AI Rory yanked the door open before the second knock landed.
Lucien leaned on the frame as if he owned it, one hand on the ivory handle of his cane, heterochromatic gaze sweeping over her with calm appraisal that hid nothing.
"Aurora," he said. "You look awake. That is fortunate."
Her fingers tightened on the edge of the door.
"Lucien."
He looked exactly as he had the last time she saw him, neat charcoal suit, platinum hair slicked back with the sort of precision that made her want to run her hands through it just to ruin it. Amber eye, black eye, both steady. No apology in either.
He smelled faintly of expensive cologne and cigarettes he never lit.
"I did not interrupt anything fundamental, I hope."
"You interrupted me eating leftover korma out of the container," Rory said. "So unless you came to critique my table manners, you can sod off."
She started to close the door.
The cane shot out, neat and fast, wedged in the gap before the latch met the frame. The force reverberated through her arm.
"I would prefer you did not do that," he said. "Someone less patient stands three steps behind me."
Her heart lurched .
She glanced past him on instinct. The narrow stairwell outside lay empty, the chipped green paint and bare bulb exactly as usual.
"Your imagination is slipping," she said. "No one there."
"There is, in fact, an Ifrit bound under my skin who wants to drag you to Avaros by your pretty wrist," he said. "I refer to him."
He smiled without warmth .
"Bonsoir to you too," Rory muttered.
She let the door open a fraction more. That brought him closer, the line of his shoulder brushing the chain still latched across. His gaze dropped to the metal.
"A chain, Aurora," he said. "Three deadbolts and a chain."
"Eva is thorough," she said. "Occupational hazard when you collect cursed paperweights for fun."
"Allow me inside."
"You have a phone," she said. "Text like a normal criminal."
"Phones leave records," he said. "Door chains, less so."
"I don't work for you."
"No," he said. "You work for Madame Cheung."
"Exactly," she said. "So you turning up here smells wrong."
Lucien sighed, soft, almost theatrical, but his eyes had the sharp focus she remembered from darker nights.
"Aurora," he said, voice dropping, the French lilt more pronounced. "You are in danger."
There it was, the word people used when they wanted past her suspicion. She tasted bitterness at the back of her throat.
"You said that last time," she said. "You remember how that went."
His jaw twitched, the smallest flicker .
"I remember you walking away from the docks with a pulse ," he said. "Which you would not have done if you had listened to your own instincts instead of mine."
She unhooked the chain with short, angry movements and stepped back.
"Get in," she said. "Say whatever you came to say and then get out."
Lucien crossed the threshold with an ease that made her flat feel smaller. Close quarters turned his presence dense, oppressive and magnetic at once.
Ptolemy appeared from under the sagging armchair, striped tail high. The cat planted himself in front of Lucien, sniffed his polished shoes, then sneezed.
"A connoisseur of souls," Lucien said. "Bonjour, petit roi."
Ptolemy turned his back and trotted to Rory, rubbing against her shins.
"He hates everyone," she said.
"Useful quality," Lucien said. "Keeps expectations low."
He looked around. Books piled on every flat surface, rolls of parchment in cardboard tubes, half a dozen sticky notes clinging to the side of an overflowing desk. The air carried turmeric and cumin from the curry house below, threaded with cat hair and old paper.
"This is quaint," Lucien said.
"It is rent-controlled," Rory said. "Shoes off."
He gave her a flat look.
"I am hunted by angels and debt collectors, ma chérie, not by your linoleum."
"Then bleed on the stairs, not Eva's rug."
He frowned, then actually toed off his shoes with a short, annoyed motion, lining them precisely by the door. The fact that he did it made something tight in her chest loosen, then knot twice as hard.
"You said danger," Rory said. "Start explaining."
He rested both hands on top of his cane, fingers pale against the dark wood.
"Two nights ago someone posted an open contract," he said. "Your name, three photographs, the address above Silas's bar."
Her stomach dropped.
"An open contract where."
"In my circles," he said. "Not on the internet, Aurora. In the parts of London where the pavements eat men and spit out the teeth."
"You talk in poetry when you know I'm close to punching you," she said.
"It is my nature," he said. "Listen. The contract came from Avaros code. Old mark, old sigils. The bounty pays in souls, not sterling."
"So some demon wants me," Rory said. "You swim in that end of the pool. Tell them I am flattered and decline politely."
"The demon who wants you," he said, "is my father."
Silence swelled between them, thick enough to chew.
Her laugh came out thin.
"Right," she said. "Because my life was not messed up enough."
He watched her face as if cataloguing each change.
"I would consider it a personal favour," Lucien said, "if you did not become his property."
"There it is," she said. "The favour."
He tilted his head.
"You owed me one, as I recall," he said. "You left before you could repay."
Her cheeks burned. The memory surged up fast: the Bristol warehouse, rain soaking through her hoodie, Lucien offering his coat and his hand and something hotter underneath, that wordless almost that had cracked her ribs from the inside. Then his deal on the table, his smooth voice telling Kareem's men that Rory was collateral until payment came through.
