AI By the time Rory wrestles the third deadbolt free, whoever’s on the other side is pounding like the building’s on fire.
She yanks the door open with a sharp, “All right, keep your—”
The rest dies in her throat.
Lucien Moreau fills the doorway like he owns it. Of course he does. Even half-drenched from the Brick Lane drizzle, he looks like he stepped out of a glossy magazine—charcoal suit clinging sharper than razor blades, platinum hair slicked back and beaded with rain, ivory-handled cane resting easy in his gloved hand.
He’s the picture of control, as always. Except for the eyes.
One amber, one black, both fixed on her like he’s been starving.
“Aurora,” he says, low and smooth, with that liquid French undertone that once turned her brain into porridge at the worst possible times. “Bonsoir.”
She stands there, fingers still curled around the door, hand braced white-knuckled on the top lock. Her heart stutters once, then slams into a sprint that feels almost insulting. She’d worked hard to Pavlov that reaction out of herself.
“Lucien.” Her voice comes out cool, even, the way she trained it. “Bloody hell.”
He lifts a brow. “I am many things, chérie, but I assure you hell has much worse taste in suits.”
“You turned up at Eva’s place,” she snaps. “Unannounced. At nine-thirty at night. What did you expect me to say?”
His mouth curves, half-smile, half-apology. She hates that she can tell the difference.
“I had hoped,” he says, “for ‘come in, you are letting out all the heat.’ But I have learned to live with disappointment.”
Behind Rory, a soft thump sounds as Ptolemy lands off the sofa and pads toward the hallway to investigate. The air from the curry house below seeps up around them—cumin, frying onions, cardamom—mixing with wet pavement and Lucien’s expensive cologne. The old stairwell light flickers behind him, throwing his narrow face into brief shadow.
Rory’s brain finally kicks into gear.
“What are you doing here,” she says, not a question so much as a demand.
His eyes flick past her shoulder, taking in the cluttered chaos of Eva’s books and scrolls spilling off every surface. “You are alone?”
“Answer the question, Lucien.”
That gets her a flash of something across his face—annoyance, faint, smoothed away almost at once. He wraps his knuckles lightly against the doorframe, an old habit of his when he’s calculating .
“I need to speak with you,” he says. “Privately.”
Rory snorts. “Pass.”
She goes to shut the door. His hand shoots out, palm flat against the wood, cane angled harmlessly away. He doesn’t shove, doesn’t even really resist. Just touches the door, the smallest pressure keeping it from closing.
“Rory.” He doesn’t use her given name often. Doesn’t let it soften like that on his tongue. “If this were…social, I would have sent a bottle. Or three.”
“Your last bottle came with a pack of hungry vampires,” she says. “Forgive me if I don’t leap at the chance for a sequel.”
Ptolemy winds around her ankles, tails flicking, then leans forward to sniff at Lucien’s shoe. Rory watches, waiting for the cat to hiss, puff up, do something sensible.
Instead, Ptolemy purrs. Loudly.
“Traitor,” Rory mutters at the cat.
Lucien makes a quiet, pleased sound and crooks two fingers. Ptolemy, the fickle little beast, abandons Rory entirely to rub shamelessly against Lucien’s trouser leg.
He looks back up at her. His eyes do that dissecting thing, stripping her down to pieces. Her hair scraped into a low knot; her faded university hoodie stained with takeaway sauce; bare legs because she hadn’t bothered with joggers while sorting Eva’s notes. She feels suddenly , viscerally underdressed.
His gaze snags on her left wrist, where the sleeve has ridden up and the crescent scar shows pale against her skin. For the barest moment, something like concern passes over his features.
“It is not safe to discuss in the hallway,” he says softly . “And I would be…very inconvenient…to kill out here. Neighbours, witnesses, all that.”
“Kill you?” She exhales, derisive. “Don’t tempt me.”
“Chérie.” His mouth tilts, rueful this time. “You are the one person I am quite certain does not want me dead.”
“And you’re the one person I’m quite certain enjoys being wrong.”
They hang there, balanced on the edge of the open door. Rain patters on the stairwell window. Somewhere below, a kitchen exhaust fan rattles to life. Her hand has not moved from the lock. His hasn’t moved from the door.
He breaks the stalemate.
“In Marseille, we at least invite our enemies inside before we argue,” he says. “London is so…drafty.”
Against her better judgment, her lips twitch. Stupid. Stupid that he can still do that, scrape a laugh out of her even when she wants to slam the door in his face.
“Five minutes,” she says, more to herself than to him. “You get five.”
“I will take four,” he says at once. “So you do not feel I have cheated you.”
She steps back. It’s a small movement, but it’s admission and allowance and surrender all at once. He glides past her, careful not to brush against her, which annoys her more than if he’d done it deliberately .
The flat is cramped enough that his presence rearranges the air. He belongs in cavernous bars and hidden back rooms, smoke and shadows and the soft hiss of money changing hands. Here, with mismatched IKEA furniture and stacks of photocopied grimoires, he looks like he’s been photoshopped into the wrong image.
Ptolemy, traitorous fluffball, hops onto the coffee table and sits like a sphinx in front of him.
