Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMR5XMEMEXD3JVZ0B1GMJTN

The third deadbolt stuck, as it always did in damp weather. Rory wrestled with it, her shoulder pressed against the door, when a sharp knock echoed from the other side. She froze. Eva wasn't due back from her research trip until Sunday. No one else knew about this flat—no one who meant her any good, anyway. The knock came again, more insistent this time. Rory's hand drifted to the pepper spray in her jacket pocket. She flipped the deadbolt with her thumb and pulled the door inward in one swift motion, ready for trouble. What she found was worse. Lucien Moreau stood in the narrow hallway, water droplets beading on the shoulders of his charcoal suit, his platinum hair slicked darker against his skull from the rain. He looked like something out of a magazine spread, except for the tension in his jaw. "Rory." Her name in his mouth—always that slight friction on the R, the vowels stretched just enough to remind her he'd learned English in Marseille before he'd ever set foot in London. Six months, and she'd almost managed to forget how he said it. Almost. She gripped the doorframe. "How did you find this address?" "You know what I do." "That's not an answer." "Non." He tilted his head, studying her with those impossible eyes—one warm amber, one black as ink. The heterochromia had unsettled her the first time they'd met. By the end, she'd learned to read him by the amber eye alone. The black one reflected nothing. "But it is the truth." Ptolemy chose that moment to wind between Rory's ankles, meowing imperiously. The tabby had never met a stranger he didn't like—a trait Rory found exasperating and endearing in equal measure. Now the cat padded past her and began rubbing against Lucien's polished shoes. Traitor. "He's not supposed to be out here," Rory said, though whether she meant the cat or the half-demon in her hallway, she couldn't say. Lucien glanced down, something softening in his expression. "Bonjour, petit." He crouched, ignoring the water dripping from his hair, and extended one hand for Ptolemy to sniff. The cat butted against his palm immediately, purring loud enough to echo off the walls. "Four languages," Rory said flatly. "And you use them to charm cats." "I like cats." He rose, adjusting the grip on his ivory-handled cane. "They are honest. Unlike some people." The barb landed precisely where he'd intended. Rory felt her jaw tighten. "You don't get to do that. You don't get to show up here after six months and—" "May I come in?" "No." "Rory." Just her name again, but weighted differently now. He was asking for something, and she hated that some traitorous part of her wanted to give it. She should close the door. She should tell him to go to hell—she knew enough about his kind's realm now to mean it literally. But her fingers wouldn't move, and the silence stretched between them, thick with everything they'd never said. The curry house downstairs sent up the smell of cumin and turmeric through the floorboards. Ptolemy meowed again, tail twitching with impatience. Somewhere in the building, a baby cried. Rory stepped aside. Lucien moved past her into the flat, and she caught the scent of him beneath the rain—sandalwood and something darker, something that made her want to lean closer and pull away all at once. He surveyed the chaos of books and scrolls with clinical precision, his gaze landing on the cluttered desk where Eva's research notes formed precarious towers. "Still hiding," he said quietly. "I'm not hiding. I'm living my life." "Two delivery shifts a day. A flat that belongs to your friend. Three locks on a door you barely open." He turned to face her. "That is not living, Aurora. That is waiting." Hearing her full name from him felt like being stripped bare. She crossed her arms over her chest, felt the familiar ridge of the crescent scar beneath her sleeve. "You lost the right to comment on my life when you walked out." "I did not walk out." The words came sharp, clipped. "I was trying to protect you." "From what? From the truth?" She stepped closer, anger giving her courage. "You looked me in the eye and told me you had to leave. You said it was better if I didn't know why. And then you disappeared for half a year, and I had to find out from Silas that you'd been running operations in Prague the whole time!" "Prague was necessary." "Then why lie?" "Because I knew you would follow." His voice dropped, rough at the edges. "I knew you would try to help, and I could not—" He stopped, the cane creaking in his grip. "What I had to do there would have destroyed you." "Let me decide that." "You do not understand what I am." "I understood enough to—" She caught herself. Took