Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQJSRKZHSZMJQ7N190MJWM

The green neon sign buzzed and flickered as Rory pushed through the door of The Raven's Nest, shaking rain from her jacket. The delivery bag slung over her shoulder was empty now, the last order dropped off at a flat in Covent Garden where a woman in a silk robe had tipped her three pounds and called her "love" in a way that made Rory feel both seen and invisible at once. She hadn't planned to stop in. The flat upstairs was waiting, with its radiator that clanked like a dying animal and the stack of library books she'd been meaning to return for two weeks. But the rain had picked up, and the warm amber light spilling through the Nest's windows looked like an invitation she couldn't refuse. Silas was behind the bar, polishing glasses with the careful attention of a man who'd spent decades noticing details others missed. He nodded at her as she came in, his hazel eyes tracking her path to her usual spot at the corner of the bar. "Rough night?" he asked, setting down a glass of water without being asked. "The usual." Rory pulled off her jacket and draped it over the stool beside her. "Mrs. Pemberton on Wardour Street complained again that the kung pao was too spicy. Yu-Fei's going to have my head." "Yu-Fei's been threatening to have someone's head for thirty years. She's all bark." Silas's silver signet ring caught the light as he reached for a bottle of whiskey. "Something stronger?" "Just the water for now. I'm—" The door opened behind her, letting in a gust of cold air and the sound of traffic from the street. Rory didn't turn around. People came and went from the Nest all evening, drawn by its promise of anonymity and Silas's legendary discretion. The old maps on the walls seemed to absorb secrets, and the black-and-white photographs of places that might have been anywhere watched over the proceedings with silent judgment. But then a voice cut through the low murmur of conversation, and everything in Rory went still. "Silas Blackwood. I'll be damned. They told me you'd retired." The voice was familiar in the way that a song from childhood is familiar—you don't remember the words, but your body remembers the feeling. Rory's fingers tightened around her glass as she turned on her stool. The woman standing in the doorway was tall, angular, dressed in a charcoal coat that probably cost more than Rory made in a month. Her dark hair was cropped short now, severe, a far cry from the wild curls that used to escape from every ponytail she attempted. But the eyes were the same. Sharp and knowing, the color of strong tea held up to the light. "Nina," Silas said, and there was something in his voice that made Rory's attention sharpen. "Been a long time." "Five years. Give or take." Nina stepped further into the bar, and her gaze swept the room with the practiced efficiency of someone cataloguing exits. Her eyes landed on Rory, slid past, then snapped back with the force of recognition. For a moment, neither of them moved. "Rory Carter." Nina's voice was flat, unreadable. "Of all the bars in all the world." "Nina." Rory heard herself say the name like it belonged to a stranger. In some ways, it did. The Nina she'd known—Nina Okonkwo, who'd lived two floors up in her residence hall at Cardiff, who'd taught her how to pick a lock with a hairpin and kissed her once at a house party before laughing it off as a joke—that Nina had worn threadbare jumpers and dreamed of becoming a human rights lawyer. This woman looked like she'd never worn anything threadbare in her life. "You two know each other," Silas said. It wasn't a question. "We did. Once." Nina moved to the bar, leaving one stool between herself and Rory. A careful distance. "Gin and tonic. Heavy on the gin." Silas made the drink without comment, his slight limp visible as he moved along the bar. Rory watched him, grateful for something to look at that wasn't Nina's face. "I heard you left Cardiff," Nina said, accepting her drink. "Didn't know you'd ended up in London." "There's a lot you don't know." "Clearly." Nina took a long sip, her eyes never leaving Rory's face. "You look different." "So do you." Rory gestured vaguely at Nina's coat, her haircut, the expensive watch glinting at her wrist. "Human rights law pay better than I thought?" Something flickered across Nina's face—too quick to identify, but Rory felt it like a change in air pressure. "I'm not in human rights anymore." "What are you in, then?" The pause stretched long enough that Silas moved to the other end of the bar, finding sudden interest in reorganizing bottles. He knew when to make himself scarce. It was one of the things Rory appreciated about him. "Consulting," Nina said finally. "Private sector." "That's vague." "It's meant to be." Rory traced the crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist—an old habit, comforting in its familiarity. "You used to hate vague. Used to say people who couldn't give a straight answer were either lying or didn't understand the question." "People change." "Do they?" Nina set down her glass with more force than necessary. "What do you want me to say, Rory? That I sold out? That I looked at the world and decided I'd rather be comfortable than righteous? You want me to apologize for growing up?" "I didn't ask you to apologize for anything." "You're looking at me like I kicked your dog." "I don't have a dog." "That's not—" Nina stopped, pressed her fingers to her temples. When she spoke again, her voice was quieter. "I didn't expect to see you. That's all. Threw me off balance." Rory nodded slowly. The rain was picking up outside, drumming against the windows. The old photographs on the walls seemed to lean in, listening. "You remember that night," she said carefully, "when we stayed up until four in the morning planning how we were going