AI The deadbolt turned with a metallic clunk, then the lower two followed in sequence. Aurora had the door half-open before she registered exactly who stood in the hallway, and by then she'd already committed to the motion of swinging it wide.
Lucien Moreau looked exactly as he always did — immaculate in a charcoal suit that probably cost more than her monthly rent, his platinum hair slicked back from that angular face. His heterochromatic eyes caught the flickering fluorescent light from the stairwell. One amber, one black. She'd forgotten how much that unsettled her. No — that wasn't true. She remembered. She'd just hoped the memory would have faded by now.
"Rory." Her name in his French-tinged accent sent something unpleasant twisting in her chest.
"What are you doing here?"
Her voice came out sharper than she'd intended. Behind her, she heard Ptolemy meow from somewhere among the towers of paper covering the kitchen table. The cat's tail flicked into view, then disappeared again.
"May I come in?" He gestured vaguely toward the narrow corridor behind her. "This seems rather public for what I have to say."
"It's a public building. Lots of neighbors." But she was already stepping back, because three years of training in argument structure told her that letting him speak would give her more information than standing in the doorway exchanging pleasantries. And because some part of her — the stupid part, the part she'd tried to drown in work and alcohol and the particular kind of exhaustion that came from running package routes across London — still wanted to know what he had to say.
Lucien stepped inside. He moved that way he always did, smoothly, like water flowing around stones. His cane — the one with the hidden blade, the one he'd once held to a man's throat in a back alley off Cheapside — clicked softly against the worn carpet. He surveyed the chaos of the flat with an expression she couldn't quite read . Every surface buried under books. Scrolls she'd borrowed from a collector in Camden stacked beside her laptop. Notes pinned to the wall in clusters, connected by red string in a pattern that made her therapist ask, very gently , if she was sleeping enough.
"You live like this now," he said. Not a question.
"I live like I've been busy." She crossed her arms, leaning against the kitchen counter. The Formica was cold through her t-shirt. "You didn't answer my question. What are you doing here, Lucien?"
He turned to face her, and there it was — that look he'd given her in the parking garage behind the Golden Empress, three months ago, the night he'd told her he was leaving . The night she'd told him she didn't care. The night they'd both lied.
"I needed to see you."
"You needed to see me." She laughed, and it came out wrong — too high, too brittle. "You have my number. You know where I work. You've known where I live since—"
"Since I looked you up after you stopped answering my calls." His voice remained level . "Yes."
The silence that followed felt like it had weight . Like she could reach out and touch it, all those months of nothing. She'd blocked his number in October. It was February now.
"Okay." Aurora pushed off the counter and moved toward the small window that faced the curry shop's signage across the street. The neon pink glow painted everything in her flat the color of old roses. "Okay. You needed to see me. You've seen me. What do you want?"
She felt him come up behind her. Not touching — never touching, not anymore — but close enough that she could smell his cologne. Something with sandalwood and smoke. Expensive. She hated that she remembered.
"I heard about the thing with Vasquez."
Aurora's shoulders tightened. "There's no thing with Vasquez."
"The police have him in custody. They found the files he'd been extorting from the Liu family. They found them in his office, neatly labeled, with a note stapled to the front that said 'for the police — A.C.'" She could hear the smile in his voice, though she still hadn't turned around. "That was clever. Using the old dead drop system. But the note — Rory, really ? Your initials?"
"It wasn't supposed to lead back to me." But she was already turning, because she couldn't keep looking at the neon and pretend this wasn't happening . "The note was stupid. I was angry. I wasn't thinking."
"You were thinking exactly what needed to be thought." He said it simply, like a statement of fact. "Vasquez has been a problem for years. The Met couldn't touch him. You found a way."
"I found a way because you taught me how to look ."
"I taught you the basics. Everything else—" He paused, those mismatched eyes searching her face. "Everything else is all you."
She didn't know what to do with that. She'd spent months building up a careful structure of not thinking about Lucien Moreau. Not thinking about the way he'd appeared in her life like a complication she couldn't afford, or the way he'd stayed longer than she'd expected, or the way she'd started to rely on his information networks and his language skills and his presence in the corner of whatever grimy warehouse they were meeting in. Not thinking about the night she'd realized she wanted him to stay.
"You're not here to congratulate me on my detective work." She moved away from the window, putting the kitchen table between them. A tactical retreat. That's what she told herself. "Why are you really here?"
Lucien's hand came up to rest on the back of one of her mismatched chairs. His fingers were long, elegant — pianist's hands, she'd always thought, though she'd never heard him play. The cane hung from his other hand, and she remembered, with sudden clarity, the way he'd used it to disarm a man twice his size. The way he'd stepped between her and danger without hesitation.
"Because I leave again tomorrow."