Lucien closes the door with an audible click. For a heartbeat, Rory is acutely aware of the three deadbolts, of him between her and the hall, of the strange little bubble of privacy their past selves would have killed for and their present selves absolutely do not need.
“Shoes,” she says abruptly. “Off. Eva will murder me if you track whatever demonic slime you’ve been walking through onto her rug.”
“I have never once walked through demonic slime.” He toes off polished shoes anyway, lining them neatly by the door. “It plays hell with the leather.”
He sets his cane beside them and straightens, shoulders rolling under perfectly tailored fabric. Without the cane in his hand he looks younger, somehow. Less like the half-demon information broker every one in the underworld know s, more like the man who once sat on a rooftop beside her at three in the morning and confessed, almost shyly , that he had never seen snow until he was twelve.
She pushes the memory away, hard.
“Talk,” she says. “You’ve already used one of your minutes.”
He looks around until he finds a bare corner of sofa not colonised by books. He doesn’t sit, though. He turns back to her, leaning lightly against the armrest, wrists resting easy on the rolled fabric. Casual. Non-threatening. Calculated, obviously.
“Your upstairs neighbour,” he begins.
She cuts him off. “If you dragged yourself all the way to Brick Lane to gossip about Mrs. Patel ’s late-night telly habits—”
“Aurora.” Sharper, now. “Listen to me.”
Something in his tone makes the hair lift on the back of her neck. She crosses her arms but doesn’t interrupt again.
He watches her for a second. Then: “You remember the sorcerer who claimed to be Eva’s friend. The one who came to the bar in Shoreditch. Alistair Finch.”
Of course she remembers. Tall, smug, smelling like old libraries and cigarettes. The one she’d nearly punched before Lucien, suavely, had inserted himself into the conversation and eased him away with a few murmured threats and a smile that promised ruin.
“Vaguely,” she says. “Why?”
“He vanished,” Lucien says. “Three weeks ago.”
“People in your world vanish all the time.”
“Yes. But not with this set of…circumstances.” His dark eye glints. “He was last seen leaving this building. After visiting Eva.”
The room seems to shrink. Rory hears the words, feels them slot into place with a dull, unpleasant click.
“Eva’s in Prague,” she says automatically. “Conference. She left two days ago.”
“And before that?”
“She was here. Working.” Rory swallows. “She would have told me if—”
“Would she?” he asks, too gently .
Anger sparks, hot and reliable. “Do not,” Rory says, “start suggesting Eva’s tangled up in whatever you’re sniffing around.”
“Every one is tangled up in something, chérie,” he says. “You know that better than most. I am not accusing her. I am telling you someone with…unpleasant intentions has taken an interest in her work. And where she lives.”
“Why come to me?” Rory demands. “You have an army of shifty associates. Go bother them.”
“I did.” He spreads his hands. “They gave me half-truths and rumours. I need someone who can walk in this world as easily as she trips over mine. Who has Eva’s trust, and a spine made of something suspiciously similar to steel.”
Heat pricks the back of her throat. She wishes it were purely from annoyance.
“You could have called,” she says.
“Would you have answered?”
She hates that the answer is no. Hates that he know s it. She looks down at her bare feet on Eva’s threadbare rug.
“Maybe,” she lies.
He doesn’t bother pretending to believe her. “In any case,” he says, “I prefer to see you when you tell me to go to hell.”
“Consider it said,” she mutters. “Repeatedly.”
His mouth softens. Not quite a smile. Not quite not.
“Rory.” He steps away from the sofa, one pace closer. Not invading, just…reducing the distance. “There is more. I would not be here if there were not.”
“Because a missing sorcerer doesn’t warrant a personal visit?”
“Because you asked me,” he says quietly, “not to come back. The night at Silas’ bar.” His gaze doesn’t move from her face. “You were…very specific.”
She remembers. Too much whiskey, too much adrenaline, too many bodies on the floor and one nearly being hers. His face close to hers in the alley, saying I had to choose, ma belle, you know what I am, and her saying, very clearly, If you walk away now, don’t come back.
He’d walked. Because of course he had. It was his specialty.
“I didn’t think you listened to me,” she says, because anything else feels too raw.
“I listen to you,” he says. “That has always been the problem.”
Silence stretches. Ptolemy decides this is boring and hops off the table to go investigate the kitchen.
Rory drags a hand through her hair, fingers catching on a knot. “So what, Luc? You’re breaking our little arrangement because Eva’s potentially in danger?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. “And because you are sitting in her flat with the door three deadbolts away from whatever might be watching it.”
He moves another step closer. Close enough now that she can see the faint, nearly invisible line of a scar along his jaw she’s never noticed before. Close enough to feel the faint warmth coming off him, despite the rain-damp suit.
“Let me help,” he says.
“Help,” she repeats. “Like you ‘helped’ at the warehouse? When you sold me to Rafiq for a bag of silver and a pretty promise?”
His throat works. “I got you out.”
“After,” she snaps. “After I’d already—” Her voice cracks. Damn it. “You don’t get credit for pulling the knife out when you’re the one who stuck it in.”
