Run: 2026-02-17-01KHNFA7F5RT8JCG9QVWZ38GWS

The knock came just as Aurora was wrestling with the temperamental lock on Eva's middle deadbolt. She froze, key halfway turned, pulse suddenly hammering against her ribs. Eva never knocked — she'd burst through her own door like a hurricane, usually mid-rant about whatever mystical catastrophe had befallen her day. "Eva?" Aurora called through the wood. "Did you forget your keys again?" Silence. Then, a voice she hadn't heard in three months: "It's me, Rory." Her hand slipped on the key. That accent — French silk over gravel, unmistakable even muffled by the door. She pressed her forehead against the wood, breathing through the sudden tightness in her chest. Of all the nights for Lucien Moreau to materialize on Eva's doorstep, it had to be when her flatmate was pulling an all-nighter at the British Library, leaving Aurora to feed Ptolemy and water the plants. "Eva's not here," she managed. "I know." A pause. "I came to see you." The words landed like stones in still water, ripples spreading through her. Aurora's fingers found the crescent scar on her left wrist, an old habit when anxious. Three months since that night at the docks. Three months since she'd watched him walk away, ivory-handled cane clicking against wet cobblestones, without looking back. "Rory." Softer now, almost careful. "Please." She turned the remaining locks with quick, angry movements. Better to get this over with. Whatever Lucien wanted — information, a favor, another one of his elaborate schemes — she'd hear him out and send him on his way. Simple. The door swung open, and simple evaporated like morning mist. He looked terrible. Oh, he was still devastatingly put-together in his charcoal suit, platinum hair slicked back with mathematical precision. But shadows haunted the hollows beneath his cheekbones, and his heterochromatic eyes — amber and black, demon and human — held an exhaustion she'd never seen before. His left hand gripped his cane with white knuckles. "You look like hell," she said, because it was easier than saying any of the other words crowding her throat. His mouth quirked, not quite a smile. "Charming as always." His gaze traveled over her, taking in her delivery uniform, still damp from the evening rain. "Yu-Fei working you late again?" "Don't." She crossed her arms. "You don't get to show up here and make small talk. What do you want?" "May I come in?" "No." "Rory—" "No." She planted herself more firmly in the doorway. Behind her, Ptolemy meowed plaintively, probably hoping the visitor had brought food. "Whatever game you're playing, whatever angle you're working, I'm not interested. We agreed, Lucien. A clean break." "You agreed," he corrected, and there was something raw in his voice that made her stomach twist. "I simply... acquiesced." The word hung between them, weighted with everything they hadn't said three months ago. Aurora's fingers found her scar again. She remembered his hands — one warm, one fever-hot with his demon heritage — cradling her face in the rain. Remembered saying the words that sent him away: "I can't be another one of your assets, Luc. I won't." "Why are you here?" she asked again, quieter now. He shifted his weight, a tell she'd learned to read during their months of circling each other. Lucien Moreau, who could lie in four languages without blinking, who'd built an empire on secrets and strategic silences, was nervous. "There was an incident in Avaros," he said finally. "My father's realm. A coup attempt." Aurora's breath caught. Demon politics were brutal, often literally cutthroat. "Is he—?" "Alive. Diminished, but alive." Lucien's amber eye flashed, a glimpse of the inhuman fire that lived beneath his polished surface. "The usurper's forces are hunting half-breeds. Eliminating potential claims to power." The pieces clicked into place with sickening clarity. "They're coming for you." "They've already tried. Twice." He tilted his head, and she caught sight of a half-healed gash along his jawline, nearly hidden by his collar. "My usual safe houses are compromised. My contacts are being watched." "And you came here." Anger flared, hot and familiar. "To Eva's flat. You're putting her in danger—" "I came to you," he interrupted, taking a step closer. She could smell his cologne now, bergamot and smoke, could see the fine tremor in his cane hand. "Because despite everything, despite how we ended, you're the only person in London I trust to tell me the truth." The confession knocked the air from her lungs. In all their dealings — the careful dance of information and favors, the stolen moments between crises, the night everything fell apart — Lucien had never admitted to trusting anyone. "What truth?" she managed. His mismatched eyes held hers, amber and black, fire and void. "Whether I should keep running, or make my stand here." Ptolemy chose that moment to wind