AI The rapping at Eva's door was insistent, a frantic rhythm that hammered against the cheap wood. Aurora Carter, or Rory as everyone called her, paused mid-scroll, her eyes snapping from the faded parchment to the entryway. Ptolemy, Eva’s ginger tabby, twitched an ear from his perch on a teetering stack of tomes. No one ever came to Eva’s flat unannounced. Her friends were either already inside, surrounded by the dizzying chaos of books and esoteric diagrams, or they knew precisely when to knock. This felt different. This felt… urgent.
She set aside the brittle paper, its edges crumbling slightly under her touch, and walked to the door. Three substantial deadbolts slid back with a series of metallic clacks that echoed in the cramped space. A sliver of the dim hallway light bled into the flat, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. Rory pulled the door open.
And there he stood. Lucien Moreau.
He filled the doorway, a stark silhouette against the muted glow beyond. Rain slicked his platinum blond hair, plastered it to his temples, and traced the sharp angles of his jaw. He wore a charcoal suit, impeccably tailored, its dark fabric clinging to him despite the downpour. Water dripped from the hem, pooling on the worn floorboards. His eyes, one the colour of warm amber, the other a fathomless black, scanned her face, a flicker of something – surprise? Recognition? – crossing his features. He clutched an ivory-handled cane, its smooth surface looking strangely out of place in this gritty London street.
Rory felt a sudden, sharp intake of breath. It had been years. Years since she’d fled London, years since she’d last seen him, his sardonic smile and those impossibly mismatched eyes. The air between them thickened, charged with unspoken history, with the ghost of lingering touches and words that had never quite found their way out.
"Rory," he began, his voice a low rumble, roughened by the rain. It was the same voice that had once whispered late-night promises, the same voice that had delivered devastating truths.
She didn't move, didn't invite him in. “Lucien. What are you doing here?” Her voice was level, betraying none of the turmoil that churned beneath the surface. She had built walls, brick by careful brick, after everything. Seeing him now felt like a tremor running through their foundations.
He shifted his weight, the intricately carved ivory of his cane tapping a soft rhythm against the floor. "I've been… looking for you."
"Looking for me?" A faint, disbelieving laugh escaped her. "Here? After all this time?" She gestured around the familiar clutter of Eva's flat, the overflowing bookshelves, the scattered notes on summoning circles and ancient languages. "This isn't exactly a place people stumble upon."
He met her challenging gaze, his expression unreadable . "Eva and I… we have mutual acquaintances."
"Eva wasn't expecting you, Lucien.” She stepped back, the gesture a clear indication that her threshold was not his invitation.
"I imagine not." He moved past her then, a fluid, almost gliding motion, not waiting for permission, but not quite forcing his way either . He entered the flat, his presence seeming to expand, to fill the limited space. The scent of rain and something else, something sharp and cool like expensive cologne and distant ozone, clung to him. He surveyed the room, his gaze sweeping over the stacks of books, the overflowing teacups, the faint aroma of incense.
"Still in the thick of it, I see," he murmured, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. He turned back to her, his heterochromatic eyes holding hers. "You always did have a penchant for the esoteric."
Rory crossed her arms, leaning against the doorframe. The contrast between his polished appearance and Eva's glorious, organized chaos was stark . "And you always did have a knack for showing up when you weren't wanted."
He ignored the jab, his attention caught by a heavily annotated volume on a nearby table. He reached for it, his long fingers brushing against a stack of loose papers. "The Serpent's Grimoire. Eva’s been trying to decipher that specific passage for months."
"She has. And she’s getting close." Rory’s jaw tightened. She remembered discussing the text with Eva just that morning, tracing a particularly thorny translation. Eva, with her bright spirit and her seemingly insatiable hunger for knowledge, was the antithesis of the life Rory had tried to forge for herself after leaving Evan, after fleeing the suffocating predictability of her father’s expectations.
Lucien’s fingers traced a symbol on the grimoire's cover. "Eva claims this is the key to… something significant."
"It is." Rory’s voice was firm. She wouldn't let him dismiss it, wouldn’t let him diminish the importance of Eva's work, or hers. She’d been a delivery driver for a Cantonese restaurant by day, an apprentice to a world of shadows by night, all while trying to keep her head above water in London’s surreal underbelly.
Lucien looked up from the book, his gaze now fixed on her, intent. "What are you doing here, Rory? Truly. Eva mentioned you’d… moved on."
The question hung in the air , heavy with unspoken implications. Rory felt a prickle of the old defensiveness. "I live here now. Part-time, at least. Eva needed help. And I… I needed a change.” She didn’t elaborate. The details of her escape from Cardiff, from Evan’s controlling grip, from the suffocating weight of her father’s disapproval, were not for him to pry into.
He nodded slowly , his expression softening almost imperceptibly. The hard edges of his face seemed to recede for a moment, revealing something more vulnerable beneath. "And you found it?" he asked, his voice quieter .
"I'm still looking." She offered a small, wry smile. "Same as you, isn't it?"
His amber eye glinted. "Perhaps. Though my searches are generally more… direct." He gestured with his cane, first towards the door, then around the room. "This is a significant departure from your usual haunts, though. Delivering lukewarm noodles and deciphering ancient curses. You've always had a gift for surprise, Aurora Carter."
The use of her full name, formal and deliberate, sent a tremor through her. He rarely used it. It was a reminder of a past she sometimes struggled to reconcile with the present. "People change, Lucien."
"Indeed they do." He took a step closer, the space between them shrinking. She could feel the warmth radiating off him, a stark contrast to the damp chill that clung to his suit. His proximity was a tangible force, a magnetic pull she’d fought for years to resist. His gaze dropped to her left wrist, where the faint, crescent-shaped scar peeked out from the cuff of her jumper. A sharp memory, of scraped knees and a clumsy fall from a tree, surfaced unbidden. It was a scar she hadn't thought about in years.
He raised a hand, hesitating for a fraction of a second before gently tracing the curve of the mark with the tip of his index finger, his touch impossibly light. "Childhood accident?"
Rory flinched, her breath hitching. The accidental touch, the innocent question, felt like a betrayal . It was a relic of a time before, before the complications, before the hurt, before they had become… whatever it was they had become. "Something like that." She pulled her hand away, the movement sharp.
He didn't press, but his eyes remained on her face, searching. "You always did have a way of keeping secrets, even the innocuous ones."
"And you always had a way of knowing things you shouldn't." Her words were a whispered accusation, laced with years of accumulated frustration. "What do you want, Lucien? Really? Why are you here, at precisely this moment?"
He met her gaze, his heterochromatic eyes holding a depth that always unsettled her. "There's a storm coming, Rory. A real one. And I found out you were… nearby. I needed to see if you were as prepared as you claim to be."
"Prepared for what?" The phrase ‘prepared for what’ hung in the air , unanswered. Suddenly, the insistent thrum of the rain outside, the low rumble of traffic, all seemed to fade. All that remained was the charged silence between them, the unspoken questions, and the unnerving understanding that their past had just walked through Eva's door.