Run: 2026-02-19-01KHT0SED0B63Z2BD69GDJJEME

A sharp rap on the door cut through the quiet hum of the flat. Three quick, impatient knocks. Rory froze, a half-eaten slice of toast halfway to her mouth. No one knocked on Eva’s door. Friends used the buzzer, delivery guys yelled up from the street, and enemies, well, she preferred not to think about enemies. The scent of cardamom and fried onions from the curry house below thickened the air. She set the toast down on a stack of books about Sumerian demonology and padded to the door. Her hand hesitated over the first deadbolt. The wood of the door was thick, solid. She slid the first bolt back, the sound a loud rasp in the silence. The second clicked open with a satisfying thud. The third, a newer installation, scraped reluctantly. She pulled the door inward just enough to peer through the gap, her body braced behind it. The first thing she saw was a perfectly polished leather shoe. Then the sharp crease of a charcoal suit trouser. Her eyes travelled up the immaculate length of him, past the ivory head of a cane held loosely in one manicured hand, to a face that stole the breath from her lungs. Platinum blond hair slicked back from a high forehead. A jawline that could cut glass. And the eyes. One, the warm, liquid gold of amber. The other, a pit of endless, starless night. Lucien Moreau. Her throat went dry. Her fingers tightened on the edge of the door. “Moreau.” His name was not a question. It was an accusation. “Carter.” His voice was just as she remembered it, a low baritone with the ghost of a French accent, smooth and dangerous as river stone. He offered no smile. His expression was a mask of polite neutrality that barely concealed the current running beneath. They stood like that for a full ten seconds, the cluttered hallway behind him a world away from the suffocating stillness between them. He made no move to enter. She made no move to let him. He finally broke the silence, his gaze unwavering. “I believe you have something that belongs to me.” “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” A lie. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird in a cage. She knew exactly what he was talking about. It sat on Eva’s kitchen counter, wrapped in oilcloth, a heavy weight on her conscience. His lips thinned. The amber eye seemed to flicker with an inner fire. “Do not play games with me, Aurora. Not today.” The use of her full name was a deliberate strike. A reminder of a closeness they no longer shared. She felt the old anger mix with something else, something she refused to name, and it sharpened her tongue. “I’m not playing. I’m telling you to leave.” “I am not leaving without it.” He shifted his weight, a subtle movement that spoke of immense patience and absolute resolve. He could stand there all day. They both knew it. “We can conduct this business on a public landing, if you wish. Or, you can let me in.” Her knuckles were white where she gripped the door. It was a choice, but not a choice at all. She hated him for it. Hated the calculated way he cornered her, the same way he did everything. With a deep breath that did nothing to calm her racing pulse, she pulled the door open and stepped back. Lucien entered the flat, and the already cramped space seemed to shrink around him. He was a slash of monochromatic severity in Eva's chaotic world of colour and clutter. He moved with a liquid grace, his cane tapping softly against the floorboards as he took in the teetering stacks of books, the scrolls pinned to the walls with mismatched thumbtacks, the faint smell of cat and old paper. His presence was an intrusion, a disruption of the fragile peace she had clawed out for herself. A ginger tabby, Ptolemy, emerged from under a sagging armchair, stretched languidly, and eyed the newcomer with feline suspicion. The cat took a few tentative steps forward, then stopped, tail twitching, and let out a low hiss. Lucien’s black eye fixed on the cat. “Your familiar is unwell.” “He’s not my familiar. And he’s just a good judge of character.” Rory shut the door, the click of the latch echoing the finality of her decision. The deadbolts remained undone. He turned his attention from the cat back to her, his dual-coloured gaze sweeping over her in a way that felt both clinical and intensely personal. He took in her worn jumper, the smudge of ink on her cheek, the way she stood with her arms crossed over her chest as if to physically hold herself together. “You look tired, Carter.” “I’ve had a busy week.” She walked past him, a careful detour to maintain distance, and stopped by the small kitchen counter. She gestured to the oilcloth bundle. “This is what you came for. Take it and go.” He did not move towards it. Instead, his eyes followed her, pinning her in place. “The client was most displeased with the unscheduled deviation from our arrangement.” “Your client can take it up with me.” “My client is a Prince of the Ashen Court. He does not ‘take things up’ with mortals who steal from him. He un-makes them.” The statement was delivered without inflection, a simple statement of fact that made the hairs on her arms stand on end. “I am here cleaning up your mess. Again.” The ‘again’ hung in the air between them, heavy with the weight of a hundred other arguments, a dozen other rescues, one final, bitter parting. The crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist throbbed with a phantom ache. “I didn’t ask for your help,” she said, her voice low. “You never do.” He took a step into the room, then another. The space between them collapsed. He stopped barely an arm’s length away, close enough that she could smell the crisp, cold scent of his cologne, a fragrance like gin and winter air. It was a scent that had once been a comfort. Now it just made her stomach clench. “What was it this time?” His voice was softer now, the hard edge gone. “Another sob story? A desperate widow with hungry children?” “It was none of your business.” “You made it my business when you took the phylactery.” He reached out, not to the bundle on the counter, but towards her. His fingers stopped a centimetre from her cheek, hovering over the ink smudge. Her breath caught. She didn’t move, didn’t breathe, her entire world narrowing to the space between his skin and hers. She could feel the strange, static energy that always hummed around him, a cool fire. He let his hand fall. The moment shattered. “I had to be sure,” she said, the words coming out in a rush. “He said he needed it for his wife, for a ritual to save her.” “He lied.” Lucien’s gaze was intense. “The ritual was not to save her. It was to bind her soul to his service after death. A rather nasty bit of necromancy.” Nausea churned in her gut. She had been so sure. The man had seemed so broken, so desperate. “How do you know?” “Because that is what I do, Aurora. I know.” He finally moved to the counter and picked up the oilcloth package. His long fingers unwrapped a corner, revealing the dark, pulsating obsidian beneath. It seemed to drink the light from the room. He wrapped it back up carefully. “My reputation rests on the successful conclusion of my contracts. A reputation you seem determined to jeopardise.” “I thought I was doing the right thing.” “There is no right thing,” he countered, turning back to face her. “There are only consequences.” His eyes, one burning gold, one cold void, held hers. “This is the last time. I cannot afford to continue cleaning up after your conscience.” She flinched as if he had struck her. His words cut deeper than any blade. He saw her as a liability. A complication. Maybe that was all she had ever been. “Then don’t,” she snapped, her voice brittle. “Next time, let the Prince of the Ashen Court un-make me. It would certainly simplify your life.” A muscle twitched in his jaw. For the first time, a crack appeared in his perfect composure. He took a half-step toward her, his hand clenching on the bundle. The air between them grew thick, charged with years of unspoken words, of anger and regret and a deep, ruinous ache. “Do you truly believe that is what I want?” His voice was a raw whisper. The question was not about business, not about phylacteries or demon princes. It was about them. About the night she walked away, and the reason he had let her go.