"You tried to sell me," she said.
"I put your name on a promissory note," he said. "There is a distinction."
"Not from where I was standing."
His expression hardened.
"I needed them to believe us," he said. "They carry guns. I carry a cane. You carry spite. One of these things intimidates fewer men."
"You could have warned me," she said. "You could have told me what you were doing."
"You would have argued," he said. "Loudly."
"Yes," she said. "Because you used me as bait."
"I used myself," he said. "I knew Kareem would never hurt someone I marked as mine."
Heat rushed to her face in a different way.
"You marked me on paper," she said. "Then walked away when the money changed hands."
"You walked away," he said. "You pulled off my ring and threw it into the dock."
"It was on my finger for eight minutes."
"Symbolism matters."
They glared at each other, breath harsh, the room too warm.
Ptolemy leaped onto the back of the sofa and started washing his paw with absolute indifference.
Rory dragged a hand through her hair.
"Fine," she said. "We hate each other, the past is a bin fire, and your dad from Hell wants my soul. Why now. I have done nothing worth a demon's time."
Lucien watched her hand, the way her fingers trembled before she shoved them into the pocket of her track bottoms.
"Last week," he said, "you delivered a package to Docklands, yes."
"I deliver a lot of packages," she said.
"This one required a signature from a Mr DiNozzo," he said. "American, loud, smelled like cheap rum and old blood."
The image slotted in. The bald man with the snake tattoo on his neck, the way his fingers had brushed hers when he signed the docket, eyes lingering a breath too long.
"He tipped me with a dollar bill," she said. "Generous sort."
"That box contained a relic from Avaros," Lucien said. "My father wanted it. He paid handsomely to make sure it arrived in one piece."
She stared.
"Then your father can take it up with the delivery company," she said. "I provided excellent service."
"The relic went missing," Lucien said. "The moment after you left his flat, the wards collapsed. The box turned to ash. Mr DiNozzo called his employer and used your name three times."
The hairs on her arms rose.
"You heard this where," Rory said.
Lucien's lips pressed together.
"In a bar under Vauxhall Bridge," he said. "Where men drink firelight and gossip. Word reached my father. He sees your face on security footage, hears your name, hears that you have slipped my protection. He draws the obvious conclusion."
"That I nicked his antique," she said.
"That I gave it to you," he said. "My father does not believe in coincidence."
"You didn't," she said.
"Non," he said. "If I had wanted you to steal from him, Aurora, you would not have noticed until the money hit your account."
The way he said it made her shiver.
"So he wants to punish you by taking something you own," she said.
Lucien's gaze fixed on her scarred wrist for a second, that tiny white crescent.
"He wants leverage," he said. "He thinks you matter to me."
Her pulse jumped, traitorous.
"And do I," Rory said.
Lucien did not answer at once.
He moved instead, slow and deliberate, circling the coffee table, stopping an arm's length away. The cane clicked softly against the wooden floor.
"You bother me," he said. "Inconveniently often."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the only one you receive while my father's familiars sniff at your windows," he said.
She swallowed.
"What do you want me to do," she said. "Hide in the cupboard. Change my name again. I am fresh out of identities."
"You stay here for the moment," he said. "I set wards. I call in a favour."
"You," she said, "ask someone else for a favour."
He smiled, short and sharp.
"The world shifts," he said. "We adapt."
She folded her arms.
"And if I tell you to leave," she said.
His gaze dipped to the thin fabric of her T-shirt, the faint outline of her bra beneath, lingered, then climbed back to her face with studied carelessness.
"Then my father sends someone who does not care if you bleed on Eva's rug," he said. "I have met most of his employees. Their bedside manner disappoints."
"You are not exactly Florence Nightingale."
"I have stitched you up twice," he said. "You fainted only once."
"I did not faint," she said. "I lost consciousness with attitude."
His mouth twitched. A faint crack in the mask.
He set the cane aside, propping it against the table. Without it he looked more dangerous, less civilised, as if that strip of wood held his monster in check.
"What do these wards involve," Rory said.
He took a breath, rolled his shoulders back.
"I will draw sigils," he said. "Speak a few things that would curdle Silas's beer. Use a little blood. Mine. Yours."
Her skin prickled.
"How much blood," she said.
"A cut," he said. "Enough to trace your name and mine together."
"Together how."
His gaze rested on her mouth.
"As co-occupants of a space," he said. "The magic thinks in bonds, Aurora. It does not have a word for casual acquaintances."
"So if we cast it," she said, "I belong to you."
"For the purposes of my father's eyes," he said. "Yes."
Her heart thundered .
"I do not belong to anyone," she said.
"Award-winning sentiment," Lucien said. "Unfortunately irrelevant when someone from Avaros counts your bones."
