AI The Raven’s Nest smelled of old wood, spilled beer, and the faint, persistent scent of lemon cleaner. Aurora Carter balanced three plates of steaming chow mein on a tray, her movements economical as she navigated the dim space between tables. Her black hair, straight and shoulder-length, swung with each step. She was delivering for Yu-Fei Cheung tonight, a double shift that bled into her evening off. Silas was behind the bar, polishing a glass with a cloth. His silver signet ring caught the green glow of the neon sign outside the window. He nodded to her, a slight incline of the head that meant he saw her, approved of her efficiency.
She set the last plate down at a booth where two men in rumpled suits were deep in conversation. As she straightened, a voice cut through the low murmur of the bar.
“Laila?”
The name was a ghost, a whisper from a past life. It froze her for a second, her fingers still on the edge of the tray. No one here called her that. Rory, yes, from Silas and Eva. Aurora on her ID. But Laila? That name belonged to Cardiff, to university corridors and a girl with fewer scars, real or metaphorical.
She turned.
The man stood near the entrance, one hand still on the door handle as if unsure whether to stay or flee. He was tall, broad-shouldered, but the confident athlete’s frame she remembered had softened, settled into something heavier. His face, once perpetually tanned from rugby pitches, was pale, the lines around his eyes deeper. He wore a dark overcoat, expensive-looking but worn with a stoop she didn’t recognize.
“Marcus ,” she said. The word felt strange in her mouth.
His face broke into a familiar smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Christ. It is you.” He let the door swing shut and took a step inside, shedding the chill of the London night. “I was just… passing. Saw the sign. I never come to this part of town.”
“You’re a long way from Cardiff.”
“I live here now. Been here five years.” He hovered, awkward . “Can I… buy you a drink? You look like you’re finishing up.”
She glanced at Silas. He was watching, his gaze assessing but neutral. He gave a nearly imperceptible shrug. Her shift was over; the last delivery was done. The part of her that had been Laila, the quick-to-laugh law student, wanted to say no. To walk away and preserve the clean break she’d made. But the woman she was now, the one who lived above a spy’s bar and carried a crescent-shaped scar on her wrist like a receipt for survival, was curious.
“Alright. One drink.”
She led him to a small table in the corner, away from the suits and the couple canoodling by the fireplace. She slid into the booth, placing the empty tray on the seat beside her. He shrugged off his coat, revealing a tailored shirt and a silk tie loosened at the neck. He ordered a single malt, neat. She asked for a ginger beer.
“Not drinking?” he asked.
“I’m working,” she said, though her shift was done . It was an easy lie.
He nodded, accepting it. “Right. Of course.” He leaned back, his eyes scanning her face . “You look… good. Different.”
“So do you.”
He barked a short laugh. “Older. Fatter. Tired.”
“I was going to say ‘established.’” She gestured to his clothes.
“Appearances.” He took the whisky the waiter brought, swirling the amber liquid. “You vanished, Laila. One day you were there, the next… poof. Your dad said you’d gone to London. Changed your number. Your Facebook was deleted.” He didn’t say it with accusation, just a flat statement of fact. “Eva wouldn’t tell me anything. Just said you needed space.”
Aurora kept her hands wrapped around the cold glass of ginger beer. “I did.”
“Because of Evan?”
The name was a jolt. She hadn’t heard it spoken aloud in years. Not since the night she’d packed a single suitcase and taken the last train out of Cardiff, her left wrist throbbing under a bandage. She felt the ghost of the pain, a phantom echo .
“Partly.”
“I heard things,” Marcus said, his voice dropping. “After you left. Rumors. That he’d… that it got bad.” He looked at her left wrist, bare on the table. The small, pale crescent scar was visible under the bar’s low light. His gaze fixed on it. “I never saw it. I should have seen it.”
“You were in Bristol for your grad scheme.”
“That’s not an excuse.” He took a hefty swallow of his drink. “We were friends. Good friends. And I was so wrapped up in my own shit, my first job, impressing the bosses… I missed it. I missed you leaving. I missed the signs.”
“There weren’t many signs to see,” she said quietly. “I got good at hiding them.”
“That’s what Eva said.” He stared into his glass. “I tried to find you, you know. A few years ago. Looked up every Aurora Carter in London. Never found this place.”
“I go by Rory now.”
“Rory.” He tested the name. “Suits you. The Aurora I knew was… softer. All books and big ideas about justice.”
“The Aurora you knew was twenty-one and naive.”
“And what’s Rory?”
She considered. “Older. Less naive. Delivers noodles and lives above a bar.”
His eyebrows went up. “You live here?”
“Upstairs.”
“Jesus.” He looked around at the maps on the walls, the black-and-white photos of a London that no longer existed, the secretive atmosphere. “This is a far cry from those late-night debates in the Student Union. You were going to change the legal world, remember? Tear down the old boys’ network. Be the youngest female QC in Wales.”
