AI The rain in Soho didn’t wash the streets clean; it merely slicked the grime into a reflective sheen, catching the distorted neon glow of the Raven’s Nest sign. Inside, the bar was quiet, the kind of heavy, expectant silence that settles in after the last drunk has stumbled out and before the cleaning begins.
Aurora Carter stood behind the mahogany, a rag in her hand. She wasn’t cleaning , just squeezing the fabric over and over, watching the water drip onto her boots. She was twenty-five, but tonight, staring at the rows of inverted bottles, she felt ancient. The flat above the shop—her flat—felt too empty, the silence up there accusatory rather than peaceful. Down here, at least, the ghosts had names.
The bell above the door chimed, a sharp, discordant note that sliced through the hum of the refrigerator.
Rory didn’t look up immediately. "Last call was an hour ago, love. You’ll have to find your sleep somewhere else."
"Have I really been gone that long that you’ve forgotten the key?"
The voice was a low rumble, textured like gravel and whiskey, but thinner than she remembered. It carried an exhaustion that went beyond bone-deep.
Rory froze. The rag dropped to the floor. She looked up, her bright blue eyes widening against the dim light.
He stood in the doorway, framed by the foggy glass and the streetlights beyond. Silas Blackwood. He looked like a photograph left too long in the sun—faded at the edges, the colors less vibrant. He wore a trench coat that was heavy with rain, his hair—once just a distinguished dusting of grey—now a thorough silver-streaked auburn that hung limp around his face. The neatly trimmed beard was shaggy now, hiding the sharp angle of his jaw.
He took a step forward, and his left leg dragged. The limp was no longer a "slight" thing; it was a pronounced hitch, a heavy anchor that dragged at his posture.
"Silas?" The name felt foreign in her mouth, a word from a life she had boxed up and shelved three years ago.
"In the flesh." He gripped the back of a chair, his knuckles white. On his right hand, the silver signet ring caught the light, a familiar anchor in a sea of changes. "Although, judging by the look on your face, I’m a bit more of it than you remember."
He had vanished. One Tuesday, the bar was closed , a note in the window reading *Back in five*. Five days turned into five weeks, then months. No texts, no calls. The rent on the flat above stopped being collected , the bank account attached to the bar kept running on autopilot, managed by some silent partner in the shadows. Rory had kept the place running, not out of loyalty to the memory of a man who might be dead, but because she needed the floorboards under her feet after she fled Cardiff.
She walked around the bar, her movements cautious, as if approaching a wounded animal. "You’ve been gone three years, Silas."
"Has it been that long?" He grimaced, sinking into the chair. "Time gets... elastic. In my line of work."
"Your line of work is retired," she shot back, her voice tighter than she intended. The cool-headed intelligence she prided herself on was fracturing under the sudden resurgence of old anger. "That was the deal. The Prague op went south, you took the knee injury, and you bought a pub. That was the story."
"Stories have sequels, Rory. Usually bad ones." He gestured vaguely at the empty bar. "You look well. You’re running the place?"
"I'm living here. I pay the utilities out of the till." She stopped a few feet away from him. She wanted to reach out, to touch his shoulder, to verify he was real and not a projection of her own loneliness. But the distance between them wasn't physical; it was the accumulation of a thousand days of unanswered questions. "Where were you?"
He looked at the wall, studying the black-and-white photographs of old Soho that lined the room. He looked smaller in the chair, his six-foot-one frame collapsed inward.
"Does it matter?"
"It matters to the woman who spent three years wondering if your body was floating in the Thames."
Silas let out a short, dry chuckle that turned into a cough. He rubbed his chest, a reflexive motion. "I was in Brussels. Then Ankara. Then a hole in the ground in Macedonia that doesn't appear on any map. I didn't mean to stay away this long. But coming back... coming back required a few loose ends to be tied."
"Like a noose?" Rory asked, crossing her arms. She felt the small crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist itch—a phantom sensation from her childhood, a reminder that pain lingered long after the wound healed.
Silas finally looked her in the eye. His hazel gaze was clouded , the sharp, observant edge dulled by things he had seen—or done. "You’ve changed. You’re harder. The scared girl who ran from Cardiff wouldn't talk to me like this."
"That girl didn't have a landlord who abandoned her property and disappeared into the ether," she countered. She uncorked a bottle of scotch, pouring two fingers into a heavy tumbler. She didn't ask if he wanted it; she just slid it across the table toward him.
