Run: 2026-02-19-01KHT02XZVBN1ANZ4FT4A8NT0D

Three knocks. Measured. Deliberate. Aurora froze, chopsticks halfway to her mouth. Nobody knocked like that at Eva's flat. The delivery drivers hammered. Mrs. Patel from downstairs did her signature rat-tat-tat. This was something else entirely. "You expecting someone?" She set down the takeaway container. Eva glanced up from her Sanskrit translations, ink smudging her left temple. "At nine on a Tuesday? Unless the council's started evening demon registration..." The knocks came again. Same pattern. Same patience. Aurora's stomach twisted. She knew that knock. Had heard it against her own door too many times, usually at three in the morning when he'd appear with bruised knuckles and cryptic warnings about keeping her curtains drawn. "I'll get it." Eva started to rise. "No." The word came out sharper than intended. "Stay there." Ptolemy leapt from his perch on the bookshelf, weaving between Aurora's legs as she navigated the obstacle course of research materials. The tabby had good instincts. Always disappeared when trouble arrived. She checked the peephole first. Habit. The hallway light had been broken for weeks, leaving only shadows and the faint red glow from the curry house's neon sign. But she could make out the silhouette. Tailored coat. One hand resting on something at hip height. That damned cane. The deadbolts took forever. Eva had installed them after the incident with the possessed postman, and they stuck in humid weather. Each click echoed like a countdown. Aurora pulled the door open six inches. The chain caught. "Bonsoir, ma chère." Lucien Moreau stood in the narrow hallway like he'd been carved from shadow and expensive wool. His platinum hair caught what little light filtered up from the street, and those impossible eyes — one amber, one black — found hers immediately. The ivory handle of his cane gleamed between his fingers. "You're bleeding." The observation escaped before she could stop it. "Am I?" He glanced down at his left sleeve. A dark stain spread across the charcoal fabric near his wrist. "How careless. May I come in?" "That depends. Is whatever did that following you?" "Not anymore." "Lucien—" "Three minutes, Aurora. Then I'll leave if you wish." She hated how he said her full name. Rolled the R just enough to make it sound foreign, dangerous. Everyone called her Rory. He never had. The chain rattled as she slid it free. He entered with his usual economy of movement, cataloguing the flat in one sweep. His gaze lingered on the protection symbols chalked above the windows, the iron filings Eva had started leaving in strategic corners. "Prudent." He approved. "Though the Sumerian ward is upside down." "We're working on it." Aurora shut the door, reset two of the three locks. Left the third undone. Just in case. "You said three minutes." "I did." He hadn't moved from the entryway, respecting the invisible boundary. Water dripped from his coat onto Eva's Turkish runner. "I need a favor." "Of course you do." "Specifically, I need something hidden. Tonight." Aurora crossed her arms. "Hidden from whom?" "The kind of people who leave scars." The crescent mark on her wrist pulsed. Phantom pain, nothing more, but she still tugged her sleeve down. "You have an entire network for this sort of thing. Safe houses. Deposit boxes. That banker in Shoreditch who owes you his firstborn." "All compromised." He shifted his weight slightly. First sign of weakness. "There was an incident in Whitechapel. My usual channels are... unavailable." "Rory?" Eva appeared in the doorway, clutching a bronze dagger she'd been using as a letter opener. "Everything alright?" "Eva Blackwood." Lucien inclined his head. "Your research on pre-Hellenic burial rites was fascinating. Particularly the footnotes on soul anchors." Eva's grip on the dagger tightened. "You read my dissertation?" "I read everything." His attention returned to Aurora. "Two minutes remaining." "What needs hiding?" He reached into his coat with his right hand — the left arm hung too still — and produced a silk pouch the size of a child's fist. Whatever it contained clinked softly against itself. Metal, but not coins. Something else. "Best you don't know specifics." "That's not how this works anymore." Aurora didn't reach for the pouch. "You don't get to appear after eight months of silence and expect—" "Seven months, three weeks." He corrected quietly. "But who counts?" The words hung between them like an accusation. Eva retreated into the living room, muttering something about tea. Ptolemy remained hidden. "Why here?" Aurora kept her voice level. "Why me?" "Because you're the only person in London they won't think to check." He set the pouch on the narrow table by the door, next to Eva's collection of takeaway menus. "Because your wards are competent, your flatmate is genuinely terrifying when provoked, and because..." "Because