Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQGNFN4D553YZ3CBEPPABM

Aurora Carter pushed through the green glare of the neon sign and into The Raven’s Nest, the air inside thick with the tang of old wood and lemon oil. Rain drummed against the windows in a nervous rhythm. For a moment she paused beneath the low ceiling, shadowed maps and black-and-white photographs drifting in and out of view as her eyes adjusted. She hadn’t meant to come here tonight. She’d only been chasing a whisper of something—closure, maybe—and found herself on Frith Street without a plan. A tall man at the far end of the bar lifted his head then. His hair was streaked with gray, the auburn threads he’d once worn rich and vibrant now muted by years. He looked down at the journal he was writing in—small neat scrawl she recognized—and she froze. Hazel eyes met hers. She swallowed. Time stretched and contracted all at once: nineteen, twenty, twenty-three—she’d been younger when she’d last seen him. The bar was the same, he was the same, but everything between them had shifted. She stepped forward. The polished wood beneath her fingertips felt alive, humming under the pulsing neon, and a hush settled over the other patrons as if they, too, recognized him. “Silas?” she said, voice low. He closed the leather-bound journal with slow deliberation, his silver signet ring gleaming in the neon light. He didn’t stand. He simply set the pen aside, leaned on the counter, and let her name hang in the air. For a heartbeat she thought he might not speak at all. “It’s been a while, Rory,” he said, and his limp caught her eye—still there, still tilting his stance. Her heart thudded so loud she thought he must hear it. When he called her “Rory,” she felt something fragile crack inside her. She’d hidden behind Aurora Carter for years, but he’d always known her old nickname. Of all the people she’d met in London—among them angels and knaves—he was the only one who’d called her Rory without hesitation. “I—yes,” she managed. She folded her hands in front of her, aware of the scar on her left wrist, the small crescent from a childhood accident she never quite stopped tracing. She pressed her palm to the wood. “I moved in upstairs a few months back.” He studied her. Lines etched into his forehead and around his eyes deepened. “I wish you’d told me.” She drew back as if stung. “I wanted to. I thought… you might have moved on.” Silence. Then he tilted his head. “I always hoped you’d come down.” She slid onto a stool he pulled out for her, though her spine stiffened the moment her weight settled. “I didn’t think you’d want to see me.” He popped the cap off a small crystal decanter, poured a measure of amber liquid into a tumbler, and slid it toward her. “Sherry,” he said. “My grandmother’s recipe.” She glanced at the glass, the color catching her breath. She used to watch him nurse a dram of something darker, something old, while she sketched in a notebook on the floor of his flat in Cardiff. That was… eight years ago? Ten? She couldn’t remember exactly. “Tea, please,” she said, and he nodded, twisting around to fetch cups from a shelf lined with mismatched china. She felt oddly shy, like a schoolgirl in front of her favorite teacher. Except he wasn’t teaching anymore. He owned this place now, ran it like a careful orchestra of light and shadow. He was Mr. Blackwood, keeper of secrets, landlord, retiree. But to Rory, he was still Silas. He set a steaming mug before her. The lemon notes floated up in a warm cloud. She wrapped her hands around it, letting the heat seep in. “How long have you been here?” he asked, leaning closer. The scar on his knee showed through his trousers when he crossed one leg—she’d never forgotten that limp, the way he’d winced when he thought she wasn’t looking. “Since last November.” She swallowed. “I… I wasn’t sure how you’d feel.” He tilted his head again, his eyes soft when they fixed on her. “How I feel? I’d hoped to see you, Rory. I’ve left the light on.” Her throat constricted. She’d spent years convincing herself to stay away. Cardiff had held too many ghosts—her father’s disappointment, the bruises from Evan’s fists, her mother’s whispered pleas. She’d slipped into London like a shadow, changing her name on the crescent-shaped scar, hiding behind half-finished degrees and deliveries for the Golden Empress. But Silas had always been there on Frith Street, a beacon she never quite believed in. She set her tea down and let her fingers trace the scar on her wrist. “I got engaged once,” she said abruptly. He blinked. “To someone… awful.” He let that rest. Silence stretched between them. The bar’s hum returned: glasses clinking, the low murmur of voices, a jazz record in the background. She watched his chest rise and fall, his beard flecked with silver like snow on a mountain. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I never said goodbye.” He studied her, the light in his eyes turning round and gentle. “Goodbye wasn’t necessary. You were always welcome back.” Tears pricked at the corners of her vision. They hadn’t gone down this road—she hadn’t planned this, had come only to ask for a locksmith’s number. Now she realized she’d been looking for him all along. He reached out, laid his hand on hers. His signet ring was smooth and cool, the crest worn down at the edges. She pressed her scar against his knuckles. “I thought you forgot,” she said, voice cracking. “I never forgot,” he answered. He lifted his pen and slid the journal across the counter, opened to a page of faint equations and shorthand. At the top, in careful scrawl: Rory Carter. Under it, tonight’s date. “I keep track of the ones I care about.” She looked down and felt her chest tighten. He always had a place in his ledger for her. She closed her eyes and let the hum of the bar fill her—felt the ridges of the wood beneath her palm, smelled lemon and old stone. Years of distance fell away in a single moment. No more excuses. “Why?” she asked, turning back to him. “Why keep track of me when I wouldn’t tell you where I was?” He tapped the page once, where her name rested. “Because you mattered.” She understood then that regret wasn’t a static weight but a living thing, something that pulsed in the spaces between words unsaid. She’d built walls around herself—laws to practice, an ex to outrun, endless deliveries to make. But he’d taken the time to open another book. She exhaled. “I… I’m sorry for not coming down sooner.” He shook his head, his hair brushing the collar of his shirt. “Don’t apologize. Just be here now.” Outside, the rain eased into a whisper. She drew a shaky breath and wrapped her fingers around his hand on the bar. Somewhere in the back room, a patron laughed softly at a private joke. The world narrowed to the two of them, aged grain and amber light and that quiet understanding passing between them. She lifted her mug, set it down empty. “Can I have a refill?” He smiled—small, real—and nodded. As he turned, she saw the maps on the walls, lines of countries and coastlines, routes traced in fading pencil. A photograph of Prague caught her eye, sepia-toned, a storefront ablaze behind him, older and darker. A reminder of broken missions, of new beginnings. When he returned with fresh tea, he nudged the journal toward her. “One more line,” he said. “So I know you’re really here.” She picked up the pen, hesitated, then wrote beneath her name: Home. Silas tapped the page once, then closed the book and slipped it back into the drawer beneath the bar. He wiped his hands on a towel, watched her like he always had: steady, quiet, knowing. Aurora Carter sat back and let herself believe it was true. Tonight, the year of the scar and the bad decisions and the lost letters was over. She was home. And the man who’d never let her go, who’d kept the light on, met her gaze across the bar and lifted his glass to her. She lifted hers in return, and the neon green sign outside pulsed in time with her heartbeat, welcoming her back.