AI The third deadbolt stuck, as it always did, and Aurora Carter had to lean her shoulder into the door to coax it open. The curry house downstairs was still going full tilt; turmeric and fried onions climbed the staircase, seasoning the stale hall air. Ptolemy wound between her ankles, purring like faulty machinery, tail a striped question mark.
She yanked the door the rest of the way, ready to swear at the landlord about the locks again.
And froze.
Lucien Moreau stood in the narrow strip of corridor, close enough that the rim of Eva’s half-moon welcome mat just kissed the toes of his polished shoes. The overhead bulb hummed and flickered , staining his platinum hair a tired yellow-gray. Rain had darkened the shoulders of his charcoal suit, sharp lines gone slightly soft, like someone had blurred the edges of him.
He look ed exactly as he did the last time she’d seen him—precise, impossible, infuriating—except for the fine spatter of dried something on his cuff and the thin, almost-invisible cut along his jaw.
His eyes caught her, as they always did. One amber, bright even under the dim bulb; one black, bottomless. They pinned her in place as efficiently as a hand around her wrist.
“Aurora,” he said.
Her name in his mouth pulled across months and cities and all the promises she’d spat at him the last time, about never seeing each other again, about how if he showed up at her door she’d slam it in his face.
Her fingers tightened around the door edge. For a second, she considered slamming.
“Lucien,” she managed. It came out cooler than she felt. “You’ve got the wrong door. Eva’s out.”
He glanced past her shoulder, taking in, in a flick of his gaze, the stacks of books, the teetering columns of paper, the mug of tea on the low table already filmed with a gray skin. Ptolemy trotted forward, pausing at the threshold like a doorman to inspect him.
“On the contrary.” Lucien shifted his weight to his cane—ivory handle gleaming , black wood slick with rain. “This is precisely the door I meant to knock on. That you’re the one opening it…” The corner of his mouth quirked, not quite a smile. “Serendipity.”
“Serendipity,” she echoed , flat. “Is that what we’re calling this now?”
The last time she’d seen him it had been in a shipping warehouse by the river, the floor a mess of salt and broken glass, the stink of demon ichor clinging to the walls. The sharp crack of his cane against concrete, the clipped French curses, the sound of him walking away while something with too many teeth had lunged for her throat.
She swallowed it back. She wouldn’t give him that memory.
“What do you want, Lucien?”
Ptolemy decided on an answer before he did, sidling up to rub his striped flank along Lucien’s immaculate trouser leg. Lucien glanced down, faintly startled, then back up at her.
“To come in,” he said. “For a start.”
Rain tapped the narrow window at the end of the hall, impatient.
Rory lifted her chin. “Try again.”
His gaze rested on her face. She felt the slow slide of it, how he took stock. Her hair scraped into a messy knot at the nape of her neck, the faded university sweatshirt, the leggings with one knee gone shiny. No armor. Nowhere to hide.
“A conversation,” he said. “And a favor. In that order, if you like.”
Her laugh came up sharp. “You remember what I said the last time you asked me for a favor?”
The muscle in his jaw ticked. He remembered; she could see it. The warehouse again, the taste of copper in her mouth, his hand closing around a coin engraved on both faces. Heads, she died. Tails, someone else did. He’d flipped it anyway.
“I recall many things about the last time,” he said quietly.
Silence pressed at the edges of the doorway. The smell of curry thickened. Somewhere down on Brick Lane, someone shouted, a car horn answered, then traffic washed it all away.
Rory could feel her hear t banging against her ribs, fast and stupid. She wanted—absurdly—to slam the door and slide down the inside of it until her knees hit her chest. She also wanted to haul him over the threshold by his lapels and rip into him about every moment he hadn’t been there when she’d needed him.
Instead, she said, “You’re dripping on Eva’s mat,” and stepped back.
He inclined his head once, as if they’d just concluded a polite business transaction, and crossed into the flat. The space seemed to shrink around him. Eva’s living room barely tolerated two people under the best circumstances; with Lucien and his easy, predatory grace in it, the walls pulled in closer.
