AI The glass slipped from her fingers, shattering on the worn oak floor. The sharp crack cut through the low hum of conversation, silencing the small cluster of regulars at the far end of the bar. Rory stared, her hand still outstretched, the ghost of the tumbler’s weight lingering in her palm.
Across the room, leaning against the jukebox as if he owned the very air around it, was Evan.
Not the Evan she’d fled. This man wore the ghost of that boy’s face like an ill-fitting mask. His shoulders, once narrow and perpetually hunched over a textbook, now strained the seams of a tailored charcoal suit. The nervous energy that used to vibrate off him had been distilled into a cold, unnerving stillness. He was watching her, a faint, knowing smile playing on his lips, as if her shock was the most predictable thing in the world.
Silas moved first, materialising from the shadows behind the bar with a dustpan and brush. He didn’t look at her, his focus on the broken glass. “Easy there, Rory. Slippery things.” His voice was a low, calming rumble, a stark contrast to the sudden frantic thumping of her heart.
“My fault,” she managed, the words tight in her throat. She forced her gaze away, down to Silas’s hands as he swept. The silver signet ring on his right hand caught the dim green glow from the neon sign outside. *The Raven’s Nest *. Her sanctuary . Now breached.
“Rory.”
The voice was deeper, smoother. It had lost its Cardiff lilt , sanded down into something polished and metropolitan. She had to look up. He was closer, having crossed the room without a sound. He smelled of expensive sandalwood and something metallic, like cold coins.
“Evan.” Her own voice sounded thin, reedy.
“It’s been a while.” He gestured to the stool next to hers. “May I?”
What could she say? No? This was a public place. Silas’s place. She gave a curt, stiff nod.
He sat, the movement fluid and controlled. He placed a heavy, silver cigarette case on the bar. A new habit. Or an old one she’d never seen. He didn’t open it.
“I thought you were in London,” he said, his eyes scanning the bar, taking in the maps on the walls, the black-and-white photos of a city long gone. “Cardiff seemed too small for you. Always did. But this…” He turned those eyes back on her. They were the same shade of brown, but the warmth was gone , replaced by a flat, assessing quality. “This is a surprise. I heard you were delivering noodles.”
The casual cruelty was a vintage Evan move, but the delivery was new. Clinical. A statement of fact, not a jab.
“Pays the rent,” she said, her fingers finding the small crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist, a nervous habit she thought she’d broken.
“I’m sure it does.” He signalled to Silas, who approached with a neutral expression. “Macallan 18. Neat. And whatever the lady is having.” He glanced at the sticky ring on the bar where her gin and tonic had been. “Another of the same?”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
“Nonsense. My treat. For old times.” He didn’t look at Silas, but his meaning was clear. Silas’s hazel eyes flicked to hers, a silent question. She gave a tiny, almost imperceptible shake of her head. He moved away.
“You look well,” Evan said, turning fully on the stool to face her. His gaze was a physical weight , travelling from her straight black hair, over her delivery-service hoodie, down to her scuffed trainers. “Different.”
“So do you.”
“The city changes you. If you let it.” He accepted the glass of amber liquid from Silas without acknowledgement. “I did. You… seem to be resisting.”
“I’m just living my life, Evan.”
“Are you?” He took a slow sip of the whisky, his eyes never leaving hers. “Living it here, above a pub, running meals for Yu-Fei Cheung. I remember you arguing constitutional law with professors. I remember the fire. This seems… quiet.”
The old shame, the one she’d packed away in a cardboard box along with her law textbooks, flared hot and bright. He knew how to find the cracks. He always had.
“It’s peaceful,” she said, her voice harder now .
“Peaceful.” He tasted the word, found it lacking. “Is that what we’re calling it?” He leaned in slightly , the sandalwood scent intensifying. “I heard about your father. I’m sorry.”
The shift was so sudden it left her reeling. Brendan Carter’s heart attack was a fresh wound, a private grief. “How did you…”
“People talk. The old crowd. You’ve rather fallen off the grid, but they still ask about you.” He swirled the whisky in his glass. “He was a good man. A brilliant barrister. He had such hopes for you.”
