AI Aurora shoved a shoulder into the press of bodies and caught the pint before it toppled, amber sloshing over her knuckles.
“Careful,” the barman snapped, not unkindly, eyes flicking to the black delivery bag hanging off her wrist.
“Your floor’s on a tilt,” Aurora said, and slid the pint back towards its owner without looking for thanks.
A laugh cut through the bar noise, sharp as broken glass, and her hand stalled on the counter.
Not Silas’ low, tired chuckle. Not the usual Soho bray. This one rose and fell in a rhythm she knew by muscle memory, like a song you forgot you could still sing.
Aurora turned.
The Raven’s Nest held its secrets close, even in full view. Maps lined the walls, their edges browned and curled, borders drawn by old hands that had wanted the world to behave. Black-and-white photographs watched from crooked frames. Faces in uniform. Faces in cocktail dresses. Faces with their eyes scratched out. The green neon sign outside bled through the front window in a sickly wash, and the place smelled of spilt gin, citrus peel, and damp wool.
At the far end of the bar, perched on a stool like she owned it, sat Eva.
Only it couldn’t be Eva, because Eva had been all skinny elbows and cracked trainers, her hair always tied up with whatever elastic she’d nicked from her mam’s drawer. This woman wore a lovely slim dark wool coat, the sort that held its shape even when she leaned forward. A pale scarf lay loose at her throat. Her hair fell in a blunt cut, dyed a glossy auburn that caught the low light and made her look older, sharper. Her lipstick was the colour of dried roses.
She threw her head back as she laughed, and Aurora saw the new line at the side of her mouth, the small bracket of time.
Eva’s gaze slid across the room as if she measured exits by habit. It landed on Aurora and stuck.
The laugh died in her throat. For a moment her face went blank, a shutter dropping. Then her eyes widened, bright and wet, and her mouth shaped a name without sound.
Aurora felt the delivery bag’s strap bite into her wrist, right over the crescent scar she never remembered until it stung.
Eva slid off the stool. She didn’t rush. She crossed the bar with a controlled pace that made the space around her move aside.
“Rory.” Eva stopped close enough that Aurora caught a trace of her perfume, something clean over something bitter. “You look … Jesus.”
Aurora didn’t trust her own voice yet. She stared at Eva’s coat, at the neat seams, at the way her hands held still. Eva had chewed her nails raw as a teenager. These nails were short and painted and intact.
Eva gave a brittle smile.
“You’re real.” Eva reached out, hesitated, then took Aurora’s forearm, thumb resting on that old scar as if she’d known it was there. “I thought I’d invented you. Or dreamt you. Or done something else idiotic.”
Aurora set the delivery bag on the bar with care, as if it contained something fragile instead of boxed noodles.
“I’m real,” she said. “You’re… you.”
Eva’s smile faltered. Something passed behind her eyes, quick as a flicker .
“Am I?”
Aurora let out a breath she hadn’t meant to hold. She looked past Eva, towards the back where the bookshelf sat, fat with old hardbacks and false fronts. Silas had built his bar like a story, and like any story worth reading, it hid a trapdoor.
She brought her attention back to Eva.
“You didn’t tell me you were in London.” The words came out flatter than she intended.
Eva’s grip loosened. Her hand dropped to her side, fingers curling once, then uncurling.
“You didn’t tell me you were in Soho serving egg-fried rice out of a bag.”
Aurora’s jaw tightened.
“It’s a job.”
“I know what a job is,” Eva said, too quickly . “I meant… Rory, last I heard you were going to be a barrister. You had the head for it. You were the one who could talk a teacher into changing a grade. You could talk a priest into giving back stolen communion wine.”
“That was you,” Aurora said.
Eva’s eyes flashed, but her mouth lifted at one corner.
“Joint effort.”
Silas’ limp made itself known before he did, a soft irregular tap-tap on the wooden floor. He emerged from behind the bar like a man stepping out from behind a curtain, silver signet ring catching the light as he wiped a glass that did not need wiping.
His hazel eyes took in Eva, then Aurora, then the delivery bag.
