AI The green neon sign buzzed overhead, casting a sickly glow on the damp pavement. *The Raven’s Nest *. Aurora pushed the heavy door open, the familiar scent of old wood, spilled whisky, and polish washing over her. It was a smell that had become synonymous with a strange kind of safety.
Inside, the bar was in its usual late-afternoon lull. A few solitary figures hunched over pints, and the soft clink of glassware echoed in the dimness. Silas was behind the bar, polishing a tumbler with a methodical , practiced hand. He didn’t look up as she entered, but a slight, almost imperceptible nod in her direction acknowledged her arrival. His silver signet ring caught the low light as he worked. She appreciated that about him—the lack of fuss.
She slid onto a stool at the far end of the counter, away from the other patrons. The day had been a long one, a blur of London traffic and navigating labyrinthine office buildings with containers of Yu-Fei’s fragrant Szechuan prawns. Her shoulders ached.
“The usual, Rory?” Silas’s voice was a low rumble, like distant thunder. He was already reaching for the bottle of decent bourbon he kept for her beneath the counter.
“Please, Si. Make it a double. It’s been one of those days where the Sat-Nav has a clearer life plan than I do.”
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. He poured the amber liquid over a single large ice cube and pushed it towards her. His hazel eyes, sharp and knowing, scanned her face. “Trouble with the bike?”
“No, the bike’s fine. Just… people.” She wrapped her hands around the cool glass, the condensation soothing against her skin. She caught sight of the small, pale crescent scar on her left wrist, a relic of a fall from a tree in her grandmother’s garden in Wexford. A lifetime ago.
She was about to ask him about a strange delivery request she’d received—a parcel to be left under a specific bench in Holland Park, no signature required—when the door opened again, letting in a sharp slice of grey afternoon light.
The man who entered was dressed in a well-cut, expensive-looking overcoat, its fabric seeming out of place among the worn leather and scratched wood of the Nest. He hesitated for a moment, letting his eyes adjust, before striding towards the bar with a confidence that bordered on arrogance. He took a stool a few down from Aurora.
Silas finished wiping down the spot in front of the man, his movements slowing slightly . A subtle shift in the atmosphere, a tensing of the air, was the only sign that Silas was now on high alert. “What can I get for you?”
“Macallan 18. Neat.” The voice was familiar . It was a voice that had been eroded by time and what sounded like a lot of cigarettes, but its underlying cadence was etched into a part of Aurora’s memory she rarely visited.
She risked a glance. The profile was sharper than she remembered, the jawline more defined, with lines of tension around the mouth that hadn't been there before. But the set of the eyes, the way his hair, now impeccably styled with a hint of grey at the temples, fell across his forehead…
“Evan?”
The name was out of her mouth before she could stop it, a soft, disbelieving exhale.
He turned. For a second, there was blank politeness in his gaze, the look one gives a stranger. Then it cleared, replaced by a slow-dawning recognition that seemed to drain the colour from his face . “Laila?”
The old name, the one he’d called her, hit her like a physical blow. No one had called her that in years. It was a name from a sealed-off room in her life, a room she had painted over and locked tight.
“It’s Aurora,” she corrected, her voice tighter than she intended. “Aurora Carter.”
“Aurora,” he repeated, as if tasting the word. A slow, complicated smile spread across his face. It didn’t quite reach his eyes. “My God. Look at you.”
Silas placed the glass of Macallan in front of Evan with a quiet thud. He didn’t move away, instead busying himself with rearranging bottles within earshot, a silent, watchful presence.
“I could say the same,” Aurora said, forcing a calm she didn’t feel. The bourbon was a welcome anchor in her hand. “Macallan 18. You’ve moved up in the world.”
Evan chuckled, a dry, humourless sound. “Perks of the job.” He picked up his glass, swirling the liquid. “I’m a partner now. At Clarkson & Frye.” He said the name of the corporate law firm with a practiced nonchalance that screamed of its importance.
“Cardiff’s loss is London’s gain,” she said, her tone deliberately flat . Cardiff University felt like a different planet . Him in his cheap student blazer, full of fire and ambition, talking about changing the system from within. Her, trudging reluctantly through pre-law lectures to please her barrister father, feeling like an imposter in her own life.
“I heard you’d moved to London,” he said, his eyes tracing her face, lingering on the lines of fatigue she knew were there. “Eva mentioned it, once. I ran into her at a conference.”
“Eva has a big mouth.”
“She was always worried about you.” He paused. “We all were. When you just… left.”
The unspoken words hung between them, heavy and accusatory. *When you left me.* Aurora took a long swallow of her drink, the bourbon burning a welcome path down her throat. She could feel Silas’s quiet attention like a physical weight . He knew fragments of it, enough to be wary.
