Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQKH499CJ50DYWZD1E98AS

The green neon sign of The Raven’s Nest blinked unevenly above the Soho street, its fractured light dripping like emerald blood onto the rain-slick pavement. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of aged wood, damp wool, and the faintest undercurrent of gin. A jazz trumpet hummed low from the corner speaker, a muted lament for something never quite named. At the back booth, half-hidden in shadow, Silas Blackwood turned the silver signet ring on his right hand between his fingers, the habitual gesture grounding him as he watched the door. The bell jingled. Cold air rushed in, followed by a woman wrapped in a long wool coat soaked at the shoulders. Her dark hair hung flat from the rain, framing a face that for a split second made Silas’s breath catch. She paused just inside, stamping snow from her boots, her bright blue eyes scanning the room with a practiced wariness. Then they landed on him. His name didn’t come right away. Not at first. “Rory?” Silas said, voice low, like he was testing the shape of the word after years of disuse. She blinked. Then—slowly, as if the recognition were rising through layers of sediment—a smile touched her lips. Not the wide, reckless grin he remembered from her twenties, the one that used to light up every room between Exeter and Camden. This one was thinner. Sharper. Guarded. “Silas,” she said, stepping forward. “I wouldn’t have believed it if you’d told me I’d find you behind a bar.” “I wouldn’t have believed you’d deliver for one,” he replied, standing. He felt the familiar pull in his left knee, the old wound protesting. But he walked toward her anyway, closing the distance. They didn’t embrace. Just a lingering look, a hand briefly on her arm. “You look—” he started. “Older,” she finished. “You look like you’ve lived ten lives,” he said instead. “And survived most of them.” She chuckled, the sound warm but faint, like a heater struggling in winter. “Something like that.” He guided her toward the booth, offering the seat across from him. She shrugged off her coat, revealing a plain black sweater and jeans. When she sat, she tucked her left wrist under the table, a small, unconscious motion. Silas noticed. “You always did hate showing that scar,” he said. Her hand stilled beneath the wood. “You remember that?” “Hard to forget,” he said. “You were ten. Fell off the wall at St David’s. Screamed like you’d lost the whole hand.” “I did lose the hand,” she said dryly. “For about a week, wrapped up in gauze and my mother’s guilt.” They shared a quiet laugh, the first real one of the night. For a moment, it was easy—two old friends resurfacing from time’s undertow. But then the silence returned, heavier than before. “You’ve changed,” he said. “So have you,” she replied. “Still working cases?” “No,” he said. “Retired. Officially, anyway.” He tapped the ring. “Old habits. The bar keeps me busy.” “You always liked shadows,” she said. “Even when MI6 didn’t.” His gaze sharpened. “And you? Last I heard, you were studying law in Cardiff.” “That plan’s been on life support for a while,” she said, tracing a groove in the table with her thumbnail. “I left. Ran. Ended up in London. Delivering dumplings for Yu-Fei’s place on Chinatown Lane. Pays the rent.” Silas studied her. There was a distance in her eyes now, a kind of stillness he hadn’t seen when she used to stay up till three debating philosophy with Eva or sketching conspiracy theories on napkins after too much wine. “And your friend?” he asked carefully. “Eva?” “Gone,” Rory said. “Moved to Berlin. Works in digital security now. Sends postcards. No return address.” Silas nodded. He didn’t press. He knew the language of people who’d slipped between the cracks. He’d spent a career decoding it. “And Evan?” The name slipped out before he could stop it. Rory’s hand twitched under the table. “What about him?” “He ever find you?” Her laugh was brittle. “You sound like you know the answer.” Silas leaned back. “I know someone who knows someone who saw a bloke asking around Shoreditch last spring. Said he was looking for a girl who used to wear her hair in braids and quote Voltaire when drunk.” Rory’s expression didn’t change. But her foot, visible beneath the table, stopped its quiet tapping. “You kept tabs,” she said. “I keep an eye,” Silas corrected. “Not the same thing. You were Eva’s friend. She asked me to.” Rory looked away, toward the wall of black-and-white photographs. Soldiers. Diplomats. A woman in a trench coat boarding a train in Prague. Her gaze lingered on it. “You really walked away?” she asked. “From the Service? Yes. From certain habits? Not entirely.” He paused. “I used to think I’d regret it. The knee, the extraction, the loss of purpose. But then I realized—sometimes the quiet life isn’t an ending. It’s a second chance.” She turned back to him. “And what if you don’t deserve that?” The question hung like smoke. Silas didn’t answer right away. Instead, he signaled the bartender—a young man with a sleeve of tattooed raven wings—and ordered two glasses of single malt. When they arrived, he slid one toward her. “You ever hear from your father?” he asked. Rory took a slow sip. “Once. A letter. After Mum died. Said I was breaking his heart by disappearing.” “And were you?” She looked at him then, really looked—her eyes bright, unflinching. “I was saving it,” she said. “And mine.” Silas exhaled through his nose, a quiet, knowing sound. The rain drummed against the windows. The trumpet in the jazz piece spiraled into a high, aching note. After a long silence, Rory said, “I thought I’d come back one day. Visit. Tell you I was okay. But time slips. And shame grows roots.” “You weren’t okay?” he asked. She turned her wrist over slowly, exposing the crescent-shaped scar. “I’m not broken,” she said. “But I’m not whole.” Silas reached across the table, not to touch her, but to rest his hand near hers. The signet ring caught the dim light. “You don’t have to be,” he said. “You just have to be here.” Her throat moved. For the first time that night, something fragile flickered in her gaze. Outside, the neon sign flickered again. Green. Then dark. Then green. Like a pulse. “I should go,” she said. “My shift starts early.” He nodded. Didn’t stop her. She stood, pulled her coat around her, and paused. “The secret room still there?” “Behind the Churchill biography,” he said. She almost smiled. “Still keeping the world’s secrets in a bookshelf?” “Someone has to.” She nodded once. Then stepped forward and pressed a quick, unexpected kiss to his cheek. “Good to see you, Silas.” “You too, Rory.” She walked toward the door, coat flapping slightly at the hem. When she opened it, the cold air rushed in once more, swirling snowflakes into the warm dimness. Silas watched until the door clicked shut. Then he looked down at the table. Where her glass had been, she’d left something beneath it—a delivery receipt, folded twice, with a number scrawled in the corner in blue ink. Not hers. His phone buzzed. A message from an unregistered line: *He’s here. Saw him near King’s Cross. Tall. Coat like mine. Says he’s looking for a girl who runs.* Silas stared at the note. Then slowly, deliberately, he slipped it into his pocket. Outside, the neon sign flickered on. And the city kept its silence.