Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQMHS9Z899AM2ARZDE9B7M

The green neon of The Raven’s Nest sputtered in the night air, a bruised circle of light against the brickwork of Soho. For Aurora Carter, the sign was less a destination than a familiar punctuation mark in a chaotic week. She pushed the heavy glass door open, the chime of a hundred stray thoughts scattering as the cool, acrid scent of stale tobacco and floor polish hit her. It was early for a Friday, which explained the emptiness of the bar. She slid onto a stool at the far end of the counter, away from the other few solitary figures shrouded in the gloom. She hadn’t meant to come here. She was supposed to be running errands after her shift at Golden Empress, but the migraine that had been throbbing behind her eyes since Cardiff felt amplified in the gloom of The Nest. She rested her elbows on the grain of the wood, watching the condensation bead on a glass coaster. She needed a whiskey. Not for the taste—she preferred tonic—but for the burn that might knock the headache into submission. "Top shelf. Keeping it on you?" The voice was deep, gravelly, filtered through years of smoke and something harder, more cynical. It stopped the blood in Aurora’s veins. She didn't turn around immediately. She knew that voice. She hadn't heard it in nearly a decade, since the summer before her final year of law school, a summer that had dissolved into a frantic, humid panic. Slowly, she turned. Silas Blackwood stood behind the mahogany counter. He was older than she remembered—much older. The sharp, earnest boy with the unruly dark hair was gone, replaced by a man who looked carved from weathered bone. His hair was now a steel-grey streak, cut short and neat to hide the thinning at the crown, and the beard was trimmed to a precise line that mirrored the map work pinned to the walls behind him. He wore a rolled-up flannel shirt, the sleeves revealing wrists as thick and pale as cane handles. But the eyes gave him away. Hazel, deeply set, tired. They still held that same quiet authority she remembered, though it was now heavy with the weight of decades. "You remembered," Aurora said. Her voice was steadier than she felt. "I usually order a tonic water these days. Too much law school induced sleep deprivation." Silas smiled, a faint, private gesture that didn't quite reach the corners of his eyes. He set a glass down and poured two fingers of Scotch. "I know everything about sleep deprivation, Rory. Or at least, I used to. My boss tells me it’s a biologically healthy amount of hours now." He slid the drink toward her. The glass clinked against the wood. "I remember when you used to talk about becoming a judge," Silas said, leaning back against the counter, his attention drifting toward the door as if expecting others. "You’d sit on these very stools with Eva, dissecting arguments while she ate her fries. You were so... certain." "Certainty is just a lack of information," Aurora said, raising the glass to her lips. The amber liquid burned, sharp and sweet. It was good. "It's gone now. I ran." "I know." "Did you know?" Aurora asked, turning fully to face him. She rested her chin in her palm, her left wrist—the small crescent-shaped scar that she had picked at in anxiety for years—visible against the dark fabric of her sweater. "Did you know I was leaving?" "I had my suspicions. Eva called me once, three years ago. She sounded terrified." A shiver, cold and visceral, went down Aurora’s spine. She looked down at her drink. She had forgotten Eva’s voice. She had buried so much of that summer in Cardiff that she had forgotten the cracks in the foundation, the gaslighting whispers of Evan that had saturated every room she walked into. "I shouldn't have left so fast," Aurora murmured. "I just... I ran to London like a rabbit. I changed my name. Rory. I took a job delivering food. I stopped talking to everyone." Silas’s expression softened, the lines of his face relaxing just a fraction. He reached into his pocket and retrieved a polishing cloth, though no glass was immediately in front of him. He stared at the cloth instead. "I didn't expect you to stay. I didn't expect you to run into something like this, either." "This" was a euphemism for the world Silas inhabited. Or rather, the world he had retreated from. Aurora had heard rumors. A spy. An operative. It sounded like the plot of a cheap novel, but looking at Silas, seeing the tension coiled in his shoulders, she realized how absurd it was to call it a novel. His life was grit and subterfuge, a life she had chosen to completely reject. "I’m not that girl anymore," Aurora said, a defensive edge creeping into her tone. She took another drink, needing the liquid courage to ask the question she had rehearsed a thousand times. "You look... different, Silas. You look tired. Is the business good?" "It pays the bills," he said. "And it keeps people out of the hotel room next door." He