Run: 2026-02-19-01KHT0RYPZH34YP7JBWMD603YW

A rain-heavy dusk pressed against the windows of Eva’s flat, blurring London into a smudge of neon and puddle-glint. The curry house below simmered with clove and cardamom, spicy-sweet and thick in the air. Aurora Carter fumbled with the third deadbolt, keys cold and slick in her hand, a takeout bag balanced between elbow and ribs. Ptolemy, the ancient tabby, wove between her ankles and glared as if it was her fault she’d come home late. Inside: narrow hallway, towers of books tilting, and her own boots scrubbed by the door. She dumped the bag and started to peel her raincoat off, muttering. Then she saw him. Lucien Moreau did not blend with chaos or curry or rainwater. He lingered, ghost-pale and neat, against Eva’s World Atlas and a pile of recipe clippings, as if he’d dropped in from some crisp, fevered dream. His head tipped, platinum hair gleaming, heterochromatic eyes skipping from Rory’s hands to her face. That old tiny scar on her wrist itched under his gaze. “Bonsoir, Aurora.” He didn’t offer a smile. Her mind threw up useless, old shields. He stands like nothing ever dented him, Rory. He stands like no one told him to leave. She untangled herself from the coat. “The hell are you doing in Eva’s flat, Lucien?” His mouth quirked, a flicker. “You left me no choice. I knocked, I waited. Curry man downstairs told me you’d be up soon.” She toed off her shoes. “You need to leave. Eva’s not here. I’m not a messenger service either.” She wanted to sound immune, brisk, cool as she used to. It came out sharp instead. Lucien’s fingers brushed the edge of a faded map, careful. “I never would disturb if it wasn’t urgent. Yet—here I am.” He hesitated over her name. “Rory, your number changed.” She bristled, feeling the years fold closer, press into her ribs. “You don’t get to call me that. Not anymore.” His grip tightened on the cane, ivory handle glinting. “You want to shout, then shout.” “Why would I waste the breath?” Ptolemy stalked in and began meowing at Lucien’s shoes, tail whipped high. Lucien barely blinked. “There’s no cause for fear, Aurora. I won’t linger—” His accent shaped her name like a prize. She slid past, dropped the bag on the tiny table, let plastic containers thud against battered wood. “Was I meant to be grateful you let yourself in, or angry you thought you could, or—?” She reached for a fork, fingers trembling. Food forgotten. Lucien came closer, the faint click of his cane off Eva’s cramped floor. He smelled of rain and bergamot, just as her memory preserved him, maddeningly unruffled. “There’s news. About the Cheung girl.” His voice offered information, the old trade, but she recognised shaky undertow. She angled her chin, forced her hands steady, fork in a white-knuckle grip. “I haven’t worked for Yu-Fei in months. She’s got nothing to do with—us.” His lips twitched, nearly a smile, nearly pain. “Something’s coming for anyone attached to her. Including girls who ran from trouble and built a new name.” His gaze lingered on her wrist. “I’m not in your world, Lucien.” A pause, as regret banged dully against her ribs. “And you’re not in mine.” He gave a breath—half sigh, half plea. “No? I recall being the one left in silence in a city that chews up names. Is this silence too?” She stared at his shoes, glossy, rain-spattered. “You aren’t owed every answer. Not after Marseille.” Her voice wobbled. She wished he would turn, walk, let the past close up tight as a fist. He looked around, measured every book-stack, every crumpled paper. Avoided her eyes. “After Marseille, I imagined you dead or, perhaps worse, safe and exhausted with banality.” She snorted, voice rough. “Sorry to disappoint. I’m trapped above a curry house, catching rain in bowls and running secrets for cash.” He stepped around Ptolemy and lifted one brow, cold and assessing. “Which means you need protection. Or company. Preferably both.” She braced herself with both palms against the counter, eyes lit blue and wild. “You are not my protector—never were. Don’t twist things. You are a liar with a fancy accent.” The words landed between them, raw. Lucien’s eyes—amber, then black—wicked up the room’s quirks and edges. He unbuttoned his cuff, flexed his wrist, and let silence spool for a beat. Behind him, rain battered against the window, wild and ugly. Ptolemy twined past Lucien and leapt onto the table, nosing the abandoned food. Aurora only realised she was shivering when Lucien’s tone shifted—softer, nearly human. “So we both lied. I lied for protection; you lied to escape.” He fingered the cane. “You told me to leave, but I find myself in London, still following breadcrumbs to this—this half-life.” Dinner cooled. She watched a drop of rain pinch along the glass, racing its sibling, trying for the edge. “I don’t want your pursuit,” she whispered. Not sure he could hear. Maybe saying it made the knot of want in her throat worse. Lucien glanced at the photos magnetised to Eva’s fridge—a blurry childhood, Aurora laughing beside dark-haired girls. “Did you never—” His voice trailed, searching. “Never want it all again? The rush, the risk?” She met his eyes and found them older. “Sometimes I’d kill for quiet. Some nights I’d trade anything to forget your face.” The cane planted sharply. He shifted, a sudden, dangerous energy in the small space. “Forget, then. But you can’t lie to me in this room. Not with your hands shaking, not with your voice running wild the moment I stepped in.” Aurora’s throat burned. She wrenched open the takeout, shovelled rice onto a plate, desperate for the distraction. Spoon clattered. “Eat, or go. Your choice.” He took a step nearer. Unsmiling, silver and black, the edge he always carried now bared like his hidden blade. “I will eat,” he murmured, “if you tell me true—where did you go, that night in Marseille?” Silence. Her fists clenched. The memory sticky, raw, two years rotting and still alive under the skin. She whipped her head up. “Does it matter? I ran. I kept running. You didn’t say stop.” The look he gave her sliced right through her—hurt, regret, everything clogged up and unsaid. “I would have,” Lucien said, barely a sound. She shoved a container at him, nearly knocking over a sheaf of papers. “Fine. One dinner. Then you go. No lies. But nothing about running. Not tonight.” He accepted the food, gaze lingering on the scar at her wrist, the lines under her eyes, her hair limp from rain. “As you wish,” he breathed, voice velvet and exhausted and—maybe—relieved. They ate in awkward silence, rain pounding, curry house thunder below. In the hush between forkfuls, old heat simmered, unsaid and mighty, weaving through ink-stained napkins and the hush of secrets, neither brave enough to force it out into the brittle, watching dark.