Run: 2026-02-17-01KHNF2V80ZCHVF0A1DR3Z3EJE

The Raven's Nest smelled of aged whiskey and wood polish, a comforting musk that clung to Rory's clothes whenever she descended the creaking stairs from her flat. Neon light bled green through the front windows, painting irregular rectangles across the mahogany bar where Silas polished glasses with a linen cloth, his signet ring catching the dim light with each methodical motion. The photograph behind him showed a younger Silas in Prague, before the knee injury, standing rigid beside people whose faces had been scratched out with a knife tip. Rory traced the crescent scar on her wrist absently as she waited for her usual order—Yu-Fei's cumin lamb and baskets of steaming bao—to be wrapped behind the bar. Silas had insisted she eat something besides takeaway containers balanced on her knees, though he'd only grunted when she thanked him, the way he did whenever kindness slipped past his defenses. The bell above the door jangled. Rory turned, expecting another Wednesday night regular—perhaps the journalist who nursed single malts while pretending not to eavesdrop, or the art forger who smelled of turpentine and talked too loudly about Courbet. Instead, she saw a ghost from Cardiff. "Evan?" The name slipped out before she could trap it between her teeth. He stood framed in the doorway, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. The overhead bulb caught highlights in his hair—longer now, threaded with premature silver at the temples. His navy peacoat was tailored, expensive-looking. Nothing like the boy who'd bought second-hand blazers for moot court competitions. "Laila?" he said, using the name she'd discarded along with everything else from that life. His accent had smoothed out, the Cardiff lilt softened by years in London boardrooms. Silas stopped polishing glasses. Rory felt his gaze like a physical weight between her shoulder blades. She flexed her left hand—no ring. Not anymore. "You're the last person I expected to find holed up in a Soho dive," Evan said, stepping closer. His shoes were Italian leather, she noticed. The cuffs of his shirt peeked out, French and crisp against his wrists. "I live upstairs." She didn't mention the leaky shower or how the radiator groaned like a dying animal in winter. Evan tapped the bar with two fingers. "Double Macallan. Neat." Silas didn't move. "We're a beer and whiskey house." His limp was more pronounced as he shifted his weight, deliberate. Evan sighed. "Fine. Whatever single malt you've got back there." Silas slid a tumbler across the bar with more force than necessary. On cue, Rory's phone buzzed—Yu-Fei's kitchen shift manager confirming her pickup time. She ignored Evan's glance at the cracked screen. "Still delivering takeaway?" He smirked, swirling the whiskey. "Bit of a downgrade from the Inns of Court, isn't it?" Rory remembered the exact timbre of his laugh when she'd told him about leaving law school. How it had curdled before the sound fully formed. "The food's better," she said lightly, taking her paper bag from Silas. The bao smelled of star anise and five-spice. Evan always hated cumin, called it peasant food. He drained his whiskey in one swallow. "Christ, that's awful." Pressing a fifty-pound note under the glass, he nodded toward the tables near the back. "Catch up?" Rain smeared the windows behind him. The art forger muttered into his pint. In the photograph, young Silas stood frozen beside his faceless companions. Rory exhaled through her nose. They took the corner booth where the vinyl split along the seams. Evan unbuttoned his coat, revealing a waistcoat and pocket watch chain. The Evan she'd known owned exactly two ties, both Christmas gifts from his mum. "You look..." "Like I belong in a hedge fund?" He grimaced. "Was going to say 'tired.'" Rory unwrapped a bao, letting the steam bloom between them. "Why are you here, Evan?" He studied his empty glass. "Meeting clients at the club around the corner. Saw the green sign." His thumb rubbed at a watermark on the table. "Remember how we used to чтение по губам—" "Don't." Her bao crumbled between her fingers. For years they'd played that game in crowded pubs, mouthing words across tables as drunks jostled them. Private jokes in public places. The silence stretched. Behind the bar, Silas shook ice from a shaker with unnecessary vigor. Evan cleared his throat. "I heard about your dad. Passed the bar, did he?" "Two years ago." Rory wiped her hands on a napkin. "Eviscerated some junior barrister's negligence argument right before the stroke. Typical Brendan." A pause. Pipes groaned in the walls. Evan hesitated. "When you left Cardiff—" "I didn't leave," she corrected. "I ran." "Without a word." Outside, a cab splashed through puddled gutter. Someone dropped coins on the pavement. "You got the first editions," Rory said abruptly. Evan blinked. "The Dickens collection. You kept them." He opened his mouth, then shut it. In the dim light, his crow's feet deepened—laughter lines Rory used to trace with her fingertips, now etched deeper by years she hadn't witnessed. "You never came back," Evan said at last. Rory thought of Yu-Fei's kitchen, her bicycle with the wobbly front wheel, the way Silas had wordlessly changed her locks when Evan's name appeared on a police report months after she fled. "No," she agreed. Evan stood abruptly, fishing another note from his wallet. "For the whiskey," he told Silas, who grunted. At the door, he turned. "You were right, you know." Rory waited. "That last fight." Evan's hand hovered near the knob. "About cruelty taking more forms than bruising." The bell jangled as he left. Silas emerged from behind the bar, bringing a damp cloth to wipe the table. He gathered Evan's untouched second fifty-pound note—compensation for old wounds—and stuffed it into the till with finality. "Eat your damn bao before they get cold," he muttered. Rain streaked the windows. Somewhere in the city, Evan was hailing a cab, adjusting his cufflinks, stepping back into a life that had grown around Rory's absence like bark around a nail. She took a bite. The cumin burned her tongue.