what?" His mismatched eyes held hers. "Because I trust you." "You don't trust anyone." "C'est vrai." True. "Yet here I stand, bleeding on a rather expensive rug, asking for shelter I don't deserve." Aurora picked up the pouch. Heavier than expected. Through the silk, she felt irregular shapes. Keys? No. Too delicate. Too warm. "One night." She tucked it into her jacket pocket. "You can stay until morning. Then you leave, and you take whatever this is with you." "Agreed." "And you explain what happened to your arm." "If you insist." He shrugged out of his coat, movements careful but practiced. The shirt beneath was ruined. Three parallel tears ran from elbow to wrist, too precise to be accidental. Claw marks. "Though it's hardly dinner conversation." "Good thing we already ate." She led him into the flat proper, hyperaware of his presence behind her. Seven months and three weeks. She'd tried not to count, told herself it didn't matter. They'd made no promises that night in Southwark, when he'd kissed her against the bridge support while sirens wailed overhead. When he'd whispered her name like a prayer before disappearing into the crowd. Eva had relocated to the kitchen, giving them the illusion of privacy. The electric kettle shrieked. "Sit." Aurora pointed to the least cluttered corner of the sofa. "I'll get the first aid kit." "I can manage." "Sit, Lucien." He sat. Even wounded, even here among Eva's chaos of books and protective charms, he looked like something from another century. The amber eye tracked her movements as she retrieved supplies from the bathroom. The black one stayed fixed on the window. "They'll come looking." He said when she returned. "Not tonight — they need to regroup. But soon." "Who are 'they'?" "The Chantry Group." He rolled up his ruined sleeve with practiced efficiency. The wounds beneath were already beginning to close, pink skin knitting together at the edges. Half-demon healing. Still needed cleaning though. "They've decided I know too much about their expansion into Bermondsey." "Do you?" "Naturellement." Of course. Aurora knelt beside the sofa, opened the antiseptic. "This will sting." "I've had worse." "I remember." His hand found her shoulder as she worked, fingers light but present. "That night wasn't supposed to happen." "Which part? The kiss or the leaving?" "Both." He winced as she cleaned the deepest gash. "Neither. Je suis désolé, Aurora." "Don't." She focused on the wounds, on the practical task of preventing infection even though his demon blood probably made it unnecessary. "We agreed. No promises. No expectations." "We agreed to many things." His thumb traced a small circle against her collarbone. "I've broken most of them simply by being here." "Then why come?" "You know why." She did. The same reason she'd left the third lock undone. The same reason her heart had stuttered when she'd seen him through the peephole. Some patterns were too deep to break, even with seven months and three weeks of silence between them. "The scars will be gone by morning." She taped the last bandage in place. "You heal fast." "Most wounds, yes." He caught her hand as she moved to stand. "Others persist." "Lucien—" "I checked on you." The admission came quiet, rushed. "After Southwark. Made sure the Chantry didn't connect you to that business with the Thames tokens. Kept my distance, but I... checked." "I know." His eyes widened slightly. "You know?" "Mrs. Chen at the Golden Empress mentioned a well-dressed Frenchman had been asking about my delivery routes. Mr. Patel downstairs said someone matching your description inquired about flat security." She pulled her hand free, stood. "You're not as subtle as you think." "Apparently not." Eva emerged from the kitchen carrying three mugs of something that smelled like herbs and defiance. "Right then. Someone want to explain why half of Whitechapel's underground is hunting Rory's ex?" "We weren't—" Aurora started. "Technically—" Lucien began. "Save it." Eva handed them each a mug. "I've got supernatural entities trying to claw their way through my wards, a demon-blooded fixer bleeding on my sofa, and my flatmate looking like someone kicked her puppy. Talk." Lucien accepted the tea with surprising grace. "The Chantry Group wants to expand their territory. I've been... discouraging this expansion." "By stealing from them?" Aurora touched the pouch in her pocket. "By returning what they stole first." He took a careful sip. "These items belong to the old families. Pre-Conquest bloodlines. The Chantry sells them to collectors, strips them of power." "And you're what, the supernatural Robin Hood?" Eva perched on a stack of encyclopedias. "Hardly. I'm well-compensated for my retrievals." He set down the mug. "Usually." "So what went wrong tonight?" Aurora found herself sitting beside him. Not touching. Carefully not touching. "Someone talked. They knew I was coming." His