Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQPJMW17MSHKD3KS02VP7E

The top deadbolt gave a heavy, metallic click, followed by the dry scrape of the second and the stiff snap of the third. Rory kept her hand on the handle, her thumb tracing the small, crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist—a nervous habit she hadn’t managed to shake since arriving in London. She expected Eva, windblown and frantic with some new occult discovery, or perhaps the delivery driver from the pharmacy. She did not expect Lucien Moreau. He stood in the narrow, dimly lit hallway of the Brick Lane tenement like a predatory bird perched in a pigeon coop. His tailored charcoal suit was immaculate, a sharp contrast to the peeling floral wallpaper behind him. One hand rested atop his ivory-handled cane, the grip smoothed by years of use, while the other hung relaxed at his side. He didn’t look like a man who had spent months in silence; he looked like he’d stepped out of a boardroom in Avaros. "Rory," he said. His voice was a low, resonant baritone that still carried the faint, rhythmic lilt of Marseille. Rory felt the breath leave her lungs in a slow, painful hiss. She didn’t move. She didn’t invite him in. She simply stared into his heterochromatic eyes—the amber one glowing with a faint, infernal warmth, the black one as bottomless and cold as a winter sea. "You look well," he added, his gaze sweeping over her shoulder-length black hair and the oversized jumper she’d borrowed from Eva’s closet. "The city agrees with you." "The city is loud, it smells like curry, and I’m currently three hours behind on a transcription for a barrister who thinks I’m a redundant failure," Rory said, her voice steadier than her heart. "What are you doing here, Lucien?" "May I come in? It's hardly the place for the conversation we need to have." "We don't need to have a conversation. We had our conversation six months ago in that godforsaken warehouse. You told me the deal was closed. You told me to run." Lucien dithered for a fraction of a second, a crack in his polished veneer. "I told you to run because it was safe. Not because I wanted you gone." Rory gripped the edge of the door. "Same thing in your world, isn't it? Get out of the line of fire. Don't look back." A heavy weight hit the back of Rory’s calves. Ptolemy, the tabby cat comfortably residing in the flat's chaos, wound himself around her ankles, purring loudly. He looked up at Lucien, narrowed those golden feline eyes, and let out a soft chirrup of recognition. "Even the cat remembers me," Lucien murmured. "The cat likes anyone who smells like expensive leather and bad intentions," Rory shot back. But she stepped aside. She couldn't very well stand in the doorway all night, and the curiosity—that sharp, dangerous intelligence that had always been her greatest weakness—demanded to know why the most dangerous fixer in London was standing on a floor that smelled of turmeric and old paper. Lucien crossed the threshold, his cane tapping rhythmically against the hardwood. He navigated the cramped living room with a strange, liquid grace, avoiding the stacks of scrolls and research notes that cluttered every available surface. He stopped by the window, looking out at the neon glow of Brick Lane, his silhouette sharp against the glass. Rory closed the three deadbolts with deliberate, clicking finality. "Sit. Or don't. Just tell me why you're breaking the silence now." Lucien turned. The light from a nearby desk lamp caught the platinum blonde of his hair, casting long shadows across the planes of his face. He looked older, she realized. There were new lines of weariness around his eyes. "The situation in the Underworld has shifted," he said, stepping toward her. "The factions are moving, Rory. They’re looking for the catalyst. They’re looking for you." "I'm a delivery girl for the Golden Empress, Luc. I bring dim sum to people who don't tip. I’m not a catalyst for anything." "You are Malphora's chosen, whether you accept the title or not," he said, his voice dropping an octave. He was close now, close enough that she could smell the scent that haunted her dreams—sandalwood, rain, and something metallic, like the edge of a blade. "I spent six months making sure your trail was cold. I lied to my father’s kin. I burned bridges in Avaros that took me a century to build. I did it so you could live this… this quiet, mundane life." Rory felt a flash of heat in her chest. She took a step forward, invading his space just as he had invaded hers. "I didn't ask you to. I didn't ask for your protection, Lucien. I asked for your honesty. And instead, you vanished. You let me think you were dead, or worse, that you’d just grown bored of the human girl who didn't know how to wield the power she