Hannibal said.

"No."

Hannibal kissed the back of his hand and stood. "We must look for a compromise there as well. Time is running out."

"I know. We could use some furniture for the living room too."

"Perhaps we should work on that now."

Will left the snails behind and trailed Hannibal back to the house. "I assumed you'd buy some while I was gone."

They had the dining room table and chairs, a small, hard loveseat that had come with the house, the chair Hannibal had bought for the kitchen, and nothing else. Will had honestly expected to get home and find the place entirely furnished in a bizarre blend of Hannibal's taste and what Hannibal thought was Will's taste.

"It was only a few weeks," Hannibal said. "I want you to have a say in these things, as I told you. I didn't mind waiting."

They went into the bedroom. It was that or the table if they wanted to sit close. Hannibal preferred to reserve the table for meals. He never said so, but he didn't need to. Disapproval seeped from his pores when Will spread his work out where they ate. In the rented house, Will had had a desk. He was going to need one here too.

A sofa, a table, maybe a chair for the living room. A desk for Hannibal too. Desk chairs. Storage. A dresser. He couldn't think what else, but there had to be more. A whole house to furnish. He'd done it on a small scale in Wolf Trap, but not like this. He lay down on the bed, propped his feet up on a pile of pillows, and closed his eyes.

"Tired?" Hannibal asked.

"No. It's just a lot to buy."

"We have the money."

They did. Hannibal had shown him the accounts. The figures were too large to process.

"I know. It's not really the money." He paused and blinked his eyes open. The ceiling was a pale, pale blue, like cold spring water. He liked their makeshift bedroom. It was really too small for the bed, which took up most of the available floor space. The fireplace cast heat and light up over their legs. Will could almost reach the window when he stretched out his right hand. They spent most of their evenings here, always in contact, often with Hannibal's arm around him.

Hannibal touched a finger to his lips and drew it down over his chin. "Then what is it?"

Will shrugged and stared up at the ceiling.

Hannibal walked his fingers down Will's neck and unfastened two buttons on his shirt again. "Resistance to change is usually born out of fear. Fear of change is fear of loss. What do you think you will lose if we do this?"

"Nothing."

"That's not an honest answer."

Will turned onto his side, face hidden against Hannibal's thigh. "What'll it be like once we have all this stuff?"

"Ah," Hannibal said. The understanding in his voice made Will feel sick with exposure, a feeling that dissipated almost entirely with Hannibal's cradling hand on the back of his neck. "It will be the same between us. Wasn't it in the rented house?"

"That was temporary."

"Life is temporary."

"Comforting," Will said.

"I have always found it so. Change is inevitable. Nothing lasts forever. That's not a tragedy. It is a gift."

Will turned his head just enough to look up at him with one eye. "Even if the thing that doesn't last forever is us?"

"Especially then. It means that the pain of separation would not last forever either."

"Because we'd get over it or because we'd die?"

"Certainly one or the other would happen eventually." Hannibal unlocked the tablet and pulled up a furniture website. Will propped his head on Hannibal's stomach for a better view. "What do you imagine will happen once we are no longer confined to this space together?" Hannibal asked.

"I've gotten used to this. Having you close," Will said.

Hannibal scrolled down a page of sofas in neutral grays and browns, some in velvet and some in tweed and some in an odd quilted fabric. "When I was a boy, I learned that snails are a great delicacy to the larval stage of the firefly. My first cochlear garden grew out of the desire to fuel that change from grub to glowing flight. I fed the snails on fruits and herbs in hope that it would make the fireflies shine more brightly."

"Did it?" Will asked.

Hannibal clicked on a leather sofa. "I imagined that it did. Our perception of the world is more vital to our understanding of it than its reality."

"The less sure of reality we are, the more important it becomes."

Hannibal looked down at him. "If you desire it, I will live in an empty house with you for the rest of our lives."

The tension in Will's stomach let go like clockwork winding down. He stared up at Hannibal, wordless.

"Is that what you want?" Hannibal asked.

Will swallowed. "I don't want to live in an empty house. I just — things are okay. Now."

"And that's unusual in your experience."

Will couldn't laugh at that either. Maybe someday. "Yeah. Unusual is fair."

"Change is not always for the worse, Will."

"Did she help you with the snails? Mischa?"

Hannibal's thumbnail tapped against the edge of the tablet. "She helped, yes. As much as a child so young could. She carried handfuls of berries for them, or sweet lettuce from the garden. I had to watch her on the cellar steps to make sure she didn't fall."