“Carter.” His voice carried without effort . “You’re late.”
Aurora didn’t look away from Eva.
“Got held up.”
Silas’ gaze lingered on Eva as if she were a familiar file pulled from a drawer.
“Ms Mallory,” he said, and his tone made the name sound like both greeting and warning.
Eva’s shoulders stiffened. Her chin lifted.
“Still running your little nest, Blackwood?”
“Someone has to feed the pigeons,” Silas said. “What brings you in?”
Eva’s laugh came out wrong, a short sound with no warmth .
“Thirst.”
Silas’ eyes went back to Aurora.
“You can put that upstairs. Then come back down.”
He didn’t wait for agreement. He moved away, the conversation dismissed with the same efficiency he used to pour spirits.
Aurora picked up the delivery bag. Her fingers shook once, then steadied. She pushed past Eva towards the narrow stairwell, heard Eva follow on silent soles.
In the stairwell, the air grew close, full of old plaster and spilled beer that had soaked into steps. Aurora climbed two at a time, then stopped halfway up when Eva’s hand touched her elbow.
“Don’t,” Eva said.
Aurora turned, bodies angled in the tight space like they’d been forced into a confession booth together.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t go upstairs and vanish.” Eva’s voice dropped, roughening. “Not again.”
Aurora stared at her. Heat rose in her throat, sharp and unhelpful.
“You vanished,” Aurora said. “You dragged me here and then you disappeared. You stopped answering. You left me with a suitcase and a number I rang until my phone died.”
Eva flinched as if Aurora had struck her.
“I didn’t leave you,” Eva said. “I thought you’d be safer if I stayed away.”
Aurora gave a short laugh.
“Safer.” She leaned closer, kept her voice low. “You know what safer looked like? Me hauling prawn crackers through Soho because it paid cash and didn’t ask questions. Me sleeping above a bar owned by a man with a secret room behind a bookshelf.”
Eva’s eyes flicked , a small tell.
“So you know,” Eva murmured.
Aurora’s mouth went dry.
“I know there’s a room,” she said. “I don’t know what you know.”
Eva’s lips pressed together. For a moment she looked like the girl Aurora remembered, all stubborn angles, ready to bite.
Then she exhaled.
“You always did see too much.” Eva looked down the stairs, then back at Aurora. “How long have you been with him?”
“I’m not with him,” Aurora said.
Eva’s gaze travelled over Aurora’s black hair, the plain jumper, the cheap trainers. It lingered on her left wrist, where the strap had left a red mark over the old scar.
“You live above his bar,” Eva said. “You work deliveries. You keep your head down. You tell yourself it’s temporary.”
Aurora’s chest tightened.
“Stop,” she said.
Eva’s eyes softened for a heartbeat.
“Rory,” she said, and her voice carried the weight of a thousand unsent messages. “I looked for you.”
“Where?” Aurora asked. “In what, your lovely slim dark coat? At which expensive bar?”
Eva’s face hardened again, as if softness cost her.
“You think I wanted this?” Eva’s hand lifted, gestured at herself, at the polished edges. “You think I woke up and decided to become a person you’d cross the street to avoid?”
Aurora held her gaze.
“What happened to you?”
Eva swallowed. The movement drew Aurora’s attention to Eva’s scarf, the way it sat too high, as if hiding something .
Eva saw Aurora’s eyes drop. Her fingers flew to the scarf and tugged it tighter.
“Nothing,” Eva said.
Aurora didn’t blink.
“Show me.”
Eva’s laugh came out like a cough.
“You didn’t use to give orders.”
“I didn’t use to get left behind,” Aurora said.
Eva stared at her, jaw working. Then she yanked the scarf down.
A bruise bloomed at the side of her throat, purple and yellow, the shape unmistakable. Finger marks. A thumb pressed too hard.
Aurora’s stomach rolled.
“Who?”
Eva pulled the scarf back up with shaking hands.
“No one you can fix,” Eva said. “Don’t do that thing you do, Rory. Don’t turn into the clever girl who thinks she can solve it by naming it.”
Aurora stepped down a stair so they stood level.