Silas wrapped his fingers around the glass. The signet ring clinked against the crystal. He took a sip, closing his eyes as the burn hit his throat. "I heard about the ex. Evan. Before I left. I was going to have a word with him."
"I handled it," Rory said simply.
"I know. I checked the police reports. And the hospital records." He opened his eyes. "I taught you well."
"You taught me how to pick locks and spot a tail, Silas. I learned to survive on my own."
Silas swirled the amber liquid. "I wanted to protect you, Rory. That’s why I left when the call came. The people I was going after... they don't respect boundaries. If they knew I cared about anyone, cared about this place, they would have burned it down."
"So you left me as the lightning rod?" Rory leaned against the edge of the table, looking down at him. "I’ve been living above the bar, Silas. If they wanted to find you, they would have come here."
"They did."
The words hung in the air , displacing the smell of stale beer with the cold scent of adrenaline.
Rory went still. "When?"
"Six months ago. Two men. Broke in downstairs." Silas nodded toward the bar. "They didn't find anything. The safe was empty. You were asleep upstairs."
Rory remembered a night months ago. A storm, loud thunder that had woken her. She had come down to check the back door and found it unlocked. She’d assumed the wind had blown the latch. She had locked it and gone back to bed, chalking it up to an old building settling.
"You didn't come back then," she said, her voice barely a whisper.
"I couldn't. I was watching. I was across the street. I saw you check the lock. I saw you go back up." Silas’s voice cracked. "If I had come in, if I had made contact, they would have come back. And they wouldn't have just searched the next time. I had to lead them away. I had to make them chase me."
The anger in Rory’s chest began to cool, replaced by a heavy, hollow ache. She looked at the limp in his leg, the way he favored his right side, the deep lines etched around his mouth. He hadn't just run away. He had drawn the fire. He had spent three years in the wilderness to keep the roof over her head safe.
"You could have told me," she said, though she knew the answer.
"No. If you knew, you would have been worried. If you were worried, you would have made mistakes. You were safer thinking I was just a flake who skipped out on rent." He finished the scotch in one swallow and set the glass down hard. "I'm not the man who owned this bar, Rory. I'm not the mentor. I'm just the thing that goes bump in the night now."
He moved to stand up, wincing as he put weight on his left knee.
Rory reached out, her hand covering his on the table. Her fingers were warm, his were cold and clammy. "Sit down."
"Rory—"
"Sit down, Silas." She walked to the other side of the table and sat in the chair opposite him. For the first time in years, they were on equal footing. No teacher, no student. Just two people sitting in the dark.
"You're right," she said, looking at the map of the world framed on the wall behind him, a map that was outdated , showing borders that no longer existed. "The girl from Cardiff is gone. But she didn't just turn into stone. I know how to take care of myself now. I know how to handle trouble."
Silas looked at her, really looked at her, perhaps for the first time since he walked in. He saw the set of her shoulders, the directness of her gaze. She wasn't the delivery girl he remembered. She was the woman who had kept his sanctuary safe while he burned his own life down to keep the embers away from her.
"Whatever you're running from," Rory said, "or whatever is running from you... you can't sleep on the street. And you can't keep running forever."
"I don't sleep much anymore."
"Neither do I." She stood up and walked behind the bar, grabbing a bottle of water and a key. She tossed the key onto the table in front of him. It was the spare key to the upstairs flat. The one she had made when she thought she might lose the original.
Silas stared at the brass key. "I can't stay. The longer I'm here, the more the—"
"The more the what?" She cut him off, her voice hardening. "The more the danger follows? I told you, I’m not that scared girl. Besides, look at the place. It’s a dump. Who would look for a retired spook in a dump like this?"
A faint, genuine smile touched Silas’s lips. It was a ghost of the man he used to be, but it was there. "It is a dump. I really need to redo the floors."
"You’re not allowed to do the floors," Rory said. "You’re a guest. You’re just... you’re just a friend who stayed away too long."
Silas picked up the key, the metal warm from where she had held it. He rubbed his thumb over the ridged teeth. "Three years is a long time."
"It’s a lifetime," she agreed. "But it’s just Tuesday night here."
The neon sign outside buzzed, a low, electric hum that vibrated through the floorboards. Outside, the rain continued to fall, washing the city, but inside, the gap was finally closing. Silas didn't stand up immediately. He stayed in the chair, his hand resting on the key, and for the first time in a long time, he didn't feel the need to look over his shoulder.