Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTXQKSVQY2CPJKW8087QVAE

The first knock was soft. Aurora ignored it, thinking it was one of the neighbours. The second was firm, three deliberate raps that echoed in the quiet of the flat. Ptolemy, sprawled across a pile of Eva’s research on Atlantean water sigils, lifted his head and blinked. She wasn’t expecting anyone. Eva was in Edinburgh until Sunday. No one else knew she was house-sitting. The curry house below was closed for its mid-afternoon lull. The silence after the knocks was absolute. Aurora padded to the door, the worn floorboards cool under her socks. She peered through the peephole, her breath catching in her throat. Lucien Moreau stood on the narrow landing, backlit by the dim hall bulb. He was a study in monochrome against the faded floral wallpaper: a charcoal suit, a crisp white shirt, that platinum hair slicked back with its usual severe precision. One gloved hand rested on the ivory head of his cane. He was looking not at the door, but down the stairwell, his profile sharp and unreadable. Her fingers hesitated over the top deadbolt. The metal was cold. She hadn’t seen him in six months, not since the messy end of the Blackwood affair. There had been a bottle of expensive bourbon, a bitter argument about trust, and a slamming door. Things had been said. Things she’d replayed in her head on too many sleepless nights. She slid the bolt back. The sound was loud in the hush. The second lock followed, then the third. She opened the door just enough to fill the gap with her body, not an invitation. “Lucien.” He turned his head. Those mismatched eyes—amber and bottomless black—took her in. There was no surprise in them. He’d known she’d be here. “Aurora.” His voice was the same, a low baritone that held the ghost of a French accent. It did things to her spine she wished it wouldn’t. “May I come in?” “Why?” “Business.” “I’m not in that business anymore. You made that quite clear.” A faint, almost imperceptible tension tightened the skin around his eyes. “It is not my business. It is yours. May I come in, or would you prefer to have this conversation on your friend’s doorstep?” She wanted to slam the door. The urge was a hot, sharp thing in her chest. Instead, she stepped back, pulling the door wider in silent, resentful acquiescence. He entered, bringing with him the scent of cold city air, expensive wool, and sandalwood. He filled the cramped space of Eva’s entryway, making the towers of books seem even more precarious. He didn’t move further in, just surveyed the chaotic living room with a slow, sweeping glance that missed nothing. Ptolemy gave a low mrrow and jumped down, weaving around Lucien’s ankles before darting into the bedroom. “Charming,” Lucien remarked. “What do you want, Lucien?” He finally looked directly at her, his gaze a physical weight. “You are house-sitting for Eva Price. She is in Edinburgh, presenting a paper on comparative esoteric linguistics at the university.” “You’re keeping tabs on my friends now?” “I keep tabs on everything. It is what I do.” He leaned his cane against a stack of grimoires. “Three nights ago, a man was pulled from the Thames near Wapping. His identification said he was one Marcus Hill, a freelance archivist. The police have ruled it a tragic accident. The man was drunk, he fell in.” Aurora crossed her arms. “And?” “Marcus Hill was not an archivist. He was a procurer. A finder of rare and specific objects. And he was stone-cold sober, because he worked for me.” Lucien’s voice was flat, stripped of its usual polished charm. “He was retrieving an item for a client. An item that went missing from his possession before he went into the water.” “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said, and meant it, despite everything. “But I don’t see what this has to do with me.” “The item was a book. A very old, very singular book. Its last known location, before it entered the shadow market, was the restricted collection of Cardiff University’s pre-law library. A collection accessed by only a handful of post-graduate students approximately seven years ago. One of them was named Aurora Carter.” The air left her lungs. The noise of Brick Lane—the distant hum of traffic, a shout from a passerby—seemed to fade into a muffled roar. She could see the library, the green-shaded lamps, the smell of dust and old paper. Her father’s relentless pressure, the law texts she’d hated, the one strange, incongruous volume she’d found misfiled and spent a week puzzling over just for the thrill of something different. “The *Codex Letum*,” she whispered. Lucien’s expression didn’t change, but something shifted in the atmosphere between them, a current clicking on. “So you do remember.” “It was a theoretical treatise on jurisprudential structures in extinct civilizations. Written in a cipher. I never cracked it.” “It is not a theoretical treatise. It is a ledger. And the cipher is not a linguistic puzzle. It is a binding script.” He took a single step closer. The space between them crackled. “The client who wants it back is not someone you disappoint. Marcus’s death was a message. A messy one. They will trace his steps. They will find the access logs from Cardiff. They will find you.” She laughed, a short, brittle sound. “And you’re here to warn me? How charitable.” “I am here,” he said, his voice dropping, “because you are the only person I have ever met who looked at that book and saw a puzzle instead of a weapon. Because Marcus is dead, my professional reputation is hanging by a thread, and the one person who might be able to find where he hid the damn thing before he was killed is you.” “Find it? You think I have it?” “I think you could find it. If you chose to.” “And why would I choose to? For old times’ sake?” She uncrossed her arms, her hands curling into fists at her sides. “You accused me of being a liability. You said my humanity was a weakness you couldn’t afford. Your exact words, Lucien.” He flinched. A real, raw flinch that he couldn’t suppress. It was the first crack in his impeccable armour she’d seen since he arrived. “I was angry.” “You were cruel.” “Yes.” The admission was quiet, stark. He didn’t elaborate, didn’t try to justify it. He just stood there, accepting the label. “I was. And I am not asking for forgiveness, Aurora. I am asking for your help. And I am telling you that if you do not give it, the people who killed Marcus will come for you next. They are not… polite.” She turned away from him, walking to the window that overlooked the street. She pressed her forehead against the cool glass. The crescent scar on her wrist itched. “You’re leveraging my survival to get what you need. Some things never change.” She heard the soft tread of his shoes on the floorboards. He didn’t touch her, but he was close enough that she could feel the warmth of him at her back. “If it were only about the book, I would have sent an associate. A note. I would not be here.” “Then why are you here?” The silence stretched. A taxi honked below. “Because when I heard Marcus was gone, and the trail led to Cardiff, and to you…” He stopped. She heard him take a slow breath. “The thought of them touching you. The thought of you being pulled from the river. It was… unacceptable.” She closed her eyes. Those words, spoken in that stripped-bare tone, did more damage than all his previous charm or cruelty ever had. They slipped past her defences and found the bruised, hidden part of her that had missed him with a stupid, stubborn ache. “You have a terrible way of showing you care.” “I know.” She turned around. He hadn’t moved. He was mere inches away, looking down at her with an expression she couldn’t fully decipher—a mix of grim determination and something else, something weary and haunted. “Tell me everything,” she said. “About Marcus. About the client. About the book. Every detail.” A fraction of the tension left his shoulders. “It will take some time.” “I’m not going anywhere. Apparently, neither are you.” She moved past him, back towards the cluttered sitting area. “I’ll put the kettle on. You can start by explaining what a ‘binding script’ is, and why a demon from Avaros is so interested in a law book.”