Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMRCSTCHXTGCPVQZNBM3NSY

The green neon glow buzzed softly above the entrance to The Raven’s Nest, casting a sickly light on the cracked pavement of Old Compton Street. Inside, the bar carried the familiar scent of aged wood and spilled whiskey—a graveyard of forgotten nights. Aurora Carter pushed open the heavy door, the faint echo of her shoes clipping against the hardwood floor as she stepped inside, shoulder-length black hair tucked behind one ear. She paused, eyes adjusting to the dim light, taking in the scene. The walls were lined with old maps—some curling at the edges—and black-and-white photographs capturing moments long past, ghosts captured behind glass and silver. Her gaze flicked past the cluttered tables to the bar, where a man stood polishing a glass with the slow, sure patience of rehearsed routine. Silas Blackwood. The man had changed since the last time they’d seen each other—years ago now, before the blackened edges of London chilled her own bones, before the bruises Evan left hung unseen beneath her clothes. The auburn of his hair had silvered like dust settling over a forgotten tome. A slight limp pulled at his left leg as he moved. His hazel eyes caught hers across the room, steady and unreadable, a flicker of recognition tracing their surface like a shadow under still water. Rory’s heart tightened. She half-expected him to say something sharp, cold in the way old friends sometimes are when stretched thin by time and silence. Instead, his lips pulled into a slow, composed smile—a quiet invitation she didn’t feel ready to accept but walked toward anyway. “Rory,” he said, voice low and measured. “Long time.” She swallowed, feeling the weight of that phrase settle around her shoulders like a cloak. “Silas.” His eyes searched hers for a moment longer, as if confirming the girl she’d been was the woman now standing before him—a stranger forged from the same copper and smoke. “Come, sit.” His hand gestured toward an empty booth near the back, away from the few scattered patrons nursing their drinks and tired conversations. Rory slid into the seat opposite him, the old leather creaking under her. She wrestled with the familiar surge of nerves, the unease of standing on a precipice of unsaid words. “How long has it been?” she asked finally, voice careful, as if the answer might fracture the moment. “Nearly six years,” Silas replied. He ran a hand through the streaked auburn curls, then folded them on the table. “You look well.” She lifted her wrist subtly, the small crescent-shaped scar catching the flickering light. “Life’s been... complicated.” Silas nodded, the line of his mouth tightening just slightly. “I heard about Evan.” Her throat constricted. The past was a shadow she’d left behind her, but it still clung. “It’s over.” He studied her, his gaze tender but unyielding. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re out.” Rory’s eyes dipped to the scar. “I didn’t expect to see you here.” “I don’t get out much.” His faint smile was edged with self-mockery. “The Nest has been my corner of the world for years now. A front, some say, for what remains of my old life.” His eyes gleamed mischievously, though shadows lurked beneath. “Spies never really retire. We just change battlegrounds.” She nodded, sensing the layers beneath. Silas had always been a man of secrets and scars—visible and otherwise. And yet, here he was, a quiet bulwark against the chaos she’d been running from. “I’ve been working deliveries,” she said, her voice gaining strength as she spoke. “Part-time at a restaurant down near Chinatown. Helps me keep my head above water.” “And London?” he asked, never taking his eyes off her. “London’s been both—a refuge and a weight.” She smiled tenuously, the tension easing just a fraction. “Eva’s been a lifeline.” Silas tapped the silver signet ring on his right hand against the table. “It’s strange, isn’t it? How people drift apart and then collide again like suns—burning with the past but unwilling to fizzle out.” Rory met his gaze, and for a heartbeat she saw in him not the spymaster of old tales, but a man shaped by time and regret. “Why did you leave, Si? After... everything?” He sighed, the motion slow and deliberate, as if releasing a breath held for a decade. “After Prague, I thought I could disappear. I was wrong. There are pieces of me scattered across the continent—pieces I can’t reclaim but must carry. The Nest... it’s my way of holding on. And maybe, in a twisted way, my penance.” She folded her hands over the scar, feeling its smooth curve under her skin. “I’ve been carrying my own pieces, some broken and sharp. Evan made sure of that.” Silas reached out, a rough hand hovering an inch from hers but never quite touching. “You’re stronger than you know, Rory.” A flicker of the girl she once was surged to the surface—the girl who had dreamed of law and justice before life became survival. The blue of her eyes caught his hazel, both of them measuring what had been lost and what, miraculously, remained. “Do you ever regret it?” she asked. “The life you left?” He pondered, his gaze distant. “Regret is a luxury for those who think they had a choice. I made mine. Sometimes I wish I’d made it differently. But the past... the past shapes the edge we walk on. Without it, there’s nothing.” “Maybe that’s why I’m here,” Rory whispered. “To find a new edge. To stop running.” Silas inclined his head, respect and something gentler folding into his expression. “The Nest will always have a corner for you, Rory. You’re safer here.” A silence stretched between them—not uncomfortable, but charged, a fragile truce carved out of years lost. “Do you still think about Cardiff?” she asked, voice barely above the hum of the bar. “Every day,” he said. “But London… London is home now. The memories, the mistakes—they live within these walls. And sometimes, they talk.” Rory smiled, a real one that cracked through the armor she’d worn for so long. “I’m glad we met again, Si.” His eyes softened. “Me too, Rory. Me too.” The neon outside flickered, casting fragmented light through the rain-streaked windows as past and present folded into the quiet hum of The Raven’s Nest. Two friends, scarred but unbroken, sat side by side in the shelter of shared silence, the weight of time no longer a chain but a bridge.