Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTX4KNZH3RC5PS1ECBT8709

The low hum of the Raven’s Nest was a familiar blanket. Aurora Carter, Rory to the few who still used the name, sat on her usual stool, the worn leather cool against her jeans. The air smelled of old wood, polished brass, and the faint, sharp scent of lemon from the cloth Silas Blackwood used on the glasses. Behind the bar, Silas moved with a quiet economy, his slight limp a barely perceptible rhythm in his step. He didn’t need to ask what she wanted. A short glass appeared before her, a measure of amber liquid glinting in the low light. He pushed it forward, the silver signet ring on his right hand catching the green glow from the neon sign outside. The door swung open, a brief gust of Soho night air cutting through the warmth. A man stood in the doorway, his silhouette a momentary black hole against the streetlights before he stepped inside. He shook the rain from his coat, a fine mist settling on the floorboards. Silas glanced up, a quick, assessing look, then returned to his task. Rory paid him no mind, her focus on the map of old London taped to the wall behind the bar, its ink faded to a soft brown. The man approached the bar, settling a few stools down. His voice, when it came, was a stone dropped into the still pond of her memory. “A pint of whatever’s on tap. Please.” Rory’s head turned. The voice was deeper than she remembered, roughened by time, but the cadence was the same. He was looking at the rows of bottles, his profile sharp and unfamiliar. He had filled out, the softness of his university days replaced by a leaner, harder edge. But the way he pushed a hand through his hair, that was the same. Silas drew the pint, the foam a perfect white cap. The man took it, his fingers wrapping around the glass. He turned then, his eyes sweeping the room, and they landed on her. A flicker of confusion, then dawning recognition. “Rory Carter?” Her breath caught. She hadn’t heard that full name in years. Not from anyone here. “Liam.” The name felt foreign on her tongue. A relic from a life she had packed away in a box and stored in the attic of her mind. A grin spread across his face, wide and unguarded. It was the grin of the boy she knew, the one who used to steal chips from her plate in the student union. “I don’t believe it. What in God’s name are you doing in London?” She lifted her glass, the liquid a welcome tremor in her hand. “I live here.” “You live here? Since when? Last I heard, you were tearing it up at Cardiff Law, destined to be the next big thing in criminal defence. Your dad was so proud.” The mention of her father, of law school, was a pinprick in the carefully constructed bubble of her present. She took a sip of the whiskey, the burn a familiar distraction. “Things change.” Liam slid onto the stool next to her, the space between them suddenly charged with the voltage of a shared past. He looked around the bar, at the black-and-white photographs on the walls, at Silas who was now meticulously polishing a pint glass with an intensity that suggested he was listening to every word. “This place is… moody. I like it. Very you, actually. Always did have a thing for the shadows.” “That’s Silas’s place.” She gestured with her chin. “I live upstairs.” His eyebrows shot up. “You’re the mysterious upstairs tenant? He’s mentioned you. Said you were quiet.” “I’m not quiet.” “No, I suppose you’re not.” He took a long drink of his beer. “It’s been what, five, six years? You just vanished. Eva said you’d gone up to London, but then… nothing. We all figured you’d be too busy being a hotshot lawyer to call your old uni mates.” The unspoken accusation hung in the air. She hadn’t called. Not him, not Eva, not anyone from that life. She had cut the cord clean. “I’ve been busy.” The words were flat, a wall thrown up between them. “Yeah, I get it. London life.” He leaned forward, his elbows on the polished wood. The gesture brought his face closer, and she could see the faint lines around his eyes. “I’m up here for a conference. Boring corporate law stuff. Can’t believe I ran into you. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world…” She didn’t smile at the classic line. Her gaze drifted to her left wrist, to the small, pale crescent-shaped scar that peeked out from under her sleeve. A childhood accident, she always said. A fall from a bike. A simpler explanation for a simpler time. “Are you happy, Rory?” The question was direct, disarming. It wasn’t what she expected. Not another query about her career or her parents. Just that. Are you happy. She looked at him, at the earnest, hopeful face of the boy who once helped her revise for tort law exams. Who she’d shared late-night pizzas with, dreaming of futures that now felt like they belonged to other people. “I have a job. I have a flat.” She paused. “I’m not in law, Liam.” He waited, his expression open. “I work for a restaurant. Deliveries.” The silence stretched. He didn’t look disgusted, or pitying. He looked… confused. As if she had started speaking a language he didn’t understand. “Deliveries? Like… on a bike?” “Sometimes. On foot mostly.” He nodded slowly, processing this. The brilliant Aurora Carter, who could argue anyone into a corner, who had a mind like a razor, was now walking other people’s food to their doors. “What about Evan? Are you two…?” The name was a slap. She felt her whole body tighten, the muscles in her back going rigid. Silas’s hand stilled for a fraction of a second on the glass he was holding. “That’s over.” The finality in her tone was a clear warning. He heard it. He backed off, his gaze dropping to his beer. “Right. Sorry. None of my business.” “It’s not.” Another silence, this one heavier, filled with all the things they couldn’t say. He was thinking of the girl he knew, the one with the bright future and the infectious laugh. She was thinking of the girl who had to learn how to disappear. “I just…” he began, his voice softer now. “I pictured you in a courtroom, you know? All sharp and brilliant. Taking down some witness. I was always so proud of you. We all were. You were the one who was actually going to do it. Get out.” Get out. The phrase echoed in the dimly lit bar. He meant get out of Cardiff, out of the expected trajectory of their small-town lives. He didn’t know she’d been trying to get out of something else entirely. “I did get out, Liam.” “Yeah.” He looked at her, really looked at her, and for the first time, he seemed to see the woman sitting next to him, not the ghost of the girl he remembered. The coolness in her bright blue eyes wasn’t aloofness. It was armor. The straight set of her shoulders wasn’t confidence. It was a burden borne well. “Yeah, you did.” He finished his beer in one long swallow. He placed the empty glass on the bar, the sound a dull, final thud. “It was good to see you, Rory.” “You too, Liam.” He slid off the stool, pulling his wallet from his pocket. He left a note on the bar, more than enough for the pint. “Take care of yourself.” “You too.” He walked to the door, his steps sure. He didn’t look back. The door swung shut, cutting him off from the room, plunging them back into the familiar quiet. Rory stared at the empty stool. The weight of six years settled on her in the space he had occupied. The regret wasn’t hers, she realised. It was his. The regret for a lost potential, for a story he’d invented in his head that hadn’t come true. Silas placed a fresh glass of whiskey beside her hand, without a word. He picked up Liam’s empty pint glass and the money, his movements slow, deliberate. “He from the before times?” Silas’s voice was low, a gravelly rumble that didn’t carry. Rory picked up the new glass, the coolness a shock against her palm. She looked at the green neon sign, its light painting the rain-streaked window in strokes of brilliant, artificial life. “Something like that.”