around Aurora's legs, purring like a tiny engine. The mundane gesture broke the spell, reminded her where they were: Eva's doorway, curry-scented air drifting up from the restaurant below, her life moving forward without him. Or trying to. "That's not my decision to make," she said. "Isn't it?" He leaned against the doorframe, a gesture that might have looked casual if she couldn't see the exhaustion pulling at his edges. "Three months ago, you told me I treat people like chess pieces. That I move them around my board without caring about the consequences." "You do." "Yes." No denial, no deflection. Just quiet acknowledgment. "But you were never a piece, Rory. You were—" He stopped, jaw tightening. "You are the board itself. The ground everything else moves across. Without you, the game doesn't exist." Her heart stuttered. In the distance, a siren wailed, very ordinary and very human. But here in Eva's doorway, with a half-demon fixer bleeding elegant metaphors into the space between them, the world felt paper-thin. "Pretty words," she said, voice not quite steady. "You always did have those." "Would ugly ones serve better? Fine." He straightened, and for a moment she saw past the polish to something raw and desperate. "I'm being hunted by demons who will peel me apart layer by layer to ensure my father's bloodline ends. I've spent three months telling myself I made the right choice in walking away. That keeping you clear of my world was worth—" He cut himself off, knuckles white on his cane. "I have perhaps days before they find me. And I'm here because I'm a selfish bastard who wants to spend whatever time remains near the only person who's ever looked at both sides of my heritage without flinching." The words hung in the curry-scented air like a challenge. Or a confession. Or both. Aurora felt the crescent scar beneath her fingertips, remembered the bike accident that caused it, the shock of pain and the dizzying realization that skin could split so easily. Lucien was offering her another kind of wound — the reopening of something barely healed. "The wards on Eva's flat are strong," she heard herself say. "Stronger than most safe houses." Something flickered in his eyes — hope, maybe, though he'd deny it. "Is that an invitation?" She stepped aside, decision made in the space between heartbeats. "It's a temporary arrangement. Until we figure out your demon problem." "Our?" He moved past her, careful not to touch. The absence of contact felt louder than collision. "I'm not letting you get Eva killed because you decided to darken her doorstep." Aurora closed the door, fingers moving automatically through the locks. "So yes. Our problem." When she turned, he was standing in the center of Eva's chaos, looking simultaneously out of place and perfectly at home among the towering books and mystical debris. Ptolemy had already claimed his left shoe, purring against the expensive leather. "For what it's worth," Lucien said quietly, "I tried to stay away." Aurora met his mismatched gaze across the cramped space. Three months of carefully rebuilt walls, and he'd demolished them with a knock and a handful of truths. "I know," she admitted, and watched something ease in his expression. "Tea?" His mouth curved, the first real smile since she'd opened the door. "Please. Though I doubt Eva keeps anything civilized." "There's builder's tea and whatever mystical concoction she's brewing in the blue pot. Your funeral if you choose wrong." "Given the circumstances, perhaps poor phrasing." But he followed her deeper into the flat, Ptolemy trailing behind like a devoted shadow. As Aurora filled the kettle, she felt the weight of Lucien's presence reshaping the space, filling corners that had learned his absence. Outside, London hummed its nighttime song — sirens and laughter, humanity and magic existing in uneasy parallel. Inside Eva's flat, two people who'd parted on complicated terms began the delicate work of existing in the same space again. The kettle whispered to life on the hob. Aurora reached for the everyday mugs, the ones without protective runes, and tried not to think about how easy it was to fall back into this rhythm. Tried not to notice how Lucien had positioned himself with clear sightlines to both door and window, even exhausted and trusting. "Rory," he said, and she could hear three months of distance in the way he shaped her name. "Tea first," she said. "Then we save your life. Then..." She turned to find him watching her with those impossible eyes, human warmth and demon fire. "Then we figure out what comes next." He inclined his head, accepting her terms as he'd accepted her non-invitation invitation — with grace and something that might have been gratitude. They had time, Aurora told herself. Whatever was hunting him, whatever had driven him to her door, they'd face it better together than apart. The kettle began to sing.