AI The tray slipped out of her hands before she could think to catch it. The whispers of fried spring onion and soy unspooled into the air, cartons colliding, rice blooming across the bar like a poor man's confetti.
"Rory," a voice said, steady as a metronome, and a pale hand closed around the falling tray as if it had been waiting for that exact moment.
She looked up. Silas Blackwood stood behind the bar, sleeves rolled, his signet ring catching the green neon's sickly light. He had the same neat beard, the same hawk's carriage, but the hair at his temples had gone unkindly grey and his left leg betrayed him with a slow, deliberate shuffle when he shifted his weight . He studied the ruined cartons without surprise, as if he had been expecting this small catastrophe all along.
"That's not how you deliver to a bar," he said.
"Delivery's the technical term," she offered, and handed him the rest of the tray like a defeated diplomat. The bar smelled of old wood and lemon polish and the metallic tang of a hundred conversations that had come and gone. Photographs in black and white watched them with a private, sour amusement.
Silas set the tray on the counter with care. His eyes were hazel, patient, the sort that catalogued things that others missed: the crescent scar on her left wrist, faint as a punctuation mark; the scuffed trainers; the way her jaw tightened when she thought about speaking.
"You've changed," he said.
The words were not accusation. They folded like an old map across a table.
"So have you," she replied.
Silas made a small sound that might have been a laugh. "Everyone changes. Some of us have better excuses." He tilted his head toward the photograph behind him, a grainy image of men in coats, a younger Silas with the same face, less of the weight of years. "You used to be impossible to miss."
"I practised being smaller," she said. The sentence landed like a coin on the bar. "Worked well for a while."
Silas's hand brushed the photograph. The motion was gentle, like dusting a grave . "You took my advice and made yourself scarce," he said. "Brendan would approve."
Her lips thinned. "Don't bring him into this."
He didn't press. Instead he reached beneath the counter and produced two cheap glasses, one for water, one for the sake of ritual. He kept the glass between them as if it were a prop in a play they'd abandoned years ago.
"How long—" she began.
"Too long." He answered before she finished asking. "You left Cardiff in a hurry. I heard rumours. Then nothing. Until tonight, when the universe decided we needed an awkward reunion over spilled rice."
She studied him. The bar had always been his territory, the soft empire he'd carved out of Soho. Now it seemed smaller, intimate in a way that let you see every crease and scar. He still wore the silver signet ring on his right hand, a stubborn ornament that seemed to anchor him . The limp slowed him but did not mar his dignity. There was a precision to him, an old operative's habit of noticing how light fell across a table, how a person avoided looking at their left wrist.
"You knew I was in London," she said finally .
"I knew someone matching your general demographic had been coming in and out of the Golden Empress for deliveries," Silas said, his voice warm but precise . "Names are slippery though. I thought perhaps you were someone else."
"It was me," she said. "I work there part-time."
He let that sit between them. "So you were living above my bar the entire time and chose not to knock."
She shrugged. "Privacy is expensive. So is pride."
Silas smiled without humour. "Pride costs lives sometimes."
Silence thickened. Rory set her palms on the counter. The scar on her wrist flashed when she moved, a pale crescent like a closed eye.
"You look younger," she said, because she needed to say something that wasn't a question.
"That's the lighting," he said. "And better posture. You've done well with your hair." He reached for nothing and pressed a napkin toward her as if to tidy an invisible spill.
She wanted to laugh and couldn't. "You always were good at buying people compliments."
"You used to be better at taking them."
The bar door jingled; a few patrons glanced up, then returned to their drinks. The Raven's Nest breathed around them, a living thing of wood and old maps. The hidden bookshelf door at the back leaned impartial and unread.
"I thought you didn't like being noticed," Silas said softly .
"Sometimes being invisible is the point," she said. "Sometimes it's protection."
His eyes sharpened. The metronome voice ticked into a different gear. "Protection from what, exactly?"
She swallowed. "From people who think they can own you."
Silas did not flinch. "Evan," he said.
It came out like a stone. Rory's hand went to her wrist before she could stop it. The crescent scar warmed under her palm.
"You know him," she whispered.
"I used to know a collection of names," he said. "Evan Sutherland rang a bell when your courier at the Golden Empress mentioned an encounter in Camberwell. Small world, Rory."
"Small is a charity word."
Silas folded his hands. "I am going to be blunt. I have a habit of hearing things. I also have friends who will not tolerate loose ends. If someone has been following you, or worse, if someone has been placing you in the wrong kind of trouble, I would prefer to know sooner rather than later."
She looked at him then, really looked, and for the first time since she had walked in, something opened in her chest like a shutter. She felt the years arrange themselves behind her like baggage.
"Why would you care?" she asked.
He considered the question as if it were a chess move. "Because once, you saved my favourite pen from a puddle. You are stubborn in small, admirable ways. Because Brendan used to send me letters with more ink than sense and because sometimes the world offers chances to mend things that have gone wrong. And because I recognise the exact tilt of someone who is trying to outrun themselves."
She let out a sound that might have been a snort. "That's very Sir Thomas More of you."
"I am not Saint Thomas," he said. "I am tired, and I hold grudges better than I forgive. Both are useful."
Words went around them like smoke. She thought of Cardiff, of the house on a narrow street, her mother weighing in lessons and grammar. She thought of the courtroom mock trials and the quiet relief of copying legalese. She had traded all that for late shifts and takeout containers, and that felt both ridiculous and necessary.
"Was I wrong leaving?" she asked finally. The question surprised her by how small it sounded.
Silas set his palm on the bar, close to hers, but not touching. "Wrong is the wrong word. It made noise. It made you visible in ways that were both dangerous and freeing. You were safer in calculation, and safer does not always mean living."
Her laugh this time was soft and empty. "You're fond of paradox."