Ptolemy wove a figure-eight around his ankles, delighted. Traitor.
“Shut the door,” Rory said.
She clicked the deadbolts into place with practised efficiency, the solid clunk of metal sliding home reassuring. It also trapped them inside together, and her palms went damp.
Lucien paused just past the arm of the sagging sofa, scanning the chaos. Books in crooked stacks on every surface. Scroll cases leaning in a corner like bored spears. Eva’s notes spidered across the walls in sections, pinned up with colorful binder clips—circles and arrows and jagged little annotations in three different pens.
“You know,” he murmured, “I’m beginning to suspect Miss Torres might be a touch obsessive.”
“She prefers ‘thorough,’” Rory said. “Also, if you get hand oils on any of her sigils, she’ll hex your wardrobe into mothballs.”
He lifted both hands, palms out, the picture of surrender. The motion tugged his jacket enough that she saw it—the dark, stiff patch on his white shirt just above the waistband, spreading like an inkblot. Not rain.
“Lucien.” Her voice was sharper than she meant it to be. “You’re bleeding.”
His gaze flicked down, as if he’d forgotten. “Ah. Yes.” He sounded faintly bemused. “I suppose I am.”
“Sit,” she ordered. “There.” She pointed to the only clear space on the sofa, half-smothered under a pile of photocopied grimoires. “And don’t you dare get blood on Eva’s Táin Bó Cúailnge, she will actually murder you.”
He regarded her for a hear tbeat, that odd shadowed amusement back in his eyes, and then obeyed. He set his cane carefully against the coffee table, nudging a stack of journals aside by millimetres, and lowered himself onto the narrow strip of cushion.
Rory strode into the tiny galley kitchen, her legs moving before her brain caught up. The cupboard above the sink held Eva’s medicine hoard: paracetamol, bandages, potions that glowed faintly when you turned off the light. She grabbed the battered first aid tin and a clean tea towel. The cat jumped up on the counter and she shooed him gently .
In the living room, Lucien watched her as she came back, eyes unreadable . The rain outside softened to a hush.
She dropped the first aid tin on the table, kneeling between his knees to get at the stain. The motion brought her closer than she’d intended. Her nose almost brushed the damp fabric of his shirt, clean detergent undercut by something darker and spiced that was just him. Warmth radiated from him, a steady heat. He’d always run warmer than other people.
She refused to think about why.
“You could have gone to a hospital,” she muttered, fingers working at the buttons of his jacket. “St Thomas’ is twenty minutes away. They do this sort of thing for a living.”
“Mm. And explain to the lovely NHS staff how I ended up with a six-inch gash in my side courtesy of a man whose fingernails were made of obsidian?” His tone was dry. “I prefer discretion.”
“Of course you do.” His jacket fell open, and she peeled it back carefully . Blood had soaked a dark fan across the crisp white of his shirt. Not as much as she’d feared; mostly superficial, then. She hoped. “Hold this.”
She shoved the folded tea towel into his hand and pressed it against the wound. His fingers brushed the back of her hand, just a whisper of contact. Electricity shot up her arm, stupid and instantaneous.
She concentrated on not flinching.
“Apply pressure,” she said.
“Aurora.” His voice was softer now, close and textured in the small room.
“Don’t.” She didn’t look up. Her throat felt tight. “You don’t get to say my name like—” Like that remained unsaid, hanging between them. Like we’re fine. Like you didn’t walk away.
His hand stayed where she’d put it, obediently firm. She flipped open the tin, digging for antiseptic wipes. Her fingers found a pair of small silver scissors instead, cool and familiar. She set the wipes aside and look ed at his shirt.
“I’m going to have to cut this.”
He made a low sound that might have been a sigh. “That shirt was handmade in Naples.”
“Tragic.” She slid the scissors' blunt nose under the hem, the blades whispering as they bit through fabric. “Hold still.”
