Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTX8PGBVWJ4N970YWBE289M

The green neon raven over the door buzzed and flickered in the wet glass of the window. Inside, The Raven’s Nest glowed in amber light. Bottles lined the back bar like a stained glass city. Old maps curled at their corners on the walls, continents browned and seas faded to pale blue. A low murmur of conversation floated above the clink of ice and the dull thud of bass from the tiny speakers in the rafters. Aurora hunched over the far end of the bar with her elbows on the wood. The lacquer had worn down under her forearms to a dull patch that caught the light where someone had once carved initials and someone else had sanded them out. A half‑finished gin and tonic waited by her fingers. A Golden Empress delivery hoodie hung off the back of her stool, still damp at the cuffs from the drizzle outside. She tore a napkin into strips without looking up. White shreds piled next to the coaster. Her wrist flashed pale in the dim light whenever her sleeve rode up and the little crescent scar showed, thin as a fingernail clipping. Behind the bar, Silas dried a glass with a clean cloth and watched the door between glances at her. His limp settled him into a rhythm: step, drag, turn. The silver ring on his right hand tapped the counter as he lined up the glass with the others. “You're going to run me out of napkins,” he leaned, lowering a fresh bowl of peanuts into her line of sight. “That your way of cutting me off?” Her fingers hovered over the glass. “You’re on your first.” He glanced at her drink. “You going soft on me, Carter?” “Trying to pace myself.” Her mouth curved without lifting her gaze from the lime floating in her drink. “Yu‑Fei doubled the shift. I’m still vibrating from scooter fumes.” “You could sleep.” He moved along the bar with a slight grunt as his knee locked, reaching for a bottle a pair of tourists pointed at. “Too quiet up there.” He nodded once, already focused on the next order. The door opened and brought in a gust of cold air that smelled of wet pavement and exhaust. Street noise burst in with it—sirens somewhere far, a laugh too loud—then muffled when the door thudded shut. Aurora didn’t look up at first. The Nest saw a rotation of strangers and regulars every night. The regulars blended into the furniture. The strangers kept their coats on and their voices high. “Hi. Pint of whatever’s coldest that doesn’t taste like soap.” The voice cut through her fog. Welsh cadence. Familiar vowels rolled through English like round stones. Her hand froze on the glass. Silas reached for a tap with a flick of his wrist. “Stella do?” His tone softened around his own Welsh lilt that hid under the London growl. “Perfect. I’m not picky. Just off the train.” The voice laughed, a deeper sound now, but the rhythm punched into Aurora’s chest like an old song. She lifted her head. The woman at the bar shrugged a damp wool coat off her shoulders. Dark hair, once waist‑length and dyed a stubborn purple, fell now in a sleek bob that swung with each movement, glossy and controlled. A tailored navy suit clung to her, charcoal blouse buttoned to the throat. A leather briefcase leaned against her calf. She tucked it between her feet like she expected someone to lift it. Her profile under the bar’s low lights took Aurora back in an instant: the straight nose, the cleft in the chin, the way the left eyebrow arched higher than the right when she focused on something. “Niamh,” slipped out before Aurora knew it left her. The woman’s shoulders stiffened. She half turned, fingers still curled around the wet glass Silas slid toward her. “Rory?” For a second, everything in the bar narrowed. The tourists’ chatter blurred. The maps on the walls sagged out of focus. Even the neon outside felt distant. Aurora’s mouth went dry. The name she hadn’t heard in years—Rory—sounded rough around the edges in Niamh’s voice, as if it had scraped its way up. She swallowed, tried again. “Yeah.” Niamh’s eyes swept her in one quick, almost clinical pass. Black hoodie, faded jeans, wet trainers, hair pulled into a stubby knot at the nape of her neck, wisps of it damp around her face. The bright blue gaze that had impressed half their law cohort met hazel now shadowed with city fatigue. “Shit.” Niamh leaned back a little, then forward again with a short laugh that never quite found humour. “You’re... here.” “Observation skills intact then, counsellor.” “So you do know what I am now.” She lifted the pint. “Can I—? Is this your spot? Am I invading the sacred stool of Rory Carter, Queen of… whatever this is?” “She pays rent upstairs.” Silas polished another glass with one eye on them. “As long as she doesn’t bleed on the floor again, she’s fine.” Niamh’s gaze flicked to him, back to Aurora. “Again?” “Work accident.” Aurora shrugged. “You, uh, want