His face showed nothing, but Will could feel memory rising off him like smoke. For a moment, he imagined he could smell it. "Does grief have a scent?" he asked.

Hannibal refocused distant eyes on his face. He cupped Will's cheek and stroked against the grain of his beard, thumb rasping against it. "More often, one smells the symptoms of grief. Lack of care. Stale sweat from poor sleep. Or the opposite extreme, skin scrubbed raw and the odor of new soap."

"New soap?"

"When one loses a partner, reminders of their scent can be unbearable. Soap is more often shared than shampoo or lotion."

Will had started using Hannibal's soap and shampoo months ago. His own never made it here from the rented house. He slid his arms around Hannibal's waist and turned his face toward his stomach. Hannibal laid a hand across the back of his head.

"She played in the mud and brought me worms," Hannibal said softly.

His voice was perfectly steady, utterly neutral. It was Will who felt his throat close and his eyes burn for a child he'd never met.

"I'm sorry," Hannibal said. "Here. Come here." He tugged Will up and over to sit between his legs and wrapped his arms around him. For a moment, he was still, breath brushing Will's shoulder, and then he picked up the tablet again. "What do you think?"

Will swallowed hard and coughed. "Not the leather. It's too slippery, and the dogs will scratch it up."

"Not if they stay off it."

"Winston will. Wig might if you quit teaching her bad manners."

"I'm not teaching her anything."

"You feed her scraps when you're cooking to get her out from underfoot. You pick her up because it's easier than teaching her to stop jumping up on you and behave herself."

Hannibal nuzzled his hair. "I feed you when I'm cooking to keep you out from underfoot as well."

"Yeah, and where has that gotten you? Do you see me keeping out of the kitchen?"

"You assume that was my aim."

Of course it wasn't. Will knew that. It hadn't occurred to him before that it wasn't Hannibal's aim with Wig either. He blinked a couple of times while his world readjusted itself around that idea. He took the tablet and scrolled through sofas. "What about this?"

This was a low, wide one with rolled arms in mushroom colored velvet with some sort of carving on the wooden legs. Hannibal examined it over his shoulder. "That would do, yes."

"Don't get too excited."

Hannibal made an amused sound, sharp chin on Will's shoulder.

"It doesn't matter why you're doing it," Will said. "It's not good for her."

"It's good for you," Hannibal said in a low murmur behind Will's ear.

Will closed his eyes briefly. "My brain's a little bigger than a walnut and I'm not likely to run out into traffic. She needs to learn to obey basic commands."

"As you think best, Will." Hannibal's voice had dropped still lower, enough gravel in it to send a charge down Will's spine. And then Hannibal took the tablet back from him and navigated to another furniture site.

*

Hannibal bought dill and enormous black grapes for his snails to eat.

"That doesn't seem like a great combination," Will said.

"It's an experiment. The dill will affect their flavor. I've tried it before. The grapes will only sweeten them, I think." He crouched next to the cage and cleaned out the water dish.

"I've never seen you this into anything that wasn't--"

Hannibal looked up. "That wasn't what?"

For once, he looked like he genuinely didn't know, which made it tempting not to tell him. But Will wouldn't have started that sentence if he didn't, on some level, want to finish it. "Me. That wasn't me."

Hannibal gave him a look both amused and fond. "Shall I feed you grapes and dill as well?"

"Maybe just the grapes."

Hannibal gave him a handful, and Will popped one in his mouth. Juice burst from the split skin, dark and very sweet.

"I kept notes as a child," Hannibal said. "What I fed them and for how long, what results, if any. They were some of my earliest experiments and in many ways some of the most satisfying."

"Where did you live?"

Hannibal finished with the snails and stood. He walked slowly back along the garden path. Will followed just behind. Hannibal had his hands in his pockets and his face lifted toward the sky. "After the Soviets invaded, most of the larger estates were confiscated, my family's home among them. It was used as a storage facility. My father was given the job of caretaker there, which I imagine someone found amusing. We lived in a portion of the house while much of the rest collapsed for want of labor or supplies to repair it."

"That must've been weird."

"For him, yes. He could remember a time when every room was lit and furnished. He told stories of dancing in the ballroom and seven course dinners. I thought he was making it up." Hannibal paused. "Some of it probably was made up. He was very young himself when they came."

Will was quiet, sorting and prioritizing questions in his head. He didn't know when Hannibal would be in the mood to talk about his past again, and everything seemed equally, vitally important.

Hannibal glanced down at him, one corner of his mouth twitching upward. "Shall I make us some coffee while you consider how to continue your interrogation?"