He did. The silence pulled tight. The sound of the blades snipping was obscenely loud. When she peeled the cloth aside, the wound reared up at her: an angry, jagged slice along his side, already trying to knit shut around the edges in a way no human body would attempt. Half-demon, half-whatever eldritch physics applied there. It still bled sluggishly.
“You should have had this look ed at an hour ago,” she said, more to fill the air than anything.
“I was busy being chased,” he replied.
“By the obsidian man.”
“Among others.”
She dabbed at the blood with gauze, cleaning enough to see. He hissed when the antiseptic bit.
“Oh, don’t be a baby,” she said, and realised at once how close that was to what she would have said before—back when she’d patch him up after deals went sideways and they’d laugh about how terrible his French swearing got when he was truly hurt.
He must have felt it too. His gaze searched her face, intent. “I’ve missed your bedside manner.”
She stiffened. “I haven’t missed any of this.”
The words hung between them. She hadn’t meant to say them out loud.
His jaw worked once, twice. “I know.”
The admission threw her. No defense, no smooth comeback. Just that quiet, raw acknowledgment.
She wrapped the bandage around his torso, careful not to touch more skin than necessary. His abdominal muscles tensed under her fingers anyway, involuntarily. Each time the gauze circled him, her hands brushed his back, the warmth of him a steady line through the coarse fabric of his suit trousers. It was intimate work, unavoidable. Her pulse rattled.
“Why are you really here?” she asked, focusing on the knot she tied at his side.
He exhaled, a breath that seemed to carry weight . “Because someone put your name on a list.”
She sat back on her heels. “What kind of list?”
“The kind that gets people killed.” He leaned a little forward, forearms resting on his thighs, bringing his face level with hers. Even seated, he seemed taller in this cramped space. “And because you refused to change your phone number, and Eva Torres never answers hers.”
She frowned. Had she refused? Or had she just…never gotten around to it. “Who’s list?”
“A gentleman who calls himself Darius.” The name tasted like rust on his tongue. “New player. Fond of theatrics. Fonder still of hurting people I—” He stopped, his gaze sliding aside for a hear tbeat. “People who’ve annoyed him.”
“You’ve annoyed him,” she translated.
“I have that effect .”
“And what, I’m…collateral?” The idea curled cold fingers around her ribs.
“You are leverage.” His eyes hooked back to hers. That mismatched stare had always been unnerving; now it felt like standing on the edge of something high. “You walked into my world, Aurora. You did it with your eyes open. There is a price for that.”
“I walked into your world because you dragged me there,” she snapped. “Because you needed someone who knew how to read a binding contract and you didn’t care if that meant a law student with too much curiosity and not enough sense.”
He flinched, just a little. Enough for her to see it.
“You’re right,” he said. No excuses, nothing lacquered over the truth. “And I am…aware that I have not repaid that debt adequately.”
She thought of the coin spinning in the warehouse light. Of the sound it made when it hit his palm and he closed his fingers around it, weighing out someone else’s life. Of how, after that, she’d stood in the smoky back room of Silas’ bar and told Lucien Moreau, in a voice that only shook once, that she was done.
“You left me,” she said, the words clawing out of her. “You made your calculation and I didn’t factor in. I almost died.”
His shoulders pulled in, the perfect lapels of his jacket folding. “You didn’t.”
“Not because of you.” Her chest hurt. “So why the hell would I trust you now?”
A muscle jumped in his cheek. His hand curled on his knee until the knuckles blanched. For a second, she saw past the polished surface, down to something older and harsher, forged in the fires of whatever realm had spat him out.
“Because I am very good at staying alive,” he said. “And because the men Darius sends? They are better at killing than I am at nearly anything. They will come whether you trust me or not. The only variable is whether I am here when they do.”
Her breath came short. The flat suddenly felt smaller, air squeezed thin. The walls crowded in with their sigils and scribbles, witnesses to this uncomfortable reunion.
“Eva?” she asked.
“On a plane to Lisbon, courtesy of one of my more useful favours.” He gave her a sidelong look . “You’re the one who insisted on staying behind. You have a delivery route. Commitments.”
