AI Rain lashed against the blackened windowpane of The Raven’s Nest, turning the green neon signage outside into a sickly, distorted blur. Inside, the air hung heavy with the scent of furniture wax and staleness, a specific perfume of quiet desperation that Soho wore like a second skin.
Aurora Carter traced the rim of her glass, the condensation cool against her fingertips. She sat on her usual stool, the leather cracked and molded to her shape over months of nightly vigils. Behind the bar, Silas moved with his rhythmic , asymmetrical gait, favoring his left leg as he returned a polished tumbler to the shelf. The clink of glass on wood was the only sound in the room, a metronome marking time in a place that usually felt exempt from it.
The heavy oak door groaned open, admitting a gust of wet wind and the roar of a passing taxi.
Silas didn't look up, but his hand drifted instinctively toward the counter, hovering near where he kept more than just bottle openers.
Aurora swiveled. A man stood in the threshold, shaking off a dripping umbrella. He wore a charcoal wool coat that cost more than her rent, caught at the waist, tailored to within an inch of its life. He looked at the floorboards, then the peeling maps on the walls, and finally, his gaze landed on her. The recognition hit him like a physical blow. He stiffened, the umbrella dripping a puddle onto the worn floorboards.
"Aurora?"
The name sounded foreign, a artifact dredged up from a submerged city. She hadn't been Aurora in two years. Not really .
She didn't stand. Instead, she took a slow sip of her drink, the cheap whiskey burning a familiar path down her throat.
"Julian."
He moved into the light, and the years fell into place. His face, once soft with the easy arrogance of youth, had sharpened. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath his eyes, and his hair, damp from the storm, was cut severely short. He looked like every other junior associate grinding themselves into dust for the promise of a corner office in a decade.
He approached the bar cautiously , as if the floor might give way. He pulled out the stool next to her, inspecting the seat before settling his weight .
"I didn't think I'd find you here." His voice was lower, clipped . The Cardiff lilt was gone , scrubbed away by elocution lessons and London courtrooms.
"You weren't supposed to be looking."
"I wasn't." Julian placed his hands on the counter. They were manicured , soft. "Client dinner around the corner. I saw the sign. Thought I’d dodge the last round of port."
Silas loomed in front of him, a silent monolith in a crisp white shirt. He placed a coaster down with a precise snap.
"Macallan. Eighteen, if you have it," Julian ordered, not meeting the bartender's hazel eyes .
"We have whiskey," Silas rumbled. He poured a measure of the house blend, the amber liquid splashing aggressively into a glass. He slid it across the wood. It stopped exactly an inch from Julian’s cuff.
Julian stared at the glass, then at Aurora. He took in the black hair falling straight to her shoulders, the denim jacket frayed at the cuffs, the utter lack of the pearls her mother used to insist she wear.
"God, Rory. You look ..."
"Tired? Poor?" She swirled her ice . "Alive?"
"Different." He picked up the drink, swallowed a grimace at the taste, and set it down. "Your father thinks you’re in Scotland."
"Brendan thinks a lot of things. Most of them involve me being a disappointment, so I try not to interrupt his narrative."
"He’s worried. We all were." Julian turned his body toward her, the wool of his coat brushing against her arm. She flinched, pulling away, her left hand knocking against the wood. The sleeve of her jacket rode up, exposing the crescent-shaped scar on her wrist.
Julian’s eyes tracked the movement. He reached out, his fingers hovering over the mark without touching it.
"I remember when you got that. Sliding down the bannister at the Ellis house. You were seven."
"I was clumsy."
"You were fearless," he corrected. "You used to talk about the law like it was a weapon you couldn't wait to pick up. Top of the class in Cardiff. Professors tripping over themselves to recommend you for pupilage." He gestured vaguely at the dim room, the walls plastered with black-and-white photos of people long dead. "And now you're... here."
"I work for a restaurant."
"You deliver noodles, Aurora."
"I pay my bills. I have a flat upstairs." She drained her glass. "And I don't have to defend landlords evicting pensioners, so I sleep just fine."
Julian winced, a flicker of genuine hurt cracking his polished veneer. He finally took a proper drink, the alcohol stripping away the initial layer of shock.
"It’s not just the job," he murmured. "It’s everything. You just vanished. One day you were in lectures, the next the flat was empty. Evan was..."
The air in the room temperature dropped ten degrees. Silas stopped wiping a glass.
Aurora turned fully toward him. Her blue eyes, usually bright with a quick wit, went flat and cold.
