Run: 2026-02-19-01KHT0HMG9JZAQ2ZP8VC027B38

The third deadbolt slid back with a heavy clunk. Rory pulled the door open, the familiar scent of turmeric and old paper wafting out into the Brick Lane evening. She expected Eva, having forgotten her keys again, or maybe the takeaway delivery she’d spaced on ordering. She did not expect Lucien Moreau. He filled the doorway, a stark silhouette against the hazy orange glow of the streetlights. His platinum hair was perfectly slicked back, not a strand out of place despite the damp London chill. A tailored charcoal suit hugged his frame, and his left hand rested on the ivory handle of his cane. Those mismatched eyes—one the warm gold of amber, the other a void of absolute black—fixed on her, and for a heartbeat, the entire noisy, vibrant street fell silent. Her own breath hitched. It had been eight months, three weeks, and—she hated that she knew this—four days. “Aurora,” he said. His voice was exactly as she remembered, a low baritone that felt like it vibrated through the floorboards and up into the soles of her feet. It was a voice that could negotiate a peace treaty or whisper a threat with the same effortless calm. She didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Her mind, usually so quick to assemble a defense, scrambled. The last time she’d seen him, the words had been sharp and final, a door slammed so hard the frame had splintered. Ptolemy the tabby wound himself around her ankles, purring loudly, utterly oblivious to the tectonic shift happening in his hallway. “You’re blocking the threshold, *chérie*,” Lucien remarked, a faint, almost imperceptible smile touching his lips. “It’s considered poor form, even in this part of the city.” The spell broke. Rory took a sharp step back, her shoulder brushing a precarious stack of books on a small console table. “What are you doing here, Lucien?” He didn’t wait for a more formal invitation. He stepped across the threshold, the tip of his cane making a soft tap on the worn floorboards. He closed the door behind him with a quiet, definitive click, engaging the first deadbolt himself. The sound echoed in the small, cluttered space. “I was in the neighborhood,” he said, his gaze sweeping the flat, taking in the chaos of Eva’s research. It lingered on a star chart pinned to the wall, a half-eaten container of curry on the coffee table, a sweater Rory recognized as her own draped over a chair. His inspection felt more intimate than it should have. “You’re never just ‘in the neighborhood’,” she countered, crossing her arms over her chest. The gesture felt defensive, childish. She dropped them. “This is Eva’s place. How did you even find me?” “You live above a pub, you work for Yu-Fei Cheung. You are not a difficult woman to find, Aurora Carter.” He said her full name like it was a secret he was choosing to share. He took another step further into the room, his presence making the walls feel closer. “I need to talk to you.” “We said everything there was to say.” Her voice was tighter than she intended. She could feel the old hurt, a cold stone in her stomach, and beneath it, a treacherous, flickering heat she thought she’d extinguished. He looked the same. Impeccable. Unruffled. It was infuriating. “Did we?” He stopped by the fireplace, where a few embers still glowed in the grate. He leaned his cane against the mantelpiece, a move she knew was calculated. It made him seem less formal, more approachable. A tactic. It was always a tactic with him. “I recall a great deal of shouting. Primarily from you. I recall some rather creative insults involving my parentage and my moral character. But a conversation? A resolution? Non. I do not believe we had that.” “There was nothing to resolve. You lied to me.” “I omitted.” “Semantics. Your favorite sport.” He turned to face her fully then, and the firelight caught the planes of his face, highlighting the sharp cut of his jaw. “I am a broker of information, Rory. It is what I do. I trade in omissions. You knew that. You walked into my world with your eyes open.” She flinched at the old nickname. He hadn’t used it since before. “I walked into what you *showed* me of your world. There’s a difference.” She could still feel the sting of it, the humiliation of realizing she was just another piece on his board, a useful asset with a pretty face. “You used me to get to Evan.” “I used the situation to neutralize a threat. A threat, I will remind you, that was camped on your doorstep and making your life a living hell. You wanted him gone. I made him gone. The method may have been… indirect.” “You let me think we were…” She trailed off, the words too raw, too revealing. She looked away, towards the window, where the neon sign of the curry house flickered. “It doesn’t matter. It’s done. He’s gone. I’m here. You’re there. That’s the way it is.” He was silent for a long moment. The only sounds were Ptolemy’s contented purring and the distant hum of traffic. “Is it?” he finally asked, his voice softer now. She risked a glance back at him. He was watching her with an intensity that made her skin prickle. He wasn’t looking at her like an asset. He was looking at her like… her. The woman who’d laughed with him in dark corners of supernatural bars, who’d argued philosophy with him at three in the morning, whose body he’d mapped with a reverence that had felt devastatingly real. “Why are you really here, Luc?” The shortened name slipped out, a relic of a time when things were easier. He took the final few steps that closed the distance between them. He didn’t touch her. He just stood there, close enough that she could smell the faint, clean scent of his cologne, something with sandalwood and bergamot. “Because I was a fool,” he said, the words simple and stark, devoid of his usual polished charm. “I treated you as part of the game. And you were never that.” Her heart was a frantic drum against her ribs. “You can’t just say that. You can’t just show up here after all this time and say that.” “Why not? It is the truth.” “It’s not that easy.” “I am not claiming it is easy.” One of his hands lifted, hesitated, then gently brushed a stray strand of hair from her cheek. His fingers were warm. The touch was electric, a jolt that went straight through her. She froze. “I am claiming it is true. I have replayed that last night in my head a thousand times. The look on your face when you realized. I would give a great deal to erase it.” She could feel the pull, the old, familiar gravity that had always existed between them. It would be so easy to lean in, to let the anger and the hurt dissolve into the heat of his touch. To forget. But she’d done that before. She took a shaky step back, breaking the contact. Her cheek burned where his fingers had been. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to walk back in and tidy up your mess. Some things stay broken.” His hand fell back to his side. The amber eye seemed to glow in the low light, but the black one was unreadable, depthless. “I am not here to tidy up. I am here because I have information. And because, despite your very justified desire to see me gutted with my own cane, I trust your mind more than anyone else’s in this godforsaken city.” The shift was so abrupt it left her dizzy. From raw confession to cold business in a breath. It was pure Lucien. A deflection, a retreat behind the armor of his profession. “Information,” she repeated flatly. “Evan,” he said, and the name hung in the air between them, ugly and cold. A different kind of chill went through her. “What about him?” “He is asking questions. In places he should not know about, talking to people he should not be able to find. He is looking for you, Rory. And he is not looking to apologize.” The fear was instant, a cold fist closing around her throat. She had fought so hard for this sliver of peace, for this cramped flat above a curry house, for the mindless rhythm of delivery runs and late-night talks with Eva. The thought of him, of his rage, finding its way back to her… She wrapped her arms around herself again, this time against a genuine chill. Lucien watched her, his expression grim. “I told you I made him gone. I see now I did not make him gone enough. For that, I am sorry. It is a failure I intend to rectify.” “How?” The word was a whisper. “That,” he said, picking up his cane from the mantel with a fluid motion, “is what I need to talk to you about. But not here. This place… it has no wards. It is not safe. You will come with me.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. The fixer was back, issuing instructions. The part of her that was still furious, that remembered the betrayal, wanted to refuse on principle. To slam the door in his face all over again. But the larger part, the part that had seen the things Evan was capable of, that knew the world was far stranger and more dangerous than most people ever dreamed, knew he was right. She looked at him, this half-demon in a charcoal suit who had broken her heart and was now offering to protect her from the monster she’d left behind. The irony was so bitter she could taste it. “Give me five minutes,” she said, her voice hollow. “I need to get my coat.”