“Plans change.”
“Do they?” he asked, and there was a sudden, sharp edge to his voice. “Or do we just let them be changed for us?”
She didn’t answer. She watched him instead. The way his thumb rubbed against the side of his glass, a nervous habit he’d had since they were teenagers. The new tension in his jaw. The expensive watch on his wrist that looked like a shackle . The Marcus she’d known was brimming with a restless, competitive energy. This man was subdued, full of a quiet regret that seemed to weigh him down into the leather booth .
“What about you?” she asked, shifting the focus. “You’re a long way from that grad scheme.”
He sighed, a heavy, weary sound. “I’m a corporate lawyer. M&A. Merger and Acquisitions. I spend my days in windowless rooms arguing over clauses and share prices. I wear this…” He plucked at his shirt. “I drive a German car. I live in a glass tower in Canary Wharf with a view of other glass towers.”
“You wanted to be a human rights barrister.”
“I wanted to pay off my student loans,” he corrected, bitterness seeping through . “My dad got sick. The treatments were expensive. The firm offered to clear my debt if I signed with them for five years. I signed. Now it’s been eight.” He finished his whisky, signaled for another. “I bought the flat for my parents. Dad’s gone now. Mum lives there. She likes the view.”
The silence that followed was thick, filled with the ghosts of their former selves—the idealistic, bright-eyed versions who’d believed in trajectories, in upward arcs. They sat in a bar that was a front for secrets, two people who’d taken sharp, unexpected turns.
“Do you ever go back?” he asked.
“To Cardiff?”
“To any of it. The law. The dream.”
Aurora thought of the textbooks still boxed in Silas’s storage room. The faded ‘Justice for All’ poster folded at the bottom of her suitcase. The way her father’s voice still echoed in her head, disappointed, pushing her toward a courtroom she’d never enter.
“No,” she said. “That door’s closed.”
“Is it?” He leaned forward, his hazel eyes—still the same, at least—searching hers. “Because from where I’m sitting, Laila—Rory—you’re hiding. Delivering noodles and living in a pub? With your brain? Your fire? You ran from Evan, sure. But it looks like you kept running.”
His words landed like physical blows, precise and painful. He saw too much. The old friendship, the intimate knowledge of who she had been, gave him an X-ray vision she hadn’t anticipated.
“And you’re not?” she shot back, her cool voice tightening . “You traded your conscience for a corner office and a sick father’s bills. Which one of us is really hiding, Marcus ? Me in a job with no expectations, or you in a suit you hate, pretending you had no other choice?”
He flinched. The truth of it hung between them, ugly and undeniable.
“Touché,” he murmured, deflating. He ran a hand over his face. “Christ. Look at us. A pair of ghosts haunting our own lives.”
The second whisky arrived. He didn’t touch it.
“I’m sorry,” he said after a long moment. “I shouldn’t have come in. Shouldn’t have said that.”
“Why did you?”
He looked at her, really looked at her, and she saw the boy he’d been for a fleeting second—the one who’d bought her chips after a late study session, who’d laughed until he cried at her terrible impressions of their torts professor.
“I saw you through the window. Carrying those plates. You moved the same way you always did, like you were balancing something precious. I just… I wanted to know if you were okay. If you got away and made a life.” He gave a sad, twisted smile. “Seems like a complicated answer.”
“It is,” she admitted.
He nodded, glanced at his watch —the expensive shackle—and winced. “I have a conference call. Seven a.m. with Singapore.” He stood, pulling his coat back on. He dug in his wallet, left too much money on the table for the drinks. “It was… really good to see you, Rory.”
“You too, Marcus .”
He hesitated, as if he wanted to say something more, make a promise to stay in touch, but the years and the choices stretched between them like a wide, uncrossable river. He gave a short, awkward wave and turned for the door.
She watched him leave, his broad背影 disappearing into the night. The green neon sign cast a sickly glow on the wet pavement outside. Silas appeared at her elbow, silent as always. He began clearing the glasses.
“Old friend?” he asked, his voice neutral .
“Something like that.”
“He carries a lot with him.”
“Don’t we all?”
Silas gave a noncommittal hum and walked back to the bar. Aurora stayed in the booth, the cold ginger beer sweating in her hand. The bar felt emptier, the shadows longer. The ghost of Laila hovered for a moment, a wistful, hopeful echo , before dissolving into the familiar , resilient presence of Rory. She traced the crescent scar on her wrist, feeling the raised, smooth tissue under her fingertip. A receipt, yes. But not one for a life ended. For one that had changed course, into deeper, uncharted waters. She took a final sip, the ginger sharp on her tongue, and stood up. It was time to go upstairs. To her own life, complicated as it was.