Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTRD5MNBEG9ZGYYR0214EHB

Aurora pushed through the door of The Raven’s Nest and froze beneath the green glow. The neon cut across her face, sharp as a verdict. Smoke curled in lazy ropes beneath low beams. She’d walked these streets a thousand times, but inside the bar felt foreign. At the counter, a tall man buffed a crystal tumbler. Hazel eyes lifted. The light caught the silver signet on his right hand. His left leg bore weight unevenly. He straightened, spine rigid, as if bracing against wind. Her pulse hammered. Every breath tasted of memory. “Rory?” She slid her scarf from her neck, heat clinging to skin. “Silas.” He set the glass down without a sound other than the rim’s soft chime. His limp carried him forward. Each step measured. She moved around a high-top table where darted shadows played against old maps pinned to walls. The photographs in black and white seemed to watch as she approached: London in wartime, spies in rain-coated trenches. All secrets and half-truths. Silas folded his arms on the bar’s polished wood. He kept his distance. “I didn’t expect you back in Soho.” His voice had the calm precision of a surgeon’s blade. Her shoulders tensed. She pressed fingers to the crescent scar on her left wrist, tracing its curve. “Closed my shift early.” He frowned, wrenching the edge of his apron between thumb and forefinger. “Still delivering for Yu-Fei?” She tucked hair behind an ear, hair that once fell past her shoulder. Now cut to brush her collarbone. “Yes.” He nodded as though he’d heard that answer thousands of times and it still stung. He jerked his chin toward a pair of stools. “Sit.” Aurora slid onto one. The vinyl groaned under her weight. He poured amber liquid from a cask behind him—then hesitated. Poured water into a second glass instead and placed it before her. She stared at the clear liquid, then at him. “Don’t think I’m here for comfort.” He caught her gaze. Something in his expression—long years stored in the hollow beneath his eyes. “Comfort is overrated.” She lifted the glass, braced it on the counter. Cold bit her palm. “I wanted to see if the stories about this place were true.” He scooped up the whiskey, swirled it, lips brushing the rim. “Plenty of stories.” She watched the amber swirl, cables of light dancing in its depths. “You look different,” he said. Her laugh came ragged, skidding against ribs. “Try twenty-six months steering a bike through Buckingham traffic. Tell me you wouldn’t change.” Silas leaned back, cracked the glass against the wood, tapped out a rhythm. “You left school mid-semester. Vanished from Cardiff. You skipped town. Don’t blame the bike.” Silence. The bar hummed around them—glasses clinking, hushed voices, a door rattling as someone left. Aurora touched the scar again. “There were reasons.” He rose, stepped around the bar. His movements still precise despite the limp. He stood close enough that she registered the faint scent of tobacco and old pine on his jacket. “I heard you married,” he said. Her elbow rested on the counter. “Evan.” Silas’s fingers curled on the wood. “I knew him.” She stared at his knuckles. “You knew everything.” He dug keys from his pocket, weighed them before letting them drop back inside. “I lost touch after Prague.” Her heart twisted. Prague came up rarely—an operation gone wrong, lives fractured. “You could have reached out,” he said. She shut her eyes. Images flashed—his face above her cot in the flat upstairs, his voice whispering code words in the dark. Moments she’d shoved behind locked doors. “I didn’t think you’d answer,” she whispered. His jaw flexed. “I always answer.” She eyed the map of Europe behind him, pinpointed a thimble of red light on Prague. “You shut me out.” He tapped the counter once. “I had my own ghosts.” She swallowed, fingers slack. “I saw your flat. Notes on that bookshelf. Photographs I shouldn’t have touched.” He held up a hand, as if to still her. “I kept that room in case you came back.” Her breath caught. He’d left the secret door open for her—welcome sign carved in wood. She looked at him, really looked: greying temples, fine lines at the corners of eyes, the way he held a glass like it held answers. She remembered him as giant oak—steadfast, immovable. “You changed,” she said. He cracked a grin—small, reluctant. “You too.” She tried to smile, but it sharpened around edges. “At least you still pour a good drink.” He gestured at the whiskey. “Taste.” Aurora slipped the glass to her mouth, let the warmth spread. Then laid it back. “Smooth.” He watched her swallow. Then spoke: “What brought you back?” The question landed like a pebble in a pond. Ripples of guilt. Regret. Her gaze drifted to a photograph: a mid-century couple dancing under a streetlamp. Their shoes scuffed, faces blurred. “I needed a bar I could trust.” He rested an elbow on the bar. “I missed you at Yu-Fei’s.” She stiffened. “You came by.” He smiled, slow. “Every Thursday.” Time lurched. He’d been there. Hearing her orders, her apologies, her sharp laugh. She’d never looked up to see him. Her tears burned. She blinked them away. “I was busy.” “Busy is a good excuse.” He tapped the ring, silver glowing. “For everything.” She dropped her gaze to her hands—bone-white against the dark wood. “I ran.” He slid off his stool and nudged out the hidden bookshelf panel. Light from the secret room pooled at his feet. She shook her head. “No—don’t.” He straightened. “Come inside.” She hesitated. But the spill of lamplight looked like safety. She stood and followed, boots echoing. Inside the back room, maps lay spread across a table, pins marking distant cities. Loose papers, faded photographs. A battered typewriter sat in one corner, keys clacked as if waiting. He shut the door. The click tapped in her chest. “No clients allowed,” she whispered. “A few years ago,” he said. He turned, hands in pockets. “But we’re overdue.” She ran a finger over a map. “You kept doing this?” He shrugged. “Fragments of old life.” She lifted a small photograph—her younger self, hair longer, face free. Next to her, Evan’s arm draped possessively. She pressed the picture to her chest. “It poisoned everything.” He stood behind her. “You deserved better.” Her tears spilled then. She dropped the photo on the map. “I tried to fight. I thought I could… but I lost myself.” He slipped an arm around her shoulders. Warmth spread through ribs. He turned her so she faced him. Her bright blue eyes shone glassy. “I should have been here,” he said. She jerked back. “No. You had your own war to fight.” His eyes darkened. “You were part of it.” She let out a hollow laugh. “I ran away.” He grasped her elbow. “You brought back more than grief.” He tapped his chest. “You brought hope.” She stared up at him. Years of distance shrank in that moment. Memories of nights spent pouring over codes, of arguments, of laughter echoing against cellar walls. “I can’t stay,” she said after a long beat. “Not yet.” He nodded, pain slipping into his features. He opened the door to the bar’s hidden exit. Light from the main room cut a path. She paused in the threshold. He reached out, fingertips brushing her scar. The crescent glowed in the low light. “You’ll come back,” he said. She didn’t answer. Her silhouette flickered against green neon as she stepped into the bar. He watched until the door swung shut. Footsteps faded into the night. He lingered by the hidden latch, fingers still trembling. On the table behind him, a map’s pin trembled too, as though stirred by the weight of everything left unsaid.