Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTXRHPSG2KQSFKWWHF3PR6C

The third deadbolt stuck, as it always did in humid weather. Aurora wrestled with it, her other hand clutching the takeaway bag from Golden Empress. The scent of sesame oil and ginger curled through the narrow hallway of Eva's building, and somewhere below, the curry house's extraction fans hummed their eternal drone. She finally wrenched the bolt free and shouldered the door open. Lucien Moreau stood in the corridor, one hand resting on his ivory-handled cane, the other tucked into the breast pocket of his charcoal suit jacket. The fluorescent strip light above him flickered, casting his platinum hair in sickly pale relief. His mismatched eyes—one amber, one black—tracked the movement of her hand as she reached instinctively for the umbrella propped beside the door frame. "Put down the umbrella, Rory. If I wanted you dead, you wouldn't have heard me knock." She didn't move. Her pulse hammered against her throat, and she hated herself for it. Three months. Three months of silence, of unanswered texts sliding into the void, of passing his favourite café on Charing Cross Road and refusing to look through the window. And now he stood here as though he'd simply stepped out for cigarettes. "You're not supposed to be here." "And yet." He gestured to the threshold with an open palm. "May I?" "No." Ptolemy chose that precise moment to wind between Aurora's ankles and bolt past her into the corridor. The tabby threaded himself between Lucien's polished Oxfords, tail high, purring loud enough to hear from where she stood. "Traitor," Aurora muttered. Lucien glanced down at the cat, the corner of his mouth lifting. "At least someone remembers me fondly." "Someone should." His gaze snapped back to her face. The amber eye caught the hallway light; the black one swallowed it whole. She couldn't read him. Never could. That was part of the problem—or all of it, depending on which 3 AM spiral she found herself in. "Three months," she said. "Three months, Lucien. You vanish without a word, and now you show up at Eva's door like—" "Like what? A friend? An ally?" He stepped forward, and she retreated on instinct, the takeaway bag crinkling against her chest. He stopped at the threshold, close enough now that she caught the scent of sandalwood and something else beneath it—smoke, the particular acrid bite of Avaros. He'd been travelling. "I received your messages, Aurora. Every single one." "And you couldn't be bothered to reply?" "I couldn't risk the compromise." "Compromise." She laughed, the sound scraping her throat. "Right. Because that's what this is. Compromise. Not cowardice, not running away, not—" "I was protecting you." The words landed between them, heavy and absolute. Ptolemy meowed, insistent, and wound back toward the open door. Neither of them moved to let him through. "Protecting me." Aurora shook her head. "That's rich, coming from the man who told me I could handle myself. Who said I wasn't some damsel who needed saving. Who—" "You're not." Lucien's voice dropped, and something shifted behind his eyes. "Which is precisely why I couldn't tell you where I was going. What I was doing." He exhaled, and she saw it then—the tension in his jaw, the slight tremor in the hand that gripped his cane. He'd hidden it well. He always did. But three months in whatever hole he'd crawled into had worn grooves into his composure. "If he knew you meant something to me, Rory, he would have used you. And you would have let him, because you're brave and stubborn and you never learned when to stop fighting." She wanted to stay angry. The fury had carried her through the first weeks—through the unanswered calls, the checking of his flat in Islington, the conversation with Silas where she'd pieced together enough to know he'd gone back to Avaros. But anger required distance, and he stood close enough now that she could see the faint silver scarring at his temple, half-hidden by his hair. New wounds. Fresh ones. "You look terrible," she said. A breath of laughter escaped him. "You should see the other fellow." "Did you?" His silence answered for him. Ptolemy yowled, demanding entrance, and Aurora stepped aside. The cat shot past, leaving Lucien in the doorway with his hand still raised to knock on nothing. He looked wrong like this—uncertain, off-balance. The Lucien she knew commanded every room he entered, bent the attention of everyone in it toward him like light around a star. This man looked like he'd forgotten the script. "Are you coming in, then?" Relief flickered across his features before he schooled them back to neutrality. "I wouldn't want to impose." "Since when?" He stepped over the threshold, and the flat seemed to shrink around him. Books lined every wall, stacked in towers that swayed precariously whenever Ptolemy leapt. Scrolls spilled from open folders on the kitchen counter, and Eva's research notes formed a drift against the sofa cushions. The air smelled of old paper and the remnants of that morning's tea. Lucien navigated the obstacle course with practised ease, and Aurora wondered how many times he'd done this before—shown up unannounced, slipped into spaces she thought