left hand flexed, testing the bandages. "Had a welcoming committee. Silver claws. Celtic binding circles. The works." "But you escaped." "With assistance." He glanced toward the window again. "There are still those in Whitechapel who remember the old accords. They won't shelter Chantry hunters, but they can't protect me directly either." "Hence showing up here." Eva's eyes narrowed. "Where they won't think to look because Rory's not part of your world. Officially." "C'est ça." That's it. "Except now she is." Eva continued. "The moment you walked through that door, you painted a target on her back." "Which is why I leave at dawn." Lucien's voice carried an edge. "They won't move before then. Too exposed. Too many witnesses." "And the items?" He looked at Aurora. "Your choice. Keep them hidden until I can arrange collection, or..." "Or?" "Return them yourself. The original owners would pay well. Enough to leave London if needed." "I'm not leaving London." "Even if staying becomes dangerous?" "Especially then." She met his mismatched gaze. "I don't run anymore. From anyone." Something shifted in his expression. Pride? Regret? Both? "The wards will hold tonight." Eva announced. "I'll strengthen them, add some Norse bindings for good measure. But come morning, you're gone. Both the items and you." "Agreed." "Good." She gathered her mug and headed for her bedroom. "Try not to bleed on anything else. That's a deposit we're not getting back." Her door clicked shut with pointed finality. Silence settled over the living room, broken only by distant traffic and Ptolemy's sudden reappearance. The cat leaped onto the sofa between them, a furry chaperone. "She's protective of you." Lucien observed. "We protect each other." Aurora scratched Ptolemy's ears. "That's how it works when you don't shut people out." "Ah. We're doing this now?" "You're the one who showed up bleeding and cryptic." She turned to face him properly. "Seven months, Lucien. Not a word. Not a sign. Then you appear needing help and tracking exact days like they mattered?" "They did matter." His right hand rested on his cane, knuckles white. "Every one of them." "Then why—" "Because the morning after Southwark, Marcus Chantry had your photo on his desk." The words came fast, clipped. "Because he asked questions. Because I realized what I'd risked by letting myself..." He stopped. Started again. "I've survived this long by having no weaknesses. No leverage. No one they could use against me." "I'm not a weakness." "No." He agreed. "You're far more dangerous than that." The weight of what he wasn't saying pressed between them. Ptolemy purring. Traffic humming. The silk pouch burning in her pocket like a promise or a threat. "The items." She pulled out the pouch. "What are they really?" "Open it." Inside lay three objects. A brass key, teeth worn smooth by centuries. A child's ring, too small for any adult finger, engraved with symbols that hurt to look at directly. And a glass vial no longer than her thumb, filled with something that moved like mercury but gleamed like blood. "The key opens a vault beneath Christchurch Spitalfields. The ring belongs to the last descendant of Boudicca's line — she's eleven, living in foster care in Brixton. The vial..." He paused. "That's mine." "Yours?" "My mother's, technically. She gave it to me before she died. Said it would protect me when I chose to be more human than demon." His laugh was bitter. "Haven't found the right moment to test that theory." Aurora closed the pouch carefully. "The Chantry stole these?" "Acquired them through various means. The key from an estate sale. The ring from a pawn shop. The vial..." His jaw tightened. "They took that twenty years ago, when they burned down my mother's shop in Marseille." "Lucien—" "She died getting me out." Matter-of-fact. Wounds that wouldn't heal. "I've been tracking it ever since." She reached for his hand without thinking. His fingers interlaced with hers immediately, desperately. "So this isn't about money." "The others, yes. This was... what do you call it? Personal business." "You could have told me. Before, I mean. In Southwark." "Could I?" He studied their joined hands. "Would you have understood then? When we were just—" "We were never just anything." She squeezed his fingers. "That was the problem." "Is. Present tense." He corrected softly. "Unless you've moved on? Found someone sensible who doesn't appear bleeding at inappropriate hours?" "Would it matter if I had?" "You haven't." "Cocky." "Observant." He nodded toward the kitchen. "One mug in the sink when I arrived. Single portion takeaway container. No men's clothing on the drying rack." "Maybe I've taken up dating women." "Have you?" "No." She admitted. "Turns out I have a type. Dangerous men with impossible eyes who speak four languages and never stay until morning." "Five languages." He brought her hand to his lips, a gesture