AI The tumbler shattered against the floor, spraying amber liquid and shards of cheap glass over Rory’s boots. She didn’t flinch. Behind the bar, Silas cursed under his breath, his silver signet ring clinking against the mahogany as he reached for a rag.
"Watch your feet, Aurora," Silas muttered, his hazel eyes scanning the floor for the largest fragments. "That floor swallows glass like it’s hungry for it."
"I've got it, Si."
Rory crouched, her fingers hovering over a jagged sliver near the brass footrail. The Raven’s Nest was breathing today—a low, rhythmic hum of Soho rain-voids and the scent of damp wool and stale tobacco. A pair of polished, black leather brogues entered her periphery. They were expensive, the kind of shoes that didn't belong in a bar where the light fixtures grew fur coats of dust.
"You always did have a habit of cleaning up other people's messes, Laila."
The voice was a ghost, cold and sharp, haunting the space between her shoulder blades. Rory froze. The small crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist throbbed with a phantom heat. She didn't look up immediately. She took a slow, deliberate breath, steadying the tremor in her hands before rising to face the man standing by the corner stool.
Evan looked like a stranger wearing a dead man’s face. The boy she’d fled in Cardiff had been all frayed edges and nervous energy, a creature of shadows and whispered threats. The man before her was curated. His suit was a dark navy charcoal, bespoke and sharp enough to draw blood. His hair was slicked back, revealing a forehead free of the furrowed lines she remembered.
"Evan."
"I prefer Julian these days. More... professional." He didn't offer a hand . He simply watched her, his eyes drifting down to the Golden Empress logo embroidered on her windbreaker. "Delivery girl? Truly? I thought you’d be a High Court judge by now. Or at least finishing that degree your father barked about."
"People change. Mostly for the better."
"Do they?" Evan gestured to the stool beside him. "Sit. Buy me a drink to replace the one you just demolished."
Rory glanced toward Silas. The old spymaster had stopped wiping the bar. He stood as still as a gargoyle, his grey-streaked auburn beard catching the dim green glow of the neon sign outside. His slight limp was hidden behind the counter, but his posture screamed of a man ready to vault over the wood.
"She's working, mate," Silas said, his voice a low rumble of gravel .
"She's an old friend," Evan countered, not looking at Silas . "Aren't you, Rory? We shared a life once. A very small, very loud life in a flat that smelled of damp and ambition."
Rory pulled out the stool. The leather groaned. She felt Silas’s gaze like a physical weight , a silent question she wasn't ready to answer. She sat, keeping her spine straight, her shoulder-length black hair shielding her profile.
"What are you doing in London, Evan? Soho isn't your scene. There isn't enough porcelain to break."
"Expansion. Law firms need consultants who understand the... darker nuances of the trade. And London is nothing but dark nuances." He leaned in, the scent of expensive sandalwood and something metallic clinging to him. "I saw you through the window. That walk. You still lead with your left shoulder when you're tired. It’s a tell."
"I'm not tired. I'm busy."
"You’re hiding. There’s a difference." Evan signaled to Silas. "A double Scotch. Something that doesn't taste like bog water, if you can manage it."
Silas didn't move for a long second. He twisted the silver ring on his finger, his eyes locked on Evan’s throat. Then, with a practiced, icy efficiency, he turned to the top shelf.
"You look different," Rory said, her voice barely a whisper . "The suit. The name. It’s a good mask."
"It’s not a mask, Aurora. It’s an evolution. I realised that being the monster in the room only works if you’re also the person who owns the room. I grew up. When did you decide to shrink?"
He reached out, his hand moving toward her wrist where the crescent scar hid under her sleeve. Rory pulled back, her chair scraping harshly against the floorboards. The movement was instinctive, a muscle-memory response to a hand that used to move much faster.
"Don't touch me."
"Still jumpy. Some things never change, I suppose." Evan took the glass Silas slid toward him without thanks. He swirled the liquid, watching the legs of the scotch coat the glass. "I went to see your mother last Christmas. Jennifer looks well. Grever than she was. She asked about you. I told her I hadn't heard a word. I didn't mention the private investigator I hired to find this charming little dive."
The air in the Raven’s Nest seemed to thin. Rory felt the old maps on the walls closing in, the black-and-white photographs of dead agents watching her fail.
"You followed me."
"I found you. There’s a nuance there, too. I wanted to see if the girl who ran away in the middle of the night had found something worth the effort. But look at you. You’re living above a pub, delivering noodles to people who don't know your name. You traded a life of consequence for a life of invisibility."
"I traded a life of fear for a life of peace," Rory snapped. "You don't get to come here and audit my happiness, Evan. You don't get to be the ghost in my machine anymore."
