Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTQTE0Q4N93EFDXRXEXMV4M

The rain had drummed a relentless tattoo on the windows all evening, a persistent patter that Eva had learned to ignore. She leaned against the kitchen counter, lost in the whirl of lines and figures scrawled across her notes. Ptolemy, with his fierce green eyes, sat slumbering on an open volume of Latin texts. Some innate instinct—something older, deeper—made her raise her head, just as a knock cut through the sounds of storm and night. It wasn’t so much the volume of it but the weight, like an echo of memories, shadows of words needed saying. With a glance at the clock, she clutched at her old cardigan, the wool stretching across her shoulders, and moved to the door. The three deadbolts slid free, one after another, until the door gave way to reveal a face both familiar and distant in the curves of its smile and the brightness of its unmatching eyes. Lucien stood on her threshold, rainwater glistening on the shoulders of his tailored suit. The street lamps outside cast a mix of amber and gray light across him, accentuating the one amber eye reflecting the city glow like a cat waiting to spring. "Eva," his voice carried a richness of the south, a trace of sunsweet vineyards mingling with the London drizzle. "Lucien," she replied, the name lingering on her tongue almost of its own accord, its familiarity awash with a dissonance she struggled to hide behind her steady gaze. He leaned on the ivory-handled cane that concealed the blade she knew too well, unbothered, almost as if he belonged there. The small wrinkle that appeared at the corner of his lips suggested amusement, but there was something more—something like apology. “Might I come in, or do we conduct this reunion in the hallway?” Eva stood back so the door widened, leaving them in a tiny foyer intersecting worlds past and present. The smell of spices drifted up from below, a counter rhythm to the damp autumn wind slipping in through the crack, and she saw how Lucien shivered slightly at the contrast. Lucien stepped over the threshold, his gait a swagger built of habit rather than certainty. He looked down at Ptolemy, who had lifted his head with regal disdain, but stayed silent, watching Eva with those impossible eyes—a pact between predator and prey undecided which was which. “Fancy place you’ve got.” His gaze roved across the book-laden surfaces. “Some things never change.” “Some things do.” Eva didn’t know why she said it. It sounded harsher than intended. An echo of past wounds neither acknowledged nor hidden well. “The tabby’s new,” Lucien remarked, as if grasping at the ordinary to bridge the gap of their years apart. “Ptolemy. Eva’s Alexandrian tangent,” she waved lightly, attempting to capture ease in the jest. The room tightened around them as Lucien's presence pressed on their unspoken history. Once they’d shared laughter between brittle conversation and stolen glances after midnight. Now every whisper of an argument gone awry haunted this space. Rain still whispered in a murmur at the window pane, only occasionally punctuated by the metal groan of passing cars sloshing through puddles in this living city. “I was in the area,” Lucien began, the nonchalance slightly at odds with a tightened jaw. “Just finished a...job. Thought I might see you.” Eva nodded, creating silence ironically swollen with sound. “The Frenchman gracing the East End with his presence; did the underworld let you off early, or did you decide to take a detour?” His laughter emerged, honest and sudden, a sound warmed by genuine amusement. “Ah, Eva, your wit is as sharp as ever. No detour, unless you count matters of the heart.” Her eyes cut sideways to him at the mention, reading between lines he hadn’t yet drawn and others erased with time. “And what matters does that heart of yours peddle tonight?” Lucien moved closer, his cane left to lean against the table like an afterthought. “Reckoning.” The word perched between them sharp, unexpected in its nakedness. Ptolemy flicked his tail and returned to his slumber, perhaps sensing an interlude beyond his comprehension—or simply too indifferent to care. “I thought we’d settled that.” Eva found her own voice a whisper reclaimed from places she'd long since closed off. “Aye,” a brief flicker of tired resignation softened his expression. “But not nearly enough. Left some pieces scattered.” She didn’t look away, watching him as the rain’s tumult became a steady mantra beyond the room. “I suppose it’s fitting this weather brought you here.” Lucien’s hand found hers. He didn’t flinch when her fingers froze under his touch, the warmth seeping like truth into long-held lies. “Are you staying or just passing through?” It wasn't a question of where, but why, spoken softer. Too many roads led out from that singular point, too much tangled in mouth-watering attraction and the reluctance they both held for its poison. “Depends,” his words deliberate, as if weighed for meaning and nuance both. “What do you want?” What did she want? Eva scanned the skyline seen through mist-glossed glass, considering choices and chances left like crumpled candy wrappers around her feet. Trust them, or trust nobody. “I want to know why you're here, really,” she finally said, voice earnest, laced with a plea barely trodden from the realm of dreams and shadows. Lucien stepped back, time hanging soft and silken on his next steps. “Maybe—just maybe—you,” His laugh, almost self-deprecating, belied the tension beneath. “Though I’d settle for a cup of tea, if you have one to spare.” Eva breathed out a slow sigh, a thread holding them poised on that brink hardly containing the bitter nostalgia. As the paused moment trickled by, Eva let her guard slip a fraction and saw him smiling in its wake. “I think we can arrange that,” she replied, allowing the ghost of a grin to lighten her response. They moved past icy separation into the kitchen's warmth, unaware of how each intention might pull closer the tangled paths forming the map between what they’d lost and potentially found again, one tea cup at a time.