"It comes with the territory." His hand found a cigarette case and closed around it, though he did not light one. "Rory, tell me if he's been texting. Tell me if anyone's been paying too much attention."
She shook her head. "No."
"You're lying."
The accusation was not cruel. It was clinical. It made her chest ache.
"Maybe I lied to myself," she admitted. "Maybe I convinced myself that the footsteps were just the building settling."
Silas studied her. "Do you want help?"
She had thought about that question as a practical exercise on sleepless nights. Help felt like a thin reed offered in a river. She would either grab it and try to swim or let it float by and drown.
"I don't know," she said. "What would help look like coming from you?"
"A few questions," he said. "A plan if you wanted one. An offer to keep someone watching and a promise that if things escalated I would not let them go unpunished."
"That sounds expensive."
"Some things are not priced in money," he said. "If there's anything you want me to know, say it. If there's anything you want kept out of sight, let me keep it. Or let me be wrong. Either way, don't be alone if you can avoid it."
Her throat tightened. She had been alone for so long that the idea of company felt like an exposure . She thought of Evan's laugh, the way he had pinned her between charm and control, and how she had learned to disassemble herself into acceptable pieces.
"Why do you care so much about me?" she asked again, softer, the question folded under everything else.
"Because I have failed to protect people I was supposed to protect," he said. "Because I have watched people walk away and then found regrets waiting like unpaid bills. Because sometimes the things you regret most are the people you thought would survive anything. Because you are young and infuriating and you remind me of better things."
Her breath hitched. For a second she let herself be small and tired and human.
Then the bar's back door banged open.
"Silas, you in here?" The voice was rough, not unfamiliar—a delivery driver, or a pensioner, or someone who had simply been hoarse all their life. It carried the wrong cadence, like a footnote in an otherwise coherent sentence.
Silas tensed. His hand moved to the shelf beneath the counter, fingers grazing the wood as if counting distances . The metronome beat sped a half-step.
"Beatrice?" he asked, keeping his voice steady.
"No," the voice said. "This is Jackson. Got a package for you. Says 'urgent.'"
A courier's manner. The bar's light caught the doorway and threw long, accusing shadows across the floor.
Silas's eyes met Rory's. For a moment, neither spoke. The air changed as if someone had flicked a switch.
"Tell him to leave it on the step," Silas said.
The voice on the other end of the door laughed, a short, humourless sound. "He said you told him to deliver to the back. Said you'd be in the secret room, the one with the bookshelf."
Silas's fingers closed until the wood creaked.
Rory had a flash of memory, absurd and bright: a bookshelf that moved like a mouth, a warmth behind wood. She had seen it on an older visit, before the years had pressed their weight between them.
"Please," Silas said, every syllable sharpened, "tell him I'm not here."
The laugh at the door hardened. "He doesn't like leaving things outside, mate. Boss says don't be doing weirdness. He says if you're not in, he takes it back."
Silas's jaw worked. He didn't reply. Instead, he moved, not fast but with decision, and slid the small brass key from his pocket. He tucked it into his palm like a currency, an old habit of a man who kept options.
Rory's heart hammered in a rhythm she hadn't heard since running through streets with someone chasing her. She thought of Evan's possessive whittling of freedom. She thought of the scar that glinted like an accusation.
Silas pulled the hidden bookshelf aside, the mechanism whispering like an animal. The doorway yawned dark and familiar .
"Stay here," he said.
She opened her mouth to refuse and closed it. The bar smelled of lemon and dust and the small treacheries that come with hospitality. Behind the bookshelf, the secret room waited, its edges like a held breath.
The courier pushed the door half-open. A tall figure filled the doorway, not a delivery man at all but a silhouette with a cap shadowing his face . He held a thin envelope like a threat made paper.
"Is Silas here?" he asked.
Silas stepped forward. "He's in the back."
The silhouette smiled. It did not reach the eyes. "He always is," the man said. The envelope changed hands with a practised flick.
Silas took it, his fingers steady now but his face drained of something soft and human. He broke the seal with a thumb that trembled just enough to be noticed.
Inside lay a photograph. Black and white, glossy, with a white margin like an old advertisement. Someone had cropped it carefully . The image showed a woman with straight shoulder-length black hair, bright blue eyes that caught the light just so, and a half-closed smile that might once have been trust. Someone had written a name on the back.
Silas's mouth made a line.
"Well," the courier said, voice casual, "if you want to come chat, my boss says he's been waiting a long time."
Silas did not answer. He slipped the photograph into his pocket, the ring on his hand catching the green light like an accusation. Rory could feel the hairs on her arms lift. He had his hand on the key. His other hand reached for hers, not in help, but in a brief, old-fashioned promise .
"Hide," he said.
She moved before she thought. They were both at the bookshelf before the sentinel voice at the door could change its mind. The wood gave way, the secret room swallowing them whole. The noise of the bar dulled into an oceanic hush.
The courier's voice drifted faint through the wood, like bad news through a bad radio. "Tell Silas the boss misses him," it said. "Told him to come alone."
Silas's breath fogged in the dimness. He clicked the lock into place.
Rory slid down against the faded wallpaper until she sat on the floor. The crescent scar on her wrist felt hot and absurdly alive. The photograph in his pocket weighed like a verdict.
"Who was that?" she asked.
He did not meet her eyes. "Someone who remembers names."
The hidden room smelled of paper and old perfume and secrets that had been kept too long. A bookshelf closed over them with the soft certainty of a trapdoor.
Outside, the Raven's Nest thrummed, small and unknowing. Inside, the past had arrived with a courier's knock. The photograph burned in Silas's pocket like a live thing.
He drew a breath. "We are no longer choosing safe," he said.
A soft click came from the lock, a sound like a metronome that had always been counting down.