“I have rent,” she corrected. “And a life. I’m not running every time one of your enemies throws a tantrum.”
“Then let me help you not die because of it.”
It was the nakedness of it that stopped her. Not the words, but the way he said them, stripped of irony. He leaned in, the space between them shrinking, his scent—cologne, rain, a faint trace of smoke—curling into her lungs.
She realised her hands were still on him. One rested lightly on his bare ribs where the bandage ended, the other braced on the sofa cushion beside his hip. If she moved an inch forward, her face would be in his throat. If he moved an inch closer—
She pulled back as if burned, rising too fast. The room tilted for a second. She busied herself with shoving bloodied gauze into the tin, snapping the lid closed, her back to him.
“You don’t get to just—show up like this,” she said, staring at the crooked spine of a book on the nearest stack until the title blurred. “You don’t get to knock on a door and expect me to forget the last twelve months happened.”
“I don’t expect you to forget.” His cane clicked softly as he shifted, standing up behind her. She hear d the faint wince in his breath. “I expect you to remember exactly who I am. And then decide, with all that knowledge, whether you want me on your side or not.”
She turned.
He was closer than she’d thought, the smallness of the flat erasing distance. Her chest brushed his as she moved; his breath ghosted warm against her cheek. Up close, she could see the stubble at the edge of his jaw where he’d missed a patch shaving, the fine scar that traced from the corner of his mouth to his chin, a souvenir from a deal gone wrong in Soho. The black eye—the demon eye—reflected nothing. The amber one held a strange, careful light.
“You always talk like it’s a business transaction,” she said. “Side, leverage, debt.”
“It is how I understand the world.” His eyes dropped to her mouth, just for a hear tbeat, and came back up. “But if you want a different vocabulary…”
He lifted a hand, slow enough that she could have stepped away. Fingers paused an inch from her cheek, all that poised, meticulous control focused in one not-quite-touch.
Her skin tingled, dumbly anticipating.
“I hurt you,” he said, the words low and stripped bare. “I left you. I chose—wrong. I have…regretted that. More than I regret most things.” A rueful breath. “And that is an impressively long list.”
The urge to lean into his hand was ridiculous. He hadn’t even put it on her; he hovered there like she was the one who might startle. Like she was dangerous.
“Regret doesn’t fix much,” she said, voice thin. “I can’t hit rewind and stop myself from taking your calls or walking into those back rooms with you. I can’t un-know any of this.”
“No.” The corner of his mouth tightened. “But I can stand on the other side of the door when the monsters come. If you’ll let me.”
Monsters. He meant Darius’ men. She thought of Evan, of the way his shadow used to loom in every doorway back in Cardiff, of the voice in her head that sounded like his. She’d left that life . She’d thought coming to London, delivering chow mein and katsu curry and occasionally the odd cursed amulet for Yu-Fei, meant a clean slate.
Instead she’d traded one kind of trouble for another. At least this one came with someone who knew how to fight it.
He was still waiting, hand hovering, not touching. That, more than anything, undid her—the fact that Lucien Moreau, who took what he wanted from the world with ruthless elegance, was giving her this choice.
“Fine,” she said, the word coming out on a sigh she hadn’t meant to let him hear . “You can…stay. For tonight. We’ll talk about the rest after I’ve had tea and possibly several shots of something toxic.”
Relief softened his face, so brief she would have missed it if she wasn’t watching for any crack in his mask. His hand finally completed its journey, fingers brushing a strand of hair back from her cheek, feather-light. The touch sent a line of heat down the side of her neck.
“Merci,” he murmured.
“Don’t thank me yet,” she said, stepping away before he could make it mean more. “You’re sleeping on the floor. And if you bleed on anything else, you’re explaining the stains to Eva.”
Behind her, she hear d him chuckle quietly as she moved into the kitchen to put the kettle on, hands shaking only a little when she turned the tap.
Ptolemy leapt up onto the sofa in the silence that followed, curling into the warm indentation Lucien had left, purring loud enough to drown out the distant traffic.