Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQJ87FRS5TFC04Z7F6B43Z

The neon green light of the sign hummed with a low-frequency buzz that Rory felt in her teeth. It was a wet Tuesday in Soho, the kind of night where the air felt like a damp wool blanket and the pavement shimmered with the oily reflection of traffic lights. Rory pulled her jacket collar up, her shoulder-length black hair damp at the tips, and pushed through the heavy oak door of The Raven’s Nest. Inside, the atmosphere was a thick cocktail of stale hops, expensive tobacco, and the comforting, low-level thrum of jazz. Silas Blackwood was behind the bar, his grey-streaked auburn hair catching the amber glow of the backlights. He didn't look up immediately, but Rory saw his hand move—the silver signet ring on his right hand catching the light as he polished a highball glass with practiced, rhythmic precision. “You’re late for the delivery, Rory,” Silas said, his voice a gravelly baritone that commanded the space without raising its volume. “Yu-Fei called ten minutes ago. Said she’s got a batch of spring rolls that aren’t getting any crispier.” “The bike hit a slick on Charing Cross,” Rory said, shaking out her coat. She leaned against the mahogany bar, the wood cool beneath her palms. Her left wrist brushed the counter, the small crescent-shaped scar there a pale ghost against her skin. “London isn’t built for speed when it’s weeping.” Silas grunted, a short sound of acknowledgment. He walked toward the end of the bar, favoring his right side to compensate for the old injury in his left knee. He looked tired tonight, the lines around his hazel eyes etched deeper by the dim light of the tavern. “Drink’s on the house if you survive the night,” he muttered. Rory scanned the room, her gaze drifting over the old maps and the framed black-and-white photographs that lined the walls. It was a quiet crowd tonight—a few lonely suits, a couple whispering in the corner nook, and a man sitting alone at a small round table near the bookshelf that hid Silas's private office. The man was hunched over a tumbler of amber liquid, his shoulders tense. He wore a charcoal overcoat that looked like it cost more than Rory’s monthly rent. As if sensing her gaze, he turned. The air in Rory’s lungs turned to lead. “Rory?” The voice was familiar, yet stripped of the youthful arrogance she remembered. It was Evan. He had aged, though not in the way Silas had. Where Silas had grown into a weathered authority, Evan had polished himself until he was reflective. His hair was meticulously styled, his jawline sharper, his eyes restless. Rory didn’t move. She felt the old, cold instinct to flee—the same one that had driven her from Cardiff to London under the cover of a rainy night three years ago. But her feet remained planted on the sticky floorboards of the Nest. She wasn't that girl anymore, the one afraid of the shadow in the doorway. “Evan,” she said. Her voice was steady, a feat of engineering she was secretly proud of. “I didn't think... I heard you were in London, but I didn't think I’d find you here,” he said, standing up. He moved toward her with a tentative grace, hesitating a few feet away. “You look different.” “That’s usually what happens when time passes,” Rory said. She didn't invite him closer, but she didn’t back away. Evan glanced around the dim, map-covered room, his lip curling slightly in a way he probably thought was a smile. “A bar in Soho. Delivering for a Chinese place? Eva said you were doing well. She didn’t mention the... shift in career path.” “Eva keeps my secrets because she knows I’ll keep hers,” Rory replied. She felt Silas watching from the end of the bar. He wasn't looking at them directly, but he had stopped polishing the glass. The Spymaster was always listening. “What are you doing here, Evan? You hate the city. You used to say London was just a graveyard for people who couldn’t make it in the country.” Evan winced. It was a small, satisfying victory. “I’m here for a firm. Corporate restructuring. I’m a partner now.” “Congratulations,” she said, her tone as dry as the gin Silas kept on the top shelf. “You finally got the title you wanted. Does it fix everything?” He looked down at his drink, swirling the ice. “It doesn’t fix the quiet. Cardiff feels very empty these days. Your father still asks about you when I see him at the club. Brendan's been looking older. He misses the barrister he thought you’d become.” Rory felt the sharp prickle of resentment. She could picture her father, the Irish barrister with his booming voice and his expectations, sharing a drink with the man who had made her life a series of calculated retreats. The betrayal was old news, but it still had teeth. “My father misses a version of me that never existed,” Rory said. “He misses a projection. Just like you do.” Evan stepped closer, the smell of his expensive cologne—something woody and oppressive—clashing with the scent of rain and old wood. “Rory, I didn't come here to argue. I saw you through the window and I... I just wanted to see if you were still there. If the girl who used to read T.S. Eliot in the back of my car was still inside that black jacket.” Rory looked at him, really looked at him. She saw the desperation beneath the executive veneer. He was looking for a ghost to haunt, seeking a way to justify the wreckage he’d left behind in Wales. “That girl died in a flat on Richmond Road, Evan. You helped bury her.” She raised her left wrist, letting the sleeve of her jacket ride up just enough to show the crescent scar. It wasn't from him—it was from a fall out of a tree when she was seven—but she saw him look at it and see his own failures anyway. “The woman standing here is someone else. She’s smarter. She’s faster. And she doesn’t owe you a single syllable of her story.” The silence that followed was heavy, punctuated only by the clinking of ice and the distant roar of a bus on the street outside. Evan opened his mouth to speak—to apologize, to lie, to charm—but the words died in his throat. He looked at the maps on the wall, hundreds of routes leading away from this spot, and he realized he wasn't on any of them. “I should go,” he whispered. “You should,” Rory agreed. She watched him leave. He didn't look back as he stepped out into the neon green haze of the Soho rain. The door clicked shut, the sound final and hollow. For a moment, Rory just stood there, breathing in the scent of the Nest. She felt a phantom weight lift off her shoulders, an old shadow finally dissolving in the amber light. Silas slid a glass of dark liquid across the wood. It was a heavy, smoky Scotch, the kind he kept for himself. “He didn't look like he was here for the atmosphere,” Silas said, leaning against the back bar. “He was looking for a version of the past he could live with,” Rory said. She picked up the glass, the weight of it grounding her. “He couldn't find it.” Silas nodded slowly, his eyes reflecting the maps behind him. He knew all about searching for things that weren’t there anymore. He’d spent a career in the shadows, chasing ghosts across Europe until his knee gave out and the secrets became too heavy to carry. “The past is a terrible navigator, Rory,” Silas said softly. “It’ll tell you you’re lost when you’re exactly where you need to be.” Rory took a sip of the Scotch. It burned, clean and sharp, clearing the taste of the rainy street and the ghosts of Cardiff from her tongue. She looked at her reflection in the mirror behind the bar—her bright blue eyes were clear, her black hair framed a face that no longer looked for an exit. “I’m not lost, Silas,” she said, her voice finding its edges again. “I know,” he said, a ghost of a smile touching his beard. He tapped the silver signet ring on the counter twice. “Now, get those spring rolls to the customer before Yu-Fei decides to come down here and deliver them herself. You know how she gets about her ginger sauce.” Rory laughed, a short, genuine sound that startled a man at the far end of the bar. She set the glass down, zipped her jacket, and headed for the door. Outside, the green neon sign flickered, casting a steady pulse against the dark. She stepped out into the rain, her boots hitting the pavement with a certain, rhythmic weight. The city was still wet, still loud, and still indifferent, but as she kicked the stand up on her bike, Rory didn’t feel like she was running anymore. She was just moving forward.