Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTXCC6RVD44PFWG7EC63HX1

The pint glass slipped through his fingers. Time stopped in the space between Silas catching it—his reflexes still sharp despite the years—and him setting it carefully on the bar. When he looked up, the woman standing in the doorway wore Aurora's face, but everything else belonged to a stranger. She'd cut her hair. Shorter than he remembered, angled sharply at her jaw. The leather jacket hung off shoulders that seemed narrower somehow, more compact. But it was her eyes that made him pause mid-polish of the glass—those bright blue eyes that once sparked with mischief now held something darker, something that reminded him of men he'd known in Prague. "Christ." The word escaped before he could stop it. Aurora's mouth twisted. Not quite a smile. "That bad?" "Thought you were in Cardiff." He set down the glass, braced both hands on the bar. His knee throbbed—it always did when something surprised him, as if his body kept score of every shock. "Was." She crossed to the bar with measured steps, nothing like the bounce she'd had at nineteen when she'd first wandered into the Nest looking for Eva. "You still make that whisky thing? The one with the honey?" "Hot toddy." He reached for the bottle without thinking, muscle memory taking over. "It's July." "I know what month it is." The edge in her voice made him pause. He poured anyway, measuring out the whisky with the precision his old trainers had drilled into him. The ritual of it bought him time—hot water from the espresso machine, honey from the squeeze bottle, lemon juice, clove. His hands moved while his mind worked. She'd left London three years ago. Maybe four. Time blurred when you ran a bar—days bled together, marked only by regulars and their orders. But he remembered the morning Eva had come in, red-eyed and tight-lipped, saying Rory had gone home. Family emergency. He'd known better than to press. "Eva know you're back?" Aurora's fingers drummed against the bar top. Once, twice, stopped. "No." He slid the toddy across the scarred wood. She wrapped both hands around the glass, and he caught sight of the crescent scar on her left wrist. At least that hadn't changed. Small mercy. "You planning to tell her?" "Haven't decided." She took a long drink, winced. "You made it stronger." "You look like you need it stronger." This time her laugh had an edge that could draw blood. "Silas Blackwood, master of subtlety." "Was never my strong suit." He leaned against the back counter, arms crossed. The bar was empty—too early for the evening crowd, too late for the lunch stragglers. Just them and the ghosts in the photographs on the walls. "What happened to pre-law?" "Finished it." She stared into her glass. "Did a year at the bar association. Quit." "Quit." He let the word hang there. "My father was thrilled." Her voice went flat. "Spent all that money. All those years. His daughter, the barrister. Following in his footsteps." Silas remembered Brendan Carter from the few times Aurora had mentioned him—a man who measured worth in achievements and saw failure as a moral weakness. The kind of man who'd have flourished in the Service, all ambition and no compassion. "What'd you do instead?" She took another drink. Longer this time. When she set the glass down, her knuckles were white against the ceramic. "Worked for a charity. Refugee assistance. Legal aid, mostly. Helping people navigate asylum applications." "That's good work." "Was." The correction came sharp. "Until the funding dried up. Government cuts. We lasted eight months after I started. They kept the Cardiff office, shut down everything else." She picked at the lemon slice floating in her drink. "Thirty-seven people out of work. Hundreds of families with nowhere to turn." The bitterness in her voice reminded him of after-action reports, when the collateral damage exceeded acceptable parameters. He'd written enough of them to recognize the particular way guilt and anger alloyed into something corroding. "Not your fault." "Isn't it?" She met his eyes, and there it was—the thing that made her a stranger. Something broken and badly mended, the repair visible in every line of her face. "I convinced three of them to leave private practice. Told them it mattered. That we were making a difference." "You were." "For eight months." She pushed the glass away. "My father said I should've stayed at the bar association. Said I'd always been too idealistic. Too emotional. Said I'd proven his point." Silas felt his jaw tighten. In his Service days, he'd met men like Brendan Carter. Men who equated empathy with weakness, who saw the world in binaries. They made excellent analysts and terrible fathers. "And your mum?" Aurora's expression shifted. Softened, then hardened again, like she'd caught herself feeling something and locked it away. "She tried. But she agrees with him. She just has the grace not to say so." Outside, a taxi rumbled past. The green neon sign flickered, throwing shadows across Aurora's face. She looked older than twenty-five. She looked like the recruits he'd seen wash out of training—the ones who'd wanted to change the world and found it unchanged by their wanting. "Why'd you come here?" he asked. "To London. To the Nest." She traced the rim of her glass. "Couldn't stay in Cardiff. Couldn't face Eva yet. Didn't know where else to go." "You could've called." "Could've." She picked up the glass, set it down again. "You know what the worst part is? I still believed it. Right up until they locked the doors. Believed that caring enough, working hard enough, would matter. That there was some equation where effort plus intention equaled change." Her laugh scraped against something raw. "You must think I'm naive." Silas turned, pulled a second glass from the shelf. Poured two fingers of whisky—the good stuff, the bottle he kept for himself and the rare few who'd earned it. He slid one across to her, kept one for himself. "I think you're twenty-five and you learned something most people don't figure out until they're fifty. If they're lucky." "What's that?" "That the world breaks your heart." He raised his glass. "Question is what you do after." Aurora stared at him. Then at the whisky. Then back at him. Something shifted in her expression—not quite surrender, but an acknowledgment. She picked up the glass. "I don't know who I am anymore." The admission came quiet. "The Rory who left London wouldn't recognize me. And I can't go back to being her. Don't even know if I want to." Silas thought about Prague. About the man he'd been before the operation went south. About the choices that couldn't be unmade. "Then you figure out who you are now," he said. "One day at a time." She drank. Grimaced. Set down the glass with careful precision. "I got a job. Delivery person for a Chinese restaurant. The Golden Empress. Owner's name is Yu-Fei Cheung. She didn't ask about my law degree." "That's something." "Is it?" Aurora's smile held no warmth. "My father would say I'm wasting my education. Eva would say I'm running away. What would you say?" Silas considered her. This stranger with Aurora's face. This woman who'd learned too young that good intentions weren't armor against the world's indifference. "I'd say you need somewhere to stay," he replied. "Flat upstairs is empty. Been meaning to rent it out." Her eyes widened. "Silas—" "Month-to-month lease. Pay when you can. It's sitting empty anyway." "I can't—" "You can. And you will. Because you need time to figure out what comes next, and you're not going to do that sleeping on someone's couch or in some hostel." Aurora opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. "Why?" He thought about all the ways he could answer. About second chances and old debts. About seeing potential in damaged things. But in the end, he settled for truth. "Because someone did it for me once. When I needed it." She looked away. Her throat worked. When she turned back, her eyes were bright with something that might've been tears if she'd let it be. "Thank you," she whispered. Silas raised his glass. "Welcome back, Rory."