Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMR1Z8Z3NY3QCFBQSASAWAW

Aurora Carter paused beneath the green neon of the Raven’s Nest, the sign’s glow pulsing against the damp pavement like a slow heartbeat. She drew in a breath of London night—smoke, rain, distant sirens—and let the door’s bell ring out, a sharp note that cut through her hesitation. The bar fell silent for a moment, then swallowed her welcome with its low hum of conversation and the scrape of a bartender’s towel on a glass. Inside, the walls were papered with old maps and black-and-white photographs: sepia-toned cityscapes, grainy faces of long-vanished patrons. The air smelled of oiled wood, spilt whiskey, and a hint of something medicinal that drifted out from the back. A single bare bulb swung over the bar, carving the room into wedges of light and shadow. Aurora’s heel clicked once on the hardwood floor as she crossed to the counter. She smoothed a strand of black hair behind her ear, aware of her shoulders tensing. She had avoided this place for years. She had crafted reasons, wove excuses into the routine of her new life: the Golden Empress deliveries, the flat chores, the late-night study of case law she had never meant to finish. But the real reason was buried in silence and regret. Behind the bar stood Silas Blackwood. He was slightly hunched, leaning on a forearm that bore a silver signet ring catching the light, its etched raven glinting. A scatter of grey had crept through his auburn hair and beard, but his posture still held something of the old field agent’s command. His left leg bore a subtle limp, as constant and steady as a metronome. He poured a measure of bourbon into a heavy tumbler, the amber liquid lapping at the glass. She froze, midway through lowering herself onto a stool. The world narrowed to the soft scrape of ice against glass and the steady rise and fall of his chest. His hazel eyes flicked up, and recognition loosened something in both of them—a shuttered door creaking on rusty hinges. “Aurora Carter,” he said, voice low, as if the walls themselves demanded discretion. He set the glass down without a word, turned off the tap beneath a row of glasses, and for a heartbeat, they simply measured the distance across the bar. He looked older. Authority draped over his shoulders like a coat more worn than he let on. The limp had always been there, harking back to some Prague operation gone wrong, but now it felt like a metonym for every battle he’d had to leave unfinished. She barely recognized the man who once taught her to read coded messages on subway maps. “Nine years,” he said finally, rubbing his thumb across the ring’s surface. “Since you disappeared.” “Ten,” she corrected, voice soft. She traced a pattern on the bar’s varnished wood. Her fingers brushed her left wrist, where the crescent-shaped scar lay hidden by the cuff of her shirt. She held her palm open as if expecting the scar to speak for her. Silas studied her. “Cardiff girl, out on the streets of Soho. You look… different.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, a gesture she’d carried since childhood. “I’m not the same person you remember.” He inclined his head, considering. “You always did hate rules.” His smile was brief. “What brings you back?” She swallowed. The question felt too wide, too empty to answer in mere words. “I needed to know… if you were still here.” His gaze drifted to the row of photographs overhead: a black-and-white snapshot of a younger Silas, in Prague, flanked by armored cars; the picture beside it, shows Aurora, nearly a girl, eyes bright with fascination as she watched him demonstrate a dead drop. The bar held history in its dark corners. “A friend,” she said, but the admission scraped raw. A friend could be many things. She hadn’t come looking for friendly conversation. Silas poured another drink and slid it toward her. The liquid caught the light, flickering like a promise she wasn’t sure she wanted. “So,” he said. “Catch me up.” She picked up the glass. The bourbon smelled warm, spicy. She lifted it to her lips, hesitated, then tasted. It burned a little—like regret. “I left law school,” she said. “Switched degrees. Worked odd jobs. Ran packages around the city for a Chinese restaurant.” She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Golden Empress. Those dumplings you like—” He sank onto the stool beside her, his limp barely slowing him as he settled in. “I haven’t had them in years.” “It’s Yu-Fei’s place. On Fleet Street.” Aurora set the glass down. “It’s not exciting. But it pays the rent for my flat upstairs.” Silas’s brows rose, as if he found that fact delivered with delicious irony. “Above my bar.” Her heart pinched. She stared at the ring on his finger and wondered how many clandestine meetings had been sealed with that emblem. “I’ve stayed out of sight,” she said. “Didn’t want to drag you into whatever mess I was in.” He folded his hands, signet to signet. “You were good at disappearing.” His tone held no accusation, only the sadness of what was lost in the spaces between their last conversation and tonight. She remembered the day she left. Packing a single suitcase, never looking back. The fear of her ex—Evan—had driven her into the arms of night buses and narrow London alleys. She’d avoided Silas’s voice on her phone. She’d lied about her whereabouts. “Evan was—” She closed her eyes. The words stuck. “He made me feel smaller every day. I thought if I ran far enough, I could breathe.” Silas’s jaw clenched. “You should have told me.” She let a moment pass, measured by the creak of floorboards and the gentle hiss of the neon sign outside. “I didn’t want to worry you.” He studied her scarred wrist. For the first time he reached out, fingertips brushing the crescent mark, as if it held all the answers. “You carry your stories on your skin,” he said. “I would have carried them with you, if you’d let me.” Aurora drew her hand back. The hurt behind her blue eyes was sharp and immediate. “I didn’t think you needed another burden.” He leaned closer, lowering his voice until it was almost a whisper. “I carry plenty.” She looked away, toward the secret doorway behind the bookshelf. The curves of the wood suggested a hidden hinge. He must know she’d noticed it. “Still tempting,” he offered, tone light. “We could talk in private.” Her pulse quickened at the thought of slipping behind that shelf, away from the bar’s scrutiny, into a room where only whispered truths could live. But she stayed where she was. “Not yet.” He nodded, accepting her silence. He sipped his own bourbon and set the glass down with a soft thud. “You’ve changed,” he said. “Life’s etched lines on your face, but there’s still the girl who graded CIA comms for fun.” She offered a small, rueful smile. “I don’t know who she is anymore.” He gestured at her. “She’s still here.” He tapped her wrist lightly. “And here.” He flicked his own ring. “And here.” The warmth of his gesture reached her, unfurling something tight inside. She realized how much she’d missed him: his calm in chaos, the way he could read maps like open books, the steady certainty that someone always understood. “I missed you,” she admitted, voice soft. He let it hang between them. “So did I.” A silence bloomed, full and heavy. Words gathered around them like smoke. Aurora studied the bar’s interior again: the grain of the wooden counter, the swirl of dust motes in the halo of light, the maps that marked journeys now abandoned. “Why did you open this place?” she asked, nodding toward the walls. Silas leaned back. “To stay in the game, in a way. Intelligence never really leaves you. So I opened a front, a place where stories circulate. Where I can keep an eye on things.” She watched him cradle the glass in both hands, the ring’s bird glinting in the low light. “And it worked?” He let out a slow breath. “Better than I expected.” Then, softer, almost to himself: “Until you vanished.” She closed her eyes, felt the sting of tears she refused to shed. “I’m here now.” He reached across the bar, hand resting on her forearm, carefully avoiding the scar. “Good,” he said. “Because I have a feeling we’ve got a lot more to say.” Aurora met his gaze, and in those hazel depths she saw the years roll back—the late-night stakeouts, the cipher puzzles sprawled across his dining table, her bright eyes lit with possibility. What had seemed like a lifetime of separation shrank to the space between two hands on a bar top. She lifted her glass again. “To words left unsaid.” Silas raised his. Their glasses clinked, a clear note that echoed in the hush. And in that single sound lay the promise of confession, reconciliation, and the slow, steady work of rebuilding what time had worn away.