was born with." Lucien’s hand reached out, the ivory handle of his cane clicking against the floor as he leaned it against a stack of books. His fingers hovered near her jaw, hesitant, before he finally brushed a strand of black hair behind her ear. His touch was electric, a sudden, jolting reminder of the nights they’d spent hiding in the shadows of Cardiff, planning a future that felt like a fairytale. "Bored of you?" he whispered. "Rory, I have lived for thirty-two years in this skin and a hundred more in the echoes of my father's realm. Nothing has ever been less boring than you." "Then why stay away?" Her voice broke, just a little. "Why let me look over my shoulder every time I left the restaurant? I thought Evan had found me. I thought your enemies were coming for me. I was alone." "You were never alone," he said, his heterochromatic eyes searching hers with a desperate intensity. "I was in the shadows of every street you walked. I was the reason the men following you from the docks never reached your door. I was the ghost in your machine, Rory. But I couldn't reach out. If they saw me with you, the protection would have failed. They would have known you were my heart." The word hung in the air, heavy and impossible. *Heart.* Lucien Moreau, the man who brokered secrets and bled black blood, didn't have a heart. Or so he liked to tell everyone. Rory looked down at his hand, then back up at his face. The anger was still there, a simmering coal, but the hurt was beginning to dissolve into something more familiar, more terrifying. The magnetic pull between them hadn't faded; if anything, the distance had only made the gravity stronger. "You’re a liar," she said, though her hand found the lapel of his charcoal suit. "In all things but this," he replied. He leaned in, the movement slow and deliberate, giving her every chance to push him away, to point to the door, to tell him to go back to the darkness where he belonged. Rory didn’t move. She tilted her head back, her pulse thrumming against her throat. When his lips finally met hers, it wasn't the tentative reunion of a romance novel. It was a collision. It was months of resentment and longing crashing together in a cramped flat above a curry house. Lucien tasted of salt and something ancient, his hands sliding into her hair to hold her steady as he kissed her with a starved kind of ferocity. Rory groaned into his mouth, her fingers digging into the expensive fabric of his coat. She hated how easily she folded for him. She hated that his half-demon nature made him feel like a wildfire she wanted to walk into. But mostly, she hated that she felt safe for the first time since she’d left Cardiff. Lucien pulled back just a few inches, his forehead resting against hers. His breathing was ragged, a sound she’d rarely heard from the composed Frenchman. "I shouldn't have come," he rasped. "My presence here puts you at risk." "You're already here," Rory said, her eyes bright blue and defiant. "The door is triple-locked, Lucien. And if you think I’m letting you walk out that door again without a better explanation than 'the factions are moving,' you've forgotten who you’re talking to." Lucien looked around the small, cluttered room—the scrolls, the cat, the life she’d built out of the wreckage he’d left behind. A small, bittersweet smile touched his lips. "I haven't forgotten," he said. "You're the girl who outsmarted a Duke of Avaros with a legal loophole and a stolen car. I could never forget you." He reached down, picking up his cane, but he didn't move toward the door. Instead, he moved toward the small kitchen alcove, looking at the kettle. "Will you stay?" she asked, her voice quiet. Lucien looked at her, his amber eye glowing with a soft, protective light. "Only if you want me to. And only if you have something better than that instant tea Eva keeps in the cupboard." Rory felt a laugh bubbled up in her chest, a sharp, relief-filled sound. "I work for a Chinese restaurant, Luc. I have the good stuff. But it’s going to cost you." "Name your price," he said, the fixer returning to his element. "The truth," she said, stepping toward him. "Every bit of it. No more shadows, no more ghosts. If we’re doing this—if you’re back—we do it together." Lucien watched her for a long moment, the weight of his worlds pressing down on his shoulders. Then, he inclined his head in a slow, respectful bow. "Together, then. Until the end of the world, or at least until the sun comes up over Brick Lane." As the kettle began to hiss, Ptolemy leapt onto the table, settling himself on a stack of ancient scrolls as if presiding over the truce. Outside, the sirens of London wailed, but inside the flat, for the first time in six months, the silence felt less like a void and more like a beginning.