to sit?” She nudged the empty stool beside her with her foot. Niamh dragged her briefcase around and climbed onto the stool. She unbuttoned her coat, revealing the precise lines of her suit. A small enamel badge glinted at her lapel: Crown Prosecution Service. Aurora’s lips flattened. “So you did it.” She nodded at the badge. “You went full establishment.” “You used to mock that badge in the careers office.” “I used to mock everything in the careers office.” “You tried to stage a sit‑in because they only advertised corporate firms.” “Seemed justified at the time.” Niamh tipped back a long swallow of beer. Foam clung to her upper lip for a second. She wiped it off with the side of her hand. “Christ.” Her gaze drifted along the row of bottles, then landed on Aurora again. “You look...” “Don’t say ‘different’. That’s lazy.” “I was going to say ‘good’, but okay, you little tyrant.” Aurora huffed a laugh, short and shocked in her own ears. “Look at you.” She gestured at Niamh’s suit. “You swallowed a law textbook and spat out a person.” “Occupational hazard. You—” Niamh let the rest hang for a beat. “You disappeared.” Silas drifted toward the far end of the bar, leaving them a long stretch of polished wood and bowls of nuts. Aurora touched the rim of her glass. Her fingers left damp crescents. “People keep using that word like I turned into smoke. I just moved to London.” “Without telling anyone.” “You weren’t exactly taking my calls before I left.” “That’s not—” Niamh’s jaw shifted. “We’re really starting there?” “Where do you want to start?” Niamh breathed out through her nose, looked at the scarred bar surface. “Maybe with ‘hi, how are you, I thought you were dead in a ditch’.” “You didn’t.” “I did.” The edge in her voice sharpened. “You dropped off every grid we had. No Facebook, no Insta, your number went dead. Even your mum didn’t know where you’d gone.” Aurora’s grip on the glass tightened. Lime bumped against ice. “Mum knew enough.” “She called me, Rory.” Niamh’s eyes found hers again. “She thought something I’d done drove you off." Aurora looked away, toward the old map of Europe behind the bar. Meridians cut across the continent in faded ink. Prague sat just under the reflection of a hanging bulb. “You didn’t do anything.” “That is debatable.” Aurora picked at the napkin scraps. “Doesn’t matter now.” “It does to me.” A couple at the other end of the bar burst into laughter over something on a phone. Their voices filled the silence between the two women for a beat. Niamh twisted her pint glass. Her thumbnail had a crescent of chipped dark polish. “Last time I saw you,” she went on, eyes on the beer, “you had a concussion.” “Yeah. Fun memory.” “You were on my sofa, head bandaged. Evan hammered your phone with messages. I told you to block him, and you...” “He walked through the door ten minutes later.” “And I left.” The words landed hard. “I left you there with him.” Aurora’s jaw tensed. She lifted her drink, held it at her lip, then lowered it again. “You had court in the morning.” “Don’t do that.” “What?” “Don’t make it sound practical. I saw his face. I saw the hand mark on your throat. I grabbed my bag and told myself you were a grown woman who could make her own choices, and I left.” Aurora traced the edge of the coaster with her fingernail, round and round, until the cardboard lifted. “You weren’t the only one who told yourself that.” “I heard what happened a week later from Emma.” Niamh’s voice dropped. “A and E. Police. Your dad driving up from Cardiff like a madman. And you—you’d gone. No note. No call. Nothing. You think I don’t replay that night?” Aurora’s shoulders lifted, then fell, like a shrug that never completed itself. “I don’t think about it at all,” she lied. Niamh’s look cut through that. “You’re still a terrible liar.” A laugh pushed its way out of Aurora, raw and crooked. “Lost my touch.” “You once convinced an entire tutorial group that Mens Rea was Latin for ‘mind rat’.” “It worked, didn’t it?” “The lecturer docked marks because he thought everyone plagiarised the same wrong case.” They both smiled, small, wary things that hovered and then faded. Silas appeared like a shadow, swapping Niamh’s half‑empty bowl of peanuts for a fresh one, topping up Aurora’s tonic from a slim bottle without asking. “This one conned me out of free crisps for a month when she moved in,” he remarked, nodding at Aurora. “Careful. She weaponises charm.” Niamh’s head snapped toward him. “She lives here?” “Upstairs.” His ring caught the light as he gestured at the ceiling. “Keeps odd hours. Collects stray takeaway containers and trouble.” “She used to collect case law and stray first‑years.” “Upgrade,” Aurora muttered. Silas’s mouth twitched. He retreated, letting them spin around each other again. Niamh watched him go. “Of course you’d find the one bar in Soho that looks