paused, looking at her over the rim of the glass he’d poured for himself. "Why The Nest, Rory? You could have gone anywhere. A diner on King's Road. A wine bar." A soft, humorless laugh escaped her. "Because it’s familiar. And because I couldn't face coming back to Cardiff. London is empty. It’s loud, but it’s empty." She gestured vaguely to the empty stools. "I’m just... I’m trying to survive. I work for Yu-Fei now. When I’m not on the bike, I’m lifting boxes. I didn't think coming here would make me feel so small." "You're not small," Silas said, his voice dropping an octave, losing the casual veneer. He reached out, his hand hovering for a moment before resting gently on her forearm. His grip was warm, dry, and surprisingly strong despite the evident frailty of his left leg. He gave a slight squeeze, checking her pulse, or perhaps just anchoring her. "You ran because you had to. That takes courage. You survived." Aurora looked at his hand on her arm. He noticed the scar on her wrist. He always had a sharp eye for details. "It hurts, you know," she confessed, her voice barely above a whisper. "The silence. I didn't realize how loud it would be." She looked up at him, her bright blue eyes searching his face for a truth she wasn't sure he wanted to give. "I thought about you a lot. I wondered where you were. I thought maybe you were exactly where you wanted to be." "I am," Silas said. "But it’s quiet. Maybe too quiet." He withdrew his hand and took a sip of his Scotch. The ice cubes clinked loudly in the relative silence. "I’m just a bartender now, Rory. And before that, I was a tourist in my own life. It gets... monotonous." "You were an intelligence operative," she stated, the pieces clicking into place with a heavy thud. She didn't ask how he knew, or how he had survived. She just knew. "Theoretically," Silas amended. "Theoretically." They sat in a comfortable, terrible silence for a while. The bar was settling down. The hum of the refrigerator became the loudest sound in the room. Aurora watched the dust motes dancing in the single beam of light coming from a bulb overhead. She felt the weight of the years pressing against her ribs, the physical manifestation of Evan’s grip on her neck finally loosening, replaced by the phantom touch of the years she had run. "Did you ever find him?" Silas asked, his gaze fixed on a spot on the wall map behind the bottles. "Evan." "No. I changed my phone number, moved three times, worked under false names for the delivery gig. I dropped off the grid enough that even you might have missed it." She managed a small smile. "Though, I suspect if I called from a burner phone, you’d pick it up within ten minutes." "I would." "I believe you." Silas turned to her then, his hazel eyes locking onto hers. There was a profound sadness there, mixed with a deep, abiding affection that made Aurora’s throat tighten. He looked at the woman she had become—the sharp edges, the scars, the weary posture—and saw something worth saving. "You can’t keep running forever, Aurora," he said softly. "You outran the shadows in Cardiff. But they follow you until you stop and face them." "I’m facing them," she lied. She wasn't. She was hiding in the safe, familiar shadows of a bar with an old friend. Silas nodded slowly, as if he heard the unspoken truth in her lie. He didn't call her on it. He simply reached under the bar and pulled out a small, velvet pouch. He slid it toward her. "What's this?" "A contact number. For someone I trust implicitly," Silas said. "No debts. No strings. Just a conversation if you need one. A legal opinion. Or maybe just a place to sit if you don't want to come back to that flat above the bar tonight." Aurora stared at the pouch. It was soft, expensive. She thought of the tiny, cramped room she shared, the sound of sirens wailing outside. "I don't want to ask for help," she whispered. "You’re not asking," Silas said firmly. "You’re taking it. It’s on the house." She reached out and took it. The velvet was cool against her fingers. She placed it in her pocket, right against the scar on her wrist. "Thank you," she said. Silas finished his drink and set the glass down. He grabbed the polishing cloth again, wiping a spot on the counter that wasn't even dirty. "Get some rest, Laila. Try not to think about what you left behind. Just think about the next delivery." "Aurora," she corrected gently. "I know," Silas said. He looked at her for a long moment, the limping tension in his leg shifting as he stood up straighter, armor back in place. "Goodbye, Aurora Carter." "Goodbye, Silas," she replied. She watched him walk away, his step uneven but deliberate, disappearing into the dimness of the back room. She finished her drink in one long pull, the burn expanding in her chest, warming the cold fear that had been keeping her awake. The neon sign outside hummed, a green heartbeat in the London night, and for the first time in years, Aurora Carter didn't feel entirely alone.