His heterochromatic gaze doesn’t flinch. “You asked me, that night, whether I would always choose my own survival over yours,” he says. “You remember what I answered?”
“Yes,” she says, grinding the word out. “You said, ‘Don’t ask questions you don’t want honest answers to.’”
“And you were right to be furious.” He draws a breath, slow. “I have been…reconsidering that answer .”
A bitter laugh bursts out of her. “Fantastic. Have an epiphany on your own time.”
“I am,” he says. Then, more carefully : “Rory. I know what I am. Half of me was made in a realm whose currency is betrayal. I will never be clean enough for you. But when it comes to Eva—and to you—I am trying to choose differently.”
Something in her chest twists, then twists again, as if trying to wring itself dry.
He takes that last step. Now he is right in front of her, a breath away. He moves slowly , telegraphing every shift, as if she’s a frightened animal he doesn’t want to spook.
“May I?” he asks.
She doesn’t know what he means until his hand lifts, hovering. Not touching. Waiting.
She can say no. It’s easy. One syllable. She’s said worse to him.
She doesn’t.
“That’s your second minute gone,” she says instead. Her voice is huskier than she’d like.
His mouth curves, quick and startled, like she’s caught him off-guard. Then his fingers brush her wrist.
It’s barely a touch. Just the pads of his fingers resting over the small crescent of scar tissue. Warm. Gentle. No pressure.
Her pulse lurches under his skin. She hates that he has to feel that. Hates that he know s what it means.
“We did not part well,” he says, so quietly she almost has to read the words off his lips. “But I have not been…indifferent. To the absence.”
The flat, suddenly , feels too small. The books, the curry smell, the rumble of traffic outside—all of it fades to a low, unimportant hum. There is only his hand on her wrist and her stupid heart thundering at the betrayal.
“You don’t get to miss me,” she says. “You made your choice.”
His thumb moves, the tiniest stroke along the edge of the scar. “I am trying,” he repeats, “to make another one.”
She laughs, helpless and sharp. “Now? When there’s a missing sorcerer and a big bad threat and you need something from me? Convenient.”
He winces, fractionally. It’s satisfying in a petty way, but not nearly enough.
“Yes,” he says simply. “Convenient. And also true.”
Ptolemy chooses that moment to reappear, meowing imperiously at Rory’s feet. The spell—if that’s what it is—fractures. She pulls her hand back like his touch burns.
“Four minutes,” she says. “Time’s up.”
“I lied,” he says. “I will steal another.”
“How shocking.”
He smiles again, but there’s a crack in it now. Something unpolished shining through.
“I will go,” he says. “I have…people to question. Places to look. But I need to know that you will not open this door to anyone else tonight.”
Rory folds her arms again, shielding the wrist he touched. “Paranoid, much?”
“I am an information broker, ma belle. Paranoia pays the bills.” He sobers. “Promise me.”
She should tell him to piss off. Should tell him she doesn’t make promises to men who sell her out.
Instead, she thinks of Eva’s careful instructions scribbled on the fridge, of the way Eva had hugged her at the station and said, “Watch the flat, yeah? It feels better know ing you’re here.” She thinks of Alistair Finch’s smirk and disappearing act.
“Fine,” she says. “I won’t open the door to anyone unless they’re carrying pizza. And even then, I’ll be suspicious.”
His shoulders loosen, just a touch. “Good.”
He steps back, out of her space, and the air feels thinner where he was. He collects his cane, slides into his shoes with easy practiced balance. At the door, he pauses, hand on the knob.
“If I discover something…unpleasant,” he says without looking back, “I will come here. Regardless of past ultimatums.”
“Can’t wait,” she says.
He glances over his shoulder. The hallway light spills across half his face, leaving the demon-black eye in shadow, the amber one catching gold.
“Lock your deadbolts, Aurora,” he says. “I would hate to arrive too late again.”
Again.
The word lands like a stone in her gut.
He opens the door. The sounds of the building rush in—the drip of rain, distant television, a door closing somewhere below. He steps out, then turns back once more.
“And, Rory?” His voice is softer now, intimate in a way it has no right to be. “Try not to hate me too completely until then. It makes the…trying harder.”
Before she can muster a reply that isn’t dangerously close to the truth, he’s gone, moving down the stairs with that smooth, unhurried gait that makes him seem like he has all the time in the world.
She stares at the open doorway for a long beat. Then she shuts it. One lock. Two. Three.
Her hand lingers on the last deadbolt.
Ptolemy weaves around her ankles, purring obliviously. She scoops him up, burying her face in his fur, inhaling the warm, dusty smell.
“I don’t hate him,” she tells the cat, because it’s easier than admitting it to herself. “I just really , really want to.”
Ptolemy purrs louder, utterly unconcerned.
Rory carries him back to the sofa, steps over Eva’s scattered notes, and sits. The curve of Lucien’s fingers around her wrist ghosts through her skin, impossible to shake.
Outside, Brick Lane hums and hisses and steams in the rain. Inside, in a cramped flat above a curry house, Aurora Carter stares at the locked door and wonders which will come first—the danger he promised, or the next time she’s fool enough to let him in.