like a Cold War safe house.” “Man’s got a type.” “How’d you end up here?” “Long story.” “I’ve got time. Hotel’s around the corner, and I’m not due in court until ten.” Aurora lifted her drink again, stared through the clear liquid. “I had options, you know. Dad lined them up like little soldiers. Chambers in Cardiff, internships, all tidy. Then everything blew sideways and I... couldn’t make myself sit in those rooms again.” “With him.” “With any of them. Men in suits arguing over language while people bled outside. Felt wrong.” She rubbed her thumb over the scar at her wrist. “Eva called from London. Said she had a spare sofa and less questions than my parents. So I packed a bag. Got on a coach. Landed here. Picked up work where I could.” “Delivery driver.” “Golden Empress. Best dumplings in Soho.” “You could have called.” Niamh’s voice softened, not by much. “I would’ve wired you money, hooked you up with someone. Anything. Instead your mother rang me, sobbing into the phone about you running away like a teenager.” Aurora’s laugh caught. “I was twenty‑two.” “That counts.” “I didn’t want any of you cleaning up the mess I jumped into.” “You didn’t jump.” “It doesn’t matter how I got there. I still walked through the same door.” “God, you’re stubborn.” “Says the woman who dated a philosophy major just to win an argument about Kant.” “I did win.” “You got hives from his incense.” “He cried during sex.” They broke again, a brief burst of shocked laughter, then both glanced around as if someone might shush them. No one paid them attention. Silence settled, not comfortable, not hostile, just thick with the years. “So,” Aurora pushed her glass away, “CPS. You’re putting people in prison for a living?” “Sometimes. Sometimes I keep them out. That’s the job. Evidence stands or it doesn’t.” “You used to stand on tables and shout about prison abolition.” “I used to drink vodka with squash in it and think Radiohead were deep.” “Still do.” “Upgraded to gin, actually.” Niamh raised the pint in mock salute. “We grow.” Aurora watched her over the rim of her glass. “You look... sharp.” “That a compliment or a diagnosis?” “You used to wear band T‑shirts with holes in them and write case notes on your arms. Now you look like you walked out of a recruitment poster.” “Is that the change you clocked or is it something else?” Aurora’s gaze slid to the enamel badge again. “You believe in it?” she asked. “What you’re doing.” “Most days.” Niamh didn’t blink. “Some days I get a file and my stomach turns, and I go home and stare at the wall. Then I think about my student overdraft and my landlord, and I go back to work in the morning.” “Comforting.” “You always wanted everything pure. Every choice righteous.” Niamh studied her. “World doesn’t fit like that.” “I figured that out.” “Did you, though?” She leaned in a fraction. “Because from where I'm sitting, you pulled a disappearing act instead of letting anyone help. You left your mum etching circles into the kitchen table with her nails. You left Emma fielding questions. You left me—” “You left me on that sofa with him.” Aurora’s voice cut through. Niamh flinched. “I know.” The words hung there. Soft, blunt. Aurora’s throat worked. “You grabbed your bag and your keys, and you looked at me once like I was homework you’d finished, and you walked out.” “I walked out because if I stayed, I’d have done something stupid. I’d have swung at him. He’d have swung back. The cops would’ve carted us both off, and you’d still have been there with him the next day, and I would’ve had an assault charge to spice up my CV.” “You don’t know that.” “I know the way you looked at him.” Aurora stared at the melting ice in her drink, watching it thin. “I know the way you looked at yourself.” Niamh’s voice dropped. “Like you deserved it.” The hum of the bar filled another gap. A woman in the corner tapped ash into a glass votive. A group of office workers squeezed past, coats brushed Aurora’s back. “You kept going, though.” Niamh knocked her knuckles against the wood. “You’re here. You’re... alive. That’s...” “Messy for your lawyer brain?” “It’s more than I let myself picture when I couldn’t find you.” Aurora’s hand spread flat on the counter. “I thought if I stayed in Cardiff someone would drag me back into that orbit. Parents. Tutors. You. They’d smile and smooth it over and pretend it was a blip, and I’d end up in court defending a man who looked like him while my hands shook.” She dragged her palm back, leaving a streak of condensation. “So I ran.” “From him or from us?” “From the version of me you all liked. The one who knew the right cases to cite and the right jokes to make in the union bar.” “I liked all the versions,” Niamh murmured. “Even the one who cried into my pillow after moot court and left mascara stripes.” “You liked having an argument partner.” “That too.” Aurora