Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMR4G0ZWWRF81570EWCBXP6

Silas Blackwood polished the wooden bar top for the third time that evening, smoothing out a rogue fingerprint he hadn’t meant to miss. Outside, the rain fell in steady sheets, hammering the green neon sign that buzzed above the Nest’s entrance. The low hum of jazz mingled with the hiss of the boiler and the clink of glasses as the few late–night regulars nursed their drinks in shadowed booths. It was a quiet Tuesday, the kind he preferred—no questions to answer, no crises to manage. He liked the company of his maps and photographs more than people these nights. A gust of wind rattled the door; he looked up reflexively. The bell above the entrance tinkled once. Steam curled off a stranger’s coat. She paused in the threshold, muddy boots swallowing a puddle at the mat. Even from behind, he recognized the straight black hair brushing her shoulders, the posture—chin tilted upward as though she were challenging the world to say her name. His heart thudded out a rhythm he couldn’t place. She peeled off her coat, hanging it on the rack. Rain droplets beaded along the curve of her shoulders. The neon cast emerald highlights across her back. Silas shuffled around the bar, his left leg protesting the move, a sharp reminder of old Prague. He cleared his throat. “Aurora Carter.” He said the name slowly, tasting it after all these years. It sounded too young, too light—like the woman he remembered in Cardiff. She turned, and their eyes met. Bright blue met hazel, and for a moment he thought she might be a stranger. But then her pupils dilated, recognition flaring behind them like flint struck to steel. “Si,” she whispered. Her voice had grown huskier, threaded with something he couldn’t name—loss, perhaps, or hard-earned resolve. She hadn’t said “Silas” in ages. Only “Si.” Only he. He set the rag aside. “Aurora.” The single word felt too modest; years of conversations, of shared confidences buried beneath it. He gestured to the stool nearest him. “Sit.” She dropped onto the stool, folding her damp coat around her knees. He slid a glass across the bar, set a bottle of whisky before her. She nodded, lifting the glass to her mouth in one swift motion. The amber liquid caught the light, glowed like embers in the dim. “I wasn’t sure you’d remember me,” she said, voice low. The bar smelled of polished mahogany and stale smoke, of spilled ale drying into the woodgrain. He leaned forward, hands clasped. The signet ring on his right hand caught the light, a silver crest etched with the raven of his MI6 past. “How could I forget?” He stopped himself. “Two years since Prague. Since you vanished on me.” She set the glass down, fingertips hovering over the Scotch. Her wrist—he glimpsed the pale crescent scar, the one she’d tried to hide all those years. A childhood accident, she’d told him once, a reminder that nothing stayed whole forever. “I didn’t vanish,” she said, but her voice cracked on the words. “I ran.” Silas watched her. She’d always been cool-headed, quicker than most to untangle a problem. Now she fidgeted with the lapel of her coat, tugging at the fabric as though it might unravel the story she kept pressed inside. Her hair, once neatly trimmed, fell in uneven strands around her face. She looked gaunter, sharper—less child and more warrior. The doorbell chimed behind her as another patron arrived. Silas signaled a nod to the newcomer, then turned back. “You didn’t answer my letters,” he said quietly. “I left messages, even had Eva drop by your flat.” She closed her eyes for a heartbeat, as though the weight of his words grazed too close to something raw. When she opened them, the light had dimmed that bright blue. “I was in too deep,” she said. “I needed distance.” He frowned. “Distance from what? From me? From your life here?” She laughed, but it rang brittle. “From him,” she said, voice dropping so low he had to lean in to hear. “Everywhere I went, he was there. Respectable façade, charming smile—Evan’s a ghost you can’t outrun.” Her shoulders shook. “I woke up one night convinced I’d never be safe again if I didn’t cut myself loose.” Silas swallowed. He remembered the frightened girl who’d shown up on Eva’s doorstep months ago, bruised and uncertain. He’d offered her a room above the bar, steady work—anything to ground her. He’d assumed she’d stay. But she’d slipped away like water, no note, no goodbye. “Why come back now?” he asked. She stared at the whisky. After a moment she glanced up, shoulders squared. “I want you to help me find him.” Silas felt the old familiar hum—danger, duty, the call of the impossible. He’d left that life behind, traded secrets for spirits, ops for olive branches. But he studied her face and saw the same fire that once made her such a brilliant asset. The odds were slim, the cost high, and yet… His ring left a watermark on the bar as he tapped a finger. “You’re asking me to break every rule in my little sanctuary.” She met his gaze, unwavering. “I know what I’m asking.” The edge in her voice was unmistakable: a blend of desperation and fierce determination. He had forgotten how steel could lie beneath her skin, how she could sharpen herself against the world. He swallowed. The bar’s warmth seemed to gather around them—old photographs and maps lined the walls, each one a memory or a mission left behind. He thought of the Prague operation gone wrong, of the scars he carried, and he realized this was different. This was personal. “All right,” he said, exhaling. “But you need to tell me everything. Names, dates, places.” She blinked, relief flickering across her face. “I have files—voices, messages. Enough to trace him.” Silas signaled to the bar’s back door. “Then come with me.” He rose, feeling the limp sharpen in his knee as he moved. She stood, folding her coat neatly over her arm. Her gaze lingered on the shelves of whiskey bottles, on the green glow of the neon sign bleeding through the window. He watched her. She was both the same girl who’d arrived in London two years ago and someone entirely new. In the hidden room behind the bookshelf, they sank onto twin stools around a small table. Silas tapped a finger against the table’s scarred surface. The room smelled of paper and dust, lit by a single lamp that cast half their faces in shadow. He listened as Aurora unfolded the story: a chance meeting in Bristol, a name whispered in a gutter pub, the slow unraveling of Evan’s new life. Every word she spoke tightened the knot in Silas’s chest. When she paused, her hands wrapped around a mug of lukewarm coffee, he studied her. Lines had formed at the corners of her eyes, a map of nights spent worrying and watching, of restless sleep. She was beautiful in that hard way—like a blade forged in too-hot fire. He realized he’d missed this: the way she leaned into a problem, the way her mind clicked through possibilities. He reached across the table, placed his hand over hers. His signet ring pressed into her skin. “We’ll find him,” he said. “Together.” She closed her fingers over his. The tension in her shoulders eased for the first time that night. She met his eyes, restored a measure of trust he thought lost. The room seemed to exhale around them—as if the maps on the walls, the ghosts of his past, all leaned closer to listen. Behind the bar’s door, jazz slipped through the crack. A distant clock chimed twelve. Outside, the rain slowed. In that hidden room, two friends remade their alliance, bridging the gap of years with an unspoken vow: whatever lay ahead, they’d face it side by side. And for Silas Blackwood, that was enough to stir a familiar fire he thought had long since died.