The words hit her somewhere below the ribs. She knew, logically, that he'd been here before. That he'd told her the first time, in that parking garage, that he had to go back to Marseille. That there were people there — his father's people, the demon half of his family — who needed him. She'd known, and she'd told herself she didn't care, and she'd spent three months trying to convince herself it was true.
"Okay," she said. Her voice came out steady, which felt like a small miracle . "Safe travels."
"Rory."
"Don't." She held up a hand. "Don't do that. Don't say my name like—like whatever you're about to say. We had something. It was—it was good, for a while. And then you left. And I survived. So whatever this is, whatever you're here to do, you need to do it quickly because I have work in the morning and—"
"I was wrong to leave the way I did."
The words stopped her. She stared at him, this man who never apologized, who never admitted fault, who she'd watched dismantle three separate criminal organizations through sheer force of will and intelligence. He was looking at the floor now, at the worn carpet with its pattern of faded roses.
"I should have given you a choice," he said. "I should have asked you to come with me. Instead I—" He exhaled. "I assumed you wouldn't want to. And I was a coward. I told myself it was protection, keeping you out of that world, but it was cowardice. I didn't want to hear you say no."
"You didn't give me the chance to say yes."
"No." He looked up. "I didn't."
The neon sign outside flickered . Somewhere in the flat below, a pot clattered, followed by the smell of cumin and garlic. Ptolemy wound between her ankles, demanding attention, and Aurora reached down to scratch behind his ears automatically.
"I thought about you," she said. The words came out smaller than she intended. "Not in a romantic way. Just—you know. In the way you think about a mistake you made. A bad decision."
"I was a bad decision?"
"You were a complication." She straightened, meeting his eyes. "I had my life sorted. I had my job, my flat, my—my everything. And then you showed up with your secrets and your contacts and your stupid face—"
"My face?"
"Your stupid, annoying, perfectly symmetrical face, and you made everything complicated. I didn't have time for complicated. I still don't have time for complicated. I have a delivery route and a court date in March and a cat who needs feeding and—"
He kissed her.
Later, she would blame the neon light, or the exhaustion, or the three deadbolts that made her feel safe enough to let her walls down. But in the moment, it was just Lucien, close enough to smell that sandalwood again, one hand cupping her jaw with a gentleness she wouldn't have thought him capable of. His lips were warm. He tasted like expensive wine and something else, something she couldn't name.
She kissed him back.
It wasn't forgiveness — not yet, maybe not ever — but it was something. It was her hand fisting in his expensive jacket, pulling him closer. It was the small sound he made, halfway between surprise and relief. It was the way the world narrowed to just this: the two of them, in her cluttered flat, with the smell of curry drifting up through the floorboards and Ptolemy meowing impatiently for his dinner.
When they broke apart, he rested his forehead against hers.
"I leave tomorrow," he repeated.
"I know."
"I could stay."
She pulled back, studying his face. The amber eye caught the neon pink. The black one stayed dark. "Your father's people—"
"Can wait." He said it simply. "They've waited before. They'll wait again."
"And what about Marseille? The whole—what did you call it? The realm of Avaros?"
"We'll figure it out." His thumb traced along her cheekbone. "Together, if you want. Or not. I won't assume."
The smart thing would be to say no. To tell him that she'd built something here, that she couldn't drop everything for a half-demon with a complicated family tree and a cane that held blades. To remind him that they'd parted badly, that she'd spent months being angry, that trust once broken didn't mend overnight.
Instead, she said: "I have to work in the morning."
"I know."
"I'm not going to be easy about this."
"I would be disappointed if you were."
She laughed — a real one this time, not the brittle thing from earlier. "You're an idiot."
"Probably." He smiled, and it transformed his face, made him look younger, less like the terrifying fixer and more like the man she'd started to fall for, all those months ago. "But I'm your idiot, if you'll have me."
From downstairs, the curry shop owner started playing music — something old, something with strings. Aurora listened to it for a moment, felt the vibration through her bare feet on the cold floor.
"Okay," she said. "Okay. But you're sleeping on the couch."
"Fair."
"And you're helping me with my route tomorrow. The East End runs are brutal."
"I know the East End."
"And you're explaining the thing with your father. The Avaros thing. I want details."
He laughed, and the sound was warm, and she realized she could listen to that for a very long time.
"Tomorrow," he said. "Tonight, I just want to—" He paused, searching for words, which was so unlike him that she felt her heart do something complicated in her chest. "I just want to be here. If that's all right."
She looked at him, this impossible man in her impossible flat, with his expensive suit and his hidden blade and his perfect , stupid face.
"Yeah," she said. "That's all right."
Ptolemy meowed again, louder this time, and Aurora laughed, and Lucien smiled, and somewhere in the distance, the music played on.