Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTXFBSQ0E9B8CA02V0N1ND4

The Raven's Nest smelled of old wood and stranger secrets. Aurora had grown used to the scent over the months she'd been living above it, but tonight the smell settled into her differently, like a memory she'd forgotten she possessed. She was wiping down the bar top when the door opened, letting in a slice of Soho night and the low hum of traffic. She didn't look up immediately. Habit. Silas had taught her that much—always let them come to you, observe first. The footsteps were steady, confident, the click of heels on worn hardwood. Someone who knew the place or thought they did. "Rory?" The voice cracked on the second syllable, and Aurora's hands stopped moving. She knew that voice. She knew it the way you know the sound of your own heartbeat—embedded, involuntary, unwelcome. Eva stood three feet from the bar, her coat half-unbuttoned, her hair shorter than it used to be. Blonde now, or maybe that was the light. Cardiff had been six years ago, but the face beneath the new hair was the same face that had sat across from her in a thousand lectures, that had held her hair back when she was sick, that had watched her shrink and shrink and shrink and said nothing. "Aurora?" Eva tried again, when Rory didn't answer. "Rory, it's me." "I know who it is." The words came out flat, harder than she intended. Or maybe exactly as hard as she intended. Aurora set down the cloth and looked up properly. Eva had gained weight—or lost it—hard to tell with winter coats. Her eyes were the same: too bright, too searching, the eyes of someone who always needed to understand everything except the things that mattered. "Jesus." Eva let out a breath, half-laugh, half-something else. "I looked everywhere. I asked at that Chinese place, the Golden something—" "Golden Empress." "Right. They said you lived above a bar. I didn't—" She stopped. "I didn't know it was this one." "You found me anyway." The silence between them filled with the murmur of a television no one watched and the distant clink of glasses from the back room where Silas conducted his real business. Aurora hadn't moved from behind the bar. It felt like the right place to stay—solid, protective, a barrier between then and now. "Can I—" Eva gestured vaguely at the stool. "Can I get a drink?" "We don't serve minors." The joke landed wrong, or maybe it landed exactly right. Eva's mouth twitched, but she didn't laugh. She was twenty-seven now, same as Rory. Time did that, kept moving even when you wanted it to stop. "Vodka," Eva said. "Anything. I just—" She finally met Rory's eyes. "I just need to sit down." Aurora poured the vodka. She watched Eva drink half of it in one go, watched the way her throat moved, the way her hand trembled slightly around the glass. The old Eva would have sipped, would have made a face, would have said something witty about the taste. This Eva drank like she needed it. "How did you find me?" Aurora asked. "I went back to Cardiff. Your mum—" Eva stopped. "Your mum gave me the address." "Mum knows where I live?" "She was worried. She said you don't call anymore." "I call." "Once a month. She said it's getting less." Aurora said nothing. The television murmured on, some programme about houses or holidays or something else designed to fill silence. She wasn't going to defend herself to Eva. Not tonight, not ever. "Rory, I'm sorry." The words hung there, too large for the small space between them. Aurora picked up a glass and began polishing it, the same glass she'd polished five minutes ago, polishing for something to do with her hands. "Sorry for what?" "For—" Eva exhaled, a long slow breath. "For not calling. For not coming to find you. For not—" "Stop." "I should have. When you left Evan, I should have—" "Eva." Aurora set down the glass. Her voice came out steady, too steady, the voice she'd practiced in the mirror when she was learning to say things without screaming. "You don't get to do this. Not now." "Do what?" "The apology tour. Six years late." "I know." "You don't know. You have no idea." Aurora heard her own voice rising and couldn't stop it. "You have no idea what it was like, living with that. You have no idea what it took to leave. And you definitely have no idea what it was like to do it alone." "I know." Eva's voice was quiet, almost lost beneath the television noise. "I know you did it alone. I've always known." "Then why didn't you come?" The question sat between them, ugly and large. Eva looked down at her drink, at her hands, at anything other than Rory's face. The neon sign outside flickered, casting green shadows across the wall of old maps. "I was scared," Eva said finally. "Of him. Of what he'd do if he knew I was helping you. Of what he'd—" She shook her head. "That sounds pathetic." "It does." "But it's true." "I know it's true." Aurora leaned against the bar, suddenly tired in a way that had nothing to do with the hour. "That's the problem. I know why everyone stayed away. I know why my mum called instead of coming, why you never wrote, why even Silas—" She stopped herself. "Silas?" "My landlord. He's—she caught herself before saying too much. "He helped me find the flat. That's all." "You didn't do it alone, then." "Silas is different." The way she said it must have communicated something Eva recognized, something old between them that hadn't changed. Eva looked up, and for a moment she was twenty-one again, sitting in the university library, saying aurora, you can't keep doing this to yourself, you can't keep choosing people who— "What?" Aurora said. "Nothing." Eva shook her head. "Nothing. It's just—you still do that. The closed-off thing. Where you give just enough to keep everyone out." "I learned from the best." "That wasn't a compliment." "I know." They sat with that, with the weight of all the years between Cardiff and this bar in Soho. The television changed channels,Programme to programme, noise to noise. Someone in the back room laughed, a low rumble that filtered through the walls. "I should go," Eva said, but she didn't move. "It's late. You probably—" "I work here sometimes. Or I live here. Kind of." Aurora heard herself offering information she hadn't meant to give. "Silas lets me stay in the flat upstairs. I help out downstairs when it's busy." "That's good." Eva paused. "That sounds good." "It is. It's—" Aurora surprised herself by continuing. "It's small, but it's mine. I don't have to explain where I'm going or who I'm seeing. I don't have to—" She stopped. "Be small," Eva said quietly. "You don't have to be small." "No." Aurora picked up the polishing cloth again, just to have something to hold. "I don't." The door opened again, letting in more cold air and the sound of the street. Two men came in, regulars, Silas would know them. Aurora straightened, automatically becoming the bartender again, the version of herself that could function without remembering. "I'll be here tomorrow," Eva said, standing, pulling her coat closer. "If you want. I mean, I'm in London for a while. I could be here tomorrow." "Okay." "Okay?" "Okay." Eva paused at the door, half-turned back. She looked like she wanted to say something else, something bigger, but the moment passed. She pushed through the door and disappeared into the Soho night, leaving Aurora with the remnants of a vodka glass and six years of unanswered questions. Aurora finished polishing the bar top. She wiped down the counter where Eva's hands had been, erasing the smudges, making things clean again. Through the wall, she heard Silas's voice in the back room, low and steady, conducting whatever business he conducted there. She didn't cry. She'd learned not to do that, either.