Evan laughed, a short, dry sound that didn't reach his eyes. "Happiness? You’re a Carter. You were built for the fight. This? This is a slow suicide. You think you’re safe because you’re small, but you’re just easier to crush."
He took a long sip of the scotch, his eyes never leaving hers. Rory looked at his hands. They were manicured now. No bruised knuckles. No nicotine stains. He looked like the kind of man her father would have invited for Sunday roast, the kind of man who would discuss tort reform while kicking the dog under the table.
"I'm leaving," Rory said, standing so quickly the stool nearly toppled.
"The order's ready, Rory," Silas said, stepping forward. He held a brown paper bag from the Golden Empress, though Rory knew she hadn't brought one in. He set it on the bar between her and Evan. His hazel eyes were hard, fixed on the intruder. "Address is on the slip. Long ride. Better get moving."
Evan looked at the bag, then at Silas, a smirk playing on his thin lips. "Protective. That’s sweet. Does he know about the Cardiff incident, Rory? Or do you keep your little outbursts as private as your current address?"
Rory grabbed the bag. Her knuckles were white. "He knows everything that matters."
"I doubt that. Nobody knows everything. That’s why we have discovery phases." Evan stood, smoothing his jacket with a slow, predatory grace. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crisp fifty-pound note, dropping it onto the bar. "Keep the change. Buy some better glass."
He turned to Rory, stepping into her personal space, close enough that she could see the tiny, burst capillaries in his eyes—the only remaining evidence of the man he used to be.
"I’ll be around, Laila. London is a very small city when you know where to look. Give my best to Silas. He has the look of a man who’s buried a lot of bodies. I wonder if he has room for one more."
Evan turned and walked toward the door, his gait rhythmic and confident, the slight echo of his brogues mocking the silence he left behind. The green neon light flickered as he stepped out into the Soho drizzle, casting a sickly hue over the empty stool.
Rory stood frozen, the paper bag trembling in her grip. Silas reached over the bar, his hand covering her wrist, his thumb resting just above the crescent scar.
"He’s gone, kid," Silas said quietly.
"He found me, Si. He's not supposed to be able to find me."
"He didn't just find you." Silas's voice took on a sharp, metallic edge Rory hadn't heard since she'd moved in. He picked up the fifty-pound note Evan had left behind and flipped it over.
On the back, written in a cramped, aggressive hand, was a phone number and a single word: *Tock.*
Rory felt the world tilt. The bag in her hand felt impossibly heavy, the steam from the supposed food inside smelling of nothing but cold rain.
"He’s not going to stop," she whispered.
Silas didn't answer. He reached under the bar and pulled out a heavy, black handset, his fingers dialing a number from memory. His limp seemed to vanish as he stood taller, the retired shadows of his former life bleeding back into his skin.
"Yeah. It's Blackwood," Silas said into the phone, his eyes fixed on the door where Evan had vanished. "We have a breach. Soho. Trigger the sweep on the girl. Now."
Across the street, a black town car that had been idling at the curb clicked its headlights on, the high beams cutting through the gloom like a pair of searching eyes. Rory watched as the car began to roll, not away, but toward the entrance of the alley .
"Silas," Rory said, her voice catching . "The car."
Silas dropped the phone. He didn't look at the car. He looked at the bookshelf at the back of the room, the one that hid the secrets he’d promised her she’d never need to see.
"Get behind the bar, Aurora. Now."
The front window of The Raven’s Nest didn't just break; it detonated. A heavy, steel-toed boot kicked through the glass, followed by the silhouette of a man who moved too fast for a consultant. The green neon sign flickered once, twice, and then died, plunging the bar into a darkness punctuated only by the scream of a car alarm and the heavy, rhythmic thud of feet hitting the floorboards.
"Aurora!" Silas barked, his hand diving into the drawer where he kept the short-barreled revolver.
Rory didn't run for the bookshelf. She didn't hide. She gripped the heavy glass pitcher from the prep station, her black hair falling over her eyes as she watched the first shadow clear the shards of the window. The girl from Cardiff was gone . The delivery girl was gone .
The shadow raised a silenced pistol. Rory threw the pitcher.
The glass caught the man square in the temple just as the back door of the bar groaned on its hinges. They weren't just coming from the front.
"Down!" Silas yelled, shoving her toward the floor as a line of bullets stitched a path across the mahogany bar.
Rory hit the ground, the smell of gunpowder and old beer filling her lungs. Above her, Silas was no longer a bartender with a limp. He was a man composed of angles and lethal intent, his silver signet ring flashing as he returned fire into the smoky gloom .
The Raven's Nest had become a cage, and the hunters were already inside.