AI The first deadbolt clicked. Then the second. Then the third. Rory’s fingers hesitated on the latch. Through the peephole, the corridor distorted Lucien’s silhouette into a funhouse smear of charcoal grey and bone-white, but she knew the posture. That arrogant lean against the doorframe, the ivory handle of his cane tapping a slow rhythm against the skirting board.
She pulled the door open.
Curry spices from the restaurant below wafted up, mingling with the cardamom tea cooling on Eva’s cluttered desk. Lucien didn’t straighten immediately. He studied her through those mismatched eyes—one the colour of old whiskey, the other a void that drank the hallway light—and let the silence stretch until it hummed.
“You’ve changed the locks.” He tilted his head, platinum hair catching the bare bulb overhead.
“I added a third.” Rory kept her hand on the door, blocking the entrance. Her left wrist itched where the crescent scar sat, a childhood souvenir that always flared when he was near. “Eva’s research notes are confidential. Not that you’d respect that.”
“And here I thought you were avoiding me.”
Behind her, Ptolemy wound between her ankles, his tabby tail brushing her calves. The cat froze when he spotted the stranger, ears flattening.
Lucien’s gaze dropped to the feline, then tracked back up to her face. He hadn’t shaved. Platinum hair swept back from his forehead with the kind of precision that required product and time, but shadow darkened his jawline. It made him look human. Breakable. She knew better.
“May I come in?” He asked it like a formality, already shifting his weight to step forward.
Rory didn’t move. “You didn’t call.”
“You changed your number.”
“Twice.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. “Then this visit qualifies as unannounced.”
“And unwanted?”
“That remains to be seen.”
She should shut the door. She should slide all three deadbolts home and return to the stack of delivery manifests she’d been decoding for Yu-Fei, or to the scrolls Eva had left scattered across every flat surface like autumn leaves. Instead, her fingers released their white-knuckled grip on the doorframe.
Lucien stepped across the threshold. The cane tapped once, twice, against the worn floorboards. In the cramped space of Eva’s flat, he filled the room, too sharp-edged for the teetering piles of books and the low ceiling. He smelled of rain and something darker—ink, perhaps, or the particular ozone scent that clung to half-demons when they traveled between realms.
Ptolemy hissed and darted behind the sofa.
“You’re house-sitting.” He surveyed the chaos . Scrolls unrolled across the kitchen counter. Takeaway containers from the Golden Empress stacked by the sink. Her leather jacket slung over a chair that groaned under the weight of Eva’s occult library.
“Eva’s in Marrakech.” Rory closed the door but didn’t lock it. The click of the latch sounded final anyway. “Chasing a lead on the Avaros treaty.”
“Convenient.”
“For whom?”
He turned, and suddenly they were close. Too close. The flat forced proximity, but he closed the gap with intent. She could see the flecks of gold in the amber eye, the way the black one reflected her own face back at her—pale, guarded, her dark hair falling across her shoulders exactly as he used to push it aside.
Shadows bruised the skin beneath her eyes. “You haven’t been sleeping.”
“You’re armed.”
His hand drifted to the cane. The ivory handle was carved in the shape of a serpent, its mouth open to reveal the blade concealed within. “Old habits.”
“Like showing up uninvited?”
“Like protecting what’s mine.”
The word hung between them, heavy and dangerous. Rory’s breath caught. She stepped back, her heel knocking against Eva’s desk. A stack of papers slid, fluttering to the floor like wounded birds.
“I’m not yours,” she said, but her voice lacked conviction . It sounded like a question.
Lucien tilted his head, studying her with the intensity he usually reserved for encrypted ledgers or blood contracts. “No. You ran. To London. To Eva. To this—” He gestured at the cramped flat, the curry-house vibrations shaking the floorboards as a lorry passed below, “—hiding place.”
“It’s not hiding when you’re surviving.”
“Is that what you call it?” He reached out, not touching her, but close enough that she felt the heat radiating from his palm. “Working for Yu-Fei, dodging your father’s calls, jumping at shadows. You left Cardiff because of Evan, but you left Marseille because of me.”
The scar on her wrist throbbed . She folded her arms, hiding it. “You lied.”
“I omitted.”
“You nearly got me killed in that summoning circle.”
“And you saved my life in it.” His hand closed the gap, fingers brushing her elbow. The touch burned through the cotton of her shirt. “Doesn’t that count for something?”