The unspoken accusation hung in the air between them: *Look what you did with them.*
“What do you want, Evan?” The question came out weary. She was tired of this dance , this performance of a reunion.
“I was in the neighbourhood. A client meeting. Saw the sign.” He gestured vaguely toward the door. “The distinctive green neon. Thought I’d pop in for a drink. And then I saw you.” His smile returned, not quite reaching his eyes . “Fate, maybe.”
“There’s no such thing.”
“No? What would you call it, then? Dumb luck?” He set his glass down with a soft, definitive click. “I have a proposition for you.”
Here it was. The reason for the suit, the confidence, the casual invasion of her peace.
“I’m not interested.”
“You haven’t heard it.” He wasn’t asking . “The firm I work for… we have a problem. A discreet problem. It requires a certain kind of mind. A person who sees around corners. Someone who doesn’t… register on the usual grids.” His eyes did another slow, deliberate sweep of her, the hoodie, the tired eyes. “You’d be perfect .”
“You’re offering me a job.”
“I’m offering you a way out of this.” He finally gestured to the bar, to her life. “It pays significantly more than carting sweet and sour pork around Soho. You’d be using that brain of yours again.”
The arrogance was breathtaking. The assumption that her life was something to be escaped, that his path was the only one of value. The old Evan had been possessive, needy. This one was proprietary, as if he’d simply been waiting to reclaim what he considered his.
“I have a job.”
“This isn’t a job, Rory. It’s an opportunity. The kind of opportunity people like us kill for.”
“People like us?”
He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a near whisper . “The ones who are smarter than our circumstances. The ones who had to run.”
The air went out of her. He’d never acknowledged it before, not really . The reason she’d left. The late-night arguments, the broken phone, the way he’d stand blocking the doorway. It was always her fault, her sensitivity, her inability to handle his ‘passion’. Now he was framing it as a shared experience, a bonding trauma.
“I ran from you, Evan.”
“Semantics.” He waved a dismissive hand. “You ran. I evolved. Now we’re here. And I’m throwing you a ladder. All you have to do is take it.”
He reached into his inside jacket pocket. She flinched, a tiny, involuntary spasm she hoped he didn’t see. He noticed. Of course he did. His smile tightened. He pulled out a single, thick, cream business card and placed it on the bar between them. There was no name, just a phone number embossed in stark black numerals.
“Think about it.”
“I won’t.”
“You will.” He stood up, straightening his suit jacket. He left the whisky, half-finished. He’d gotten what he came for. “It was good to see you, Rory. Really. You look… resilient.”
He turned and walked out, the door swinging shut behind him with a soft sigh. The green neon light from the sign outside bled across the empty space where he’d been.
Rory stared at the card. It sat there like a challenge. Like a verdict.
Silas reappeared, wiping a glass with a clean white cloth. He looked from her face to the card and back again.
“Trouble from the past has a way of finding you,” he said, his voice low . “Especially when it’s wearing a new suit.”
She reached for the card, her fingers hovering just above it. The embossed numbers felt like raised scars .
The door to the pub burst open again, but it wasn’t Evan. It was a young courier, breathless, holding a large, flat cardboard box from the Golden Empress. He scanned the near-empty bar, his eyes landing on her.
“Rory? Thank god. Mr. Cheung said you’d be here. This needs to go to the address on the box. Now. He said it’s for the… for the Spymaster.” The boy’s eyes darted toward Silas, wide with a mixture of fear and awe. “He said not to be late.”
Silas stopped polishing the glass. His entire posture shifted, the relaxed bar owner vanishing, replaced by the retired field agent. His gaze locked onto the box.
Rory’s fingers closed around the business card, crumpling it in her fist. She looked from the anxious courier to Silas’s suddenly grim face, the forgotten proposition in her hand, the delivery that was clearly anything but Chinese food.
The past wasn’t just knocking. It was kicking the door down.