"I did warn you that I want to know everything," Will said.

Hannibal moved toward the kitchen. "Someone told me once that all sorrows can be born if you put them in a story." They both looked up at the sound of tires on their gravel drive followed shortly by a heavy knock on the door. "That will be our sofa," Hannibal said.

It was. Will let the delivery guys in and showed them where it would sit in front of the fireplace. Hannibal stayed in the kitchen. By the time Will showed them out, the scent of coffee had permeated the air. The sofa was blue velvet with high arms, a carved wooden ridge along the back like a dorsal fin, and clawed feet. It would show every dog hair, but Hannibal had been so clearly smitten with it that Will hadn't argued.

He lifted himself from the wheelchair and onto the sofa. The seat was wide, and it was more than long enough to lie down on. He stretched out, arms crossed behind his head. "How's that coffee coming?" he called.

"Nearly ready." Hannibal emerged from the kitchen. "How is our sofa?"

"Not bad."

"You don't look as if you have much of an objection to change at the moment."

"Okay, don't be smug. It is pretty comfortable."

Hannibal gave him a very slight bow and went back into the kitchen. He returned with one mug, topped with whipped cream.

"Where's yours?" Will said.

"Sit up."

Will did. Hannibal slid in behind him and pulled Will back against his chest before he handed over the mug. "Irish coffee. You will share."

"I will, huh?" He licked whipped cream off the rim of the mug and took a sip.

Hannibal curled a hand around his wrist and guided the mug to his own lips so he could do the same. "We raised the fireflies down in the dark, in the cellars. Not only in summer when we might let them go free. Many generations lived and died without seeing the sky. Mischa lay down to watch them and called them stars."

Hannibal's arm tightened around Will's waist. Will laid a hand over his and waited.

"I was at school when it happened," Hannibal said. He took Will's hand and turned it over, thumbnail dragging along the lines of his palm. "When I got home, he had already killed my parents."

"And your sister?"

"He shut her in the cellar with the stars. He expected her to be afraid. And me as well, I suppose, when he threw me after her. We weren't afraid. Not at first. Not for some time."

Will could feel the door close. He wasn't getting into that cellar, not today. He backtracked. "How did he kill them? Your parents."

"With a club. They were both beaten to death. My father had answered the door, and he was killed in the hallway. My mother's body was in the kitchen. She had been cooking. I feel I ought to remember what she was making, but all I can smell is blood."

Will had seen people beaten to death. Other deaths were messier, but the swollen and distorted faces lingered in the uncanny valley of his memory. He tried to picture an older version of Hannibal, graying hair and fine bones lost under blood and distended flesh. He gripped Hannibal's hand tighter.

"They are long gone," Hannibal said in his ear. He leaned his cheek against Will's. "Don't mourn them. You didn't know them, and I didn't love them."

"Not at all?"

"I had no strong feeling for them at all, no love or hate or anger. They were merely a fact of my life."

"But Mischa was different."

"Our mother had her at home with a midwife. Something went wrong. I never knew what. My father pushed Mischa into my arms and carried my mother to the car to take her to the hospital. The midwife stayed with me, but she didn't try to take my sister from me. She only showed me how to wash her and feed her. Mischa's first sleep was in my arms. And her last."

Will pressed the mug into Hannibal's hands and turned over so that he could put his arms around him. Hannibal rested a hand on the back of his head. He didn't tell Will not to grieve for Mischa.

"Have you gone back?" Will asked. "Have you visited her?"

"No. Nor will I."

"Why not?"

"Would you gladly walk back into your past? Would you be a child again, powerless and tossed by fate?"

"No."

"No. I keep my memories of that time locked away, and I don't wish to visit them in their dungeon."

"The physical place is part of your memory palace?"

"It is where I began to build it, and the two are now inseparable. The oldest rooms in my mind are rooms in that house. Or beneath it."

Will held him more tightly. He looked up and found Hannibal's eyes fixed on his face but clearly seeing something else.

"Is our house part of your memory palace too?" Will asked.

Hannibal's fingers slid through his hair, and he took a slow breath. "Yes. All that we have been and done here is preserved."

"For the future? Could you live here if--" Will couldn't quite say it.

"If I were imprisoned? One cannot always choose the memories one dwells in. There are dark corners and pitfalls. Holes in the floor of the mind."

"I'd come after you. I'd get you out," Will said. He couldn't imagine doing anything else now.

"And so you prove my point."

"What point?"

Hannibal bent and kissed him, breath warm on his lips as he spoke. "Change is not always for the worse."