Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQM16KZ5F9SKP7NWFEBGF7

The rap on the door was sharp, deliberate. Three quick strikes, a pause, then three more, a rhythm that was less a summoning and more a demand. Aurora Carter, her nose buried in a crumbling text on Etruscan funerary rites, froze. It was nearly midnight. Eva was away at a conference in Oxford. No one else knew where she was staying, not really. Not anymore. Her heart gave a familiar, unwelcome thud. She slid off the stool, the legs scraping against the worn floorboards, and padded to the door. The three deadbolts were a heavy, reassuring weight under her fingers. She didn’t bother with the peephole; the distorted fish-eye lens never showed you the whole picture. Instead, she pressed her ear to the cool wood, listening. Silence. Then, the faint, almost imperceptible shift of weight from one expensive leather shoe to another. She knew that stance. Knew the contained impatience it signalled. Her breath hitched. It couldn’t be. It shouldn’t be. With a hand that wasn’t quite steady, she drew the first bolt, then the second, then the third. The click of the final lock echoed in the small flat like the cocking of a gun. She pulled the door open just a crack, the safety chain taut. He stood in the dingy hallway, a slash of impeccable charcoal against the peeling paint. Lucien Moreau. The light from the single bare bulb caught the slicked-back platinum of his hair, turning it to a halo of cold fire. He looked exactly as he had six months ago, and entirely different. There was a new weariness around his mouth, a subtle tension in the set of his shoulders that his tailored suit couldn’t quite hide. His ivory-handled cane rested lightly in his gloved right hand. His eyes found hers through the gap. One amber, one black. Two conflicting suns pulling her into their respective orbits. The sight of them was a physical blow, a current, old and unwelcome, zipping up her spine. “Aurora,” he said. His voice, a low, smooth baritone with the ghost of a French accent, curled through the air like smoke. He always used her full name. A formality that felt both intimate and dismissive. “What do you want, Lucien?” Her own voice was flat, stripped of any inflection. She was proud of that. Cool-headed, that’s what Eva called her. Intelligent. Quick-thinking. She was thinking, all right. She was thinking of all the ways this could end badly. “I believe that is a conversation best had without a chain between us.” He gestured with the cane, a minute, elegant movement. “Unless you enjoy the aesthetic of a cheap thriller.” Rory’s jaw tightened. She hated that he could still get under her skin with so little effort. Hated that a part of her, a traitorous, stupid part, was thrumming with a dangerous energy at his mere presence. She closed the door, slid the chain free, and opened it again, wider this time. She didn’t step back, forcing him to acknowledge the boundary she was drawing in her own doorway. He didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he didn’t care. He moved past her, a whisper of expensive wool and a scent she couldn’t place—sandalwood and ozone, something clean and electric. His gaze swept over the flat, taking in the teetering stacks of books, the scrolls unfurled across every available surface, the faint, greasy-sweet aroma of the curry house downstairs that had permeated every fiber of the place. A tabby cat, Ptolemy, who had been dozing on a pile of maps, lifted his head, hissed once, a low, guttural sound of pure disdain, and vanished under the sofa. “Charming,” Lucien murmured, his lips quirking into a faint, ironic smile. “Still playing librarian to the lost and damned, I see.” “It pays the bills,” Rory said, shutting the door with a solid thud. She leaned against it, crossing her arms. A defensive posture. She knew it, and she knew he knew it. “And you’re still… you. What do you want?” He turned his full attention back to her, and the weight of it was immense. He studied her, from her messy bun to the old Cardiff University sweatshirt she wore, his gaze lingering on the small, crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist where her sleeve had ridden up. A flicker of something unreadable in his mismatched eyes. “You look tired,” he said. “I was working. Unlike some people, I don’t get to delegate.” The barb was childish, but she couldn’t help it. He brought out a spite in her she thought she’d left behind with Evan. A different kind of toxicity, but poison all the same. “Ah, yes. The noble life of the delivery cyclist. Braving the London traffic for Master Cheung’s finest.” He began to walk a slow, deliberate perimeter of the main room, the tip of his cane making soft, rhythmic taps on the floor. He ran a gloved finger over a stack of books, leaving no dust. “You’ve fallen far, Aurora. From a potential barrister to this. Hiding in a friend’s flat, surrounded by… paper.” “I’m not hiding. I’m living.” She pushed off the door, her own anger starting to crystallize. “And what I do is none of your concern. You made that perfectly clear the last time we spoke.” That stopped him. He turned to face her, the faint smile gone. The amber eye seemed to glow with a faint inner light. “The last time we spoke, you were throwing a glass at my head. I believe my concern was for the crystal.” “You deserved it.” The memory was raw. The cold hotel room, the scent of rain on the windowpane, his casual, devastating words. *This was a diversion, Aurora. An amusing one, but that’s all. My world is not for you.* He was silent for a long moment, the only sound the distant wail of a siren on Brick Lane. “Perhaps I did,” he said, his voice quieter now, stripped of its performative polish. “But that is not why I am here.” “Then why?” she demanded, her frustration boiling over. “Why show up here, after six months? Why now, Lucien?” “Because there is something you need to know.” He took a step toward her, closing the distance between them. The air grew thick, charged. She could feel the heat radiating from him, a stark contrast to the chill of the flat. “Someone is asking questions about you. About your friend Eva. About the… research.” Rory’s blood ran cold. “What kind of someone?” “The kind that doesn’t send flowers. They are connected. Old blood. They believe your friend has something that belongs to them.” He was close now, close enough that she could see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes, the subtle difference in texture between the pale skin of his face and the faint, darker shadow along his jawline. “I am telling you this as a courtesy.” “A courtesy?” she scoffed, though her heart was hammering against her ribs. “You don’t do courtesies. You do transactions. What’s the price, Lucien?” He lifted his hand, not quite touching her. His fingers, still gloved in black leather, hovered just beside her cheek. She could feel the warmth of them through the air. She fought the urge to flinch, to lean into it, to do anything at all. She was paralyzed, caught between the memory of his touch and the reality of his betrayal. “No price,” he said softly, his gaze dropping to her mouth. “Not for this. Just… be careful, Aurora. The games you and your friend are playing, they have real consequences. There are things in this city that would see you as little more than a fleeting amusement. A snack to be consumed.” His black eye seemed to swallow the light in the room, a tiny, perfect void. “Not all of us are so restrained.” The words hung between them, a threat and a warning wrapped in intimacy. It was the closest he’d ever come to acknowledging what he was, what that half of his heritage meant. It was the closest he’d ever come to admitting he cared. She finally found her voice, a raw, shaky thing. “Why should I believe you?” He let his hand fall, the moment broken. He took a step back, the mask of the impeccably dressed fixer sliding back into place. “You shouldn’t,” he said, his tone once again cool, detached. “But you will. You’re too smart not to.” He turned and walked to the door, his movements fluid and graceful. He paused with his hand on the knob, looking back at her over his shoulder. “Lock the door, Aurora,” he said. “All three bolts.” And then he was gone, the click of the latch echoing in the sudden, cavernous silence. Rory stood frozen in the middle of the room, the scent of sandalwood and ozone still clinging to the air. Ptolemy crept out from under the sofa, gave a cautious sniff in the direction of the door, and then wound himself around her legs, purring. Slowly, Rory raised a hand to her cheek, touching the place his fingers had almost been. The skin was cold. She felt anything but.