nudged the peanut bowl between them. “Do you still live with three houseplants and a toaster?” “I live with a cactus named Judith and a Nespresso.” “Upgrade.” “We grow,” Niamh echoed herself, faint smile at her own repetition. She took another swallow of beer. “My dad retired. Mum’s hips are a mess. They keep asking when I’ll bring someone home.” “You could bring Judith.” “She’d outshine me.” “You never had that problem.” Niamh studied her face. “Do your parents know you work in a bar and deliver chow mein?” “They know I’m in London. I send postcards. Mum thinks I’m in ‘logistics’.” Aurora mimed quotation marks. “She pictures clipboards and safety vests.” “Your dad?” “He invoices me for my ‘lost tuition’. It’s a joke. Mostly.” “They miss you.” Aurora stiffened. “They have each other.” “That’s not how that works.” “You keep in touch with them?” “Christmas cards. The occasional panicked phone call when your mother thinks she’s found you in a missing persons article.” Aurora blinked. “What?” “She watches the news with a notebook.” Niamh’s mouth twisted. “Every time some woman your age pops up in a headline, she writes down the name to prove it’s not you.” A strange, unsteady sound escaped Aurora. Somewhere between a scoff and a sigh. “I didn’t know that.” “How would you?” “I told myself... If they weren’t calling, they were fine. Better without me.” “That’s not how that works either.” Niamh drained the last of her pint. Glass thudded on wood. “I have to—” She looked at her watch. “My manager will murder me if I stroll in hungover and sentimental.” “You?” Aurora’s brows rose. “Sentimental?” “Don’t spread it around. Ruins the brand.” They both glanced at the door. The neon raven flickered green against the dark glass. “London’s small,” Niamh went on. “Smaller than it looks on the map.” Her fingers fiddled with the CPS badge, then dropped. “We’re bound to bump into each other again. Courts, streets, some dingy coffee place.” “You assuming I’ll start loitering in Crown Courts now?” “I’m assuming you’ll keep walking around under these lights and I’ll keep walking around under the same ones.” She dug in her bag, pulled out a business card, slid it across the bar. “This hasn’t changed. Email, work mobile. If you fall off the face of the earth again, at least I’ll know where to send the search party.” Aurora stared at the thick white rectangle. Black letters spelled out NIAMH O’SULLIVAN, CROWN PROSECUTOR, and a string of numbers. “You got fancy.” “Government issue.” Niamh’s eyes held hers. “You don’t have to use it. Just... Don’t make me read your name in a notebook.” Aurora picked up the card, turned it over. Blank on the back. She slipped it into her hoodie pocket, the outline a sharp rectangle against worn fabric. “I’m not great on phones.” “Email exists.” “So does walking around the block and never coming back.” “Yeah.” Niamh slid off the stool, the briefcase strap over her shoulder. She paused, hand on the bar. “Do what you want with it. That’s always been your speciality.” Aurora’s fingers tapped an uneven rhythm on the wood. “Hey.” Niamh stopped. “What.” “I don’t...” The words felt thick in Aurora’s mouth. “About that night. On the sofa. You walking out. I don’t—” She ground her teeth. “You’re not the villain in that story.” Niamh’s throat bobbed. “Good to know,” she managed. “I am.” “That’s above my pay grade.” Aurora almost smiled. Niamh glanced at Silas, who pretended to be engrossed in stacking glasses. “Keep an eye on her,” she tossed toward him. “Trouble finds her before I do.” His hand tightened around the cloth. “But I keep the doors open.” Niamh gave a brief nod, like that answer passed some unspoken test. She moved toward the exit. The door sighed when she pushed it. Cold air crept in again. For a moment, her silhouette framed in the neon glow looked like the student who once danced on tables in the union bar, hair wild, tie stolen from someone else’s neck. Then the door closed, and she joined the blur of umbrellas on the pavement. Aurora’s reflection stared back at her from the dark window, layered over the ghost of the street. Silas set a fresh drink down by her elbow without asking. Gin this time, cleaner, colder. “You all right?” His voice carried no weight, just the question. “She changed.” Aurora kept her gaze on the window. “So did you.” “I’m still in a bar.” Her finger tapped her pocket where the card dug into her. “She’s in court.” “Different fronts. Same war.” Aurora let out a breath she hadn’t noticed she held. “Do you have a lighter?” she asked. “You don’t smoke.” “Thought about starting.” “Don’t.” He wiped a ring of moisture into nothing. “Too many ghosts in that habit.” She huffed. “Got enough already.” Her fingers slipped over the card again, feeling the edges, the indent of printed letters, as the bar settled back into its regular rhythm around her.