Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQWNTBFQR6D1RFGABBMYMW

Aurora Carter paused beneath the restless glow of the green neon, its light pooling over her leather satchel and the hem of her coat like a promise she wasn’t sure she wanted to keep. The Raven’s Nest looked smaller than she remembered, its windows clouded with decades of Soho secrets, the old maps framed crooked on the interior walls. She lifted one hand to the scar on her left wrist—a pale crescent she traced as though it might guide her inside. Through the door, the muffled hum of conversation and the clink of glass spilled into the chill night air. Rory’s boots thudded across the worn floorboards; she scanned the bar, heart thundering against her ribs. The low light revealed faces half-veiled in shadow. Every stool was taken except one, nearest the battered mahogany counter. Behind it, Silas Blackwood polished a tulip glass with deliberate strokes. His grey-streaked auburn hair caught the neon’s glow, each thread silvered by time. He straightened, caught the glass at the rim, and set it down so evenly it might never move. For a moment, neither spoke—an ocean of years and unsaid words brimming between them. “Rory?” His voice carried the same quiet authority she’d known since she was twenty, but tonight it trembled. She inhaled, lifting her chin. “Silas.” The name felt raw on her tongue. She closed the distance in three measured steps. He rubbed the back of his neck, the movement betraying an ache beyond his limp—yet the limp was there too, a slight hitch in his left leg as he rose. Silver signet ring caught a shard of neon as he held out a hand. Rory hesitated, then clasped it; his grip was as solid as she remembered, like an anchor she’d drifted away from. “You’re back,” he said. She swallowed. “I was. I—” She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “I never properly said goodbye.” Silas’s eyes flicked to the scar at her wrist. “You moved out of the flat three years ago. I thought you went to Cardiff.” She shook her head. “I… I went east. Berlin, Prague, Marseille. I never stayed long enough to unpack.” The words tumbled free, rusty and awkward. “Eva’s wedding was the last time I was in the city. After that, I chased work—translation gigs, teaching English, bartending in Berlin. I didn’t know how to tell you I was leaving, so I just left.” The bar fell silent except for the soft hiss of the neon sign and a low murmur from a corner table. Silas gestured to the stool beside her. She slid onto it, half-expecting him to turn away. He didn’t. He poured two measures of whiskey, the amber liquid catching the light. He set one glass before her and lifted his own. “To the woman who ghosted me.” She managed a crooked smile. “I was terrible at goodbyes.” He nodded once. “And I was equally terrible at letters.” He swirled the whiskey. “I got your postcard from Prague. A picture of the Astronomical Clock. I saved it. But after that… nothing.” She stared at the glass in her hands, centered in her palms like a fragile globe. “I thought you’d be disappointed.” Her voice shook. “I thought you’d—” “Think less of you?” he finished. “Doesn’t work that way, Rory.” He leaned back on the bar, one elbow propped like a question. “I worried someone had knocked you off a bike or worse.” Her throat tightened. “I’m okay.” She managed to meet his hazel gaze. “I made it back, didn’t I?” He half-smiled. “Here you are.” He turned to the shelves behind him, running a hand across a row of dusty bottles. Then he picked up a framed photograph, wiped the glass with his thumb, and slid it across to her. In the black-and-white image, a younger Silas in a field of tall grass, pistol holstered at his hip. A soldier’s posture, no hint of the bar owner he’d become. “I took that in Prague,” he said. “Before the knee blew out.” He paused. “I had plans then.” She traced the image, feeling the weight of it. “We both had plans.” She looked up. “I’m sorry I never told you what happened there.” She nodded toward the photo. “Why you left MI6.” He shrugged, loose and easy. “That year was full of surprises.” He set the photo aside. “So. You lived in Berlin. Taught English. Bartended. Why tonight? Why here?” She exhaled, slow as winter rain. “I got a letter from my mom. She asked about you.” She paused, blinked. “She still teaches history in Cardiff. She said someone mentioned The Raven’s Nest—some tourist telling stories about a retired spymaster in Soho. She got curious.” Silas’s brow lifted. “Your mother never cared for maps.” He tapped the photo. “She sees maps on the walls here and—” “She texts me every Monday with a new fact she learned,” Rory said. “She wrote that she missed having you around when I showed up with that stupid grin on my face, like I’d just discovered the world—and that I’d brought the world into her living room.” Silas chuckled, slow and warm. “You were eighteen. You had that same grin when you found a hidden compartment in a museum display. Still have it?” Rory pressed her palms to her cheeks, hiding a laugh. “It hasn't left.” They sipped in silence. Rory let the warmth spread, unknotted some of the tension she’d carried since stepping through the door. She let herself absorb the bar’s low lamplight, the smell of malt and lemon rind, the hush of laughter from patrons who parted to give them space. Silas cleared his throat. “Time changes things,” he said quietly. “I thought when you left, you’d come back smarter, sharper. You did. But different isn’t worse.” She stared down at her glass. “I’ve done things I’m proud of. I’ve done things I regret.” She looked up, her bright blue eyes glinting. “One regret: I left without telling you the truth about Evan.” Silas stilled, and Rory felt his memory dredge up that chapter—Evan. The man who broke her heart and bruised more than that. Silas had been there after the fight. He’d patched her up, patched her up again. And she’d fled without thanks. He raised an eyebrow. “Tell me.” She exhaled hard. “I found him in Paris. He… he hadn’t changed. I stayed long enough to realize I was chasing ghosts of my own making.” She laughed, bitter. “I thought if I outran him—” “He’d stop following you.” Silas nodded. “But some things you carry inside.” She dropped her gaze. “I lost my job in Marseille. I spent months broke, sleeping on couches. I thought—I thought if I proved I could handle it alone, I’d prove something to myself. Instead I proved how much I needed people who cared.” Silas folded his hands on the bar. “You always thought you had to be invincible.” His words hit her like a winter gale. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. “I was terrified of being a burden.” He looked at her, clear and unblinking. “You weren’t. Not then. Not ever.” Rory’s throat closed. She cleared it. “I’m sorry I vanished.” Silas’s ring caught the neon again as he lifted his glass. “To apologies.” He drank. She mirrored him. “To starting over.” They set down their glasses together. Outside, the neon flickered, whispering of streets that never slept. Inside, the bar exhaled with them—worn benches, scuffed floorboards, the haunted maps and photographs that had watched them grow up and scatter like birds. Rory settled deeper onto the stool. “Drink?” “Just water for you,” he said. Then he turned and grabbed a bottle from the shelf—nothing marked, the label peeled. He poured pale liquid into a tumbler. “Better than nothing.” She inhaled the scent: crisp, cold, honest. She raised her glass. “I missed this.” Silas offered a faint curve of a smile. “I kept your stool warm.” They drank together, two old friends who had carried the weight of unspoken years between them, finally setting it down like a burden surrendered at last. And in the hush that followed, Rory understood the shape of time—how it pressed until it broke you, and how it might still bend toward grace if you had the courage to return.