Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTREWZBHSJED3G193X5F4CB

Aurora Carter stood on the other side of Eva's front door, her heart thumping against her ribs in anticipation. She raised her fist, let it hover in indecision, then exhaled sharply through her nose. This wasn't about her; it was about Eva, and there was no room for her qualms tonight. Finally, she knocked. The three deadbolts unlatched with unlikely speed given the time, and the door swung open to reveal him. Lucien Moreau's sly grin slipped into an expression of surprise that softened the hard angles of his face. Those mismatched eyes, one amber, the other black, seemed to sweep over her as if reading pages from a novel long forgotten. "So, you still remember the way here," Lucien drawled, leaning the weight of his lean frame upon his cane, the ivory humming under his touch like an extension of his very being. "Only because you insisted on leaving trails everywhere," she replied, tilting her head with a mock severity that masked the sudden flutter of old nerves. He stepped back to let her in, the warmth from inside washing over her as heavy with nostalgia as the scent of yellowing books and spices that clung to Eva's den. Rory walked past him, inwardly cursing the way her pulse raced at the nearness of him, a current she thought long abandoned surging back to life. "You look well, Aurora," Lucien said, closing the door behind her. The click of locks bolting behind him made her acutely aware of the closeness, of the sealed intimacy that the room suddenly promised. "Busy as usual, Lucien?" "Quite." He gestured towards the cluttered chaos that was Eva's makeshift office. "Eva, however, is out for the night. She thought it less conspicuous for us to meet here." "How convenient," Rory muttered, glancing around. Stacks of paper whispered cryptic knowledge while Ptolemy, the tabby cat, surveyed them lazily from a pile of scrolls. His disdainful yawn was an old acquaintance to her, a reminder of less tangled times. Lucien approached an armchair, settling himself with a silkiness that camouflaged the burden of the blade concealed within his cane. "Sit, won't you?" She hesitated for a heartbeat, recalling the last time they'd shared space, air, and all things left unspoken. Finally, she sank into the couch, the cushions familiarly lumpy. "You know why I'm here, then?" She met his gaze with a steely-blue rawness that betrayed more than intended. "Considering Eva practically threw the job at me, yes," he replied with a smirk that didn't quite reach his eyes. "But I dare say, I'm rather intrigued by the complications that led to this point." The atmosphere hummed, charged with their mutual wariness, acknowledgment of history. Silence stretched between them, as heavy and dense as the thunderclouds that so often bruised the London sky. Rory knew she should speak, should unfurl the truths that lay knotted inside her. Instead, her thoughts seethed around the same doubt, the searching memories, the way their paths had crossed and misaligned over time. "I didn't expect you to leave as you did," he finally said, voice tempered by something besides reproach — as if he had chosen each word with the care one might reserve for dismantling a ticking device. "You didn't expect... or you didn't expect to care that I did?" She smirked, the curve of her lips almost cruel with a bitterness she'd thought defeated. Lucien tilted his head, his expression eloquent in its ambiguous calm. "Touché." She folded her arms, studying him, noting the subtle changes. He seemed older, not in years but in depth, like a well with secrets even he could no longer comprehend. The Lucien of old, the calculating Frenchman hiding behind a façade of courtesy, would never have let so much slip through his armor. "Did you ever regret it?" Rory blurted out. She hadn't intended to ask — the question had tumbled out of its own volition, dragged by the unmapped attraction that still tugged between them. He ran a hand through his platinum hair, the world weary gesture an early remnant of vulnerability she vividly remembered. "You're assuming I don’t still." Rory's throat tightened, and she forced herself to chuckle, the sound rough. "Well. That's something, at least." Lucien leaned forward, his gaze unwavering. "Perhaps it's past time we stopped dancing around our own shadows." His words struck her like raindrops on a parched desert, sudden and strange and necessary. There was bravery in his statement — or perhaps simply honesty tempered by acceptance of their shared foolishness. She gave him a long, measuring look that spoke more than an entire day's worth of conversation. "If Eva sent you to help, I suppose I'll have to accept it, no matter how little I like the strings attached." "My strings were severed long ago, Aurora," he replied softly, a tide of sincerity washing away the pretense of their earlier exchange. Somewhere within the cluttered sanctuary, Ptolemy let out a disgruntled mew, the only judge left to witness their wordless detente. "It's late," she finally ventured, glancing at the old-fashioned clock on the wall. She stood, instinctively smoothing her clothes, as if doing so might iron out the creases of their conversation. Lucien rose as well, a fluid grace masking that his burden was more than just physical. The cane lingered at his side, a shadow's shadow in the half-light. "You'll stay?" Rory lingered by the door, her hand reaching for the familiarity of the handle — the exit she'd planned to use so eagerly upon arriving. Yet now, her fingers brushed the wood, memorizing this moment inflamed by what lingered between them. "If I stay, things could get... complex," Rory conceded, the interior conviction lighting a smouldering promise between her words. "When have we ever done simple?" His smile flirted with mischief, but his eyes — those eyes that saw past defense and daring — held an earnestness she had known she craved. Silence embraced them once more, a prelude and finale to the echoes of the past, an entrée to a future they'd either build or demolish together. Underneath it all, in the quiet space neither dared to fill, lay a possibility they'd never fully relinquished. Aurora let the door sigh shut, and for the first time in a long while, the heat of companionship overruled the cool of cautious temperament.