Run: 2026-02-19-01KHSWEX6GZ3M2F4642NX9FR39

The third deadbolt clicked open and Aurora knew she should have checked the peephole. She pulled the door inward and there he stood, one hand resting on the ivory handle of his cane, the other loose at his side. Rain had darkened the shoulders of his charcoal suit, and water dripped from the ends of his platinum hair onto the worn welcome mat Eva had bought from a charity shop three years ago. Lucien Moreau looked like he had no business being on a threshold in Brick Lane, above a curry house that still smelled of last night's tikka masala. "Rory." Her name in his mouth sounded different than it had four months ago. Then again, four months ago she had been pressing a towel to a knife wound on his ribs, her hands shaking, her voice lower, rougher, telling him not to die on her kitchen floor. "What do you want?" "May I come in?" Ptolemy wound between her ankles, purring, either oblivious to the tension or entirely indifferent to it. The cat butted his head against the doorframe and meowed up at Lucien. "No." Lucien's heterochromatic eyes, one amber and one black, tracked the cat before returning to her face. A beat passed. The rain continued its steady percussion against the railing behind him. "It's coming down rather hard." "I can see that." "Your neighbour has been attempting to light a cigarette on his balcony for the past three minutes. I believe the elements are winning." "I hadn't noticed." She started to close the door. His cane shot out, the tip catching the wood inches from her wrist. Not touching her. Never touching her. That had been one of the rules, hadn't it? Before everything went sideways in a warehouse in Whitechapel, before blood on concrete, before he had looked at her with those mismatched eyes and told her she deserved better than a half-breed with more enemies than friends. "Five minutes." Water ran down the bridge of his nose. "Then I will leave. You never have to see me again." The worst part was that she believed him. Lucien Moreau did not make promises he did not intend to keep. It was one of the things she had liked about him, back when liking him had been simple, before it had tangled into something knotted and sharp-edged. She stepped back and let the door swing open. He entered with a grace that seemed impossible for someone of his height, shaking droplets from his sleeves as he took in the chaos of Eva's flat. Books on every surface. Scrolls unfurled across the kitchen table. Research notes pinned to the walls with red string connecting them like a madman's conspiracy board. Ptolemy hopped onto the back of the sofa and watched the intruder with half-lidded eyes. "I see Eva's research has not slowed." "Eva's research is none of your business." "No." He paused near a stack of texts on demonic hierarchies, one eyebrow raised. "But someone has been asking questions about the realm of Avaros in certain circles. Questions that have drawn attention." A chill crept down her spine. She crossed her arms over her chest, acutely aware that she was wearing an oversized t-shirt and pyjama bottoms with cartoon whales on them. Not exactly the armour she would have chosen for this conversation. "What kind of attention?" "The dangerous kind." "Be specific." He turned to face her fully, and the motion put his back to the window, the grey London light silhouetting his tall frame. His expression was unreadable. It always had been. She had spent weeks learning the subtle tells, the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth, the way his left hand flexed when he was hiding something. His left hand stayed perfectly still at his side. "Someone is looking for a door. They believe your friend has the key." Eva's notes. Her obsessive mapping of pathways between realms, the diagrams she had sketched based on second-hand accounts and forbidden texts. Rory had helped her catalogue them last month, her fingers cramping from hours of writing, Eva muttering about ley lines and resonance points. "Eva's in Cardiff. Her mother's sick." "I know. That is why I came to you." The admission landed heavier than it should have. He had kept track of where Eva was. He had kept track of where Rory was. Four months of silence, and he had still been watching. "You could have called." "Would you have answered?" No. She would have let it ring out, stared at the unknown number on her screen, and then thrown the phone across the room. They both knew it. "Why now?" "Because by tomorrow evening, the people looking for that door will know Eva is away. They will assume the flat is empty." He paused. "They will assume you are not a threat." A laugh escaped her, sharp and humourless. "They'd be right." "Rory." Her name again, spoken with a weight that made her stomach tighten. "You know that is not true. You proved it in that warehouse. You have never been anything less than formidable." She did not want to think about the warehouse. The way he had thrown himself in front of her when the first shot rang out. The way his blood had felt warm against her hands. The way he had pressed his forehead to hers on the dirty floor after, both of them breathing hard, both of them alive, the air thick with something neither of them had been brave enough to name. "I don't do that anymore. That life. Whatever you want to call it." "I am not asking you to." "Then what are you asking?" He took a step closer. Then another. The distance between them shrank until she could smell rain and sandalwood and something darker beneath it, something that reminded her of woodsmoke and old libraries. She held her ground. "I am asking you to let me help." "Why?" His jaw tightened. For a moment, she thought he would not answer. Then his voice came, low and rough. "Because I have not stopped thinking about you. Because four months has felt like four years. Because every time my phone rings, I hope it is you, and every time it is not, I am—" He cut himself off, breathing unevenly. His hands clenched at his sides. "I told you to find someone who could give you a normal life. I meant it. But I cannot stand by and watch you walk into danger without doing something. Even if you hate me. Even if you never want to see me again after this. At least let me make sure you survive it." Ptolemy chose that moment to leap from the sofa and pad across the floor, winding between their legs again, purring like a motorboat. The cat had never been subtle about his opinions. He liked Lucien. Had liked him from the first night he had shown up with information about a missing artefact, had rubbed against his trousers and left white hairs all over that expensive suit. Rory looked at the cat, then back at the half-demon standing in her best friend's cramped living room, rain still drying in his hair. "You're soaked." "I am aware." "Sit down before you drip on Eva's notes. She'll kill me if anything gets ruined." She did not wait for him to respond. She turned and walked toward the kitchen, pulling the kettle from the counter, filling it with more force than necessary. Behind her, she heard the creak of the old armchair as Lucien lowered himself into it. She should have told him to leave. Should have shut the door in his face the moment she saw him standing there. Four months of carefully reconstructing her life, of convincing herself that whatever had passed between them was a fever dream brought on by adrenaline and proximity. Her hand went to her left wrist, fingers tracing the crescent scar there without thinking. "The warehouse." His voice drifted from the other room. "I did not say what I should have said." "Lucien." "You asked me to stay. And I left." "I remember." "I thought I was doing the right thing." She turned, leaning against the kitchen counter, the kettle beginning to rumble behind her. Through the doorway, she could see him in the armchair, his cane propped against the armrest, his head bowed. "I know." "Does that make it easier? Knowing I was a fool for the right reasons?" A beat of silence. "No." He looked up at that. Their eyes met across the cluttered space, between towers of books and drifts of paper, and the weight of four months of unsaid words pressed against her chest. "I don't hate you, Lucien." His expression shifted, the smallest crack in the mask. "But I haven't forgiven you either." "That is fair." The kettle clicked off. Steam curled toward the ceiling. Somewhere beyond the window, a siren wailed through the London streets, fading into the distance.