AI The rain in Soho didn’t wash the city clean; it just made the grime slicker, turning the pavement into a kaleidoscope of reflected neon and oil. Inside The Raven’s Nest, the air was dry, smelling faintly of beeswax polish and the sharp, metallic tang of beer lines. It was a Tuesday, meaning the crowd was thin—just a few regulars hunched over their pints, isolated islands of silence in the dim room.
Aurora Carter sat at the far end of the mahogany bar, her back to the door. She was peeling the label off a bottle of tonic water, her fingers working with a mechanic’s repetitive precision. She was tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep and every thing to do with the constant, low-grade vigilance of the last six months. The Golden Empress delivery scooter had a faulty exhaust, and the wind on the Thames had cut through her jacket all afternoon. Now, the warmth of the bar was seeping into her bones, loosening the knots in her shoulders.
Silas Blackwood stood opposite her, polishing a glass with a white cloth. His movements were deliberate, slowed by the stiffness in his left knee. He placed the glass on the shelf, the clink barely audible over the low jazz humming from the speakers. His hazel eyes, sharp beneath the brows that had turned a snowy white while his auburn hair held stubbornly to its color, studied her.
"You’re quiet tonight, Rory," Silas said. His voice was a low rumble, like a train passing in the distance.
"Just thinking," Rory said, not looking up. She traced the crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist, a habit she fell into when her mind was racing . "Eva mentioned a flat in Kennington. Cheaper rent."
"Cheaper isn't always better," Silas replied, leaning against the back bar. He absently twisted the silver signet ring on his right hand. "You’re safe upstairs. Besides, I’d miss the heavy footsteps on the ceiling."
Rory snorted, a brief, dry sound. "I’m graceful."
"You stomp like a constable in a riot," Silas said, a faint smile touching his neatly trimmed beard. "Stay. The location is central for the deliveries. And the security is adequate."
"Adequate," she mimicked. "High praise."
The bell above the door chimed, cutting through the quiet. A gust of wet, cold air swirled into the room, carrying with it the noise of the street—sirens, shouting, the relentless thrum of the city.
Rory didn’t turn. It was a patron; it was always a patron. She reached for her tonic water, but her hand froze halfway there.
"Rory?"
The voice was familiar, but it belonged to a different life. It was a voice from lecture halls, from libraries smelling of old paper, from a time when her biggest worry was referencing torts correctly.
She turned.
Standing just inside the doorway, shaking a compact umbrella, was a man in a tailored grey coat. He looked polished, expensive, and entirely out of place in the shadowy gloom of the Nest. His hair was cut short and styled, his face open and eager.
It was Liam. Liam from Cardiff. Liam who had sat next to her in Contract Law for three years. Liam who had introduced her to Evan.
For a second, the room seemed to tilt. The maps on the walls, the black-and-white photographs of spies and long-dead soldiers, the green neon of the sign flashing through the window—it all blurred into the background.
"Liam," she said. Her voice was steadier than she felt.
He blinked, his smile faltering slightly as he took in her appearance. She wasn’t the Rory he remembered—the girl in the oversized knit cardigans, clutching a coffee, eyes bright with the naive ambition of a first-year barrister. She was wearing a black hoodie, jeans with reinforced knees, and heavy boots. Her hair was shorter, sharper. She looked, she realized, like someone who knew how to run.
"I didn’t expect to..." He trailed off, stepping further inside. "I’m in London for a conference. Just saw the sign and thought I’d grab a pint. It’s really you."
"It’s really me," Rory said. She gestured vaguely to the stool next to her. "Sit down. If you want."
Liam perched on the edge of the stool, looking uncomfortable. He glanced around the bar, his eyes skimming over the shadowy corners before landing on Silas. Silas hadn’t moved; he was standing like a statue, his eyes locked on Liam, assessing the threat level with the casual ease of a man who had once toppled governments.
"Can I get you anything?" Silas asked. His tone was polite, but the warmth he reserved for Rory was absent.
"Just a gin and tonic," Liam said. He turned back to Rory as Silas moved to pour the drink, his limp slightly more pronounced tonight. "God, Rory, it’s been what? Two years?"
"About that," she said.
"You look..." Liam struggled for the word. "Well. You look different."
"Tougher," she supplied.
"I was going to say older," he said, though the way his eyes darted to her hands—calloused now from the handlebars of the scooter—suggested he noticed the rest. "How have you been? We all wondered what happened. You just... vanished."