to change the world?" "We were drunk." "We were hopeful. There's a difference." Nina was quiet for a long moment. Her hand went to the collar of her coat, fidgeting with a button—a gesture Rory remembered from years ago, from exam seasons and difficult conversations and the night Nina had confessed that her father had never forgiven her for choosing law over medicine. "The world didn't want to be changed," Nina said at last. "Or at least, not by me. Not in the ways I wanted to change it." She paused. "I tried, Rory. For years, I tried. But you can only throw yourself at a wall so many times before you start looking for doors." "And consulting is a door?" "Consulting pays off my student loans and lets me sleep in a flat where the heating actually works." There was an edge to Nina's voice now, defensive. "Not all of us have the luxury of—" She stopped herself. "Of what?" "Nothing." "No, say it. The luxury of what?" Nina's jaw tightened. "Of holding onto idealism. Some of us had to make choices." "You think I didn't have to make choices?" Rory's voice came out sharper than she intended. The water in her glass trembled. "You think I'm delivering Chinese food at ten o'clock at night because it's my dream career? You think I left Cardiff because I wanted a change of scenery?" Something in Nina's expression shifted. "I heard rumors. About you and Evan." "Then you know I don't need lectures about difficult choices." The silence that followed was thick, uncomfortable. At the other end of the bar, Silas was conspicuously not looking at them, his attention fixed on the bookshelf against the back wall—the one that, Rory knew, hid a room where much stranger conversations than this one took place. "I should have called," Nina said quietly. "When I heard. I should have—" "It's fine." "It's not." "No. It's not." Rory picked up her glass, set it down again. "But it was three years ago, and I'm not the same person I was then. So maybe it doesn't matter anymore." Nina was watching her now with an expression Rory couldn't decipher. The sharp assessment was still there, but underneath it was something else—something that looked almost like grief. "The night of that party," Nina said slowly. "When I—" "Don't." "Rory—" "I said don't." Rory's voice was steady, but her hands weren't. She flattened them against the bar top, pressing down until her knuckles went white. "You laughed it off. That's fine. We were young, we were drunk, it didn't mean anything. But you don't get to bring it up now, five years and a new wardrobe later, and expect me to—" She stopped. Drew a breath. Started again. "I'm not angry at you for changing. People are allowed to change. But you're sitting here acting like I'm judging you, when really you're the one who decided I wasn't worth keeping in touch with. You made that choice, Nina. Not me." The rain continued outside. Someone laughed at a table near the window, oblivious to the weight of the conversation three meters away. Nina's hand moved toward Rory's, then stopped. Hovered in the space between them. "I was afraid," she said, so quietly Rory almost missed it. "Of what you'd think. Of who I was becoming. It was easier to let it fade than to explain." "Easier for who?" "For me. Obviously." Nina pulled her hand back, wrapped it around her glass. "I'm not pretending it was fair." Rory looked at her—really looked, past the expensive coat and the sharp haircut and the careful armor of success. Underneath it all, she could see the girl who'd once cried in a library stairwell because she'd gotten a B on a paper she'd worked on for weeks. The girl who'd believed so fiercely in justice that she'd once spent an entire weekend helping a stranger navigate the visa process, just because no one else would. That girl was still in there, somewhere. Buried, maybe. Changed, certainly. But not gone. "What are you doing in London?" Rory asked, and it was almost a peace offering. Nina's shoulders relaxed, just slightly. "Business meeting tomorrow. I'm staying at a hotel in Mayfair." She paused. "I didn't know you were here. I swear. I just—this place came up in an old file, and I thought—" "An old file?" Nina's mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "The private sector has interesting research methods." "That's still vague." "Baby steps." Rory felt something loosen in her chest—not forgiveness, not yet, but something adjacent to it. The possibility of forgiveness. The acknowledgment that they had both become people the other didn't fully recognize, and that maybe that was alright. "I get off work at midnight tomorrow," she heard herself say. "If you wanted to get coffee. Talk properly." Nina's eyebrows rose. "You'd want that?" "I don't know what I want. But I'm tired of regret. It's too heavy to keep carrying around." For a long moment, Nina just looked at her. Then she reached into her pocket, pulled out a card, and slid it across the bar. "My mobile's on there. In case you change your mind." She finished her drink in one long swallow, set the glass down with a soft click, and stood. Her hand brushed Rory's shoulder as she passed—a touch so light it might have been accidental. At the door, she paused. "For what it's worth," she said without turning around, "I never forgot that night. The party. Any of it." Then she was gone, disappearing into the rain-slicked street, and Rory was left staring at a business card with neat black letters and the weight of five years pressing against her ribs. Silas materialized at her elbow, silent as a ghost. He set down a glass of whiskey—the good stuff, she noticed—and said nothing at all. Rory picked up the glass, turned the card over in her free hand, and wondered if the people they'd been would recognize the people they'd become. The green neon sign buzzed overhead, patient as time itself, waiting for an answer that might never come.