Rory turned to the window. Through the glass, Brick Lane sprawled grey and rain-slicked. She remembered the heat of Marseille, the way Lucien had looked at her across the candlelight of his mother’s restaurant, before she’d learned what he was, before the demon blood in his veins had manifested in ways that terrified her. Before he’d chosen his father’s realm over her safety, or so she’d thought.
“You didn’t come after me.”
“I gave you space.”
“Seven months?”
“I was negotiating your safety with the Avaros court.” His fingers tightened, not painful, but insistent . He turned her gently to face him. “The mark Evan left on you wasn’t just emotional, Rory. It was magical. You know that now. You’ve been reading Eva’s books.”
She stiffened. “How did you—”
“The scar.” His thumb traced the air above her left wrist, never quite making contact. “It’s darker. Angrier. The curse is waking up because you’re in London, close to the ley lines, and because—” He stopped.
“Because what?”
His jaw tightened. “Because you’re afraid. And fear feeds it.”
She laughed, sharp and bitter. “Well, I have plenty of that, don’t I? Fear of my ex. Fear of demons. Fear of—” She caught herself, but the damage was done.
“Of me?”
The room had grown smaller. The books pressed in from all sides, witnesses to this reunion. Ptolemy peeked out from behind the sofa, green eyes luminous in the dim light filtering through the grimy windows.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Lucien withdrew his hand. He walked to the desk, his cane clicking, and picked up a photograph tucked between two grimoires. It showed them in Marseille, her head on his shoulder, both of them smiling at something off-camera.
“You’re preparing to fight it,” he said quietly. “The curse. Alone.”
“I don’t have anyone else.”
“You have me.”
“You said you were negotiating. That sounds like business.” She moved toward him, anger sparking in her chest, hot and welcome. “Everything with you is business. Information broker. Fixer. Half-demon prince playing at being human in tailored suits.”
He slammed the photograph down. The frame cracked.
“I tore apart three treaties to find a loophole that would let me walk away from Avaros without starting a war,” he said, his voice low and lethal . “I spent six months in a silver cage because my father didn’t approve of my methods. I came here—” He gestured at the door, at the three deadbolts, “—the moment they released me, and you think this is business?”
Rory stared at him. His shirt collar was too tight. She could see the edge of scarring there, silver against his skin, where no charcoal suit could hide it.
“You’re hurt.”
“I’m furious.” He closed the distance again, crowding her against the desk. Papers crinkled behind her. His breath was warm against her forehead. “You ran without giving me a chance to explain. You left me in that circle with a binding spell half-complete and took the backlash in that scar. I can see the magic in it, Rory. I can see you carrying my failure on your skin.”
She reached up, not thinking, and touched his face. The stubble was rough, real. He leaned into her palm, his eyes fluttering shut, and for a moment the hard edges fell away. He was just Lucien, the man who’d taught her to pick locks and cook coq au vin, who’d held her while she cried about Evan before either of them knew the abuse had left magical fingerprints.
“I didn’t know,” she said.
“I know.” He caught her hand, turned it, pressed his lips to the crescent scar. The gesture made her shiver. “I know. But I’m here now, unannounced and possibly unwelcome, to finish what we started. To break the curse. To—”
“To what?”
His heterochromatic eyes opened, fixed on hers with an intensity that stopped her heart.
“To beg, if necessary.”
Outside, a car alarm blared on Brick Lane. The curry house below began prepping for the dinner rush, spices swirling up through the floorboards. Ptolemy jumped onto the desk between them, breaking the spell, and Lucien laughed—startled and open.
The cat head-butted his hand, demanding attention.
Rory stared at the animal. “He likes you.”
“Animals know.” Lucien scratched behind the cat’s ears with his free hand, the other still holding her wrist, thumb circling the scar. “They know when someone belongs.”
“I told you—”
“I’m not talking about possession, Aurora.” He used her full name, rare and formal, cutting through her protest. “I’m talking about the place where the story continues. The flat with three deadbolts because you’re terrified but you keep opening the door anyway. The scrolls scattered everywhere because you never stop fighting. The scar that matches the shape of my teeth from where I bit my own lip watching you take that hit for me.”
He lifted her hand, pressed it flat against his chest. His heart hammered against her palm, fast and human.
“This is where I belong,” he said. “Here. With you. Even if you slide all three locks and tell me to walk back down to the curry house and keep going.”
Rory looked at him—the demon eye and the human one, the bruises he hid under his collar, the rain drying in his platinum hair. She thought of the empty flat above Silas’ bar, the solitary deliveries for Yu-Fei, the months of jumping at shadows.
She didn’t step back.