Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTXKJNSX9VEJTP5Q52Y0V1F

The first knock rattled all three deadbolts. Ptolemy’s ears pricked from the back of the sofa, then he vanished under a stack of journals with a thump. Curry, onions and rain crept through the window cracks. Rory wiped soy sauce off her wrist with the hem of a tea towel and stared at the door like it owed her money. Another knock. Slower. Measured. She unlatched the first deadbolt, then the second, then stood with her hand on the third. Her chest tightened as if the flat had shrunk a little around her. Fine. She slid the last bolt. Lucien filled the doorway like a rumour turned real. Tailored charcoal suit, rain dotted across the shoulders. Slicked-back platinum hair that glinted under the hallway light. One amber eye, one black. He put a gloved hand to the frame as if the wood might change its mind. Bonsoir, Rory. Her grip flexed around the edge of the door. Ptolemy stuck his tabby face out from behind a pile of Eva’s notes and sniffed the air, then shot past her ankles to rub himself against Lucien’s trousers like a traitor. She folded the towel, gave it too much attention. You’ve got nerve. His gaze dropped to the towel, then her wrist, the crescent scar pale against her skin. He rested the ivory handle of his cane against the doorframe. I’ve been told. You don’t do Brick Lane. I do tonight. She held her ground. This isn’t my place. I know whose it is. He watched her, expression clean as a knife. He smelled like rain and expensive soap. Outside, a scooter buzzed up the street, someone shouted for naan, and her reflection trembled in the chain of the door. She let the door swing wider. He stepped past her without brushing her. He always walked like a man who owned his stride. The flat swallowed him, and his attention pulled over the riot of books and scribbled notes that mapped the coffee table and most of the floor. He looked for a second at the web of string Eva had pinned to a corkboard above the futon. Names, places, dates. Avaros circled in red like a curse word. You redecorated. This is Eva’s idea of tidying. He removed his gloves and slid them into his breast pocket, then set the cane beside the bookshelf that leaned like a drunk. Ptolemy climbed onto his shoe and stared up at him as if waiting for a password. He crouched. Hello, old man. The cat purred like an idling engine. Her laugh snapped out before she could tug it back. He’d fed Ptolemy once. Right. She backed into the kitchenette and poured water from the kettle that hadn’t cooled for long. The hiss filled the quiet. Steam smudged the window. She focused on the mug. Focused on not thinking about his mouth, framed in that half-smile he weaponised when the room didn’t need a blade. Tea? If you’re offering. I didn’t. He moved closer, the shift of the floorboards a small warning. She kept her eyes on the mug. He stopped on the other side of the counter. The cheap light lightened his eyes differently. Amber like a bottle at sunset. Black like the underside of a storm. You changed your number, Rory. You found me anyway. Bravo. How many little birds sang? No birds. You’re not that hidden. That hurt more than it should have. She set the mug down a touch too hard, liquid lapping over the lip onto her thumb. She hissed and stuck it in her mouth. He watched her do it, mouth tightening, then glanced away to the corkboard. You’ve been studying him. Your father gets mentioned in half the messes that drift past this flat. You’ll forgive the curiosity. Curiosity. He traced the red circle with his eyes, not his finger. Ptolemy leaped onto the back of the sofa and knocked a stack of folios askew with his bulk. Lucien reached out, caught the top one before it slid, flicked his gaze to a sketch of a sigil, then set it back down. Where’s Eva? Out. Working a late shift. You remember she exists? I remember her cat. You remember what you want. He breathed out, as if she had placed something on the table he didn’t like the look of. She took her thumb out of her mouth, wiped it on the tea towel and reached past him for the plasters in the junk drawer. He looked down at his hands before she even tugged the drawer open. Knuckles split, skin scraped. She hadn’t clocked it at the door. He always presented perfect until the angles revealed. He reached for the drawer, his fingers brushed her wrist like a line drawn over a map. I’m fine. You bleed on Eva’s books; she’ll exorcise you herself. He held his hands out. Do your worst. She pulled a chair with her ankle and gestured. Sit. And don’t touch that, it’s balanced like Jenga and the last person who breathed near it