so achingly familiar her breath caught. "And I would have stayed. Every morning. If I could have." "But you couldn't." "I couldn't." He released her hand. "I still can't. After tonight, it will be worse. They'll know I've been here. They'll watch." "So we're back to the beginning. You disappearing for my own good." "Unless..." He stopped. "Unless what?" "Unless you come with me." The words hung between them like a challenge. Ptolemy stopped purring. "Where?" "Paris, initially. I have contacts there, people who owe me favors. We could disappear for a few months. Let this situation resolve itself." "Let someone else die for those artifacts, you mean." "Let someone else take the risk." He leaned back, studying her. "You don't owe these people anything, Aurora." "An eleven-year-old girl in Brixton?" "Will never know what she's lost." "That's not the point." She stood, paced to the window. The protection symbols glowed faintly in the dark. "I'm not built for running, Lucien. Not anymore. I did that already, with Evan. Came to London to hide, to be someone else. It didn't work." "This is different—" "Is it?" She turned back to him. "You're asking me to leave everything. Eva, my job, the life I've built here. For what? A few months of looking over our shoulders in Paris? Then what?" "Then we improvise." "You mean you disappear again. When it gets too dangerous or too real or too—" "Too what?" He was on his feet now, the cane forgotten. "Too much like happiness? Too much like the life I can't give you?" "Who asked you to give me anything?" The words came out fierce, angry. "Who made you the arbiter of what I can handle?" "You think I wanted this?" He gestured between them. "Think I planned to care what happened to a delivery girl with terrible taste in flatmates and excellent taste in restaurants?" "Eva's not terrible—" "She put wolfsbane in my tea." "That's just her being welcoming." Despite everything, he smiled. "This is why." "Why what?" "Why I counted the days." He moved closer, careful, like she might spook. "Why I checked with Mrs. Chen and Mr. Patel. Why I brought the vial here instead of throwing it in the Thames like I planned." "You were going to destroy it?" "Twenty years of searching for three ounces of demon blood and mercury." His hands framed her face, thumbs gentle against her cheekbones. "Seemed like a fair trade for one more night of pretending this could work." "We're not good at pretending." "No." He agreed. "We're terrible at it." She kissed him. It was nothing like Southwark — no adrenaline, no chase, no sirens. Just the two of them in Eva's cluttered flat with protective wards humming and Ptolemy judging from the sofa. His hands tangled in her hair, and she could taste copper on his lips. Blood or magic or both. "Aurora." Against her mouth, a prayer and a plea. "Dawn." She pulled back enough to see both eyes, amber and black. "You stay until dawn. We figure out the rest then." "The Chantry—" "Will still be hunting you tomorrow. And the day after. And next week." Her hands fisted in his ruined shirt. "So either we do this terrified and apart, or we do it together. Your choice." "You make it sound simple." "It is simple. It's the execution that's complicated." He laughed, low and real. "Speaking of execution, your flatmate might actually kill me if I stay." "She likes you. The wolfsbane was a test." "Did I pass?" "You're still breathing." "Barely." But he was smiling now, that rare, unguarded expression she'd seen exactly twice before. "Where would I sleep? Hypothetically." "Hypothetically?" She stepped back, decision made. "The sofa pulls out. Extra blankets in the cupboard. Bathroom's down the hall, but knock first. Eva sometimes summons things in the tub." "And you?" "I'll be in Eva's room. With the door locked. And probably listening to an hour-long lecture about boundaries and dangerous men." "Sensible." "Liar." He caught her hand as she turned to go. "The items. What will you do with them?" "Return them. Tomorrow. You can draw me a map, give me the contacts." She met his gaze. "But I do it alone. They're looking for you, not me. Not yet." "It's dangerous—" "Everything's dangerous. Dating you is dangerous. Living above a curry house is dangerous. Eva's cooking is extremely dangerous." She squeezed his fingers. "But that's my choice to make." "When did you become this person?" Wonder in his voice. "Sometime between you leaving and you coming back." She pulled free. "Get some rest. You heal better when you sleep." "How do you know that?" "Observation." She moved toward Eva's door. "You slept for three hours in Southwark. After. Your bruises were gone by the time you left." "You were awake?" "I'm always awake when it matters." She knocked on Eva's door, didn't wait for an answer before slipping inside. Eva sat cross-legged on her bed, surrounded by notebooks and looking entirely too pleased with herself. "So." "Don't." "Staying