He stepped closer. She did not step back this time. They stood close enough that she could see the thin silver line at his throat where someone had once tried to cut it.
"You walked away last time I asked you to wear my mark," he said, quiet .
"That was a ring," she said. "This is blood."
"You consider this worse," he said.
"It lasts longer," she said.
His black eye darkened, pupil swallowing what little colour there was.
"You think I release people with ease," he said.
"You release them when the money clears," she said.
His hand lifted, slow, giving her every chance to move. Fingers brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. His touch burned, demon-warm, the heat running along her jaw.
"You walked away," he said again. "You did not see what I did to Kareem's men after you left."
"I did not stay for the show," she said, voice hoarse.
"No," he said. "You packed your bag and vanished. You changed your number. You stopped haunting my favourite street corners."
"You cope," she said.
"Poorly."
Her breath caught.
He lowered his hand, fist curling.
"Say yes, Aurora," he said. "Let me do what I am good at. Let me make you untouchable to him."
"And what does it cost me," she whispered.
"You hate me a little more," he said. "I can live with that."
She stared at him, at the sharp planes of his face, at the elegant monster she had kissed once in a stolen moment behind Silas's bar, seared into her memory like a burn.
"I do not hate you," she said.
His eyes flared.
"That is unfortunate," he said. "Hate simplifies things."
Ptolemy jumped down, tail flicking, then padded over to Lucien. The cat bumped his head against Lucien's shin. Lucien looked absurdly startled.
"Traitor," Rory told the cat.
Ptolemy meowed and wrapped himself around Lucien's ankle.
"You see," Lucien said. "Even your familiar understands that rude men with questionable bloodlines sometimes serve a purpose."
He reached into his inner pocket and pulled out a small, old-fashioned penknife, silver with delicate vines etched into the handle.
"One cut," he said. "Then I salt the doors. Then my father loses interest and hunts for easier prey."
"Easier than me," she said. "He has low standards."
"You underestimate your own value," he said.
She swallowed again, throat dry.
"Fine," she said. "Do it."
Relief flashed across his face so quick she almost missed it.
He stepped to the cluttered desk, swept aside a stack of Eva's notes with care that spoke of long habit in other people's spaces, and cleared a circle the size of a dinner plate. He set the knife in the centre and took a stick of chalk from his pocket, white as bone.
"You came prepared," she said.
"I prefer to improvise only in bed and court," he said.
Heat crawled up her neck.
"Arrogant," she said.
"Accurate," he said.
He knelt and drew on the floor, looping symbols that hurt her eyes if she looked too long. Lines that curled back on themselves, small hooks that caught in her peripheral vision.
The flat seemed to shrink around them, walls leaning in, the smells of curry and cat and ink thickening. Rory watched his hands, the steady competence, the way his cuff rode up to show a flash of forearm, pale and strong.
"Give me your hand," he said without looking up.
She hesitated for half a heartbeat, then stepped into the circle of light from the desk lamp and held it out.
His fingers closed around her wrist, cool against her pulse . Thumb over the small crescent scar. His gaze flicked to her face, a question she refused to answer sitting in his eyes.
"This will hurt," he said. "Briefly."
"I survived law reading lists," she said. "I will cope."
He smiled, small but real.
The knife kissed her palm, a sharp sting, then warmth . Blood welled, bright and red. He turned her hand so it spilled onto the chalk, the drops spreading along the lines, seeping into symbols.
He cut his own palm without flinching, darker blood mixing with hers in the chalk grooves. The air thickened, humming against her skin.
"Repeat after me," he said. "In the tongue you do not know you know."
"A warning would be nice," she said.
He began to speak. The words curled in her ears, strange and familiar , thick with smoke. Something inside her, deep and frightened, recognised them. They scraped along her bones, a song hummed in childhood nightmares.
Her mouth shaped the sounds before she thought them through, her voice braiding with his.
Heat rolled out from the chalk circle, a wave that pressed against her. The light in the room dimmed, edges blurring. For a second she saw something overlay the flat, a shadow-city with jagged towers where the bookshelves stood, a sky of bruised violet pressed against the ceiling.
Lucien's grip on her tightened.
"Stay with me," he said, words a growl threaded with the old language.
"I am not going anywhere," she said, though the floor swayed .
A sound scraped at the window.
Both their heads snapped toward it.
Ptolemy's fur stood on end, a rippling wave from head to tail. He hissed, ears flattened, eyes locked on the glass.
Something moved outside, a smear of darkness that had nothing to do with night. The windowpane bowed in, just a fraction, as if pressed by an invisible hand.
Lucien's eyes widened .
"He is early," he said.
The glass spiderwebbed with a crack, a thin line racing across the pane. Air rushed inward, cold and sour, smelling of old coins and grave earth.
Rory wrenched her hand from Lucien's, blood still wet on her skin.
"What is that," she said.
The crack split wide with a sound like a gunshot.
Something started to push its way through the glass.