Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTX24TS8640E0WGZJPX2AS3

The green neon of the Raven’s sign bled across the wet pavement, a sickly beacon in the London drizzle. Aurora Carter pushed through the heavy wooden door, the scent of rain and exhaust fumes giving way to stale beer, wax polish, and the faint, sharp tang of lemon peel. She shook the water from her black delivery jacket, the movement stiff. A long day of navigating one-way streets and impatient cyclists had settled deep in her bones. The bar was mostly empty. A couple huddled in a back booth, their faces illuminated by the blue glow of a phone. At the far end of the long, mahogany bar, Silas Blackwood methodically wiped a tumbler with a clean white cloth. His movements were precise, economical. Each circle of the cloth was identical to the last. He didn’t look up, but she knew he was aware of her. He was always aware. The bell above the door had chimed her arrival, a small, tired sound in the quiet room. Rory slid onto a stool a few places down from him, resting her forearms on the cool, sticky wood of the bar. She didn’t speak immediately, just watched him work. The grey in his auburn hair was more pronounced than she remembered, catching the low light like silver wire. The slight limp in his left leg was almost invisible when he stood still behind the bar, but she knew it was there, a souvenir from a life he never spoke of. He finished with the glass, holding it up to the light before placing it upside down on a rack. Then he turned, his hazel eyes finding hers. No surprise. Just a calm, steady appraisal. ‘Rough night.’ ‘Rough day.’ He nodded once, a flicker of understanding in his gaze. He reached under the bar for a bottle of bourbon, the good stuff he only brought out for specific people. He didn’t need to ask what she wanted. He placed a heavy crystal tumbler on the bar in front of her and poured two fingers of amber liquid. The ice he added cracked with a sharp, satisfying sound. Rory wrapped her hands around the glass, the cold seeping into her skin. She looked down at her left wrist, at the small, white crescent scar that stood out against her flushed skin. A childhood accident, a fall from a tree in a park that now felt like it belonged to another person entirely. ‘Still delivering for Yu-Fei?’ ‘Someone’s got to keep the Soho masses in crispy duck.’ A faint smile touched his lips, gone as quickly as it appeared. He leaned against the back bar, his posture deceptively relaxed. His silver signet ring glinted as he folded his arms. ‘She asks about you. Thinks you’re working too hard.’ ‘I’m working.’ Rory took a sip of the bourbon. The burn was a welcome distraction, a fire in the damp chill of the bar. ‘It’s what people do.’ ‘Not all people.’ She didn’t answer. Her gaze drifted to the walls, covered in the old maps and black-and-white photographs he’d collected over the years. A map of post-war Berlin. A faded photo of a tram in Prague. Places with histories, with scars. She used to love looking at them, imagining the lives lived in those cities, the secrets whispered in those streets. Now they just looked like a catalogue of damage. ‘I saw your father the other day.’ Rory’s shoulders tightened. The movement was slight, but Silas saw it. Of course, he saw it. ‘Did you.’ ‘At the Old Bailey. He was arguing a case. Looked well.’ ‘He always does.’ Her voice was flat. ‘Performance is his specialty.’ Silas was silent for a long moment, studying her. He wasn’t just seeing the delivery girl, the woman with tired eyes and rain-soaked hair. He was looking for the girl who used to sit on that very stool, debating constitutional law and the finer points of classic cinema. The girl who had a whole life mapped out, a bright, clean line stretching into a future he could almost see. ‘He asked about you.’ ‘And what did you tell him?’ ‘That I hadn’t seen you.’ A bitter laugh escaped her lips, a sound sharp and unfamiliar. ‘A lie for a lie. It’s fitting.’ ‘It wasn’t a lie, Rory. I haven’t seen *you*. Not for a while.’ She finally met his eyes, and the weight of his observation settled on her. He wasn’t judging. He was just stating a fact, the way he’d state the temperature or the time. But the truth of it landed like a physical blow. He saw the guarded set of her jaw, the way her eyes, once so full of quick, bright curiosity, now scanned the room like they were searching for threats. He saw the subtle changes, the ones she tried to hide. ‘People change, Si. The city makes sure of it.’ ‘Some more than others.’ She traced the rim of her glass with a finger. The condensation was beading on the polished wood. ‘I got a postcard from Eva last week. She’s in Barcelona. Teaching English to sun-drenched Spaniards.’ Rory’s voice dropped. ‘She sent a picture. She looks… happy. Unburdened.’ ‘And you’re not.’ It wasn’t a question. She shook her head, a small, tight movement. ‘That girl, the one who came here after her tutorials, the one who could argue you into a corner about the ethics of surveillance… she wouldn’t recognise me.’ She looked at her hands again, at the worn knuckles, the faint scars from a hundred different small jobs and careless moments. ‘I don’t think I recognise me.’ Silas pushed the bottle of bourbon a little closer to her side of the bar. An invitation. Not to forget, but to endure. ‘She’s still in there, Rory. Just buried under a few new layers.’ ‘Are they? Or is this just what’s left when everything else gets scraped away?’ She looked around the bar, at the shadows clinging to the corners, at the faces in the old photographs staring out from another time. ‘This place is a museum of things that are over. Maybe I belong here after all.’ He didn’t offer platitudes. He didn’t tell her it would get better. He just stood there, a solid, unmoving presence in the dim light. His silence was a kind of shelter, a space where she didn’t have to pretend. He had seen his own share of things that were over, his own past mapped out in the lines on his face and the ache in his knee. He understood the geography of regret.