“Then why are you here?” Aurora asked. “Why now?”
Eva’s eyes glistened, but she blinked it away.
“Because I walked past that green sign,” she said. “Because I saw the same stupid raven silhouette and thought, of course. Of course Blackwood would pick a bird that eats corpses. Because I needed him, and then I saw you and…” She huffed out a breath. “And then my chest did something embarrassing.”
Aurora’s voice came out quiet.
“You needed him for what?”
Eva’s gaze sharpened, locked on Aurora as if she made a choice.
“I’m in debt,” Eva said. “Not money. Favours. And the people I owe, they don’t accept apologies. They accept bodies.”
Aurora’s pulse thudded in her ears.
“Who are they?”
Eva shook her head once.
“I won’t hand you their name like a knife,” she said. “You’ve had enough knives.”
Aurora flinched at that, at the unspoken Evan between them. Eva saw it and looked away first.
Silence pressed in, thick with everything they had not said. Aurora heard the bar below, the clink of glass, a burst of laughter that sounded too far away.
Eva’s voice dropped.
“I’m sorry,” she said. The words sounded foreign in her mouth. “I should’ve come back for you. I told myself you’d hate me, so I made it true.”
Aurora’s throat tightened. She wanted to say, I did hate you. She wanted to say, I still do. The truth sat uglier and more complicated, a knot of old love and old hurt that did not untie.
Instead she said, “You could’ve sent one message.”
Eva’s eyes flicked up, fierce.
“And say what? ‘Hi Rory, how’s London, I’m working with men who break people for sport, and I might have got you noticed’?” She leaned in, voice barely above a whisper . “You think you came here clean? You think Cardiff stayed in Cardiff? You came with a shadow on your back, and I added to it.”
Aurora’s fingers curled around the stair rail until the wood bit her palm.
“You brought me here,” Aurora said. “At the behest of your conscience, remember? That’s what you said. You said you couldn’t watch him ruin me.”
Eva’s mouth twisted.
“I meant it,” she said. “I still mean it. Evan would have killed you in slow pieces, and he’d have called it love. I got you out.”
“And then you left,” Aurora said.
Eva’s eyes went bright again.
“I didn’t have a choice,” she said.
Aurora heard herself breathe. She tasted metal at the back of her tongue, like she’d bitten her cheek without noticing.
“What did Silas do to you?” Aurora asked.
Eva’s head snapped up.
“He didn’t do anything,” she said. “Blackwood’s the one person in this city who doesn’t pretend to be kind while sharpening a blade.”
Aurora didn’t know whether that was praise or accusation.
Footsteps sounded below, heavier than Silas’ uneven tap. More than one set. The bar noise dipped, as if people held their breath without knowing why.
Eva’s face drained of colour.
“Shit,” she said, and the word came out clean, practiced . Her hand shot out and grabbed Aurora’s wrist, right over the strap mark. Her grip was strong, desperate. “Rory, you need to listen to me.”
Aurora didn’t pull away.
“Who’s down there?” Aurora asked.
Eva swallowed.
“The debt,” she said. “They found me.”
Aurora’s mind clicked through exits, through angles, through the thin stairwell and the narrow hall upstairs that led to her flat above the bar. She heard Silas’ voice carry, low and calm, then cut off mid-sentence.
A chair scraped hard against the floor.
Glass shattered .
Eva tugged Aurora down two steps so they could see through the gap between bodies. Three men stood near the entrance, too still, too deliberate. Not drunk. Not here for the maps. One of them held the door half-open, blocking the green neon glow like a lid shutting.
Silas faced them from behind the bar, hands spread on the wood. His signet ring gleamed. His expression did not change, but his shoulders set.
Eva’s nails dug into Aurora’s skin.
“Don’t let them take me,” Eva whispered.
One of the men reached under his jacket.
Silas’ hand moved, quick and sure, and the bookshelf behind the bar shifted, cracking open along a seam.
“Carter,” Silas called, voice like a command fired from a gun. “Now.”
The man’s jacket parted, and the black shape of a pistol came up, aimed straight at Silas’ chest.