until dawn?" "It's practical. The wards are stronger here." "Mmm-hmm." Eva shifted notebooks to make room. "And the fact that you've been moping for seven months has nothing to do with it." "I haven't been moping." "You alphabetized my grimoire collection." "That was helpful." "You color-coded my herbs." "Also helpful." "You cried during that werewolf movie last week." Aurora flopped onto the bed. "The dog died. Anyone would cry." "The dog turned into a man and went to live in Scotland." "Details." Eva poked her with a pencil. "He's trouble, you know." "I know." "The kind of trouble that gets people killed." "I know." "And you're keeping him anyway?" "Just until dawn." Aurora stared at the ceiling, where Eva had painted constellations in glow-in-the-dark paint. "Then he leaves, I return the artifacts, and we go back to normal." "Rory." Gentle now. "There's no normal after this. The Chantry knows he came here. They'll be watching." "Then we'll be careful." "We?" "You're not involved. This is my choice—" "Shut up." Eva lay down beside her. "Of course I'm involved. You're my best friend. I didn't let you face Evan alone, and I'm not letting you face this alone either." "This is different. Evan was human. The Chantry—" "Are thugs with delusions of grandeur." Eva interrupted. "They deal in stolen power because they can't generate their own. I've faced worse." "When?" "Cardiff. Second year. But that's not important right now." She turned on her side, studying Aurora. "You love him." "I—" "It wasn't a question." Eva continued. "And he clearly loves you, showing up here bleeding and dramatic. The question is what you're going to do about it." "Nothing. There's nothing to do. He has his world, I have mine." "Except his world just bled all over our sofa." Aurora grabbed a pillow, held it over her face. "Why is this so complicated?" "Because you're making it complicated." Eva tugged the pillow away. "He counted the days, Rory. Down to the week. That's not a man who wants to stay away." "He has to. For my safety—" "Bollocks. He tells himself that so he doesn't have to risk being happy." She sat up, decision made. "Right. Here's what we're doing. Tomorrow, you return those artifacts. I'll go with you for backup." "Eva—" "Then we're going to research this Chantry Group properly. Find out who they are, what they want, how to make them go away." "You can't just research away a criminal organization." "Watch me." Eva's grin was sharp. "I've got connections too. That professor at King's College owes me for translating those demonic contracts. And there's a hedge witch in Soho who loves gossip more than breathing." "This isn't your fight." "You made it my fight when you let him through our door." Eva squeezed her shoulder. "Besides, I'm bored. All these protection spells and nothing to protect against. At least now I have a project." "You're terrifying sometimes." "Thank you." Eva glanced at her door. "Think he's actually sleeping?" "Doubt it. He's probably memorizing our escape routes and cataloging threats." "Romantic." "That's one word for it." They lay in silence, listening to the flat settle around them. Somewhere in the walls, pipes groaned. Outside, London hummed its midnight song of sirens and possibilities. "For what it's worth," Eva said eventually, "I think you should go to Paris." "What?" "When this is over. When we've dealt with the Chantry and returned the artifacts and made it safe." She rolled onto her back. "Go to Paris. See what happens when you're not running or hiding or being protected. Just... see." "It's not that simple." "Love's not supposed to be simple." Eva yawned. "It's supposed to be worth it." Aurora didn't answer. Couldn't. Because in the living room, she could hear Lucien moving around, probably checking ward angles and exit strategies. Being who he was. Who she'd fallen for despite every warning, every instinct, every shred of common sense. "Get some sleep," Eva mumbled. "Big day tomorrow. Artifacts to return, criminals to thwart." "Normal Tuesday then." "Exactly." But Aurora lay awake, counting heartbeats instead of days. In a few hours, dawn would come. He would leave. She would take three precious objects back to their rightful owners and hope the Chantry didn't notice a delivery girl playing at heroics. And then? Then maybe, just maybe, she'd stop pretending she didn't want the impossible. The door creaked. Soft footsteps in the hallway. The bathroom tap running. More footsteps, pausing outside Eva's door. She held her breath. "Je sais que tu es éveillée." I know you're awake. Barely audible through the wood. She didn't respond. Couldn't. If she opened that door now, dawn would never come. "À bientôt, ma chère." See you soon, my dear. "Not goodbye. Not this time." His footsteps retreated. The sofa springs protested gently. Eva snored, genuine or feigned. Aurora closed her eyes and started counting.