"Don't."
"He came looking for you, you know." Julian’s fingers tightened around his glass. "For weeks. Banging on doors. Calling every friend we had in common. He made it sound like you’d had a breakdown."
"Is that what you think?"
"I don't know what to think. I see my brilliant friend, the one who could dismantle a contract better than a partner, hiding in a spy-novel bar in Soho, wearing clothes from a charity shop."
Aurora laughed, a dry, sharp sound. "This jacket is vintage, thanks. And I didn't have a breakdown, Julian. I had a breakthrough. I realized that if I stayed in that house, in that city, with that man, I wasn't going to make it to twenty-five."
Julian stared at her. The silence stretched, filled only by the hum of the refrigerator and the rain battering the street. He looked at her, really looked at her, past the aesthetic changes. He saw the tension in her shoulders, the way she scanned the room even now, the hard set of her jaw that hadn't been there when they were twenty-one.
"He hurt you." It wasn't a question.
"He broke three of my ribs a week before I left," she said, her voice devoid of inflection . "Eva drove the car. I didn't tell you because you liked him. You played squash on Thursdays. You drank pints with him after tutorials. You would have told me I was overreacting, or that he was under stress."
Julian opened his mouth, then closed it. A flush crept up his neck, staining the collar of his shirt. He looked down at his expensive hands.
"I wouldn't have..." He trailed off. The weight of the probability settled on his shoulders. He would have. He knew it. He would have tried to mediate. He would have suggested counseling. He would have been reasonable in the face of a monster, because that was what the law taught them to be.
"I’m sorry," he whispered.
"I know." She signaled Silas for another. "But sorry is a verdict, Julian. It doesn't undo the crime."
He rubbed his face, the gesture making him look suddenly boyish and exhausted. The successful barrister melted away, leaving a tired young man in a room that smelled of old secrets.
"I hate it," he confessed, the words tumbling out before he could check them . "The firm. The hours. I haven't seen the sun in three weeks. I draft clauses for mergers between companies that destroy ecosystems, and I tell myself it’s prestige." He looked at her, a desperate envy in his eyes. "You got out."
"I ran away. There's a difference."
"Is there?"
"You have a career. I have a shift starting at eleven tomorrow morning."
"You have your life," he countered. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a sleek leather wallet. He extracted a crisp business card, cream stock, embossed lettering. He slid it across the bar.
Aurora looked at it. *Julian P. Davies, Associate.*
"If you ever need... if you want to get back in. Or just coffee. Or legal counsel that isn't Evan."
She picked up the card. The edges were sharp. It represented a world of mahogany desks, high ceilings, and the crushing weight of expectation she had shed like a winter coat.
"I'm not coming back, Julian. Cardiff is a ghost story to me now."
"You can't hide in Soho forever, Aurora."
"Watch me."
He finished his drink in one swallow. He stood up, buttoning the charcoal coat, re-assembling the armor of his station. He grabbed the umbrella, which had left a dark pool near his Italian leather shoes.
"It was good to see you," he lied.
"You too," she lied back.
He hesitated, looking at her one last time, trying to reconcile the memory of the girl in the lecture hall with the woman pressing a cold glass to her temple. He wanted to save her. He wanted to swap places with her. He didn't know which feeling was stronger.
"Take care of yourself, Rory," he said, tasting the new name. It felt rough on his tongue.
"Goodbye, Julian."
He turned and walked out, the bell above the door chiming a cheerful farewell that clashed with the gloom . The wind snatched the door from his grip, slamming it shut behind him.
Aurora sat in silence . She stared at the business card for a long moment. Then, with a flick of her wrist, she spun it into the small puddle of condensation left by his drink. The cream paper darkened, soaking up the moisture, the ink blurring until the name was illegible.
Silas moved from the shadows. He picked up Julian’s empty glass and wiped the counter down, sweeping the soggy card into his hand in one fluid motion. He dropped it into the bin below the bar without a word.
"Friend of yours?" Silas asked, his voice gravel over velvet .
Aurora looked at the empty stool. The leather was slowly rising back to its original shape, erasing the evidence that anyone had sat there at all.
"I don't know," she said, turning back to her drink. "I don't think we’re from the same planet anymore."
Silas poured himself a splash of water. "Planets collide. Usually leaves a mess."
"Yeah." She rubbed the crescent scar on her wrist, the old skin white and tough against the surrounding flesh. "But the dust settles eventually."