Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQFKQ1X0VK7NFVH1GZTS4V

The rain in Soho didn’t wash the streets clean; it only turned the grime into a slick, reflective sheen, catching the neon from the shop fronts and turning the pavement into a kaleidoscope of bruised purples and electric blues. Aurora Carter stood beneath the awning of a shuttered boutique, the hood of her coat pulled low over her forehead. Three years. It felt like a lifetime, or perhaps just a very long, drawn-out afternoon spent waiting for a rain that refused to stop. She looked up, her bright blue eyes tracking the distinctive green neon sign buzzing overhead: *The Raven’s Nest*. The glass was frosted, obscuring the interior, but she didn't need to see inside to know the layout. She knew the scuff of the floorboards near the entrance, the way the air smelled perpetually of lemon polish and stale gin, the specific creak of the third barstool from the left. She knew the man who stood behind the mahogany, or at least, she had known him. Rory pushed the door open. A bell chimed, a thin, melancholy sound that died quickly in the heavy silence of the room. It was mid-afternoon, too early for the post-work rush, leaving the bar in a state of suspended animation. The walls, papered with yellowed maps and black-and-white photographs of a London that no longer existed, seemed to lean inward, listening. She stepped inside, the door clicking shut behind her, severing the humid air of the street from the dry, cool dimness of the bar. Silas Blackwood stood with his back to her, reaching for a bottle on the top shelf. At first, the stillness of the figure tricked her. He looked like a statue carved from oak and shadow. Then he moved, reaching up with his right hand, the silver signet ring on his finger flashing a dull, matte glint in the low light. As he lowered the bottle, he turned, his left leg dragging just slightly—a hitch in the rhythm of his movement that hadn't been there before. Or maybe it had, and she had just been too young, too self-absorbed to notice the heaviness of it. He stopped. The bottle of whiskey hovered halfway to the bar top. The silence stretched, taut and vibrating. Rory stood near the door, her hands thrust deep into her pockets, her shoulder-length black hair dripping rain onto the floorboards. She felt the urge to speak, to offer a quip or a casual greeting, but the words dissolved under the weight of his gaze. Silas stared at her. His hazel eyes, usually so guarded and unreadable, widened fractionally. The lines around them had deepened, etched into the skin like cracks in dry earth. His hair, once a vibrant auburn streaked with distinguished grey, was now predominantly steel, the color of a winter sky. He looked older. Not just aged, but worn down, the way a stone is smoothed by a river—less sharp, but denser. "Carter," he said. His voice was gravelly, low, and seemed to come from a place deeper than his chest. "Silas," she managed. Her voice sounded thin, foreign to her own ears. He placed the bottle on the bar with deliberate care. "I heard you were back in the city." "Just got in." "You didn't call." "No." Silas nodded slowly, acknowledging the omission without judgment. He came out from behind the bar, the limp in his left leg more pronounced now that he was walking the length of the room. He wore a dark cardigan, the elbows patched with leather, and his hands were clasped behind his back. He moved with the quiet authority that had once terrified her, a remnant of his life in the service, but now it just seemed tired. He gestured to a table near the window, away from the bar. "Sit." Rory obeyed, shedding her wet coat and draping it over the chair. She sat, smoothing the fabric of her trousers. She felt incredibly young in his presence, despite being twenty-five now. She felt like the scared girl who had fled Cardiff, running from the wreckage of a relationship with Evan, seeking refuge in the spare room above a bar in Soho. Silas moved to the table, but he didn't sit immediately. He looked down at her, his gaze sweeping over her face, taking inventory. He lingered on the small crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist, a remnant of a childhood accident, a physical tether to a time before the fear, before the running. "You look well," he said. "The law degree didn't suit you, then." Rory let out a short, humorless laugh. "Turns out I have a problem with authority." "So I heard. You're delivering noodles now." "It’s honest work." "It is," Silas agreed, finally sinking into the chair opposite her. He groaned softly as his knee straightened out, a reflex he quickly suppressed. "And it keeps you mobile." "Something like that." Silas rested his hands on the table. The silver ring caught a beam of light filtering through the rain-streaked window. "Evan?" "He's in the past. Wales, prison, hopefully hell. It doesn't matter where." "It matters," Silas said firmly. "Men like that rarely stay in the past unless you bury them deep." Rory looked away, out the window where the pedestrians were hurrying by, blurs of color against the grey. "I didn't come here to rehash that, Si." "I know." He leaned back, the