“I needed a change,” she said, her voice even. “London offered… possibilities.”
“Delivering takeaways?” The question wasn’t malicious, just baffled, dripping with the condescension of someone who measured success in partnership tracks and year-end bonuses.
A hot flush crept up her neck. “Among other things. It pays the rent. The flat above this very bar, in fact.” She saw his gaze flicker around the dim room, taking in the faded maps on the walls, the sense of layered secrets. His expression was one of pure incomprehension. The Aurora he knew—Laila—was supposed to be drafting legal briefs in a high-rise, not living above a pub in Soho.
“I never pictured this for you,” he said quietly, almost to himself .
“People change, Evan.”
“Do they?” He leaned forward slightly , his cologne—something expensive and woody—briefly overpowering the scent of the bar. “You still have that scar.” He nodded towards her wrist.
Instinctively, she turned her wrist over, hiding the crescent mark. It was a gesture she hadn’t made in years. He remembered the scar from a childhood accident, but he’d mapped other, fresher marks onto her skin with his words, marks that had taken much longer to fade.
“Some things stick with you,” she said, her gaze steady on him .
The silence that fell between them was thick and uncomfortable. He took a sip of his whisky, wincing slightly as if it was bitter . “I looked for you, you know. After. For a while.”
“Why?”
The directness of the question seemed to throw him. He shrugged, a loose, awkward movement. “I don’t know. To apologise, I suppose. For… how things ended.”
“‘Ended’ is a polite word for it.” The words were out, sharp and brittle. She saw Silas’s shoulders tense minutely. She never talked about this. Not with anyone. But seeing him here, cloaked in his expensive success, the ghost of the man she’d been foolish enough to love smirking behind his eyes, cracked something open.
Evan had the decency to look down at his glass. “I wasn’t… well. The pressure, the exams… I wasn’t myself.”
“‘I wasn’t myself,’” Aurora repeated softly . “You know, I used to wait to see who would show up. The funny, ambitious guy I fell for? Or the one who thought his stress gave him the right to…” She trailed off, letting the sentence hang. She wouldn’t give him the specifics. He didn’t deserve the absolution of hearing her say the words aloud. The slammed doors. The things thrown, not at her, but near enough . The vicious, cutting critiques of her dreams, her friends, her family. The constant, erosive drip of blame.
“It was a dark time,” he mumbled, his confidence seeming to leach away, revealing the insecure boy she remembered from their worst moments. “I’ve worked on it. Therapy. All that.”
“Good for you.” She meant it to sound dismissive, but it came out weary. She was suddenly , overwhelmingly tired. Tired of the memory, tired of the ghost, tired of the weight of this chance encounter .
He seemed to sense her retreat. “And you? Are you… are you happy, Aurora?”
The question was so vast, so unanswerable, that she almost laughed. Happy? She was surviving . She had a roof over her head, a job that, while menial, offered a peculiar kind of freedom. She had Silas’s gruff protection and the complex , shadowy network of the Nest. She had a life she had built piece by piece from the wreckage he’d had a hand in creating. It wasn’t the life anyone had pictured for her, least of all herself. But it was hers.
“I’m content,” she said finally, finishing her bourbon. The ice cube clicked softly against the empty glass.
He nodded, absorbing this. Contentment was clearly a foreign concept, a poor cousin to the triumphant happiness he’d no doubt envisioned for his own life.
Silas appeared as if summoned by the sound of her empty glass. “Another, Rory?”
“No, Si. I think I’m done.” She slipped off the stool, pulling a ten-pound note from her jacket pocket and laying it on the bar. Silas gave a slight shake of his head, but she pushed it towards him. She didn’t want any part of this evening, even the price of a drink, to be connected to Evan.
Evan stood up as well, a clumsy, abrupt movement. “It was… good to see you, Aurora.” He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a crisp, white business card. “In case you ever… I don’t know. Decide to use that law degree. I could put in a word.”
She looked at the card, at his name embossed in sharp, black letters. *Evan Griffiths, Partner *. It was a monument to everything he had become, and a tombstone for everything they had been. She didn’t take it.
“I’m not that person anymore, Evan.” She gave him a small, tight smile that held no warmth . “Some of us really do change.”
She turned and walked towards the door, feeling his gaze on her back. She didn’t look at the hidden bookshelf that led to Silas’s secret room, or the photographs of forgotten spies on the wall. She just pushed open the door and stepped back out into the London drizzle, the buzz of the green neon sign fading behind her, leaving only the echo of a name she no longer answered to.