Rory took a sip of her drink. The tonic was bitter on her tongue. "Needed a change of scenery. London seemed as good a place as any."
"Cardiff University was devastated," Liam said, accepting his drink from Silas. He nodded thanks to the bartender, but Silas had already retreated down the bar to rearrange the coasters, giving them the illusion of privacy while remaining well within earshot. "You were top of the cohort in Criminal Justice. Professor Ellis said you had the mind of a judge."
"That was a lifetime ago," Rory said quietly. She felt the old phantom pain of that life—the pressure, the expectations, the suffocating weight of a path she had never truly wanted but was too afraid to leave. Until Evan forced her hand.
"Liam, I don't do that anymore," she said. The words came out harder than she intended.
"No? What are you doing?" He looked around the bar, his nose wrinkling slightly at the smell of stale tobacco. "Bartending?"
"Deliveries," she corrected. "Motorbike. And I live upstairs."
Liam swirled his gin, the ice clinking against the glass. He looked at her with a mixture of pity and confusion that made her skin itch. It was the look people gave stray animals—wary sympathy, hoping they wouldn't bite. "It just seems... a waste, doesn't it? All that potential. You used to talk about human rights, about advocacy. Now you’re... what? Delivering takeout?"
"It’s honest work," Rory said, her voice cooling. She felt the walls of the bar, usually comforting, suddenly closing in. She thought about the box of legal textbooks she had left behind in her bedroom in Cardiff, the ones Evan had used to prop up a window when it stuck. She thought about the nights she had spent crying in this very booth when she first arrived, broken and shaking, while Silas poured her tea and asked no questions.
Liam didn’t see that. He only saw the gap between the girl on the brochure and the woman in the hoodie.
"I suppose," Liam said, but he didn’t sound convinced. He leaned in, lowering his voice. "It’s just... well, you know Evan’s doing well, don't you? Made partner at his father’s firm last month."
The name was a physical blow, a punch to the solar plexus. Rory didn’t flinch. She had learned control in the intervening years, learned to let the pain pass through her like water through a sieve. She watch ed Silas across the room. He had stopped arranging coasters. He was watching them now, his body language shifting from relaxed to coiled.
"Good for him," Rory said.
"It’s a shame, how it ended," Liam prattled on, oblivious to the danger he was wading into. "He was messed up about it for a long time. We all were. You were always so... intense. Maybe that was the problem."
Rory stared at him. She remembered the intensity he was talking about. It wasn't passion; it was fear. It was the feeling of walking on eggshells, of monitoring her own tone, her own breathing, to avoid setting off a storm.
"I wasn't intense," Rory said, her voice dropping to a whisper that carried more weight than a shout. "I was surviving."
Liam recoiled slightly , finally recognizing the steel in her spine. He looked at his watch , a heavy, expensive thing that glinted under the bar lights. "I should go. Early start tomorrow."
"It was good to see you, Liam," she lied.
"You too, Rory." He slid off the stool, buttoning his coat. He hovered for a moment, as if he wanted to hug her, but the distance between them was too vast. "If you ever change your mind... you know. The law field. There’s always a place for someone with your brain."
"Thanks," she said.
He left, the bell chiming again, letting in another blast of cold air before the door swung shut.
Silas came back down the bar. He didn’t ask. He didn’t need to. He reached under the counter and pulled out a bottle of single malt, pouring a generous measure into a clean glass.
"Old friend?" he asked, sliding the glass toward her.
"Old life," Rory corrected. She wrapped her hands around the glass, feeling the heat of the amber liquid.
"He looked like a man who checks his reflection in shop windows," Silas observed.
"He’s a good person," Rory said, surprising herself with the defense. "He just... he remembers the version of me that fit in a box. The one that followed the rules."
Silas leaned on his elbows, looking at her. "And who are you now?"
Rory looked around the bar. She looked at the maps of the world on the walls, the shadows in the corners, the green neon sign buzzing outside like a heartbeat. She thought of the speed of the bike, the wind in her hair, the complex logistics of Yu-Fei’s inventory, the way she had learned to read people like Silas read his maps.
She looked down at the scar on her wrist, then up at Silas, the man who had given her a key to a back room and a reason to keep moving forward when she had wanted to stop.
"I'm still figuring that out," she said, lifting the glass. "But I think I like this one better."
Silas raised his own glass in a silent toast. The jazz swelled, a lonely trumpet note filling the space between them. Outside, the rain kept falling, washing away the footprints of the past, leaving only the road ahead.