had to sleep with dictionaries. He sat, careful, the suit pulling at his shoulders. Up close, he looked less untouchable. There was stubble darkening his jaw. A bruise gathered at his temple like a storm creeping inland. He watched her tear open a plaster, attention steady in a way that made the room tilt. You always keep plasters in the cutlery drawer. It’s the junk drawer. And you knew that already. He flinched as she pressed the pad to the split skin. The flinch was small, but it cracked something inside her. He kept his hands still and his eyes on her face. You left. No. I told you I was leaving. I packed a bag. You watched me do it. You left after I asked you to wait. You asked after you sold me out. I never sold you. You sold the information. That’s the same shape. His jaw worked like he’d bit down on something. He drew his hands back as she smoothed the plaster, then set them on his knees. A contact was dying. He bought his life with the names of everyone he thought I cared about. I paid to make sure yours weren’t on his lips. You paid with my trust. Nice exchange rate. I paid with mine. She stared at him, heat climbing her throat. The kettle clicked in the silence. Outside, a motorbike revved then died. Rain pressed its face to the window, breath clouding the glass. She picked up the abandoned tea mug and pushed it towards him. Drink it before the skin forms. He took the mug. He didn’t drink. His hands wrapped around it like a hearth he’d never admit he needed. I didn’t come to fight. Then don’t. I came because there are men who think your friend’s flat is a library they can burgle. And because I rang your bell at the bar and Silas threw me out with a look that could end a drought. You deserve worse. You always did have a way with forgiveness. You always did like throwing me bones like I was starved for them. He dragged a hand over his mouth. Rainwater glistened at the cuff of his jacket. The wool held its lines, but his shoulders didn’t. A moment snagged, both of them looking at the stubborn stain on the floor near the kitchen bin where Eva had sacrificed a curry to chaos months ago. The stupidest details always lingered. I missed you. The words lodged in the doorway between them and sat there like an uninvited guest. Her knees felt hollow. She forced her toes to uncurl in her trainers. Ptolemy blinked at Lucien, then at her, judge and jury. You missed an informant. He met her look and didn’t look away. Informants don’t look at me like you do. Don’t get poetic. It doesn’t suit the tie. He glanced at his tie, ridiculously discreet, grey on grey. He loosened it as if it had grown too tight. It’s a bad night. I thought— God, forget it. Say it. I thought you might prefer to hear from me that the men looking for Eva aren’t amateurs. They’re not here for her, not really. They want what’s on that board. She planted her palm on the nearest pile of notes and splayed her fingers. They’re bits of paper. They’re maps. Someone’s bought the legend at auction. They need the key. And you think she has it. I think you do. Her throat clicked. He watched her like a hawk watched the tremor of grass over a rabbit warren. She pulled her hand back from the notes as though they were hot. That night behind the bar, you— Her voice roughened. —you kissed me like you were leaving a place you hated and coming home in the same breath. Do you remember that? He closed his eyes for a heartbeat, lashes sinking into skin. I remember you tasting like lime and salt. Then you walked away and told me you couldn’t afford me. Like I was a watch in a window. I told you I couldn’t keep you safe. I’m not a thing that breaks, Lucien. You are a person I break. She laughed, sharp. That’s not on your business card. No. That one I keep in my pocket. You don’t get to be tragic while standing in my kitchen. He looked at her mouth. Looked at the curve of it like it was an equation he had failed the last time. The cane leaned against the bookcase. He had come without it once and promised he never would again. It wasn’t about the limp; it was about the blade hidden in the hollow. He set the mug on the table, untouched. Let me help you lock this place down tonight. I’ll sleep on the floor. I’ll be gone before your friend returns. She ran a finger along the rim of the second mug. The tea had formed a film, skin that wrinkled when the cup moved. The words rose in her like tide. The part of her that had slept with the sound of his voice under her night, like a radio in another room, woke and stretched. You always make choices for people, don’t you? I would like you to choose. And if I say no? You slink back to your den and