Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQFSSV4BXSA4A3VCS5DFQJ

The curry house below baked the stairwell in the scent of cumin and turmeric, a thick, comforting aroma that had long since seeped into the walls of Eva’s flat. Rory stood frozen on the threshold, the brass key still in her hand, the deadbolts retracted behind her. Ptolemy, the tabby cat, wound around her ankles, purring like a broken engine, but her eyes were locked on the man standing in the middle of the room. Lucien Moreau. He stood like he belonged to another world—because he did. Dressed in a charcoal suit that clung to his broad frame as if stitched on by divine intention, his slicked-back platinum hair catching the amber light bleeding through the crooked blinds. His cane rested lightly against the arm of Eva’s battered leather sofa, though Rory knew he didn’t need it. Not really. It was a signature, like the way he never let his gloves come off, even in summer. “Rory.” His voice was smooth, low, the kind that curled around syllables like smoke. She stepped inside and shut the door, twisting the first deadbolt with too much force. Then the second. Then the third. The ritual grounding her, buying seconds. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said, not turning. “Eva doesn’t like surprises.” “I didn’t come to see Eva,” he said simply. That stopped her. She turned, one hand braced against the door. “Then why?” The corner of his mouth lifted—just slightly. That familiar, infuriating smirk. The one that had made her laugh once. That had made her do far worse than laugh. “I heard you were working delivery for Yu-Fei. Thought it poetic. The brilliant Aurora Carter, slicing through London traffic on a battered scooter, delivering kung pao to accountants. You always did have a flair for the dramatic.” She crossed her arms. “I like the work. And I like not owing anyone.” His heterochromatic eyes—amber and black—held hers. There was no mockery in them now, only something quieter, more dangerous. Assessment. Memory. “You don’t owe me.” “I do.” She exhaled sharply. “For the night at the docks. For not—” She cut herself off. Not for not trusting you. Not for vanishing without a word. But he finished it anyway. “For not saying goodbye.” The air between them thickened. Ptolemy leapt onto the windowsill and began grooming his paw with exaggerated disinterest. “You don’t get to say that like you didn’t vanish first,” Rory said, her voice lower, edged with something raw. “One night you were there, the next—gone. No message. No trace. I thought you’d been taken. Or worse.” “I had to leave,” Lucien said. “Avaros doesn’t allow loose ends. My father’s court was closing in. If they’d found out about you—about what I let happen—” “What we let happen,” she corrected, stepping forward now. Her boots clicked on the worn floorboards. “Don’t pretend you were the only one risking something.” “You were human,” he said, the word soft but weighted. “I was the one with blood not from this world.” “That didn’t stop you from kissing me behind Silas’ bar,” she said, her voice trembling only slightly. “Or from showing up at my window two nights later with that cursed book from the Athenaeum, just because I mentioned I wanted to read it.” His jaw tightened. “And it didn’t stop you from sneaking into the Obsidian Gallery with me, stealing relics from under the nose of a sleep-spell sorcerer.” “You needed me,” she said. “I was the only one who could disarm the wards.” “And afterwards?” His voice dropped, almost a whisper. “When we were hiding in that abandoned cinema on Bethnal Green? When you patched up my side after I got nicked by that blade enchanted with silver ash? You didn’t do that because I *needed* you.” She looked away, her fingers tracing the crescent-shaped scar on her wrist. “That was a long time ago.” “Eight months,” he said. “Not long at all.” Silence pooled between them, broken only by the distant hum of traffic and the low drone of the curry house’s extractor fan. Rory moved to the small kitchenette, busying herself with the kettle. “You want tea?” “No.” “You always say that.” “And you always make it anyway.” She huffed a laugh despite herself. The familiarity of it—the stupid, maddening, beautiful cadence of their old rhythm—wrapped around her like a worn coat. She filled the kettle, set it on the stove. “Why now, Lucien? Why this flat? Why today?” “Because tonight, the Veil thins,” he said. “And the things hunting me—ones I didn’t want near you—are drawn to movement in the borders. I needed a place off the grid. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere no one would look.” “Why not your own safehouses?” she asked, turning. “You’ve got half of Soho stashed with enchanted locks and wards.” “Because none of them have you in them,” he said simply. Her breath caught. He stepped closer, slow, deliberate, like approaching a startled animal. “I thought I was protecting you by leaving. Keeping you ignorant. But ignorance doesn’t shield you from consequence, Rory. I’ve seen that now. The world doesn’t spare people just because they don’t know the rules.” “You could’ve told me,” she said, voice breaking. “You could’ve trusted me.” “I did.” His hand lifted, hovered near her face, then stopped. She saw the gloved fingers tremble, just slightly. “More than anyone. That’s why it hurt so much.” “I waited,” she whispered. “I went to the old bookstore every Tuesday. For weeks. I thought—” He closed his eyes. “I know. I watched. Every time. From the shadows. I wanted to run to you. To take your hand and never let go.” He opened them again, both colors blazing with sincerity. “But demons don’t get happy endings, Rory. Not in stories like ours.” She stepped forward, closing the distance. One hand rose to his face, fingertips brushing the angle of his jaw. “Then we’ll make a new kind of story.” His breath shuddered. “You don’t know what you’re offering.” “I know you came back,” she said. “I know you’re here, in this flat, with me, when every instinct in you screams to run. And I know that for all your fancy suits and hidden blades, you’re terrified—because I scare you.” He laughed, a broken, beautiful sound. “You terrify me.” She smiled, just slightly. “Good.” Then she kissed him. It was not gentle. It was not tentative. It was hunger and hurt and eight months of silence collapsing into a single point. His arms came around her, one hand sliding into her hair, the other pressing against the small of her back, pulling her flush against him. The cane clattered to the floor. She didn’t care. The kettle screamed behind them, boiling over, but neither moved. When they finally broke apart, breathless, foreheads pressed together, Lucien murmured, “You’re going to be the death of me.” “Not if I can help it,” she said, thumb brushing his bottom lip. “I spent too long learning how to save you.” He smiled—a real one, rare and radiant. “Welcome back, Rory.” She leaned in again, softer this time. “I never really left.”