Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTQXPGBHMZXV2NC8GYCSM8W

The Raven's Nest was crowded for a Tuesday night, bodies packed close together like matches in a drawer. Smoke hung in the air, mingling with the sharp scent of spilled whiskey and the faint undertone of sour beer. Aurora pushed through the crowd, her usual table at the back already occupied by a trio of suits arguing over sports scores. She knew better than to try to talk to Silas tonight. The bar was his ship to steer, and he wouldn't step aside to chat, not during all hands on deck. Instead, she made her way up to the bar, holding her position against a tide of people with practiced ease. She’d perfected the art of looking unapproachable, a queen of frost who spoke in arctic glances and sharp shoulders. Everyone in this bar wanted something from her, whether it was the time of day or a piece of her mind. As she waited for the bartender to finish serving the drink that would surely be forgotten as soon as it hit the table, Aurora caught sight of a familiar face in the mirror behind the bar. Recognizing the reflection felt like gnawing on a piece of ice—cool, unexpected, and just a little bit painful. The man staring back at her was Evan, her ex from Cardiff. It had been three years since she'd left him, taking only her clothes and the ashes of her respect as she fled to London. He was the reason she hadn't been back to Wales, not even to see her parents. Seeing him again after all these months, Aurora felt a strange sense of displacement. He hadn't changed much — still had the same well-trimmed beard, the same wire-rim glasses, the same look of quiet entitlement. But his hair had gone from chestnut to silver, the same color as the threads of a dandelion clock. "You look good, Rory," Evan said, sliding up beside her. His voice was softer now, worn down by the years. "Different, but still good." She flinched at the nickname, a reflex any dog would've been proud of. "I go by Laila now," she said flatly. "Aurora's dead." She paused, considering whether to turn and face him or keep her eyes on the bartender's steady hands wrapping a fresh twist of lime around the cocktail's rim. She settled on something in between, her gaze flickering over her reflection and settling on the halo of light dancing over the bottles of liquor. Evan had the grace to look abashed, rubbing the back of his neck like he'd just been caught nicking sweets from a corner store. "Right, of course. Laila, then." "I've moved on," Aurora continued, hoping that her voice sounded colder than the ice chilling her drink. "I'm not the same person you knew." "I can see that," Evan said softly, glancing around at the dark wood, the warm halo of green neon light from the sign outside. "This place suits you, though. It's got that… same edge." He meant it as a compliment, she knew, but it felt more like a imitation of one. She remembered how his words could slip past her defenses, wrapping around her heart with the ease of poison ivy. Ignoring the twist of her scar under her sleeve, Aurora turned to face him fully. "What are you doing in London?" she asked bluntly. "I could ask you the same thing," Evan replied, smiling that same lopsided grin that had always managed to charm her. "But I suppose that's not an answer." "I live here now," Aurora said, her tone biting with irritation. She didn't owe him any explanations, not after everything he'd done. "London's always been my city." A city that had sheltered her when she needed it most, nestled beneath the shadow of its great stone heart. "I see," Evan said, his eyes hollowing out with regret. "Listen, Rory—Laila, I'm sorry about what happened. I was… I was out of line, and I wish I could take it back." "That's not how apologies work," Aurora said, her voice sharper than the rim of her glass. "You can't just take back the things you've said, the things you've done." She thought of the ash in her mouth, the taste of her own self-respect as she'd fled from him. "I know that," Evan said, his voice barely rising above the murmur of the crowd. "But I've wished it often enough, in the empty moments when there's nothing else to think about but the weight of a thousand 'what ifs?'" Aurora felt an old, familiar ache blooming in her chest, the ghost of the bruise that had never quite healed over. She wanted to tell him to leave, to walk out of this smoky room and never look back, but the words lodged in her throat, trapped by the memories of all they'd once shared. She took a long sip from her drink, letting the sharp tang of citrus and the staggering weight of her own desire to flee fight for supremacy in the confines of her skull. "I've changed," Evan promised, his voice rising above the din of clinking glasses and raucous laughter. "I've grown, and I've learned from my mistakes." "People don't change," Aurora said flatly, the burn of her drink still lingering on her tongue. "They just become better at hiding who they really are." She'd learned that lesson the hard way, watching the masks slip and the knives come out when she least expected them. "I'd like to prove you wrong," Evan said, his tone so earnest it almost hurt to hear it. "Can we start over? Maybe get out of this bar and find someplace quieter to talk?" Aurora considered her options, the scales in her head weighing the desire to reconnect with an old friend against the very real possibility that nothing had changed. She dismissed the bartender with a nod as he slid her drink across the bar, the glass still wet from the chill of the ice that clung to it. "Fine," she said, her voice as brittle as the stem of the glass she'd just released. "But just for a little while." She wasn't promising anything more than that, not yet. "Let's go someplace quiet, then. Somewhere we can really talk."