count your favours? If you say no, I go downstairs and sit on the step with your cat until someone throws us off. Ptolemy sneezed and licked a paw as if disavowing affiliation. She pressed her fingers to her scar without thinking. Childhood accident, nothing to do with him, yet it burned under her skin whenever he brought trouble through a door. You could have knocked at noon. I was busy at noon. Doing what, selling the rest of me at market? I was tailing a man who has a photograph of you in his pocket. Her stomach dropped like she’d missed a step. She hid it in a breath and a turn to the sink. Tap on. Water battering steel. She washed her thumb as if the heat could clean more than a burn. She turned back off the tap. The flat listened. What photograph. You in a blue dress at the university. Your hair longer. Your eyes brighter. She pictured the shade. She’d worn it to prove something to someone who no longer mattered. She met his eyes. If you had that photograph, what would you do with it. I would put it in a drawer and turn the key and throw the key in the Thames. Because you collect keys. Because people collect lives and spend them without counting. She pulled a blanket off the back of the sofa and shoved it at him. You get the floor. Try not to drip drama on Eva’s rug. He took the blanket like a man accepted a sentence. Thank you. Don’t make it a speech. The memory of his mouth pressed itself against the back of her teeth. She walked to the door and turned the locks he had just challenged with his knock. One, two, three. The metal sounded like a clock wound too tight. He looked up as she faced him again. The bruise at his temple had spread while they spoke. It made him human in a way his suit refused. He pushed up his sleeve and something pale showed at his wrist. A mark, not ink. Not human. She pretended she hadn’t seen it and he pretended he hadn’t shown it. I brought something. Oh good. Presents from Hell. From an auction house in Mayfair, which is worse. He reached into his inner pocket and pulled out a folded scrap. Not paper. Parchment. The edges charred, as if it had been rescued from a bin fire. He set it on the table between the mugs and stepped back as though it might bite. She didn’t touch it. The symbols sketched in a cramped hand looked like ants that had been scattered. The circle in the centre matched the one on Eva’s board so perfectly her skin prickled. You shouldn’t have that. Neither should the man who will come for it at dawn. Don’t do that. What. Imagine there is a dawn for you in this flat. He swallowed and looked away at the windows that reflected their shapes back at them like ghosts. He nodded, once, a capitulation scrubbed clean of pride. He reached for the blanket and spread it on the floor beside the sofa. The movement pulled his shirt free at the waist, a small mess in his usual order. He toed off his shoes. His socks had a hole at the big toe. She had never seen him with a flaw that domestic. It made her throat ache worse than any bruise. She felt her tiredness drop onto her like a coat. It smelled of curry and rain and old paper. Ptolemy leaped onto the arm of the sofa and crabbed across the back, tail high, watching the small theatre set play out as if he had seen it before in other lives. Turn off the big light, would you. He flicked the switch and the flat sank into the kind of half-dark that forgave a crowd of sins. Only the street lamps smeared orange over the spines of books and the line of his jaw. Thank you for not slamming the door in my face. I thought about it. I would have deserved it. You do a lot of things you reckon you deserve. He lay down on his side, one arm under his head. He looked both too big for the floor and exactly the right shape for that spot. He faced the door. He would. She curled her legs under herself on the sofa, half a cushion as a barrier, the other half a bridge she refused to name. Do you ever stop guarding. Only when someone tells me to. Stop, then. He closed his eyes. She let her head fall against the back of the sofa, and in the darkness, all the lines between them rearranged themselves without permission. The flat listened to their breaths until Ptolemy broke the silence with a rattling purr and stepped daintily over the parchment on the table like a priest over coals. Lucien spoke into the cushion, voice low, shaped like the truth he had skirted all evening. I didn’t come to leave you again. She let the words hang there like damp on laundry, refused to peg them into place. She tucked the blanket tighter around his shoulders, a small vandalism of his dignity, and pretended her hands shook from the draft.