were hers alone. He settled into the armchair by the window, the one with the view of Brick Lane's constant foot traffic, and set his cane against the radiator. She dropped the takeaway bag on the counter and busied herself with plates. Anything to avoid looking at him. Anything to avoid the question sitting heavy on her tongue. "You're bleeding." She froze, her hand halfway to the cabinet. "What?" "Your wrist. The crescent scar—it's fresh." Aurora glanced down. The old mark from her childhood accident sat beside a newer cut, thin and pink where she'd caught it on a broken bottle last week. She'd bandaged it, but the adhesive had given up sometime during her shift. "It's nothing." "Rory." "Don't." She pulled down two plates, harder than necessary, and one of them clattered against the counter. "Don't act like you have the right to worry about me. Not after you walked away." "I didn't walk." His voice came quieter now, almost gentle. "I ran. There's a difference." She turned. He sat forward in the armchair, elbows on his knees, hands clasped together. The posture made him look younger somehow—or maybe just exhausted. The shadows under his eyes had deepened since she'd last seen him, and the lines around his mouth had carved themselves into something approaching pain. "Why did you come back?" "Because I finished what I started." He met her gaze. "Because he can't hurt you anymore. And because—" He stopped, jaw working, and she watched the words collect and scatter behind his teeth. "Because I told myself for three months that staying away was the right thing to do. The noble thing. And then I walked past your building on the way from the Tube, and I realised I'd been lying to myself since the moment I left." Aurora's throat tightened. She set the plates down. "That's not an apology." "No." He rose from the chair, movements fluid despite the weariness etched into his frame. "It's an explanation. The apology comes after, if you're willing to hear it." Ptolemy jumped onto the windowsill and began to wash, indifferent to the tension crackling through the small space. Outside, a siren wailed past, and the streetlamps flickered on as dusk settled over East London. Aurora crossed her arms. "You have five minutes." "Fair enough." Lucien reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a small object, which he set on the kitchen counter between them. A keys—old iron, intricate, nothing like the modern Yale locks on Eva's door. "This is for you." "I don't want your gifts." "It's not a gift. It's a key to my flat in Islington. The wards will recognise you now." He slid it across the surface toward her. "I spent three months in Avaros tracking down the demon who owned my father's debt. I killed him. And I renegotiated the terms of my own existence." A pause. "That includes you. Anyone who wants to reach me goes through you first. That's the bargain I made." She stared at the iron key. It looked ancient, heavy with significance she couldn't parse. "You renegotiated your soul and added me as a clause?" "I added you as a condition." He smiled, and for once it reached his eyes. "There's a difference." Aurora picked up the key. It sat cool in her palm, and something hummed through it—a distant vibration, like a heartbeat heard through water. She thought of every unanswered call, every night she'd stared at the ceiling and wondered if he was dead, every moment she'd hated him and wanted him in equal measure. "You're still a bastard." "I know." "And you still owe me an explanation. A real one." "I know." "And you're buying dinner next time. Actual dinner, not takeaway stolen from my delivery route." Lucien's smile widened. "I thought this was dinner." "This is a peace offering. Dinner involves tablecloths and wine and you telling me exactly what happened in Avaros." She pocketed the key and grabbed the takeaway bag. "Now sit down before Ptolemy tries to eat your shoes." He settled back into the armchair, and she joined him on the sofa, balancing a plate on her knee. They ate in silence for a while, the familiar rhythm of it settling over them like a second skin. Outside, Brick Lane carried on its evening business—tourists hunting for street art, locals heading home from work, the eternal hum of the city that never quite slept. Aurora watched him from the corner of her eye. Three months hadn't changed the way he held his fork, precise and European, or the way he surveyed every room like he was cataloguing exits. But something had shifted. He looked lighter somehow, as though a weight had lifted from his shoulders. She wasn't ready to forgive him. Might never be ready. But he'd come back, and he'd brought her a key to his life, and right now, in this cramped flat full of books and research and the smell of cooling noodles, that was enough. "Next time," she said, "call." Lucien glanced up. "Next time, I will." Ptolemy finished his bath and hopped onto the sofa between them, clearly expecting tribute. Aurora tore off a piece of prawn and placed it on the cushion. The cat ate. The city hummed. And Lucien Moreau, demon-born fixer and impossible man, sat in her best friend's flat and looked at her as though she were the only fixed point in an uncertain world.