[ as it has long been in his company, her tremoring fear is balanced by a quiet resiliency, and hannibal allows himself a moment's rumination on how this is the enticing duality of her character, that which holds his interest, this creature of such fragility and such steel.

He, too, thinks of bones. And of breaking. ] You once said you saw enough to see to the truth of me. [ there's a certain cruelty in the reminder, and he waits for her flinch, curious if she will evince it. She'd also said, then, that she liked him, in spite of what she claimed to see about his true character. he waited for her to remember her own words, for them to taste bitter in her memory.

What did it say about her, that she had once claimed as much? ]

Is this not what you expected to find, beneath my human veil?