AI The knock was insistent. Not the cheerful rap of a delivery, not the impatient thump of a landlord. This was something else — three measured strikes that vibrated through the three deadbolts on Eva’s front door.
Rory froze, a cold splash of intuition trickling down her spine . She was alone. Eva was at the British Library, chasing down some obscure reference to Babylonian binding rituals. The flat on Brick Lane was a cave of paper and shadows, the only light coming from a battered desk lamp that painted the towers of books in gold and deep umber. Ptolemy, the tabby, lifted his head from a nest of scrolls on the sofa, his eyes catching the low light like coins.
She didn’t want to answer. Every sensible nerve ending told her to be still, to let the silence swallow the sound. But London didn’t grant that kind of mercy. It could be Silas from the bar below, needing a favour. It could be Yu-Fei with a last-minute delivery run. It could be Evan.
That last thought propelled her off the threadbare armchair. Her heart was a hard, fast drum against her ribs as she crossed the cramped space, the scent of old paper, curry from downstairs, and Eva’s jasmine incense hanging in the air. She didn’t look through the peephole. She simply placed her palm flat against the cool wood, took a breath that did nothing to steady her, and turned the three locks.
The door swung inward.
And there he was, a spectre from a life that felt both yesterday and a century ago, haloed by the damp, sodium-lit gloom of the Brick Lane evening. Rain glittered in his slicked-back platinum hair like shattered crystal and beaded on the shoulders of his immaculate charcoal wool coat. Lucien Moreau.
Time didn’t so much stop as warp. It folded in on itself, dragging her back to a dimly lit booth in his club, to the scent of his cologne and expensive whiskey, to the low timbre of his voice explaining the impossible rules of a world she never wanted to know. Her quick, out-of-the-box thinking, usually so reliable, stuttered and failed. All she could do was stare.
He looked exactly the same. Impeccable. The tailored lines of his suit, the sharp cut of his jaw, the unsettling, beautiful contrast of his eyes — one the warm amber of cognac, the other a pitiless, absorbing black. He leaned lightly on the ivory handle of his cane, his expression unreadable as a tombstone.
“Aurora,” he said, and her name in his French-tinged accent was a key turning in a long-locked door.
“Lucien.” Her own voice sounded thin, borrowed. She didn’t step back to let him in. The threshold felt like the only defense she had left .
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips. It didn’t reach his eyes. “May I come in? The weather is… disagreeable.”
“It’s London. It’s always disagreeable.” The retort was automatic, a relic of their old, easier rapport. She saw his amber eye flicker , just for a second, and then down to her left hand, still braced against the doorframe. To the small, crescent-shaped scar on her wrist. His gaze lingered there, and she felt it like a physical touch, warm and unsettling.
Finally, she moved aside, a silent concession. He crossed the threshold with a slight, practised dip of his cane, his presence immediately overwhelming the small flat. He seemed to take up all the air, all the space. He shrugged off his coat, revealing a suit of the same charcoal grey, perfectly fitted. He draped the coat over his arm, his movements economical and precise.
“I see Eva’s filing system remains… aspirational,” he remarked, his heterochromatic eyes scanning the chaotic landscape of research .
“It’s a system. You wouldn’t understand it.” Rory closed the door, thumbing the deadbolts back into place with a series of solid, final clunks. The sound sealed them in together. She turned to face him, crossing her arms over her chest. “What are you doing here, Lucien?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he moved further into the room, his cane tapping softly on the floorboards. He stopped by Eva’s desk, his gloved fingers brushing the edge of an open grimoire. Ptolemy, intrigued, uncoiled himself and padded over, weaving figure-eights around the fine wool of Lucien’s trousers. The half-demon glanced down, a genuine flicker of surprise softening his features for a moment. He offered a finger for the cat to sniff.
“You left,” Lucien said finally, his voice low . He didn’t look at her.
“I did.”
“Without a word.”
“You know why.”
Now he turned. The lamplight carved the planes of his face into sharp relief, making the amber eye glow and the black one look like a hole into nothing. “I know what you believed. I am less certain you knew the truth.”
Anger, hot and sudden, flushed through her cool-headed resolve . “The truth? The truth was a man with his throat torn out in an alley behind your club, Lucien. The truth was you standing over him with blood on your cuff and a story that didn’t add up. The truth was you telling me to forget what I saw, to go back to my deliveries and my little life above the bar.” Her voice tightened. “The truth was you asking for a trust you hadn’t earned.”
He absorbed her words without flinching. “The man in the alley was a *Karthos * demon. He had killed three mortal women, draining their life essence to sustain himself in this realm. He was about to select a fourth. My methods are seldom tidy, Aurora, but they are effective. I did not tell you the full story because the full story would have placed you in more danger. Knowledge is a currency, and a target.”
“So you decided for me,” she shot back. “You made the choice about what I could handle. That’s not protection, Lucien. That’s arrogance.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. For the first time, his composure showed a hairline fracture. “It was a mistake.”
The admission hung in the incense-heavy air, stark and simple. It disarmed her more than any deflection or justification could have.
“I came tonight,” he continued, his gaze holding hers, “because the danger I sought to shield you from has evolved. It is no longer a question of inconvenient knowledge. Your friend Eva is digging in places that have attracted notice. And your name, *ma chère *, has become linked with hers in certain circles. Unpleasant circles.”
A cold knot formed in Rory’s stomach . “What kind of notice?”
“The kind that does not send a politely worded letter.” He took a step closer. The space between them crackled with all the unsaid things, the remembered attraction that had always simmered beneath their businesslike exchanges — the brush of his hand guiding her through a crowd, the way his eyes tracked her across a room. The hurt of his omission was a fresh wound, but the pull was still there, a treacherous undertow.
“Why tell me now?” she whispered.
“Because my previous strategy was a failure,” he said, his voice dropping, becoming almost intimate . “And because seeing you walk away was… intolerable.”
The raw honesty in the words stole her breath. She could smell the rain on him, the subtle, expensive scent of his skin, the wool of his suit. She saw the fatigue now, etched in faint shadows beneath his extraordinary eyes. The infallible Lucien Moreau looked, for a fleeting second, like a man carrying a weight .
He lifted his cane, not as a support, but to gesture slightly with the ivory handle . “I am offering the truth now. All of it. It will be ugly, and it will bind you to my world in ways you may not wish. But the alternative is leaving you blind, and I find I cannot do that again.”
Ptolemy purred, a loud, incongruous rumble in the tense silence . Rory uncrossed her arms, her fingers brushing the scar on her wrist. A childhood accident, her father had said. A silly fall. She wondered now, staring into Lucien’s mismatched eyes, if any scar was ever that simple.
“Start talking,” she said, her voice steadier than she felt . “And start from the beginning.”
A genuine smile, small and weary, touched his lips. “As you wish.”
He didn’t move to the sofa or the chair. He remained standing, close enough that she could see the individual droplets of moisture still caught in his pale lashes. The story began, a low, steady flow of words about realms, rivalries, and a deadly search for an artifact Eva had inadvertently referenced in a published paper. Rory listened, the clutter of the flat fading away, the entire universe narrowing to the sound of his voice, the intensity of his gaze, and the frightening, thrilling realisation that walking away a second time might already be impossible.