leather of the chair creaking. "Why did you come?" She hesitated. She had asked herself the same question on the flight over, on the train ride in, standing in the rain outside. Why this bar? Why him? She could have gone to Eva’s. She could have found a hotel. "I don't know," she said honestly. "I suppose I wanted to see if the world stopped spinning when I left." Silas studied his hands. "It didn't. The maps on the walls are a little dustier. The neon sign flickers if the wind blows from the east. But it's still here." "You look different," Rory said, shifting the focus back to him. She needed to understand the change in him. He seemed smaller, somehow. Contained. "Old age," he dismissed. "It's not just that. You look... retired." "I *am* retired, Rory." "No," she corrected him. "Before, you were retired in the way a lion sleeps in the sun—dangerous, just resting. Now..." She struggled to find the words. "Now you look like you've actually stopped." Silas smiled, a faint, sad curve of his lips that didn't reach his eyes. "Prague was a long time ago. The knee doesn't heal, Carter. It just reminds you of the weather." He tapped his left leg lightly. "And the game... it changes. You spend so long watching the perimeter that eventually, you forget how to look at the person sitting right across from you." "You used to have people in and out of here all hours. Informants, assets, spies," she said, glancing toward the back of the room where the bookshelf stood. She knew what was behind it—the hidden room, the sanctum where deals were cut in whispers and smoke. "Is that still going? The network?" "The network has moved on. Most of them are dead or in hiding, or they’ve sold their souls to corporate consulting firms." He looked at the bookshelf. "I keep the room for storage now. Boxes of receipts. Old memories." The admission hit her harder than she expected. Silas had always been the Spymaster, the man who knew things before they happened. To hear him reduced to storing receipts felt like watching a library burn. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "Don't be." He signaled to the empty bar. "Peace is a luxury I paid for with a cartilage. I enjoy the quiet. Most days." "Most days?" "Some days," Silas said, his voice dropping, "the quiet is just loud noise with the volume turned down." They sat in silence for a long moment. The rain drummed a relentless rhythm against the glass. Rory watched the condensation trace paths down the pane. She thought about the flat upstairs, the one she hadn't set foot in in three years. She wondered if her old key still worked, or if he had changed the locks. She wondered if he had packed up her things, thrown out the cheap clothes and the worn paperbacks, or if he had left it exactly as she had fled it—a shrine to a trauma interrupted. "Why did you stay?" she asked suddenly. "When everyone else... when I left. Why did you keep the place?" Silas looked at her, his hazel eyes piercing through the gloom. "Because someone has to remember the coordinates, Rory. Even if no one is checking in anymore." Rory felt a lump form in her throat. She twisted her hands together in her lap, her thumb rubbing over the scar on her wrist. She had run away to escape her own life, but in doing so, she had walked out of his. She had left him here, aging alone in the dim light, guarding a fort that no longer had an army. "I shouldn't have left like I did," she said. "I should have said goodbye properly." "You said it," Silas countered gently. "You said it with your absence. That was loud enough." "I was scared." "I know." He reached across the table, his large, weathered hand covering hers for a brief second. His grip was warm, firm, and steady. "But fear is a compass, Carter. It tells you where the demons are. You ran. You survived. That’s all that matters." He pulled his hand back. "And now?" "Now?" Rory looked at the rain-slicked street. "I think I'm done running. But I don't know how to stop." Silas stood up, his movements slow and calculated. "You don't stop," he said. "You just find a place to stand that you can defend. Then you pour a drink." He walked behind the bar, his limp echoing on the wooden floor. He retrieved two heavy crystal tumblers and the bottle of whiskey he had been reaching for earlier. He poured two fingers into each glass, the amber liquid catching the green neon glow from the window. He carried the drinks back to the table and set one down in front of her. "To old friends," Silas said, raising his glass. "And to the ones we used to be." Rory looked at the whiskey, then up at him. She saw the grey in his beard, the weariness in his posture, but she also saw the spark of the man who had once pulled strings across continents. He hadn't stopped; he had just shifted his weight. He was holding the line, still. "To old friends," she echoed, lifting her glass. They drank. The whiskey burned, sharp and comforting, grounding her in the present moment. The rain continued to fall, washing the streets of Soho, but inside, the air felt still. The distance between who she was and who she had become seemed a little less insurmountable. She was back. He was here. And for now, that was enough.