a breath. "You're right. I don't understand. Because you never explained. You never trusted me with the ugly parts." Lucien laughed, a hollow sound. "The ugly parts. You have seen what I can do, Rory. You have seen me in the dark. And you think I do not trust you because I left?" "I think you don't trust anyone." The accusation hung between them. His mismatched eyes held hers, unblinking. This close, she could see the rain still clinging to his lashes, the slight dampness of his collar. "You are wrong," he said finally. "I trusted you with the only thing that matters. I trusted you to survive without me." Something in her chest cracked. "That's not trust. That's abandonment with good intentions." "Perhaps." He looked away, toward the window where rain streaked the glass. "But you are still here. You are still breathing. And that matters more to me than whether you hate me for how it was done." "I don't hate you." The admission surprised them both. Rory pressed her lips together, furious at herself for the slip. Lucien's gaze returned to her face, sharp and searching. "No?" "I should. God knows I've tried." She rubbed her left wrist, her thumb finding the scar automatically. "But hate requires energy I don't have. And you're not worth wasting that kind of energy on." She'd meant it as a wound. Instead, the corner of his mouth twitched—the faintest hint of the smile she used to coax from him in quieter moments. "There she is," he murmured. "Don't." "Don't what?" "Don't look at me like you know me. Like you remember." Her voice came out smaller than she wanted. "You gave up that right." "I never gave it up." He moved closer, just a single step, but it changed everything. The distance between them shrank from safe to dangerous. "I carry it with me. Every day. Every job. Every time I walk past a bookshop or smell that terrible tea you insist on drinking—" "It's not terrible, it's practical—" "It tastes like steeped cardboard." "And you wouldn't know quality if it bit you, you snob." They were both smiling now, and it hurt. It hurt the way a healed bone ached in cold weather—a reminder of damage done, imperfectly repaired. Lucien reached into his jacket. Rory tensed, but what he withdrew was an envelope, cream-colored and slightly bent at the corner. He held it out to her. "What is this?" "An invitation. To what, I cannot say. But my mother's family has taken an interest in you. They have requested a meeting." Rory stared at the envelope without taking it. "Your demon family." "Half." "That's not the reassuring clarification you think it is." "No," he agreed. "It is not. But they will come for you whether you accept or not. At least this way, you have time to prepare." She took the envelope. The paper was heavier than expected, warm from his body heat. "Why tell me this? You could have mailed it. Sent a messenger. Anything besides—" "Coming here myself?" "Yes." Lucien was quiet for a long moment. Outside, the rain intensified, drumming against the window. Ptolemy jumped onto the desk, scattering Eva's notes, and began cleaning his paws with absurd domestic contentment. "Because I needed to see," Lucien said finally. "I needed to know if you were well. If the life I left you to was treating you kindly." "And?" "And I find that you are living in a flat full of books you have not read, with three locks on a door you barely open, working yourself to exhaustion for a man who pays you a fraction of what you are worth." His voice softened. "I find that you are surviving. But I do not think you are living." Rory wanted to argue. She had arguments prepared—good ones, logical ones, about independence and safety and the simple pleasure of uncomplicated days. But the words died in her throat, because he was right, and she hated him for it. "You should go," she said instead. "Rory—" "Please." She pressed the envelope against her chest like a shield. "I need... I need time to think. About all of it." Lucien studied her for a long moment. Then he inclined his head, a gesture so formal it felt like watching a door close. "As you wish." He moved toward the exit, and every step he took felt like something being pulled from her chest. She should let him go. She should lock the door behind him and never think of him again. "Luc." He stopped. Turned. She swallowed hard. "Don't wait six months next time. If there's a next time." For a moment, something raw crossed his face—wanting, she thought, or maybe just exhaustion from carrying it alone. Then it smoothed away beneath his careful composure. "I will try," he said. And then he was gone, leaving only the smell of rain and sandalwood, an envelope she couldn't bring herself to open, and the echo of a door closing between them.